Hi!

It's so interesting going back to from where I started this Blog.  This Blog charts my Journey, and a Journey it has been!  

I refer to my older Posts and notice and remember how there was a restriction then, when only a smaller amount of Labels, as compared to now, were allowed to accompany each Post.  Change happens.

Life is.  Life continues.  We never go backwards.  We only go forwards as we learn and yearn to improve our experiential understanding of God.

There are many beautiful things this world of school offers.  Whether it's being fascinated with Nature, being able to feel; and that our lives, indeed, are an expression of our mind (as described in my Post titled Attitude).

Please feel free to "surf" this Blog and explore, even, once again, perhaps, our Journeys' together!

Be blessed; in the richness of life,
Kim.

Being Present (richness of life)

Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either - Golda Meir.

We all know people who live on the fringes of life.  They seem uninvolved with the activity in their midst, as though a pane of glass separated them from us.  And there are times when we join the persons standing alone away from the vibrancy of life.  Fears keep people apart, particularly the fear of letting go of the vulnerable self and joining in the feelings of the moment.

To fully reap the benefits of life, we have to risk full exposure to one another and to the experience of the moment.  Full involvement in the ebb and flow of life will bring the weeping that accompanies both the pain and the joy of life.  It will also bring the fruits of laughter.

Both laughter and weeping cleanse us.  They bring closure to an experience.  They make possible our letting go.  And we must let go of pain, as well as joy, to ready ourselves for the next blessing life offers.

When we keep ourselves apart, when we hold off the tears or the laughter, we cheat ourselves of the richness of life.  We have to go through an experience fully in order to learn all it can teach us and then be free of it.

K. Casey

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Past experiences never let me go until I fully grieve those that need to be grieved or laugh over those that deserve the light touch.  The present is distorted when the past shadows it.

** THE Oyster !! **

"WHEN seemingly needless suffering invades our lives, we often ask ourselves, "Who needs all this grief?" But consider, for a moment, the origin of pearls!

EACH Pearl is formed by an Oyster's internal response to a wound caused by an irritant, such as a grain of sand. Resources of repair rush to the injured area. The final result is a lustrous Pearl. Something beautiful is created that would have been impossible without the wound.

IN today's Bible reading ("God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" - GENESIS 41:52.), we see Joseph IN a position of influence, a position God soon used to feed surrounding Nations and Joseph's family during famine. But, how did he become influential? It began with a wound - being sold into slavery (Genesis 39) - which produced a pearl of usefulness. BECAUSE Joseph drew on God's resources when humiliated, he became better, NOT bitter. He named his second son Ephraim, which means "twice fruitful", and he said, "God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Genesis 41:52).

Author Paul E. Billheimer says of Joseph, "If human pity could have rescued him from the sad part of his life, the glorious part that followed would have been lost". So, if your'e suffering, remember: No wounds, no pearls"! - JEY.

If we accept adversity,
Enduring every pain,
Then we will learn what we should know;
Our grief will turn to gain. - Sper