Sand Castle, Castle of sand

Sand castle, castle of sand
Oh what beautiful view from your Bulwarks survey
Look- See the beauty of the ocean, at your door.
Hear the sound of the coming waves.
Can you feel them as the come?

Sand castle, castle of sand
Who was your modeler, who fashioned your great walls?
What have they done to protect you, more?
Hear the sound of the coming waves.
Can you feel them as they come?

Sand castle, castle of sand
THE WAVES HAVE COME
THE WAVES ARE HERE
They are washing away at your great wall, it has been breached
Where are your modelers?

Sand castle, castle of sand
All is lost All is gone
Your great beauty is--- is washed back into the - - -
Where are your modelers, Where are your builders
Where have they gone?

Look standing there hand in hand to small children.
With a smile, with a joyous laugh upon their voices
They run down the beach hand in hand
Just to stop once more just beyond the waves
Just to start over once more.

Sand castle, castle of sand
As I sit and watch MY castle of sand
As I sit and watch the waves of life
Pray tell PLEASE tell me if you can
How will I respond when my - - -

Sand castle, castle of sand
Is once more swept back into the sea~

Do You hear? Do you listen?

To Listen:
This thought was spooned yesterday by Sis. Allard’s comment about listening to teenagers.
How well do we listen to one another? Do we stop speaking and allow the other person begins to speak. Are we attentive to their words as they try to commutate with us? Or, are we thinking I need to say ----? Is this listening? Do we pause in our line of words and the other person starts and we look at a new “whatever” whishing we had that “whatever”? Did we hear?
Merriam-Webester on-line:
transitive verbarchaic : to give ear to :
hear intransitive verb
1: to pay attention to sound
2: to hear something with thoughtful attention : give consideration
3: to be alert to catch an expected sound
When was the lasted time we sat with a loved one and “to hear something with thoughtful attention.” To sit and grasp the words they are using to communicate to us their feeling, fears or emotions. Did we do them the respect of, “to hear something with thoughtful attention?” Or was our mind off taking care of quote, “more important business!”
I would ask, for the next few days when someone we love comes to us with the only real form of communication that humans use, words. Let us first before they speak take the time make the effort to clear our mind, so that we can “to hear something with thoughtful attention.” Thus rendering to them the best we have in thoughtful attention to their communication.
Please allow me to leave you with a thought I gathered for an instructor in an Interpersonal Communication class. “The next time you kiss your loved one. STOP and think where am I?”
Mervi

Monday Morning.

Monday morning and here I sit coffee in hand and laptop lightning my way. I am doing some reflecting some on the weekend that has just passed. We had our kids, grand kids and great grand girl, all in our home for dinner Saturday afternoon. I so enjoyed seeing them and spending a little time with each. Getting to hug their necks, sit and listen to their life’s goals, hopes and dreams. Doing the best I could to just listen and not do too much other then offer a suggestion and a question or two with the hope it would cause them to think some about their life’s direction.
Yes, I did get to both enjoy and give thanks for the things that are really important in my life, my generations from the Lord!

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

Mervi

There are things we should be thankful for.

There are things we should be thankful for.


What things:
New Webster’s Dictionary,
THINGS “material or inanimate object, entity; specimen; commodity;”

What are the things we are thankful this Thanksgiving Day. I do not think that what we should be thankful for things at all.

May you and yours enjoy this Thanksgiving Day.
Mervi

The Muslims are asking the Christians to come back.

Dispatches From Iraq: Come Home
Friday , November 16, 2007
By Michael Yon

A bishop came to St John’s Church in Baghdad on Thursday, where a crowd of locals welcomed him home. They were joined at the service by soldiers from the 2-12 infantry battalion, many of whom had fought hard to secure these neighborhood streets. Members of the hard-fighting Iraqi Army 3rd Division also were here for this special day.
The Most Rev. Shlemon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq, officiated standing directly beneath the dome under the Chaldean cross. Speaking in Arabic and English, Warduni thanked those American soldiers sitting in the pews for their sacrifices. Again and again throughout the service he thanked the Americans.
Lt. Col. Stephen Michael told me that when Al Qaeda came to Dora, it began harassing Christians first, charging them "rent." It was the local Muslims, according to Michael, who first came to him for help to protect the Christians in his area. That’s right. Michael told me more than once that the Muslims reached out to him to protect the Christians from Al Qaeda.
Real Muslims here are quick to say that Al Qaeda members are not true Muslims. From charging "rent," Al Qaeda’s harassment escalated to killing Christians and also Muslims.
Untold thousands of Christians and Muslims fled Baghdad in the wake of the darkness of civil war. Most of the Christians are gone now, having fled to Syria, Jordan or Northern Iraq.
The ceremony was long and very Catholic, and since I was not raised Catholic, I would not have understood most of it even if it were all in English. But some of the American soldiers understood what was going on, and they said it was good.
Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s, Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors and that the Christians never will come back.
And so they came to St John’s in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, "Come back to Iraq. Come home." They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home.
Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. "Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq."

Not enough time :-]

Nothing today!

I am getting ready for a class on both Saturday and Sunday. Plus, I am trying to add a little to my Masters Thesis.

Just too much writing today.

Mervi

I am not afraid of death, it is how!

In Bakersfield, Ca today at the University of California at Bakersfield Terry Waite will be speaking. Mr. Waiter was one of those held hostage in Iran some years ago. In the opener to his speech or the lead into his story he makes this comment, “"I wasn't afraid of death," Waite said. "I was afraid of the means of how I would die. Would it hurt when the bullet went through my head?"
I am sitting in a little gourmet coffee shop with a high speed wireless for my lap top, reading the news, e-mails and blogs this morning. As I read this everything came to a halt!! Mervi, do you fear death? Or is it the method of dying that causes fear?
We hear from history that Bro. Paul who RAN to the executioner. I can see that in my, sometimes demented mind, the point of pain, physical that is, would be quick and over. But to exit this life as we all have seen others do in days of deep pain and sadness. Now we have some differences in the end process of life. For one to endure days, weeks, months and sometimes years of physical pain. The length of time is a torment of its own, and then the emotional pain that it brings into the lives of our loved ones.
I think I will agree with Mr. Waite. I do not fear death; it is the method that is used to bring me to that exit of life.
Please feel free to add your thoughts.

It must be a beautiful Isle!

There is a very wonderful and beautiful place to go and see. It must be, because I have heard so many people say they plan to go there. Yet, they never seem to start the trip. I am sure that you have heard people talk about the same place and maybe you yourself have said that you have plan to go there to.

This, it must be so wonderful, place is called someday I’ll. It must be a beautiful Isle somewhere? Yet, everyone has it in a different place. Most people plan to go yet they say. I will wait until after Thanksgiving and then someday I’ll. But then it is I will wait until after Christmas, then someday I’ll. No wait until after the New Year then someday I’ll. But remember that Easter is coming. Yes, someday I’ll, but wait till school is out then someday I’ll? But remember vacation is coming, someday I'll. Ok, when the kids get back in school then someday I’ll. But what about the holidies that are coming, someday I'll.


Yes, we all have planned to go to the beautiful I’ll of someday. But, we never seem to start the trip. The trip could be a diet, save a little more money, look for a new (?), to improve my relationship with (?) or it could be my relationship with the Lord.


We can keep putting it off to that place someday I’ll, but why not start the trip today?

Mervi

Keep your eyes upon Jesus.

I am going to lift a thought from a book that I have been reading at night. I have a habit of reading something devotional just before I enter the realm of sleep. And this is the book I am currently reading, "More Stories for the Heart.

"When Leonardo da Vinci had finished his immortal "Last Supper," He asked a friend for an evaluation. The friend heaped superlatives on the masterpiece and especially praised the wine cup in the Lord's hand. At that point, Lenardo blotted out the cup. "Nothing," he was said to have exclaimed, "should distract one's attention from the Lord." (Author Unknown)

I laid there quietly for sometime, thinging and wondering what has or might distract my attention from JESUS?

Mervi

Veterans Day

I had, he drank himself to death at about 40, a brother who was a Vietnam Vet. Larry was a very hard worker but he brought home, with him, too many memories of those muddy rice paddies. Those paddies covered in blood floating on top of the rice. Yet, in my passing through this life, I have had the fortune or the misfortune of meeting another type of Veterans. Those who were wounded in the battle for the Cross and their comrades walked off and left them to die or stood afar and shoot at them as they tried to find a Medic or cover form the incoming, “friendly fire.” I have sat with tears in my eyes as I listened to these men and women tell their stories. Do I take it all as right and correct, NO. But I do try to balance some of it and offer a helping hand and a caring heart to them. Yes, they took their eyes off of the Cross and watched a MAN. Yet, how or what can be done to help them, “find a place of repentance.”
Those who wear the colors of our country I salute you. Those who carry the marks of Christ I salute you.
Mervi

Influence

As I pass this way.
I must stop and think of all those great men who reached out a hand to me as I passed through their life. The hands of these men made many changes I my life. Changes which have produced who I am this day. Is change good? Yes! For without change there would be no growth or advancement. The real question is in which area of my life is changing and who or what has influence that change? This is where the problems come in. Please allow me to post a question to you. Who or what are you allowing to influence the changes you are making in the core of who you are?