The World Bids Farewell to Obama

The World from Berlin



US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team.

Then there was the last week of 2009, when a failed terror attack on a flight inbound for Detroit exposed major flaws in US efforts to identify and stop potential terrorists.

This week, though -- a week when Obama should have been celebrating the first anniversary of his inauguration -- may have been the president's worst yet. Scott Brown, an almost unknown Republican member of the Massachusetts Senate, defeated the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The defeat in a heavily Democratic state not only highlights Obama's massive loss of popular support during his first year in office, but it also could spell doom for his signature effort to reform the US health care system.

There were immediate calls for a suspension of health care votes in the Senate until Brown is sworn in. The loss of the Massachusetts seat means that the Democrats no longer control the 60 Senate seats necessary to avoid a filibuster. Obama's reform package, which aims to provide health insurance to most of the over 40 million Americans currently lacking coverage, may ultimately fail as a result.

More than that, though, the vote shows just how quickly the political pendulum has swung back to the right following Obama's election. The seat Brown won had been in Democratic hands for all but six years since 1926. Now, its new occupant is a man who not only opposes the health care bill, but also favors waterboarding as a method of interrogation for terrorism suspects and rejects carbon cap-and-trade as a means of limiting carbon emissions.

The omen could be a dark one for the Obama administration heading into a mid-term election year. German commentators take a closer look.

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes on Thursday:

"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."

"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment. Scott Brown campaigned on two promises, both of which apparently struck a nerve with the electorate. He wants to block health care reform and he wants to find ways to reduce the enormous budget deficit. It is here where the roots of dissatisfaction with Obama are to be found. His reform agenda, in its current form, is highly suspect to Americans. And they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country's future."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"For Obama, the election in Massachusetts means that he will have to re-evaluate his political style. He could now focus his concentration on his political base and push through his policy agenda. After all, he still has a majority in Congress -- he could back away from his strategy of bipartisanship ... which would mean giving up much of what he spent his first year in office creating."

"More likely, however, is that Obama will interpret the Massachusetts loss as a signal that he should move further toward the middle and make more concessions to the conservatives -- even if this alienates his base even further, a base which had high expectations from the 'yes we can' candidate."

"For everyone else in the world, this means that they will have to bid farewell to a candidate for whom the hopes were so high. They will have to say goodbye to the charisma they fell in love with. Obama will be staying home after all."

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"In addition to health care reform, Obama's reputation has primarily been harmed by the high unemployment rate and the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. It will become even more difficult in the future for the president to push projects through successfully. Not just because Republicans now have a means of preventing it, but also because the Democratic camp is deeply divided. Some would like to see the party shift toward the center -- wherever that may be -- whereas others want the party to position itself to the left. Such a battle is hardly a good sign for the mid-term elections in November. Massachusetts could prove to be an omen."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Of course the president rejects the interpretation that the Massachusetts election was a referendum on his first year in the White House. But he cannot ignore the fact that his health care reform package is not popular, the situation of the country's finances is seen as threatening and many voters blame the high unemployment rate on the party in power -- on the Democrats, led by Obama. The result is a second year in office full of very different challenges than the first. To save what there is to be saved, Obama will have to be prepared to fashion a bipartisan compromise on health care -- a compromise with a Republican Party which has tasted blood and can now dream once again about a return to power."

-- Charles Hawley



In November 2009, the Obama movement found success at the ballot box. "Change has come to America," he called to those celebrating his victory in Chicago. He became the first African-American president in America's history. But he was propelled into office by the hopes of Americans from all walks of life. Millions around the world also hoped for a transformation.

"Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy." Jim Wallis

 

Jim Wallis

A commentator on ethics, religion and public life, Jim Wallis is founder-editor of Sojourners magazine. His Christian commitment to social justice evolved from his student years in the civil rights and anti-war movements. In '95, he helped form Call to Renewal, a national federation of churches, denominations and faith-based organizations across the political spectrum, working to overcome poverty. Wallis taught at Harvard's Divinity School and Kennedy School of Government, on faith, politics, and society, and is a best-selling author.



INTERVIEW WITH TAVIS SMILEY ON PBS
airdate January 19, 2010

Tavis: Always pleased to welcome Jim Wallis to this program. The president and editor-in-chief of "Sojourners" is also a best-selling author whose latest is called "Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy." Jim Wallis, good to have you back on this program.

Jim Wallis: Good to see you, friend.

Tavis: You doing all right?

Wallis: I'm doing great.

Tavis: Good to have you here. When I first saw the book, "Rediscovering Values," my first thought was, is it too late?

Wallis: Well, I think the country is ready for a conversation about values. These town meetings began in my home town of Detroit (unintelligible) and the meeting may not be ready but the country is, because underneath this economic crisis there's a values crisis. So we won't get to an economic recovery without a moral recovery too.

The question they all want to ask is when will the crisis end? I'm saying that's the wrong question. It's how will the crisis change us? That's the real question.

Tavis: Tell me more about the link between the lack of values and the economic downturn.

Wallis: Well, this is Wall Street, Main Street, and your street, so just the news this week on Wall Street, I'd say it's a bad morality play. In Detroit, my hometown, 30 percent unemployment. In reality, one in two workers are looking for a job.

They got billions of dollars in bonuses coming down in the next two weeks. Tavis, it's being called a scandal. I say it's a sin of biblical proportions. There's a parable that you know - Jesus says about the kingdom, here's a master, he has a servant who owes him a debt. The servant says, "I can't pay it, give me time," and he forgives it.

The servant goes out and somebody owes him some money, and he won't forgive it. The master brings him back and says, "You're going to jail." Well, the banks have done that. There's a meltdown, and so you might say we extended grace to them.

They're now extending grace to nobody else. So Bank of America, turns out their bonus pool, post-salary compensation, there's so much money there it could have resolved the foreclosure crisis by itself for two million people, but they have so far adjusted 100 loans.

So Joy and I, my wife, we just fired Bank of America. We took our little account out of that bank and we're putting it in a community bank. There's now a little mini-movement growing to move your money - there's even a website, MoveYourMoney.info.

So the banks say they're too big to fail; I say let's make them smaller. So on Wall Street there's this morality play going on - banks, bailouts, and bonuses - but I think it's more than that. It's a cultural thing. In the book I talk about these new maxims that have taken over - greed is good, it's all about me, and I want it now. Those maxims destroy economies but also cultures, families, and I would say our souls.

Then I counter that with some old virtues like enough is enough, we're in this together. And I love the Native American notion of you evaluate decisions today by their impact on the seventh generation out. Now, that would change things.

Tavis: I see the greed as a good concept on Wall Street. What role do we play, everyday people, in rediscovering our own values?

Wallis: Well, my Depression-era parents, they wouldn't have spent money they didn't have for things they didn't need, and that's become - wealth may not trickle down, but bad habits do, bad values do.

So we've got to look at Wall Street here, I'm pretty tough on them, but also at ourselves - look in the mirror here. So I think crisis gives us a chance to rethink and reset. This could be a reset time. All the pain and suffering in Detroit, for example, is going to be in vain if we go back to business as usual. So how do we do a new normal?

In the book I have at the end 20 moral exercises about - I coined a phrase in D.C. a while back, I said, "Budgets are moral documents." Well, now I'm saying calendars are moral documents too. I'm saying sit down with your spouse, your closest people - what are your life priorities? Then look at your budget and your calendar and see how it matches up. It's kind of a wake-up call. It's a gift to be simple, as the song goes, the old Shaker hymn sung at Barack's inauguration.

Values like simplicity, stewardship, patience, modesty, are religious and spiritual values, and they're real correctives now. Jesus said, "Don't be anxious for what you eat, drink, and put on." Advertising says, "Be anxious all the time, worry all the time."

So we have become really trapped by this notion, keeping up with the Joneses. How about making sure the Joneses are okay? I think a lot of us have to look at this, and this could be a chance to rebuild some sense of community.

I talk in the book about changing our habits of the heart. You've had great shows about clean energy, so I have a chapter there - the clean energy economy. But we'll have to rewire the energy group but also rewire ourselves - our habits, our practices, our expectations. Return to a family matters culture.

I'm a Little League baseball coach for my 11-year-old and six-year-old. All my Little League stories are in the book. So a lot of people I'm reading are doing more, a "Times" article said, but spending less, so returning to family and relationships.

I think we can redeem this, all the pain and suffering, if we reset, both personally, communally, and then in Washington, then on Wall Street.

Tavis: I'm glad you said Washington, because I want to add - I want to be presumptuous and add one more street to your subtitle, although it's really not a street, it's an avenue.

Wallis: Pennsylvania.

Tavis: Pennsylvania Avenue. So "Rediscovering Values on Wall Street, Main Street, Your Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue." I raise that because the last time we actually saw each other in person I was at your big conference in Washington where you were talking about ending poverty. You've dedicated the majority of your life to talking about ending and eradicating poverty. It can be done. There are plans - you have a plan, others have laid out plans, I've discussed it on this show about how we end poverty.

With all due respect, and those who have watched this program know I've raised this before, this potential, respectfully, has not gotten serious about ending poverty. This Wall Street stuff you're talking about - he did that. Now here in the second year of his presidency he understands, he's said it himself, Rahm Emanuel said it the other day, they get it now: jobs, jobs, jobs.

But how do we rediscover our values when the people we elect and send to Washington have not yet - I don't want to say figured out. It's not about figuring it out, first and foremost. It's one, about making it a priority to end poverty. It can be done. Nobody in Washington talks about this.

Wallis: That's right. Well, as you know, I've known Barack for 10 years, before he was president, and when he was elected he said right afterwards, "To accomplish anything important I will need the wind of a movement at my back." So I wrote him a note that day and said, "Yeah, and probably one at your front, to clear the way and pull you along sometimes, because presidents need that."

I've heard you say that Lincoln needed Frederick Douglass, Johnson and Kennedy needed King, FDR needed that labor movement. So a political movement elected Barack Obama. It hasn't yet become a social movement to make those things occur.

I was on Pennsylvania Avenue before Christmas with some folks who'd been foreclosed, and these were first-time homebuyers, mostly Latino and African American, who'd played by the rules. They'd saved their money; they even qualified for fixed mortgage rates and got tricked into these exotic time-bomb mortgages.

So I was supposed to be the religious guy coming up and bringing moral authority. The woman who spoke before me, Mercy Martinez, and she cried, and across the street is the White House. The president's meeting with the bankers while we're having a press conference, from Wall Street, and here's Bank of America right down the street, and here's Treasury.

I just got mad. I just got mad. I did that biblical parable. This is the parable of the unmerciful bankers, and this economic recovery has been aimed more at bailing out the people who caused this when the people who have suffered from it have not gotten the same treatment.

Tavis: But we apparently aren't throwing them out the temple.

Wallis: The emperor has no clothes here. The market's become a golden calf. The market is god. The market's fine if it stays within a moral framework. Even Adam Smith talked about the invisible hand of the market making things coming out okay.

Well, things haven't come out okay and the invisible hand has let go of the common good and our values. Smith said without a moral framework the market really can't function properly, and Schumpeter, Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist, said, "When there's no ethical sensibility the market ends up devouring every other sector and finally ends up devouring itself."

That's what we've seen. The book says relationships matter between bankers and lendees and people - employers. Social sins will find you out. So Gandhi had two of his deadliest social sins: Wealth without work, commerce without morality. The common good is our own good. The book is trying to say let's start a national conversation, and I'm feeling a lot of people eager for it.

Wall Street people are coming to New York and they kind of snuck in like Nicodemus at night to talk to me sometimes. (Laughter) They say, when all the wealth is leverage, not producing anything of any substance, when our economy's based on 70 percent is consumption, this is a bad foundation, infrastructure, either physically or morally.

So I think we've got to really examine Pennsylvania - we should add that, we'll just write that in - Pennsylvania, because the administration, I think, has got to be very tough now about the financial regulations debate coming up and jobs have got to be central here.

Tavis: If we do not discover our moral compass in this new economy, what happens?

Wallis: Well, I think it's a disaster, a squandered opportunity. Business as usual, we'll just be right back again where we were. I think we're going to be in some serious trouble down the line. As you know, jobs - wages have been stagnant for a lot of people.

I talk in the book, there's two chapters. One is called "When the Gaps Get too Big," so the two peak times for the big gap between the top and the bottom, CEO salaries and the average worker, is two times - the year before the Great Depression and the year before this great recession.

I would say in God's economy, two principles: There is enough if we share it, so these gaps, they destroy relationships and covenants and social contracts, and people think things aren't fair anymore.

The other thing is called listening to the canaries. As you know, the coal miners took canaries down in the mine with them, because these canaries have a sensitive respiratory system. When they start coughing and wheezing you know the air is toxic.

Tavis: Time to get out.

Wallis: Time to get out. So a West Virginia state senator told me his dad was a coal miner, and what he told me was, "The canaries are a metaphor for the poor in all of our religious traditions. If we don't listen to them, when the poor begin to cough and wheeze and choke, as you were saying, we're all going to be in trouble soon."

Now the poor are not the "other," they're in the church and the pew, our friends and neighbors and relatives. This is a big shock for mainstream churches now. If we don't listen to the canaries, we haven't listening to the warning signs, now the air we breathe is all toxic, it's unhealthy.

So it's a values question. The crisis is a structural crisis, so we need some structural solutions. It's also a spiritual crisis, so we need self-regulation as well as social regulation. If we don't do that we will have missed an opportunity and we'll just keep spinning out of control here.

Tavis: The new text from perennial "New York Times" best-selling author Jim Wallis is called "Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street." It's a book I highly, highly recommend. Jim Wallis, always an honor to have you on this program.

Wallis: It's a blessing to be with you, my friend.
Tavis: Blessing to have you here.

Apples Of Gold

 
 






Love


Scientists know only what love does. Love,
properly applied, could virtually empty our
asylums, our prisons, our hospitals. Love is the
touchstone of psychiatric treatment. Love can
be fostered, extended, used to subjugate hate
and thus cure diseases. More and more
clearly every day, out of biology, anthropology,
sociology, history, economics, psychology, the plain
common sense, the necessary mandate of
survival----that we love our neighbors as ourselves---
is being confirmed and reaffirmed. Christ
gave us only one commandment----Love.....
Now to the laboratory with love!


Where love is, there God is.

To love is virtually to know; to know is not
virtually to love.

Real friends are those who, when you've made
a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've
done a permanent job.


Love


We may give without loving, but we
cannot love without giving.

Work is love made visible.

It also takes two to make up after a quarrel.

Faults are thick when love is thin.

To love life through labor is to be intimate
with life's inmost secret.

Do not judge your friend until you stand
in his place.

He who sows courtesy reaps friendship,
and he who plants kindness gathers love.

You shall judge a man by his foes as well
as by his friends.

Adolescence is the age at which children
stop asking questions because they know
all the answers.

Except in occasional emergencies there is
not much that one man can do for another,
other than to help him to help himself.

The door to the human heart can be
opened only from the inside.

Friendship is to be purchased only
by friendship.

Let us be the first to give a friendly sign,
to nod first, smile first, speak first, and---
if such a thing is necessary---forgive first.

-------------------------


Love


The light of friendship is like the light of
phosphorus, seen when all around is dark.


I did a favor yesterday,
A kindly little deed....
And then I called to all the world
To stop and look and heed.
They stopped and looked and flattered me
In words I could not trust,
And when the world had gone away
My good deed turned to dust.

A very tiny courtesy
I found to do today;
'Twas quickly done, with none to see,
And then I ran away....
But someone must have witnessed it,
For---truly I declare---
As I sped back the stony path
Roses were blooming there!


Restraint without love is barbarity.
Love without restraint commits suicide.

For we must share if we would keep
That blessin from above;
Ceasing to give, we cease to have,
Such is the law of love.

If a single man achieves the highest kind
of love, it will be sufficient to neutralize
the hate of millions.

Love cannot be wasted. It makes no
difference where it is bestowed, it always
Brings in big returns.

-------------------------


Love


God pardons like a mother, who kisses the
offense into everlasting forgetfulness.

To handle yourself, use your head;
To handle others, use your heart.

Measure your life by loss instead of gain;
not by the wine drunk, but in the wine
poured forth, for love's strength
stands in love's sacrifice; and who suffers
most has most to give.

The only safe and sure way to destroy an
enemy is to make him your friend.

Are you lonely, O my brother?
Share your little with another!
Stretch a hand to one unfriended,
And your loneliness is ended.

The only greatness is unselfish love.

Return to him who does you wrong your purest
love, and he wil cease from doing wrong; for
love will purify the heart of him who is beloved
as truly as it purifies the heart of him who loves.

Creation of woman from the rib of man:
She was not made of his head to top him;
nor out of his feet to be trampled upon
by him; but out of his side to be equal
with him; under his arm, to be protected;
and near his heart to be beloved.

A foreigner is a friend I haven't met yet.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

-------------------------


Love


It is only the forgiving who are qualified
to receive forgiveness.

The father is the head of the house---
The mother is the heart of the house.

The love you liberate in your work
is the love you keep.

How seldom we weigh our neighbor in
the same balance with ourselves.

A friend is a person with whom you dare
to be yourself.

Add all the love of all the parents and
the total sum cannot be multiplied enough
times to express God's love for me, the
least of his children.

A long life is barely enough for a man
and a woman to understand each other; and
to be understood is to love. The man who
understands one woman is qualified to
understand pretty well everything.

Not the quarry, but the chase,
Not the trophy, but the race.

Love is not soft like water, it is hard like rock,
on which the waves of hatred beat in vain.

It is in loving, not in being loved, the heart
is blessed; It is in giving, not in seeking gifts,
we find our quest; Whatever be your longing
or your need, that give; So shall your soul
be fed, and you indeed shall live.

-------------------------


Love


To learn and never be filled, is wisdom;
To teach and never be weary is love.

Conscience is God's presence in man.

Mrs.--Do you love me still?
Mr.---Yes, better than any other way.

God regards the greatness of the love that
prompts the man, rather than the greatness
of his achievement.

It is as absurd to pretend that one cannot love
the same woman always as to pretend that a good
artist needs several violins to play a piece of music.

I married her because we have so many
faults in common.

We like someone because. We love someone although.

A friend is one who knows all about you
and still likes you.

Go often to the house of your friend, for
weeds choke up the unused path.

Your friend has a friend, and your friend's friend
has a friend; be discreet.

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge
over which he must pass, for every man has
need to be forgiven.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds
on the heel that crushed it.

To understand is to pardon.

-------------------------


Love


Friendship is the only cement that will
ever hold the world together.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys
them so much.

Love is the passionate and abiding desire on
the part of two or more people to produce
together conditions under which each can
be, and spontaneously express, his real self;
to produce together an intellectual soil and an
emotional climate in which each can flourish,
far superior to what either could achieve alone.

The best way for a husband to clinch an
argument is to take her in his arms.

The bonds of matrimony aren't worth much
unless the interest is kept up.

A friend is a present you give yourself.

One reason why a dog is such a lovable creature
is that his tail wags instead of his toungue.

Come what may, hold fast to love! Though
men should rend your hear, let them not
embitter or harden it. We win by tenderness;
we conquer by forgiveness.

One of the mysteries of life is how the
boy who wasn't good enough to marry the
daughter can be the father of the smartest
grandchild in the world.

Friends are made by many acts---and
lost by only one.

-------------------------


Love


Pure religion is love in action.

The smallest good deed is better than
the grandest intention.



I've found a little remedy
To ease the life we live
And make each day a happier one---
It is the word 'forgive'.

So often little things come up
That leave a pain and sting,
That covered up at once would not
Amount to anything.

'Tis when we hold them up to view,
And brood and sulk and fret,
They greater grow before our eyes;
'Twere better to forget.



Politeness is a small price to pay for the
good will and affection of others.

The greater the man, the greater the courtesy.

The coin of God's realm is love.

A partnership with God is motherhood.

It is better to have loved and lost than never
to have loved at all.

American Creed: Patriotism which
leaps over the fence of party prejudice.
Religion which jumps over the wall of intolerance.
Brotherhood which climbs over the
mountain of national separations.

-------------------------


Love


The best gifts are tied with heartstrings.

Man is probably the only animal which even
attempts to have anything to do with his
half-grown young.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie.

A friend is one who comes to you when
all others leave.

He drew a circle that shut me out,
But love and I had the wit to win;
We drew a larger circle that took him in.

Mothers, as well as fools, sometimes walk
where angels fear to tread.

When a man does a noble act, date him from
that. Forget his faults. Let his noble act be the
standpoint from which you regard him.

A mistake at least proves somebody stopped
talking long enough to do something.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell
where his influence stops.

'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her.

Water which is distant is no good for a
fire which is near.

Success in marriage is much more than
finding the right person; it is a matter of
being the right person.

-------------------------






Faith


Faith is a gift of God. It is not a material that
can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched;
but is as real as anything that can be perceived
with these senses. One can be aware of
Faith as easily as one can be aware of earth.
Faith is as certain as is the existence of water.
Faith is as sure as the taste of an apple, the
fragrance of a rose, the sound of thunder,
the sight of the sun, the feel of a loving touch.
Hope is a wish, a longing for something not now
possessed, but with the expectation of getting it.
Faith adds surety to the expectation of hope.

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

I am to be so busy today that I must spend
more time than usual in prayer.

Inexperience is what makes a young man do
what an older man says is impossible.

When you get to the end of your rope,
tie a knot in it and hang on.

-------------------------


Faith


You are not a reservoir with a limited
amount of resources; you are a channel attached
to unlimited divine resources.

God is playing chess with man. He meets
his every move.

The sectarian thinks that he has the sea ladled
into his private pond.

Who draws nigh to God through doubting dim...
God will advance a mile in blazing light to him.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot
do everything, but I can do something;
and what I should do and can do, by the
Grace of God I will do.


No vision and you perish
No ideal and you are lost.
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.


Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy,
until nightfall; anyone can do his work,
however hard, for one day.

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance; it is
laying hold on His willingness.

Prayer is not an attitude attained but an
attitude maintained.

The secret of prayer is secret prayer.

The man who trusts men will make fewer
mistakes than he who distrusts them.

-------------------------


Faith


God's requirements are met by God's enablings.

A skeptic is one who won't take know
for an answer.

I have faith in Him, not in my faith.

No man is responsible for the rightness of his
faith; but only for the uprightness of it.

Dare to be wise; begin! He who postpones the
hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits
for the river to run out before he crosses.

The night is not forever.

Do not worry about whether or not the sun
will rise; be prepared to enjoy it.

The best and most beautiful things
in the world cannot be seen nor touched
but are felt in the heart.

The Christian on his knees sees more than the
philosopher on tiptoe.

Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and
happier to sometimes be cheated than not to trust.

God never closes one door without opening another.

Faith is the grave of care.

Prayer is not a substitute for work. It is a
desperate effort to work further and to be
effective beyond the range of one's power.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------














Prayer releases the power and wisdom of God in any situation.

Guardian Angels

We all have Guardian Angels watching over us.
We aren't always aware or ready to believe,
but the next time you hear that inner voice urging you to take
a certain action,
or feel the need to hesitate when stepping off the curb,
or some similar feeling... believe!
There could be a car careening out of control coming
around the corner
right where you would have been.
Or when you are at your lowest and a stranger appears
and asks you for directions,
take a moment. It just might be the answer
to your silent prayer.

We all have Guardian Angels watching over us.
We aren't always aware or ready to believe,
but the next time you hear that inner voice urging
you to take a certain action,
or feel the need to hesitate when stepping off the curb,
or some similar feeling... believe!
There could be a car careening out of control coming around
the corner right where you would have been. Or when you are
at your lowest and a stranger appears and asks you
for directions, take a moment.
It just might be the answer to
your silent prayer.





Good friends are like Angels,
You don't have to see them to know they are there...

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

When you figure out which it is...you'll know exactly what to do.
When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with
guidance and support,to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up, or out,
and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that your need has been met,
your desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered
and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your time has come to share,
grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace, or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real!
But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build
upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson,
love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other
relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that Love is blind but Friendship is Clairvoyant.

Thank you for being a part of my life...

"FM"

How To Forgive

One day a while back, a man, his heart heavy with grief, was walking in the woods. As he thought about his life this day, he knew many things were not right. He thought about those who had lied about him back when he had a job.

His thoughts turned to those who had stolen his things and cheated him. He remembered family that had passed on. His mind turned to the illness he had that no one could cure. His very soul was filled with anger, resentment and frustration.

Standing there this day, searching for answers he could not find, knowing all else had failed him, he knelt at the base of an old oak tree to seek the one he knew would always be there. And with tears in his eyes, he prayed:

"Lord- You have done wonderful things for me in this life. You have told me to do many things for you, and I happily obeyed. Today, you have told me to forgive. I am sad, Lord, because I cannot. I don't know how. It is not fair Lord. I didn't deserve these wrongs that were done against me and I shouldn't have to forgive. As perfect as your way is Lord, this one thing I cannot do, for I don't know how to forgive. My anger is so deep Lord, I fear I may not hear you, but I pray that you teach me to do this one thing I cannot do - Teach me To Forgive."

As he knelt there in the quiet shade of that old oak tree, he felt something fall onto his shoulder. He opened his eyes. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw something red on his shirt.

He could not turn to see what it was because where the oak tree had been was a large square piece of wood in the ground. He raised his head and saw two feet held to the wood with a large spike through them.

He raised his head more, and tears came to his eyes as he saw Jesus hanging on a cross. He saw spikes in His hands, a gash in His side, a torn and battered body, deep thorns sunk into His head. Finally he saw the suffering and pain on His precious face. As their eyes met, the man's tears turned to sobbing, and Jesus began to speak.

"Have you ever told a lie?" He asked?

The man answered - "yes, Lord."

"Have you ever been given too much change and kept it?"

The man answered - " yes. Lord." And the man sobbed more and more.

"Have you ever taken something from work that wasn't yours?" Jesus asked?

And the man answered - "yes, Lord."

"Have you ever sworn, using my Father's name in vain? "

The man, crying now, answered - "yes, Lord."
As Jesus asked many more times, "Have you ever"? The man's crying became uncontrollable, for he could only answer - "yes, Lord."

Then Jesus turned His head from one side to the other, and the man felt something fall on his other shoulder. He looked and saw that it was the blood of Jesus. When he looked back up, his eyes met those of Jesus, and there was a look of love the man had never seen or known before.

Jesus said, "I didn't deserve this either, but I forgive you."

It may be hard to see how you're going to get through something, but when you look back in life, you realize how true this statement is.

Read the following first line slowly and let it sink in.

If God brings you to it - He will bring you through it.