Snips

Wildfires scorch large chunks of western United States every summer. It's part of the natural cycle of things. After a while, nature decides that it's time to start over and a patch of the woods goes up in smoke.
This year, one fire burned near Mesa Vere National Park in southwestern Colorado. I read the news wires with interest, hoping that the archeological sites there wouldn't be destroyed. The crews worked on the fires, and though there was damage in the area, the main ruins were left unharmed. While the fires had burned thousand of acres around the park, they had also done something else-they had burned away the undergrowth that had sprung up around twelve previously undiscovered sites.
Sometimes life sends fires raging through our lives, too. Those fires are also part of the natural cycle of things. Life, nature, or our Higher Power says it's time to start over, again.
Use misfortune as an opportunity. Who knows? That fire rampaging through your life just might clear away the brush of the past. Keep your heart open and stay aware. You might learn something new and previously undiscovered about yourself.
God, help me stay alert to the lessons of today.
Melody Beattie ©

When we have a transcendent experience of God, whether it is born of a despairing cry for help or from a single moment of sheer beauty, we sometimes enter into an evangelistic phase, and we think we should go tell other people what they need to do and be. But there's a difference between telling other people what they need and sharing our experience. Sharing our experience gives others a handle to the door of their own experience. Sharing what is happening in our lives becomes an open door to other people who want to walk through that doorway themselves. Let someone know today the difference that God's love has made in your life.
Mary Manin Morrissey

Learning to follow your intuition can sometimes feel a bit like "living on the edge". In a sense, it's learning to live without the false sense of security that comes from trying to control everything that happens to us. It's recognizing that as we follow our inner guidance, wonderful things are going to unfold for us, things that we may not yet even imagine.
Gradually we become less afraid and more comfortable with uncertainty. We can learn to enjoy not knowing! It's actually a very exciting, alive feeling. We can learn to move into the unknown with the confidence that we have a guiding force within us that is showing us the way.
Shakti Gawain

Remember that forgiveness is not a sudden, quick event. No more than a physical wound instantly heals with the application of a bandage; forgiveness does not occur in a single moment of tear-streaked reunion. Forgiveness is a journey. It is a process.
So learn to be patient and persistent as you travel the road of forgiveness with the end of the journey, the freedom and internal peace, kept firmly in the forefront of your mind.
Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D.
Love
"Watch the people around you express love. Learn from praying, from knowing God. Don't be distracted by rap music, Hollywood, soap operas, or other earthly offerings that are merely entertainment, not spiritual sustenance. Remember: love exists in our lives at all times, even if we feel especially alone because we do not have a significant other. Love is all around us and inside of us."
Patrice Gaines

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
St. Francis De Sales

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao-Tzu