I am wishing you the merriest of Christmases.
No matter what your faith, my wish is that you download that Christ consciousness into your heart and into your soul so that you can directly experience a Christmas miracle.
We repeat what we don't repair.
So true. In this cosmic classroom called life, there are recurring themes, recurring challenges and recurring relationships.
This is all a part of your evolution and an opportunity for you to choose once again and approach the moment with a higher purpose.
When you do, when you come from a place of love instead of fear, the moment and the world opens up. The universe showers you with blessings because you are doing what you came here to do: to grow, to understand and to become a better version of yourself.
You become a vehicle of love and light. It flows through you and you share it. And moment by moment, person by person, your world becomes a better place. Therefore this world becomes a better place. Enjoy the ride. May you graduate with honors and joy from life school.
Who Will Remember The Heroes of Peace?
I post this every year on Veteran's Day, because I think it matters.
It's the best piece of writing I've ever read.
Of course, I'm a little prejudiced.
It was written by my sister about our brother and our father.
My personal connection to our veterans has always been through my father, Frank, and my brother, Greg. They are buried a few steps from each other at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
A year after Greg was killed in a fighter jet crash near Ellington Field outside Houston, my sister Kathy wrote the following Veterans Day meditation. It was published in the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers nationwide.
On Veterans Day over the years, I have read it on the radio and shared it online.
The vast Texas sky was cloudless, silent. An Indian summer sun baked the rows of small white crosses. The honor guard dressed in Air Force blue raised the flag above the casket of the young pilot. Five times the jolt of rifles cracked the air. The bugler raised the trumpet to his lips. On the breeze the strains of "Taps" lingered, faltered, breathlessly faded away. From the widow and the mother, from the sisters and the brother, from the small sea of blue-dressed men and women, there was not a whimper to hear, not a sigh.
Suddenly the silence shattered. Thundering toward the grave of the young pilot, four Phantom fighter jets screamed across the sky. Once they circled low over the rows of small white crosses, over the small blue human sea. Racing again toward the grave site, one plane broke the formation, thrust its steely nose straight up into the sun and vanished.
It is a farewell reserved for heroes. For combat aces and high ranking officers of distinguished career, the acrobats of the air fly by. But the young pilot, who was my brother, had never flown into battle. His prayer was that he would never fly to kill. Educated in the classroom of war, he abhorred the lesson that the innocent are the ultimate victims of the bomb and the sword. When he flew an F-101 jet fighter of the Texas Air National Guard on October 22, 1980, he believed in his mission to protect the innocent with his quicksilver wings of peace.
In the last 60 seconds of his life, my brother's only thought must have been of the innocent people living in the innocent safety of their homes below him. The airplane burned into the dust of a pasture just 500 yards away from those homes. The investigators retrieved his helmet from the crash. They bequeathed it to his widow, who keeps it for their small son. Sleep well, brother Greg; your prayer is answered. Never will you fly to kill.
Sifting still through the wreckage of my grief, I wonder. On the day of the Armistice of the first global war – the war that Woodrow Wilson called the war to end all wars – I wonder about the price that the governments of this century have elected to pay in the purchase of peace.
I wonder about all the brave young warriors of this peace, men and women proud of their mission, honored by their duty to safeguard our shores. Do their spouses sleep soundly while they fly through the night? Do the children play fearlessly in the schoolyard as their fathers or mothers crawl into the missile hole at day? Who will remember the heroes of this peace?
A few feet from where my brother now rests, another pilot sleeps. This man, our father, also abhorred violence and war. But as a young man my father saw havoc in the skies above Europe. Dreams of the innocent, the faceless victims of the bombs that fell from his plane, haunted his sleep every night he lived.
Dreamless now, father and son together sleep. The old veteran of war shares the soil of liberty with the young veteran of peace.
Today, the 11th day of November, at the 11th hour in the morning, flags fall to half-staff across the country in honor of the nation's veterans. The statesmen lay huge floral wreaths at the monuments of the nameless soldiers. The widows crown the crosses of their loved ones with garlands from their gardens. Silence falls for a moment over the burial grounds of the warriors.
Then cannon volley and bugles blare. It is festival time in the graveyard. The 5-year-old son of my dead brother cheers as the mighty Phantom jets scream their power across the sky. He delights in the pageant of the parade marching by. His mother takes his small hand in hers when she cries. What will she tell him when he asks her why?
Leave them better than you found them.
What if all of us left people better than when we initially met with them?
In every encounter, doing something to uplift others, inspire others, make others feel better. Without regard for ourselves, but with absolute regard for the other people in our lives.
How much better would all of our lives be?
I strongly believe that the benefits to the provider of such kindness would equal or exceed those of the receiver.
Direct experience is so much better than theory.
And get back to me with your results.
Another horrific act of violence in America today and it was apparently captured on video.
This happens all too often. And we are presented with an option to view the day's most senseless act on our computer and television screens.
I choose not to see it.
I have read the story. I grieve and pray for the victims and their families. I lament that we live in a society where such murder has become so very commonplace.
Out of respect for the victims and their families and as a conscious choice to determine which images I allow into my mind, my psyche and my soul – I will not watch it.
May we all find a path to love, light and peace as we continue our journey through this wondrous life.