Kel's Kaleidoscope: February 2012

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

What is Love?

- found this in the "from people >> jas k" folder today (2003).

What is Love?

A group of professionals posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year olds. "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

Rebecca – age 8
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.
Billy – age 4
Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.
Chrissy – age 6
Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.
Terri – age 4
Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay.
Danny – age 7
Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy and daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.
Jenny – age 4
Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday
Noelle – age 7
Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.
Clare – age 5
Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken.
Chris – age 8
Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day

Jessica – age 6
When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.
Mark – age 6
You really shouldn't say "I love you" unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.

Monday, 27 February 2012

Not finding time...

actually all these reflections are reposted from my private blog, the original entries were from ~2yrs ago. just wanted to put in a place where i'd like more people to potentially see it.a bit of bombardment of these "reflections".
maybe oldie, who knows, but i think goodie.

i think this doesn't have to apply to God. can apply to anything that you want to give but 'don't have time' for.

The Poem.

I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.

So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease.

All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer.
No time to speak of Christ to friends,
They'd laugh at me I'd fear.

No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time, the time to die.

I went before the Lord,
I came, I stood with downcast eyes.
For in his hands God held a book;
It was the book of life.

God looked into his book and said
"Your name I cannot find.
I once was going to write it down ...

But never found the time"

Emergency Telephone Numbers...

These are more effective than 911
When:-

You are sad, phone - John 14
You have sinned, phone - Psalm 51
You are facing danger, phone - Psalm 91
People have failed you, phone - Psalm 27
If it feels though God is far from you, phone- Psalm 139
Your faith needs stimulation, phone - Hebrews 11
You are alone and scared, phone - Psalm 23
You are worried, phone - Matthew 8:19-34
You are hurt and critical, phone - 1 Corinthians 13
You wonder about Christianity, phone - 2 Corinthians 5:15-18
You feel like an outcast, phone - Romans 8:31-39
You are seeking peace, phone - Matthew 11:25-30
If feels as if the world is bigger than God, phone - Psalm 90
You need Christ like insurance, phone - Romans 8:1-30
You are leaving home for a trip, phone - Psalm 121
You are praying for yourself, phone - Psalm 87
You require courage for a task, phone - Joshua 1
Inflation's and investments are hogging your thoughts, phone - Mark 10:17-31
You are depressive, phone - Psalm, 27
Your bank account is empty, phone - Psalm 37
You lose faith in mankind, phone - Corinthians 13
It looks like people are unfriendly, phone - John 15
You are losing hope, phone - Psalm 126
You feel the world is small compared to you, phone - Psalm 19
You want to carry fruit, phone - John 15
Paul's secret for happiness, phone - Colossians 3:12-17
With big opportunity/discovery, phone - Isiah 55
To get along with other people, phone - Romans 12

Alternate numbers:
For dealing with fear, call - Psalm 3:47
For security, call - Psalm 121:3
For assurance, call - Mark 8:35
For reassurance, call - Psalm 145:18

All these numbers may be phone directly.
No operator assistance is necessary.
All lines to heaven are available 24 hours a day.
Feed your faith and doubt will starve to death.

A little perspective...

if you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week
if you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 500million people in the world
if you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world
if you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world
if you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy
if you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful... you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not
if you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder... you are blessed because you can offer healing touch
if you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and further more you are blessed than over two billion in the world that cannot read at all.

Sunday, 30th August, 2009. St. Thomas More, Bateman - homily
True all these 'feel good' things may seem irrelevant sometimes, and definitely feels cliche more often than not, but maybe sometimes, just sometimes, they remind us something we've just forgotten or put aside at the back of our minds.

Bill Gate's speech to highschool kids

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. he talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Life is not fair - get used to it!
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you see your boss.
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the the parasite of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
-- that i don't like. i don't think Fr Michael mentioned that tonight. hello, if you don't want kids, don't have them. far out.
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..
Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Sunday, 30th August, 2009. St. Thomas More, Bateman - homily

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Why do bad things happen to good people?

By no means does this explain everything, but perhaps sometimes keeping this in mind may help understand become more at peace with what is going on... and hopefully we can be graced with Serenity.

The Butterfly

"One day, a small opening appeared on a cocoon; a man sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.

Then, it seems to stop making any progress.

It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could not go any further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily.

But it had a withered body, it was tiny and had withered wings.

The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly's body, and become firm.

Neither happened!

In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes our struggles are exactly what we need in our life.

If God allowed us to go through life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as we could have been.
Never been able to fly.

I asked for strength ...
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom ...
and God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity ...
and God gave me brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage ...
and God gave me obstacles to overcome.

I asked for love ...
and God gave me troubled people to help.

I asked for favours ...
and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted ...
but received everything I needed.

Live life without fear,
confront all obstacles,
and
prove that you can overcome them.

WHY GO TO CHURCH?

A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.

"I've gone and done it for 30 long years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs too by giving lengthy sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this... They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

When you are DOWN to nothing...God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical and our spiritual nourishment! When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say," "Jesus, could you get that for me?"

- taken from St. Thomas More Bateman Website.