“The will to meaning is the basic motivation for human life.” -

Viktor Frankl (Holocaust survivor)

A Better Understanding

Seeking meaning and purpose is perhaps the singular reason that human beings progress. This is what makes life worth living, as we seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and life, despite its attendant complexities.

Even in the face of suffering, humanity is still defined by a will that is largely predicated on this very search for wisdom, purpose and direction.

Cries from the Heart

As we encounter many things in life, we still keep believing that there are answers to many of life’s questions. At times, we get drained and want more while on this search. But we still continue to believe.

While some seek understanding in the sciences, technology and varied belief systems, others search within. Still, others seek answers from the supernatural or from a higher power. All these are Cries from the Heart which have continued since time began.

Stories of Struggle and Hope

Human struggle is as ubiquitous as the air we breath. It is indeed true that life is not a bed of roses. And even when we insist on looking and focusing on the roses amongst thorns, we cannot wish away the thorns which keep pricking our sides, we still have to attend to various pertinent issues in our lives.

Cries from the Heart is a book written by Johanne Christoph Arnold. He is a counsellor and pastor who has served over twenty five years. He has written several other books, many of which you can get on his website.

Book Contents

CONTENTS

to the reader 7

foreword 9

1. searching – God finds an atheist 11

2. finding – is someone really there? 18

3. believing – even when children die? 24

4. universality – call it what you will 31

5. god’s messengers – angels at work 38

6. emotional suffering – when you can’t pray 45

7. illness – where the doctor leaves off 54

8. despair – talking to a wall 69

9. attitude – thank God I’m not like that! 83

10. reverence – meet your maker 95

11. letting go – my will be done 105

12. remorse – when you’ve messed up 114

13. protection – alive to tell it 126

14. selflessness – someone needs you 134

15. service – words are not enough 140

16. contemplation – be quiet and listen 149

17. worship – giving thanks in a death camp 160

18. unity – divided we fall 166

19. marriage – unlocking horns 171

20. unanswered prayer – isn’t “no” an answer? 179

21. miracles – what do you expect? 186

22. prayer in daily life – keeping the faith 199

23. faithfulness – one thing never changes 207

Get the FREE eBook

Let me know if you’d like me to Email you this eBook. You can however download it directly at ChristophArnold.com.

I hope you’ll like it and find it worth your while. Be sure to share with others too.

Happy reading!

Six Degrees

The Six Degrees of Separation or “Human Web” concept has been explored in various literally works and the creative arts for many years all over the world.

Essentially, it asserts that all human beings are largely interconnected.

Since the 1990 play and the 1993 film of the same name, the Six Degrees of Separation concept has been prominently deployed in the immensely popular TV Show LOST. It has also inspired films such as Crash and Babel.

Babel

This is a movie that stars an ensemble cast. It focuses on four interrelated sets of situations and characters – in Morocco, Japan, United States and Mexico.

Basically, a high-powered rifle originally owned by a Japanese hunter is used by two boys in Morocco to critically injure an American tourist [Susan].

At home in the USA, the Mexican nanny in charge of Richard and Susan’s twin children is involved in border trespass after attending her son’s wedding in Tijuana, Mexico.

Noteworthy themes

Throughout the movie, misunderstandings abound:

> The immediate classification of the American tourist’s shooting as a terrorist act, Amelia’s [Mexican nanny]treatment by the border police and the treatment of local Arabs by the American tourists. All this has obvious racial undertones.

> Suspicion and misplaced priorities – the tourists in the bus are quick to leave to avoid the desert heat as well as forestall “further attacks” by the locals.

> Political issues between governments significantly hinder quick help for Susan.

Despite the above, and what I found most inspiring, is the willingness of strangers [the local veterinarian and the bus tour guide] to be of help. In fact, the tour guide declined financial compensation from Richard [Susan's husband] as Susan was being carried away in a helicopter.

Somebody for Someone

In their song Somebody for Someone, The Corrs capture the very essence of being there for other people:

“Look at me, see me’ ‘look at me, save me’

‘Free me, find me ‘cos if there’s

Somebody for someone, yeah look at me”

Somebody for someone

Bridges

A while back, I blogged on the Walkabout about the need to communicate, create human bridges and be united in purpose.

The human bridge is nurtured by introduction, familiarity and co-operation. With a common purpose, everything becomes possible.

We therefore need to be there for one another, even without the presence of a crisis. We have to go beyond merely being there with one another.

NOTE:
This is the final post in my 3-part Valentines Day series. Read the First part and the Second part here.

I used to laugh whenever I read or heard that a certain celebutard had checked himself into a Sex Rehab facility. Tiger Woods, Eric Benét, Charlie Sheen… and the list goes on.

As I grew up and read more, I became more enlightened and open-minded. While in campus, a random book quickly turned into a gem that has so far liberated me emotionally, and helped me take charge of my love life. A love life which I must say, is quite simple but most uncommon.

That said, I bet I can now safely assume that you the reader, are now more open minded in regard to this very unconventional and searching perspective on our sex and love lives.

What is Love and Sex Addiction?

In his book Sex & Love: Addiction, Treatment and Recovery, Eric Griffin-Shelley notes that many of us are very hesitant to label someone an addict, owing to the stereotypes we have of addicts. We instead prefer to refer to these defects of character as “bad habits”, something we find more palatable and socially acceptable.

The word addict has a Latin root, ad dictum, which means “to the dictator.” When people were captured and sent into slavery, they were sent ad dictum. The idea of addiction as enslavement is something to which most addicts would readily agree. When you are addicted, you feel that you have no choice and are powerless to stop. Addicts are out of balance and out of control.

An addiction is an enslavement to an activity, person, or thing that is characterized by imbalance, lack of control, loss of power, distortion of values, inflexible centralness to the person’s life, unhealthiness, pathology, chronicity, progression, and potential fatality. More simply put, an addict is a person who cannot say “no.”

A sex and love addict cannot say “no” to his or her impulses to have sex or get into a love relationship. An addict is a person whose thoughts and behaviors are causing problems but who cannot stop them. In addition to these definitions, a sex and love addiction involves a high, tolerance, craving, dependence, withdrawal, obsession, compulsion, secrecy, and a personality change.

A Fearless Moral Inventory

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
- Socrates

Many of us have for a long time mistaken their sex and love addictions as a normal human need to love and be loved, to have company and to be in a meaningful relationship.

The biggest hindrance to tackling the sex and love addictions that many people are in, is the fact that sex and love matters are rarely discussed. Far too many people prefer to handle their own matters of the heart, which unfortunately is to their peril.

The 4th Step in most addicts anonymous recovery programs is a searching and fearless moral inventory of one’s life. This then becomes a habitual thing, as espoused in step 10 where one continues to take personal inventory, and promptly admits when they find out they are wrong.

Following are the 12 Characteristics of Sex and Love addicts:

1 Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
2 Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
3 Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
4 We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.
5 We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
6 We sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing, care, and support.
7 We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
8 We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.
9 We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.
10 We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.
11 To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.
12 We assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.

If you still have lingering doubts whether or not you are an addict, you may want to ask yourself the more searching 40 Questions for Self Diagnosis.
Don’t be surprised when you realize most of your answers are YES.

A Willingness to Change

“Now willing to listen and take suggestions, I have found that the process of discovering who I really am begins with knowing who I really don’t want to be.
I have grown emotionally and intellectually. It has give me my sanity and an all-around sense of balance.”
- Safe Haven (Personal Stories in the A.A. Big Book)

If you have gotten this far in this note, you may be wondering why all the details.
The reason is simple: It’s not fitting to try to address a problem that is not well defined. As of now, you have found out exactly where you lie [no pun intended] in this sex and love addiction business.

Given what we now know, many would only want to change for better.
Additionally, you’ll walk into Valentines well-knowing exactly what your affection for the other part(y)ies is. Is it genuine, healthy love, or a destructive sex and love addiction?

The good news is that you are not alone. Many others are seeking the same answers in their efforts to find meaning in their lives.

It is my believe that once enlightened, many people display an amazing ability to make decisions that lead to choices that greatly improve their lives.
This note shares that information, in the firm belief that you’ll then go ahead and make good use of that information.

Now is the time to do the needful, even as we learn and share on matters that shape our lives.

Summary

In the first post, we learnt from David Richo what practical steps there are to help us become human, so that we can gain self respect and build healthy and compassionate relationships.

In the second post, we have sought to be open minded so as to better open our minds to scrutiny, self diagnosis and experience.

In this third and final post, we learn what sex and love addiction is, and further seek to find out if we are addicts or not. We can then use the knowledge so far gained to better define our relationships from now on.

RESOURCES

Sex and Love: Addiction, Treatment and Recovery by Eric Griffin-Shelley

40 Questions for Self Diagnosis

Porn Again Christian [free eBook Download]

Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction

NOTE:
This post is the second in my 3-part Valentines Day series, that seeks to take a different approach to Love and Valentines. The first one was Human Becoming: Practical Steps to Self Respect and Compassionate Relationships.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
- Herbert Spencer

Michelangelo's David

Late last year, I watched Jonathan Haidt’s TED Talk about Objectivity and the Moral Matrix.
His talk inspired a blog post on The Walkabout.

Nudity or Art?

Weeks later, I uploaded this photo on Facebook, and a “good friend” whom I’ve known for years promptly reprimanded me by way of a phone call and a comment on Facebook. His words [not ad verbum] were as follows:

“Pete you can surely do better. I am very ashamed to say the least…”

Well, I had no words for this guy. The fact that he was deeply offended by artwork, and chose to see nudity instead of art, makes me wonder what he’d say if he saw Michelangelo’s David [above].

Talking about Sex

“The books the world calls immoral
are the books that show the world its shame.”
- C S Lewis

Apparently, the human condition is such that we prefer to look at only one side of the coin. We usually choose to see what is bad, salacious or compromising.

Thing is, sometimes we are so deeply corrupted that we cannot tell that we are compromised in the first instance, let alone reckon to what extent.

When I was in Campus, a certain friend was shocked to see me reading Eric Griffin-Shelley’s book ‘Sex and Love: Addiction, Treatment and Recovery’. She loudly wondered why I would be reading such a book if I wasn’t a recovering addict. She however changed her mind after she read several pages of the book.

Sex & Love: Addiction, Treatment and Recovery

You can in fact read this book at Questia.

Being Open-Minded

This post should prepare you for what we shall be looking at on Wednesday: Sex and Love Addiction.

Many of us would rather not even think about their sex lives and relationships, always reaching for the private, personal and similar cards whenever these topics are raised.

As Valentines Day approaches we need to be open minded and see ourselves for what we really are. Now is the time to sit ourselves down and take a more searching and serious look at our relationships.

You’re be surprised at how much you’ve been wallowing in a miasma of deceit and self righteousness. Now is the time to get out of this quagmire.

Next, we take a look at The Sex and Love Addiction Quagmire – A Cautionary Tale

“Once awareness is free,
intent will redirect it into a new evolutionary path.”
- Carlos Castaneda

Human Becoming by David Richo

Well, I have always believed in Learning and Sharing. Because only then can we individually and collectively become better persons, by positively affecting the lives of those we interact with.

That said, I recently downloaded a very profound eBook by one Dr. David Richo [no relations].

The book is titled “Human Becoming. Practical Steps to Self-Respect and Compassionate Relationships” It is in fact a collection of excerpts from his many books and manuscripts.

Dr Richo introduces the book this way:

“We are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.”
– William Blake

It is my considered opinion that you’ll find this book worthwhile.
After reading the Introduction, I am so looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

Following is an excerpt of the Introduction:

FIRST THINGS FIRST

“There is a grace-full force in us and in the universe. It is a lively energy that is always at work so that we will become fully human. To be fully human is to be as loving as we can be, as free of ego fear and clinging, and as generous as we can be with our innate gifts and talents. This takes psychological work on ourselves and a spiritual practice. When we are committed to such a program, we feel joy and self-respect because we are fulfilling our deepest purpose in life.”

PRACTICAL STEPS

“Practical steps are about doing things in new ways. But doing is not the whole picture. We are also receiving graces that assist us. We become fully human not by our efforts alone but also by the assistance of a higher power than our ego that complements our psychological work and our spiritual practice. Abundant grace is surrounding us right now and can be trusted to help us cross our next bridge or threshold.”

The chapters are as follows:

Who we really are
Our personal purpose and calling
In the house of the healthy psyche
Dialoguing with the inner critic
Building self-respect and lovingkindness
The givens of life: the things we cannot change
The f.a.c.e. of ego
Befriending our shadow
How to s.e.e.
The cradling technique
Freedom from fears: an inventory and affirmations
Working with abandonment and engulfment fears
Handling our loneliness
Standing alone at the edge of the void
A checklist on boundaries in relationship
Conflict vs. drama
Anger or abuse?
No more punishing or placating
Releasing guilt and forgiveness
When our feelings are hurt
Love and control
Pausing to find our space
Mindfulness
Love as a practice
Lovingkindness
Egoless love
Fate or destiny?
Wholeness within
Unconditional love
Conclusion: What makes us human

Get the eBook

If you’d like a free copy of this eBook, download it from David Richo’s web site.
It’s in PDF format [684KB], 98 pages.

I bet many of you will find this is a most valuable book, now that Valentines Day is just around the corner.

“We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason
All of us, each one of us was brought here for a reason
…It may be hard for the others to accept
But everything happens for a reason.”
- John Locke (LOST s05e07 – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham)

Note:
All this week, posts on The Walkabout focus on life lessons that have been directly inspired by LOST. Read previous LOST-inspired posts here and here.

The Walkabout

John Locke in the Jungle

On 2nd February 2010, the sixth season of LOST will begin airing. This compelling TV show is my personal favorite, and plays a central role in this blog.
‘The Walkabout’ was accordingly named after the Lost season 1 episode 4 (Walkabout) in which flashbacks of John Locke’s life detailed his plans to go on an original aboriginal walkabout in Australia.

Despite being a paraplegic, Locke was determined to go on his walkabout, and insisted that he could do it, a belief he repeatedly and loudly emphasized with the words:

Don’t tell me what I can’t do.

Destiny

The word destiny has a dual meaning, one that is either predicated on fate or purpose.

Fate: Destiny may refer to somebody’s preordained future, a series of predetermined and inevitable events that happen to somebody.

Purpose: Destiny may also refer to the inner purpose of life that can be discovered and realized.

Those who resign their lives to fate eventually find their destiny. Apparently, things just happen and eventually, they often find themselves in situations they’d rather not be in.

On the other hand, those who actively seek to live their lives by making the most of every opportunity also realize their purpose. They meet their objectives, realize their goals and certainly get to willfully shape their destiny.

Human Nature

Human nature is such that we err, and often fall short of our expectations. In fact, our “great” expectations have a way of selling us short. Usually, the unexpected does change our lives. As espoused in the premiere episode of LOST season 5, the character of people is such that…

…they come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt
it always ends the same.

The Way Ahead

Despite all this, we do have the free will to change our destiny… for the simple reason that we think, we reason and can make choices.

Perhaps then, we can begin to see that we can challenge ourselves and discover the reason for our being. That done, we can then learn from the past, make the most of the here and now, and consequently face the future with confidence to realize our purpose.

What if we find ourselves being held back by what has happened in the past? What if the consequences of our past actions have already messed a significant part of our lives?

Well, this is a timely question, even as we look back at the resolutions and fleeting promises many of us made early this year but have not yet lived up to.

Thankfully, LOST is not devoid of answers for such questions:

…it only ends once
Anything that happens before that, is progress

Now is the time to move ahead, with the full knowledge that everything happens for a reason. Whatever has happened before is just a part of a bigger whole, of progress. We are in repair – not together, but getting there.

We can therefore go right ahead.

This February, may we exercise our free will and realize our inner purpose of life.

“You’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along.”
- Mama Cass Elliot

Inspiration from LOST

All this week, we are featuring posts that are inspired by the TV Show LOST. The final Season of LOST premieres on February 2nd.

Make Your Own Kind of Music

Today, we examine how one can define their own success and thereby make their own kind of music.

Make Your Own Kind of Music by Mama Cass Elliot

Mama Cass Elliot’s Make Your Own Kind of Music has been featured on several episodes of LOST, mainly in Season 2. Read more about this song on Lostpedia.

Following are the song lyrics:

Nobody can tell ya
There’s only one song worth singing
They may try and sell ya
Cause it hangs them up to see someone like you

But you’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along

You’re gonna be nowhere
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be rough going
Just to do your thing’s the hardest thing to do

But you’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along

So if you cannot take my hand
And if you must be going
I will understand

You’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along

You’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music

The above lyrics and artist names are copyrighted to Mama Cass Elliot. They appear  here for educational and personal use only.

Defining Your Sucess – a kinder, gentler philosophy

Alain de Botton gave a very insightful talk at TED:

Watch this talk, download the video and read viewer/reader reactions on the TED web site.

He examines our ideas of success and failure… and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure?

Alain eventually makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work. This too was outlined by Steve Jobs during his Stanford commencement address.

Ready to Shape Your OWN Destiny?

In a world that is increasingly shaped by popular opinion, many find themselves living other people’s dreams and constantly succumb to what is acceptable by many.

When they don’t measure up to what society defines as success, a lot of people get frustrated.

This should not be the case, if only we would become more decisive and seek to live purpose-driven, fulfilling lives.

So, go out and do whatever you love doing passionately, be very successful in it. Be all that you can be. It depends on you after all.

“…can’t change the past. Can’t do it. Whatever happened, happened.
We’re the variables. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny.”
- Daniel Faraday (LOST s05ep14, The Variable)

LOST

I begin today’s post by proudly confessing that I’m a Lostie (an ardent fan of the TV Series LOST). In fact, this entire blog was inspired by LOST. Specifically, Matthew Abaddon’s challenge that John Locke go on a walkabout – a journey of self discovery. All this happened in Season 4 episode 11 [Cabin Fever]. Read The Walkabout’s first post here.

LOST is a very compelling drama which has won awards and kept fans all over the world watching, thinking and discussing the show’s rich content. Depending on how you look at it, there is quite a lot to learn from LOST.

This week on The Walkabout, we shall feature posts directly inspired by LOST, as we await the highly anticipated LOST Season 6 premier on February 2, 2009.

The Variable

Our lead quote is from the LOST season 5 episode 14 episode, The Variable. This episode focuses on Daniel Faraday’s quest to avert a catastrophic event on the Island. Knowing that a release of massive energy at the Swan Station would trigger the events that would ultimately lead to the disappearance of Flight 815, Daniel decides to prevent this from happening by detonating a hydrogen bomb.

Daniel Farady (LOST)

Minutes before Faraday died, he tells Jack Shepherd the following:

Daniel Faraday: But… we can change that. I studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over …can’t change the past. Can’t do it. Whatever happened, happened. All right? But then I finally realized… I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack?
Jack Shepherd: No.
Faraday: Us. We’re the variables. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny.

The above dialogue is in the following video:

It should be noted that before going to the island, Daniel Faraday suffered severe psychological problems. In fact, he had lost his mental acuity and lived with a caretaker.

Shaping an Uncertain Destiny

Admittedly, we cannot alter the past. What is in the past has already happened, and therefore cannot change.

Just like Daniel Faraday, we spend too much time in our lives focusing on and trying to change “constants” – things that are bound to remain the same.

It is instructive that we change that which we can and ought to, only then can we realize our objectives and realize our goals.

We do have the free will to make decisions that will ultimately shape our destiny. Now is the time to do the needful.

Elie Wiesel

First off, the Perils of Indifference is a speech Elie Wiesel gave on 12 April 1999, in Washington, D.C.

Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust at Auschwitz. For this very reason, he is an undisputed authority on what humanity, or better still – the lack of it, really is. He experienced untold crimes against humanity first-hand at the hands of the Nazis. His account is every bit as moving as the writings of Viktor Frankl, Anne Frank and other Holocaust victims.

That said, his speech excerpts are in no way new to the well read. They however, are invariably relevant.

Intolerance and Flawed Reasoning

The reason I write this post is the riots that occurred in downtown Nairobi on Friday, January 15 2010, protests that have been extensively reported in the media.

The main reason for the protests was to demand the unconditional release of Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal. Some radical Muslims organized the “peaceful protests”.

The protests however turned ugly and brought business to a standstill in the Nairobi Business District. Five people lost their lives, many were injured and one policeman was shot by a protester.

The Perils of Indifference

Following are excerpts are Elie Wiesel’s The Perils of Indifference speech.

We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms… So much violence; so much indifference.

Of course, indifference can be tempting — more than that, seductive… for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction.

Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders.

Read the entire speech, download PDF or Flash copies, or listen to an audio recording at the American Rhetoric web site.

Do we Ever Learn?

When I wrote Beyond Politics in January 2007, I quoted the following words by Thomas Blatt, another Holocaust survivor:

Ignorance leads to hate.
There is a need to tell the truth and document the sad facts for posterity.
Revenge or executing the murderers is not the most important thing.
All this won’t bring back the victims.
What matters is to get the testimony, for the testimony is for the generations.

The Way Ahead
It was indeed very sad to see biased and irrational exchanges online regarding these riots. The KTN and NTV facebook pages were riddled with such unfortunate commentary that eventually necessitated the deletion of several posts. Online forums such as Wazua also had several posts moderated or otherwise deleted when topical discussions degenerated into personal attacks and anti-religious sentiments.

God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. We need each other to survive.

I end this post with questions Elie Wiesel asked in his speech. Think about the following:

Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far?

The Years Gone By

Looking back in 2009, we all learnt a lot in life. Hopefully, we became better persons and are now looking forward to a richly rewarding year.

The walk into the future will not be without challenges and hiccups. There are new things to be done, new people to meet, new days to be lived. Informed by what we experienced in the last year, we can use that as a foundation for the accomplishments we endeavor to realize, as stepping stones into new horizons.

Seize the Day

The new year presents us with opportunities to make the most of every moment.

Otherwise, we may die regretting the time we lost when we already had the chance.

Carolyn Arends

From the Prince of Peace compilation gospel album, Carolyn Arends sings Seize the Day, a deep song that encourages us to make the most of the days we’ve been given, even as we seek God’s guidance and favor.

Following are the song lyrics:

I know a girl who was schooled in Manhattan
She reads dusty books and learns phrases in Latin
She is an author, or maybe a poet
A genius but it’s just this world doesn’t know it
She works on her novel most every day
If you laugh she will say

Chorus:
Seize the day, seize whatever you can
‘Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand
Seize the day, pray for grace from God’s hand
Then nothing will stand in your way
Seize the day

Well I know a doctor, a fine young physician
Left his six-figure job for a mission position
He’s healing the sick in an African clinic
He works in the dirt and writes home to the cynics
He says “We work through the night so most every day
As we watch the sun rise we can say

Chorus

Well I know a man who’s been doing some thinking
He’s as bitter and cold as the whiskey he’s drinking
He’s talking ’bout fear, about chances not taken
If you listen to him you can hear his heart breaking
He says “One day you’re a boy and the next day you’re dead
I wish way back when someone had said

Chorus

Well one thing I’ve noticed, wherever I wander
Everyone’s got a dream he can follow or squander
You can do what you will with the days you are given
I’m trying to spend mine on the business of living
So I’m singing my songs off of any old stage
You can laugh if you want, I’ll still say

Chorus

The above lyrics and artist names are copyrighted to Carolyn Arends. They appear  here for educational and personal use only.

The Challenge

For those of us who subscribe to the writings in the good book:

Let the giving of thanks be your sacrifice to God, and give the Almighty all that you promised.

- Psalm 50:14 (Good News Bible)

Now is the time to make the most of every opportunity. Remember all those new year resolutions you made last week? 2010 is now here with us.

Seize the day… the clock is ticking…