Daily Jots

Thought of the Day:
“Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I’m sure that we shall never forget Tiny Tim, or this first parting that there was among us.”
Kermit the Frog – “The Muppet Christmas Carol”
Thinking Outside of the Box:
Christmas brings us such a mixed bag of feelings. The memories of the people who have left this world before us are vivid, and it seems that the holidays cause those memories to become more plentiful. For many people, it is the time of year they dread the most; those memories are more …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”
Norman Vincent Peale
Thinking Outside of the Box:
This is Christmas week. The most anticipated week by children, the most dreaded week by shoppers, and the week where everyone is a little kinder, a little more patient, and a lot more generous. This week I will be giving you Christmas quotes; perhaps if you are struggling with getting the Christmas spirit it will help. If you are already in the Christmas mood, it will just make it better and keep you focused on …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“THE SEASON of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”
Jan L. …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“God is in the boring housewife stuff.”
Maud Bailey – The film “Possession”
Thinking Outside of the Box:
When God looks into the heart of a man and a woman, does he see something different? New research says that women’s brains are different than men’s. Women are constructed differently than men, wired differently, and differ considerably chemically. So what does God see when he looks into the woman’s mind?
In life, we have extraordinary events, and we have the ordinary day-after-day events, that routinely happen. They are repetitive, sometimes monotonous, always necessary, and consistently there. …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“It’s surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”
Barbara Kingsolver
Thinking Outside of the Box:
I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but now something that happened to me a few years ago is one of the most precious memories that I have.  I think that is what Barbara Kingsolver was getting at when she wrote that line above.  It isn’t those things that make us say to ourselves, “I can’t ever forget this moment.”  The things that make up our memory are the things that, at the time, seemed inconsequential …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: Before you were, or any hearts to beat, Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; He made the world to be a grassy road Before her wandering feet.”
W.B. Yeats
Thinking Outside of the Box:
I was talking with my daughter last night about guardian angels. I mentioned that everyone has their very own, personally assigned, angel who’s sole job it is to watch over us. Think about that! One angel, just for you, assigned by the Creator, to keep an eye on you.
That’s pretty cool! I know we have all seen …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“Love is fulfilled in marriage and marriage is consumation of love.”
Joseph Campbell
Thinking Outside of the Box:
I was watching a DVD tonight about Joseph Campbell and he said the above line in a conversation about marriage. I had to pause the DVD and write it down, I liked it so well. I’ve been thinking about marriage a bit recently; probably because of the holidays and fact I am widowed.
Marriage seems so much like a institution in our society but I don’t view it that way. I grant you, it is the foundation of the …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it… I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.”
André Maurois
Thinking Outside of the Box:
That’s enough to get a …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“YOU keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time,
Want us to wait
For the right time in which to
discover
Who we are, where we are to go,
Who will be with us, and what we
must do.
So thank you … for the waiting time.”
John Bell
Thinking Outside of the Box:
Everyone is so rushed at Christmas. Make a phone call and ask a friend if they can meet you for dinner, or even lunch, sometime in the next two to three weeks. More than likely, you will hear, “I’d love to, but I am so busy! I haven’t done …read more

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Thought of the Day:
“Take what you can use and let the rest go by.”
Ken Kesey
Thinking Outside of the Box:
I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Commander Riker said something (that I am pretty sure wasn’t his own quote) that stuck with me. “Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.” In other words, you can’t win them all. Some days are going to have a curve ball with your name on it. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that you can’t control it. Yes, that is good news. …read more

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