Happy New Year

Well here we are, almost of New Year’s Eve.

Each year, we have 365 opportunities. Each year we have 365 opportunities to change our lives or the lives of others. Each year we have 365 opportunities to show compassion, to show love. Each year we have 365 to become better human beings. Each year we have 365 opportunities to change everything!

2015 was a year like many others. Many of you have experienced loss and heartache. Many of you have experienced love and new life with new futures. Many of you made new connections. Many of you tried new things and many of you lost everything it seems.
Yet we are still here! We are still alive! We still have 365 new opportunities to do anything we want, to do anything we can imagine, to change our world,
ONE OPPORTUNITY AT A TIME!

I have had the privilege throughout this last year to be a part of the things you have shared, your losses, your heartaches, your joys, your happiness and your accomplishment’s. I have seen many of you say, “I DO”. I have seen many of you welcome new family to this world and I have seen many of you say goodbye to the ones that you love.For this, I thank each of you for the sharing of your moments.

For 2016, I wish each of you a year full of opportunities, more than 365. I wish for each of you nothing but happiness and success in all that you do and that everything you dream comes to life.

Iadul

Iadul este singurul loc în care nimeni nu vrea să meargă, dar toți stau la coadă pentru un bilet.

                                         Scris de Corina Abdulahm Negura

Multumesc  Trocin Vitali   http://trocin.wix.com/vitali-trocin  pentru work art

You know not the history of another person. You know not the stories of their lives.

Tonight I want you to think of the last time someone made a flash decision or judgment of you that affected your reputation, of who you are, where you’re from or what you believe. Maybe it was about how you look, how you walk, about what you drive or about your child. Did it hurt you?
They did so for no reason other than to put you down and maybe to make themselves feel better about whom THEY ARE NOT! Did it have long-term ramifications upon your reputation?
Each of us, you and I, are good at passing judgment are e not? We look at someone with tattoos and assume they are a thug if they have more tattoos that we would like. We see the actions of a child and assume that their parents are the problem and the whole of the family is useless. We see someone driving a car that looks like it can barely start and thing to ourselves that they are low class and poor.
Let’s see now, the one with the tattoos was burned in a horrible fire as a child and uses the tattoos to cover the pain of that time and to gain some sense of beauty in their eyes.
The child that made ONE mistake with a bad decision in reality is a straight “A” student, has a loving mother that provides everything for him/her. However, the child has a learning disability as well as some emotional issues that others take advantage of and they follow along not understanding the consequences.
That man driving the beat up car in reality is the owner of a local multimillion-dollar business. He lives off the same salary as his employees and in fact cut it to half of what his employees make so that they could keep their jobs after new government laws put a hardship on his business. He even sold his Bentley so that he could buy three employees transportation to get to and from work and support their spouse and children. He chose never to drive anything better that the employees he has.
Friends, we must each stop when we make these instant conclusions of others. You know not the history of another person. You know not the stories of their lives. We have no right to judge another for only God can do that. Tonight I suggest each of you think of the last time you made one of these judgments and made it public. What of that person’s reputation? Did you destroy it? Did you tear that individual down even further?
In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?” “Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.” “Triple filter?” “That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?” “No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it and ...” “All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?” “No, on the contrary…” “So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?” “No, not really …” “Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”
Friends, we will each be remembered for the tracks that we each leave in life. What kind of tracks are you leaving?
Think upon this tonight as you lay your heads to rest

                              written by Santa  Claus :)

 Thanks Mar-ka for http://mar-ka.deviantart.com/ for work art.

You see we are each a part of the “I AM”.

For thousands of years humankind has looked to the sky, to the stars, to the darkness in search for something bigger than ourselves. Each society, culture and tribe, each race has since rational thought has entered the brain of man, tried to explain the feeling that we are more than we see than we are.

Humankind in this endeavor has come to the common global conclusion that there is a God, Jehova,
Allah or whichever of the 101 “known” names, which passes, into the common forms of thought for a culture or clan.

Over the millennia, humankind has divided itself from one another in this search to explain what is common to each of us, we are each spiritual beings visiting here but for a short time. You see for me and for all of humankind it is our spiritual evolution towards this “I AM” knowledge that our human heart and mind has corrupted it.

It is the “I AM” that we are here to show that what we can do for one another to evolve into peace and as one. To evolve our thinking and beliefs to a point to where there is no more war no more corruption or need for borders.

You see we are each a part of the “I AM”. Together we make up the whole.

Let me move past my spiritual take on things and let me know address this word, “PEACE”. What is peace and what does it look like our I should say what could it look like.

To start we must all agree that there must be a set of universal ethics that apply to every sentient being.

No matter who you are or what you believe, I believe that the voice of God, the “I AM” is within each of us. His voice has been and will always be within each of us no matter our religion or our belief. His voice is within you if you are an atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu! It matters not.

We go through our days and we think that our thoughts are our own. Yes, they are but the Divine guides them. We make thousands of choices each day and it is our free will that lifts us or damns us.

God, the “I AM” gives us the signs and the signals each day with our thoughts, our words and our emotions and in a way, He gives us a set of Universal Ethics.

These are a set of principles that I believe that are encoded within each of us and these ethics apply to each of us in spite of our religions, beliefs and independent from any faith.

These ethics are not based on a past or on a new religion; they do not contain or say anything about liturgical or metaphysical concepts of humans of any kind. What I mean is that these concepts do not explain the existence of the Universe or of Man.

These ethics do not prescribe to any particular faith or ritual. It does not deal with the concept of God or of gods and they do not contain stories, myths or immutable dogmas. Most important I think is that these ethics do not conform to any formal changes to any existing, belief or future creed.

These ethics are part of each of us and they help in our decisions that we make in conjunction with our free will. The ethics are kind of like a moral constitution guiding all of humanities ethical principles that are at the core of all human beings, acceptable. Because of this, ALL religions and secular groups can develop or maintain their own additional ethical principles.

All of this is done within our hearts, our souls and our minds with the voice of God, the “I AM” whom speaks to each of us each second of every day! The rest of it, our actions, are up to us!

As to actions, for peace to ever come to humankind we must each learn what it is to be a peacemaker.

Peacemaking is the act of nurturing a harmony between groups of people and between individuals. It all begins within, internally and with a basic hunger for peace and a basic assumption that others want peace as well. It grows from a humble suspicion that our very own perspective is limited and that there are truths that can be discovered if we each just stop and listen.

Peacemaking requires each of us to be flexible in our thought and individual beliefs as well as a willingness to see a multitude of sides of an issue. We must be able to see the situation of the other person or group of people.

Sounds simple does it not? No, not really as it takes a lot of thought and a lot of work. The greatest barrier to peacemaking is fear. Fear makes us see ourselves as victims or potential victims and blinds us to the harm that we ourselves have done or the threat we pose to others.

Embracing peacemaking does not mean that we always avoid conflict, but we recognize its real costs and weigh those costs as if they would be borne by our loved ones and ourselves. Peacemaking is a journey as well as destination. By become peacemakers we can each then move forward together in our own spiritual evolution’s.

Friends, we must realize that the peace we speak of and universally desire is not something that happens to us fore it is something that is a part of each one of us.

Listen to me know! PEACE is not something that can be taken away from you because it comes from the way YOU as individuals, cultures and nations choose to be.

It is when we live for the shallow things, the material things, the egos of one another, the I am right you are wrong thinking that peace will always elude YOU as an individual, tribe, culture or nation.

Each day we hear how one group or another desires peace but the reality for us is that the pain and the confusion come more from our struggles to prove one concept or another, one belief or another and even one border or another.

For YOU, what is peace? “The opposite of war,”

First, I think of myself as a naturally pacific man, not prone to take offense, mild mannered and cheerful, open to all sorts of people, accepting, trusting, and amiable. I care!

I think of Gandhi’s much-quoted admonition: “There is no way to peace; peace is the way,” which I take to mean that peacefulness, a peaceable heart and unperturbed temperament within each of us is the prerequisite for our living in a peaceable society, a peaceable world.

You see, peace is all of humankind’s responsibility! It lies with each of us individually.

Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on.

When we allow ourselves to feel love and kindness towards others, which we are each born with, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Friends I can go on and on so now I will say to you each in closing; Peace, as much as humankind talks of it, desires it and at times even achieves it for a moment will never come to be until we, as individual members of humanity decide that there will be peace.

I leave you now with two quotes on peace from two different books of faith as proof that we all desire global harmony and peace.

They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” (Bible, Micah 4.4)

“He who walks in peace, walk with him.” (Koran, Sura 48)

written by Santa  Claus :)

Thanks Trocin Vitali  http://trocin.wix.com/vitali-trocin for  work art.