Notes from a great book!

Gary

"You gotta keep dancing"
By Tim Hansen

-Zachary means "he who God remembers"
-Stages identified by Kubler-Ross in relation to death and dying
The 1st stage is denial - Not believing that it is really happening.
The 2nd stage is bargaining, trying to equivocate with God to make deals. The 3rd stage is anger, the rage that come from within, based upon frustration which cannot be satisfied.
The 4th stage is depression, a symptom of both prolonged anger turned inward and guilt.
The final stage is acceptance, realizing that what is, is - and is going to be.

-If you can't change the circumstances, change the way you react to them.
-There's a fine line between giving up and giving in.
-It feels as though everything is falling down around me, and falling apart within me.
-You must carry the chaos within you in order to give birth to the dancing star. Nietzsche
-Breakdown or break through
-All of our theology must become biography. The constant challenge in this life we call Christian is the translation of all we believe to be true into our day-to-day life-style.
-Nehemiah 8:10 "The joy of the Lord is your strength."
-I cannot choose to be strong, but I can choose to be joyful.
-Joy does not depend upon circumstances. In fact, in scripture, it is most often cited in spite of circumstances.

"Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my savior.
The sovereign Lord is my strength
he makes my feet like the very of a deer,
he enables me to go to the heights.
Habakkuk 3:17-19

-I began to realize that it wasn't my imposed limitations that held me back, but my perception of those limitations. It wasn't the pain that was thwarting me as much as my attitude toward the pain. I realized that although difficulties were undeniably real, and would remain so for the rest of my life, I had the opportunity to choose a new freedom and joy if I wanted to.
-Through Christ, rejoice in suffering.
Romans 6
-Joy when overwhelmed by trials James 1
-Do not be surprised by ordeals which "prove us". 1pt4:12
-Joy could be restored 51:12
-Increased??
-Be joyful always, continually 1 Thess 5:16-18 ... or there is a danger of quenching the spirit.
-The word happiness comes from the same root as "happening", suggesting that happiness is based on something happening to us. If I pay the car note off... get a new suit... hear nice things... problem is that all of those things are circumstantial, and circumstances shift. Joy, on the other hand, is something that occurs in spite of difficult circumstances or situations.
-Whereas happiness is a feeling, joy is an attitude. A posture, a position or place
"Joy is that deep, settled confidence that God is in control of every area of my life."
-Fruit of the spirit, the first three are Love, Joy and Peace. It has been said that Joy holds Love and Peace together.
-We can't avoid pain, but we can avoid joy.
-For example, I'll be joyful as soon as... the kids are grown, the bills are paid, I get a better job, when I'm healthy, or more productive. When I lose weight, the car is fixed... as soon as, soon as, soon as...
-Joy has more to do with who we are than what we have, more to do with the healthiness of our attitude than of our body.

Story of two men in a hospital room, one had the window view. Since he had lung congestion, he had to sit up for an hour each day. The other had an illness that forced him to remain laying down all day. The roommate who had the window view became his best friend over time. He would look out the window and describe beautiful scenes that he saw taking place in the "park" across the way... ducks, swans, kids playing, sail boats, flowers, grass, sunsets, etc. The bedridden roommate loved those moments and took great pleasure from hearing about those things. However, jealousy began to set in... sour, bitter envy, because he could not see out the window. One night, his friend began coughing, but couldn't reach the call button for help. His friend did not help him, and he died.

Days later, he asked for the bed by the window... the view was of a blank wall. His friend had been making up those scenes for his enjoyment.

****

-Joy is a choice, based on "being" not "doing". We are "human beings", not "human doings"!
-"If your happiness or health depends upon what somebody else says or does, then you have a problem." Richard Bach

"You will surely forget your trouble,
recalling it only as waters gone by.
Life will be brighter than noonday,
and darkness will become like morning.
You will be secure, because there is hope
you will look about you and take rest in safety."
Job 11:16-18

-Procrastinating over the joy of being alive is one of the greatest burglars of life I know.
-A young man who was desperately seeking God asked a wise, godly, old man, "How can I see God?"
The old man pondered the question for a long time before answering.
"Young man, I'm not sure that I can help you. For you see, I have a very different problem. I cannot NOT see Him."
-In life, the temptation is to reduce everything to size, including life itself! A bowl of cherries. A rat race. Amino acids. Even to call it a mystery smacks of reductionism. It is THE mystery.
-As far as anybody seems to know, the vast majority of things in the universe do not HAVE whatever life is. Sticks, stones, stars, space - they simply are. A few things are, and are somehow aware of it. They have broken through into Something, or a Something has broken through into them. Even a jelly fish, a butternut squash. They're in it with us. We're all in it together, or it in us. Life is it. Life is with.
-After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. "There is only one miracle", he answered, "it is life." Buechner

You Gotta Keep Dancing (part 2)

In 1962, research scientists, Victor and Mildred Goertzel, published the provocative and revealing "Cradles of Eminence". Its purpose was to study 413 "famous and exceptionally gifted people" and learn what produced such lives. The patterns which emerged from the very beginning of the study were startling. For example, approximately 80% of the later to be famous children loathed school. 7 out of 10 came from houses that could not be considered warm or peaceful. Rather, they were homes that were riddled with traumas such as physical handicaps. Almost every conceivable handicap had been overcome by some eminent person. The book provided some revealing insights into the roots of people who were later called "great". Virtually all of them had overcome severe difficulties in order to become the people they were called to be.
-Perhaps God gives us difficulties in order to know who we really are, and who we really can be.
-We live in a world that is sometimes constipated by its superficiality. But life's difficulties can be a privilege, in that they allow us, or even force us to break through the superficiality to the deeper life within.
"Success is never final and failure is never fatal, it is courage that counts." Winston Churchill
-In his book, "Man's Search for Meaning", Victor Franklin writes of his horrendous experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. At one point they had taken everything from his life... except one thing, "the attitude with which he chose to respond to the situation." It became a turning point in his life, and from that discovery he developed the concept of "Logos Therapy", in essence, the ability to find meaning through every event in life, even the more difficult.
** Jesus did not come to explain away our suffering, but to fill it with His presence. **
-A light laser beam is essentially light energy, but we can safely hold our hand in front of a light bulb without being burned. However there are laser beams that can cut through 18 inches of steel. The difference is a matter of focus.
-Life must have limitations in order to have depth.
-At the Olympics in 1952, a young Hungarian looked down his pistol and split the bull's eye again and again. He just couldn't miss. With his perfect right hand and eye coordination, he won the gold medal. 6 months later, he lost his right arm in an accident. But in Melbourne 4 years later, he split the bull's eye again and again, winning his 2nd gold medal... with his left hand! He simply chose not to be limited by his limitations.
-Our level of joy (and therefore our strength and healing) is directly proportional to our level of ACCEPTANCE.
-There are 365 "fear nots" in the Bible (one for each day of the year).
-"In the midst of the winter, I finally discovered within me an invincible summer." Albert Camus
-A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Joan Englund
William Stratton was asked when he decided to be a poet. He replied, "Everyone is born a poet. A person discovering the way words sound and work, begins caring and delighting in those words. I just kept doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is, Why did some people stop?"
-The word exhaust comes from a Latin word which means "to draw out". It's a feeling of emptiness.
-I love you too much to let you be less than your best.
-Many people don't realize that your body chemistry changes amidst depression, and the chemical imbalances are often a big part of why the depression continues.
-Society produces in us a "wanting mind". Much thought has, at its root, a dissatisfaction with what IS. Wanting is the urge for the NEXT moment to contain what THIS moment does not! When there's "wanting" in the mind, THAT moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeking elsewhere, completeness is being right here.
-"Lack of faith is not remembering what God has done for you in the past."
St. Augustine
-"As for me, I've tasted a little from every cup and grown through the struggle. I have loved until I ached from loving, and wept until my heart was sick of tears. I have known life in all its complexities, and looking back, I would not undo one moment if I could." Marilee Zdenek
-Joy is a process, a journey - often hurried, sometimes detoured, a mystery in which we participate, not a product which we can grasp. It grows and regenerates as we have the courage to let go and trust the process. Growth and joy are inhibited when we say "if only". It is enhanced when we realize that failures and difficulties are our opportunities to grow.
-When we give up our obsessive need for security and "clean victories", for "everything to be right", then the perfect peace that passes all understanding has room to invade our lives again.

He who binds to himself a joy,
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternities sunrise.
Wm. Blake

Two reasons that people miss joy are:
1) They have preconceived notions of what joy is supposed to be.
2) They try to hold onto those experiences, to keep and preserve them.
-The root of the word "problem" means "to throw forward". A life without problems would be pointless and meaningless.
-Scripture tells us that the righteous will flourish like palm trees, but we must remember that palm trees don't grow in beautiful forests, they grow in deserts. We are called to bear fruit, but we must recognize that fruit trees grow in valleys, not on mountaintops.
-So many people seem to treat their faith as though it were an artificial limb that they strap on each day. Though it helps them to stumble along, it never becomes a part of them.
-I would rather make my days count, than merely count my days.
*****

Ta-Da! :-)
Gary

If I could write a song then I would keep it real! :D I'm hoping you register with Jpay or drop a P.O. box - I want to pass along a few important contacts.

The melody lingers long after the song. :D

Gary