How Much For This

Have you ever conducted a tag, yard, garage or moving sale? Did you find it to be a fun experience?

Today was the first day of a two-day event, but we aren't so sure that it'll take two days to sell everything! The huge signs around the neighborhood said that we were going to be open on Thursday and Friday from 8 AM to 3 PM. However, people began to arrive at 7 AM. Perhaps where we live is the Yard or Moving Sale capitol of the world, I am not sure, but I do know that the folk here are great enthusiasts for such events! WOW, they are serious about this sale business!

It took us about three weeks of packing and sorting - not full time, mind you, because we are still teaching and writing and conducting the work of Life Renewal Institute. With the help of two very precious friends, we've been able to spend a couple of hours here and there, and in the last three days, we spent probably 4-5 hours of sorting, boxing, pricing etc.

Well, it's about 4 PM on Day One of the sale. I am in my recliner (a Yard Sale find) that has a vibrator in the lower back area. My feet are propped up, and Baby, am I ever grateful for my yard sale find! My legs are screaming, but know what? Tomorrow's sale is off! We still have a few more things (mainly books from our vast library, but the bookcases are gone! I think we'll wait until after our Portland, Oregon event to have another sale. Who knows? By then there will probably be more "stuff to sell!

I suppose that in this economy, folks are looking for a steal on anything. Items priced at ten cents went as fast as pricier items. The 25 cent items flew off the tables!

Sometimes it takes a while to prepare for an event - a wedding, an anniversary, a special celebration - and before you know it the day is over, Been thinkin' that it's that way with life! Just about the time you think you've finally grown up, the gray hairs and creaky limbs appear. Sometimes you wonder why you never did the things you wanted to do before the aches and pains of maturing age hit ya', but at least you've got those retirement years to do some of what you wanted. If you're one of the lucky ones that the financial meltdown has not affected too drastically, praise God for your blessings. Hop on a golf cart or in your car, and go a-tag-sale-in'. See what bargains you can find, meet some of the nicest people in the world, and thank your God in Heaven for the little things in life!

Disappointments

Everyone experiences them. They are somewhat devastating when they happen, but why do they and how should we respond to them? I suppose a good percentage of the intensity of our reaction depends on the depth of the disappointment and how it affects your life. In our long years of life, we have come to realize that many of them, or maybe all of them, happen for a reason and are divinely appointed.

Just after the holidays, we were scheduled to leave NM and head back to Phoenix for a day or two and then on to a speaking appointment in Florida. On the day we were to leave NM, it began to rain cats and dogs - no really phone calls - and in the middle of all the calls, we endeavored to check on our flight to verify departure and arrival times. That's when the terror hit!

The airline that we always use had no record of our booking the needed flights. We even asked a friend to check the place in our office where we keep our reservations, and no information about the needed flight was there! We checked the credit card records - nothing! We were in an incredible mess. Add to that the fact that we had enjoyed house guests from the 23rd until the 4th of the succeeding month, and much energy had been expended there, so we were a bit weary. I was endeavoring to pack the appropriate items for that particular appointment plus whatever we would need for the next five weeks of absence from home - traveling to appointments.

Finally, when everything possible had been checked we checked with the airlines to find a price for the needed flight. UGH! Nowadays, you book in advance, or it's "socked to ya'!" You can be sure that we were disappointed - or more like devastated! So.o.o. what to do?

Suddenly a thought came to me. Instead of jamming all of the packing and planning into one day and then hitting the road for an 8 hour drive back to Phoenix, unpacking the car, packing for our appointment and rushing to the airport, why not stay here (since we had to book another flight anyway) and fly from here rather than from Phoenix. We looked at each other in shock as the words came out of my mouth, and then breathed a corporate sigh of relief. We could "cool it."

So that's just what we did. You know, the older one gets, the wiser it is to do just that - cool it. Recognize that most disappointments work out as well or better in the end, and in many of the cases, there is a hidden blessing to be enjoyed.

I guess the old saying, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade," is a valid and smart one!

Pears n Pairs

After a lengthy absence from home, beginning the end of January, I went to the office and noticed that my calendar was still on January. As I turned the page to pass February and land in March, I noticed that my February calendar, entitled "Flavors of Life," had a giant picture of a pair of pears on the February page. How coincidental - or was it?

We have spent the last four seminars ministering to pairs - to couples. In this picture, two Bosc pairs sit on a table, surrounded by their leaves. The left pair, slight larger and taller than the right one, leans toward the other with it's top curled slightly over it's companion pair in a protective stance. The right pair leans into the embrace. These two pears do indeed, look like a human pair, snuggled to each other. What a profound picture.

God did create first the male, the stronger of the two, to be provider, protector and priest. And when He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, he created a "helper suitable for him" to be the concerned, compassionate caregiver. Amazing how this picture on my calendar seems to depict that.

As we have dealt with couples here in the US, the Czeck Republic, Russia, the islands of the Caribbean, Singapore and in Guam and England, we have discovered that the issues they confront are not appreciably different from each other. The issue of selfishness raises its ugly head everywhere, and to be sure, each individual brings into their relationship, the issues that they carry from previous generations in their own families. He brings his junk, she brings hers and together they make more of the same.

How in the world do we get around this? We DON'T! We have to go headlong, straight through it. We have to look at our beginnings, going back in previous generations as far as we can to find and then acknowledge the trash that has been handed to us. Of course, we wade through that to discover the good we received, because there's always some of that. And then each one in the couple must do the work of removing the emotional charges from their old memories. This will guarantee that her junk doesn't affect him and visa versa.

There's a process to help you do that work - thought you might like to know. Actually there are three choices:

a 22 session recovery program

a scientific and more complete approach to emotional healing (4, 10-session segments)

This one's been out a while, but is still effective.

So if you want your marital picture to look like the pair of pears, and it currently doesn't, may we suggest the above restitutional programs?

Don't Do What We've Done

Paper, paper everywhere - and much more stuff to shred! My Grandmother's stuff, my parents' stuff and ours! It's just too much when one finally comes to downsizing and packing to move.

We have had a storage room off of our garage, where we have kept files and files of not-needed and now definitely unwanted papers of all types. You don't want to know how many bags of shredded paper our poor garbage man has had to haul off- unbelievable. There was just NO WAY we were going to cart it all to our smaller house that does not have a garage nor a storage room, and is in itself, much smaller than our house here.

Reminds me of the stuff of our lives that we keep and just don't need to! Of course there are precious, treasured memories, that we hope we'll never loose, but there are other experiences and thoughts and feelings that we need to shred and put in some never-to-be-looked-at-again landfill, far away!

After all of the research that we have done about the human mind and it's power, we believe that those long ago, should-have-been-trashed memories, that are filled with the accompanying emotion, slow down our thinking and create glitches in our recall and thought processes as we age. We believe that many seniors loose awareness and memory because there's too much "paper" (recorded memory and emotions) junking up the brain, just like the unwanted paper has cluttered our storage room and study.

You know, one of the finest thing we can do for seniors, is to get them to talk about the past - their lives, their loves, their pain, their regrets. That's like helping them to identify unneeded paper and shredding it, making things ever so much simpler. Maybe, before you are a senior, you should start talking or writing about some of your memories. It's the painful ones that drag us down, because the accompanying negative emotions pull us toward sadness, anger, fear and a host of other negative emotions.

Moral of this blog - start shredding NOW!

It's Everywhere

We are in Sun City, the retirement capitol of the world! Many people play golf here on one of the MANY courses, and most people, whether or not they play golf, own a golf cart. They are fun open-air vehicles that don't go much faster than 30 mph, and can be used on most streets here in town.

Yesterday Deb and I decided to go for a ride - fresh air, sunshine and all that! We had some rolls left over from the previous supper, and decided to donate them to the ducks at one of the local ponds, so off we went.

When we arrived, we were swarmed by pigeons, who I suppose thought that they were going to get the hand-out, but we had our minds made up - this bread was for the ducks! As we approached the water's edge with our bag of goodies, the ducks swam quickly to greet us, hoping that our sack contained their snack.

After that fifteen minute experience, we have decided that the ducks are no different from humans in their need to be first, their selfish greed and their eagerness to do whatever it takes to get ahead!

Two black ducks seemed to be standing on top of the water as they fought each other over a few crumbs. They snipped and bit each other, and the battle finally ended when one ducked under the water and bobbed up elsewhere. But that wasn't enough for the aggressor, who quickly paddled to where his partner had popped up, to snip and bite at him again!

One brown duck, who Deb's granddaughter had named "Peanut Butter" was a target of much jealousy, as Deb tried, almost in vain, to see that Peanut Butter got her fair share. Two other brown ducks attacked, attempting to chase her away from the landing bread scraps.

There was one pure white duck on the pond in the midst of beautiful iridescent purple and green headed mallards. "Whitey" seemed to shrink back, reticent to swim forward within reach of the bread. This was the shy duck, more interested in harmony with the others than in eating himself.

Most swam as fast as possible to bread scraps landing in the water from the shore. They would circle and dive for the bread as for lost treasure. Actually, the scene was reminiscent of a football game's big tacle or a parade, where candy is being thrown to the bystanders from people on a passing float.

"I want, I want, Gimmee, That's mine!, Me first, It's my turn." Ever watch a group of people wanting to be the first to board a plane or a train or a bus? It's as if the world will come to an end if they aren't first to board.I guess it's about survival, but are we so self-centered and selfish, that we, like the ducks, don't care who we hurt as long as we get "it" first and make sure that what we do get is the BEST? Do we step on others to get to the top?

Watch people for a week or two, and write in with your thoughts. See how many "Whiteys" you can find in the crowd versus the others who will do whatever they can to get "the bread."