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January 2003
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From the OmniRead Treasuries -- New Year
The kingdom of God (enlightened consciousness) is within you and it can reveal 2003 to you far better than any of our prophets can prophesy. It can give you a wisdom with which to live the year....
There was a cartoon in the paper this morning where one of the characters went to the window and said, "It doesn't look any different outdoors. It still looks just like 2002."
The outside is always the same. The difference is in our consciousness, and then whatever is different in our consciousness externalizes outside. If nothing takes place in our consciousness, nothing can change outside.
Until your consciousness is deepened and enriched, your world cannot be deepened and enriched. Your world is always giving back to you the measure and state of your consciousness.
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Lessons About Love
I have learned that there are many ways of falling and staying in love.
I have learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be something else to take its place.
I have learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
I have learned that there are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
I have learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
I have learned that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
I have learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
I have learned that although the word 'love' can have many meanings, it loses value when overused.
Source unknown
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Laughter Divine
God cannot be solemn or he wouldn't have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter.
Sydney Harris
In church one Sunday morning a mother was kneeling with her small son during prayers when she heard him laughing. The mother said: "Danny, stop making that noise." The little boy replied: "It's all right, Mom, I just told God a joke and we are both laughing."
Donald Allen
Laughter with us is still suspect to this extent at least, that not yet do we, without a shock, think of God laughing.
A Clutton-Brock
In laughing whole-heartedly, a man or woman must attain a certain freedom from selfishness, a certain purity; and the greatest saints are the merriest hearted people.
Mary Webb
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Forgive Yourself
After a true encounter with the Grace that redeems, we are instantly forgiven; but in order to benefit from this forgiveness, we must in turn forgive others and ourselves.
Anonymous
You cannot enter into this spiritual life until you have forgiven your past. You have to just close your eyes, look back on the years and say, "Yes, they were just full of insults to God and to my fellow man. They were just full of sins, but now at last I know it and I know they were wrong.
It may be that I can never right the particular wrongs to the particular people involved, but at least I can recognize the nature of my sins and be done with it. I have control over this minute and even succeeding minutes, and I can close my eyes now and be at peace because I am doing no injustice to anyone.
I know now that I am my neighbor and my neighbor is me; I know now that we are one, and as long as I am one with my neighbor in this way, I am loving my neighbor and thereby I am loving God supremely."
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Greatness Grows from Silence
Great souls care only for what is great.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together, that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic. As the Swiss inscription says:"Speech is silver, silence is golden". Or, as I might rather express it: "Speech is of time, silence is of eternity".
Thomas Carlyle
Be silent about great things; let them grow inside you. Never discuss them: discussion is so limiting and distracting. It makes things grow smaller. You think you swallow things when they ought to swallow you. Before all greatness, be silent -- in art, in music, in religion: silence....
Friedrich von Hugel
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Resolution is Omnipotent
We took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not be seen to fast ostentatiously. When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try, in humble hope of the help of God.
Samuel Johnson
"Resolution," says John Foster, "is omnipotent." He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Tryon Edwards
I will seek elegance rather than luxury, refinement rather than fashion. I will seek to be worthy more than respectable, wealthy and not rich. I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. I will listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with an open heart. I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely await occasions and hurry never. In a word I will let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common.
William Ellery Channing
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Some Questions
You don't have to actually answer the following questions, just read them, you'll get the point.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. 2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. 3. Name the last five winners of the Miss Universe contest. 4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. 5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor or actress. 6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
How well did you do? If you're like most of us, probably not very well.
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies, awards tarnish, achievements are forgotten, accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school. 2. Name three friends who have helped you through difficult times. 3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile. 4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special. 5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with. 6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.
Easier? The Lesson: The people who make a difference in our lives are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards, they are the ones that care the most. So, if you want to be lovingly remembered ... be a carer and show it some tangible way.
Charles Schultz
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Worry Doubles Trouble.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
Charles Schultz
'Each day has troubles enough of its own', so why anticipate them? If we do, we double them. For if our fear does not materialize, we have worried once for nothing; if it does materialize, we have worried twice instead of once. In both cases; it is foolish -- worry doubles trouble.
John R W Stott
Bishop Quayle sat up one night worrying. Finally God spoke to him and said, "You had better go to bed, Quayle; I'll sit up the rest of the night."
Source unknown
Blessed is the individual who is too busy to worry in the daytime, and too sleepy at night.
Earl Riney
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Not One, Not Two.
When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they have become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
Shunryu Suzuki
How does one seek union with God? The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you. So what does one do about the distance? Understand that it isn't there. Does that mean that God and I are one Not one. Not two. How is that possible? The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song. -- Not one. Not two.
Anthony de Mello
True affection is a body of enigmas, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one that they both become two.
Thomas Browne
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- So Near
It is difficult to believe in God, not because He is so far off, but because He is so near.
Mark Rutherford
As far as meaning is from speech, as beauty from a rose, As far as music is from sound, as poetry from prose, As far as love from friendship is, as reason is from Truth, As far as laughter is from joy, and early years from youth, As far as love from shining eyes, as passion from a kiss, So far is God from God's green earth, so far that world from this.
G A Studdert Kennedy
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
Alfred Tennyson
He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
A W Tozer.
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Life Must be Expressed
It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole of life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived.
It seems that if this tendency is thwarted the energy directed towards life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed towards destruction. In other words: the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive towards life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more life is realised, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.
Erich Fromm
It is from within us, deep down within us, that the new life proceeds and that means that anything which is not an expression of us will not be an expression of God either. In some sense the converse is also true. What is not an expression of God will not be a true expression of us.
Simon Tugwell
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Misunderstanding
Anything that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
Murphy's Law
A sculptor walked into a granite merchant's yard one day and asked if he could buy a block about one metre square and two metres high. The merchant took him to where six blocks were standing and asked him to select the one he wanted. The sculptor inspected them all very carefully and finally selected one.
"Where do you want it delivered?" asked the merchant. "I don't want it delivered," said the sculptor. "While I have the inspiration, I'll work on it here in the yard … if that's okay." He started immediately and worked day after day for nearly a month.
Finally, he announced that it was finished, and the merchant saw, standing before him, a life-size statue of Winston Churchill. "Well," he said, "that beats all! How did you know that was the block he was in?"
Source unknown
Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Saved by Forgiveness
A small boy, repeating the Lord's Prayer one evening prayed: "And forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are dead against us."
Anonymous
Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness.
David Augsnurger
God likes forgiving big sins more than small ones.The bigger they are the gladder he is and the quicker to forgive them.
Meister Eckhart
How can we tell when a sin we have committed has been pardoned? By the fact that we no longer commit that sin.
Rabbi Bunam of Pzhysha
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Free to Other Himself
To say that God is non-dual (rather than one) is another way of saying that he is free -- absolutely. He is free to be One, not bound to be One. He is free to include diversity in his unity, free to "other" himself.
This "othering" of himself is the free gift of his Being to creatures who otherwise might not have existed. And these creatures are in reality other than God; if they were not, God could not be said to give his Being to others, and would not be free to include real diversity in his unity.
Thus non-duality means that God is entirely free from the essential limitation of finite existence, which is that a creature cannot at once be itself and another.
Alan Watts
In the "Not Two" are no separate things, yet all things are included.
Seng Ts'an
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Waves on the Sand
The ocean is becoming rough; the waves come in slowly, tugging strength from far back. The moment before they somersault, the moment when they arch their backs so beautifully, showing green and white veins amid the black, that moment is intolerable. They finally crack, dashing fiercely upon the sand, actually driving, full force downward against the sand, bouncing upward and forward, and at last petering out into a small stream which races up the beach and then is recalled.
Delmore Schwartz
The shatter'd water made a misty din, Large waves looked over others coming in; And thought of doing something to the shore That water'd never done to land before.
Lines by an unknown author found written in sand on Bondi Beach, Sydney
Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterday's scribblings.
And then, some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind....
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Listen Then Speak
Though we begin the practice of secret prayer with a strong sense that we are the initiators and that by our wills we are establishing our habits, maturing experience brings awareness of being met, and tutored, purged and disciplined, simplified and made pliant in His holy will by a power waiting within us.
For God Himself works in our souls, in their deepest depths, taking increasing control as we are progressively willing to be prepared for his wonder. We cease trying to make ourselves the dictators and God the listener, and become the joyful listeners to Him, the Master who does all things well.
Thomas R Kelly
God speaks to those who are still enough to listen.
Anonymous
The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only she who listens can speak.
Dag Hammerskjold
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Fine Art of Fishing
There was a rather notorious poacher called Bert who enjoyed a very effective but highly illegal method of putting a feed of fish on the family table: he'd row out into the middle of a lake, light the fuse on a stick of dynamite, throw it in the water, then just sit around and wait. The force of the detonation would bring a harvest of dead fish floating belly up to the surface, where he would simply gather them in a hand net.
Bert had a cousin, Roger, a volunteer wildlife and game warden, who came to visit. Bert invited him out fishing. Roger watched in amazement as Bert lit a stick of dynamite, tossed it into the pond and began netting the illegally slaughtered fish. Roger started nagging away at Bert: he knew Bert's family and all that, but the law was the law and he was duly appointed and was going to have to haul Bert in.
Bert took all this in and then calmly pulled out another stick of dynamite. He lit the fuse, let it burn down quite a bit then handed the spluttering explosive to Roger and said, "Well, what are you gunna do. You gunna talk or you gunna fish?"
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Wise Wagers
The story is told of a corporal who reported to a new regiment with a letter from his old captain saying, "This man is a good soldier and he'd be even better if you could cure him of his constant gambling."
The new C.O. looked at him sternly and said, "I hear you're an inveterate gambler; I don't approve, it's bad for discipline. What kind of thing do you bet on?" "Practically anything, sir," said the corporal. "If you like, I'll bet you $50 that you've got a strawberry birthmark under your right arm."
The C.O. snapped, "Put down your money!" then, stripped to the waist, proved conclusively that he had no birthmark, and picked up the notes on the table.
He couldn't wait to phone the captain and exalted ... "That corporal of yours won't be in a hurry to make a bet after what I just did to him." "Don't be so sure," said the captain glumly, "he just wagered me $200 he'd get you to take your shirt off five minutes after he reported." Source unknown Belief (in God) is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? … If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. Blaise Pascal
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Ah Breakfast
Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well provisioned breakfast-table.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets; hot bread and cold bread, white bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers' bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread … There were eggs in napkins, and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers; and there were little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on a hot-water dish … Such was the ordinary fare at Plumstead Episcopi.
Anthony Trollope
I have a breakfast of philosophers tomorrow at ten punctually. Muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will you come?
Sydney Smith
I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day." said Mr Irwine. "No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things. I always have a favourite book by me at breakfast, and I enjoy the bits I pick up then so much that regularly every morning it seems to me as if I should certainly become studious again."
George Eliot
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Creating Stillness Within
At birth, a person is like a spring of clear water, which, on its course through mountains and plains picks up earth and mud and becomes dirty, but if it is dammed at any place the mud settles, and it becomes clear again ... reflecting the infinite sky.
Chu Fu Tsu
We can make our lives so like still water that beings gather about us that they might see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life, because of our quiet.
W B Yeats
No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things from within and unconsciously, and at last become one with heaven and earth.
Lao Tzu
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
Lao-Tzu
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- A Big Problem
He'd rejected the idea of dieting, health spas and swimming but when his doctor advised golf, the corpulent patient thought it might be worth trying. After a few weeks, however, he was back at the doctor's and asking whether he could take up some other game.
"But," protested the doctor, "what's wrong with golf? There's no finer game!" "You are doubtless correct," the patient replied, "but my trouble is that when I put the wretched ball where I can see it I can't hit it and when I put it where I can hit it, I can't see it!"
Source unknown
Has it ever struck you that there's a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there's a statue inside every block of stone?
George Orwell
Outside every fat man there is an even fatter man trying to close in.
Kingsley Amis
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Winter
There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year.
Kathleen Norris
The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty. It fell and fell, lacing day and night together in a milky haze, making everything quieter as it fell, so that winter seemed to partake of religion in a way no other season did, hushed, solemn.
Patricia Hampl
There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you . . . In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.
Ruth Stout
If Winter should say, "Spring is in my heart", who would believe Winter?
Kahlil Gibran
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Brave Forgive
The weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.
Mohandas K Gandhi
A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.
Alexander Pope
Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue that human nature can arrive at. A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.
Laurence Sterne
Doing an injury puts you below your enemy; revenging one, makes you even with him; forgiving it sets you above him.
Nylic Review
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Approaching Crisis
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D Eisenhower
The people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberties. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.
Thomas Jefferson
Those who give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security.
Benjamin Franklin
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Resist Not Evil
During the civil disturbances of the 19th century in Japan, a fugitive samurai took refuge in the temple of Soto Zen Master Bokusan. Three pursuers arrived and demanded to know where he was, "No one here," said the Zen master. "If you won't tell us, then we'll cut off your head," and they drew their swords to do so.
"Tnen if I am to die," said the Zen master, "I think I'll have a little wine," and so saying, he calmly took down a small bottle, poured the wine, and sipped it with evident relish. Perplexed, the samurai looked at one another. Finally, they went away.
Bokusan was repeatedly asked about this incident, but did not want to discuss it. Once, however, he said; "Well, there is something to be learned from it. When those fellows came, I did not do what they wanted, but neither did I quarrel with them or plead with them. I just gave up their whole world and had nothing to do with them. And after a time I found they had gone away.
Eirene A Chara
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Togetherness
Together ... the most beautiful word in the language of love.
Valentines Card,
Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.
Henry Ford
Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Kahlil Gibran
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Outcomes of War
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war... and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison, April 20, 1795
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Something Worse Than Illness
The pale figure known as, 'Illness' was walking toward a city one morning when he was encountered by a man who asked, "Who are you and what's your business in the city?"
"My name is Illness," the gaunt figure replied, "And in one week, in the city before us, I'm going to take 100 people, both young and old, from this life,"
"That's horrible!" the man said.
"That's the way it is," Illness said. "That's what I do."
The man, being concerned for others, hurried on ahead to the city and throughout the following week, held public meetings, published newspaper articles and in radio and TV interviews, warned everyone he could about Illness's visit to the city and dreadful plan.
At the end of the week, tired and utterly frustrated, he met Illness again. "You told me you were going to take 100 people," the man said. "Why then did over 1,000 die?"
"I kept my word," Illness responded. "I only took 100 people. My associate, 'Worry' took the others."
PSS
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- No Oil Painting!
Two farm workers had been out playing poker one Saturday night and had lost all of their money. They got in their pick-up truck and headed for home. As they turned on to a quiet country road, they noticed an old sow which was sound asleep just over the fence. "Hey!" Said one of the boys. "I know a man in town who would give me $50 for that old sow and we could get back in to that game and clean it out."
They agreed that would be a good idea and set about to get the sow into the back of their truck. The hard part was getting her over the fence. Just as they were ready to put her in the truck they looked up to see a car coming. The little blue light, flashing on top, told them it was the highway patrol. They didn't know what to do. There wasn't enough time to put the sow back over the fence. Instead, they had the bright idea of putting the sow in the cab of the truck between them.
They were just driving off, when the police officer pulled alongside and threw his spotlight on them. "Who are you and what are you doing down this country road this time of night?" He shouted. "Oh, our truck just stalled. We're on our way home. We're the McGee brothers. We live just down the road." One of them said. "The McGee brothers." Demanded the police officer. Then pointing his light, he said, "What's your name?" "I'm Bill." The boy in the driver's seat said. "And what's your name?" The police officer said, shining his light in the face of the boy on the far side of the cab. "Oh, I'm Ted." The boy said. "And you, in the middle there!" The police officer said, shining his light on the sow, "What's your name?" Just then the driver gave the sow a mighty poke in the ribs to which she responded with a loud "OINK!" "Okay, you boys," The police officer said. "I guess you're all right. Get going. And don't stop on the road late at night like this, if you don't want to get into trouble."
The brothers took off in the truck as fast as they could go. The police officer turned around and headed back to town. As he drove down the road, he said to his offsider, "You know, I've been around for quite a while, but that Oink McGee is the ugliest man I've ever seen!"
Source unknown
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- That's Big!
Space … is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams
In comparison with heaven and earth, man is like a mayfly. But compared to the great Way, heaven and earth, too, are like a bubble and a shadow. Only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.
Lu Yen
First, let us fling wide the doors and windows of our minds and make some attempt to appreciate the 'size' of God. He must not be limited to 'religious' matters or even to the 'religious' interpretation of life. He must not be confined to one particular section of time nor must we imagine him as the local God of this planet or even only of the universe that astronomers have so far 'discovered'.
It is not, of course, physical size that we are trying to establish in our minds. (Physical size is not important. By any reasonable scheme of values a human being is of vastly greater worth than a mountain ten million times his physical size.) It is rather to see the immensely broad sweep of the Creator's activity, the astonishing complexity of his mental processes which science laboriously uncovers, the vast sea of what we can only call 'God' in a small corner of which man lives and moves and has his being.
J B Phillips
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Forgiveness is a Choice
Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.
Source unknown
As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind.
Isabelle Holland
Know all and you will pardon all.
Thomas á Kempis
A young man about to be released from gaol, wrote to his parents who lived not far from a railway track, "If you can forgive me and want me to come home, hang a sheet on the line so I can see it, otherwise, I'll just keep going." When, eventually, he looked out the window as the train approached his parents house, every sheet and towel they possessed was hanging out to welcome him.
Source unknown
