Into The Light...

In case you missed it, all the major evening news programs carried a story about a young man named Craig Breedlove last Thursday evening.   They told the story of a young man, just 18 years old, with an incurable heart disease who made the most of his young life.   But, what really makes this story so powerful is his description of his previous near-death experiences where he described being bathed in a white light and later in a white room, so full of peace, a place he did not want to leave.

Mindy believes that Spirit used Craig Breedlove to deliver a message to the world at large about how people should not fear their eventual "passing over".

You can see the set-up piece here:

CBS Morning News Segment on Ben Breedlove

Ben died on Christmas day.   But the message he left the rest of us... too long at over seven minutes to be shown in full on the networks, it can be seen in its entirety below.   So far, over 1,000,000 people have viewed the message of hope and everlasting peace that he left... now you can too...

Political Discourse...

My friend Dave K is a libertarian. In response to a recent email dialogue where someone suggested...

"Anyone is better than Obama."  

He replied...

"Really?  The Republican party is supposedly our salvation?  Does it really matter any more...?"

Upon further reflection, perhaps Dave is right after all...

...Everybody Hurts...

The New Year is just several days away.   For some, a hope for a new beginning… for others, a time to forget to the past.   But for many, an excuse for raucus celebration, and for a few, the beginning of a long, never ending journey into a life of sadness.   Please take the time to review this incredibly powerful Australian video about drinking and driving and pass it along to your friends and loved ones.   So if you must drink…, on New Year’s or at any other time of the year, please do so responsibly.  And let someone else drive.   THINK about what COULD happen…  is all that worth it?  ... Really?

When your day is long and the night

The night is yours alone

When you're sure you've had enough of this life, 

Don't let yourself go

Cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes...sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone ...hold on...
If you feel like letting go
When you think you've had too much of life well hold on...

Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in  your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw in your hand, oh no hold on
Don't throw in  your hand
If you feel like you are alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you are on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts... sometimes
Everybody cries
And everybody hurts... sometimes
And everybody hurts... sometimes
So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, Hold on
Hold on, Hold on

Everybody hurts
You are not alone...


as sung by REM...

A Veteran's Christmas Wish

On this Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2011, I would like to share a poem by my friend, Robert A. Hall, a former Marine and Vietnam Veteran.   His words could equally  apply to those who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan as well… and we should not forget that…

A Veteran's Christmas Wish

Each year when Christmas comes around again,

I pause on Christmas Eve to take a dram

Of whisky, and I think of absent friends,

And Christmas in a place called Vietnam.

I think of boys who never had the chance

To see their kids on Christmas Eve at play,

Their lives were spent that freedom might advance

From Valley Forge right up through yesterday.

They fell at Belleau Wood and Normandy,

At Gettysburg, at Iwo, and at Hue,

They gave their lives to keep our people free,

And never saw another Christmas Day.

So take a moment from your festive joys,

To think of soldiers who were young and true,

And say a pray on Christmas Eve for boys

Who gave up all their Christmases for you.

                  Robert A. Hall

                  Former SSG, USMC

Deck The Halls!

If you were able to come by our house, you would see that it is the brightest in the whole neighborhood, both inside and out!  In side we have at least SIX fairly large Christmas trees and plenty of other decorations to go around as well...

No one does Christmas like Mindy and she always has.  She knows how to spread around the Holiday Spirit that's for sure.   And that is something I hope I will always remember!

Merry Christmas to All of You!

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Apologies to those regular readers who've been wondering where I have been.  After conducting a successful whitetail population count in Wisconsin over Thanksgiving, I must have caught a virus on the airplane on the way home... within a week I had a bad cold...which for me usually means two weeks as it usually settles into my chest the second week which it did.   Usually I resist antibiotics, but after a self diagnosis of pleurisy which it was, I relented and took the antibiotics (after the Doc popped that chest rib back into place that I had coughed out of place).  All that took about another painful ten days and so...  here we are... not all better, but better than I was...

The first thought I want to post now that I am back is one that came from Paul Allen's autobiography "Idea Man", a book I read on the flights to and from Wisconsin.  Paul Allen, along with Bill Gates, founded Microsoft.  Despite all his success, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer, at the age just 29.  Fortunately for him, it was diagnosed at its earliest stage and he was able to beat it into submission.  But...in doing so, it taught him perspective about life.  Working with Bill Gates, a very focused and difficult person, had always been tense and Mr. Allen used this health challenge as a pretext to permanently sever the partnership.  For the first time in his life he began to travel, to act upon his many interests outside of the business.  Two years later, his father, an encouraging mentor throughout his life, died unexpectantly from a pulmonary embolism at the age of just 61.

Both of these experiences changed the way he viewed and has since led his life.  One of the most important lessons is that wealth, while very empowering, cannot control the way the world works.  Despite being worth some $13 Billion, owning the Portland Trailblazers and the Seattle Seahawks, and Octopus, the 9th largest yacht in the world as well as numerous other real estate and technology investments, Mr. Allen was again stricken with cancer in 2009.  He wrote in his book that...  "I've come to realize that many things happen at their own pace, beyond your control, whether it's the development of a young point guard or the trial of a potential Alzheimer's therapy.  I'm learning to less harried in anticipation and more accepting of each necessary, incremental step." 

He points out that YOU are in control of your own happiness and that happiness is all relative.  If you are not happy, then you should act to change the circumstances of your surroundings to become so.  But sometimes, due to circumstances beyond your control, you must find the happiness in the hand you had been given.  And that my friends, is a lesson all of us must learn.

"Paul Allen- Idea Man"