January 5

I love the inspiration that I am getting from music.  God has always loved to speak right into my heart through music.

Today I've been grumpy.... My body feels crappy.... I feel out of sorts... troubled.... broken down....
And for the last hour, I've been trying to embrace my crappy mood and just be grateful for the reasons that I feel crappy.... And then on comes Jack Johnson again.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4O7ufx9D_s


Breakdown
I hope this old train breaks down
Then I could take a walk around
See what there is to see
Time is just a melody
With all the people in the street
Walking as fast as their feet can take them
I just roll through town
And though my window’s got a view
Well the frame I’m looking through
Seems to have no concern for now so for now I
I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown
Well this engine screams out loud
Centipede gonna crawl westbound
So I don’t even make a sound
Because it’s gonna sting me when I leave this town
And all the people in the street
That I’ll never get to meet
If these tracks don’t bend somehow
And I got no time that I got to get
To where I don’t need to be so I
I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown
I want to break on down
But I can’t stop now
Let me break on down
But you can’t stop nothing if you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind that you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothing but you don’t need to know
The wisdom’s in the trees not the glass windows
You can’t stop wishing if you don’t let go
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know
You keep on rolling, put the moment on hold
Because the frame’s too bright, so put the blinds down low
I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown
I got to break on down
But I can’t stop now

This Hawaii theme is just too cool in my life right now.

Aloha,
Emily

December 30

Sitting with my sis falling asleep on my shoulder listening to tunes.... today's blog is inspired by Jack Johnson, who hails from Hawaii.... what a nice fit with the theme for my blog this year.  Happy New Year everyone.... and wishing my mom and dad love on their 40th wedding anniversary today.  Love is always best when shared.

Enjoy:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2KYTOw5Fm4

"Better Together"

There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

Mmm, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone
When the morning light sings
And brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

Yeah, it's always better when we're together
Mmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

Mmm, mmm, mmm

I believe in memories
They look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
You look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.

To a New Year full of love!

Aloha,
Emily

December 22

Love your neighbour as you love yourself...

As you love yourself...

As I love myself....

What if I have been neglecting my self...

Does that impact my capacity to love my neighbour - - - or anyone else for that matter?

I have always loved Cheryl Richardson's philosophy of "The Art of Self-Care"....

I have decided that it is time to spend more time showing love and care for myself.... in meaningful ways that fill my cup and give me the capacity to love others, and it all starts here and now with improving my health.

Aloha,
Emily

December 19

Happy Holidays Everyone.

May the love of the season gently rest in our hearts.....Renee Locks

I am here to tell you, to promise you in fact, that simple, tiny changes made one minute at a time, one experience at a time, will positively change your life and every outcome of every experience, in powerful (though sometimes subtle) ways.
  ~Karen Casey

December 5

"I love the way you lie...."

These words come from a favourite pop song of my right now by Eminem and Rihanna....

Sometimes we accept lies... untruth...

We allow pain and resentment, apathy, ignorance, disregard to settle in our lives like water trapped in puddles after a flood.... but they stagnate and breed disease.  Our lives become swamps and we get stuck, bogged down by the rot and decay of life lived devoid of the light.... and we get sick... and wonder why we can never get healthy....

Can I admit that I am guilty of accepting lies because the truth would be harder to accept?

Yes.... But the light is growing brighter.... Like sunshine on a meadow of wildflowers...

Once, I wasn't doing very well.  I felt lost and exhausted.  I felt bogged down.

I sat in my front room and turned my face to the sun to take a few deep breaths and regain myself.  And in that moment, I recall that I turned my face, eyes closed to the sun.... Initially, the sun shone dark and red through my eyelids....but within moments, the light pulsed, growing brighter and whiter until it was pure and white.... and the lord spoke to me and said, "I want to fill your life with love and light".  And I knew that I was strong enough to overcome anything, and that he would always find a way to bring me back into his love and light when I wandered into darkness.

I don't believe anymore that God sits and waits for us to return when we wander.

I believe that He is with us everywhere, always.... trying to fill our lives with love and light if we will let Him.

God has always spoken to me through music... and I thank him for the gift of music that he is teaching me to rediscover right now.  Music is truly a language of love.....

Aloha,
Emily

November 28

November 29

I decided to write a letter today to request forgiveness for years of anger and resentment... and to offer my own forgiveness for the reasons for that pain….

I sat pondering what to write…. Wondered if I could really forgive… If I could really let go… there was a part of me that just wanted to hold on to the anger and resentment….some darkness that didn't want to let go. 

Then Ave Maria began to play…. And tears streamed down my face as it became abundantly clear to me that the Lord wants love and grace for me and not anger and resentment.   I finished the letter and sent it.

May this touch you in some way that it touched me as well.  And may forgiveness light your path of love. 

The video is poor, but the song is moving…. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and let the darkness melt away and the light of love fill you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQVz6vuNq7s

From Wikipedia:

AVE MARIA:

The prayer incorporates two passages from Saint Luke's Gospel: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1 28: ... and "Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" (Luke 1:42:...

The first of the two passages from Saint Luke's Gospel is the greeting of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, .. The opening word of greeting, χαῖρε, chaíre, here translated "Hail", literally has the meaning "Rejoice", "Be glad"....

The word κεχαριτωμένη, (kecharitōménē), here translated as "full of grace", admits of various translations. Grammatically, the word is the feminine present perfectpassive voice participle of the verb χαριτόω, charitóō, which means "to show, or bestow with, grace" and, in the passive voice, "to have grace shown, or bestowed upon, one".^[2][3]

November 26

1 Corinthians 13

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part,¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I regret that I have not blogged in many weeks, and that some of my faithful followers have been missing my words.  Thank you for your encouragementJ

The path of love is not always an easy one.  But where I seem to fail, I come back to 1 Corinthians.  It is used in an almost cliché way sometimes, but everytime I hear it, I am confident that I am hearing the truth about love.

There are people that I love very much who are suffering right now, and it saddens me.  It saddens me, because I feel that the suffering is being caused in the name of, or place of, love.  If REAL FORGIVENESS (think love keeps no record of wrongs) if difficult, then imagine that REAL LOVE can be so much more difficult. 

Or is it really? There are things that have happened to me in the past that I didn’t know if I could forgive,  but as I sit here now, and time and strength have gathered…. I can truly say that I can sit in a place of total forgiveness for all wrongs of the past.  Because my commitment to LOVE is so strong, I will MAKE A DECISION to forgive.  Can it really be that simple? I think it can.  It may need to be a choice that I make time and time again, when emotion and hurt return, but I do believe it is as simple as that.  It is the choice to move on…. Not to dwell in pain and resentment… Not to live in anger and hurt… but to simply walk forward in love.  The truth is clear.  There is no room for unforgiveness in the path of love. 

Maybe that is why hateful, angry, bitter, negative people are so abrasive in our lives…. They are resounding gongs and clanging cymbals…. But in the orchestra of life, we have THE CHOICE to make our own music, and I believe, to influence others in a deeply powerful way.   

I see many unhappy every day, who are unhappy because they do not receive the love that they are looking for every day in their lives.  Here is what I have come to believe.  Love attracts love.  To be loved, we start with being loving. 

On my journey, I feel blessed that new and wonderful people are entering my life every day.  Love attracts love… and WOW there is actually a WHOLE IMMENSE WORLD OF LOVE out there taking root and flowering.  In random acts of kindness, kindly made gifts, sharing of food and laughter, giving of friendship, thinking of another before one’s self….

Every act of patience, kindness, compassion, generosity, modesty, respect, selflessness, temperament, forgiveness, joy, truth, protection, trusting, hope and perseverance toward love is an act of love itself. 

It is not length of life, but depth of life.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can live forever…. But if we live without love…. We have not lived at all.

Aloha,

Emily