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Slow Down and Hear the Music
Too many
people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't
thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming
or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to
thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert
at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back.
From then
on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many
women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going
out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word
"refrigeration" mean nothing to you?
How often
have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched
Jeopardy! on television?
I cannot
count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a
half hour?" She would gasp and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the
line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late
breakfast, It looks like rain." And my personal favorite: "It's Monday."
She died a
few years ago. We never did have lunch together.
Because
Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.
We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the
conditions are perfect:
We'll go
back and visit the grandparents when we get Stevie toilet-trained.
We'll
entertain -- when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on
a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.
Life has a
way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of
promises to ourselves gets longer.
One morning,
we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going
to," "I plan on" and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."
When anyone
calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available
for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas.
Her
enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and
you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an
elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have
not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might
as well apply it directly to my hips with a spatula and eliminate the
digestive process.
The other
day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an
iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.
Now... go on
and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to...... not something on your
SHOULD DO list.
If you were
going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you
call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
Have you
ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain
lapping on the ground?
Ever
followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading
night?
You better
slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last.
Do you run
through each day on the fly?
When you ask
"How are you?" Do you hear the reply?
When the day
is done, Do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through
your head?
Ever told
your child, We'll do it tomorrow and in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost
touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say "Hi"?
You'd better
slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last. When
you run so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there.
When you
worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown
away...
Life is not
a race. Take it slower.
Hear the
music before the song is over.
-- author unknown --
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By
the time someone picks up the phone to call a healer, two steps have
occurred. First, they have decided something is awry in their life,
something is not as they want it to be; and second, they have decided to do
something about it. 
Developing
our intuition is not as difficult as it may seem. We all have it and it's
always working even without any effort on our part. Our challenge is to
recognize its powers and follow its directions. 
Why
heal the world if -- as Conversations with God declares -- every thing is
perfect just the way it is? There is really only one reason to do anything
-- wear the clothes we wear, drive the car we drive, join the group we join
-- and that is to decide who you are.
In
our role as parents, teachers, or caregivers, we watch as our children are
shaken up by the barrage of scary news involving death, bombs, enemies, and
the like. They are frightened and confused... 
Most
people's pictures of reality are fear-based and limiting, and do not serve
us. Yet we take them home and replicate them in our own lives, to the point
that we believe they're our own. Then we wonder why we, and the people we
know, are so unhappy. 
