“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it.”

~ Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

Hello everyone…

I have a Son currently serving in Afghanistan and Operation Moms has been a huge support for me and all our Military Men & Women Serving. They provided great care packages to our troops, filled with cards, food, toiletries and base needs to mention a few.

Below is a letter from Mom’s Cookies. They are in need of some supplies, as our Troops grow so does the their needs. If you could provide any of the items listed below or know of a company that could donate any of the needed supplies, we would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You for Supporting all our Men and Women Serving.

Janet Scott

OPERATION MOMS COOKIES:

FOR OUR DEPLOYED U.S. ARMED FORCES SERVICE MEMBERS!

OPERATION: FORWARD SUPPORT

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 COLLECTION CAMPAIGN

FOR OUR DEPLOYED U.S. ARMED FORCES SERVICE MEMBERS!

… You can help us provide quality items of caring and support, while sending a few “creature comforts” from home! LIP BALM will bring relief and protectorates from the elements…WET ONES AND WIPES freshen and clean 24/7… AND a new, clean, dry pair of SOCKS replaces a worn pair while bringing relief to tired feet! Beef Jerky, light to carry with Protein and Granola Bars provide a needed snack! Simple and basic needs, bringing many smiles to our Troops thousands of miles from home!

YOUR SUPPORT OF OUR MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!

*COLLECTION ITEMS PLEASE NOTE:

ALL ITEMS MUST BE NEW! THANK YOU!

HALLOWEEN CANDY AND TTREATS

(Chocolate & Hard Candies Individually Wrapped)

CARMEX OR CHAPSTICK TUBES 0.15 OZ

MEN’S DEODORANT & BODY WASH

(PERSONAL/TRIAL SIZE)

WET ONES Antibacterial Fresh Scent Hand & Face Wipes

15 Count Travel Pack

CUSHIONED WHITE CREW SOCKS

HANES 7 OR 10PK ME

Q-TIPS - TRAVEL SIZE PACKS

BEEF JERKY BAG PACKS OR STICKS!

GRANOLA-PROTEIN & SNACK BARS!

THANK YOU FOR YOU’RE CARING AND SUPPORT!

Please visit www.momscookies.org for a Complete Item “Wish List”!

OPERATION: MOMS Cookies Inc., NFP is a not-for-profit Public Charity under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c) (3).

Your Donation is Tax Deductible to the Full extent of the law.

Operations Center:

624 Davy Lane Wilmington, IL 60481

E-mail: director@momscookies.org

Web Site: www.momscookies.org

1-815-274-2014

2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

4. When you say ‘ I love you ‘ mean it.

5. When you say ‘ I’m sorry ‘ look the person in the eye.

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7. Believe in love at first sight.

8. Never laugh at anyone ‘ s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.

9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely..

10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

11. Don’t judge people by their relatives.

12. Talk slowly but think quickly.

13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask ‘ Why do you want to know? ‘

14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15. Say ‘ bless you ‘ when you hear someone sneeze.

16. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

17. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

18. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

19. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice

21. Spend some time alone.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

-Maya Angelou

http://mayaangelou.com/

German police have shut down the Hamburg mosque where the 9/11 hijackers met before their suicide attacks on the US in 2001.

Police said they believed the Taiba mosque was again being used as a meeting point for extremists.

The cultural association that runs the mosque has also been banned.

A German intelligence report last year said radical Muslims had travelled to military training camps in Uzbekistan after associating at the mosque.
Continue reading the main story
Related stories

* The Hamburg connection

“We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war,” said Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for Hamburg’s state interior ministry.

For the entire story, please visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10911542

“The biggest threats are the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera, especially deadly to children. We have already received reports of cases of diarrhoea amongst children. Food, clean drinking water, health supplies, high energy biscuits, clothing for women and children and vaccines, are needed urgently. We have already provided a first tranche of humanitarian supplies and will be bringing in more over the next days during this critical life-saving period”, said Martin Mogwanja, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan.

The flooding has caused widespread destruction of infrastructure with roads submerged and bridges swept away. Power lines are down and damage has been done to hospitals, schools and sanitation systems. In one district, UNICEF reported that 80 per cent of the drinking wells had been destroyed. Many families are camping out in schools and other building located on higher ground.

“There has been widespread damage to crops and loss of livestock. In a largely agricultural region, this is causing food scarcity now and will have negative implications for the future. We could be looking at a long-term humanitarian operation to first save lives and then assist with the recovery of those affected regions,” said Mr. Mogwanja.

To date, UNICEF has provided hygiene kits, water tankers and high energy biscuits. It has repaired 73 tube wells benefiting 800,000 people and supported the setting up of 24 medical camps benefiting an estimated 1 million people.

UNICEF is asking for $10.3 million for the immediate needs of the affected populations.

About UNICEF
UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

For further information, please contact:
Patrick McCormick, UNICEF Media, New York,
Tel + 1 212 326-7426 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting + 1 212 326-7426 end_of_the_skype_highlighting,
pmccormick@unicef.org

Marco Jimenez Rodriguez, UNICEF Media, Geneva,
Tel + 41 22 909 5716 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting + 41 22 909 5716 end_of_the_skype_highlighting,
mjrodriguez@unicef.org

Today humanity finds itself sleep-walking through a concept of life
. . . not living life itself.
We have developed this conceptual life that isn’t life in an evolutionary search
for pleasure, and to protect ourselves from the every day pains of experience.
Extremism attempts to pierce this numbness, but it is a failed reaction.

Ironically, this has become a very painful cul-de-sac (a dead-end of sorts):
with food that is not food;
medicine that is not medicine;
beliefs that are not believable,
controlled by feelings that are not our feelings and thoughts that are not our thoughts.
They are composite drawings of some joys, hopes, fears, angers and doubts
— mixed up with anticipations reacting to the joys, hopes, fears,
angers and doubts of others.

Life has become the media driving our anticipations by comparing
someone else’s memories to all our present day fantasies
. . . a far cry from experiencing the experience of living life.

We are actually having a virtual walk through of the showroom life
that we are supposed to be experiencing.

We avoid experiencing where we are at,
because we have developed a belief that it is not what we should be or want to be.
Our life, always compared by the marketing power of media
— where satisfaction does not sell products discontent sells product,
stumbles sideways in search of some forward looking consumable.
In this comparison driven dilemma we feel wrong
. . . we hate being wrong, so we avoid ‘being’ altogether.
We live in a concept of living, while we are in fact avoiding the very starting line of life. Externalized and disconnected from our life, we cannot even begin.

You, as your present identity, arrived with a consciousness
- collected, nourished and grown —
through thousands of progressive incarnations.
Your destination — the true identity of your incarnation
— is your journey from where you are (fate), to who you are (destiny).
The ancients called it rasayana; a Sanskrit word for the path of pure essence
. . . using innocence to locate your inner-sense and arrive
at some common sense while experiencing life.

There are only two promises you must bring to this journey:
(1) I accept the starting point of where I am
. . . and . . .
(2) I believe I am authorized to reach my destiny.

Set up a personal daily practice of yoga,
conscious breathing while walking, and meditation.
Move one small step forward every day and measure your progress
after each day, week, month and particularly every forty days.
Celebrate your experiences when you succeed and also when you fail.

Remember: failures are very important steps toward your goal
. . . the goal of your destiny.
Failures pave the roadways to every success.
This is the lifestyle of our new evolution . . . it is very much alive for you today.

]]> http://think-peace.com/?feed=rss2&p=7815 http://think-peace.com/?p=7806 http://think-peace.com/?p=7806#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:25:06 +0000 Leza Raley-Labrador http://think-peace.com/?p=7806 I first arrived in Plaquemines Parish along the southern Louisiana coast one week after the BP Deep-water Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

The marshes at South Pass were eerily silent. Estuaries and breeding grounds choked on crude oil and toxic chemical dispersant. Wildlife washed up dead or sank lifeless to the seabed. The boat captains eyes mirrored the noxious decay clinging to his boat.

For all the devastation I saw off-shore, the worst of what I saw was on-shore; in the faces and voices of the people who call this place home.

“What I don’t understand is, you talk about the oil, you talk about the wetlands, you talk about the animals; but you’re forgetting the people – again. Eleven people lost their lives. My brother in law, he’s been trying to call everyone to put his boat out there in the water. “Oh, we’re not looking for 22 foot boats”. You can’t put them out to work? You took their work! BP it’s time for you to stand up and take notice of the people that need help”. Venessa Rayas. Fisherman’s wife. Buras, Louisiana

The courage that wills the people of the Gulf to go on is being tested once again. Tested by a disaster that will continue to replay. Tested by a corporate giant that has its own agenda. Tested by a government unwilling to or unable to take the lead.

Generations have made these waters home, and these waters and the people of the region have become the voices that go unheard.

David Zimmerman

If you would like to get involved and make a difference please visit: http://www.oceanfutures.org/

For David Zimmerman please visit: www.davidzimmerman.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Experience Chan! It’s not mysterious.
As I see it, it boils down to cause and effect.
Outside the mind there is no Dharma
So how can anybody speak of a heaven beyond?

2. Experience Chan! It’s not a field of learning.
Learning adds things that can be researched and discussed.
The feel of impressions can’t be communicated.
Enlightenment is the only medium of transmission.

3. Experience Chan! It’s not a lot of questions.
Too many questions is the Chan disease.
The best way is just to observe the noise of the world.
The answer to your questions?
Ask your own heart.

4. Experience Chan! It’s not the teachings of disciples.
Such speakers are guests from outside the gate.
The Chan which you are hankering to speak about
Only talks about turtles turning into fish.

5. Experience Chan! It can’t be described.
When you describe it you miss the point.
When you discover that your proofs are without substance
You’ll realize that words are nothing but dust.

6. Experience Chan! It’s experiencing your own nature!
Going with the flow everywhere and always.
When you don’t fake it and waste time trying to rub and polish it,
Your Original Self will always shine through brighter than bright.

7. Experience Chan! It’s like harvesting treasures.
But donate them to others.
You won’t need them.
Suddenly everything will appear before you,
Altogether complete and altogether done.

8. Experience Chan! Become a follower who when accepted
Learns how to give up his life and his death.
Grasping this carefully he comes to see clearly.
And then he laughs till he topples the Cold Mountain ascetics.

9. Experience Chan! It’ll require great skepticism;
But great skepticism blocks those detours on the road.
Jump off the lofty peaks of mystery.
Turn your heaven and earth inside out.

10. Experience Chan! Ignore that superstitious nonsense
That makes some claim that they’ve attained Chan.
Foolish beliefs are those of the not-yet-awakened.
And they’re the ones who most need the experience of Chan!

11. Experience Chan! There’s neither distance nor intimacy.
Observation is like a family treasure.
Whether with eyes, ears, body, nose, or tongue -
It’s hard to say which is the most amazing to use.

12. Experience Chan! There’s no class distinction.
The one who bows and the one who is bowed to are a Buddha unit.
The yoke and its lash are tied to each other.
Isn’t this our first principle… the one we should most observe?

-Master Xu Yun