SOME PRESCRIPTIONS FOR BETTER LIVING

(These thoughts are added to three times each week)

The comedian Richard Pryor was critically burned a number of years ago. Before it happened, his ego and his income had been as high as the Himalayas. However, afterwards, when he appeared on the Johnny Carson Show, he shared the following, “When I was so seriously ill I was sure I was about to die, all I could think of was to call on God. I didn’t call the Bank of America one single time.”

It’s there, this inborn, intuitive heavenly-prodded-need to be aware of and commune with our creator. To reach beyond what we can touch with our fingers to that which we can only feel with our souls.

“I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways,” says the Psalmist. (Psalm 119:15) “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105)

Let’s put it this way, “Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.” (H Jackson Brown Jr.) Remember in the old days when someone would sign the dance card of a young lady which proved they officially wanted to dance with her and that she had given him a specific dance. And sometimes someone would like to fill up the dance card with just their name and no one else’s. Well, in a sense this is a prescription for better knowing God and receiving from Him His blessings. Have our eternal dance card, signed up, meditated through, prayed upon and committed to only God and none of the other devilish partners life sometimes offers.

But how does one accomplish this? How does one beef up opportunity and what the common sense of the soul tells us is the best of the best.

Well, first; in this noisy world find the time and the place to listen to the sound of silence. Hone and sharpen the ability in the midst of all of civilizations blarings to appreciate quiet. It may mean getting up quite early ere now and then or walking deep into some woods or the far end of a park. But the need of such a search is a necessity. Otherwise we lose our ability to hear this special quality in the advance of living and when that happens we have lost or never gained a good and gracious thing.

Second, remember our yesterdays down to the finest details. Revel in our moments of wisdom and admit our moments of stupidity. Don’t make excuses but forge lessons learned from mistakes too often or even seldom made. Perfection is impossible but following after imperfection with excuses is absurd.

Therefore, we need to consider both sins of omission and commission that we have committed and with equal fervor every good deed we have ever performed. Then, forming a mosaic with this truth about our lives get on with it. Knowing we have looked in the mirror but that we are not stuck all our lives with the same reflection. Knowing that always there is available wonderful miraculous medicine called change.

Thirdly, we need to write our worries in the dirt, seeing them for what they are and giving to them proper concern but then letting the rains come and wash them away. They were written, we have done all we can, now lessen the burden by not beefing them up until they are bigger than life itself. A lack of concern for problems if foolish. An ongoing anxiety only wrecks our health, shrivels our soul and forgets the value of a firm faith in our own ability to survive and well done in the doing. It is one thing to admit a trouble. It is yet another to publish and it give it a permanent place on the library shelf of our daily existence.

Fourthly, examine what it is that makes us tick. Beware of letting confidence grow to arrogance. Do not seek a spotlight when we should be more than satisfied with the warming light of a brand new day? The wealth of power, the wealth of wealth; are these really worth health ruined and relationships strained and sometimes finally lost? Is it ever too late to examine the motives that drive us in our daily living and pick and chose those worthy of our time and those not worthy at all?

There are many ways to be born again and we must be aware of them and where they are needed so that these great magnificent moments happen in our lives rather than languish as forgotten dreams.

CLICK ON “WATCH NEIL AS LINCOLN” He has been called the new and maybe better Hal Holbrook