SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING

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This book was published in 1996 and has been read by and still fills thousands of libraries. I am now making it available for you my friends of this blog. From time to time used copies are available on amazon.com

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If you got lost in the middle of a desert and could not find the ocean would you fall to your knees in despair, or shout to the heavens, "Wow, what a beach!"

In 1981, a story appeared in the Tampa Tribune about a woman by the name of Peggy Paul. She had terminal cancer and had been told she would soon be dead.

And then a nurse said to her, "You don't really have to die, just because the doctors say you will. Sometimes people don't."

So Peggy Paul began to image her immune system working overtime. She pictured her white blood cells as little rabbits running up and down and through her system eating up the malignant cancer cells.

She said she chose to picture rabbits because they multiply fast and she figured the more she had the better.

In not that long a while the liver cancer got smaller and smaller and smaller and one day it was gone.

Now some reading this story will shake their heads in disbelief. Will argue that it sounds like psychological voodoo.

But then, having considered the Biblical admonition about faith like a mustard seed and the moving of mountains, think about what it might have been like if she had regarded her cancer cells as cannibals running up and down her body eating away.

And what would it have been like if she had envisioned invitations being sent out to other cancer cell cannibals to a party being thrown with her body the guest of honor?

A young man had just joined the French Foreign Legion. He stood there before the munitions quartermaster waiting for his rifle. "I'm sorry, but we don't have any rifles left," he was told.

"What do you mean you don't have any rifles? How can I fight the enemy without a rifle?"

"Oh, you don't need a rifle, all you have to do when the enemy comes over the horizon is point your finger and cry out bang-idi-bang."

"Bang-idi-bang?"

 "Right!"

"But what if I miss?"

With a sigh of resignation he said, "Alright, if I can't have a rifle, at least give me a bayonet."

"I'm sorry but we don't have any bayonets left."

"Not even one last bayonet?"

"No, but all you need to do is thrust forward your index finger and say stab-idi-stab."

"Stabi -di -stab?"

''That's right."

So he went to the front lines and watched the enemy come over the horizon.

When the first man he saw was in range he pointed his finger and said bangidi-bang. The enemy fell to the ground instantly.

By now they were coming in droves and suddenly a soldier was right on top of him. He thrust forward his index finger and cried out stab-idi-stab.

The soldier instantly collapsed.

Then coming up over the horizon was the skinniest, weakest looking soldier he had ever seen. He pointed his finger and went bangi-di-bang.

Nothing happened.

As he came closer he continued to point his finger and cry out bang-idi-bang.

Nothing happened.

When he was no more than a foot away he raised his index finger, thrust it forward and cried out stab-idi-stab.

Nothing happened.

As he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness he heard the skinny, anemic soldier shouting tank-idi tank.

Gerontologist John Rowe once observed that a seventy-five year old diabetic "might be sick enough to need a nursing home or well enough to sit on the Supreme Court."

A young man sat in a dentist office reading an astrology book.

When he reached page five he read the following, "If you had been born two days earlier, you would have been wealthy, witty and wise."

But it doesn't work that way. For to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, "Our troubles and our triumphs, our good days and our bad days, are not in our stars but in ourselves."

It is called having an anti-negative attitude.

I remember a bowler friend telling a story about a man who never bowled better than 163, with an average far below this figure. Then one day he sat down, closed his eyes and imagined himself bowling a perfect 300.

Over and over and over again, in his mind's eye, he sent the ball whirling down the lane for a perfect strike.

Then he got in his car, drove straight to the lanes and bowled a 297.

In the summer of 1982, I crashed a hang glider and broke my left arm in forty some places. In the X-rays it looked more like confetti than an arm.

For two months it was paralyzed and the doctor would give me no great hope of hitting the ski slopes that winter.

But I did not say to myself, "Neil, now you've gone and done it and there's nothing you can do about it. Your arm is paralyzed and it will be like that for the rest of your life."

No, instead I began to quote John Dryden to myself, "I may be wounded but I am not slain. I'll lie me down and rest awhile ... then rise to fight again."

For two months nothing happened, it just hung limp and useless.

But for those two months over and over again I pictured my arm moving. Pictured my nerves responding.

For two months I would not give up on the idea of a miracle. And then one magic day I moved my little finger.

I wasn't ready to play the piano again. I couldn't hold anything without dropping it. But finally all the messages I had been sending my arm were being answered.

Lifted off the answer pad of my nerve center and acted on.

I BEGAN TO PLAY THE PIANO AGAIN AND THROW A TENNIS BALL UP INTO THE AIR AND RAISE OVER THE COMPUTER KEYS.

By January 1983 I was back on the ski slopes in Vermont pushing off with both arms.

By February I could lift a small carry-on suitcase and place it in the airplane overhead luggage rack.

In my shirt pocket was a piece of paper that I had lifted out more times than I can remember upon which I had written, "Victory without challenge is triumph without glory."

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DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

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To access his other book’s; BOUNDARIES UNLIMITED, RUST ON MY SOUL, POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC, I AM SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING, THE ABC’S OF PARENTING AND GRANDPARENTING, LETTERS TO AMERICA…go to Amazon.com (books) and type in Neil Wyrick. ************************

A HEAVENLY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM(1st in series) (on this WyrIck’s Writing blog) It began Sunday Dec 26, 2010 “I have always been intrigued by a question God put to Adam, “Where are you?” Why did He ask that? What is the meaning behind this?

It wasn’t a geographical question, for certainly God knew the answer to that one. ************************************

VISIT NEXT TUESDAY FOR A NEW ADDITION TO THE “Rust on My Soul” SERIES (The Internationally distributed novel)

To view an abundance of unusual stories and comments by Neil Wyrick go to Neil’s other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS Click on the following URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/ ************************************** BELOW IS A QUOTE FROM the SERIES on this Wyrick’s Writings site entitled ANGER IS A KILLER. It began Thursday January 6, 2010. “Do you enjoy visiting friends? More than likely you’re thinking, Preacher, of course, I do. Now let me ask the other side of the coin - Do you enjoy visiting enemies?

No?

Well, I know you must enjoy visiting at least one enemy because, like myself, you probably visit this one quite often. Unfortunately, we all …visit this enemy…whose name is anger. Some visit anger seldom . Some on a regular basis. And during those visits, some spew and others stew.” ***************************

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING http://www.speakerneil.com/ *************************************** V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

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