TAKE TIME

Take time to think - It is the source of all power.
Take time to read - It is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to play - It is the source of perpetual youth.
Take time to be quiet - It is the opportunity to seek God.
Take time to be aware - It is the opportunity to help others.
Take time to love and be loved - It is God's greatest gift.
Take time to laugh - It is the music of the soul.
Take time to be friendly - It is the road to happiness.
Take time to dream - It is what the future is made of.
Take time to pray - It is the greatest power on earth.
Take time to give - It is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work - It is the price of success.
There is a time for everything. . . .(Anon)

Source: •● Ups, Downs & Roundabouts ●•

ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED

(To My Parents)

On the the death of a beloved...
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

♥*✿*•♥John O'Donohue ♥*✿*•♥

Source: Rest in the Arms of Angels

THE JOY of UNSELFISH GIVING

♥*✿*•♥
Time is not measured by the years that you live
But by the deeds that you do and the joy that you give-
And each day as it comes brings a chance to each one.
To love to the fullest, leaving nothing undone
That would brighten the life or lighten the load
of some weary traveler lost on Life's Road-
So what does it matter how long we may live
If as long as we live we unselfishly give.

╔═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╗

Helen Steiner Rice

╚═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

♥*✿*•♥

╔═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╗

W. L. CHILDRESS

╚═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╝

Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world,
For the banner of blue that's above it unfurled,
For the streams that sparkle and sing to the sea,
For the bloom in the glade and the leaf on the tree;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the mountain peak,
Where the wind and the lightning meet and speak,
For the golden star on the soft night's breast.
And the silvery moonlight's path to rest;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the rippling notes
That come from a thousand sweet bird throats
For the ocean wave and the sunset glow,
And the waving fields where the reapers go;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the ones so true,
And the kindly deeds they have done for you;
For the great earth's heart, when it's understood,
Is struggling still toward the pure and good;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the One who guides,
For He holds the ships and He holds the tides.
And underneath and around the above
The world is lapped in the light of His love;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

✻ღ♥*✿*•♥ღ✻

My Personal Note: Today is 14 February 2014. It's the day that I could have chosen better than any day in my life. For today, I found my true love after years of futile searching in the libraries wherever I go. I tried searching it from any poetry websites but to no avail. Then I tried one more time. I Google(d) it and typed a line in the browser: 'here's a song of praise for the beautiful world'. Then a miracle happened when I was taken to Google Archive of world's oldest newspapers. The Lewiston Daily Sun of Mississippi USA has opened its door for me when its edition of 9 August 1941 revealed the middle of page 4 with a box entitled WIDER and DEEPER and there it was! A big bold printed beloved poem of mine, BEAUTIFUL WORLD which is close to my heart for as long as I can remember since my elementary days. I could not remember the author, but after a thorough reading of the whole stanzas, i was convinced without doubt and decided that THIS IS IT!

This poem has a huge sentimental value to me. Its great impact has me to see the world around me,and, view it with awesome inspiration. That inspiration helped mould my desire to connect with our loving Creator; how His great grand design of this world's most beautiful, delightful and magnificent landscape we live in manifested His Omnipotent Power! His glory as can be observe in the movement, coming and going of the sun from dawn to twilight till it rests at night time, only to find that bright glowing orb lighting the other side of the world. How His divine hands made the mountains, hills, valleys, plateaus, flatlands, hinterlands, swamps, seas, oceans, rivers, seashores, beaches, fields, trees, plants, and flowers of all kinds, birds, animals, wildlife,

My awesome Creator has never stopped to amaze me even in times He shows His wrath as shown in the turbulence of the apocalyptic deliverance of natural disasters and catastrophes manifested in cyclones, hurricanes, modern Noah's deluge, burning bushes, tsunamis and many more!

The BEAUTIFUL WORLD brings me back happy memories of my old hometown where I partly grew up as a child. Where I spent my early childhood education, where I learned hard days of life that helped develop my understanding about survival.

The BEAUTIFUL WORLD in my time was of simplicity where thunders and lightnings coloured the sky at night and made me curled up under the floor mat, covering my ears because of fears. The simplicity which found me whistling among the tiny birds on the tree and calling the wind on dry airless hot season. The simplicity of which our means of transport was our little shoeless feet as we walked long walks towards the big river, lake and spring to do our laundry, take a bath, gather shell food and play. Simplicity as we go to the woodland, forest, mountain or hills to gather drift woods for firewoods. Simplicity for the whole time we come and go to places our life was destined to be. All things comprise our BEAUTIFUL WORLD in the midst of both times in prosperity and adversity.

Thank you Google for sending me back the rippling notes of my old school days poetry once printed out in our English Reading Book, Doorways to Reading the BEAUTIFUL WORLD that I learned and remembered being taught to us in the class by my all time favourite teacher MRS. GLORIA REGIS ALAGAR of KAROMATAN CENTRAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (KAROMATAN, LANAO DEL NORTE) in 1962. My only regret was that, Mrs. ALAGAR did not stay through our graduation day.