I Once Listed All The Good Things

The Gift Was Not Large As Money Goes, And My Need Was Not Great, But The Spirit Of The Gift Is Beyond Price And Leaves Me Blessed And In Debt.

Public Lives Are Lived Out On The Job And In The Marketplace, Where Certain Rules, Conventions, Laws, And Social Customs Keep Most Of Us In Line. Private Lives Are Lived Out In The Presence Of Family, Friends, And Neighbors Who Must Be Considered And Respected Even Though The Rules And Proscriptions Are Looser Than What's Allowed In Public. But In Our Secret Lives, Inside Our Own Heads, Almost Anything Goes.

The Older I Get, The More I Realize The Importance Of Exercising The Various Dimensions Of My Body, Soul, Mind, And Heart. Taken Together, These Aspects Give Me A Sense Of Wholeness. I Want To Be A Whole Human Being Rather Than One Who Limps On One Leg Because I Don't Know How To Use All Of My Parts. Intellectual, Emotional, And Physical Activity Are Not Separate Entities. Rather, They Are Dimensions Of The Same Human Being.

One Of Life's Best Coping Mechanisms Is To Know The Difference Between An Inconvenience And A Problem.

But It Does No Good--solves Nothing--to Distance Myself From The Front Lines Of Human Need By Using The Mail As A Safe Shelter. I Believe That Serving The Best Ends Of Humanity Means Getting Out In The Middle Of It Just As It Is, Not Staying Home Writing Checks And Thinking Hopeful Thoughts. The World Does Not Need Tourists Who Ride By In A Bus Clucking Their Tongues. The World As It Is Needs Those Who Will Love It Enough To Change It, With What They Have, Where They Are. And You're Damned Right That's Idealistic. No Apology. When Idealism Goes Into The Trash As Junk Mail, We're Finished.