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Coming Together to Love, Heal & Empower

Inspiring Stories of Love, Healing, & Empowerment

Inspirations

October 2005
Issue Number 30

Welcome to Inspirations! Global Community For All sends out this e-zine filled with short, inspiring stories of love, healing, and empowerment once every three months. We share these wonderfully inspiring stories to encourage and inspire each other to be the best we can be each day of our lives. Thanks for joining us, and may these words inspire us to ever deepen our commitment to love, heal, and empower; to open to divine guidance; and to choose what's best for all.

The four inspiring stories for this issue are:

The Power of Life Intentions & Life Purpose – Fred Burks
The Invitation
– Orian Mountain Dreamer
Help Us to Remember – Anonymous
On Santa's Team – Author Unknown


The Power of Life Intentions & Life Purpose – Fred Burks
[email protected]

Finding your life purpose and deepest life intentions can empower you to move with greater focus and clarity every day of your life. There are many ways to find and develop your intentions and life purpose. Below are a few helpful resources for reference and inspiration. Consider using these examples as templates or models for developing your own life purpose and intentions. This information is provided to empower you to be all that you can be, and to inspire us all to work together to build a brighter future for us all.

For two wonderful, short examples of people involved with Global Community for All:

Incorporating the three principles of Global Community for All into your life intentions is highly recommended. And for a concise, inspiring essay which gives ideas you might consider:

You might also find useful ideas by exploring your core challenges. Once you've identified your own deepest challenges, you can develop meaningful life intentions or even a life purpose to deal with them. The link below will guide you.

For a best-selling guide on developing intention available on amazon.com, click the link below.

Once you find and develop your life intentions and your life purpose, consider finding a good place to post them. Review them each day first thing in the morning to help you move more effectively and powerfully through the day. In difficult situations, check to see if your life purpose or one of your intentions can give direction to navigate through the stormy waters. By frequently reminding yourself of your life purpose and intentions, you become more focused and effective in building a brighter future.

As you spend time finding and developing your life intentions and life purpose, remember that this is an evolving process. Nothing needs to be set in stone. One day while reviewing what you've written, you may find new wording that better expresses what it is you really want deep down. Or one of your life intentions may no longer feel so important, while another surfaces to take its place. Unlike goals, which are future oriented, intentions are for the present moment. They can change in accordance with changes or new realizations inside of you. When you live life to its fullest, you are a constantly developing work of art.

For other resources, conduct a search on your favorite search engine or Internet bookstore using the words "purpose" and "intention" (without the quotation marks) in combination with other words like "develop" or "developing" and "find" or "finding." Or search for phrases such as "life purpose" or "life intentions" (using quotation marks).

Requesting spiritual guidance is highly recommended as you explore this important topic. You might consider opening to divine guidance as one of your life intentions. Adopting some form of doing what's best for all of us as one of your primary intentions is also highly recommended. By aligning yourself with what's best for all who share this world with us, you open to feeling more connected with the world and with everyone around you. And don't be surprised if you find your life becoming filled with ever more joy and meaning. May your life become ever richer and fuller as you move with greater purpose, focus, and intention through each day.


The Invitation–Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Available on her website

I want to know what you ache for,
And if you dare to dream of meeting
Your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
For love, for your dreams,
For the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
If you have been opened by life's betrayals,
Or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
Mine or your own,
Without moving
To hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
Mine or your own,
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
Without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty
Even when it is not pretty every day,
And if you can source your own life
From its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
Yours and mine,
And still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
Weary and bruised to the bone,
And do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
In the center of the fire with me
And not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
From the inside
When all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
With yourself,
And if you truly like the company you keep
In the empty moments.


Help Us to Remember – Anonymous

Help us to remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night
is a single mother who worked nine hours that day,
that she is rushing home to cook dinner and help with homework,
to do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man
who takes forever at the checkout stand, is a worried 19-year-old college student,
who is balancing his apprehension over final exams
with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us that the scary looking bum, begging for money
in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!)
is a slave to addictions
that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow
through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress
are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week,
this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive.
Let us show patience, empathy and love.

Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us,
but to all humanity.

Remind us each day that of all the gifts you give us,
the greatest gift is love.


On Santa's Team–Author Unknown

My grandma taught me everything about Christmas. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," jeered my sister. "Even dummies know that!"

My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

"No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.

"Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobbie Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobbie Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough; but all we kids knew that Bobbie Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have a coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobbie Decker a coat. I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. I didn't see a price tag, but ten dollars ought to buy anything. I put the coat and my ten-dollar bill on the counter and pushed them toward the lady behind it.

She looked at the coat, the money, and me. "Is this a Christmas present for someone?" she asked kindly. "Yes," I replied shyly. "It's ... for Bobbie. He's in my class, and he doesn't have a coat." The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons, and write, "To Bobbie, From Santa Claus" on it ... Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to Bobbie Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobbie's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.

Suddenly, Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell twice and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobbie. He looked down, looked around, picked up his present, took it inside and closed the door.

Forty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my grandma, in Bobbie Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: Ridiculous!

Santa was alive and well ... AND WE WERE ON HIS TEAM!


All the darkness of the world cannot put out the light of a single candle.


Thanks for sharing in these inspiring stories with us. We wish you lots of love, inspiration, and all the very best in the months ahead.


Explore the mind and heart expanding websites managed by the nonprofit PEERS network:

www.peerservice.org - PEERS websites: Spreading inspiration, education, & empowerment
www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart
www.personalgrowthcourses.net - Dynamic online courses powerfully expand your horizons
www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups
www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all

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