August 4, 2011: BAKE OFF

     This was a BAKE OFF!. We had a lot of participation and discussion. I am putting some of the things we read here in this post.

     Here's a piece on worrying. This is an excerpt from Vicki Hitzges' speech. Vicki has worked as a TV journalist in Corpus Christi, and later out of Dallas, TX. After discovering great talents at interviewing, she began to do motivational speaking. Now she is one of the higher paid motivational speakers in the country.

     "I used to worry. A lot. The more I fretted, the more proficient I became at it. Anxiety begets anxiety. I even worried that I worried too much! Ulcers might develop. My health could fail. My finances could deplete to pay the hospital bills.

     "A comedian once said, 'I tried to drown my worries with gin, but my worries are equipped with flotation devices.'  While not a drinker, I certainly could identify! My worries could swim, jump and pole vault!

     "To get some perspective, I visited a well known, Dallas  businessman, Fred Smith. Fred mentored such luminaries as motivationsl whiz Zig Ziglar, business guru Ken Blanchard and leadership expert, John Maxwell. Fred listened as I poured out my concerns and then said, 'Vicki you need to learn to wait to worry.'

     "As the words sank in, I asked Fred if he ever spent time fretting. (I was quite certain he wouldn't admit it if he did. He was pretty full of testosterone -- even at age 90.) To my surprise, he confessed that in years gone by he had been a top-notch worrier!

"I decided that I would wait to worry!" he explained. "I decided that I'd wait until I actually had a reason to worry --something that was happening, not just something that might happen-- before I worried.

     "When I'm tempted to get alarmed," he confided, "I tell myself. 'Fred, you've got to wait to worry! Until you know differently, don't worry.' And I don't. Waiting to worry helps me develop the habit of not worrying and that helps me not be tempted to worry."

     Fred possessed a quick mind and a gift for gab. As such, he became a captivating public speaker. "I frequently ask audiences what they were worried about this time last year. I get a lot of laughs," he said, "because most people can't remember. Then I ask if they have a current worry -- you see nods from everybody. Then I remind them that the average worrier is 92 percent inefficeient --only eight percent of what we worry about ever comes true."

     Charles Spurgeon said it best, "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."

      Another piece brought forward and read was by Will Allen Dromgoole (October 26, 1860-September 1, 1934)  who was an author and poet born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She wrote over 7,500 poems; 5,000 essays; and published thirteen books. She was renowned beyond the South; her poem "The Bridge Builder" was often reprinted. Will Allen Dromgoole was the last of several children born to Rebecca Mildred (Blanche) and John Easter Dromgoole in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.[1] Her paternal grandparents were Rev. Thomas and Mary Dromgoole. Her great-grandparents were Edward Dromgoole, a Scots-Irish trader from Sligo, Ireland, and his Cherokee wife Rebecca Walton. He married her after immigrating to the North American colonies.

     Dromgoole was ahead of her time. Her parents sent her to the Clarksville Female Academy from which she graduated n 1876. Her father taught her law, but she was not allowed to become a lawyer. However she did work for the state legislature. She worked as a journalist for the Nashville American, a newspaper, and became a prolifid writer of prose and poetry. She taught school on two different occasions, then founded the Waco Women's Press Club. She even served as a warrant officer in the US Naval Reserve during WWI.

     Here is her most famous poem:

      The Bridge Builder by Will Allen Drumgoole

          An old man, going a lone highway,

          Came , at the evening, cold and gray,

          To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,

          Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

          The old man crossed in the twilight dim;

          The sullen stream had no fears for him;

          But he turned, when safe on the other side,

          And built a bridge to span the tide.

          "Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,

          "You are wasting strength with building here;

           Your journey will end with the ending day;

           You never again must pass this way;

           You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide -

           Why build you a bridge at the eventide?"

           The builder lifted his old gray head:

           "Good friend, in the path I have come, he said,

           "There followeth after me today,

            A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

            This chasm, that has been naught to me,

            To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

            He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

            Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

   

An anonymous piece entitled Symptoms of Inner Peace

A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fear based on past experiences

An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment

A loss of interest in judging other people

A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others

A loss of the ability to worry

Frequent atacks of smiling

Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation

A contented feeling of connectedness with others and nature

An increased tendency to let things happen rather than to make things happen

An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as an uncontrollable urge to extend love in return

     If you have all or even most of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition of Inner Peace may be so far advanced as to not be curable!

     Irwin Compston said: "The human mind is not contained in the human skull." Worry may be useful, but we are so much more than that. We are so vast. Instead, handle worry by saying, "Let go, Let God."

   

     During the discussion, someone presented some quotes from My Stroke of Insight, a Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Tayler PhD. She is a neuroanatomist who experienced a massive hemorrhagic stroke in 1996 at age 37. After recovering her speech, she has been very vocal in describing her experience. The book describes the whole process very succinctly. She has since appeared on the Oprah show and other TV shows to tell her story and to promote her book which has been translated into dozens of other languages.

    Here are some quotes from her book and what she felt: "Could I rejoin the rat race without becoming a rat?"     "I was a being of light."    "I was a liquid, not solid. Finally after 8 years my body became solid again." If these quotes intrigue you, her book is readily available.

      Also the book on NDE, by Jeffrey Long MD which I reviewed and has a summary here in these posted notes.   December 13, 2010.

     Dave presented the book Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles, edited by John E. Sunwalt. There are apparently very moving stories here that were brought together by a local minister.

Another quote, from the Ojibwe:

     Sometimes I go about pitying myself

And all the while I am being carried across the sky

By beautiful clouds.

Another offering:  by Rabindranath Tagore.
     Greatest writer in modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist, educator, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore was awarded the knighthood in 1915, but he surrendered it in 1919 as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, where British troops killed some 400 Indian demonstrators protesting colonial laws. Tagore's reputation in the West as a mystic has perhaps mislead his Western readers to ignore his role as a reformer and critic of colonialism.

Here is his poem, The Eternal Dream.

It's born on the wings of ageless Light.
that rends the veil of the vague
and goes across time
wearing ceaseless patterns of Being.

The mystery remains dumb,
the meaning of this pilgrimage
the endless adventure of existence
whoese rush along the sky
flames up into innumberalbe rings of paths
'til at last knowledge gleams out from the dusk
in the infinity of human spirits,
and in that dim lighted dawn
she speechlessly gazes throught the break in the mist.
at the vision of Life and of Love
emerging from the tumult of profound pain and joy.

     Great job! Group. This is the best Bake Off for participation that I recall here at SpiritMindBody. Thanks everyone.