Commitment to love

Can you commit to love with the same intensity that a hater commits to hate?

Can I?

Can we?

I find that to be an amazing challenge, personally. So ... thinking it through, musing ... Hate is an easy emotion, automatic for many of us. It saves us from hurt, from working through whatever brought it up - fear, anger, hurt, betrayal. But love - has to be intentional ... and then ... just as easy! Turning an emotion outward, just the same, rather than letting something eat away inside. Turning out an emotion that is safer, and healing as well. Tell ourselves that story ... of hurt, fear, anger, betrayal... turning out love. Tell ourselves the story of a hero with the strength to do that rather than giving in to the old story of revenge and destruction. Tell the story of a beloved friend or advisor who takes the hero, battered and hurting and full of hate, and quietly tells them his own story of replacing the self-loathing and carnage caused by revenge and destruction, with an amazing inner strength that came from realising that love and cooperation is so much more powerful and productive.

Oh Einstein, if you only knew!!

This story has been told and shared by all sorts of people, all around the world, but this particular version appeared on my Facebook from Elite Readers

Lets put your logic to the test grin emoticon

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
Share

This is a beautiful story, powerful. 

It is a classic case of combining logic, emotion and credibility to persuade. 

I loved it. 

It worked on its own. 

At the bottom, though, is a fatal flaw 

"By the way, that student was Einstein". 

This is also a classic. 

Lots of people make Einstein the owner of a wise statement to give themselves credit. 

Einstein was not the student. There is no record of his saying that. 

In one sentence, the storyteller reduced his/her credibility, which is a shame because the story stood on its own. 

Isn't it good? 

The idyllist

This morning I lay awake dominated by two things.

The first was a dream about a hotel with an amateur dramatic group preparing to go on stage and a room full of tiny black and white kittens with their mothers.  I wanted milk for them, but was reduced to stealing some from the communal fridge.  I didn't seem concerned about finding the eye-dropper I intended to use to feed them.   Undoubtedly the meaning of all this will appear sometime today.

The second was an argument between "You could get up and go for your walk now while it's cool - energy, enthusiasm, doing the right thing, then the whole day to get things done" ... and ...  "SSlleeeeep!  Sslleeeeep!"

Then suddenly out of nowhere the thought that "She's an idyllist" - meaning me - I'm an idyllist.

HHmmm how witty!  Not an id-eee-ya-list, but idyllist.  What a useful identity.  I like the concept of idyllic.  If there's one thing that lifts me up it's "idyllic". Sunshine is idyllic.  Happiness is idyllic.  Creativity is idyllic.

Ooops perhaps I have the wrong meaning.  What exactly is this thing called an "idyll"  or is it "idyl"?

Hmm, Google and Wikipedia tell me that it's a short poem or piece of music descriptive of rustic/rural/pastoral life.  Not quite what I thought ... but    Yep I think that's my new identity.

The psychic I saw earlier this week said I had a connection with the rural and of course she is right.  I grew up on the land.  I love the country - trees, grass, the earth, the distances.  Why shouldn't I add the sea to that?  And the mountains?

OK, that's me, I'm the idyllist!    

"Seeds of faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth."

Susan Taylor

"Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful."

-- Norman Vincent Peale

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"Ultimately, we must learn to trust ourselves. When we do this intimately and intelligently, the world opens full of meaning before us. We find that we ourselves are the doorway to a fathomless understanding of the source of life itself. We need only to learn to walk through it."

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"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

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