May We Have Your Attention Please!

Rubbish. Absolute rubbish! It comes pouring through my letterbox each morning like an endless contaminated spring.

Reader’s Digest says ‘I may already be a winner,’ Save The Slugs, or some such inane sounding charity, has sent photos of endangered gastropods, (I just couldn’t be bothered enough to read the details on the envelope!) And Gourmet Magazine is encouraging me again, for the fifth time this month, to renew my daughter's subscription, that I renewed three months ago. And if I do so within the next 48 hours, she'll receive a nifty little recipe on how to sauté slugs in garlic and olive oil! (ah, there could be a conspiracy going on here!)

While I mindlessly sift through the postal detritus of the day, the morning news channel is shouting caveats regarding a particular haemorrhoidal cream. Thank you! It’s just what I wanted to hear as I consume my bowl of bran flakes.

And as I contemplate how much the chubby little monotonous voiced Sky News presenter is starting to look more and more like the Stay Puff Marshmallow man, it dawns on me that I’m about to be late for a meeting.

Oh how I’m dreading attending. It will be like so many of the other meetings I’m duty bound to attend, but my mind will drift to imagining ways to escape. Perhaps I could just slip under the table and crawl out without being noticed.

Throughout our waking hours we are bombarded by the unrelenting attempts of people trying to convince us, sell us, warn us, and blame us. The majority of it is nothing more than static noise. And it’s certainly something that all of us would like to do without.

So we build internal body-armour to help tune out all these distractions. Some of us daydream; some of us possess the gift of simply being able to switch off. And it works well, once you get the hang of it, but it has a downside: It can become a blind habit. We can tune out indiscriminately, we can become inattentive to the cycles of life, and we can miss a lot of what we really should be hearing.

As so often happens, what may start out as a useful self-defense mechanism can unintentionally evolve into an act of self-destruction. By closing ourselves so effectively, we can fail to see danger signs and hear alarms, which might be leading to disaster. There's a better way to protect ourselves from life's intrusive interruptions. We can work to create a quiet inner place where we can hear the things that really matter, the things our soul knows and tells our hearts when we listen. It takes work, but it can be achieved. And when you do, you’ll find a greater personal peace within yourself.

Take charge of yourself. Spend a bit more time ‘inside.’ You’ll be amazed at what you hear and you’ll be amazed at how you feel.

And if you really need a way to describe it, perhaps you could just call it your spirit within.

When We Need a Little Help

When Traditions Become Weights

Music is A Gift From God

When Are U-Turns Right?

Talk's Cheap!

There was a period last year when I listened to a gentleman go on and on about all the wonderful things he was going to do to help change the life of a small Moldovan community. The people in the community were mesmerised and you could see and feel their enthusiasm as they hung on to each word he said. But you could also see how much their adulation was fuelling the man.

Such behaviour, often called boasting, has long traditions in some western cultures and at times, over the years I’ve grown to perceive it as a method of personal encouragement used by some people to help them achieve their own goals.

I’m sure you can understand what I’m saying: it’s a bit like giving yourself a pep talk each morning: ‘I’m going to build a hospital right here.’ ‘I am going to cinch that account in the first meeting.’ ‘I’m not going to say one bad thing about my mother in law today.’

Big talk can be vaguely amusing in the short run, but anything more than small doses and it can fast become an embarrassment and certainly a bit of a bore. Even to Western ears, it can often sound like bragging.

But what happens when a culture that is not accustomed to hearing this type of super-charged ego stroking discovers that all they heard was nothing but bravado and wishful thinking? What happens when those fragile building blocks of hope, they’ve worked so hard to achieve, collapse like sand, simply because of an individual’ s egocentric behaviour?

Sure, it’s easy to just drop the big talk and do something. Quite so! But where do we find the energy and the will to act rather than just talk?

This year as needs become more intense and times become more challenging I’m working harder to find people who will provide actions first, then words. I’ve always remembered the Apostle James asking ‘What good is it to profess faith without practicing it?’

Talk’s cheap. Just do it!

Sweet Talkers!

Comforting Words For the Terminally ill

How Thoughtful!

‘Happy Birthday!’ OK, sure, fine, I've defied virtually all of my friends beliefs and hopes, as well as cause a few wagers to be lost by my doctors. But what really surprised me was to receive a birthday card from Sainsbury’s, one of Britain’s national grocers.

Along with the card came a coupon for a FREE box of Elizabeth Shaw Chocolate Mint Crisps! Yummy indeed! One of my favourite, which they no doubt already knew from perusing my shopping habits, as registered on my fidelity card.

I’ve stared at the birthday card for several hours, as it sat next to my keyboard, and it caused me to reflect on the other communications I’ve received from the venerable Lord Sainsbury’s marketeers over the past twelve months.

• 
  A coupon for a Weight Watchers frozen meal.
  
  A coupon for fifty pence off a packet of any low fat, low-calorie salad dressings.
  
  A buy one get one free offer on Sainsbury’s ‘Healthy Living’ extra lean beef.
  
  A coupon for fifty pence off any of Coca Cola’s line of diet drinks.
  
  

And today, Sainsbury’s are going to help me celebrate all the weight loss I could have experienced, had I chosen to use any one of those lovely offers... which I didn’t!

Clearly, they wanted to get me down to size, so they could fatten me up again, in anticipation of the next year’s round of scintillating diet food offers, which will no doubt arrive with the rest of my morning postal detritus.

Thank you Sainsbury’s. Thank you Mr. King. And thank you Lord Sainsbury.

All I can say is cunning gentlemen.

Truly cunning!

Wanted Part-Time Wife

Falling In Love At Clapham Junction

Finding Words Of Comfort

I'm Only Dying!