The World Isn't Working

Photo: Aztech New Media

If it is a quiet day, trust the stillness. If it is a day of action, trust the activity. If it is time to wait, trust the pause. If it is time to receive that which we have been waiting for, trust that it will happen clearly and with power, and receive the gift in joy. (Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, 29 June)

Watch what you say and only affirm those things you want to bring into your life and your world. Your words are very powerful. (Susan Smith Jones, Choose to Live Each Day Fully, Day 185)

The only thing that will keep you stuck in the past with old experiences, useless emotions, and worn-out habits is your mind. (Iyanla Vanzant, Faith in the Valley, p. 193)

I can make choices that are good for me, even if they threaten my safe routines. (Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, One More Day, 13 June)

The world isn't working. Things are unraveling, and most of us know it. (Jim Wallis in Nourishing the Soul, p. 252)

• The year is half over. It's time to take stock to see if my reading program is on schedule. I've finished several books that I started reading at the beginning of the year. I continue to read each day from two stacks of books that I keep beside the bed. I try to read at least one page each day from each book. I'm happy to report that I'm currently on schedule and that I expect to finish all of the books on the last day of the year.
• I'm trying to buy the three ingredients of the plant mix I make up several times each year for the plants that Melva and I like to grow. Yesterday we went to three places looking for the vermiculite, the perlite and the spangham peat moss. No one had any peat moss. I paid too much to buy small bags of the other two ingredients. I suppose I'll need to go to the Benhke Nursery in Beltsville, MD before I find what I need.
• Because of my interest in genealogy I've been thinking about the three children that the death of Michael Jackson left orphans. Now these children will never have the opportunity to ask Michael Jackson about their parentage. In my opinion it's highly unlikely that he left anything in writing to explain his thinking and how they came to be conceived. How will this affect them as they live their lives? Will they ever really know the truth about their parentage? Are they white, black or mixed? Does it matter? I think it will.

Mr. Dickie