Today equals Tomorrow

Today equals Tomorrow

Today I woke up

with four

 of my country’s

 children

 gone.

Today I will wake up 

love and intelligence

in a powerful  

ringing of the

gong.

Tomorrow I will wake up

with all of my country’s

 children

smiling and singing

 Heaven’s

 song.

~ Adam Stuart

Février 4, 2016

A LIFE FOR A LIFE

The world just remembered the anniversary of 9-11. The taking of lives for the taking of lives, an eye-for-an-eye religious/political/economic crusade by warriors in the name of God and country.

I'm glad President Bush is bringing more troops home. I've never been the president of any country so I find it hard to judge and blast someone whose shoes I've never been in, no matter how much I may disagree with them.

Instead I try to understand and see where I can relate to them first, in order to take both sides to a higher level of thinking, feeling, and acting AFTER I better understand where they're coming from.

I'm protective over what I care about and love, and willing to fight for it. I've knocked a guy out for simply brushing the back his hand against my wife's rear. He disrespected her and violated her by touching her, so I touched him.

So if someone violated and touched the country I led, maybe I would be doing the same thing as President Bush. Maybe not. As explosive as my energy can ignite, taking a life for the taking of life just doesn't make any sense to me. I will beat a man for beating his child, but I will never kill him for killing. What's done is done, I can do nothing but cry, and try to get him to change and dedicate the rest of his life to creating more life.

Destroying more life for the destruction of life just ends up blinding and killing the world.

Giving your life for the creation of more life makes more sense.

In the movie, "Man on Fire", Denzel Washington's character is told by the kidnapper that he will release the little girl he is holding, if Denzel will give up his life in exchange for hers. .......A life for a life.

Have you ever heard a line in a movie that connects with you so much that everything around you stops? The words resonate in your heart and bounce around all over your soul, letting you know that it is perfect truth for you, the answers you are looking for. You are completely in the moment, in a place of zen.

This line is one of those lines for me. And after a week of remembering the anniversary of great tragedy and death, I realized yesterday marked the one week anniversary of offering a life for the life of another. One of my students got in trouble before class again, and knocked his desk over in anger when he came in.

I got in his face and spoke to him from the heart. I told him I would be in his face every single day for the rest of the year, and if he didn't like it, he had two choices to get me to stop; either to believe in himself as much as I did, or to put a bullet in my head to get rid of me. I told him he was worth risking my life for his life.

One week later, he became the top reader in minutes read, worked harder than I've ever seen, and was the Principal's Award Winner yesterday.

One week later.....He has LIFE!

You and I have life. What will we do with it? Will we go about our day just trying to get through it, focusing on all the things that are wrong? We will escape from believing in ourselves by instead believing in our favorite football team? I am a big fan of enjoying life and experiencing life's greatest pleasures. I am not a fan of escaping life by living through the actions and dreams of others.

I snuck Bella (4th grade) in from her lunch to say hello to her sister (kindergarten). Sofia is pointing to the love note I had hidden in her crayon box. sofia (Sofia, sitting on my lap as I'm typing this, just typed her own name, and says the note made her feel happy). Actions don't have to be big. In fact, it's the little ones that are appreciated fully that are spectacular. When Bella and I walked in to the room, Sofia burst out, "Daddy! You love me!)

Many, many people across the world did not wake up to today. Many more woke up detached from it by the beatings they've taken from life. I was one of them. Thank God (yes, as much as I've cursed you I still believe some higher power exists)....Thank God that I had one of my children with me.

Before I even opened my eyes I began to remember the week's beatings, and felt tired, worn out, doubted, rejected, etc. Then I opened my eyes, and saw the face of my Sofia. I saw love all over her. I ran my finger ever so lightly down the bridge of her nose, to her lips, and kissed her gently before gently hugging her. She turned and hugged me tightly while still sleeping. Love, the greatest of all life forces, raced into me and said prayers in my heart.

And love gives its life.......for a life, for at least one more day.

And I have the courage to share my stories of strength and struggles, confidence and insecurities, in hopes of giving my life to the life of another. And hoping that in doing so I am not seen as anything more than the reader sees themselves, and capable of nothing more than the reader sees themselves capable of .....

This is not about me, it is about "us", you and me...

Fully appreciating our lives, choosing to believe in ourselves and others for just one more day, and GIVING OUR LIVES...TO OTHER LIVES......for the CREATION OF LIFE!

160,000 of us WILL NOT have it tomorrow.

LIVE TODAY! MAKE CHANGE TODAY! GIVE YOUR OWN LIFE, YOUR BEST LIFE, TO LIFE...... TODAY!

Watch this video all the way to the very end. The more I watch it the more I get out of it. If if does the same for you, feel free to visit my MySpace homepage anytime, by clicking INNER STRENGTH, HARMONY, HAPPINESS & PASSION. You'll find it on the left side at the bottom. Have a great day today, no matter what....

Steve Vai - For the Love of God

LIFE Shaking Us AWAKE

I was responding to a friend asking me who was Baby Kaleb. As I wrote back I began to realize something, making me think back .....

(my response, and a picture of my own little Rat Pack at dinner)
He's a baby who was shaken by his baby sitter and has gone thru a lot...but now getting better.....chuckling to myself (as I started to make the following connection)....

.....just like all of us....we've all been shaken in some way...........and if we weren't shaken too hard and no permanent damage occurred, we can heal....
....and thinking very rarely does life shake up so hard that we become (permanently) broken....and maybe even that life shakes us when we're ignoring our inner guides/feelings/intuitions ......

......life shakes us awake, making us conscious, waking us up to consciousness.......ending relationships, careers, and other choices we've made that aren't right for us anymore (but can't see it)...

(and now my thinking back)
Not sure if this makes sense, but after I hit "send" I thought, "I should have saved that to remember later". After I clicked "save" I thought, "Why are you saving this? Either share this thought through a post now or expect it to get lost in that hidden Land of Narnia you call your computer".

It's still hard for me to believe that the thoughts I have make sense to, or are of interest to anyone other than, myself. I remember being so mentally jazzed by a movie called "Mind Walk" that on the drive home I couldn't stop talking about it. My first ex-wife couldn't stop looking at me with a blank stare and telling me I was talking too much.

She and I are good friends now, but after I write 90% of my thoughts I still think, why would anyone want to read this, and click the "save" button, keeping them locked away, forgotten and unshared with someone it might help or passed along to someone that it could.

I have an idea! Why not truly become great friends, even best friends, BEFORE marrying someone? If the great/best friend part doesn't happen, then maybe the marriage part shouldn't either. Brilliant! I bet no one's thought of that before...........They have?.........I'm the last one to realize this?...........Well, better late than never I suppose.

Having a sense of humor about yourself helps heal the bruises. And maybe the "bad" things that happened to us weren't really so bad. Maybe what we see as the "tragic" events of our lives was LIFE waking us up to things we couldn't see for ourselves.

I'm listening to the KanYe West song I put on my MySpace page, called "Stronger". That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Sometimes we wish it would kill us, because then the pain would stop. But if we can hold on, sometimes just one minute longer, we DO become stronger.

So even after two failed marriages, I'm strong enough to trust in another's love again.

Even though the second marriage put me in the hospital with a heart attack, I've come back to life and am healed from my being shaken.

Man, talk about life literally nearly shaking you to death like a rag doll and saying, "You want to love and value someone more than you love and value your own life? Fine! You want to work yourself to death trying to make something work that isn't supposed to? Alright, tough guy. Let me introduce you to a REAL Bad Ass - DEATH!"

So Yes! I'm strong enough to try love again......YES! Bring on the next Ex-Mrs. Stuart.......Ooops, I mean Mrs. Stuart............O.K. Maybe I'm not quite all the way healed yet in the trust department (totally laughing at myself right now :)-

But I do know I am strong enough to hold on, for one minute longer at a time, to the belief that my greatest strength, my greatest gift called LOVE, isn't also my greatest weakness, and the cause of my inevitable and impending demise the next time I allow myself to risk it all.....

I'm just a little worried that if I strike out a third time I might get thrown out of the game entirely, the umpire saying, "Get this idiot out of here. He doesn't deserve to play anymore."

So shaken and stirred, but not broken, I share this with you, NOT that you might feel sorry for me in any way. Feeling sorry for someone NEVER helps them get stronger. And why would you feel sorry for someone who has become healthier, happier and wiser? Yes it happened through pain, pain I wished would have killed me at times so it would stop hurting so deeply. But which has given me greater strength, greater power, greater happiness, and a greater vision of what it means to REALLY live!

I'm even MORE loving now, appreciating what a valuable treasure it is, and realizing that although we can't control what we get from others, we can control what we give. It's not about becoming hardened inside, just more insightful as to who you give yourself to.

So if anything, send vibes of healing my way, just as I do to all of you who have been shaken in some way. And thanks to a new friend request who has "Express what you feel, when you feel it" on their page.

It gives me the courage to express these thoughts I'm feeling right now. ....and seeing life's shaking as a way of waking us up to things we aren't seeing for ourselves.

We needn't be bitter by it, just heal FROM it, and be grateful FOR it.

Too many of us are living in a dream-like state, instead of consciously creating and living in a state of our greatest dreams.

Just don't shake a kid. Life, the next time you want to shake a kid, shake me. Someone like me has a better chance of surviving it. We've shown that. We've earned the right to risk trading our lives for that of a child's. If you're going to shake them, just shake em a little, you know, hide their bear or something. (All of my children have the look of their mother, thankfully. But all of them have my personality, or inner look, which I've "lived" to think is pretty damn good, and the only one that matters to me.)

Daddy It Hurts

This is from my Scottish brother, Stuart, over in Scotland. It's things like this, that I know go on in too many children's lives, that make me:

1. want to be there to protect them. a "man" isn't someone who beats a child. anyone who wants to should be made to have to be able to get through a real man first, someone who can either talk some sense into them or knock it into them if necessary. man is a rational being and an animal. i'll be whatever it takes to protect a child.

2. love every child possible, fill their heads with all the good they already are and all the greatness they are in the process of becoming. we are to protect them from themselves, from their own learned self-doubt. Some of the best lines that have ever spoken to me from inside are;

"When we are young
and covered in love

We completely believe
we are gifts from above."
- Adam Stuart

Body:

My name is Chris
I am three,

My eyes are swollen
I cannot see,

I must be stupid
I must be bad,

What else could have made
My daddy so mad?

I wish I were better
I wish I weren't ugly,

Then maybe my mommy
Would still want to hug me.

I cant do a wrong
I cant speak at all

Or else im locked up
All day long.

When im awake im all alone
The house is dark

My folks arent home

When my mommy does come home
I'll try and be nice,

So maybe ill just get
One whipping tonight.

I just heard a car
My daddy is back

From Chariles bar
I hear him curse

My name is called
I press myself

Against the wall
I try to hide

From his evil eyes
Im so afraid now

I'm starting to cry
He finds me weeping

Calls me ugly words,
He says its my fault

He suffers at work
He slaps and hits me

And yells at me more,
I finally get free

And run to the door
Hes already locked it

And I start to bawl,
He takes me and throws me

Against the hard wall
I fall to the floor

With my bones nearly broken,
And my daddy continues

With more bad words spoken,
"Im sorry!", I scream

But its now much to late
His face has been twisted

Into a unimaginable shape
The hurt and the pain

Again and again
O please God, have mercy!

O please let it end!
And he finally stops

And heads for the door
While I lay there motionless

Sprawled on the floor
My name is Chris

I am three,
Tonight my daddy

Murdered me

Give One More, To One More

Tonight, Conan O'Brien mentioned that by the year 2013, 75% of Americans are predicted to be overweight. He faced the audience, put his hands together, and in an eerily similar voice to JFK, said,
"My fellow Americans. I believe if that if we work together, we can achieve this goal by 2010!"
I know this is no laughing matter. But I also know laughing actually exercises the body. And exercise seems to be what we're lacking in this country, at least according to one late-night comedian, who helps make us laugh.

The problem with living in an affluent society and having so much struggle taken away, is that so much struggle is taken away.

Most of us sit in our cars and drive to a job where we take an elevator to sit at a desk and sit talking on the phone before we go sit in meetings before sitting back in our cars to sit waiting at a fast window for food that has been sitting in a freezer so we can eat sitting on a couch tired from a day filled with exhaustive sitting. And don't forget the standing in the elevator that had no seats upon which to sit. We are really mentally and emotionally tired, which makes us feel physically tired.

Exercise IS physically important. I found this on Being Overweight

But WHY is it a bad thing to be overweight? Does it really matter if you're carrying too much fat? Unfortunately, it does. You see, the sad fact is that if you're overweight, your life is likely to be shorter than the life of someone who is slim. Sorry to be so blunt, but it's true. After all, how many overweight 90 year olds do you know? Excess weight makes us more liable to the following things:

· HEART ATTACK · ARTHRITIS · DIABETES · GALL STONES · HERNIAS · STROKES
· HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE · SERIOUS ACCIDENTS · FRACTURES · IMPOTENCE
· BACK ACHE · HIGH CHOLESTEROL

So it looks like Santa Claus isn't going to be around much longer if he doesn't trim down a bit. But I've noticed other benefits from exercising, and that is mental and emotional health. This is a big one. I've found that pushing myself in the gym or pool allows me to accomplish much more in my life.

Going past the point of failure is a mind thing. Your muscles have literally failed, and you can only lift another rep or swim another lap by drawing on some inner strength. This can only come from a deeper desire you have within you. And doing this last rep is where real growth and strength comes from, physically, mentally and emotionally.

To borrow from my friend Audrey's page,

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

(a most truly beautiful woman)

After my muscles have given out I tell myself one more rep means I'll stop one more child from being abused. Later when I'm dropping by a kid's house who is getting abused "just to say hi", I have the strength to stop myself from ripping his dad's head off as I pretend I don't know what he's done, and tell him how great his kid is in school around me and how well he listens; how stern I am with my own but never beat them; that as fathers we're there to build kids up, not break them down.

Believe it or not this works more often than you'd think, almost as if they can feel you believing in them as much as you do in their children. But you have to have the strength to forgive them for their past, it's over and there's nothing you can do about it. And you have to have the strength to believe in their future, that the past is over and won't be continued. And you have to be real. You have to really believe with all your might. As Red and I discussed today, every day is a new life to the wise man. Sometimes people just need to be enlightened to a more artful way to create their lives in a better way.

And if that doesn't work and they don't stop you have to be able to send out very strong and clear signals that you will not stop until they do. And you have to be strong enough to know you can back it up. The impossible is possible, if you're strong enough to believe it.

One more rep and it means I make one more kid in class believe in herself or himself and just how great she or he is capable of becoming. I tell myself and my students I will never let them go, no matter how heavy they get. Unless you're a teacher, you can only imagine how many days it seems getting kids to give their best seems too heavy of a task, heavier than any weight you've ever lifted. Yet in seven years of teaching not one kid has ever been left behind, and each one has "lifted" more academic weight than ever before. The impossible is possible, if you're tough enough to never let go.

One more lap means my children have one more memory of playing and dancing with their father, and of him holding them when they're sad. One more lap means I can listen to them, read to them, learn from them, teach them, and believe in them one more time, before they're gone. The impossible is possible, if you have enough strength to keep on loving.

If you don't have children, you can easily have the time to exercise. If you do have children that aren't with you all the time, you can find the time to exercise. If you do have children all the time, it's not so easy having and finding the time to exercise, so you have to make the time, maybe even exercising WITH them.

One more rep, one more lap, one more minute makes heroes of us all. For me that means giving children the opportunity to become heroes to themselves. What would cause you to give one more, to one more?