SECULAR SPECULATIONS - 495

"watch your words,

for they give birth to actions..!

-------------------------------------

Have you fallen in love?

(Ah, it's one unique fall, when you - with no trauma -

are not rushed to the City Hospital's E.R.!)

Do you fall in love?

In that fall, are you filled with tears of joy?

If so, those tears are a volume of your prosaic emotions - that written texts can't express.

Indeed, they are words your bewitched heart can't utter.

Here is a tribute to WORDS:

"I have always had a special love for words.

Words have such power in them.

The right words can uplift, inspire, heal,

and create endless joy and love in our lives.

The wrong words can depress, discourage,

hurt, and bring us endless misery and pain.

It is so very important then to try and choose the right words in our lives.

By choosing the right words I don't just mean saying the right words or writing the

right words either.

I also mean thinking the right words.

It is amazing the garbage that so many of us allow ourselves to think each

and everyday of our lives.

In order to live a truly blessed life we must haul away the garbage

and start to plant words that will grow into a garden of joy and light

in our minds.

Start today then to make the words in your life work for

you and not against you.

Do away with "can't" and "no". Try "can" and "yes" instead.

Say, " I can be happy, I can choose joy, and I can share love."

Say, "Yes" to life, to learning, and to growth.

Begin to use words like: Wonderful, Beautiful, and Delightful when you speak to others.

Find a word of praise for everyone you know and then share it with them.

Look the people you love straight in the eye and tell them, "I love you."

Seek our every fantastic, fabulous, and glorious word that you can and start to use

them in your life.

Words are such simple things and yet they have the power to change our

lives forever if we use them right.

Make the choice everyday of your life to use all of the good, positive,

and loving words you can every second that you can.

If you do this you will find that your life will become a paradise of love and joy,

that other people will become your brothers and sisters in happiness,

and that God's goodness will shine through every word you use...."

(FOOD FOR THOUGHT - AUTHOR UNKNOWN)

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

PEACE.

GITANJALI - BERNARD

SECULAR SPECULATIONS - 496

"avoda" in modern hebrew means

both "worship" and "work"...

-----------------------------------------

The Book of Ecclesiastes has a telling statement.

It reads:

"Sweet is the sleep of a laboring man" (Ecclesiastes 5:11)

A little later, another utterance from the sage

who authored those Proverbs:

"Prepare for your work outside...And make it fit for yourself in the field;

and afterwards build your house" (Proverbs 24:27).

In Biblical Hebrew, the daily labor (maleka) and the angel of the Lord (malak),

almost like siblings, took their origins from the same root word.

A Rabbi taught:

"Flay (strip off the skin from) a carcass in the street and earn a wage and say not, " I am a great man

and such this sort of work is degrading to me".

However, physical work wasn't always respected - in the ancient world.

In fact, many cultures counted and considered it as a disdain.

The master stood and watched, monitored and supervised...

while the ploughman tilled and turned the earth upside down - Didn't he?.

Aristotle (could you imagine!) felt that "laborers, artisans, and

merchants were unfit for citizenship in Greece".

The Great Cicero opined that no gentleman

could be a tradesman, a mechanic or a laborer.

Are you critiquing the Romans, the Greek, the Persians, the Egyptians

and the Thracians - and every other civilization?

What about the civilization - the ancient civilization - you belong to?

What dignity did it - does it accord to human labor?

Is there NOT a caste-hierarchy affixed to each profession - every division of job?

Would you - an engineer, a professor, a pilot, computer analyst,

a bank manager - court friendship with a manual worker?

Commensality: in a covenanted relationship, would you eat with him...share his meal

Connubiality: in a committed bonding, would you fall for her - and marry?

How would you treat if one of your daughters or sons dared to cross

the sophisticated fences

and the high walls you have built and have guarded them religiously?

What sanctions would you impose - consciously and unconsciously..?

There is a fort - the PADMANABHAPURAM PALACE, about 50 Kilometers from Thiruvananthapuram,

close to the town of Thuckalay in Tamilnadu.

(it's one piece of property Kerala owns in Tamilnadu!).

Constructed in 1601 by the Travancore King, it is a long complex of granite construction.

Who knows, Rravivarma Kulasehara Perumal (1592 - 1609 A.D) might have

hidden in his place so much of precious metals and so many expensive jewels.

Gold ornaments and ruby-studded crowns.

However, a coin earned by manual labor is worth more than all those collections...

PEACE.

GITANJALI - BERNARD