"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it 
back to you when you have forgotten the words."

 ~ Unknown ~

From Carol of JazzlTubes

A PICTURE OF PEACE

Author Unknown

There once was a King who offered a prize to the artist who
would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The 
King looked at all the pictures, but there were only two he really liked and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror, 
for peaceful towering mountains were all around it. Overhead
was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture 
thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains too. But these were rugged 
and bare. Above was an angry sky from which rain fell and in 
which lightening played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled 
a foaming waterfall. 

This did not look peaceful at all. But when the King looked, 
he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack 
in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. 
There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother 
bird on her nest... perfect peace.

Which picture do you think won the prize?

The King chose the second picture. Do you know why?


"Because," explained the King, "peace does not mean 
to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard 
work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things 
and still be calm in your heart."

"That is the real meaning of peace."

Where Were You at 5:48am PST Tuesday?
by Mike Banks Valentine

I travel a lot and have been on hundreds of airplanes and in dozens of airports over the last 20 years. Recently a relative offered to go inside the airport with me to wait for my flight, I declined saying, "I've gotten very used to this, it's almost as routine as sitting in traffic at rush hour to me now."

That changed Tuesday as I stood, bleary eyed, in line for a cup of coffee at a concession stand in the Oakland Airport after just 3 hours of sleep and a two hour bus ride from my home in Northern California, waiting to catch a Southwest Airlines flight to San Diego for the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Internet 2001 show and conference at 6:30am California time. I'd gone over to the nearest coffee stand to buy a "wake-cup" of coffee a few minutes after I'd checked in for my flight.

I was quite annoyed at the clerk when instead of taking my money, she stood staring wide-eyed at a television mounted above and behind me in the concession area repeating, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" Finally I turned around to see that searing image of the second passenger jet ploughing into the second of the World Trade Center twin towers, re-broadcast from the Early Show in New York! It had happened about ten minutes ago and Bryant Gumbel was still trying to digest what had happened, saying that it must be purposeful terrorism.

None of us will ever forget that scene. Oddly, though still not fully aware of what I had seen, I still expected to board my scheduled flight and go to San Diego. The enormity of what I had seen had not sunken in to my tired mind yet. It's odd how we all expect to continue along with our plans when it should be obvious in retrospect that it would not happen. Every other passenger waiting for their flight in terminal 2 of the Oakland airport with me also stayed, expecting to board their own plane.

We all chattered to family, co-workers and clients by cell phone discussing the lurid pictures we'd seen on television moments ago. Nobody waiting in that terminal turned home until the planes that had already loaded began emptying of passengers and the flight attendants came off the planes to serve coffee to those waiting in the boarding area. It took me about 15 more minutes to realize that I might as well go home for the day. "I'll just go to San Diego tomorrow," I thought. Still not aware of the ramifications.

Denial is strong and comprehension slow when we've seen some- thing we can't understand. When I finally caught the bus home two hours later, minus my checked baggage, I realized it would never be routine again to travel by air to any destination. The bus driver turned on news radio at the request of passengers going back to hotels and homes 30 to 50 miles north of Oakland. New York is still 3000 or so miles away from here. I'd left home at 3:15am to catch the bus to the airport, returned home eight hours later.

When I arrived at the bus stop I found there were no connecting buses that could get me back home. My ride had gone to work. I sat down at the county airport bus stop and called a couple of numbers to find a ride home. Finally I learned that if I went back to the south a few blocks that I could transfer to another local bus going north the last few miles toward my home in Windsor.

A police officer approached me as I sat at the bus stop with my carry-on luggage and a briefcase. He asked if I were waiting for a ride. Now on a normal day, I would have scowled at him and snarled back, "Of Course!". But by now I had realized that this was not a normal day. I simply said, "Yes, I'm waiting for Sonoma County Transit bus." Then he asked for my I.D.

We're at a regional airport in Sonoma County California and the passenger terminal is closed and I'm the only person sitting in a covered bus stop. The passenger drop-off area is closed by traffic cones and he had been greeting anyone approaching by car to notify them the airport was closed. This was not a normal day.

I said, "Sure" and handed him my driver license. He asked, "Where were you traveling to?" Although I did a double take at the continued questioning, I realized he was only doing his job.

I said, "San Diego, from the Oakland airport. We never got off the ground. I took the bus back here and just arrived." He said, "Thank you sir. Have a good day," as he handed my driver license back to me.

The bus came and I rode to the necessary stop, crossed the road and walked a block to the stop going the other way at the bus driver's direction. The other bus came and I boarded, asking how near to my home street I could get. When he told me I would be getting off the bus at a shopping center that was twenty minutes walk from my house, I realized how tired my shoulders were from carrying my bag and briefcase already.

I walked a couple of blocks and into a business I frequent and asked to leave my bags there. They agreed and I walked home. In twenty minutes I returned with a car to pick up my bags from the business. The lobby was full of customers dazed by the mornings events, discussing how they'd heard of the shocking news. The business owner stopped when she saw me come in for my bags and said, ". . . And this poor guy was just at the airport trying to get on a plane."

On a normal day I would have been glad to tell my story to the group of patrons in that store. But it was not a normal day. I went home and turned on television news, still dazed.

It was not a normal day.

--------------------------------------------------------
Mike Valentine does Search Engine Placement for the Small
Business http://website101.com/Search_Engine_Positioning 

WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet
Weekly Ezine emphasizing small business on the Internet
http://website101.com/arch/ 

You Can Alter History!
We have just experience another loss that we will share together. We have lost our innocence of war in this century, in North America. We all looked upon the troubles of the Middle East in horror wondering what it could be like to live in a country always under attack. Not knowing when the next bomb will strike or where. They spend their lives in suspicion looking over their shoulders in fear. They pray when their loved ones leave the house and thank God when they return. We would go about our daily lives, with hopes of peace for them while being thankful we don’t live that way.

Until Tuesday September 11 2001.

Unlike the Middle East, we are not accustomed to such acts of terrorism. We are not accustomed to looking over our shoulders. We will now. Our lives have been affected permanently in innumerable ways. Whatever age, religion or nationality, we are frightened. We are a gentle peace loving country whose inner conflicts alone have tested our limits. These acts of terrorism have exceeded them. These terrorists want to paralyze our country.

The suspects are Middle Eastern, but they don’t represent all Middle Eastern people. These particular individuals are sick, twisted extremists. In the planes that they hijacked, two United and two American could they have meant- “for United America?”

President Bush said this is the first war of the twenty first century. Unfortunately that’s so. We are living history. All future mankind will learn of these events. We can alter history. How we react to the situation as individuals and as a whole will be history as well. The power of the American people has already been shown in the way they have come together to help those in need. It’s very powerful. But individually we are scared; individually we are paralyzed. In the words of war, “divide and concur”.

I took the words of a news correspondent seriously. He said something to the affect that the terrorists want us to be paralyzed. They want to change us, to make us hate like they hate. That's their intention, so if we let them they win.

So what's the other side of the coin? If we go about our lives won’t we appear insensitive to the victims and their families and friends? Won’t that show we are disregarding and disrespecting our country and their lives? That depends on how you move on. If you move on with hate and rage you will not be honoring those who died or your country. If you move on with remembrance and unities with your fellow man then you not only honor your country and the victims, you will honor yourself.

Just as we mourn and move on from a personal tragic loss we must do the same in this situation. We will remember, it will never be erased from out minds, hearts and souls. But we need to fight back with our minds and intelligence, which the terrorists have clearly shown they don't have. We will show them what's it's really like to be united and strong. What they have paralyzed is our ability to compromise or to show empathy in their situation.

Don’t let them paralyze your right to independence and freedom, love and joy.

You can alter history!

Liz Wertman "Divorce Strategy for Men and Women". For those that want their questions answered and their problems solved! http://www.divorcewell.com 

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