AE: ANECDOTES WITH INTENTION

"A teacher is someone who talks in our sleep!"
"Teenagers are people who act like babies if they're not treated like adults!"
"A college jock is someone who minds his build instead of vice versa!"


more astounding sentences of this re-known moron...

I recently had the opportunity to spend 12 months in China as teacher.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Although the authorities took a strong line against any activity that might have been considered evangelizing, we were allowed to attend church and join in Mass with the local Christians.

The first time was the most memorable.

A Chinese friend agreed to take me into the Wuchang town center to the church. "Be ready at 6.30!" she said. "So Mass is at seven?" I asked.

"Oh no, Mass is at 9.30."

It turns out that in China, the good Christians are in the church at least two hours beforehand. When we arrived at church, it was almost full at 7.30.

Firstly, we practiced the hymns, not once but 12 or 15 times until everyone was word perfect!

Then there was the preliminary reading of the gospel and scriptures of the day, not just the actual passages, but some chapters before and after the passages, so that the congregation could understand the context.

Just before the Mass started, it was quiet recollection time.

I felt guilty recalling the times, I had swept into the church car park at five to nine and dived into a back pew in the nick of time!

When we arrived at the church there was a wall about 10 foot high all the way around, with just one narrow gateway.

More on GOING TO MASS IN CHINA

School Sex Ed

I was holding a notice from my 13-year-old son's school announcing a meeting to preview the new course in sexuality.

Parents could examine the curriculum and take part in an actual lesson presented exactly as it would be given to the students.

When I arrived at the school, I was surprised to discover only about a dozen parents there.

As we waited for the presentation, I thumbed through page after page of instructions in the prevention of pregnancy or disease.

I found abstinence mentioned only in passing.

When the teacher arrived with the school nurse, she asked if there were any questions.

I asked why abstinence did not play a noticeable part in the material.

What happened next was shocking.

IT CONTINUES

The Lord's Prayer


"Our Father which art in heaven."
--- Yes? Don't interrupt me. I'm praying
--- But you called me Called you? I didn't call you. I'm praying. "Our father which art in heaven."
--- There you did it again. Did what?
--- Called me. You said, "Our Father which art in heaven." Here I am. What's on your mind? But I didn't mean anything by it. I was, you know, just saying my prayers for the day. I always say the Lord's prayer. It makes me feel good, kind of like getting a duty done.
--- All right. Go on. "Hallowed be thy name."
--- Hold it. What do you mean by that? By what?
--- By "Hallowed be thy name?" It means... it means... Good grief, I don't know what it means. How should I know? It's just a part of the prayer. By the way, what does it mean?
--- It means honored, holy, wonderful. Hey that makes sense. I never thought about what "hallowed" meant before.

(IT CONTINUES)

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Mother Theresa.

America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts--a child--as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.
Mother Theresa

There is even an acceptance of abortion, which is always, in addition to being an abominable crime (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 51), a senseless impoverishment of the person and of society itself.
Pope John Paull II

Motherhood is sometimes presented as something backward or as a limitation of a woman's freedom, thus distorting its true nature and dignity. Children are presented not as what they are — a great gift of God — but rather as something to be defended against.
John Paul II - Cuba, January 1998

The priest is not and must not be a civil servant of the Church. Above all, the priest is a man who lives for the spirit, for God. This being the case, the Seminary is the place where he learns 'to be with Him.' "
John Paul II

I was a revolutionary when I was young and all my prayer to God was, "Lord, give me the energy to change the world." As I approached middle age and realized that half my life was gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to "Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come in contact with me. Just my family and friends, and I shall be satisfied." Now that I am old and my days are numbered, my one prayer is, "God, give me the grace to change myself." If I had prayed this right from the start I should not have wasted my life.

The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello

"Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good."
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christian, 1890

"Tell us straight that you do not believe in the Gospel of Christ; for you believe what you want in the Gospel and disbelieve what you want. You believe in yourself rather than in the Gospel."
St. Augustine

To lose ourselves in God is simply to give up our own will to Him.When a soul can truly say, "Lord, I have no other will than Thine," it is truly lost in God, and united to Him. -
St. Francis de Sales

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
Mother Teresa


Some babies die by chance. No baby should die by choice We therefore grossly deceive ourselves in not allotting more time to the study of divine truths. It is not enough barely to believe them, and let our thoughts now and then glance upon them: that knowledge which shows us heaven, will not bring us to the possession of it, and will deserve punishments, not rewards, if it remain slight, weak, and superficial. By serious and frequent meditation it must be concocted, digested, and turned into the nourishment of our affections, before it can be powerful and operative enough to change them, and produce the necessary fruit in our lives. For this all the saints affected solitude and retreats from the noise and hurry of the world, as much as their circumstances allowed them.
-St. Apollinaris

Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ
-- St. Jerome

The bread which you use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.
-St. Basil

Mary was raised to the dignity of Mother of God rather for sinners than for the just, since Jesus Christ declares that he came to call not the just, but sinners.
-St. Anselm

The Little Hut


The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him,
and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a
little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.
Then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the
sky.
The worst had happened -- everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger.
"God, how could you do this to me?" he cried.
Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue
him.
"How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers.
"We saw your smoke signal," they replied.
It's easy to get discouraged sometimes when things appear to be going badly. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is
at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering.
Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God!

IT CONTINUES...

I AM THANKFUL:

FOR THE WIFE
WHO SAYS IT’S RESTAURANT / TANTALIZERS TONIGHT,
BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME, AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.


FOR THE HUSBAND
WHO IS ON THE SOFA WATCHING FOOTBAL
BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME
AND NOT OUT AT THE BAR WITH OTHER CHICS.

FOR THE TEENAGER
WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES
BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME,
NOT ON THE STREETS.


FOR THE TAXES I PAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED .
FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.


FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING,
WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME


FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING
I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT ,CRISIS, PRESS AND JUDGE MALPRACTICES
BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

FOR THE PARKING SPOT
I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING
AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .

FOR MY HUGE PHCN BILL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE LIGHT.

FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH
WHO SINGS OFF KEY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES
AT THE END OF THE DAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.

AND I AM THANKFUL:
FOR THE crazy people I work with
BECAUSE they make work interesting and fun!

AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL

BECAUSE IT MEANS
I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE
THINKING OF ME.
SEND THIS TO SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT.
I JUST DID.

Live well, Laugh often, & Love with all of your heart!

SOME GOOD ADVICE
This was written by the CEO of Coca-Cola Brian G. Dyson.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air.

You name them - Work - Family - Health - Friends - Spirit, and you're keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.
But the other four balls -- family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.
They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.


Continue to know

How?

There are some parents who do not approve of the life of a deformed child. They "indulge" it from suffering.
Here we have a real life story. A child who prefer to have no legs rather than not living at all...

Omayra Sanchez (the girl pictured) was 13 years old at the time and lived with her parents, her brother and an uncle. However, prior to the tragedy, her mother had traveled to Bogotá on business. Omayra could not escape and was trapped under her own home's concrete plaque and debris.

When rescue teams tried to help her, they realized that her legs were trapped. The only feasible option was to pull her out by breaking and ripping her legs off. Omayra remained strong until the last moment of her life. According to people who were by her side during those moments, the little girl wanted to live, saying her only worry was to go back to school.

The people who were trying to save her life begged the pilots of overflying helicopters to get a pump so the water could have been drained out. After two days a pump was delivered, but unfortunately it did not work properly and finally got stuck because of the mud and debris.

JOY IN THE JOURNEY




If you have ever been discouraged because of failure, please read on. For often, achieving what you set out to do is not the important thing.
Let me explain.

Two brothers decided to dig a deep hole behind their house.
As they were working, a couple of older boys stopped by to watch.
"What are you doing?" asked one of the visitors.
"We plan to dig a hole all the way through the earth!", one of the brothers volunteered excitedly.

The older boys began to laugh, telling the younger ones that digging a hole all the way through the earth was impossible.

After a long silence, one of the diggers picked up a jar full of spiders, worms and a wide assortment of insects.
He removed the lid and showed the wonderful contents to the scoffing visitors.

Then he said quietly and confidently, "Even if we don't dig all the way through the earth, look what we found along the way!"

Their goal was far too ambitious, but it did cause them to dig.


IT CONTINUES...

Years ago there was a village in a desert.
Water was scarce, and the people treasured what little they had. It seldom rained, but when it did, people scurried about to capture it in buckets and pots. Every drop was a treasure. Every cup was precious.

For that reason the discovery in the cavern was thrilling news.

One day a farmer was digging holes for fence posts. A few feet below the surface of the ground he found a cavern- not large, but full of water. He immediately lowered a bucket, pulled it out, and tasted, to his delight, cold, sweet water. He was so excited he filled all his buckets, loaded them in the back of his wagon, and hurried into the village.

"I have water! I have water!" he shouted.

The villagers came running out of their houses. As the people gathered, the farmer explained how he had come upon the treasure. He joyfully announced that there was enough for everyone.
"Drink all you want," he offered. And then, to the people's amazement, he picked up a bucket and doused a little boy.
"There is plenty!" he proclaimed. "Enjoy it."

And with that the people began to laugh and splash each other. For the first time as long as anyone could remember, there was enough water for everyone. After the celebration, the farmer announced his plan.

"I'll bring some water in every morning so each of you can have what you need." And that's exactly what he did.

The farmer became the watermaster.



It continues...

A 23-year-old suspect burglar, wanted by police, was unhappy with the official mugshot of himself published by a Swansea newspaper, so he sent in another picture from his mobile phone.
In it he is standing beside a police van. “He’s a well known member of the criminal fraternity and seeing him like this is no surprise,” said a police officer.

When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten.
When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten.
When the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten.
No drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs are under control.
You are a free man.~

Chuang Tzu

SEE ANECDONET FOR MORE

I watched them tearing a building down, A gang of men in a busy town.

With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell, They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled, As the men you'd hire if you had to build?"

He gave me a laugh and said, "No indeed! Just common labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two What builders have taken a year to do."

A surprising thought follows...

SUCCESS


A ‘slightly’ distorted view of the meaning of SUCCESS:
At age 3 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . having friends.
At age 18 success is . . . having a drivers license.
At age 35 success is . . . having money.
At age 50 success is . . . having money.
At age 70 success is . . . having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is . . . having friends.
At age 90 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.

FOR MORE ANECDOTES AND STORIES PRESS HERE

Holidays come. For many of us it is urgent to find good contents for some of that time. Content acceptable in the length, ways and audience.

Here we offer an approach to it: a series of videos and documents extracted from the Web on GOOD MANNERS.

THEY ARE DOWNLOADABLE AND UP TO CERTAIN STANDARDS...

Make Your Standards Clear

Personal Experience shared by Richard G. Scott at a BYU Devotional


One summer, as a teenager, I worked on an oyster boat off the coast of Long Island in New York to earn funds for college.

The other members of the crew were seasoned oystermen, hardened by the harsh winter environment in which they spent much of their lives battling the icy ocean and raw wind to secure their catch.

I was an enigma to them, easier to distrust than to understand.

They shunned me as a company spy, then as a crazy kid who didn't know how to be a man.

Later, I became better at my duties and tried to build friendships.

They offered to make me "a real man" by joining them on their all-night indulgences.

IT CONTINUES...

Sue: Do you think it’s a good idea having sex with him?
Una: Well, we’ve been together for more than three months, and we do love each other.
S: You think that’s enough?
U: It seems to be enough for everybody else, so why not us?
S: You’re separating sex from marriage.
U: I guess so.
S: Hmm. You want babies?
U: Not yet anyway.
S: So you’re separating sex from babies too?
U: Isn’t that what the pill and condoms are for?
S: No need, then, for strings like marriage and babies?
U: You’re making sex sound like a big deal. Everybody’s doing it.
S: What about getting rid of more strings?
U: Like?
S: Commitment, faithfulness. Suppose he decided that neither of you should be tied to just one partner?
U: I’d kill him. Then I’d dump him.
S: Who’s making sex sound like a big deal now? Isn’t he only letting go of another string?
U: There has to be faithfulness or there’s nothing.
S: Yes, but what does ‘faithful’ mean when you’re not married? It just means “until one of us gets tired of the other, or meets someone else.”
U: So you’re saying sex, marriage, babies and faithfulness all belong together? That they shouldn’t be separated.
S: Seems to me that if we can cut one string we can cut whatever other ones we like.
U: You make sex sound like a drag, with althese strings.
S: No, I’m making it far more exciting, an adventure. A true love story.
U: Just by keeping it for marriage?
S: Yes. We’re talking body language here.
U: Don’t get you.
S: No? You eye a guy, smile at him, hold hands, hug him. You don’t even need to tell him you’re liking him more and more, your body language says it all. Even more than your words.
U: And next step is sex.
S: You’re awful eager for sex. Slow down. What does the body language, having sex, “say”?
U: Haven’t a clue.
S: Think about it. It says two things: “I give myself totally to you” and “I fully accept your complete gift of yourself to me.” And without that complete giving, the sex is a “lie”, a fraud.
U: Not sure I get that.
S: Ok, the “total” bit. That includes “my exclusive love”, it includes “forever”, it includes “my fertility”, all this I’m giving you. And I accept the same from you.
U: I bet most couples don’t realise that’s what they’re saying when they stand at the altar.
S: And each time they make love afterwards! They’re saying their marriage cannot be broken except by death, they’ll be faithful forever and that their love will always be open to new life.
U: Sounds scary!
S: It’s awesome. And what makes it even more awesome is that God is as truly present in their bedroom as at the altar, deepening their love for each other.
U: You could revolutionise society with these ideas.
S: And the Church too.

Culled from here.

It is widely known that the best thing to be away from trouble is to run away from it. Only that we are so weak, so humanly stupid that we're unable to keep out of occasions... This is a 55 seconds example


Charly bit my finger...

This is a good inspirational piece.

It'll give you something to ponder...

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was Too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. "Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor.

Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.

The telephone!
IT CONTINUES...

Stephen R. Covey,
writer of the book
7 habits of highly effective people,
enlightens us on how to achieve most of our time.

FIRST THINGS FIRST
We must organise and execute according to priorities. Effective managerial activity consists ofbeginning by what is first. We must have present that management, administration, is discipline put into practice.

ATTENDING URGENT MATTERS WITHOUT FORGETTING THE IMPORTANT ONES
Habitually either we will devote most of our energy to urgent duties, that is to say, whose which need immediate attention or to the unimportant matters that make us waste time.

However, the most skillful people in making most of their time apply themselves in facing the important tasks, which are the matters that actually fill our lives with meaning. When we’re dominated by urgent matters, we just manage to quench fires. But fire is prevented by dedicating hours to what is important.

And what is important? Important are all those activities that we know we must face but we usually elude because they’re not urgent.

ORGANISING THEDAIRY’S SCHEDULE WEEKLY (Press the link for more...)

Dear Nettles,
You ask if I’m worried about the number of lapsed Catholics who have begun going back to Sunday Mass.
The truth is, I am and I’m not. Not that I ever want to see any human wretch go near Mass. Seeing them there is one of our sharpest pains down here. But we have to be realistic.
I mean, once the economic downturn began to bite it was natural that those with any sense at all would turn to religion.
And the deeper it bites the more we can expect even the most dense among them to start thinking about Him above, to rediscover their dependence on him.
After all, trying to keep them from thinking about Him, and happiness, and heaven, and all that kind of stuff is a huge strain, it’s like trying to keep a ball in the air.
You can do it, but it’s not natural and it takes a lot of work, and once you let up it returns to rest on the ground.
Natural
In the same way, keeping the human wretches from worshipping Him above is keeping them from what is natural.
We can do it, especially if we keep distracting them with immediate satisfactions, but it takes a lot of effort and if we let up, their interest in Him soon resurfaces.
But back to your question about how worried I am. The more interesting question, I think, is how deep is their ‘conversion’ when they do return to religion.
In other words, are they there just for the comfort and the sense of security it gives? Or do they realise that more is demanded from them?
Let me explain. When they’re away from religion not only their way of behaving but their whole way of thinking begins to change. Soon they no longer think like Christians.
But most of them are too full of themselves to even realise the change that has come over them. On topic after topic they end up thinking like pagans, or the characters they view on TV.
Slogans
They’ll have the same slogans: “I don’t want to impose my view on others”, “who am I to judge”, I only gave him what he deserved”, “it’s her right to choose”, etc.
They’ll talk about their “partner” and, like the media, they’ll only use ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ when they’re talking about gays!
They never even wonder what’s behind all these slogans, what kind of an outlook on life they contain, what way their own thinking is being twisted by them.
My big fear is when real conversion takes place, when they decide that they need to change both their behaviour and their thinking.
Worst of all is confession. Every time one of them mentions that I have a panic attack. At that point I know they’re serious about changing, that they want to turn away from past sins and turn towards Him above.
This is the real change we have to watch, the num- bers returning to confession.
Yours anxiously,
Dumbag