Learning Patience With God

By Jerry L. Haynes

My mother was dying of leukemia. My two older sisters, father, and I had shared the last three weeks in the hospital room with her. In two years, she had gone from a strong matriarch to a helpless invalid.

For the last three days, she had been in a semi-conscious state of moaning and lifelessness. She could no longer speak through her dry, swollen lips. Her eyes had the blank void of a moonless midnight.

On the night of the third day, I knew what I must do. I must cease being the selfish, clinging son. I sped purposefully to the chapel. There I gave God permission to take my mother. I could no longer stand to see her suffer, so I prayed for the permanent healing that only death can bring.

I returned to the room with a peaceful heart for I knew by the next morning my mother would also be at peace. I had the best night's sleep in weeks. The next morning, as the sun broke through the window, I awoke. My first thoughts were, "It's over". But then a noise, a stirring directed my attention from the window to the bed. A small movement made me realize that my mother was still alive. It was all I could do to keep from screaming aloud, "God, how can You do this to me? I became a selfless son, and gave You permission to end this, and You still kept her in her misery." But before I could have exclaimed this, I was shocked to see that there was more than just a movement.

My mother rolled onto her side, and looked into the glare of the newly risen sun. Then, as the sun made sparkling starbursts in her eyes, she licked her parched lips, and said "Gee, it's going to be a beautiful day today". Needless to say this got our attention quickly. Being the youngest, and fastest, I was first to her bedside. "Mom, it's me, Jerry, do you recognize me"? "Of course I do Jerry", she replied.

We all took our turns talking to her. Other relatives came and were able to talk to her, as she answered not in her old voice, but rather in the voice of a child. The doctor's explanation was that the brain stem was being destroyed, accounting for the sudden change. It was a joyous day of laughing, and celebrating life with our family. That night we all went to sleep peacefully.

The next morning, we were awaken to the stirring of angel's wings, and my mother was finally healed of her suffering. She had awakened to the Risen Son.

The next few days were hectic with funeral plans. It was only after the funeral that I stopped to think of what had happened. If God had answered my prayer, in my time, in my way, my final memories of my mother would have been that of a helpless invalid, with void eyes, lying motionless in a deathbed. Instead, God answered my prayer in his time, in his omniscient way.

Now, my memories of my mother are of a day of laughing and rejoicing. Since that time I have had many rocky roads. Financial failure. A divorce. The loss of my father. But throughout it all, regardless of how stormy the night might be, I know that through God's love, and perfect timing, I can awaken the next morning to a newly risen sun, or to the Risen Son, and say "Gee, it's going to be a beautiful day today."

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You've Got To Find What You Love

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

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Treasures In Your Life

By Pandora Poikilos

Today's post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour 6 a fantastic blog hop that brings together bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations. In today's hop, the blog featured before Peace from Pieces is Shannon. The blog featured after Peace from Pieces is Hope. Do stop by and say hello, plus some of us are having giveaways and contests. Enjoy!
Click HERE for a full list of participating blogs.

This is an condensed version of a previous post I made, "I Love You Because" in honour of the treasures in my life - faith, trust and love. Three things we are so keen (unknowingly or not) on taking for granted.

As I look back and think of all the people I have crossed paths with, I am thankful for the ones who have hurt me, even if they have hurt me in a big way. Because without them, I wouldn't be able to appreciate the 'support beams' that now support my world so strongly. Yes, I may not have the riches of Hollywood, and with my current physical state of baldness may look like something the cat has been dragging around for two weeks but I have support, encouragement and love. I have everything I need.

This post is about the few people who have shown me in every way possible way that there is such a thing as unconditional love and that if you're willing, you can do anything you set your mind to. It is for the person who reads each of my blog posts and makes it a point to write me a little note to say that I have made a good difference in their world.

It is for people, who regardless of time, effort, money and off days left in their work calendar have driven me or sat with me time after time in a hospital telling me everything will turn out fine and not telling me that I have been such a nuisance to them. Be it holding my hand, spoon feeding me or putting my clothes on, to do it this many times and for me to know I'd probably never have the chance to do the same for them, is an amazing feat.

It is for the person who has opened her home and her heart to me, despite her own significant losses and reminded me that you need something to hold on to, even if your faith is the size of a mustard seed. And in the moments for when I lose focus to always read, Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.

It is for the person, who despite knowing my many cracks, flaws and broken pieces can still tell me that I am loved for who I am and that together we are just like Peas and Carrots. Also, that just as our fingers, when clasped together offers no space, that is how close we will always be.

Mostly, it is for the people who have believed in me even when I've stopped believing in myself, telling me to pick up a pen and write and to never forget to keep doing it, and irrelevant of country, time zone or phone charge have always found a way of keeping in touch, even if it is for just 2 minutes. Because, really, you actually need less than that to say I Love You or even I’m thinking of you. And so, here are the many reasons why I love the people that I love.

I Love You Because
- You never pushed me down when I was already down
- You make me laugh
- You listen to me
- You've never tried to change me
- You're the first person I think of in the morning
- You understand me
- You accept me
- You're the last voice I hear before I sleep
- You may not agree with what I write, but you still read it anyway
- You taught me how to remember the names of the 7 dwarfs - Dopey, Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful & Doc!
- You end all your text messages with I Love You
- You've never complained when I said "I needed to talk" even if it's been at 3am
- You were honest enough to say you hate my makeup
- You've always been there to pick me up at the airport
- You've sat beside my hospital bed and not had a wink of sleep
- You taught me to love craft and to keep doing it
- You gave me my passion for books
- You've eaten my cake, even when it came out all cracked
- You're the person I can call when I'm in pain
- You don't say I told you so, even when you have told me and I've screwed up
- You always come stay, to be near, even if you can't solve the problem
- You've never once said I woke you up (which I probably did) when I woke up with nightmares and needed to calm down
- I can tell you anything and I know you won’t look at me differently
- You’ve never said I don’t have time for you
- You respect my personal space
- I can trust you
- You don’t jump to conclusions
- You don’t choose bits of me that you like, you take it all
- We're going to have a Labrador called 'Bruce'
- You are you. There's no else who can fit those shoes
- You make me feel safe
- I can close my eyes, knowing you'll be around when I wake up
- You know about the best gift box in the world
- You love me in ways I'm not sure I deserve
- Watching 'Cream Fraiche' with you was worth all the laughs
- You're my eyes when my spelling's gone to the dogs
- Sometimes, we really need to change the subject and sometimes we don't and we're still figuring out together, which is which
- You just called me pedantic and it made me laugh

Love and light.

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Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour 6

Join Me!
Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour

Come join us on a fantastic blog hop that brings together bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations.

Tour Date - Saturday, 30 July

Theme - Treasures In Your Life

1. Dilman - http://dilmandila.blogspot.com/

2. Debbie - http://www.scatteredmusings.net/
3. Shelley - http://bookfare.blogspot.com/

4. Lucy - http://lifethrulucylasticaslense.blogspot.com/
5. Karen - http://britsunited.blogspot.com
6. Shannon - http://reflectionandreview.com/

7. Dora - http://peacefrompieces.blogspot.com/

8. Hope - http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com

9. Janet - http://jlbcreatives.blogspot.com

10. Karen - http://karenvwasylowski.blogspot.com

11. Janu - http://janukulkarni.blogspot.com

12. Catherine - http://www.catherinestine.blogspot.com/

13. David - http://blog.elenchera.com
14. Stuart - http://stuartland.com/blog/

15. Grace - http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.com

16. Dora - http://blogaliciousblogs.blogspot.com/

Want to join in the fun? Here's what you need to do ...

1. Leave your blog link at the bottom of this post.

2. Write an article or post a photo relevant to the theme on YOUR blog. If your post is not up by Saturday 12.00 noon (GMT), your link will be removed from this list.
2. Introduce the blog before you and the blog after you.
3. Visit as many of the listed blogs as you can, if not in one day you can do a few a day? Make a comment, follow, join.
4. If you are having a giveaway or a competition this would be the time to showcase your hot stuff. This is not compulsory, it is up to you.
5. This is open to all bloggers, writers, authors, publishers. All we ask is that you have a blog, be able to post as per the weekly theme, have a comment system that works and have F-U-N.
6. The tour is limited to 20 bloggers.
7. BUT, we will be doing it every two weeks. Next blog tour is on 14 August, to sign up click HERE.

Fun tips to make it work

1. Tweet it (#blogalicious), Stumble it and share it any way you can. Tweet me @pandorapoikilos

2. Not all of us are on the same time zone so try to have your post up by Friday night your time. This way it'll be ready for when people come to visit you.

3. Giveaways and competitions are not compulsory, it is up to you.

4. Even if you can't visit all the blogs in one day, spread it over the weekend or even the week.

5. If there is anything you need, email me - pandorapoikilos@gmail.com

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Little Brown Boy

By Alison Peters

Danielle was only four when she burst through the front door, having just gotten off the school bus, after preschool. Charging through the living room, she spotted me in the dining room and launched into a speech while she headed toward me. While it was comical to see such a little person behave so dramatically, her outrage seemed real enough that she had my full attention.

"They are MEAN to him!" she raged, her little fist hammering the table top for emphasis.

"Who is mean to who?" I interrupted.

"Those kids on the bus! They are MEAN to the little brown boy!" She looked up at me, hands on her hips, her eyes wide, incredulous. I knew she expected me to right this injustice immediately. It was the first one she had discovered in her very new Out In The World On Her Own adventures.

"They make fun of him and make fun of him and make fun of him." Her golden head nodded emphatically with each repetition. "They laugh at him. They copy the way he talks. They hurt his feelings!" I watched her while I listened. This was something very different for her, this little girl I knew so well. I had never seen her just this way before. I even saw flashes of anger in her green eyes.

"The way he talks...?" I prompted, as if she needed prompting. I sat down at the table and set her on my lap.

"He doesn't talk perfect, but that's just because he's a little kid!" this four-year-old elderly person informed me loudly, inches from my face. She looked directly into my eyes, needing answers. "WHY are they so MEAN?"

My husband and I had been a little apprehensive about sending her to and from preschool ("Headstart") on a bus with many of the kids so much older and bigger and tougher than she was. This was our baby of the family, our sheltered miniature princess, and it was not easy to back off and let her face the world without us for a few hours a day ... Alas, even princesses grow up.

"Do you think they might be doing that just because he's new?" I asked her.

She thought for a minute. "No. When I was new, they didn't make fun of me."

I took a deep breath. "Do you think maybe they tease him because his skin is black?"

She thought for a minute, clearly puzzled. Then she wrinkled her nose and said, "You mean brown?" I nodded and she went on: "Because he's BROWN? You don't make fun of someone just because of that!"

I told her I hoped she was right. She was learning lessons none of us should need to learn. Man's inhumanity to man ... Kid's inhumanity to kids ... Whatever the reason, people can be so cruel.

(Since we were looking into that subject, and since Danielle has a Downs' syndrome sister who rode on the same bus, I asked quietly, "Does anyone on the bus make fun of Shannon, Danielle?"

I'll never forget the look she gave me. My question threw her totally off guard. Her brow furrowed, her nose wrinkled again and she asked, "Why in the world would they make fun of Shannon?" The very idea was ludicrous. Her mother could be so silly sometimes ...

Relief was great ...

But just in case, just in case there really was a flash of racial prejudice or any other mean-streak residing in the preschool bus in our little rural neighborhood, it was necessary to take a bit of action. First, I telephoned the principal and informed him that my preschooler had come home upset because of the way a little boy was treated on the bus. I told him what she had told me, and he asked me to thank her for him, for alerting us to a possible problem, something that needed his attention. He assured me he would look into it and he appreciated Danielle's and my concern.

She was happy. We had done something.

Then, for good measure, she and I sang a song together: a song we both knew very well.

"Jesus loves the little children All the children of the world. Red and yellow Black ('AND BROWN', I threw in) and white, All are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."

I don't know how the principal chose to handle the problem: I don't know what he said to the kids. But rest assured Danielle kept me posted on Life on the School Bus, and there was not even one more negative incident involving the little brown boy.

A princess had seen to that.

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