Category: Inspiration

More Tears

I saw a report of this America’s Got Talent performance on CNN a few minutes ago and searched for it on the internet. Watching it left me with tears running down my face, tears because I felt inspired, felt joy, felt hope.

In a few hours, I will be with Amma. Being touched by this video of a young man giving his all and seeing the effect he had on the judges and the crowd seems like a perfect lead-in to a day of heart opening.

Always Looking for Role Models

As I age, I find myself drawn to older people who can serve as role models in the aging process. I met a woman in Amritapuri whom I think of in that way. She lives a life of adventure even though she is well into her 70’s. The woman in this video is a very different kind of role model. I don’t see myself following in her footsteps, but I thoroughly enjoyed the video. I hope you do too.

Kodi Lee: America’s Got Talent

I just saw this story on the morning news. I found myself crying for the second time this morning, and it is only 8 a.m. I was so moved by the performance, I decided to share it on my blog.

The first time I cried today was when I read Jagati’s contribution to The Seeker’s Dungeon “From Darkness to Light” event, A Death Bed Dawning.

Amma with a Baby

I just found this delightful video on Amma’s Facebook page. It was posted on May 12, 2019.

Amma will be in North America soon.

Seattle, WA: June 6-7
San Ramon, CA: June 9-14
Los Angeles, CA: June 16-18
Santa Fe, NM: June 20-23
Dallas, TX: June 25-26
Atlanta, GA: June 28-29
Washington, DC: July 1-2
New York, NY: July 4-6
Boston, MA: July 8-9
Chicago, IL: July 11-13
Toronto, ON: July, 15-18

For more information go to:
https://amma.org/meeting-amma/ammas-north-america-tour

Amma’s Coming to Seattle

I believe that she [Amma] stands here in front of us, God’s love in a human body.

—Dr. Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist while giving Amma the Gandhi-King Award for Non-violence in Geneva, 7 October 2002

A friend sent this photo to me today after seeing one of the bus ads for Amma’s upcoming program.

Amma’s 2019 North American Tour Dates

Amma will be holding programs in the following metropolitan areas this summer. Details will be posted on Amma.org as they become available.

Seattle, WA: June 6-7

San Ramon, CA: June 9-14

Los Angeles, CA: June 16-18

Santa Fe, NM: June 20-23

Dallas, TX: June 25-26

Atlanta, GA: June 28-29

Washington, DC: July 1-2

New York, NY: July 4-6

Boston, MA: July 8-9

Chicago, IL: July 11-13

Toronto, ON: July, 15-18

The photo of Amma at the top of the post is from her Facebook Page.

Amazing Followup Story

Soon after I published yesterday’s post (Mystery Tool: Gimlet), I received a phone call from a neighbor… and she was crying.

Though I’d been writing primarily about the gimlet, an antique tool, I had included photos of some of the other “trash” we’ve found during the forest restoration work. One of those photos was of a bracelet I had unearthed in Winter or Spring of 2018 when I was digging out blackberry roots.

At the time I found the bracelet, I believed it was costume jewelry, but as I continued to look at it I began to wonder. What if the band was made of gold and the jewels were real? I decided to take it to a jeweler. I was a little disappointed when, after looking at it through a microscope, the jeweler reported that it was “fun” jewelry.

Well, it turned out that the bracelet was valuable—just in a different way. When my neighbor read my post, she had seen the photo of the bracelet. Through her tears, she told me the bracelet had been her mother’s, and it had been stolen from my neighbor’s house in 2014! She said she still had a segment of the necklace and an earring that went with it. I, of course, returned the bracelet.

I get chills even now as I think of my neighbor’s deep emotion, the remote chance that I had found this particular item in one shovelful of dirt in an acre of land; that it belonged to one of the two neighbors who I know reads my blog; and to make it even more remarkable, she has helped during some of the restoration work parties! So much Grace.

Guest Posting Opportunity for Everyone

Now that he is back from working on Amma’s North India tour, Sreejit from The Seeker’s Dungeon is starting a new Guest Posting event. It is called From Darkness to Light. Everyone who reads this post is welcome to write for it. Feel free to tell your friends, family, colleagues and anyone else in your life about it! They are also welcome to participate.

Sreejit said: “It is about sharing your darkest times and how you were able to use it to find purpose in your life.  Your words might be just what someone else needs to hear.  And in sharing we can all remember that we are not alone in our struggles.”

You can find the details here: https://theseekersdungeon.com/from-darkness-to-light/

Grateful and Blessed

I woke up during the night with the song How Great Thou Art reverberating throughout my body and soul. It was one of those dreams that was so much more than a dream, or maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. I felt grateful and blessed.

I heard that song for the first time in 1962 when George Beverly Shea sang it during a Billy Graham crusade my mother and I attended. I was in 10th grade at the time and we were living at Ft. Shafter Army Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. That experience was a major turning point in my life. While it wasn’t the beginning of my spiritual life, it certainly was the beginning of a new chapter.

I woke up several times during the night with that “dream” in the forefront of my mind. Again, I felt grateful and blessed. My sleep ended at 4 a.m. when I started thinking of events that had occurred early in my life. I remembered being really young (5 years old?) and loving the Christian music my father’s mother sang to me when my family visited her in New Jersey. As I thought about those times, the words “church in the vale” and later “little brown church in the vale” came into my mind. I don’t remember if that was a song my grandmother introduced me to, but it certainly could have been.

I decided to write a post about my dream and the reflections that followed it so I got up. I looked for YouTube videos of both songs. The video I chose for How Great Thou Art was recorded in 1957, several years before I heard the magnificent song for the first time. It was probably recorded during a Billy Graham crusade. Wikipedia says the song “is a Christian hymn based on a Swedish traditional melody and a poem written by Carl Boberg in Mönsterås, Sweden in 1885.”

The other song is called the Church in the Wildwood or The Little Brown Church. The video I’m sharing for that one is of Andy Griffith, Don Knotts and Robert Emhardt singing it in a 1963 show. That song was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857.

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The image at the top of the post was taken by Kevin Phillips from Pixabay.