TRIVIA - LIVER

If 80 percent of our liver were to be removed, the remaining part would continue to function, and within a few months the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size. Although the liver is the largest internal organ of the body, it is only one to two cells thick.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - ADVERSITY

"Prosperity is not
without many fears and distastes,
and adversity is not
without comforts and hopes."

Francis Bacon

DO YOU FEEL THE PAIN?

"Pain reminds us always that all men are equal"

The young and the old suffer from it, the rich and the poor are visited by it, and the great and the humble are not spared by it. The great can rationalize over it, but the humble knows how to bear it. Indeed, there is no human being who is stranger to pain.


There are those who suffer pain in their bodies. There are those who suffer pain in their hearts. And there are those who suffer it in their minds. Pain is one experience that shouts to our ears how human, how vulnerable and mortal, and how much in need we are of others. Pain, strangely, is one of those things that make people ever so lovable.

JOY IS LIKE THE RAIN

"...I saw raindrops on my window,
joy is like the rain; sometimes silver, sometimes gray,
always sun not far away, joy is like the rain..."


Joy comes to everyone: but it can fill us only by the amount of space we give it in our hearts. It is one of the most elusive of all human experiences. You can't catch it when you want it and you lose it even when you are already touching it with your fingertips.

It is gift of life itself and can come from many sources. Most of where it comes from are ordinary and simple; from smile, a kind word, the sunrise after a nightlong rain, a flower that blooms from a plant you've cared for, a long-lost friend met in a busy thoroughfare, a good meal, a moment of recognition, from silence.

But joy comes, it does comes. It comes when we are most childlike. The only condition--and this is the most difficult to arrange--is that we must be ready to welcome joy.

LOVE AND GOODNESS

"...For love is stronger than death,
stronger even than hell,
the flash of it is a flash of fire..."

The measure of love is not what our hearts dictate or what our desires lead us to. Love is very much greater than what we now can feel. It is much more than the urges we feel within. Love is above all, the goodness that is within us that we must share with goodness of other persons in communion that is stronger than death.

In this sense, love includes the goodness of a man seeking the goodness of a woman, the goodness of a parent toward his or her child, the goodness of a friend seeking the goodness of another. Love never dies because goodness never dies.

SAYING, "I DO!"

"It takes some heroism to live such a life!"

It is sad that a good number of people end in marriage not really because they look at it as a real vocation wherein it is possible to live up to the measure of love our Dear Lord proposed, but more out of desire to possess the person loved or, worse, because of convenience or because they have no choice any longer.

Yes, marriage is a genuine vocation to which young couples have to give considerable thought and period of preparation. It is ever easy to say, "I love you," and "I do," but it takes more than just human capacities to be able to translate these words into a lifetime commitment.

There are those who choose to forego marriage and commit themselves perhaps to the noble profession they exercise, or even just to the task of helping parents, brothers and sisters and trying to lift them up from a life of privation. At times they go through extreme sacrifices only to feel as if shackled by the seemingly unending and growing demands from them. At times they even feel they are doing a thankless job. These persons are like the seeds in the Gospel, which have to die in order to give life to the plant. And there are those who, feeling they are called to the religious or priestly life, take seriously the thought that their vocation is to singularly live Jesus' ideal of love: to lay down their lives for their friends. It takes some heroism to live such a life.

THE BLACK KEY ETUDE

Etude is a French word, meaning study.
A short composition for a solo instrument intended
as an exercise or to demonstrate technical virtuosity.

Only once, and in the right hand in measure 66, is a white key played in Frederic Chopin's Etude for Piano in G-flat Major, Opus 10, No. 5, called appropriately--and what else!--the Black Key Etude. The left hand plays the melody, mostly chords and octaves,while the right hand accompanies with the fast triplets on black keys.

Excerpts from the Black Key Etude

REFLECTION - LIFE

Life is really what we make it!

Life is indeed, so short. And, oddly enough, it is much shorter for those whose lives they find meaningful while it is too long for those whose lives they find meaningless.

Couldn't it be that life is what meaning we put into it? Now and then, we also ask what meaning has life really. Often, we feel like we know but at other times, our thinking look like a useless mental exercise. Life is just so vast, so full of mysteries that before we can put meaning to it, part of it is gone and the meaning we try putting on it is already partly exhausted.

Life, so it seems, is like dry sand slipping through our fingers. We we try to hold on to it very tightly, as if squeezing it, it slips away faster. But when we try to cast it away, it sticks on our hands. Sometimes, we think, to appreciate life best, one has neither to hold on to it tightly nor to let it go to carelessly. The sand in the hourglass is life. It is better to let it flow freely, although not carelessly.

How we take life is often dictated by what priorities we have. And life, being so vast, offers everything which can be a priority to us.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - EXCUSES

"Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible."

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST by Christina G. Rossetti

WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.


Christina Georgina Rossetti

A LOVING MOTHER, A REBELLIOUS DAUGHTER

How do we know if
our children are into drugs
and going with a wrong group?

How do we cope up with it?

This is a family tragedy that could have been avoided had a mother left her professionalism at work.

A loving mother, a rebellious daughter, a problem many single mothers worldwide now have to content with. The mother was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading psychiatrists dealing with mentally ill, young teen-agers with emotional problems, and especially incarcerated women serving long prison sentences. An emotionally draining job anyone, not least a single mother bringing up a teen-ager.

The mother was at a complete loss when it came to taming her rebellious daughter, and even more so when the question of who the daughter was dating was something they vehemently disagreed about.

A cool Sunday evening, they had one heated argument. It started off as yet another row, as many times before, it was over the daughter’s choice of boyfriend and drugs. It culminated with the daughter flying into a violent rage and throwing his mother down the stairs. While her mother lay helpless on the floor, the daughter fetched a sledgehammer to hit her with. Leaving her mother bleeding profusely with skull split open, the daughter cruised around with her boyfriend for an hour before telling him what had happened. It was her boyfriend who called the police. They were arrested, the boyfriend was charged for possession of drugs, the daughter, for attempted murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and drug possession.

The mother did not make it. She died two days after the incident. After her mother died, the daughter was charged with murder.

What has become of the quiet, free spirited daughter, who enjoyed poetry writing?

To be continued

FUN WITH NUMBERS

There is an infinite number of numbers that have the same value whether added or multiplied. However, there is only one integer that can be added to itself and multiplied with itself with the same result:

2 + 2 = 4 and 2 x 2 = 4

DYNAMIC INTERACTIONS

Groups, communities, clubs, associations are not simply collections of people. They exist for a purpose. To achieve this purpose, each member contributes something to the functioning of the group. This is true whether the group is a family, a class, a team, or a club. You know how this works from your own experience in organizations. The various members usually offer ideas, suggestions, discuss alternatives, and divide up the tasks. Members are expected to participate in carrying out the group's objective. This process has been called group dynamics because a new collective behavior comes from a series of individual interactions.

The purpose for which a group is organized, its type of leadership, the composition of its membership, the social situation, and the methods used to exchange information all affect the dynamics of a particular group.

TOO MUCH TOO LITTLE!!!

What is your respond to over crowding?
Do you feel comfortable in a crowded little space?

Picture this, you're on a jammed commuter train, elbow to elbow with a lot of people; you're much closer than you care to be. The train stops and even more people get on. Now you're really jammed together. How do you feel? Now try putting yourself in this situation. You're in a packed disco. Again, people are elbow to elbow. Everyone is moving to the music, even those who aren't dancing. People and music seem to merge together. How do you feel?

Your feelings and reactions in these two settings are probably quite different. You probably can't wait to get out of the train, while being in the disco might be considered a pleasure.

Our reaction to a crowd depends upon our perception of the event. A noted social psychologist describes three variables that influence our perception: (1) Who is crowding you? You may not mind being crowded if the people are friendly. (2) What activity is going on? You probably do mind being crowded if others interfere with your comfort. (3) What is your previous experience with crowding? Up to a point, people get used to crowds, as they get used to many other stresses. Although you may not enjoy commuting in a packed train, you learn to endure it.

Let me out of here!!!

CHAINED LIKE A DOG!

Innocence is abused and stolen!

I just read a very disturbing news about a seven-year-old boy being chained to the kitchen sink to prevent him from misbehaving while the parents are at work. What an abusive way to discipline a child. The mere thought of hitting or spanking a small child makes me boiling mad.

The social services had to intervene after being notified by neighbors, who heard the boy's father boast about how he was managing to control his son. The boy was bound by a four-meter chain to the sink when his mother, a cleaning lady, and his father, who worked in metallurgy, left the house. The chain was long enough to allow him to open the fridge and reach their terrace, but not to go the toilet. His only company was the family's dog--ironically, the dog was able to roam freely.

The child told social services that he was being punished for misbehaving. His mother said, her husband was afraid his son would turn into a criminal. What??? The boy was since been brought to an orphanage. The social services were due to rule within days whether he could be returned to his mother, who has promised to leave her husband.

How are we going to teach our children that it is not alright to hurt others when we continue to hurt them as well? What sense does that make? There are countless parents going through this very similar situation almost every day. One thing leads to another with children, who are misbehaving badly and then the end result is hurting them.

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