Thought For The Day
Robert E. Chatfield
Thanks to the Snows for reminding me of this video that describes a real American Hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-HeETwJSUc&feature=player_embedded
After you view the video read the following
Silent Night
By Victor M. Parachin
The world might never have had this carol had it not been for a crisis at a church in the tiny village of Oberndorf, Austria.
The year was 1818 and within the Church of St. Nicholas the mood was hardly one of joy that Christmas Eve afternoon. Curate Joseph Mohr, 26, had just discovered that the organ was badly damaged. No matter how much he tried to pump the pedals, he could only bring out a scratchy wheeze from the aged instrument.
By the time an organ repair specialist could reach the church Christmas would long be over. To the young pastor, a Christmas without music was unthinkable and unacceptable.
Mohr had a natural music talent. As a youth he earned money singing and playing the guitar and violin in public. He put himself through the university with money earned as a music performer. His academic ability and musical talents captured the attention of a clergyman who persuaded Mohr to enter the seminary. Ordained as a priest in 1815, Mohr was assigned to Oberndorf in 1817. There he not only preached well, but surprised parishioners by occasionally leading worship while strumming his guitar.
Now faced with a Christmas crisis, Mohr realized the only music for that evening would be accompanied by guitar.
He also knew the traditional Christmas carols would not sound right on his stringed instrument, so he decided to produce something new. Thinking about Jesus' modest birth almost 1,900 years earlier, Mohr began writing "Silent Night." Using simple phrases, the young cleric felt inspired as he retold the story of Christ's birth in six short stanzas.
For the music, Mohr turned to Franz Gruber, a friend who was a more skilled composer than he. Gruber was a teacher in nearby Arnsdorf. Mohr visited Gruber and his large family in their modest living quarters above the school where Mohr explained his dilemma. Handing over the six stanzas, Mohr asked if Gruber could compose music to be accompanied by guitar in time for that evening's midnight mass. According to historians who pieced together the story, Gruber was struck by the innocence and beauty of Mohr's words.
Quickly, he went to work on the musical composition.
With barely time for a rehearsal, the two agreed that Mohr would play his guitar and sing tenor while Gruber sang bass. Following each stanza, the church choir would join in on the refrain. At midnight, parishioners filled St. Nicholas Church expecting to hear the organist playing resounding notes of Christmas music.
Instead, their church building was silent. Father Mohr explained their church organ was "down" but that midnight mass would include new music prepared especially for the congregation. With Mohr strumming the guitar, two voices sang and were joined by the choir in four-part harmony. Father Mohr proceeded with the evening celebration of the mass. Even without their organ, parishioners felt they had experienced a unique and memorable Christmas Eve service.
The story of "Silent Night" almost ended that evening as Mohr put the music away with no thoughts of using it again. After all, it was simply a stop-gap solution for a temporary problem. Father Mohr was transferred to another parish, and for several years "Silent Night" was never sung.
The organ at St. Nicholas continued to have problems and in 1825 the parish was forced to hire a master organ builder -- Carl Mauracher -- to reconstruct the instrument. Mauracher discovered the music left behind by Mohr and Gruber.
Its universal simplicity impressed the organ builder and he asked permission to make copies of "Silent Night."
With permission given, Mauracher began introducing the carol to musicians and audiences, all of whom were enchanted by the piece. Although the carol was making an enormous stir across Europe, Gruber and Mohr remained unaware of the accolades their music was creating. Penniless, Mohr died of pneumonia in 1848 at the age of 55. He never learned his song was spreading around the world.
Gruber first heard of the carol's success in 1854 when the concertmaster for King Frederic William IV of Prussia began searching for its authors. When word reached Gruber, then 67, he sent a letter to Berlin telling the origin of the song.
Few musical historians believed the two men from obscure villages could have developed such an exquisite piece of music.
When Gruber died in 1863, his authorship was still challenged, although questions gradually ceased as historians confirmed that Gruber and Mohr were indeed the authors.
Robert E. Chatfield
A Gift to the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yWcxw6YeF8
and finally,
The Man and the Birds as narrated by Paul Harvey
Now the man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men, but he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as a man.
“I’m truly sorry to distress you”, he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas eve”, he said he’d feel like a hypocrite, that he’d much rather just stay at home, but he would wait up for them. So he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later, he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another. And then another; sort of a thump or a thud. At first, he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly, he put on a coat and goulashes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn.
He opened the doors wide and turned on a light. But the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow making a trail the yellow lighted, wide open door to the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried “shooing” them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction except into the warm lighted barn.
Then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could let them know that they can trust me. That I’m not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led, or “shooed” because they feared him.
“If only I could be a bird”, he thought to himself “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe warm ----------- to the safe warm barn, but I would have to be one of them so they could see and hear, and understand.”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. He stood there listening to the bells, Adeste Fidelis. Listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
To hear Paul Harvey’s actual broadcast.
http://www.kffb.com/blog/paul-harvey-and-the-man-and-the-birds-a-christmas-story/
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Robert E. Chatfield
From Jim Bates
Great message to start the post Christmas season
I'm betting you won't guess WHAT this
commercial is about until the last!!
Voted the BEST commercial ever!
http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/stethoscope.html
Robert E. Chatfield
"The greatest lesson of life is that you are responsible for your life."
Oprah Winfrey, talk show host
Robert E. Chatfield
"The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example."
Thomas Morell, Librettist
Robert E. Chatfield
A little different direction today.
There are some who have never lost their heart to an animal or had an animal return the favor. Too bad.
It may just be me, but I don’t think so; I’m convinced and at the same time amazed, that a chemistry can develop between man and animal that can be eternal. I surely hope so, as we had a love in our home for 17 + years that I would like to think can be recaptured when we depart this life.
Let me dedicate the attached to our Miss Ruggles, a stray we rescued (quite a story all by itself) in 1973 and who lived with us till in 1990.
Don't miss the video.
This is pretty long so we will send it out early so you'll have more time.
Robert E. Chatfield
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
St. Francis of Assisi
Robert E. Chatfield
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x91rBzNKvlc
Life-Changing Pearls of Wisdom
Happy New Year! I wish you a year of challenge, fulfillment, and inner-peace.
That's sincere but not so profound. So on this New Year's Day I will dispense with my need to make original, insightful observations about life and just share with you some of my favorite pearls of wisdom that have life-changing capacity.
People are just about as happy as they’re willing to be. — Abraham Lincoln
Don't mistake pleasures for happiness. They’re a different breed of dog. — Josh Billings
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. — Eleanor Roosevelt
The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. — Lily Tomlin
Think about what you want people to say about you after you die and live backward. — Unknown
People won't always remember what you say or do but they will remember how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. — Unknown
Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau
Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. — James Dean
We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. — Unknown
We are what we repeatedly do. — Aristotle
The key to a better life: Complain less, appreciate more./ Whine less, laugh more. / Talk less, listen more. / Want less; give more. / Hate less, love more. / Scold less, praise more. / Fear less, hope more.
Robert E. Chatfield
Did you know that perhaps the greatest challenge you will ever face in life is the conquest of fear and the development of courage?
Fear is, and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind. When Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he was saying that the emotion of fear, rather than the reality of what we fear, is what causes us anxiety, stress, and unhappiness.
When you develop the habit of courage and unshakeable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for you. Just imagine—what would you dare to dream or be or do if you weren’t afraid of anything in the whole world?
Develop the Habit of Courage
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Fortunately, the habit of courage can be learned just as any other habit is learned, through repetition. We need to constantly face and overcome our fears to build up the kind of courage that will enable us to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life unafraid. The starting point in overcoming fear and developing courage is to look at the factors that predispose us toward being afraid. The root source of most fear is childhood conditioning, usually associated with destructive criticism. This causes us to develop two major types of fear. These are the fear of failure, which causes us to think “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” and the fear of rejection, which causes us to think “I have to, I have to, I have to.” Our fears can paralyze us, keeping us from taking constructive action in the direction of our dreams and goals.
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The More You Know, the Less You Fear
Fear is also caused by ignorance. When we have limited information, our doubts dominate us. We become tense and insecure about the outcome of our actions. Ignorance causes us to fear change, to fear the unknown, and to avoid trying anything new or different. But the reverse is also true. The very act of gathering more and better information about a particular subject increases our courage and confidence in that area. You can see this in the parts of your life where you have no fear at all because you know what you are doing. You feel competent and completely capable of handling whatever happens.
Analyze Your Fears
Once you have identified the major factors that cause you to feel afraid, the next step is to objectively define and analyze your personal fears. At the top of a clean sheet of paper, write, “What am I afraid of?” Remember, all intelligent people are afraid of something. It is normal and natural to be concerned about your physical, emotional, and financial safety and that of the people you care about. A courageous person is not a person who is unafraid. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”
Action Exercise
Begin your list of fears by writing down everything, major and minor, that causes fear, stress, or anxiety. Think about the parts of your work or personal life where your fears might be holding you back or forcing you to stay in a job or relationship in which you are not happy. Once you have written down your fears, arrange them in order of importance, and then pick them apart one by one.
To conquering your fears,
Brian Tracy
Robert E. Chatfield
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Last night, I was out to dinner with a couple of the most successful guys I know – and they were giving me a hard time.
They were ribbing me about what Porter Stansberry calls "the Sjuggerud Advantage." Hey, I can take it… The Sjuggerud Advantage, as I'll explain, is a major secret to my life's success.
The nice part is anyone can do it… The Sjuggerud Advantage requires no special skills. Let me tell the story…
We were at the Prime 112 restaurant in South Beach, Miami. It's a hip restaurant today, no doubt. As we were leaving, rap star Rick Ross was walking in, stepping out of his Rolls Royce.
Dinner was great… But my definition of a great dinner is "good times with good friends." I don't need a fancy bottle of wine or an unpronounceable delicacy to enjoy a meal.
Around 9:45 p.m., I started checking my watch… And Porter and the other guys at dinner gave me a bit of a hard time…
You see, I don't drink. I don't normally go out for fancy, three-hour meals. And most importantly, I go to bed early and get up early.
Porter was giving me a hard time about missing out on some of life's finer things. But I know these are parts of what Porter calls "the Sjuggerud Advantage."
I've heard Porter tell others: "You don't see the benefits of the Sjuggerud Advantage across a day or two. But over time, it adds up. The guy gets a lot done."
It might sound silly. But I think the most important part of the Sjuggerud Advantage is simply getting out of bed… but doing it an hour earlier than anyone else…
"Getting to work early is such a common virtue of successful people that I'm tempted to call it the single most important thing you can do to change your life," my friend Michael Masterson wrote in his bookAutomatic Wealth. Michael's a self-made multimillionaire. And I agree with him…
I get more done in the first two hours of my morning than I do in any other four-hour stretch during the day. More importantly, I get my BEST work done then – with no interruptions and no distractions, just focus.
I probably take it too far… I've come to like driving the streets when they're empty, before the sun has come up. I think it's partly because I know I'm going to get A LOT done.
And I've found that once it gets past 10:00 or 10:30 at night, I'm not very productive at all. I'm tired, I'm sidetracked thinking about the day's problems, and I'm better off calling it a day and starting up fresh in the morning.
While Porter would likely tell you there's more to it, I think simply getting up early is the big secret of the Sjuggerud Advantage. It's the big secret to getting a lot done.
It requires no special skills to get up a half-hour or an hour earlier than you usually do. And most of the extremely successful people I know get their days started very early. It's a simple thing, but it could have a dramatic effect over time.
As Porter said, you might not see the benefits after a day or two… But they add up. You get a lot more done early in the morning… And ultimately, you become more successful than the next guy.
It costs you nothing, and it could make you dramatically more productive, successful, and wealthy.
It's certainly worked for me. I think it's
the biggest part of the Sjuggerud Advantage.
Good investing,
Steve |