Thought for the Day
Robert E. Chatfield
Robert E. Chatfield
Robert E. Chatfield
Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity. Irving Kristol
Democracy is the worst system ever invented - except for all the rest. Winston Churchill
The American Republic will last until it's politicians discover that they can bribe their own people with their own money. Alexis Detuterville
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it Richard Lamm
The Collapse of Democracies
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
"From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
Robert E. Chatfield
Your character is yours alone to build. No one can injure your character but you.
"I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!" Theodore Roosevelt
"Character is easier kept than recovered." - English Proverb
"Character is won by hard work." Delbert L. Stapley
Last Respects
One day the employees of a large company in St. Louis, Missouri, returned from their lunch break and were greeted with a sign on the front door. The sign said: "Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym."
At first everyone was sad to hear that one
of their colleagues had died, but after a while they started getting curious
about who this person might be.
The excitement grew as the employees
arrived at the gym o pay their last respects.
Everyone wondered: "Who is this person who was hindering my
progress? Well, at least he's no longer here!"
One by one the employees got closer to the
coffin and when they looked inside it, they suddenly became speechless. They
stood over the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the
deepest part of their soul.
There was a mirror inside the coffin:
everyone who looked inside it could see himself. There was also a sign next to
the mirror that said: "There is only one person who is capable to set
limits to your growth: it is YOU.
You are the only person who can
revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your
happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only person who can
help yourself.
Your life does not change when your boss
changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner
changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go
beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one
responsible for your life.
"The most important relationship you
can have, is the one you have with yourself."
Robert E. Chatfield
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Ps 24:1
"There seems to be little evidence that the Creator of the universe was ever in a hurry. Everywhere, on this bounteous and beautiful earth, and to the farthest reaches of the firmament, there is evidence of patient purpose and planning and working and waiting." Richard. L. Evans
"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details." Albert Einstein
“What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.” Mark Twain
Marvels of Creation
"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that you visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea. O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"1
Ron Clarke from Tasmania, Australia, wrote: "One evening at dusk I was looking out of my window towards the sea when a huge flock of birds appeared, almost like a black cloud—there must have been thousands. They were traveling from west to east parallel with the coast. Then suddenly it happened. Not a few of them, not some of them, but every single one of them instantly changed direction and flew on a different course.
"We human beings think we have perfected communication. But those birds didn't have two-way radio yet they knew precisely at what split second in time to change course and in what direction to fly.
"These birds, Shearwaters or Mutton Birds, live on the islands in Bass Strait off the north coast of Tasmania. Every year these birds migrate to the North Pacific and spend summer around the Aleutians. As the northern winter approaches, the Shearwaters fly back to their annual breeding ground on the Tasmanian islands and will go to the same nest and, give or take a day or two for adverse weather conditions enroute, will arrive on that same nest on a given day."
Think, too, of a million billion other marvels that surround us every day on the earth below and in the heavens above.
Did these all happen by chance? Or is there a Master Designer of the entire universe and all that is therein? For me it would take a whole lot more faith (or presumption) to believe that everything in the universe happened by chance.
1. Psalm 8:3-9
Robert E. Chatfield
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Ben Franklin
"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop." Ovid
“Rest and be thankful.” William Wadsworth
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” Alan Cohen
“Everything needs a break.” Toba Beta
REST A WHILE
One afternoon, I was in the back yard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when I walked into the house, he followed me, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour.
This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."
The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children - he's trying to catch up on his sleep."
(Susan Roman, from "Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul")
A lot of us spend time trying to catch up on our sleep. Our lives are so very busy -- busyness has become a way of life. We work and work to do more and more -- wearing down our mental and physical health, as well as damaging our relationship with others. We need to be told to slow every now and then. That's why the Jews were commanded to take a Sabbath rest every week. That's why Jesus took time every now and then to get away from the crowd and recharge.
It's not that God is against work, not at all. From the time that Adam was set in the Garden of Eden, work has been a part of God’s plan for our lives. God is not against work. But He is against work consuming our lives. He is against us finding our significance and self-worth in our work. He is against us filling our lives so full of work that we don’t have time for Him or other people. And He doesn’t want us to think that work is all that there is in life.
"And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And He said to them, 'Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat."
(Mark 6:30-31)
In your hectic schedule, don't forget to pencil in some time to rest!
Have a great day!
Alan Smith
Robert E. Chatfield
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." Henri Bergson
Your life is what your thoughts make it.
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." Benjamin Disraeli
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. Therefore, guard accordingly." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
What You Think—You Are
"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."1
There's an old fable that talks about a man who found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken.
He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.
"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we're chickens."
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.2
How sad when we who are children of the King live as chickens when we could fly with the eagles.
As the old saying goes, "You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are."
1. Proverbs 23:7
Robert E. Chatfield
Restrain your tongues in criticism of others. It is so easy to find fault. It is so much nobler to speak constructively.
Gordon B. Hinckley
The imperfections of others never release us from the need to work on our own shortcomings." Neal A. Maxwell
"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults." Benjamin Franklin
Faults are thick when love is thin.
“As a matter of fact, we are none of us above criticism; so let us bear with each other's faults.” L. Frank Baum
The Grapefruit Syndrome
As a young wife, I learned that the taste of marriage could be sweeter if I didn’t focus on my husband’s faults.
My husband and I had been married about two years—just long enough for me to realize that he was a normal man rather than a knight on a white charger—when I read a magazine article recommending that married couples schedule regular talks to discuss, truthfully and candidly, the habits or mannerisms they find annoying in each other. The theory was that if the partners knew of such annoyances, they could correct them before resentful feelings developed.
It made sense to me. I talked with my husband about the idea. After some hesitation, he agreed to give it a try.
As I recall, we were to name five things we found annoying, and I started off. After more than fifty years, I remember only my first complaint: grapefruit. I told him that I didn’t like the way he ate grapefruit. He peeled it and ate it like an orange! Nobody else I knew ate grapefruit like that. Could a girl be expected to spend a lifetime, and even eternity, watching her husband eat grapefruit like an orange? Although I have forgotten them, I’m sure the rest of my complaints were similar.
After I finished, it was his turn to tell the things he disliked about me. Though it has been more than half a century, I still carry a mental image of my husband’s handsome young face as he gathered his brows together in a thoughtful, puzzled frown and then looked at me with his large blue-gray eyes and said, “Well, to tell the truth, I can’t think of anything I don’t like about you, Honey.”
Gasp.
I quickly turned my back, because I didn’t know how to explain the tears that had filled my eyes and were running down my face. I had found fault with him over such trivial things as the way he ate grapefruit, while he hadn’t even noticed any of my peculiar and no doubt annoying ways.
I wish I could say that this experience completely cured me of fault finding. It didn’t. But it did make me aware early in my marriage that husbands and wives need to keep in perspective, and usually ignore, the small differences in their habits and personalities. Whenever I hear of married couples being incompatible, I always wonder if they are suffering from what I now call the Grapefruit Syndrome.
Lola B. Walters is a member of the Rexburg Tenth Ward, Rexburg Idaho East Stake.
Robert E. Chatfield
"He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help." Abraham Lincoln
"Criticism is a destroyer of self-worth and esteem." H. Burke Peterson
Criticizing others is a dangerous thing, not so much because you may make mistakes about them, but because you may be revealing the truth about yourself. Harold Medina, judge
Raise the praise-minimize the criticize.
Dying From the Cold Within
One of the great challenges to our humanity is acknowledging and overcoming our natural tendency to think less of and discriminate against people who are different from us racially, ethnically, religiously, or ideologically.
Despite persistent rhetoric about prizing diversity, political debates often reflect disdain and contempt for those we disagree with, and prejudices of all sorts are more readily stated. Indeed, there are disturbing signs that anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon attitudes are rising throughout the world.
James Patrick Kinney wrote the following poem, “The Cold Within,” to remind us of what’s at stake:
Six humans trapped by happenstance,
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story’s told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
The first woman held hers back,
For on the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking ’cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes;
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught, except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave,
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without.
They died from the cold within.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Robert E. Chatfield
For in him we live, and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. Acts 17:28,29
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Eph 4:6
"We are the children of God. He is the Father of our spirits. We have not come from some lower form of life, but God is the Father of our spirits, and we belong to the royal family, because He is our Father." George Albert Smith
JUST A NUMBER?
There is an old story of a census taker who was making his rounds in the lower East side of New York, who interviewed an Irish woman bending over her washtub. "Lady, I am taking the census. What's your name? How many children do you have?"
She replied, "Well, let
me see. My name is Mary. And then there's Marcia, and Duggie, and
Amy, and Patrick, and..."
"Never mind the
names," he broke in, "just give me the numbers."
She straightened up, hands
on hips, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, "I'll have ye know, sir, we
ain't got into numberin' them yet. We ain't run out of names!"
In a world filled with so
many people, we sometimes feel insignificant. Nobody wants to know our
name -- they just need our Social Security number, or identification
number. It can be an impersonal world that leaves us feeling very lonely,
even when we are surrounded by a large crowd of people.
But in the eyes of God, we
are viewed personally. God knows each of us by name. We matter to
Him.
God said to Jeremiah,
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest
forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the
nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
Take comfort in knowing
you're not just a number to God; you're one of His precious children!