” Why is beauty so important? Because we derive energy and motivation from beautiful sights, beautiful sounds, beautiful words and ideas, and beautiful environments.”

Thomas Kinkade

(found this quote from one of his beautiful ‘picture books’)

Thinking about plants here today…It seems just having a plant on deck with you makes you feel better. Yes, a small pot of something growing that you tend to (water, trim, weed….whoops…throw out; water, trim, weed – did better with this one 🙂

We thrive in an atmosphere of life. Do you need to get out among people again and watch and listen to the hub-bub going on and soak it in? Do you need to prune some things that haven’t brought life to yours out of your ‘plant life’?

Figure out and replicate what brings life to you. See what brings life to your family and friends/coworkers/neighbors and bring/take that life with you. We all need a booster shot of life.

Wake up in the morning and first thing, think of something you can or will be doing that you like to do; you look forward to doing, and it will bring a spark of life to you. (Then get up and do it.)

Go to a greenhouse or nursery, go to a small shop having lots of handmade artistic items and breathe it in.

Speaking of breathing it in…have you ever noticed when you smell a good fragrant flower and take several deep breaths of it, that you feel better? I think it’s one of God’s personally designed ways to lift us up.

I think everyone needs a little garden of sorts somewhere in their abode…maybe just a little bouquet.

Do I need to implement life somewhere in my landscape of life?

Back in the day of Kodak Instamatic cameras, my mother took pictures every where she went in her own non-professional but true to life way, giving us a glimpse of the way it was 🙂

Wherever she and dad traveled, mom was always taking pictures. My brother does the same thing, and it’s so good to look back and remember.

We need to remember the good times and celebrate and laugh. We need to remember the not so good times and reflect.

If we do it this way, then this will happen. If I do it that way, then that will be my outcome. We can learn from the past’s of others throughout the decades, and hopefully turn a new leaf. Rather than try to erase what happened (which cannot be changed), we can begin to create and forge a new and better path ahead.

It’s easy to fall into the quagmire of past wrongs, trying to invent our own form of penance or justice for them. Really, all we can do is accept what happened, and keep moving forward determined to do it better in our life.

Everyone in the world has been affected by darkness and done wrongs. But rather than holding people (alive or dead) to their past, turn them over to God and allow room for change.  I would not want to be held to my past or remembered for things done in stupidity or ignorance, and neither would anyone else.

People change for the better all the time. Let’s allow ourselves to change…giving ourselves and others needed grace…accepting that maybe they too have changed. This will free us from having to always ‘settle the score’…and we will be free.