INDEX: This Issue
FEATURE ARTICLE - LOVE WINS! BY WANDA HOPE CARTER RELATED READING - #A General Theory of Love , #The Mastery of Love, #Love You Forever Reader's Short Story & Poetry Contest Winner Love! By Ariane Felicia Graf - Morges, Switzerland SHORT STORY - Love Finds the Way By Wanda Hope Carter RELATED READING - #A Potent Spell, A Mother's Love and the Power of Fear, #FINDSomeone.com #The Face on the Milk Carton |
LOVE WINS!L ove keeps us going year after year
O nwards and upwards through every tear;
V aliantly lighting our way with it's spark,
E ncouraging us when all things seem dark.
W hatever the challenge whatever our fear,
I nspired by it's power we forwardly steer.
N othing can stop us when we are full of its glory;
S uccess marks the end of each true love story!
Copyright 2004 Wanda Hope Carter all Rights Reserved
Even if we have loved and lost, we are still winners for having been able to love at all.
>>>>>Related Reading<<<<< |
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A General Theory of Love Drawing comparisons to the most eloquent science writing of our day, three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain. The result is an original, lucid, at times moving account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being. Explaining how relationships function, how parents shape their child's developing self, how psychotherapy really works, and how our society dangerously flouts essential emotional laws, this is a work of rare passion and eloquence that will forever change the way you think about human intimacy. (Review from Amazon.com .....READ MORE)
The Mastery of Love In a refreshingly honest investigation of the true nature of love, don Miguel Ruiz brings to light the commonly held fallacies and misplaced expectations about love that permeate most relationships. In the tradition of Carlos Castaneda, he uses inspirational stories to impart the wisdom of three fundamental Toltec masteries (Awareness, Transformation, and Love). The themes explored include the Toltec wisdom of the heart, the track of love, and the war of control.
The author really makes one think about the lack of self-love we have and how we have been domesticated from such an early age to shelter our true self to be what we think others want for us to be. Even if you don't believe in love anymore, you'll find out more about yourself by reading this tome. (Review from Amazon.com.....READ MORE)
Love You Forever This book has quickly become a true classic that is sure to be a story told for generations to come. A mother sings to her sleeping baby: "I'll love you forever / I'll love you for always / As long as I'm living / My baby you'll be." She still sings the same song when her baby has turned into a fractious 2-year-old, a slovenly 9-year-old, and then a raucous teen. So far so ordinary--but this is one persistent lady. When her son grows up and leaves home, she takes to driving across town with a ladder on the car roof, climbing through her grown son's window, and rocking the sleeping man in the same way. Then, inevitably, the day comes when she's too old and sick to hold him, and the roles are at last reversed. Each stage is illustrated by one of Sheila McGraw's comic and yet poignant pastels. (Review from Amazon.com.....READ MORE)
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By Ariane Felicia Graf - Morges, Switzerland
Love!
This is my favorite topic, I must admit. The topic that rules our world, that has always been ruling it and always will. (Luckily or unfortunately?) Luckily of course! Love is the good thing that makes us vibrate and feel useful on this planet. Most importantly, it makes us feel ALIVE and it provides us with the opportunity to give. We all know that the more that we give, the more we receive and everybody wants to receive. It might sound selfish in a way, but we all think that we deserve to receive.
Sometimes because we have been hurt, we don't want to give love another chance and that's for sure the biggest mistake we could ever make. Because we remember that we thought that we would die if we lost the love that we felt, we become afraid to try for and possibly loose again the very best thing that ever happened to us in our life. We recall that it was a feeling like loosing half of ourselves. Even though we survived the loss, we think that we would never want to repeat the pain. But the consequences of not allowing love back into our lives is that we loose the immense opportunities to be loved again.. To give .. And to receive.
I am asking you, which is better? Staying stuck lonely in an individualistic state of mind or daring to live and love again in spite of the risk of pain? I am telling to just go ahead, jump into that ocean of love that is waiting for you. Everyone is equal in front of love. Everyone has the right to love and be loved in return. A soul mate is awaiting you just around the corner if you will just open your heart. It's life's number one rule.
Love brings us happiness and takes away the feeling of emptiness. There will be no need to rush to the refrigerator in the middle of the night to satisfy your needs to feel full, when you have your teddy-bear made out of flesh and bones sleeping right there beside you to give you the simple feeling of well being and calmness.
I wish all of you true love that is full of respect and joy. Please, do me a favor, (and yourself) when you find it, don't run away, but just accept this simple gift that life is offering you.... ALOHA!
Readers, Contest (I need more entries :-) #How to enter:
>>>>>Short Story<<<<<Love Finds the Way
Copyright 2004, Wanda Hope Carter, All rights reserved.
Madeline didn't know what else to do but cry. She clutched the letter and photograph to her heart and fell to her knees as the tears rolled down her cheeks. The news that they brought was something that she had hoped and prayed for, for over thirty years. It heralded the successful conclusion to what had been the saddest day in her life. Today, she found her daughter Jennifer, who had been missing since she was five years old; or rather, her daughter had found her. The memories that she had tried so hard to forget came rushing back like the unwanted flood of water from a newly broken dam. The guilt and self blame that she had barely been able to emotionally survive through over these long years, felt as heavy as it did the day that a simple shopping trip turned into a lifelong nightmare.
At five, her daughter had long outgrown the need or desire to ride in the shopping cart at the grocery store but on that day, after a minor injury to her foot, she had to. It was only meant to be for a moment that she would be left unattended while Madeline doubled back to the previous aisle to get an item that she had forgotten. However, the store had reorganized its inventory and her search ended up with her following a stock boy to an aisle farther away. Still, it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes before she returned to find her daughter missing from the cart. What had seemed like a blur at the time, the store making an announcement, the frantic search indoors and out, the questioning, police and finally the realization that her daughter had been abducted, now seemed exceedingly clear in her recollection. It had happened before the time of security cameras, missing child data banks, and agencies dedicated to the retrieval of missing children. After the law enforcement agencies had exhausted their investigations, Madeline had been left on her own with little resources to continue the search.
The days, weeks, months and finally years that followed were filled with the horrific thoughts of what might have happened to Jennifer and constant efforts to find her. Staying in their home where Jennifer had been born for the first sixteen of those years had nearly driven her mad to the point that she had even considered ending her own life. The slight glimmer of hope that she held for being reunited with Jennifer is all that kept her from following through with that tragic idea. She had been afraid to move away from the constantly depressing reminders of her daughter, as she believed that if she were alive she would someday grow up to follow her memories home. Finally, shortly after the solemn remembrance of Jennifer's 21st birthday, she hesitantly forced herself to give up that hope. In a desperate act of self -preservation, Madeline sold her house and moved across country. She left her forwarding information with the FBI and local Sheriff before seeking to make a new life for herself. Over the next fourteen years, she poured herself into her work and in the caring of her pets to find a bit of solace and the ability to feel and share love again.
Jennifer's father had died shortly after she was born and Madeline had loved her more than ever afterwards. She was all that she had in the world, as she was an only child of immigrant parents who had been long deceased at the time of Jennifer's arrival. They were so close, always doing everything together and the feeling of that love never escaped Madeline. No matter how terrible her loss, she held onto that feeling and thanked God everyday for the opportunity to have had it in her life, even if it was for such a short time. When she often wondered what Jennifer was like if she was still alive, she also wondered whether or not she had forgotten the love of her mother so long ago.
Now, today, Madeline held on tightly to the tear soaked letter that contained the almost unbelievable news that not only was her daughter still alive, but that she had clung to the feeling of love for her mother for all of these years, even after she could no longer remember what she looked like. In the story that she told of what happened to her that day, where she was taken and why, there was fortunately no reports of any sort of abuse. The lady responsible or her abduction and moving her to another state was eventually found to be mentally incompetent but in the mean time she had told Jennifer that her mother wanted her to go away with her in the first place and that she was dead. She had also told her that if anything ever happened to her that Jennifer would be taken by her sister, whom it turned out, did not know of Jennifer's abduction. After the kidnapper's admittance into a hospital for the mentally ill, she had moved in with the people she had come to know as aunt and uncle. Jennifer had not known enough about her family or real home, to give anyone an address or phone number nor even a last name other than that she remembered, "her real mommy was very beautiful and had a happy voice".
The details of the letter also told the story of how Jennifer's need to know of her origins had grown over the years. She described the efforts that she had made to figure out her beginnings and finally how she had worked a second job for the five years it took to pay for a private investigator to finally discover her history and track her mother down. She had ended the letter with, "I have never forgotten the love that I felt for you and that you felt for me. I hope that you know that I have always loved you and still love you now." That part made Madeline cry most of all and the tears of joy far outnumbered the tears of regret. There, on her knees, a spontaneous prayer burst forth from her soul and she declared out loud, "Thank you God, for letting love win!"
(While being a good example of the power of love to win over the tragic, this story has a happy ending that is not typical of most abduction stories. One of my children was kidnapped as a baby and I am one of the most luckiest people in the world to have been able to be reunited strictly through my own efforts. The details of this are still too hard for me to write about but I will always have a special need to support the recently established law enforcement tools and missing children agencies that did not exist at that time to help me with or through the ordeal. Here is a list of agencies that can provide information, tips, and resources that should be studied by every parent and that offers help to those who have lost a child to kidnappers:
Searching the above links will lead you to many more links and searching from here offers thousands of links. >>>>>Related Reading<<<<<
A Potent Spell, A Mother's Love and the Power of Fear Every parent has felt that certain dread: Your toddler gets lost in the mall; your teenager isn't home by curfew; your third-grader walks to school alone. The psychotherapist Janna Malamud Smith rigorously argues that fear of child loss has the keenest effect on mothers and has proven to be a powerfully underrated motivation for them throughout history. Bearing the brunt of responsibility for keeping children safe and healthy, mothers constantly accommodate to the need to be vigilant. Their fears make them vulnerable in many ways, affecting their daily lives in the workplace, at home, and within the social hierarchy. Smith takes the long view of this phenomenon, uncovering a buried message to mothers in advice books from the days of the Puritans to the present, in medicine and psychology, in art and literature. It is a history brimming with mothers" stories from ancient times to today. (Review from Amazon.com.....READ MORE)
FINDsomeone.com is the complete people-finder of the communications age. This timely reference offers proven and effective search techniques for finding anybody, anywhere. The professional techniques described in FINDsomeone.com were developed by the author over many years in military intelligence, international security, and as a professional investigator. Core strategies for conducting adoption, genealogical, and other missing persons investigations are discussed in clear and understandable terms. R. Scott Grasser is an international security consultant and licensed private investigator. Grasser has both corporate and governmental experience, including a decade as a former Captain with 5th Special Forces Group and the military police. He has successfully taught searching skills to hundreds of students taking his America Online course "Private Investigative Techniques" and as a featured speaker at San Francisco's Bay Area Law Enforcement and Security Liaison Group, ASIS, and North Bay Industrial Security Awareness Council. (Review from Amazon.com.....READ MORE)
The Face on the Milk Carton is the first of four books in a series by Caroline B Cooney. The picture of a missing child printed on a milk carton attracts the attention of 15-year-old Jane Johnson. A glimpse of the girl's polka-dot dress causes memories to surface, and Jane begins to review her past and question her true identity. It is nearly impossible for Jane to perceive her loving parents as kidnappers; the task of gathering evidence and drawing conclusions proves less difficult than confronting the undeniable truth. As the novel ends, Jane has found the courage to contact her real parents, but Cooney cleverly leaves the events that follow to readers' imaginations. Although the book's plot is based largely on coincidences, Cooney's skilled writing makes even the most unlikely events seem plausible. The roller-coaster ride Jane experiences with her emotions is both absorbing and convincing. Strong characterizations and suspenseful, impeccably-paced action add to this novel's appeal. The three following novels follow the story through several twists and turns that begin where this book ends. Ages 12-up. (Review from Amazon.com.....READ MORE)>>>>>Free E-zine Subscription<<<<<To Order Your Free Copy of Inspiration Motivation's Quarterly E-zine,
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