Thursday, January 27, 2011

Mr. Jack Lalanne

When I heard the news of the passing of Jack LaLanne, on Jan 23th , 2011, I was stunned for a moment.  I knew he was in his nineties, however, to myself I was thinking he'd be blessed to live to see his 100th birthday.  I know wishing that was just a wish and totally out of my hands, but I was so hoping his life of healthy living, with decades of exercise and juicing, would enable him on his 100th birthday to perform another awesome physical feat of strength and endurance that would be such a marvel to all us mere folks half his age as we can only wish we could just have the gumption to do even one tenth of what he physically does.  I wonder how many sit ups or push ups he did in his life time?  I've not read any of his books, but it's ingrained in my mind's eye him in a dark jumpsuit doing jumping jacks or leg lifts in a chair so easily and gracefully.  When he moved his legs, it looked as if it wasn't an ounce of effort to  him, almost like they were weightless. He was something else.  To me, he's one a national treasure, not only as a motivator for fitness and natural health, but just as a genuine person that wanted all folks to posses something of extreme value, and that's health. I never knew him, but I am going to miss him. His work is done and he did it well. God bless his soul and his wife I can just imagine how she's missing him also.   I'm posting this entry without an image for the reason of a moment of silence to Mr. Jack Lalanne.  

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Please, a moment of silence for the forgotten millions

A moment of silence please. This nation is mourning the deaths in Arizona from the senseless shootings of one young man. He cut short the lives of six, wounded thirteen, and scores of people around the country are, and will be affected by his actions for the rest of their lives. Makes no sense. A friend tells me that you can't make sense out of nonsense. Sadly, I have to say I agree with her.

I was thinking about the Oklahoma City bombing, where 168 people, including young  children, and 680 were wounded on April 19, 1995. Another senseless loss of lives. A yearly moment of silence is practiced to remember those souls. The country was in a state of shock for a long time.

Of course 9/11 was a fateful day in 2001, when nearly 3,000 people died by the hands of 19 terrorist plane hijackers in New York City, Arlington, and rural Pennsylvania, and many more were injured.  Again, this entire country remembers this senseless, tragic loss of lives every year. Since that day, just about every facet of living in this country has been altered. 

 I was thinking this nation has a moment of silence to remember the 13 people who were shot and killed at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. 13 precious lives were ended by the senseless mass shooting, which also injured others, of one man who wanted to shoot innocent people.

 Then I got to thinking, why doesn't this nation have a moment of silence to remember the unborn baby's lives senselessly terminated by induced abortions every day in this country? Since abortions have been legal in all 50 states since 1973, there have been not thousands, not a million, but approximately 39 million innocent, little lives prematurely ended.  Don't they deserve a moment of silence?  To get a grasp of this, I've calculated and rounded 35 years of legal induced abortions, and that number comes to one million, one-hundred fourteen thousand little lives ripped apart per year, which means approximately 3,000 little lives are ended every day of the year. They never had a chance. Why isn't this country grieving about that?  

Moment of silence for millions of lives senselessly ended or missing
Photo credit: anitapatterson from morguefile.com

And, thinking about missing persons and missing children who fail to be reunited with their families again, leaving no answers or clues of what happened.  Whole families, communities, neighborhoods, and towns are left to go on with somber, broken, bleeding hearts. We're all changed. Those persons not heard from again deserve a moment of silence for being stolen away.

I could go on, but still, you can't make sense out of nonsense.

In our National day of Prayer, do you remember and pray for these young souls and the families dealing daily with their loss? Let's respect all the lives senselessly ended or missing each year. What do you say? 


Visit my other posts at FaceForwardFaith.blogspot.com, natural2bhealthy.com and
naturaltobehealthy.blogspot.com

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Fire Fire Fire

It's always tragic to hear of a home destroyed by fire. Especially terrible in the Winter and awfully terrible around Christmas time.  A fire is something you never can prepare for or even ever expect to will happen to you.   I've never personally known anyone have their home destroyed by fire, until last week.  I can't imagine being in bed and being suddenly awaken with commotion and smell smoke and have to think fast, get out safely in your pajamas, with your loved ones in the dead of night knowing the danger of smoke and or fire flaring. And quickly, consider if there's time to salvage some precious items. Your adrenaline is pumping. Of course lives are what's important.  Things are just things, and can be replaced. Lives can't. A fire can change your life. You'll never forget it.

House fire

Photo credit: Schick from morguefile.com

In 1999 the building I had my practice in caught on fire one night.  I was there just  a couple hours before I got a call at home that the building was on fire.  Other businesses were in the building. My suite didn't sustain fire damage, but the smoke from the fire traveled through the building vents and every surface had black cooked on soot that wouldn't rub off. It was all black and the smell never left and made my eyes water when we were later allowed to enter the premises. It was strange to see firefighters working at containing the huge flames coming from the building I worked in. It must be so much worse seeing flames coming from the place you live with all your clothes and personal belonging being burned up.

I had another incident with fire, but it was an outside fire. Flames got away from some wood I was burning outside. It happened so fast and the wind took the grass fire away from the reach of the water hose. Wind can carry flames so fast, spreading and fanning the flames quickly. I ran inside to call 911, then back out to hook up other water hoses to see what I could do until help arrived. Adrenaline was flowing in me. I was tired, but kept going until help arrived. In the end, I learned an important lesson. Wet down the grass first around any wood I burn outside and make sure I have plenty of hose length right at hand.  Fire is nothing to play with. It can get out of hand very fast even if you've burned outside many times before. The wind can make it unpredictable, so just think of everything and be well prepared is what I learned from that scary experience. Fortunately, the only thing I lost was my green lawn for a while and the grove of small pine trees regrew after being burned to a crisp.

Had a neighbor not happen to notice smoke coming from my coworkers home and awakened them so they could all get out in time,  I dare think that family could have perished of smoke inhalation in their sleep.  All their belongings can be replaced. They have each other, friends, church family and most important of all, their Lord.  I wonder what lessons they will learn from their fire?  God protected them that night.

Update: My co-worker has returned to work. He and his family are in another house and when I mentioned that I was happy to hear that no one was hurt, his immediate reply was, "God is good."