Valentine’s Day: loving reminder to love with all our hearts.

Do you agree with my premise? That indeed, Valentine’s Day is a loving reminder to love with all our hearts? Being a wife and mom, a grandmother, a teacher all my life, now a senior citizen and a Girl Scout Volunteer, do these make my premise acceptable and reliable? Let me tell a story…a portion of a long story…

Once upon a time, a girl from Bukidnon, wanted to do BIG things! For someone so small, she had dreamed to see what is out there: to conquer, to love and be loved. She wanted to achieve in many fields and thought why not?

Fast forward, she pictured in her mind her dream man, someone tall and the man of her dreams. She finally met him and she understood love. Of this love, four beautiful, versatile children came to our lives.

At this juncture, allow some of the photos available give testimonies to the many facets of the reminders how love forms us and makes us reach out to others and acknowledge the roles of people around our basic family circle.

 

 

Tips how to Overcome Homesickness Attack (OHA) while in New York City

Humans as we are, part of our humanity is the feeling of homesickness. It attacks you anytime, anywhere and before you ares aware of it, your tears just begin falling down your cheeks. Some tips are in order for sanity and order- Tips how to overcome Homesickness Attack (OHA) while in New York City or anywhere in the world.alling Homesickness as an attack should not be taken literally. Attack is used to mean that homesickness is like a reflex action. It comes or surfaces without much thought. It is triggered by the surroundings we are in or movie or play we are looking at or watching a pet being cuddled by its loving owner. Precisely because it is natural, it can be overcome;

  • Homesickness comes from two words: home and sickness. As such it is good to think of our loved ones from home and remember you are away from them because of them. Sickness in this context is not physical but emotional so like a “dis ease”.
  • To overcome this “attack” and “dis ease” is to catalyze these feelings through your gift of openness and positive attitude towards life-situations;

  • Since homesickness confronts you any time and/or any where then have your journal ready to release the present state of your mind at the same time, be ready with your cell phone to take pictures of extraordinarily beautiful sights or eat your favorite food or dessert;
  • Being homesick myself, my defense is offense. My daughter is presently working here in New York City and she herself shared her Homesickness Attacks and one effective defense she actually did and was successful in doing so was to cry when there was need and called home once time allowed her – what with the 12 hour delay between US and Asia. Even her beloved dog was aware of the homesickness so part of the call was to communicate via Duo Messenger, face-to-face hi’s and hello’s. This back and forth communication was regular especially on week-ends.
  • Use all your gifts to “pay forward”, more specifically when you have been blessed abundantly.  Life’s ambivalence is in giving not in receiving. This is made more poignant when the recipient of your generosity is really experiencing life’s worst trials; and
  • As in Desiderata: “With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Strive to be happy. In relation to OHA, strive to wear it with a smile and positive attitude.

 

 

 

 

 

United States celebrates Martin Luther King Day every third Monday of January.

As Peace Education College teacher, I would always include the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of the heroes who wanted to defend the rights of people. He made sure to pursue this DREAM in a peaceful manner.

The full text of Luther’s Speech is as relevant as ever. Please google for the full text but for our purposes, excerpts are in order to highlight the “many- splendored reality” of this speech, generations will always treasure whatever your race may be.

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation …but one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free…

One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition… When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. ..

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children…

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. .. black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Having highlighted very deep insights from a man called MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. there is no reason why we can not dream with him. Although Luther’s dream is not fully realized he has embedded in our hearts and minds the constant need to keep the fire of democracy ring and forever keep alive the spirit of equality.

In the United States, Martin Luther King Jr.  Day is celebrated every third Monday of January. This year, it falls on January 21, 2019.