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Kindness


I believe kindness is caring and having compassion for others. Sometimes kindness is just a kind word or a smile, or it can be going out of our way to help another.

Kindness is having love in our heart for all living things and for people of all circumstances, religions, cultures, and races. I believe kindness is trying to make the world a better place in some small way in our everyday words and actions.

Kindness is visiting, calling, or writing someone who is sick or alone, someone who is sad or grieving, and just letting them know that somebody cares. Just a word of comfort or sympathy means so much, and gives so much hope and strength to someone who feels despondent.

What a wonderful world it would be to live in if each of us did an act of kindness each day. I think in no time the world would be filled with so much love and happiness that all the strife and hatred and sadness would magically disappear.



The Unwritten Law


There is an unwritten spiritual law which governs the human heart. On most occasions we may be only vaguely aware of it. Only when we break this law do we feel its punishment. In brief this law demands that we do not under any circumstances cause another person hurt or sadness.

This law applies not only to our actions, but to our intentions as well. Like all laws it is a law liable to be broken, and regretably is often broken, but always to our detriment.

Some people call this unwritten law conscience. No one can intentionally hurt another person either physically or emotionally without inflicting a greater hurt upon their own self. For there is no reprieve from conscience. The conscience never forgives or forgets.

There are those with such seared consciences that they seem oblivious of the harm they do to others, but these poor creatures are to be pitied the most, for they have lost their humanity.

On the other hand there seems to be another law of reciprocation at work when we show kindness and love toward others. When we are kind and considerate of the feelings of others we feel a peacefulness and happiness within.



Love


The capacity to love is the greatest single asset a person may possess. All other assets, accomplishments, and worldly goods don't mean a thing if a person doesn't have love in their heart. The richest man in the world if he doesn't have love has nothing. The most talented and gifted person in the world, the most accomplished and renowned, if that person is not able to give or receive love then he or she is the most bereft and wretched person alive.

The beauty and the joy of life is condensed into that one word, love. Love creates a world all its own, a world in which pettiness, animosity, and despair are unknown, a world centered on hope.

Love is the light of the universe. From love emits a radiance the darkness cannot penetrate. Love in its essence is purity, truth, and beauty. Throughout the eons love has been the source of all that is good and blessed.

The wonder of love is its ability to refresh and inspire the soul, its miraculous power of transforming the appearance of things and making the heart conscious of a wonderful something. From love the eyes view the world anew, see things in a different light, and are aware of beauty and serenity never before glimpsed and never imagined.

The resources of love are limitless, and the magnitude untapped. Love by existing makes life endurable, and makes hardship and suffering bearable. Without some spark of love there are none of us could continue down the sometimes difficult and frightening road of life we must trek.

Love makes even the severest truths acceptable, and grants one the strength to face the hardest facts and circumstances of life. Love is the supreme privilege of life and as necessary for survival as food or water.

Love is the lifeline which saves us from the oblivion of our own despair, and which secures us from plunging into the darkness of our own disappointments and dejections. Love is the one constant and good in a sometimes terrifying world of pain and suffering, and hate and evil.



Wonders


To be
A wonder to me.
A tree,
The sea
A mystery
To see,
A wonder to me.
a baby crying,
A bird flying,
A star shining,
God's designing,
trees growing,
Streams flowing,
Clouds drifting,
The mist lifting,
Tall mountains,
Water fountains.
Life!

Dig Deep

My only advice to you,
Dig deep my friend.
Leave shallowness to shallow men.
Go to your limit and then go again.

Expose if it be truth.
He who does not follow his heart
Is discordant with his part,
And can nothing start.

Without limit our soul
Can span the infinite boundaries of space,
Go on the shores of any place,
And the stars embrace.

Falter at the precipice,
And fear to cross a place so high,
Though the other side be nigh.
Come, let us try!

If we should not succeed,
So, we shall only once fall.
Better than trying not at all,
And heeding not the call.

Lately

Lately no stars are bright,
Lately nothing seems right,
No dreams in my mind,
My hopes all left behind.

Lately the skies are grey,
Nothing going my way,
No songs in my heart,
And smiles so far apart.

Lately I feel forlorn,
Wonder why I was born,
Joy is lost to me,
And all else lately.



The Empty Heart


The starless sky, the empty heart are one,
Alone, darkness around, no hope, no light.
As the stars shining do make beam the night,
So love does then make of the heart a sun.

A tree barren, a wretched thing to see,
A man alone, a wretched person he.
Without someone to share life's hopes and dreams,
There's little worth to life it seems.

As flowers in light reveal their colors hue.
So love in the heart does then come shining through.
As the singing bird, the ringing bell,
Thoughts of someone dear makes the heart feel well.

Summer, the breeze so fair, the sky so blue,
I would my heart loved someone so true.
The night so dark I sit alone and sigh,
With empty heart, a hopeless man am I.

The Long Silent Years

The long silent years mock at my delay,
A thousand dark nights deride me with scorn,
Unfulfilled hours laugh from yesterday,
At one among men who is most forlorn.

The days I have spent alone in my room,
The wasted hours listening to wind and rain,
Such loneliness as one in the tomb,
Visited my soul in its abject pain.

Wasted time that can never more be mine,
Fruitless years that have passed forever,
Make me weary and sad with my life's design,
Which brought me true happiness never.

Oh, if I could live the years over again,
I would put laughter where sadness had been.



The Dove


A gentle, peaceful creature is the dove. The dove has long been symbolic of peace and love. Her beautiful call reminds us of sad and thoughtful things. Shy and retiring as she is, we seldom get too near her as she flies away at the least noise.

The flapping of the wings of a dove is a lovely sound, a sound as natural and pleasant as the falling wind or water trickling over the rocks. If all things in life were so kind, and had the sweet and innocent ways of the dove, our world would be a paradise.

Malice and rage are not found in the dove, as she goes along life's way a quiet and harmless being. It is a joy to me that such a fond creature should breathe the same air as I, and that life should be so good to me as to let me behold a dove.

The dove proves beyond all doubt that life is good, and that a higher power is responsible for our being. In the quiet eye of the dove shines the love of the Deity.









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My writings on this page-Copyright�1999 Walter Westfall-All Rights Reserved-permission to use works available upon request