The Health Plus Letter
December 14, 2004, Vol. 2, No. 40
By Larry Trivieri, Jr. – founder & publisher,
http://www.1healthyworld.com

If you prefer to read this issue online, you can read it, along with all other back issues, at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine.


Table Of Contents
Happy Holidays
Quote of the Day
Fast Fact
Poetry
Recommendations


Happy Holidays

First off, let me wish all of my Christian readers a very happy and blessed Christmas. And to all my readers, may this holiday season and the year that follows it bring you health, love, and joy. My thanks to all of you who have emailed to wish me the same.

This week’s issue marks the 40^th that I’ve created this year, and will be the last until January 2005. Instead of bringing you news items and health features this week, I simply wish to let all of you know how grateful I am for your readership. As I’ve written before, The Health Plus Letter is a labor of love for me. To have readers from all over the world reading it is both a thri.ll for me, and a responsibility I cheri.sh and take very seriously. In the year ahead, I promise to do my best to make it even more worthy of your time.

I realize at this time of year that’s it’s become common to make spec.ial offers of products and so forth, yet I’m choosing not to plug anything. Instead, I encourage everyone to take time to appreciate the truly valua.ble things in our lives—namely our families and loved ones. And also to take time to reflect and appreciate your own accomplishments and triumphs in the year that is passing. All too often we overlook these things, especially when we are prone to being critical of ourselves. Let’s let such judgments go and give ourselves a pat on the back. The truth is, our thoughts about ourselves are usually less than who and what we actually are in reality.

What follows are poems I wrote that I hope reflect that truth.
 
As always, please continue to send me your comments and suggestions. And please spread the word about The Health Plus Letter by passing it along to your friends and inviting them to subscribe.


Quote Of The Day

“It’s only the giving that makes you what you are.”
-- Ian Anderson


Fast Fact

Joy and happiness are available to all of us at any time. All we have to do is choose them.


Where God's Bounty Deep Abides

Woe washes the faces of they not perceiving
the birds that singsong in their midst,
immune through more than flight
to these precarious times,
else joyful for the very uncertainty.
To all of us, alive,
change is a familiar
and our sorrows are woven by what isn't held,
transformed into happiness within our discovery
of the wonders which replace.

With such thoughts I know myself
a fool in my times of feeling lack
here in the midst of it,
where the Miracle abounds;
it creates a peasant's smile
in the dance I n.ow partake of.
And I look out the window to see
streets afire with the basic transfiguration
of so much more than lead to gold.

But how convey what is fleetingly known
to those who know it not at all,
seeing, instead, all around worry
and pain for their needs so perceived?
Surely not by words,
nor even by touching, when all who are seen
are also estranged
for the fact that their misery buffets.

I have no answers yet I'll not close my eyes,
not sap with denials the marvels,
the colors, the merriment of the world
the birds do praise.
Where God's bounty deep abides
is the place I look to, see from,
my joy not surrendered but spread from my heart,
outward and freely
as a means to slake another's thirst.

So, drink. I am not niggardly,
touching the source of my life,
and therein the We—me and you,
forming and formed by just Love.
The Gift is always offered
and our lives are built upon choices
of what to receive, to believe.
At what table does Struggle sit
when to smile is as easy as grieving?


Instruction

Within silence
hear the thunder,
know the lightning
in the dark;
what is taken to be real
changes as it is viewed -
look again upon your problem,
bless it, be renewed.


The Acceptance

comes with the running ceased
leaving
you on the edge of Nothing;
gone past the lessons,
the play of all forms,
all trials and errors
and learning.

You return to where you begin
to perceive
there is ne/ver departure.
You are
alone
You are
not lonely
You are
the dream you no longer pursue.

So are you found,
yourself your creator,
your creation
spanned and encompassed,
your view.

And worlds shift
in the blinking of moments,
imploding, exploding,
renewed;
the same
as every action ne/ver done
save by you who authored
the roles as you ran.

The road is retraced n.ow
through the shadows and blood,
the pain and the guilt
for the pageantry of what was murdered
and the sham of the deaths
you survive.
You played the devil against yourself,
questing for an even break,
yet n.ow are burst wide open
from the chrysalis to Soul.

Hardened by the you you feared,
you were the thief of your joy;
n.ow it spills upon you.
And you
laugh
and you
cry
and you
know yourself lasting in Love.

The Joke is your ecstasy
finally yours to pass on.
Come this far,
embrace yourself,
bless you
bless you
bless your blessings.


Recommendations

Books

Handling Sin by Michael Malone. What a joy of a novel this is! At times laugh-out-loud funny, at others, deeply moving. Throughout, a gem of a tale crafted by a master novelist. If you enjoy good literature, don’t miss this one.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Dickens is one of my favorite authors, and this novella is always worth re-reading. (If you haven’t read it before, you’re in for a treat.)

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. To my mind, this is the greatest modern day epic fantasy ever written. And it’s far superior to what to me were the three highly over-rated film adaptations that are derived from it.

Till next year—Health and Blessings!

Larry Trivieri, Jr. (larry@1healthyworld.com)


Disclaimer: The Health Plus Letter is a weekly eZine published by Larry Trivieri, Jr. and Library of Health, LLC (dba www.1healthyworld.com) 1514 Genesee Street, Suite 52, Utica, NY 13502. It is made available without charge for info/rmation purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical care. If you are experiencing a health problem, seek prompt medical attention.

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Le/gal Notice: The info/rmation in this eZine may be f/r/e/ely and widely disseminated so long as full attribution is made as follows: The Health Plus Letter, December 14, 2004, Vol. 2, No. 40. Copyright © 2004 by Larry Trivieri, Jr. All rights reserved.

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