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11 YEAR OLD HERO TO THE HOMELESS

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11-Year-Old Jack Davis' Bill to Help the Homeless is about to Be Signed into Law!


Jack’s Bill, officially titled the "Jack Davis Florida Lending a Helping Hand Bill," which will allow restaurants to give their unused food to the homeless, just passed in the Florida House of Representatives. The next step is for the governor to sign it into law, which should happen in the next few weeks. Once the bill is signed, it should take effect July 1, 2008.

Jack went to Tallahassee and did a lot of lobbying for his bill. While there, Jack was fortunate enough to meet with several legislators and attend several sessions and committee meetings, but the highlight of his trip was a 20-minute meeting with the Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist. The governor had Jack sit in his chair, which Jack told him was "almost" as comfortable as the "Ellen chair.” The governor then promised he would sign Jack’s Bill into law if it reached his desk!

We’ll keep you updated, of course, to let you know how everything turned out, and to find out what great deeds Jack Davis will be pursuing next!

THIS IS GRATITUDE

HOMELESSNESS

WHY JOE VITALE VOWS TO END HOMELESSNESS

I REMEMBER I TESTED GOD!

"Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it."

William Feather
1889-1981, Writer

A few days ago I was talking with a friend and this thought went through my mind.

“I remember that I tested God.”

I was around 13 or 14 years old and I was in junior high school. Everyday after school I would stop at the five and dime (I know, I’m aging myself here) Woolworth’s. It was in the center of town located near the school. I would window shop there.

Having been raised in a Christian home, we were taught to believe that God was a vengeful God, and if we sinned, we would be punished for it. Well, one day I decided to test that theory. I went into the store everyday and this one day I did not window shop, I stole. I wanted to have things that others had, not because I was jealous, but because I had low self esteem, I did not feel worthy of anything, and I believe that a part of me, had no self preservation. Corporal punishment was the mode of discipline in our home, and I challenged that all the time. Just because we were disciplined that way, did not keep us from breaking the rules. The rules in our home were far more rigid than any of my friends. However, the day that I first stole from the five and dime, was a record day for me. I remember walking home and thinking to myself, how will God punish me? What does smite mean anyway? Will I know when it happens? Will I go to Hell today? At the end of the day I got into bed and said my prayers, “Please God, forgive me for stealing and God bless, yadda, yadda, yadda.” In the morning I woke up relieved to realize I was still alive and went about getting ready for school. I don’t know how long it was before I stopped waiting for the punishment that never came, but I remember that when it did not come after awhile, I did it again. I went back to the store and stole something a little more expensive. Nothing I stole was important, significant, or expensive, it was just a test. Eventually I stopped stealing and I also stopped waiting for God to smite me down.

I know that it was around that time that I began to think differently about what I was being taught in church. I am in no way saying that what was being taught was right or wrong, I just did not believe the things I was being taught. It was not presented in a way that I understood. I thought differently about it, and I actually developed a kind of peacefulness with that, and still continued to disobey my parents, despite the virtual threat of physical punishment, but I did stop testing God. I had a better understanding about what my relationship with God was. I had a very close and private relationship with him that I still to this day, claim as my own.

I have spent the last year looking within for the true me, and have been fortunate enough to have the awareness I have always maintained, and as a result, I have refined my relationship with God, and it is clearer and stronger than ever. I know it began with “The Secret” and is being expanded by The Law of Attraction, and recently, by the writing of Eckhart Tolle and the Oprah Book Club, which for me, is an extension of the teachings of The Laws of The Universe.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this: THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.

There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.

"I HAVE NO COMPLAINTS."

I was posting an excerpt for a new release from HCI Books, on my OUR GRATITUDE IN BOOKS Blog Site, when I began to read a couple of lines that reminded me of how overwhelming (yet beautiful) the acknowledgment of “The Law of Attraction” can be, in the course of a single day. The excerpt (Life Lessons, Loving the Life You Live by, Jennifer Read Hawthorne, Jack Canfield, and Mark Victor Hansen) suggests that, even though you see these wonderful things going on around you, when a friend asks how you are, you immediately begin to relate the negative things that took place in your day.

I was talking to my friend Michele, about this last week, and I suggested that we take a lesson from Oprah who said, when people ask how she is, she says “I have no complaints”. So now when Michele and I see each other, we ask, “How are you” and if one of us forgets to answer with “I have no complaints”, the other one points it out, and we find a source of humor in our day, and begin to remember the tiny miraculous little things we noticed during the day, instead of burdening each other with the negative. One thing that gives Michele great pleasure is her daily post from Mike Dooley’s Daily Notes of the Universe. She tells me everyday what her email said and she gets great strength and pleasure from it.

We should all pay more attention to the little, firebug like messages which flit past us everyday. Those are the things that should take our attention, because those are the unnoticed signals that we are getting within. The Law of Attraction is all around us and the more we find of it without, the more we will get from within. The more we share it with others, the more it will come back to us, ten fold every time.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:

THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.

There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.

IT IS JUST A CHOICE!

I’m writing my blog now on Microsoft Office 2007. I never really saw the need to upgrade, I mean I know that a lot of technology is changing and I will have to go to High Definition soon, but when it comes to word programs, how much more could there be? Well, I was wrong, this is pretty nice. I realize it means learning new technology but I like a good challenge, so I am trying it out. The look alone is less ominous than I thought it would be. I’m one of those people that were not afraid to open the VCR when a tape got jammed in it, or open a computer and learned how to install RAM. I will admit, I do have to hold myself back from fixing things or putting my fingers where no woman’s fingers should go…technology wise. I can not tell anyone how to fix a broken toaster, because I never tried to fix one. The reason is simple, they are cheap, and so I just buy a new one. And the same with VCRs and DVD players, they are so inexpensive that we just replace them. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say that about poverty and homelessness? It is so cheap, we can just buy everyone a house, or we can just fill their freezer. Why can’t we say that? And if we do, will it make it happen? I believe it will. I believe that if we all try to make sure that houses and food are cheap enough to make sure everyone has them, then that is how it will be.

We have to all try to get on the same page about issues like this. We have to believe more in our ability to accomplish change. I admit to being a procrastinator, but if you stand in front of me and tell or ask me to do something, I will. How many people do we know that will say that? I can think of a lot. I think we should all try that. Let’s try to believe that these changes are in our power, and because they are, we will be moving people out of hunger, poverty and everyone will have a place to live. Now how hard is that? To just believe that it can happen. I believe it and I need everyone to believe it, so let’s all make it our business to make others believe it.

I was having a conversation today with my oldest son and I said some thing similar to him. He still believes that things are more improved if we spend time worrying about them, or trying to fix them when they do not need fixing. Or to make it clearer, why spend all day worrying about someone that does not want help. Why not just offer love and believe in the ability to fix them self, and see them fixing themselves. I believe in that. I see my friend having faith in her ability to have provided her child with the ability to heal HERSELF. I see my children and family members healing themselves, fixing themselves and I believe that they have the ability to do that. The power to change is in every one of us, we have to just allow it.

While I was surfing the internet today I ran across an article about Abraham Lincoln. This is what I got from it:

It said that Abraham Lincoln suggested that the government pay each state $400 for each slave, and in return the states would abolish slavery within 20 years. He referred to it as gradual emancipation, and suggested that it would cost the same to do that as it would to fight a war over it.

The suggestion is sound but the time would have been a huge issue to me. The mere fact that there was another solution to the issue of slavery is a huge thought. There are solutions like that available to all situations and when WE ALL begin to think differently, but realize the same results; we will have made the world a better place. We have to learn to separate from our “ego” and think of peaceful solutions instead of resolving issues of war. We can make war non-existent; it is a matter of CHOICE to accomplish that. We just have to CHOOSE. I know it sounds too good to be true or too simple, but it really is, once WE ALL THINK THE RIGHT WAY. It has worked NEGATIVELY this way for centuries. All we have to do is take those thoughts and use them for GOOD instead of EVIL. Hitler managed to convince massive numbers of people to believe in his theory. The Rise of Hitler as explained began as thoughts. How is it possible for someone as evil as Hitler to manage to convince enough countrymen to torture and murder millions of Jewish men, women and children, and impossible for us to take the same thoughts and turn them all into positive actions. Most of the original points of Hitler’s 25 point plan can easily be implemented positively to change the way the world works, or at least The United sates.

I hope that enough people read this and CHOOSE to change the way they think so the number of positive minded individuals increases by passing this message along to others.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:

THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.

There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.