Scream Out for Liz

"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream." -John Lennon

As the year of 2011 is nearing an end, each of us are looking forward to what will come in the new one. The year of 2012 holds great promise for each of us. And most of us have the luxury of good health, reasonable financial stability and general goodness happening in our lives.

Others are not so fortunate and have a more direct want for 2012. For them, each day that goes by gives hope and promise for greater things, most of which is life. One such person is Liz Rieckmann and when she was only 7 years old, was diagnosed with cancer. Doctors only gave her a 50/50 chance, but she beat cancer!

Then in 2009, she was a young woman interning with the Brown University theater program. She noticed that she was getting extremely winded at work. During a Christmas break, she went home and visited her doctor who had her hospitalized right away due to pneumonia. After several tests and a biopsy, Liz received a disheartening diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that severely scars the lungs.

Doctors have determined that a double-lung transplant is critical to her survival. So while awaiting her transplant, Liz must rely on an oxygen tank 24 hours a day to breathe. Despite these challenges, Liz loves life and is grateful for her supportive network of family and friends who have made her life so special. She is especially thankful for her mom and dad, as they do everything they can to make sure Liz has the best possible care.

Now to the "ask" of my readers.

A good friend of ours, Ruth Perry, is heading up a local fund-raising effort to get the monies needed for the transplant. The needed double-lung transplant for Liz costs nearly $800,000. And that's only the beginning. Even with health coverage, she faces significant expenses. She will need follow-up care and daily anti-rejection medications for the rest of her life. Post-transplant medications are very costly, and they are as critical to her survival as the transplant itself.

I appreciate you sticking with me on this long article, but what can you do?

You can help by donating a few dollars now and encouraging others to do the same. If you wish to read more about Liz Rieckmann and more importantly, make a tax-deductible donation, CLICK HERE.

If you wish to send a check in the mail, please send it to the

NFT Georgia Transplant Fund
5350 Poplar Avenue, Suite 430
Memphis, TN 38119

Please be sure to write "in honor of Liz Rieckmann" on the memo line.

To involve yourself in this or any such noble effort to assist others is important. Many people in need of help or assistance will politely ask others in their time of need. What we are here to do for the Rieckmanns is to be the ones to "scream out" to the rest of the world.

You can help Liz with your generous gift and then "scream out" to others. Together we can help make a huge difference in another persons 2012. We can help give them life.

Dreams for 2012

The end of 2011 is coming quickly to an end. In under four days, 2011 will ring out with a rush of parties, a dropping of the ball in New York's famed Times Square (yes, there are many others around the world), kissing, hugging and resolutions declared. People will declare the start of a new year, new beginning and renewed hope for better times.

While I talked of that new beginning in a previous article, I understand the general consensus will go based upon the calendar. But it doesn't mean that you can't start thinking about it now; starting today with a new beginning and renewed hope for better times.

As we dream of great things and see visions of prosperity, success and great love in 2012, dreaming is only part of the equation. There are those dreams that come to us at night while we sleep. There are dreams that occur during the day as we lazily ponder thoughts in our mind. But as you notice, both are sedentary activities, no movement, only thought. But what I have found is that DREAMS + ACTION = ACHIEVEMENT as you start a new beginning and renewed hope for better times.

As I have said before, you have to "Raise the BAR" (Believe, Act, Realize) in order to achieve your dreams. Do not wait until the blur of 12:01 AM on January 1 or even the hangover of the next morning. Start making movement on the 2012 year. Forget that the Mayans wrote of destruction and disaster. Believe in greatness and a new beginning and renewed hope for better times.

In an article called "10 Tips for Turning Your Dreams into Reality!" by Inez Bracy, Inez Bracy International; those things you need to start considering are;

1. Take an in depth look at your life, who you are and how you show up.
2. Decide if this is the way you want your life to be 365 days from now.
3. Give yourself permission to move in the direction of the life you say you want.
4. Chart your course; set goals toward achieving your dream life.
5. Do something daily that takes you closer to your dream
6. Keep a journal of your progress.
7. Celebrate something daily.
8. This is about you and for you.
9. Ask for help when you need to.
10. Express gratitude daily.

But you have to start now, start today; get a head start on 2012 before the crowd gets in the way. You will be on your way to something greater in your life, your best life.

Stay inspired my friends.

The Beginning

"Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer." -Denis Waitley

The wondrous day that Christians celebrate each year has come and gone. The marking of Christmas is a Christian holiday that others partake in for other reasons. Christmas breakfast, family close by and a warm fire filling the room. It is a chance and time for people all over the world to slow down a bit and take pause. We take the time to focus more on our God, our family and others. The day creates a moment of reflection on what is important to life.

The timing of Christmas in our Gregorian calendar places the holiday at the end. It takes places on December 25th, a few days short of year's end. In many ways we treat it as the last celebration, the ending of a year and culmination of all our hard work throughout that year of living.

For me it truly marks a beginning to what is to come in my life. It is a birth of new possibility that starts that day. We get the chance to let the previous year be forgiven of any mistakes or wrong turns we took.

Many would argue that we start a new year at the stroke of midnight December 31st. We begin the countdown and as January 1st begins, we sing the song "Auld Lang Syne" as we now begin anew. It marks of course the taking down of one old calendar and unwrapping and hanging of a new one. The song we sing itself asks the question, "Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten?"

"Auld Lang Syne" isn't celebrating the start of something, it is celebrating what has gone by. The song itself tells us that no, those times and people should not be forgotten. We remember those times and people gone, we'll toast them now and always, we'll keep them close; "We'll take a cup of kindness yet." So New Years is a celebration of all that has happened in the previous year. It is a way of remembering those things and people gone before us.

But Christmas marks a new birth, a promise of great things to come and of forgiveness to all that has happened in our lives. This is why you should take this week between Christmas and New Years to reflect on 2011. But you should also get on with your life, moving it forward to greater things. Do not wait for January 1st. Begin now. Birth a new way of living your life.

And stay inspired my friends.

Why Yes There Is

Two days in a row, because I think it bears repeating.

"Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus."

Every year at this time, we start to question if there is any "good" left in this world. The stories regarding politics, the economy, wars and poverty seem to invade the daily news.

But I am here to say that there is quite a bit of "good" in this world. There are many people that make life a great thing to have. The human spirit remains bold and strong in wanting to do "good" everyday.

Whether you are black, white, Hispanic or Asian; if you are Heterosexual or not; if man or woman; rich or poor; there is "good" in life and in those around us.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he lives in the hearts and souls or more people than not. So have a very Merry Christmas and remember all that is "good" in this world.

And stay inspired my friends.

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And now the letter.

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Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.