Smile for Life

“Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.” -Mother Teresa

This week, my wife is in Ecuador on a mission trip. She and a group of folks from the C3 School of Ministry here in Lawrenceville, Georgia are impacting the lives of people in need. It is a trip of importance in the lives of those being helped and in the lives of those on the trip. Doing great things for others is a two-way experience.

Yes, most mission trips bring help to those in need including clothing, medical, education and other forms of assistance. My wife is part of that effort but she also brings her smile. A wonderfully conforting and encouraging smile that lets you know everything is going to be just fine.

I have spoken of seeing her smile for the first time in my book Love Is. It is the same smile that I remember seeing on the face of my grandfather as he waved goodbye for the last time. They are smiles that wrap a genuine peace around your heart and soul.

All of us can bring a smile into the lives of others close to us and to those that we meet each day. We can smile in Cuenca, Ecuador and we can smile in Lawrenceville, Georgia; in either place it has an impact. So smile and change someone's day, week or life.

Stay inspired my friends.

Tending Your Field

“The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with thin, green spangles.” ― Ayn Rand

The world around you, regardless of where you are, is your field of influence. It is a field that includes the hearts and minds of other people who enter in and pass through it. Your sphere of influence is generally any one that you encounter through out your life. It is a field that you have an impact upon by your actions and words.

As a farmer plants seeds and tends to the field, you have responsibility for the seeds you plant in the hearts and minds of others. You can tend to them over time and watch people grow and move to greatness. Or you can ignore them and watch them wither. These interactions go on everyday both to you and by you.

You may be 'planting' seeds within the fields of your influence, but others are doing the same as you enter theirs. When two mindful farmers enter each others environment, a wonderful thing happens to both people. The metaphor for tending a field of influence can be difficult to follow in its concept, but the more you think about it, clarity will come to your understanding of what I am writing.

The basic premise for me when it comes to 'farming' your field of influence is this; do not leave people where you find them. Help them, nurture them and bring them to a higher place. Leave them with hope and understanding that life has much to offer them.

The 'harvest' of a well tended field will yield much to you. Your life will be enriched for the experience and be more bountiful in its rewards. In all that you do, leave that which you enter better then when you found it. Leave the heart and mind of others in a better place.

Stay inspired my friends.

Creating a Wave

"The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." -Frederick Buechner

If you take even the smallest amount of time out from your day to help another person, well it is always a great thing. There will be different points in our lives when opportunity comes come along to do just that, help another person.

There is a great commercial that depicts these "opportunities" and shows them occuring in the most mundane ways. I would hesitate and state that commercials are not necessarily the best forum to learn about life. Yet at times, advertisements can teach us basic principles about living even though the intent is to sell us something. It is really no different than me writing about ways to live life I would suppose.

But beyond that, this particular commercial is from an insurance company entitled "Responsibility". The advertisement is from an insurance company called Liberty Mutual. They have a few versions of this but it primarily depicts one person making a choice to do one thing for another person. Others notice and it starts a ripple effect of others helping others.

In previous articles I have written of this same thing, this "ripple effect" of choices and actions you take in life. It is like a pebble dropped in the water. Small vibrations of water begin to flow out from this one seemingly insignificant pebble. As the ripple continues to move out further, the vibrations grow into waves that eventually create a great wave breaking at waters edge.

You can have this same impact in life, with small actions such as helping others. Your actions will be noticed and be carried by others further and further. It is unlikely that you will see the large wave on the outer edges. Sometimes you do and it is a wonderful feeling. But even if you do not, grab the vision that it does occur.

Like surfers riding atop these giant waves crashing with final impact upon the beach, your own simple movement results in waves of final impact on a greater world. Others will ride this wave of movement to a destination of greatness. The great thing about it is your actions create the same thing in others.

Other people will create pebbles in the water with circles of change moving out from their own center. You will get the ability to ride those waves to greatness when they come along.

Some might say that it creates a rough pool of water. Yet my belief is that calm water means the boat remains still, motionless with little chance of getting anywhere. But a breeze comes along and the boat begins to move, your movement begins and waves begin to form.

Change begins and your life will never be the same for you are moving towards something great. Create waves in your life by helping others and than catch the waves of change which come back your way.

Stay inspired my friends.

Build a Home

"Seek home for rest, for home is best." -Thomas Tusser

Coming home, it is a wonderful feeling when one has been on the road. Whether it has been a short trip down the road to another city, or a long journey to another country, returning home is always a comforting event.

As much as we try to expand our horizons with new experiences and places, we tend to be home bodies at heart. Home is the one place where you will always find those closest to you. A wife or husband, father or mother, child or friend; those that know you most dearly.

When I travel, the vast majority of people I meet are for the most part quite friendly. They are ready to help you with whatever you need and genuinely ready to assist in most any way.

But the hotels are different from my own house. The food is different from my wife's cooking. The sounds and atmosphere simply do not have the same familiar feel. When I come home though, I can slow down from the hectic pace and be among close family and friends. All of the familiar come rushing back once again to ease my soul and calm my life.

In your daily life, many of the stresses you encounter can be absolved simply by coming home. Do not make your home a stressful one. Make your home a comforting one, a home that nourishes and rejuvenates the soul.

There is a great quote by the famed poet Maya Angelou. She says, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." It means to me that we should build a home that we will always ache for when we are not there.

Stay inspired my friends and enjoy the quiet comfort of home.