It is finished by the Gaither vocal band

Rainbow mountains in China

Yes, we had a hard time believing that this unlikely mountain formation was actually real, because we haven't fallen down the rabbit hole. But, believe it or not, this Technicolor range actually exists.

The mountains are part of the Change Danxia Landform Geological Park in China. Layers of different colored sandstone and minerals were pressed together over 24 million years and then buckled up by tectonic plates, according to the Telegraph.

An Antidote to the News

LAUS DEO Do you know what it means?

LAUS DEO Do you know what it means? One detail that is never mentioned is that in Washington , D.C. there can never be a building of greater height than the Washington Monument ... With all the uproar about removing the ten commandments, etc., this is worth a moment or two of your time. I was not aware of this amazing historical information. On the aluminum cap, atop the Washington Monument in Washington , D.C. , are displayed two words: Laus Deo. No one can see these words. In fact, most visitors to the monument are totally unaware they are even there and for that matter, probably couldn't care less. Once you know Laus Deo's history , you will want to share this with everyone you know. These words have been there for many years; they are 555 feet, 5.125 inches high, perched atop the monument, facing skyward to the Father of our nation, overlooking the 69 square miles which comprise the District of Columbia , capital of the United States of America Laus Deo! Two seemingly insignificant, unnoticed words. Out of sight and, one might think, out of mind, but very meaningfully placed at the highest point over what is the most powerful city in the most successful nation in the world. So, what do those two words, in Latin, composed of just four syllables and only seven letters, possibly mean? Very simply, they say ' Praise be to God!' Though construction of this giant obelisk began in 1848, when James Polk was President of the United States , it was not until 1888 that the monument was inaugurated and opened to the public. It took twenty-five years to finally cap the memorial with a tribute to the Father of our nation, Laus Deo 'Praise be to God!' From atop this magnificent granite and marble structure, visitors may take in the beautiful panoramic view of the city with its division into four major segments. From that vantage point, one can also easily see the original plan of the designer, Pierre Charles L’Enfant .....a perfect cross imposed upon the landscape, with the White House to the north. The Jefferson Memorial is to the south, the Capitol to the east and the Lincoln Memorial to the west. A cross you ask? Why a cross? What about separation of church and state? Yes, a cross; separation of church and state was not, is not, in the Constitution. So, read on. How interesting and, no doubt, intended to carry a profound meaning for those who bother to notice. When the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4th, 1848 deposited within it were many items including the Holy Bible presented by the Bible Society. Praise be to God! Such was the discipline, the moral direction, and the spiritual mood given by the founder and first President of our unique democracy 'One Nation, Under God.' I am awed by George Washington's prayer for America .... Have you ever read it? Well, now is your unique opportunity, so read on! ' Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.' Laus Deo!

Banker and Ducks. This is priceless

You will be glad you watched

The power to overcome

Great Dance routine - James Cagney and Bob Hope

For those old enough to remember here's a rare treat...a "soft shoe" routine from two of the greatest entertainers that ever walked the stage.

James Cagney and Bob Hope at a Friar's Club Meeting back when actors were real performers. Bob Hope was 52 and James Cagney was 56. For the young folks, here is something you probably have never seen before and, unfortunately, you may never see again.

For us older folks, this is the best of the best, and we had it for many years!

This is a side of these two entertainers you hardly ever saw but it shows you their enormous talent. Bob Hope, the best of the comedians, and Jimmy Cagney...mostly cast as the bad guy, gangster in the movies.

The blessing of thorns

Sandra felt as low as the heels of her shoes as she pushed
against a November gust and the florist shop door. Her life had
been easy, like a spring breeze. Then in the fourth month of
her second pregnancy, a minor automobile accident stole her
ease.

During this Thanksgiving week she would have delivered a son.
She grieved over her loss. As if that weren't enough, her
husband's company threatened a transfer. Then her sister, whose
annual holiday visit she coveted, called saying she could not
come.

What's worse, Sandra's friend infuriated her by suggesting her
grief was a God-given path to maturity that would allow her to
empathize with others who suffer. "She has no idea what I'm
feeling," thought Sandra with a shudder.

"Thanksgiving? Thankful for what?" she wondered aloud. For a
careless driver whose truck was hardly scratched when he rear-
ended her? For an airbag that saved her life but took that of
her child?

"Good afternoon, can I help you?"

The shop clerk's approach startled her.

"I....I need an arrangement, "stammered Sandra. "For
Thanksgiving?

Do you want beautiful but ordinary, or would you like to
challenge the day with a customer favorite I call the
Thanksgiving Special?" asked the shop clerk.

"I'm convinced that flowers tell stories," she continued.

"Are you looking for something that conveys 'gratitude' this
Thanksgiving?

"Not exactly!" Sandra blurted out. "In the last five months,
everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. " Sandra
regretted her outburst, and was surprised when the shop clerk
said, "I have the perfect arrangement for you."

Then the door's small bell rang, and the shop clerk said, "Hi
Barbara...let me get your order." She politely excused herself
and walked toward a small workroom, then quickly reappeared,
carrying an arrangement of greenery, bows, and long-stemmed
thorny roses.

Except the ends of the rose stems were neatly snipped...there
were no flowers.

"Want this in a box?" asked the clerk.

Sandra watched for the customer's response. Was this a joke?
Who would want rose stems with no flowers!?! She waited for
laughter, but neither woman laughed. "Yes, please," Barbara
replied with an appreciative smile.

"You'd think after three years of getting the special, I
wouldn't be so moved by its significance, but I can feel it
right here, all over again," she said as she gently tapped her
chest.

"Uhh," stammered Sandra, "that lady just left with, uhh... she
just left with no flowers!"

"Right...I cut off the flowers. That's the Special... I call
it the Thanksgiving Thorns Bouquet.

"Oh, come on, you can't tell me someone is willing to pay for
that?" exclaimed Sandra.

"Barbara came into the shop three years ago feeling very much
like you feel today," explained the clerk. "She thought she had
very little to be thankful for. She had lost her father to
cancer, the family business was failing, her son was into drugs,
and she was facing major surgery."

"That same year I had lost my husband, "continued the clerk,"
and for the first time in my life, I had to spend the holidays
alone. I had no children, no husband, no family nearby, and too
great a debt to allow any travel.

"So what did you do?" asked Sandra. "I learned to be thankful
for thorns," answered the clerk quietly. "I've always thanked
God for good things in life and never thought to ask Him why
those good things happened to me, but when bad stuff hit, did I
ever ask! It took time for me to learn that dark times are
important.

I always enjoyed the 'flowers' of life, but it too
thorns to show me the beauty of God's comfort. You know, the
Bible says that God comforts us when we're afflicted, and from
His consolation we learn to comfort others.

"Sandra sucked in her breath as she thought about the very thing
her friend had tried to tell her. "I guess the truth is I don't
want comfort.

I've lost a baby and I'm angry with God."

Just then someone else walked in the shop.

"Hey, Phil!" shouted the clerk to the balding, rotund man.

"My wife sent me in to get our usual Thanksgiving arrangement
....twelve thorny, long-stemmed stems!" laughed Phil as the
clerk handed him a tissue-wrapped arrangement from the
refrigerator.

"Those are for your wife?" asked Sandra incredulously. "Do you
mind me asking why she wants something that looks like that?

"No...I'm glad you asked," Phil replied. "Four years ago my
wife and I nearly divorced. After forty years, we were in a
real mess, but with the Lord's grace and guidance, we slogged
through problem after problem.

He rescued our marriage. Jenny here (the clerk) told me she
kept a vase of rose stems to remind her of what she learned from
"thorny" times, and that was good enough for me. I took home
some of those stems. My wife and I decided to label each one
for a specific "problem" and give thanks to Him for what that
problem taught us."

As Phil paid the clerk, he said to Sandra, "I highly recommend
the Special!"

"I don't know if I can be thankful for the thorns in my life."
Sandra said to the clerk. "It's all too... fresh."

"Well," the clerk replied carefully, "my experience has shown me
that thorns make roses more precious. We treasure God's
providential care more during trouble than at any other time.

Remember, it was a crown of thorns that Jesus wore so we might
know His love. Don't resent the thorns."
Tears rolled down Sandra's cheeks. For the first time since the
accident, she loosened her grip on resentment. "I'll take thosetwelve long-stemmed thorns, please," she managed to choke out.

"I hoped you would," said the clerk gently. "I'll have them
ready in a minute."

"Thank you. What do I owe you?" asked Sandra.

"Nothing." said the clerk.

"Nothing but a promise to allow God to heal your heart. The
first year's arrangement is always on me. "The clerk smiled and
handed a card to Sandra.

"I'll attach this card to your arrangement, but maybe you'd like
to read it first."

It read:

"Dear God, I have never thanked you for my thorns. I have
thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my
thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the
value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed closer to you
along the path of pain.
Show me that, through my tears, the colors of your rainbow look
much more brilliant."
~Author Unknown~

Decision making by Dharma Rose

The word "decision" comes from the original Latin word decider - which literally means to "cut off."

That might sound a bit morbid, but think of it this way...

When you make a powerful decision (according to the REAL meaning of the word), you literally cut yourself off from all other ways of thinking and acting that don't align with whatever it is you want to achieve.

You stop procrastinating. You get off the fence. You go both feet in with no second guessing yourself and no looking back. You just move forward.

And there's a lot of freedom in that!

If you find that you sometimes sink into paralysis analysis mode when it comes to making decisions in your life, here are 3 tips designed to help free you from your mental mud and get you into clear, decisive and powerful action:

STEP 1: Get Clear on Why You're Procrastinating
(Name It to Claim It)

I'm all for making big decisions with a clear head, and I'm all for "sleeping on it" if you feel like you have to.

But if there's a big decision to be made and you find yourself waiting longer than 24 hours to make it, chances are you're just procrastinating.

And why is that?

There's usually one reason: Fear of failure.

That fear of failure may be INTERNAL...

Are you afraid of making the wrong decision because you worry you'll end up looking bad? Are you afraid of disappointing someone else? Are you afraid of what Wayne Dyer calls the "good opinion of other people"?

Or that fear of failure may be EXTERNAL...

Or that fear of failure may be external - Are you of making the wrong decision because you'll end up looking bad? Are you afraid of disappointing someone else? Are you afraid of what Wayne Dyer calls the "good opinion of other people"?

Get clear on which type of fear of failure is really holding you back from making your decision.

This doesn't have to take long - just name it and then be willing to stare it in the face.

Like this:

"Hello fear of what other people will think. I see you. Thanks for coming by, and you're not going to stop me from taking action and moving forward."

Step 2: Redefine Your Fear of Failure

One of my mentors, Tony Robbins, says this thing that I love:

"There's no such thing as failure. There are only results. You always produce a result. If it's not the one you desire, just change your actions and you'll produce new results."

Once you start realizing that there are no failures, there are only results, making decisions becomes a lot easier.

If you decide to go down a particular path and you wind up somewhere other than where you'd planned, make a new decision.

Take some new actions.

You'll produce new outcomes.

Think of things in this way, and life becomes a living, breathing choose your own adventure.

Step 3: Tune Into Your Inner Guru

Your brain is an amazing instrument.

It organizes experiences you've had in your life into blocks of information that it files away deep in your subconscious mind...

And when faced with a tough decision, it automatically references these files in order to create some kind of reasoning of what you should do next.

This subconscious reasoning usually shows up like a subtle feeling that you can't quite logically explain that seems to nudge you toward a particular direction.

Most people call this intuition, heart sense or your gut instinct. And it's your wisest counsel.

Anytime you find yourself torn between two decisions, if you really tune in, you'll always find that your gut instinct is nudging you in one direction more than the other.

And if you listen to it, it will rarely lead you astray.

If you have a decision to make that you're sitting on, realize that on the other side of making that decision is a whole new realm of freedom and possibility...

So release your fear, tune into your gut instincts and take action!

The more decisions you make and actions you take, the more results you'll see manifest in your life, and if you create results that you're not happy with, simply take some new action and correct your course.

Life is what you make of it!

Success leaves clues

One of the things about living in today's world of opportunity is that just about everything you want to do has already been done by someone else.

It doesn't matter whether it's starting a business, losing weight, sailing around the world, or moving to an island, someone else has already done it and left clues.

These clues are in books, videos, workshops, and online courses.

Who has already done what you want to do? If you want to learn to meditate or visualize your dreams or you'd just would like to learn how to work from home and be an entrepreneur… someone else has done it.

Check out more about this in Jack Canfields Success Principle #9, Success Leaves Clues.

My Mind Movie by Rikka Zimmerman

There are two things I really like about her video...

(1) It's not often we get to be -inside- a teacher's head and heart

These are the affirmations that she uses to support herself in being the incredible woman she is. And by sharing them, she helps each and every one of us live up to our greatest potential.

Enjoy this opportunity to peek straight inside the gift that she is. :)

(2) The background music is from her album "Be The Change"

This is the first affirmations video I've heard where the person actually used her own music. The song is called "Outshine The Sun" and it alone is worth listening to this video for.

It's a wonderful song, and I just love the lyrics, energy, and essence of it!

Take action

Brian Tracy says, the main difference between successful people and failures is that successful people are action orienteers and failures are not. If you take action, only 2 things can happen: You can either SUCCEED or FAIL. Human beings are trial and failure organisms. We try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, and then try and succeed. Phil Knight, the President of Nike Shoes, say, “You only have to succeed the last time.” So you’ll find there’s a direct relationship between the number of times you try and how likely it is you are to triumph. So if you hear a good idea today, resolve to give it a try and the faster you try it, the better.