Your greatest gift to your family and friends is yourself -
your relaxed, happy, and fully-present self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Related topics: Values Life Human-Nature Psychology Simplicity Simple-Living
Our loved ones -
whether by blood, by marriage, or by choice -
are delicate treasures.
If we hold them too close, they break -
as a butterfly would.
By honoring and enjoying
the freedom of our loved ones,
we gain our own freedom.
Have the courage to trust that
the beautiful butterflies of your life
will return - or not - as life intends.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Sometimes, our family's most important job
is reminding us how unimportant we are.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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Consider a new beginning with your family -
choose to take them less seriously.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You are my family because I CHOOSE you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You are my home - the place to which I always return.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
For a happy marriage,
love and accept your spouse just the way they are.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The magic words for a great family are,
"I love you just the way you are."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The being of our mothers is forever branded onto our own being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When your whole family is loving and supportive, it is a great blessing.
But when family members are indifferent or hostile, release your expectations,
and find the love and support you need elsewhere.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is where our loved ones are.
Home is not a structure, but the place that we feel comfortable,
the place we belong - the place of our loved ones.
A palace is not a home without loved ones.
A shack or an open field can be paradise
when shared with a loving family.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Let us honor all children,
and put ourselves into service
preparing a magnificent
earthly home for future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The price of freedom for a nation is lives and money.
Often, the price of freedom for an individual
is challenging the closed minds of family and friend.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is where our loved ones are.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is where we feel comfortable.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
My Loved One
You are my ground and you are my rainbow.
You are my butterfly and you are my ecstasy.
You are the start of my journeys and always my destination.
You are my home - the place to which I always return.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you get frustrated by some of your family,
focus on the good aspects of your relationship
and attempt to overlook the irritations.
Then give thanks for everyone who plays a part in your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is not a structure, but the place that we feel comfortable -
the place we belong - the place of our loved ones.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You can learn how to let go of the past.
Whether you have experienced a break up
with someone you cared for deeply,
whether death has taken a loved one,
whether you have had a feud with a friend or family member,
whether you have lost a job.
Move on and let go.
Life can be joyful and rewarding again.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I am at Peace with myself,
my family, my community, and the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Consider a parent who says,
"Look at the sacrifices I'm making so you can have a better life."
Contrast that with another parent who demonstrates
living a great life every day.
Self-sacrifice is not a virtue.
Living a great life and sharing that life with others
is the noble way to live.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everyone I Love Becomes My Family -
and I Love Everyone.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We all tend to measure our worth by what we DO -
the actions we take.
We also highly value what we SAY.
However, the greatest impact we have
on our family, our friends,
and our world is our kindness and love.
A bowl of soup served with love
is a greater gift than a steak dinner served brusquely.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
My own gratitude list begins with health, family, friends,
and the beauty around me - from the butterflies and rainbows,
to the dolphins, to the birds, to the works produced by the human hand.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Suspicion and jealousy are the death knell of any relationship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our opportunity is always to make the choice for Joy.
To see the world with new eyes - open eyes - loving eyes.
To choose compassion and understanding -
for ourselves, our family, our friends,
our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Release your burdens - your fears, regrets,
guilts, shames, embarrassments, angers.
One by one, pick up each memory or fear that troubles you,
hold it close, and release it to the Universe.
Release each incident from your past that still bothers you.
Release each fear - your fears about your health,
your family, your job, and every other fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Lighten up! Slow down the shopping.
Your greatest gift to your family and friends is yourself -
your relaxed, happy, and fully-present self.
Consider gifting hand-made cards with messages
of true appreciation in place of store-bought presents.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each of us is of infinite value,
and each of us has the ability to make
a profound difference in the lives we touch.
We leave our most profoundly positive impact
on those around us by the nature of our lives
and the example we set -
not by how busy we are,
or how important we believe we are.
Setting an example of being loving, relaxed and joyful,
regardless of external circumstances,
is a great legacy for our family and for the world.
Self importance - ego - is not a path to happiness.
Focusing one's whole life on responsibilities,
without taking time for self-renewal and play,
abandons the joy and the true value of life.
I want my tombstone to read, "Inspired others,"
rather than, "Never missed a day at the office."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
My Chosen Family
You are my family, but we don't share blood.
You are my family by choice.
The most powerful bond is the one that we choose.
I choose you as my friend, and rejoice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is our sanctuary, where we:
relax into being ourselves,
play with our inner child,
paint the walls green and pink,
dig in the dirt,
grow something,
love somebody else,
love ourselves even more,
snuggle with a warm blanket on a Sunday afternoon,
hang "go away" on the door whenever we want,
clean and tidy often... or never,
launch from and return to,
are truly ourselves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It's YOUR time - it's YOUR life -
YOU get to choose how you use it. T
here is no way that your life is "supposed" to be.
Your parents had their vision for your life.
Your boss, your spouse, your church, your friends,
and even the family next door have their ideas
of how you should live your life.
What about YOUR vision for your life?
What do YOU want?
YES, it matters what you want.
YES you can have what you want.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A working definition of Honor is,
"respect or esteem that has been earned."
Contemplate that for a moment.
It would be very special to earn the respect and esteem
of our family, our friends, our co-workers, our community, wouldn't it?
If anything, it is of even more moment to honor yourself.
Those who are successful and happy earn their own
self-respect and self-esteem.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you doubt the virtue in self-honor,
remember what the flight attendant says,
"Put your own oxygen mask on first."
You are of no use to anyone else
if you have not taken care of your own needs first -
this includes your own emotional,
as well as physical, well-being.
In addition, your greatest value to your children,
your family, your friends, and your community
is the example you set, leading a great life that inspires
those around you to emulate your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Choose love. Choose to release all resentments.
Forgive everyone. Choose to release all regrets.
Forgive yourself for all decisions that you have ever made
that didn't work out as you hoped.
Forgive yourself for any financial decisions
that didn't meet your expectations.
Release your regrets if you choose
the "wrong" spouse or the "wrong" career.
Today, choose love.
Choose to love yourself.
Choose to love your life.
Choose to love all the friends, family, co-workers,
acquaintances, and others who share your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It is not our place to know the mind of God.
Spirit knows what is best in the long run -
best for each of us individually,
and best for humanity as a whole.
This is often very difficult to accept
when we see war and disease in the world
and experience physical and emotional suffering
in ourselves, our family, and our friends.
I consider this belief in God's infinite power
and ultimate wisdom to be the true test of faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Confused Memories of Childhood:
Hate to my father, cruel hate,
confused with love - a mix not great.
The man I love - the man I hate;
the man I want to emulate.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
While you can and should keep your composure and happiness
regardless of circumstances - regardless of your friends,
family and co-workers - regardless of gossip, sarcasm, and negativity.
Nonetheless, life is much easier and more pleasant
when you spend as much time as possible
in the company of enthusiastic positive people -
not necessarily those who agree with you,
but those who respect your right to your point of view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Prayer:
Lord God, Holy Spirit, Giver of All Light,
Bless and Keep All Those of This World.
Grant Us Your Peace, Your Light, Your Love.
Grant Us Complete Renewal of Body, Mind and Spirit -
Continual Rebirth in Newness of Life.
Let Your Light Shine Upon Us and Be Gracious to Us.
Grant to Each and Every One of Us:
Health, Comfort, Joy, Peace Within Ourselves,
Peace Within Our Families, Peace Within Our Communities,
and Peace among All those This World.
Grant That I May Be an Instrument of Thy Peace.
Grant That I May Radiate Thy Peace, Thy Light, Thy Love,
Thy Healing, Thy Comfort, Thy Joy,
to All Those Around Me and All Those in My Thoughts
This Day and Ever More. AMEN.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The fog unrolls itself to be a prayer rug to the mountains.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Celebrate! Celebration is an expression of Gratitude.
Gratitude is like the prayer, while
Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance.
Celebration is its own road to happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Lord, grant comfort, joy and health
to those I call friend,
to those I call enemy,
and to those I have cursed by my indifference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Gratitude is the prayer,
while Celebration is the song and the dance of praise.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Conversations with God are very different
from the usual nature of prayer.
Prayers are commonly only in one direction -
the one praying speaks and hopes God is listening.
Prayers also tend to focus on asking
for specific things or outcomes one wants,
rather than seeking to better understand the mind of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
On this day, as on every day,
we Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving.
We have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring us to this moment.
We give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of our courage
and the cold sweat of our fear.
We accept gratefully the entirety
of our past and our present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Sometimes we need the fog to remind ourselves
that all of life is not black and white.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh, for the touch of a hand
and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I reach toward the shining mountains,
beyond the fog of daily worries.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each of us dwells in a cathedral of our own BEing
that is created vast enough to encompass Unity with all creation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Miracles are the natural way of the Universe -
our only job is to move our doubting minds aside
and let the miracles flow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We all have our thorns. We, and Life, have our moments.
Life occurs before our morning coffee.
Life occurs in our bathrobe with our hair uncombed.
Bless and give thanks for All of Life - the bloom and the thorns.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our grandchildren's grandchildren will shake their heads in shame
at some of the beliefs that we hold most dear today -
the question is, which ones?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our actions are constrained by fear of reprisal,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Choose to See Beauty and Joy:
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We see Life through the fun-house mirrors of our point-of-view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Most everything in life is about our
point-of-view rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Adversity can crush our spirit -
or strengthen it - it is our choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
NECESSITY and URGENCY are twin poisons of our rattlesnake minds.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each one of us has our own perspective
on everything we see in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Whether we allow external events to
shape our lives at a core level
is very much within our own control.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We censor our actions, but
our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.
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