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*** LIBRARY of CONGRESS Honoree ***
*** AWARD of EXCELLENCE - Deep River Books ***
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Spiritual Health

While maintaining healthy bodies requires physical workouts and nutritious food, maintaining healthy souls requires spiritual workouts and nutritious spiritual food. In both cases, we must pay a price to be healthy.

If we view life's challenges and hardships as spiritual workouts that can help us become stronger spiritually, they are not all bad. Al Masterson - the main character in A TIME TO... - discovers this on 9/11 and it changes his life for the better.

Maybe you have experienced this phenomenon yourself in connection with 9/11 or some other event and would like to comment here.

4 comments:

  1. I believe 9/11's 10th Anniversary will generate a great deal of discussion in the months leading up to it. And, I believe that unless the discussion breaks new ground in terms of the implications it has had and will have on our souls, we can expect even worse horrors in the world.

    We have dealt with the physical threats 9/11 revealed by going to war, but we have not addressed the spiritual threats and how they affect the way we live our lives going forward.

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  2. Since 9/11 it has been difficult for me to believe as I had believed before that good always triumphs over evil. This spiritual foundation cracked on 9/11.

    The world became a much less friendly place, more dangerous place. Before I was just concerned about random acts of violence by crazy people on highways and criminals on the streets. Now there is a band of crazies out to kill anyone who thinks differently than they.

    In this environment I find myself making a conscious effort to combat the evil that was manifested in 9/11 with random acts of love and kindness. From what friends and acquaintances tell me, they are responding in similar ways. What else can individuals do in the face of such evil if they want humanity to survive as we know it?

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  3. It 9/11) was a blow that knocked the wind out of many of us. As the news was still pouring out the next day, I grabbed my guitar and wrote this song:

    HALF-MAST
    By Randy Smith - 9/12/01

    My tears well up inside
    and I grieve with those who cry,
    who struggle with the pain
    their lives will never be the same

    And the flag flies
    at half-mast
    And the skies
    are overcast
    Is it only smoke,
    or shadows of tomorrow?

    One minute all is well
    the next becomes a living hell
    a nightmare scene across the screen
    as history unfolds
    reality can be so cold

    And the flag flies
    at half-mast
    And the skies
    are overcast
    Is it only smoke,
    or shadows of tomorrow?

    People doubt,
    people shout
    Where is God today?
    Where is God today?

    Asking why,
    people cry
    Where is God today?
    Where is God today?

    He is where He has always been
    It’s us who turn away
    Why does it have to come to this
    before we fall down and pray?
    We must get down and pray

    While the flag flies
    at half-mast
    And the skies
    are overcast
    Is it only smoke,
    or shadows of tomorrow?

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  4. Many people affected by 9/11 speak of long-term impacts:

    "I will forever feel a special bond with my fellow employees who had the same experiences and with those who found themselves in the middle of what seemed like Armageddon."

    "More than ever, I am committed to ending the cycle of hatred, wrath and violence that seems to consume so many for so long and for so little gain. I am not an activist, but I will try to do what I can with my own life."

    "...Did I come home and share appropriately the experience that would render a positive influence on what I tried to develop as a spiritual perspective? I don't think so... I am impatient with the lack of feedback from God in giving me better direction in where the rest of my life should lead, or perhaps follow."

    "I find myself saying prayers for friends and strangers...The heart is very heavy."

    "I will be trying harder than I ever have to help bring the world to a better way of living. I think that on September 11, 2001, many millions of people in the world made the same decision."

    "I wish there was something I could say that would make it easier. Something that would make it easier for you to understand why we as humans do the things we do to one another."

    "Ever since September 11, 2001, I have felt more certain than ever before, that all mankind are united in one grand brotherhood, with God, Love, as our Heavenly Father."

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