Thanks

[John]

I fell in love with NH as a kid/young guy. I promised myself that I would eventually move here. By mid Feb, 2004, I began unpacking in Salem, NH and by the end of Feb. I was fully home.
I was almost completely at Peace. THEN, before a few years passed, I reached the complete and deep Forgiveness which I had been studying for, and learning about, for about 30 years.
I - finally - Forgave the person who had ever done the most harm to me. I actually began to wish that person well.

Then, ONLY AFTER THAT, I had a strange spiritual reawakening. I had not (at all) found God. I was NOT looking. God found me!

My health was quite questionable at the time, after about 30 years in a chemical factory - and then a reactor fire which I stayed with to get control of and suffered exposure to some very nasty stuff. With numerous strange symptoms, I was very very very worried about my health.
I was thinking I might die.

BUT, I did not want to put ANY of my remaining precious "life's energy" towards getting on the medical-industrial-path nor towards lawyering up to fight about my exposures. I had been paid for my work. I had taken risks.

So, while I had never done great harm in this world, I had not always been nice in my lifetime.
My "KARMA" was about to start coming home.
I began to meditate, being very very still.

Soon-thereafter, an absolute calmness - much like a very-tiny-little candle-flame which does not flicker, at all - came over, and into, me.
All of my worries about my health were gone. Vanished. I realized/remembered that it does not matter - not one wit - how long I live nor when I die. What matters - completely - is that I live every day - all day long - as best I can.

THEN, my good-health returned.  I had not felt better since I was a teenager.
Its like I had been taken to a dark edge, and then given a few more years to get it right. I think I'm getting it mostly right

NOW, after further study and spiritual growth, my attitude is being tested again, and again, and again.
Its as if I keep getting ANOTHER chance to further improve my "karma."

TO EVERYONE, from my dearest friends to my most aggressive "foe": THANK YOU!

I am ENORMOUSLY THANKFUL for the time, the lessons - and the tests.
I wish you ALL Peace in this Thanksgiving season.

[John]

"So I got me a pen and a paper, and I made up my own little sign.
It said,

"Thank You Lord
for thinking of me,
I'm alive and doing fine."

[Tom Sawyer]

A day of Thanks...

I've come to think of Thanksgiving as a particularly appropriate Porc holiday.

Political refugees settling in a new land
Hardships overcome
Counting of blessings
Hope for a bright and shining future

Happy Thanksgiving to those that gather here, we appreciate sharing our lives with you all.

We are going to share in the smoked turkey in Winchestershire...  woohoo 

[Russell Kanning]

Thanks John