  Spiritual
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Perseverance - a "sleeping giant" |
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According to the Merrill and Reid social-styles evaluation, as presented in their book Personal Styles and Effective Performance, there are four basic social styles, which can be determined by taking a few simple tests. The four social-styles are Driver, Analytical, Amiable, and Expressive. After taking the test, I discovered I am an Amiable; one of the characteristics of an Amiable is that he/she likes to influence large groups through writing and tends to be an introverted person. Many of the qualities, both the strengths and weaknesses of an Amiable, fit me well, including one that states an Amiable is often found wrapped up in causes. While I don’t seek a lot of causes, there are two that I am “wrapped up in” – the plight of homeless families and the interests of the Native American peoples of North America.
A group of people in our community have been trying to establish a network to assist the homeless families, as part of a national network called Family Promise which is located in over 140 communities across the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska. Family Promise provides temporary housing for homeless families, providing counseling to help them emotionally and assisting them while they make efforts to ‘get back on their feet.’ The families Family Promise takes in are usually single moms with children or couples with children who have become homeless through loss of income for various reasons. Homelessness is an issue that is becoming a huge problem in our country, and with the state of our economy, it will probably increase, as many families are only a couple paychecks away from becoming homeless. But establishing Family Promise in our community has not been an easy task.
Because of the stereotypes given homeless people, many people fear that all homeless people are streetwise people who will bring crime into our neighborhoods. To establish Family Promise, a day center is needed and permission to house the homeless families in churches during the night hours – the churches are interfaith churches and each church will house the families at night for one week and then they will move to another church, staying at the day center during the day hours. Therein is our struggle, as many of the neighborhood watch committees have expressed concern; we have twice been before the city planning committee and are still are struggling to establish a network of Family Promise. We understand the concerns of the neighborhood people, but we continue to make efforts to proceed with our efforts to organize a network in our community to assist homeless families with children. Knowing that Family Promise is about helping homeless children, we have found that we must persevere.
Many times in life, we come against struggles that seem to run against a wall, getting nowhere, and we find that all we can do is persevere, to keep doing what we believe right, even in the face of adversity and seeming failures and setbacks. As political figure Robert Strauss stated, “It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired; you quit when the gorilla is tired.” The gorilla, it seems, doesn’t tire easily. But we find we need to keep going, to keep pursuing, for as Nobel Prize recipient Marie Curie confessed, “Life is not easy for any of us. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” With metaphorical imagery, Jacob Riis, former journalist, writer, and advocate for the poor, has provided an excellent example of perseverance.
In his book The Lakota Way, Joseph M. Marshall III states, “Perseverance rises from the spirit—rather like a sleeping giant—when we’ve reached our physical limits or we’ve collided with a barrier that tells us we can’t or shouldn’t. It enhances strengths and capabilities, awakens our determination, and enables us to move beyond our limits, coaxing from us just enough effort to keep moving, to keep reaching and striving despite the weariness, or pain, or despair.”
In all walks of life, including writing, we come to times when we feel like giving up. It is then we are called upon to allow the ‘sleeping giant” to arise from deep within our spirit where we will find a new strength to keep going. There are causes too worthy to give up on.
"The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done."
~~Allard Lowenstein, O Magazine, September 2002
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The editing team of the Spiritual Newsletter appreciates the time each of you take to read the newsletters and to provide feedback and insight.
Thank you from the team.
Sophy  kittiara larryp
dkdoulos
I didn't realize you were from Lawrence . . . I went to college down the road in Manhattan and I grew up in Marion County on a farm. It's nice to connect with somebody from home! (I live in Texas now).
Hello Kelly, my son played in baseball tournaments in Marion a few years back. I grew up in Texas, so I guess we kind of switched places.
kansaspoet
Larry
captsecure
Everyone is going through some rough times,with the way the econonmy is going today, during these rough times just read a daily sripture from your bible, you will be surprised on how this helps you through your day!! thanks for this comment box, I really enjouy it!!
Hello Terry. I appreciate you taking time to share your thoughts on receiving daily guidance.
kansaspoet
Larry
embe  
Hello Larry and thank you for the Spiritual News Letter.It is such an inspiration to prompt the readers, to write about the inner feelings of God's devine gift of forgiveness.
God bless you for this.
embe,with prayers for your family.
embe, I alway appreciate your feedback and I certainly appreciate your prayers for my family.
kansaspoet
Larry
MDuci
Thank you dear Larry, for featuring my poem in the Newsletter this week; I was honored to be a part of the wonderful array of Authors who graced the Newsletter.
Your Editorial was so needed and appreciated this week. Sometimes we become so involved in believing we make things happen; that we forget who really makes things happen until something wakes the dreamer up.
Marlena, thank you for sharing your heart and for your continual support and encouragement.
kansaspoet
Larry
Zeke 
I couldn't agree more about the life value of true humility. For us poor humans, humility is very difficult to achieve. We seem to be hardwired to look for things about ourselves that would make us proud, even supposed humility
Zeke, I agree, humility does not come easily. Funny how we can even become prideful about being humble - kind of an oxymoron.
kansaspoet
Larry
abbaamme
WOW Thankyou friend you are wise!!!!!
DBI, perhaps you just caught me on one of my better days.  Any wisdom I may have comes from above and from those who have been so kind as to impart their wisdom to me. Thanks for your encouragement.
kansaspoet
Larry
ginnyg
Opression toward any race is reprehensable. Europian's always seem to have their hand in the pot. They make all races excapt theirs slaves of one sort or the other. What can be done to change them... make the more human?
Hello G.L. - I hope it didn't sound like I was picking on Europeans. I think oppression and racism are things that have touched every nation and group of people in one way or another. It is a constant battle to free our cultures of them.
kansaspoet
Larry
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Spiritual: October 01, 2008 Issue [#2638]
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