Since 2011 increases in life expectancy have slowed after decades of steady improvement

After World War II, we gradually saw an improvement in living conditions in Western Europe, Canada and the United States. After 1970, a large increase in elders made us hope that we could live longer.

When we were little, someone of 60 years was an old “bomma” or “bompa”. Many of us have been past that age for a while and are still seen as young, youthful men or women. Many 60 and 70 year olds are still very active in many areas.

In any case, it will not be easy for the younger generation to achieve a better quality of life than what the current 70 and 80-year-olds could enjoy.

The 20 to 40-year-olds already have to work with two, to keep their standard of living reasonable. For the twenties, it is no longer so easy to build a good standard of living. With two full-time workers, they have become modern slaves. That will certainly have consequences on their age pattern.

Life expectancy or the estimate of the average number of additional years that a person of a given age can expect to live is a hypothetical measure, assuming that the age-specific death rates for the year in question will apply throughout the lifetime of individuals born in that year.

Between 2018 and 2020 average life expectancy at birth in the UK was 79 years for men and 82.9 years for women, according to the ONS. However, since 2011 increases in life expectancy have slowed after decades of steady improvement, prompting much debate about the causes. And there is a fear that, while we are living longer, we’re not necessarily living better – spending many years in poor health, unnecessarily.

And yet, science, and some so-called superagers, are showing us that ageing is not as inevitable as we think.

Experts say the ageing process shouldn’t create big problems until your late 90s; here’s how to keep your body young

Read more about it:

The nine rules to follow if you want to live to 100

The Importance of Self-Care in Today’s Busy World

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To remember

• today’s fast-paced world = easy to get caught up in hustle & bustle of everyday life.
• constant demands from work, family, + social obligations = no wonder people often neglect their own self-care.
• self-care  = practice of taking deliberate actions to promote physical, mental, + emotional well-being
• = essential for overall health & well-being
• Self-care => reduce stress + prevent burnout + improve our overall quality of life

+

Preceding

Doing more

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Also of interest

1. When You Wonder If Anyone Cares
2. 30 things to start doing for yourself – #6 is vital.
3. No time like the present
4. The Order of Time – by Carlo Rovelli
5. Shortness of time
6. The express train of the speeding time
7. Work and career a major focus of young adulthood
8. Spend time creating new blogs
9. Extra Time
10. If Today Was Your Last Day On Earth?

+++

Related

1. Self-Care on a Budget
2. Putting Yourself First: Overcoming People-Pleasing Tendencies
3. diary of a lost 21 year old
4. Spirituality and Acceptance: The Key to Finding Inner Peace
5. One Task At A Time
6. Seagull yoga and always wanting to be somewhere else
7. #ThinkPositive2023: Mar 27
8. Stop Cribbing, Start Living: How to Shift Your Mindset and Find Joy in Everyday Life
9. The Art of Slowing Down: Why is it so challenging?
10. Qi Gong
11. Christine tricks herself into more mobility exercises
12. Natural Health. Bristol April 8th
13. Sibling Bonding
14. The Future is Bright
15. To-Do Lists
16. I’ll do it later
17. The Importance of Self-Care in Today’s Busy World
18. Healing
19. Ways To Shift From I Can’t To I Can
20. Be Your Own #1

Raising Me

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. With constant demands from work, family, and social obligations, it’s no wonder that people often neglect their own self-care. However, taking care of oneself is crucial for overall health and well-being. In this post, we’ll discuss the importance of self-care and offer tips for incorporating it into your daily routine.

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is the practice of taking deliberate actions to promote physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It involves making choices that prioritize your own health and happiness. Self-care can take many forms, including exercise, healthy eating, sleep, relaxation, and socializing with loved ones.

Why is Self-Care Important?

Self-care is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it helps to reduce stress and prevent burnout. When we neglect our own needs, we become more vulnerable to the effects…

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Doing more

Much too often people forget the importance of self-care.

All too often, people spend a lot of energy on the work they have to do to earn a living. In most cases, they even go so far as to sacrifice themselves. And then things can’t help but go wrong. With the visible results in our current society where we encounter so many people with burnouts and end up in sick care.

As cited, we may assume that we can rebound a ball and by taking good care of ourselves we can also take care of those around us.

*

To remember

• practising self-care = essential for maintaining physical, mental + emotional health

+

Preceding

Creating Community and Togetherness

To nurture your relationships

That Tiny Eyes Girl

++

Also of interest

1. When You Wonder If Anyone Cares
2. 30 things to start doing for yourself – #6 is vital.
3. No time like the present
4. The Order of Time – by Carlo Rovelli
5. Shortness of time
6. The express train of the speeding time
7. Work and career a major focus of young adulthood
8. Spend time creating new blogs
9. Extra Time
10. If Today Was Your Last Day On Earth?

+++

Related

1. Self-Care on a Budget
2. Putting Yourself First: Overcoming People-Pleasing Tendencies
3. diary of a lost 21 year old
4. Spirituality and Acceptance: The Key to Finding Inner Peace
5. One Task At A Time
6. Seagull yoga and always wanting to be somewhere else
7. #ThinkPositive2023: Mar 27
8. Stop Cribbing, Start Living: How to Shift Your Mindset and Find Joy in Everyday Life
9. The Art of Slowing Down: Why is it so challenging?
10. Qi Gong
11. Christine tricks herself into more mobility exercises
12. Natural Health. Bristol April 8th
13. Sibling Bonding
14. The Future is Bright
15. The Importance of Maternal Mental Health
16. To-Do Lists
17. I’ll do it later
18. The Importance of Self-Care in Today’s Busy World
19. Healing
20. Ways To Shift From I Can’t To I Can
21. Be Your Own #1

My blog full of dreams and thoughts

What do you wish you could do more every day?

Taking time for myself and practicing self-care is essential for maintaining physical, mental, and emotional health. It allows me to recharge and refocus, reducing stress levels and improving my overall well-being. Practicing self-care can take many forms, such as exercise, meditation, spending time in nature, or indulging in my favorite hobbies. By prioritizing self-care, I care for those around me.

#self-care #be you

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A lack of responsibility for your life

A lack of responsibility for your life may show up in the following ways:
pessimistic thinking, a victimized mentality, frequent arguments, indecision, stagnancy, and codependency.

When we become responsible for our lives,
we notice more things going in our favor.
If you want to create a better quality of life,
filled with peace and joy,
then you should be mindful of how you approach the way you live your life.

~  Responsibilities – CWv

Take Notice: Unspoken Rules

Mind of Terry

An unspoken rule is a rule or behavioral constraint imposed on a group but isn’t written down or spoken about.

There are many unspoken rules in our society that we have because they’re mostly  associated with the logical action needed to be taken. Some typical rules that you would be familiar with would be the following.

• Letting people exit an elevator before entering that same elevator.
• Don’t cut people off when they’re in the middle of sentence.
• Always chew with your mouth closed.
• If somebody tells you personal information, don’t go around telling other people unless they asked you to.

What happens when an unspoken rule is broken?

There is two things that would need to happen for this:

1. You weren’t aware of the rule or mistakenly forget.

Somebody may politely explain the rule to you and then expect you to follow it from then on.

OR

2. You…

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Some Conversations Just NEED To Happen

A lot of people have preconceived ideas regarding races and cultures, which more than once cause misunderstandings.

The absurdity in today’s “Woke” culture is that people prefer to exclude certain words and terms and replace them with other words that in turn could be misunderstood in the past, or cause problems in the future.

In Belgium, for example, one can no longer speak of a “negro” or a “black” person, but one has to say now a “white” person when talking about a “Blanke” (someone of the white race) or Caucasian type person (or relating to a racial group having light-coloured skin), who is therefore not white at all and to whom there may not be “black people” opposed to them (?!?). So why is a “White” not racist while “Black” would be racist?

Same for “fat” and “thick” (or in Dutch “dik“)where the English publisher of Roald Dahl’s books has now printed “enormous” (very great in size, extremely large in size or amount, extent) or in Dutch “enorm” (very big, gigantic, huge), while we do imagine something very different with an enormous building or enormous creature than with a shapely or plump person. The chosen word “enormous” or “enorm” is far worse and far more offensive than “fat” or “vol slank”, “full slim” we would say.

Already having some years in this world, we had to change the use of words more than once. Every time they found another word because the one in use had become “offensive”.

In this day and age it is going absurdly far, how some words are abandoned, like we may not say any more Eskimo, igloo, cabane or hut, etc.

Racism is the wrong view of things and people with misjudged word choices.

*

To remember

• There are always subjects that people feel aren’t proper or sensitive issues that may cause a war of words or some form of conflict
• one race may feel that whatever they say = offensive to the person of another race.
• unspoken/unwritten rule

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Find also to read:

1. Word banning
2. Absurdity of present “woke” rage: The rewriting of Dahl
3. Why censoring Roald Dahl is a dangerous step
4. What about irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text
5. New term names at London School of Economics
6. Not liked or Hated Questions
7. How far does this “Woke” world wants to go
8. Wokeness wars
9. Why Woke? When Will it Wander Away?

The Sapphire Scripts

Sept. 4 Why do you think it is so difficult for people to talk about race?

There are always subjects that people feel aren’t proper or sensitive issues that may cause a war of words or some form of conflict. Some examples are politics, battles of the sexes, and the ultimate, race. Race has been a topic (without being a topic) for a very long time. It has stood the test of time with some changes happening but different races have a hard time facing this conversation.

I think that people have a hard time talking about race because one race may feel that whatever they say may be offensive to the person of another race. Not being sure of the reaction, people tend to avoid those conversations even when a national issue has been brought to people’s attention like a slap in the face.

I also feel that people…

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how do you respond?

Living Life in a Fish Bowl!

I interact with numerous people throughout any given week.  Sometimes I can go from talking with someone who has just lost a loved one or lost their job to someone who just got married or just got a promotion.  

Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”  Be careful that you don’t get that backwards and rejoice when something bad happens to someone and be sad when they get a blessing.  Jealousy is behind that line of thinking.

“So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature…

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Dig a Little Deeper

Before we know it, we are so much further along in life, married and our children out of the house, while we may have changed so much, yet some have remained the same, looking back on those many years that have flown by so much.

Roth Poetry

When the honeymoon is over, and things have settled down

And the exhale that follows leaves you fully unwound

Dig a little deeper… create another round.

**

She’s pregnant with one and then there are two

And there’s no sleep at night and more work to do

Dig a little deeper… do your share too.

**

There are diapers to change and babies to feed

No time for you, life spins at warp speed

Dig a little deeper… let her know she’s the one you need.

**

When the kids have grown, and activities never stop

Enjoy those moments, help them come out on top

Dig a little deeper… cheer them on, enjoy their shouts.

**

When the empty nest is now your own

And all of your sweet children have long since flown

Dig a little deeper… as life moves on.

**

Time to rediscover who you are now

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The Sounds of Peace

Roth Poetry

Soft notes roll off strings

Music passed from old to young

Teaching sounds of peace

Brings joy to all of our hearts

Crossing all boarders with love

***

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

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The Old Man of the Mountain

Roth Poetry

The Old Man of the Mountain

“You must see it,” Robert told Jen. “It’s breathtakingly beautiful sitting five thousand feet above sea level. The rock formation looks just like an old man in repose. That is why they call it Grandfather Mountain.”

The more he talked, the more excited she became. “And there is a mile-high swinging bridge stretching from the gift shop to the foot of the climb. It is made of metal and anchored with thick steel cables keeping it from swinging too much on windy days.”

As they drove along, Jen’s mind floated in and out trying to visualize what he was telling her. Winding their way up the narrow road, they arrived at the gift shop. The view was spectacular.

As they sat atop the “Old Man’s” head, Jen turned to Robert and said,“In space in time I sit, thousands of feet above the…

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On our Mistakes, sometimes we feel hopeless, and lonely

To remember

• The  burden of being Human, is to be moral, and distinguish good, from wrong, or even evil.

• asking for forgiveness = most beautiful thing for a heavy heart.

Kone, Krusos, Kronos

Loneliness is an

Essential friend

On our way

To bravery.

Ibn Arabi

I got to confess I had committed many mistakes through my life, a few very costly, and what is worst, the most grave with no remedy!

As we age, we slowly, or suddenly we realize, this fact, and grieve us, what to do?

When you do not even have the chance to ask for forgiveness, or do nothing to repair them, your heart grows heavy with pain, and despair, and we only have a tool in repentance, and prayer if you are a believer, those who are not, I wonder what they do? What their hearts tell them to do, and how can they lift the heavy weight of guilt from their hearts, I guess despair, pain, and tears and regret are common to our Human condition, and also our burden.

To have a conscience it’s good, but…

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Reflections from an old man about his past

To remember

• when you reach old age, you reflect on your past

• life caught in full, work, marriage, children

• children following pattern

• did not make an effort to spent more time, to enjoy them, and to know them better

• we are all interconnected, specially family members

Kone, Krusos, Kronos

“It’s said that with Age comes Wisdom, but maybe it’s because regret, as we reflect on our mistakes.”

B.A.

Trough the years,  specially when you reach old age, you reflect on your past. And if we are sincere, we will admit that we  not did  just a few mistakes, but many, and therefore the way we acquired wisdom.

Of lately, I have giving a lot of thought to my now many years gone parents, and realized I could had being a much better son than I was.

I left home at the early age of seventeen, to do what a  lot of young people do, to go and study, somewhere away from home, sure I returned for some years on vacation times, but just for a few brief days, and then life caught in full with me, work, marriage, children supporting a family, on a far away city, with less…

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Aeronautics, TikTok and Life stories

My search for female gardeners’ life stories helped me combat loneliness – and make great friends I was lonely after lockdown and wanted to know why women gardened so wrote to those I admired. Now I have a host of new friends from different generations and backgrounds Full story here

Star players – how Kerbal Space Program’s little green aliens are helping the space flight experts of the future It may be just a game but some players have gone on to careers in physics, engineering and aeronautics. Now the team behind Kerbal Space Program 2 is working with the European Space Agency to make it even more realistic Full story here

What makes me happy now: gymnastics at midlife A novelist’s childhood passion came back with a vengeance – there is nothing like the thrill of a new skill, that combination of speed, timing, muscles, guts Full story here

Brazilian TikToker goes viral showing the ‘cheerfulness of the favela’ Raphael Vicente, who has 3 million followers, wants to show that there is much more to favelas than crime and poverty Full story here

‘Mmm, straight back to the 70s!’ Writers revisit the foods they loved as kids, from Smash to Angel Delight Arctic rolls are back on the menu, with sales up more than 140% at Ocado. But which other retro delights deserve a comeback? We taste-test some old favourites Full story here

Karam Ram on Beyond Religion

The famous atheist Richard Dawkins said that many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense, but September 11th changed all of that. The people who attacked the Twin Towers were men of religion. Religion is often a cause of suspicion, distrust and conflict because religious people don’t always ask critical questions about their faith and can confuse religion and politics and culture together. What may just be cultural becomes invested with religious significance. So is organized religion about God, or is it really about maintaining community and identity? Can being Christadelphian become more important than actually being children of God?

Jesus’s parable of the Pharisee and the publican illustrates the “us and them” attitude and how we can simplistically divide the world into the good guys and the bad guys.  Paul says,

“don’t be wise in your own conceits”

but that’s exactly what the Pharisee does in enumerating his good deeds. He’s saying

“I am deserving of God’s favor because I do all these things,”

and in contrast, all the publican can say is

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Groupthink is a very deeply ingrained human tendency. Societies and communities maintain cohesion through groupthink. Religious communities are susceptible to it when they prioritize their own identity, their privilege at all costs:

“We are special. We have the truth, and because we have the truth, we are in God’s favor.”

The Pharisee in the parable is a very powerful example (as is the case of Al Qaeda and ISIS) of how groupthink enables certain views of the world and attitudes to become normalized, but to anyone outside that group those attitudes are just bizarre or immoral. Jesus’s parable is especially subversive because the Pharisees represented the popular ideas of piety within Judaism but in this case it isn’t the religious man who is right with God, it’s the sinner.

In Jesus’s time groupthink was probably much more powerful because of the Roman occupation. The foundational event for Israel was the Exodus from Egypt, so they could probably more justifiably mobilize religion in favor of their aspirations for liberation. They tried to draw in Jesus by asking whether it was appropriate to pay taxes to Caesar.  Jesus doesn’t criticize the Romans or Herod or Pilot, but Jesus was very critical of people who represented popular ideas of religious piety.  Jesus is trying to bring the Jews back into an authentic relationship with God rather than one that was just based on formalism or rituals.

If religion is just about how we appear to other people, then it’s only ever going to be superficial. Jesus makes the point that the Pharisees cleaned the outside of the platter but not the inside. There is obsession with respectability, with fitting in with the group, which results in hypocrisy. Jesus said in John’s gospel,

“I know you don’t have the love of God in you. You receive honor one from another, how can you receive the honor that comes from God?”

They were the children of those who murdered the prophets. They could celebrate the righteous and the prophets in death, but they couldn’t abide them in real life.

These are really penetrating and cutting criticisms of the way religion is co-opted and abused. We could apply it to our own community.  We may not be the worst offenders – I don’t know any Christadelphians who have flown airplanes into the sides of buildings! – but these words of Jesus have a lot to say about the state of religion today and the way that religion is mobilized as part of identity politics.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says

“I haven’t come to destroy the Law and the prophets, but I’ve come to fulfill”

because he was aware that the people who were listening to him wouldn’t actually recognize what he was saying. For them, religion was all that the Pharisees represented, temples, rituals, externals.  Jesus was aware that his message stressing a direct relationship with God without all of this other stuff would appear to be unrecognizable. It was beyond their concept of religion because it was about a personal relationship with the Father.

That idea of being the children of God should be important to us in a very personal and powerful way.  Christ made this very clear through his personal communion with the Father. There’s an incident in Matthew’s gospel where the Jews ask Peter

“does your master pay the tax”

and Jesus said to Peter

“what do you think? of whom do the Kings of the earth take tribute from strangers or from children?”

The implication of the question is,

“why are we having to pay this? Are we strangers from God or are we his children?”

The whole point of Jesus’s ministry is to bring us into a real, authentic relationship with God.

For the Jews of Jesus’s day, the one thing that represented God more than anything else was the temple. The temple was impersonal and vast, but that suited everyone because it kept God at a distance. Our challenge is to be up close and personal with God. That’s what Jesus came to do, to break down that wall of partition between us, to tear the veil of the temple. We need to cultivate hearts and minds that are less concerned with the appearance of respectability or groupthink, and more sensitive to the real presence of God in our lives.

To listen to the full interview with Karam and Steve please check out WCF A Little Faith podcasts

Experiences in life helped me grow the most

When we are young often we think we know a lot.

We would love it if we could know everything, but we must be aware that such a thing is impossible. Therefore, let us be humble and realise that we are limited in and with our spiritual knowledge.

Find also: Do I believe in destiny

Learner's Room

An Insult

It was the time when I was in highschool , I used to think myself relatively smart in the academics but one day a teacher asked me a question which I didn’t knew the answer of and left me speech less then the teacher said you are not a know it all person so accept that then I really felt humiliated when this happened but then I accepted the truth and this is what kept me open to new possibilities and knowledge so I am so thankful today that this happened

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

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Tones of love!

Purplerays

♡ Ļ Ơ Ɣ Ɛ ♡

♡ Love is a canvas furnished by Nature

and embroidered by imagination….♡

~ Voltaire ~

image: tumblr photography
Text source: “Soul Healing Mystics’ Light” https://www.facebook.com/Soul-Healing-Mystics-Light-1437542323150756/?fref=photo

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May your day be wonderful!

Purplerays

Greet everyone you meet with a warm smile, no matter how busy you are.

Don’t rush encounters with coworkers, family and friends.

Speak softly. Listen attentively.

Act as if every conversation you have is the most important thing on your mind today.

Look your children and your partner in the eyes when they talk to you.
Stroke the cat, caress the dog.

Lavish love on every living being you meet.

See how different you feel at the end of the day.

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Photo & text source Jude Teme Adonne https://www.facebook.com/timadonne?fref=photo

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… the taste of respect

Purplerays

“Once you figure out
what respect tastes like,
it tastes better than attention”

~ Pink

Photo credit: Begin with Yes https://web.facebook.com/beginwithyes/

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Friends: Ebb and Flow

For many, the sea can be an attractive thing. For others again, it is valleys and mountains that are preferred. For the latter, the sea is too big a lonely plain that can be wildly raging now and then, one then certainly cannot bring peace.

Wherever we live, up in the mountains, in the low countries, in flat areas or by the sea, everywhere we can look out to the best beacon in life, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. He is our best Friend, Who never leaves us alone.

Roth Poetry

“One must live by the sea to understand…”

the importance of friendship in one’s life

Friends like the sea bring constancy to life

Whether it be ebb or flow they are there

sometimes like a storm // other times like a calming surf

*

When one lives by the sea they understand

the peaceful respite knowing there is one to call

to help wash away the stresses of the day

Most true friends can be counted on one hand

Always in your heart whether near or far

Standing with you like a lighthouse in a storm

sending you a beacon of trust in your time of need

*

Friends are with you through thick or thin

“One must live by the sea to understand…”

Today at d’Verse, Punam asked us to choose a first line from a blogger friend’s poem and write a poem about friendship. I chose my…

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…unworthy of a human being who wishes to evolve spiritually.

We human beings, are only mere creatures in the great masterpiece of the Divine Creator, Who we want to recognise or not. It is up to us to live according to the Creator His commandments or to ignore Him. The way we behave, the choices we make, are going to have a decision in way for our future. It is up to our intellect to choose for the right way. We need the intellect that dwells in our brains, when we wish to accomplish tasks on Earth, inspired by our souls!  So:

Mind your daily life and the present moment you are living in!

Every individual in his daily life, his choices shall determine his future. Do not hide for yourself or try to do all the time what others want, because then you shall fall apart.

Focus on what God wants. When you are on a spiritual path, you must come face-to-face with yourself
and acknowledge all of who you are. Never forget that

he shall reap what he sows. This is the infallible Divine Justice that
acts within the Laws of Creation.

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By the same blog:

1. ‘Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
2. Hope is the clear window that allows light…
3. Inside beauty is the best source of Light
4. To thyself be true!
5. You could have……….BUT…
6. Sunday reflection . . . . The forces of Love
7. Sunday reflection . . . Praise the Creator Who has granted you life!
8. #TenderTuesday . . .Radiate boundless love…
9. …. if spiritual intuition were in charge.
10. High recognitions . . . the age of spiritual awakening on Earth…
11. High recognitions . . . The intellect is just an instrument of our souls.
12. High recognitions . . . Nature had no secrets…
13. High recognitions . . . . the future that waits for us
14. High recognitions . . . Divine Justice is infallible and goes beyond one earthlife.
15. High recognitions . . . Not even a single hair of a person will be touched if…
16. High recognitions . . . The Grail Message “In the Light of Truth”
17. High recognitions . . . Human beings have not taken advantage of their precious, varied lives on Earth
18. The plain fact…

Purplerays

To intentionally go through hardship or endure physical pain in exchange for the fulfillment
of some wish is unworthy of a human being who wishes to evolve spiritually. If a person feels
in his soul the urge to pledge to his God, then he must commit to striving to improve in
everything, seeking to keep his inner volition always pure, and also take care of his words,
thoughts and deeds….

The person who strives to improve in some way shows humility and goodwill, while one who
yields himself to suffer pain and deprivation shows unlimited vanity and conceit. The first
shows respect for the Will of the Almighty, while the latter reveals contempt, supposing, in
his puerile imagination, to be able to trade with it in some way.

The Day Without Tomorrow

Text & image source: The Day Without Tomorrow https://www.facebook.com/TheDayWithoutTomorrow/

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