| Words Of Wisdom |
Each week Art Anderson Speaks brings you a new W-O-W to enrich your lives. Each W-O-W insight is drawn from the speeches, books, or other materials prepared by Art Anderson. A commentary follows the W-O-W insight to further clarify its meaning and application to your life. Art would be delighted to receive comments from you about any of these W-O-W insights or to hear about any of your own. Please write to him at art@artandersonspeaks.com |
"Reality is the raw material for its own transformation, and adversity can become anything you choose to make it into." COMMENTARY |
| Contact Art Anderson by email: art@artandersonspeaks.com |
| Nothing more profound or enlightening can be said about dealing with adversity. That reality is the raw material for its own transformation is a liberating truth that was first revealed to me more than thirty-five years ago by a very dear, wise, and articulate poet named Fred McCuistion. I have pondered this concept ever since and find it to be true in my life and the lives of others. It is the basis of my speeches and writings and of the subsequent insights you will receive in these weekly W-O-W segments Reality is given to us by God to transform for our good and the good of others. We are His co-creators of the future. The implications this has for the adversities we face in life are obvious: Adversity can become anything you or I choose to make it into. I have also found this to be true time and again in my own life and in the lives of those I have helped as an attorney working with people who are oppressed and beleaguered and even more so as an ordained minister working with people who are dispirited and despairing. But you must also realize that, to transform adversity into a stream of blessings in your life, there are a series of steps that have to be followed. These steps, along with certain attitudes you must cultivate in your life, will be provided to you week-by-week in these W-O-W insight segments. You alone are in charge of your life and you have the God-given power to find the blessing in every bane, a cause to rejoice in every curse, an unfulfilled dream in every nightmare. Life is meant to be a celebration, not a struggle. Become prophetic. Don't just try to foretell your future, but actually make it happen. Enjoy the prosperity, happiness, and abundance God meant for you. |
| Ponder this W-O-W insight as I have pondered it. |
THIS WEEK'S W-O-W WOW 1--July 1, 2005 |
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| Words Of Wisdom |
Every few weeks, "Art Anderson Speaks" brings you a new W-O-W to enrich your lives. Each W-O-W insight is drawn from the speeches, books, or other materials prepared by Art Anderson. A commentary follows the W-O-W insight to clarify its meaning and application to your life. Art would be delighted to receive comments from you about any of these W-O-W insights or to hear about any of your own. Please write to him at art@artandersonspeaks.com |
"The World Is As You Are." COMMENTARY |
| Contact Art Anderson by email: art@artandersonspeaks.com |
| Artists see the world differently. They notice shades, shadows, variations in hues, and different perspectives that the rest of us miss. The world of the artist is not the same for those who are deaf to the subtle tones of color and texture; nor is the world of the poet the same for the poemless pedagogue; nor that of the lover for those who know not love. For each of us, the world is as we are. If we put on pink-tinted glasses, everywhere we see pink. We can rub the objects of our vision, but the pink will not come off. It’s not in them, but in us. So, too, when we look through loving eyes, we see love everywhere. Love transforms the lover. It's the first of all freedoms because it transcends the laws of man and liberates us from the bonds of hatred and bitterness. Yet our love needn’t change the world. It’s only necessary that we love, and then it’s we who are changed and the world becomes for us as we are, a place filled with love. It’s the same when we forgive others the wrongs they’ve done us. It is, all along, we who harbor the bitterness and resentment the wrong created. By not forgiving others, we sin against ourselves. By forgiving them we forgive ourselves. We free the prisoner within us. The world again becomes for us a place of peace and beauty. Forgiveness is our God-given power to perform miracles, to change water into wine, ugliness back into beauty, bitterness back into peace, and hatred back into love. And the funny thing is that the miracle takes place within us. What we give, the world gives back. Everything in life follows the invisible law of cause and effect. It’s invincible and inviolable. Each thought we think adds to or detracts from who we are. Each choice we make, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time, shapes our character. And each action we take has an equal reaction for good or evil that redounds to us. Hear within yourself the desire of what you want to be. It’s the voice of God speaking to you. Believe and visualize yourself already living that life and it will be yours. Cause and effect are one. The oak is already in the acorn, but until the acorn gives itself completely to the joy of becoming the oak, nothing happens. So, too, commend yourself totally to what you want to become and the world around you will comply. All of nature cheers a noble quest. You cannot fail. The world is as you are. It can be no other way. |
WOW #2 |
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