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 |
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 |
"The World Is As You Are." COMMENTARY |
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. |
THIS WEEK'S W-O-W WOW 2--July 14, 2005 |
Words Of Wisdom |
Every two weeks, "Art Anderson Speaks" brings you a new W-O-W to enrich your lives. Each W-O-W is drawn from the speeches, books, or other materials prepared by Art Anderson. A commentary follows each W-O-W 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 |
"Love transforms the lover." COMMENTARY |
Contact Art Anderson by email: art@artandersonspeaks.com |
This is the one, crucial, and indispensable W-O-W insight to living a genuinely human and happy life. We cannot survive without loving. We need to love just as we need to eat, drink, and breathe, only more so. Love and life are basic to one another. Love begets life, and life is the animation of love. Each flows from God and is of His likeness. They are inseparable, sharing the same source and goal, the same course and contours, the same force and flow. To betray one is to betray both. Love is the very life that flows through us. It purifies us just as water cleanses the aqueduct through which it flows. It makes us holy. It perfects us even as God is perfect. It readies us for union with God, because God is love. We must therefore desire love as we would desire God—with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. It’s that important. Love is never wasted or lost. It makes no difference whether our love is well received or not. Nor does our love need to change the world. It’s only necessary that we love, and then it’s we who are changed—and the world becomes as we are—brimming and teeming with love. Suddenly we see all the love that was always there but was invisible to less loving eyes. Love is a self-referral process. We imbue the world with the love that it then gives us back. When we extend ourselves in acts of love, we grow. We break boundaries. It's a misnomer to refer to love as self-sacrificing. It can never be a depletion of the self, but always a completion. It’s self-reciprocating. The more we engage in loving, the more capable of loving we become; and the more capable we are, the more love we can engage in. It’s an ever-expanding process. Like a pebble in a pond, love ripples forth from the very center of our being reaching out in ever-expanding circles to family, friends, neighbors, all peoples, finally encompassing all creation until nothing is left unloved by us. Only then can our love surpass its finite boundaries and blend back into the boundlessness of God’s infinite love whence it came. |
Words Of Wisdom |
Every few weeks, "Art Anderson Speaks" brings you a new W-O-W to enrich your lives. Each W-O-W is drawn from the speeches, books, or other materials prepared by Art Anderson. A commentary follows each W-O-W 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 |
Contact Art Anderson by email: art@artandersonspeaks.com |
Something unexpected happened to a quiet, suburban subdivision. The homes were attractive, had ample yards, neatly trimmed lawns, and well-tended gardens. Trees and shrubbery were tastefully placed around the homes, along roads, and in a grassy park with benches, swings, and teeter-totters. One night the stillness of this idyllic subdivision was shattered by a terrifying, convulsive noise. The ground rumbled, homes crumbled, and part of a block caved in. Fire spewed from the earth’s bowels. Noxious fumes hissed from newly formed crevices in the earth’s surface. A putrid, nauseating stench filled the air. Unbeknown to the inhabitants, the subdivision sat on an old rural landfill. Garbage, waste, and dead things had been dumped, and then covered with earth. More rubbish, sludge, and scum were piled on and again covered until there were many layers of rotting refuse. On the top crust, the homes, roads, and park were built. As methane gas formed from decomposing rot, pressure kept building. Finally something gave; and, within minutes, simple beauty was abruptly transformed into abject ugliness. No one suspected what was festering beneath this pleasant, unpretentious subdivision. Anger is like that. It lurks beneath an otherwise amiable surface only to erupt unexpectedly. We wonder how outwardly good people can inwardly rankle with such bad temper? That's why anger is called the "vice of the virtuous." But, deep down, angry people aren't really virtuous at all. Their anger is symptomatic. It bespeaks an evil and rancor seething far below. Contrary to what pop psychologists say, anger is a foe, not a friend. It triggers wars, divides nations, ruins careers, causes accidents, and destroys families. Worst of all, it steals the bloom from youth. A simple angry word, a single act of rage, is enough to daunt a child's dreams, wound his soul, and forever wilt his self-esteem. It may even put that first twist of anger in his heart, and thereby bend the twig in a way the tree was never meant to grow. Whosoever scandalizes a child, it would be better that a heavy millstone be hung from his neck and he be cast into the sea. We're too accepting of anger, too quick to excuse or justify it. We rely on silly slogans like: "It's good to blow off steam." "Anger energizes you." Or, worst of all, "Even Jesus got angry." He didn't, not even when he drove the money changers from the temple. There's a difference between anger and, for want of a better word, “indignation.” One spews forth from a stewing pit of emotional swill, the other emanates from a just and noble heart. One is sick, the other savvy. Jesus saw corruption and iniquity in his Father's house and took immediate and effective action to eliminate them. He was provoked to act and acted firmly and decisively, yet didn't act in anger. But, because of his intensity, we attribute anger to him. That might have been our reaction, but not his. His humanity never degraded his divinity. It's important to understand this difference, but it's difficult because our language doesn't clearly distinguish anger from indignation. A hard-hitting response doesn't necessarily imply anger. Students of martial arts are taught to respond defensively, even lethally if necessary, but always without anger because anger disrupts concentration and disturbs the flow of energy. Mohammed A1i would deliberately taunt and bait his opponents into becoming angry so that they'd make foolish mistakes. Indignation, on the other hand, is deliberative, not impulsive; and, unlike anger which often knows no boundaries, indignation is an evenly controlled and directed response, calculated to achieve a desired objective and no more—e.g., ridding the Temple of money changers. Learning to act from indignation and never from anger empowers you to be effective in getting the job done as Jesus did, or in overcoming adversity as Mohammed Ali did. This effectiveness, in turn, puts you in a position of leadership. People look up to a man or woman who can deal with difficult situations with measured control and the exertion of no more force than is proper and necessary. Such a person is honorable because, in righting a wrong, he or she does not rob from others their dignity, nor does he or she injure innocent bystanders—e.g., children as casualties of their parents’ anger toward each other. You can be that person. Forsake anger. Whenever you feel tempted to anger, think about that pleasant subdivision with all the decomposing rot beneath the surface. Anger is never pretty or honorable. In fact, anger is nothing more than momentary madness. |
"Anger Is The Rot Beneath The Surface" COMMENTARY |
WOW #4 |