February 15 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

February 15 - Daily Feast

Once change begins it often comes in multiples, ranging from easily handled small changes to the great ones that can become unwieldy. When this is the case, it tends to scatter our forces. It is harder to achieve order and staying power when our attention is scattered. There is a calm center to everything. Even a tornado, which the Cherokee calls u no le, swirls around a calm eye. Most calm places are very small, but small cells of tranquility can be the seed of greater peace. We have to believe in peace - even though we cannot always feel it. It is within us and it will grow if we give it the opportunity. With peace of mind, doors open, the tide turns, and something good breaks for us. It is good enough reason to work towards solutions rather than dwelling on problems.

~ Stand fast and remain united and all will soon be well. ~

CHIEF JOHN ROSS

'A Cherokee Feast of Days', by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Elder's Meditation of the Day - February 15

"One of the essential characteristics we need to learn as men was to be gentle, and to be gentle means to be serene, to enter meditation or a prayerful state in the morning and evening."

Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

The most important talk we can do during any day, is to start the day with prayer and meditation. We need to ask the Creator to be in our lives. We ask Him to direct our thinking. We ask Him for the courage and the power to be gentle. In the morning quiet time, we make our request for guidance using our spiritual tools. We pray for the people and we pray for ourselves. In the evening we thank the Creator for the day, for the lessons and for the opportunity to be of service to others. Then we go to sleep.

Great Spirit, today, show me the power of being gentle.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

At these times when we have planned for something and have our hearts set on our affairs going in a certain direction but they fail to materialize, we are disappointed. If we have any faith at all, we must remember that one door never closes but another opens. That which once seemed the right thing to plan for may not hold all the things that would be for our good in the long run. It may have been right in the beginning, but as time passes and other events come into being, a change may be necessary for the benefit of the over-all picture.

Sometimes we fix our attention so rigidly on one thing, one part of life, one person, that a change throws us into a state of extreme disappointment. But disappointment, like all of the emotions, can serve to strengthen rather than take away. The attitude with which we face life can determine its outcome.

We can look with woeful eyes on the negative mental attitude and wallow in self-pity, or we can flip the mind to the upper side and let the positive mental attitude bring us to the strength and peace we need.

Disappointment is something no one has escaped. The many plans we make sometimes fade like mist in the sunlight. A cherished dream may take another shape and to lose that vision can throw a dim view on all of life. Because one tiny part could not be fulfilled, we are so tempted to let all of the rest go with it.

But if only we could wait a bit. So often we then come to realize the reason for our change in plans.

Sometimes disappointment is the very thing that keeps us mounting the steps upward, keeps us stretching our minds to understand. And it may test our spirits. For is disappointment can make a spirit better, the joy of accomplishment would have soon soured.

There's no joy in a disappointment, but it may be the thing to save us from a life of mediocrity.

English novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton wrote, "Man must be disappointed with the lesser things in life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater."