. Then I went to the train station to pick up Yumiko who had just gotten home from college. About an hour later Ken's cell phone rang and it was Ayumi calling. I couldn't hear her voice very well. It sounded like she was sobbing. I was so alarmed, but she kept sobbing. I was telling her to calm down. Just take a deep breath. She kept sobbing. So I started sobbing and sort of silently screaming thinking the absolute worst. Yumiko was right by my side and she started sobbing. Finally after maybe two minutes of this sobbing - I hear Ayumi say in a very relaxed voice "Hello?" I say "Ayumi?" She says "Yes? Who's this?" I tell her it is Kitty. And she tells me she must have "butt dialed" me and that she was not sobbing at all. That it was just her phone in her pocket as she was moving around the kitchen.
You cannot imagine the flood of relief that went through my and Yumiko's bodies. I truly felt I was taken to the brink and then back to life. In those two minutes I realized how terribly terribly much I love my Ken.
Here's a little picture of the three of us taken for Christmas just about three weeks ago. And the second picture taken at the same time is a recreation of one we took when Yumiko was just two. We've all grown a little older and at least I have grown a little fatter. And oh how I love that man and that wonderful girl. We are all blessed.
Not a dry eye at this house.Lord Sri Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, dancing on the hoods of the demoniac serpent Kaliya.
Krsna consciousness means clear consciousness. Material existence is symptomized by hazy consciousness, in which one identifies himself with his material body and thus with a particular race, religion or nationality.
To make progress in Krsna consciousness, one must first put aside these bodily designations and understand his real self. It is the natural position of every living entity to be an eternal servant of Krsna, or God, the Supreme Person and supreme cause of all causes. Forgetfulness of one’s eternal relationship with Krsna is the beginning of hazy consciousness.
The chanting of the holy names of God Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare counteracts this haziness by invoking one’s dormant love for Krsna. Reviving this original clear consciousness is a great science that can lead one to a pure life of eternal blissful knowledge. Back to Godhead is an instrument to spread understanding of this sublime science.But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no Church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity. Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. The apostle now turns his attention to a new subject, and the verses that follow to the close of the chapter seem to be a kind of postscript, acknowledging in a very graceful manner the various offerings which he had received from the Philippians by the hands of Epaphroditus. The passage before us may be regarded as presenting man in certain model aspects.
1. He received their beneficence with religious gratitude. "I rejoiced in the Lord," etc. "There is," says Dr. Barry, "in these words an expression of some hitherto disappointed expectation, not wholly unlike the stronger expression of wounded feeling in 2 Timothy 4:9, 10, 16. At Caesarea St. Paul would have been necessarily cut off from the European Churches; at Rome, the metropolis of universal concourse, he may have expected some earlier communication. But fearing to wound the Philippians by even the semblance of reproof, in their case undeserved, he adds at once, 'in which ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.' Epaphroditus would seem to have arrived early, almost as soon as St. Paul's arrival at Rome gave them the opportunity which they previously lacked." The contributions which came from the Philippians to him he traced to the Lord. He saw the hand and felt the love of God in their gifts. There is not a man on earth who is not in some measure the object of human beneficence. We are all receiving from others, every day in our life, some kind of good - physical, intellectual, social, or spiritual. All this good we should devoutly ascribe to the Father of lights, from whom cometh "every good and perfect gift." Whether those of our fellow-men, who confer on us good, do it with their will or against their will, selfishly or disinterestedly, it matters not so far as our obligation to Heaven is concerned. From him all the good of all kinds and through all channels proceeds.
2. He received their beneficence with hearty appreciation. "Notwithstanding [howbeit] ye have well done, that ye did communicate [had fellowship] with my affliction." "Ye have well done." Your beneficence was dictated from a generous sympathy with my affliction, and it was timely withal. True beneficence is a blessed virtue. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." His appreciation seems to have been deepened by the fact that their beneficence preceded that of other Churches. "Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no Church communicated [had fellowship] with me as concerning [in the matter of] giving and receiving, but ye only." The time referred to is the period of his leaving Macedonia and Athens for Corinth (Acts 17:14). They rendered him help, not only after he had left Macedonia, but before that time, when he had just passed from Philippi to Thessalonica. "At Thessalonica, as at Corinth - both very rich and luxurious communities - he refused maintenance and lived merely by the labor of his own hands (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:8). But it appears from this passage that even then he received, once and again (that is, occasionally, once or twice), some aid from Philippi to supply his need, that is (as in all right exercise of liberality), to supplement, and not to supersede his own resources." In this also he acts in a model way. There are those ingrates in society who receive help from others as a matter of course, attach little or no value to the good which they are constantly receiving. Ay, and moreover, there are those, too, who, instead of becoming bound to the benefactor as friends through gratitude for the favors, not unfrequently become enemies. Ah me! this worst of human vices is, perhaps, the most common. "As there are no laws against ingratitude," says Seneca, "so it is utterly impossible to contrive any that in all circumstances shall reach it. If it were actionable, there would not be courts enough in the whole world to try the causes in. There can be no setting a day for the requiting of benefits, as for the payment of money; nor any estimate upon the benefits themselves; but the whole matter rests in the conscience of both parties; and then there are so many degrees of it, that the same rule will never serve all."
III. Here is a man represented as a GENUINE REFORMER. "I can do all things through Christ [in him] which strengtheneth me." Paul was a genuine reformer. The reformation he sought was not in corrupt legislation, in outward institutions - social, political, or ecclesiastical - in theological systems, or in external behavior. Such reformations are of little worth. He wrought.
2. In conscious dependence on Christ. "I can do all things through Christ." "All things" pertaining to this work as a reformer, not by my own talents, skill, or industry, not in my own strength, but in "Christ which strengtheneth me." Indeed, in Christ's strength what cannot a man do? He can work miracles as the apostles did, he can turn the moral world upside down, he can create men "anew in Christ Jesus," he can sound a trumpet whose blast shall penetrate the ears of slumbering souls and awake the teeming millions that are sleeping in the dust of worldliness and depravity. "Through Christ which strengtheneth me." Strengthens me by turning me away from things that are temporal to things that are spiritual, rooting my faith in eternal realities, filling and firing me with the love which he had for human souls and for the everlasting Father. Conclusion. Study well these model aspects of a man who, as an object of Christian beneficence, is always religiously grateful, heartily appreciative of the favors he receives, and