Enjoy

Be absolutely determined to enjoy what you do.

- Sarah Knowles Bolton

email: thechautauqua@gmail.com

Ability

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

- Baltasar Gracian

email: thechautauqua@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Affirmations

Affirmations are really anything we say or think. Our thoughts create our feelings, beliefs, and experiences. Too often they are negative. We say, 'I don't want this in my life,' or 'I don't want to be sick anymore,' or 'I hate my job.' If we want to change or manifest something in our lives, we must state what we do want. We must affirm that we are willing to see ourselves or our lives in a different perspective. Thus, we can change our experiences by first changing our thoughts...

- Louise L. Hay/Founder, Hay House

email: thechautauqua@gmail.com

Choices

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

- Robert Fritz

email: thechautauqua@gmail.com

Friends

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advise, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

- Henri Nouwen

December 15, 2006 Chautauqua

From the Editor's Computer

In this season of hustle and bustle hither and yon for shopping and parties...events galore, don’t forget to take some time by yourself, just for yourself.

This year, let your Christmas present to yourself be some time alone to experience some peace and to reflect on the year that is behind us. Allow the quietness around you to soak deep into your being so that you can emerge refreshed and renewed for the next activity.

Merry Christmas to you all...and may 2007 be your best year ever!

Beth

Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IohNI_557sygIfQHG0E-fjI22MfGoMsS/view?usp=sharing

To contact The Chautauqua, email: thechautauqua@gmail.com.

Gratitude

Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted--a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.

- Rabbi Harold Kushner

Dive into the woods...

Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.

- Alexander Graham Bell

Mistakes

The way you get better in everything in this life is to make mistakes. Otherwise you're probably doing it right by accident. But you have to do everything wrong before you can really start with some authority to do it right.

- Tobias Wolff

Pass by...

I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.

—attributed to William Penn

Dreams

We must nurture our dreams like we would a child. They are God-given and just as precious. Without ambition how would a child learn to ride a bicycle, play an instrument or whistle? We deny the spirit of God when we as adults settle for less than our dreams!

- Conway Stone

December 1, 2006 Chautauqua

From the Editor's Computer

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
· Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Could you do it? Could you believe in six impossible things before breakfast?

Impossible things such as what you want to do with your life... what you want to be... where you want to go... what you want to accomplish…

Once you identify your impossible things...then start to truly believe that they are not impossible at all.

Can you do that?

Beth

Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g4Ar5WjSaf3_IecQ7uEMYq1JSjXug_1m/view?usp=sharing