People repeatedly tell me that I make them laugh. Well, while I don't actually make them laugh, it's in the sharing of the moment that the laughter is created and it has brought me to realize my own success. My success is found in the contributions I have made and continue to make to others in my life. It can't be measured in money and for that reason it can neither be stolen from me, nor be devalued by someone else. Thank you all with true sincerity for your contributions. But especially;
To My Mother, Camilla Deken Messina, who, although she was with me for only six years of my life, left me with fond childhood memories. She was my playmate, and we laughed, and played, and in our make-belief world all sorts of things were possible with her at my side.
To My Father, Enrico (Rick) Messina, who taught me to laugh, cry, love, forgive, share, pray, hope, and dream. This was his legacy along with the gift of possibilities. Among other memories I have there was his love and devotion toward mom which could be found often in his eyes when speaking silently to her from across a room.
To My Best Friend and Former Husband, John "J.C." Long, who was the first to share with me the human fulfillment and spiritual growth found in being, one with another. Together we learned that neither love nor forgiveness need have boundaries. I thank him for the life we shared even up until the moment he took his last breath, closed his eyes, and entered God's Higher Universe.
J.C. in the Navy
To My Dear Friend, Jeanne Hughs, who passed on to join other loved ones on December 12, 1998. She was an inspiration and encouraged my writing, read all my stories with a passion, and then laughed and cried as she breathed them to life in her narration's. I had thought Jeanne was gone, but somewhere between her parting from this world and the end of this book, I began to realize that she was still with me. And, as I edited the remains of this book, I noticed that my editing somehow has the guidance of some of her nature and style as well. Now, some might try to logically say that she had taught me by example, and I had learned the lesson. I will more than gladly argue, with a smile on my face, that she was there in presence, guiding my hand to make the necessary adjustments in my work without taking away any of it's value. Those tweaks were too much like her to be me, and that's all that's to that!
To Another Dear Friend, Mary DeSuza, who, through many years of friendship, continues to give me the space to question, even when there are no answers yet to be found; and who laughs and cries with me, supporting who I am in all my possibilities. Some of her beauty is found in the very absence of judgment; more is found in her laughter. But silently, her greatest beauty is found in her overwhelming, graceful acceptance of all the Life Experiences God sends her way. She has been my rock of strength and support, and doesn't suggest that I take the easy way out. She just encourages me to do what I know to be true to myself.
Mary DeSuza
And to my mentors... who have breathed a different life for me in their great words of wisdom:
Albert Einstein is known to have given us many quotable sayings that become thoughts to query, but I have limited my choices to share with you the few that follow. These are among the ones that have guided me beyond what I ever thought was possible.
- "Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them -- these are the best guides for man."
- "A man's mortal worth is not measured by what his religious beliefs are but rather by what emotional impulses he has received from Nature during his life time!"
- "Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."
- "If God created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy to us"
- "Out yonder there was this huge world which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man I had learned to esteem and admire had found inner freedom and security in devoted occupation with it."
- "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
- "I feel myself so much a part of everything living that I am not in the least concerned with the beginning or ending of the concrete existence of any one person in this eternal flow."
- "Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life."
- "It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."
- "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
- "Strange is our situation here upon the earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose."
- "The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate."
- "People like you and I, though mortal of course, like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is that we never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born."
- "Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community."
- "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
- "All great achievements of science start from intuitive knowledge, namely, in axioms, from which deductions are then made... Intuition is the necessary condition for the discovery of such axioms."
- "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."
- "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world."
I'm not sure when I was first exposed to Albert Einstein, but I'm grateful that I was and wanted to share some of him with you, just in case you haven't had the opportunity to read his thoughts and to know him yet. He was my ideal man before he was honored with the title, "Person of the Century." What made him ideal was that he wore his humanity out there for all to see -- I saw it. If you saw him as only genius, then you are missing something. Look again -- he had a good sense of humor -- he was passionate about life -- he took time out to play -- I doubt that there was any factor of his own humanity he neglected to explore.
Marianne Williamson is less known to me yet no less appreciated as I often re-read a quote from her book, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles. From the first time I heard this read to me, it seemed more like a way of life I wanted to incorporate into my own.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Each time I read this or hear it read out loud, it's as if God whispered it into someone's ear to be repeated to us over and over as the greatest lesson we, as humans, might yet be wise to learn.
Thank you too, to all other friends (you know who you are because I've acknowledged your contribution if not in this writing, most assuredly in our conversations.) Thanks to those, who, in our conversation helped speak this book into existence. Thanks for being a conversation for me as well. The list is as continuous as the thanks. You all have made endless ripples in my life and in who I am today.