Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love♥. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.

Love was the only one who stayed. ♥Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.

Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. ♥Love said, Richness, can you take me with you?”  Richness answered, “No, I can’t. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you.”

Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. “Vanity, please help me!” “I can’t help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat,” Vanity answered.

Sadness was close by so ♥Love asked, “Sadness, let me go with you.”  “Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!”

Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when ♥Love called her.

Suddenly, there was a voice, “Come, Love, I will take you.” It was an elder. So blessed and overjoyed, Love even forgot to ask the elder where they were going. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. Realizing how much was owed the elder,

Love asked Knowledge, another elder, “Who helped me?”

It was Time,” Knowledge answered.

“Time?” asked Love. “But why did Time help me?”

Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, “Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is.”

This is Rex Barker reminding you that we are here to learn to emulate the Divine by practicing unconditional love.

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Life sometimes presents challenges that seem greater than we can bear. The news is quick to say how bad the current situation is, truth be told, this is not new and we all go through bad times. Then life seems so unbearable, and some chose a fatal and final decision. That decision can never be undone.

The ending of your life only leaves holes, and hurts, and problems for others. So at various times when I hear of a suicide I grieve both for the ones left behind, and the ones who will never know the value of that life. In the past weeks I’ve realized how close I stood at that cliff and how important a life is.

Our lives are like spider webs, spreading wide with almost invisible threads, touching more than what we see and more than realized. A suicide is like ripping that spiderweb down, the connections ever changed. Maybe you think your life is small, insignificant. Yet, your family needs you, and is touched in both big and small ways. Your friends see reflections of themselves in your life. Your existence brings joy, comfort and happiness, even when you don’t see it. But your life hardly stops there.

The people who you call acquaintances, who see or hear from you semi-regularly, feel your presence in their routines. While seemingly minor, it isn’t. A mail clerk died last year, while I hated waiting in line, his happiness made the wait pleasant, and I enjoyed his smile and laughter. I didn’t even know his name. While that was a clerk I saw regularly; your life still continues forward, to people you don’t even know.

In 1996, while my then-husband and father in law ignored me, I walked to the fast-food bathroom in deep despair. A lady walked up to me, her eyes darted to their table, and back to me. She touched my hand, and whispered “You deserve better…” she paused until my eyes met hers and then smiled. Three words. No my life didn’t change radically because of those words, but I remembered them, and recalled them many times.

A friend told me about former students who hug her and “was just shocked they want to hug me in front of the other students. Tough kids don’t do that; emotion is a weakness, you risk getting made fun of if you’re caught doing something like that and risk getting into a fight to defend your rep, but they didn’t care . . . hugging me after six-years meant that much.”

Your life touches people, and those people touch other lives.  And while you may have days where you think your life is unimportant, and that you are so very far from perfect, it’s not true. Your life touches people near and far, in big and small ways. Your life experiences have created the person you are today, and while you may marvel at the ways someone is better than you… they didn’t have your life experiences in the same way you did. And that is what makes you … the perfect you.

Love,
MJ Schrader

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Have you ever just sat and watched the sunrise?

Watch the sky slowly lighten, then change colors. The light of the sun starts peeking over the horizon, and rays of light streak the sky. Slowly the sky grows brighter, bright beautiful colors stretch further across the sky. If there are clouds in the sky, the edges glow.

If your watching area has trees, the sunlight wraps around them giving an unearthly presense. While the light bounces around the buildings in the city, creeping slowly down to the streets. The light seems to stream through small crevices, spilling on the ground.

The world seems to be asleep. Noises which normally would be hard to hear can be heard far easier. Birds slowly awaken, singing songs to welcome the morning. While people up in the early morning are few, allowing you a moment of quiet thought while enjoying the serenity of the morning.

Relax and enjoy the moment and you will find a greater appreciation for the beauty of the world. It will fill your heart with a little more joy, hope and love.

Love,
MJ Schrader

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This is the season of Lent, a time to reflect and think about life. In those moments of reflection, embrace the thoughts of love, of friendship, of hope, of faith. These are the thoughts that will build your life higher and higher.

Many people gladly accept the media’s dark and dismal view of the world and economy. A downward spiral that sucks in people and their thoughts. This is why it is so important for us to “Let’s Embrace New Thought” rather than stick with the current thought regime.

Yet rather than just embrace and withhold the New Thoughts of faith, hope, and love why don’t we encourage others to join us. This is why I wrote this blog. The sermon talked of embracing a new positive thought process, but even better is to share and encourage others to join.

Ever notice how when someone smiles at you, it makes your day a bit better?

Had a bad day and someone said something encouraging and suddenly things seemed brighter?

This is what you can do for others. Let’s Embrace New Thoughts for ourselves, Let’s Encourage New Thoughts in others. Where will our world be if we share this with a few people who share it with others?

Love,
MJ

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I sit here 10 hours a day talking to clients. They tell me about the past year, both in words, and through the papers they bring me, as a tax professional.

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People are making less money. People are worried about losing their jobs. People are losing jobs. People are losing cars. Houses.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times said the long winded Charles Dickens.

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But what makes this the worst of times? Because people say it is the worst of times? Because the news says it is? Because the president says it is? What if it is merely how we choose to view the present situation?

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They say people are talking less about love, the Facebook statistics show it is mentioned less. But if people are talking less about love, they are talking less about faith. They are talking less about hope. But perhaps that is the problem.

Faith hope and love need to be part of our lives. It is what makes the world a better place. Love is the best of life and we need to explore that more and make our lives better.

…
I sit at this tax desk for 10 hours a day.
The clients bring me their lives for the past year.
People bring in beautiful babies. Beautiful babies they show me with pride, so I can see what miracles have happened in their lives. People are getting new jobs. People are getting raises. People are changing jobs, to jobs they like better. People are going to school to learn new trades that they enjoy better. People are dropping credit cards to live within their budgets. People are learning stuff is not as important as the life lived.

So what is the difference between the people mentioned at first and the people just above? Could love really be the answer to this? How simple. How divine. How wonderfully delicious….

So where do you stand my friends? Which life is yours?

With Love,
MJ

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Love is simple and easy, or rather that is the way it seems. Love is actually very complicated. Like a delicate flowering plant, love requires special actions and attentions to keep it alive and even better to help it grow.

All plants need water, light and food to survive. While three ingredients would seemingly make an easy recipe to help a plant survive, too much or too little of any one can kill a plant. To help a plant flower and grow requires even more care. There are many summers when the Texas fields that are normally covered in Bluebonnets are mostly barren of the State Flower.

Yet the soil feeds the plants. You can tell from the green grass around that there has been rain, and there is almost always sun in Tejas. So what else makes the Bluebonnets grow and flower?

Texas Bluebonnets

It is a special combination of the elements that makes them fill the fields full of blue splendor.  In this same manner love that nourishes the soul requires a special blend of elements. Yet we very often leave out certain ingredients never mind taking the time to blending them.

Love requires more than just the words “I love you.” While words help, actions that express the feeling are necessary for the words to mean anything. Love also requires nurturing and attention, continual actions and words to keep it alive. Doing one or two things then leaving love alone won’t promote the long-term growth of love. So actions, words and attention help love to grow, but what really brings it home is sharing love.

Plants have seeds that spread and create more plants. Learning to love yourself creates seeds, while sharing that love with others spreads those seeds of love. While not all the seeds may germinate, there will be some that grow and spread more love… and that is why this blog is here.

Love,
MJ Schrader

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Things do not always happen as planned.  If you have read the About you know that I wanted to be a writer at age 5, yet over 30 years have passed since that time.  Even as I decide what to write, things changed.

The title to this mission, this eventual book, was easy. The quote was heard on the radio and in etched itself on my soul.  The content was then easy to realize, but how to start telling this story long evaded me.

Until I had a conversation with a dear friend.  He wrote a story called Jumping Mouse, and loves to tell Indian stories.  His wisdom was to start with something simpler.  Start from the point I was still struggled with, which was learning to love myself.

Thus 101 Ways to Love Yourself was born.  In his wisdom, he asked that I create a list and fill the book with many blank pages.  His logic was simple, pure and beautiful.  Yet as someone who had come from an emotional blackhole, and knowing others who had been abused, emotionally and physically, I knew a list would be way too simple of a read.

My friends would read the list quickly, easily, say yes, no, maybe on each item, mentally checking them.  Yet they would not take time to absorb each way.   If a way didn’t seem like it would help, they would simply say that’s too complicated, won’t help me or something else rather than look from another point of view.

So the first book in this series of “More Valuable Than Bread“ is about loving yourself.   Next week there will be more story about why loving yourself is so important.

Love,
MJ Schrader

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Welcome to More Valuable Than Bread.

What we all seek is more valuable than bread, even if you were starving there is one thing of greater value.  It was so important that there are two related quotes accredited to Mother Theresa.

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

This is the true spirit of this blog to spread stories of love and hope, beauty and peace.  All these things come from inside ourselves; yet years of punishment, regrets, self-defeat have tarnished the beauty we have inside.  The tarnish also blocks us from sharing our original beauty with others, and dampens our true spirit.

Love,
MJ

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