Annie Birdsong's Homepage



    Inspirational Thoughts on Wisdom and Beauty    



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You can influence future generations.
Keeping a Journal for Your Children

It is good to have a special journal -- a notebook -- for collecting things you want to share with your sons and daughters or future sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

In the notebook, you might collect special quotes gathered from across the world (you can find books by using World Cat database and interlibrary loan.), scripture verses, poems and insight gained from your life experiences. You might collect songs you want to share with them, as well as color combinations, the name of flowers you love, along with a drawing or photo and a picture of gardening design etc.

You can cover it with lovely cloth -- maybe even embroidered cloth -- to make it very special.

(You might also have journals for prayer concerns, favorite songs, books you want to read, important passages from great books and documentary videso, family night activities, etc.)
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Amazing, the potential of a human.
You can make people beautiful!

Princess Diana once said, "When we discover that we can give joy to people, there is nothing quite like it."

How might you bring out the beauty of peace and joy in your children and husband or wife? You can maintain harmony in the home by playing carefully selected music that renews a right spirit, holding no bitterness in your heart, demonstrating patience and longsuffering when wronged, yielding a point, being calm and quiet rather than agitated and complainy and by listening well rather than being obstinate and domineering.

You might also wear something lovely, stay trim, cook something delicious and create memories and bonds of affection by searching out family activities.
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Culture is a garden that must be planted and weeded.
How Might We Democratize Culture?



Would these ladies look just as lovely if they were in jeans?

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What have we lost?
Elegance Over Time

  

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Hold no bitterness in your heart!
Pres. Jimmy Carter Gives Advice to Strengthen Your Marriage


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I used Photoshop's gradient tool to create the gradients in some of the slides. This would be a wonderful preoccupation for children, making an online color scrapbook.

Photoshop is quite expensive, but there is a less expensive, scaled down, version called Photoshop Elements. You can download Photoshop from the Adobe.com website and use it for free for a few months, as a trial to see if you like it.
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God speaks to us through creation
The Rainbow Promise

Light is used as a powerful symbol again and again in the Bible.

We are told that light is love and to walk in the light.

A study of the science of light is fascinating and yields rich meaning for our lives.



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You make a difference in children's lives!
Shaping Our Culture With Children's Stories




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What do you love?
Guarding Your Heart

Proverbs teaches you to "Keep a close guard over your heart for out of it flows all of the issues of life."

As the Good News translation explains, life is shaped by your thoughts.

Out heart is our affections -- what we esteem and value and who we admire, which shapes our lives, affecting who we become like, the career we choose and ultimately how we spend our time.

Do you want to watch low brow movies that glorify every vice known to mankind -- even killing?
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Finding alternatives to tv
Who Are the Happiest People?

How can we encourage more socializing in our communities?

Someone from China said in China they have a community garden where the people gather.

Old men play checkers, children listen to stories being read aloud, children fly kites and single people can socialize. (There is no dating, just gathering in public at the community garden.)

TV has replaced much of the socializing that once occurred in the country. People used to play more music instruments and sing and used to have folk dances.

Click here to see a clip from a broadcast on the Dylan Ratigan show.
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Example is the most powerful means of teaching we know of.
Bringing Out the Best in Your Children

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love," said Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

This means all who love children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers should search the world over for nuggets of gold, wonderful ancecdotes from biographies to honor exemplary behavior.
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From the book Earth in Mind: on Education, Environment and the Human Prospect
Quotes by Dr. David Orr
  • Intelligence, I think, grows as the mind is drawn to the possibilities of creating order, harmony, beauty, stability and permanence.

  • Is it possible... that we can systematically cultivate pride, gluttony, lust, avarice, sloth, envy and anger and remain intelligent?

  • How do we create good schools without first creating a good society that values the life of the mind and lives lived with heroism and higher purpose?

  • For Aristotle, the cultivation of virtue was both a goal of politics "to engender a certain character in the citizens and to make them good and disposed to perform noble actions."

  • The seven deadly sins are sins, in part, because they corrode the intellect.

  • For the Greeks and Romans, virtue ws never separated from politics and from participation in the civic life of the community.