Tag: Life

I HAD A DREAM…….

I had a dream last night. Probably one of the freakiest I have ever had. My wife calls it a nightmare, but typically a nightmare brings fear and panic to the person having the dream. I did not have either of these feelings. But I did have strong emotions of outrage.

In my sleep I imagined that I was walking across the street to my home. Which in the dream was a second floor apartment in a two family home. As I was walking, I noticed an extremely attractive women getting into an SUV type vehicle, and she was accompanied by an older woman who was also as enticing. They were about to get into the car when I felt like they were up to no good. While feeling a strong temptation to flirt with the woman, instead I girded my strength against her powers. I asked her where she came from and what they were doing. She responded that the man in the downstairs of the house let them into my apartment. I immediately got upset and ran to the house. As in entered the house, I brushed past the man and ran up the stairs. Looking down from the stairs I saw that the women had entered as well. The three of them were standing together, but they were no longer the figure of human beings but of demons doing the work of Satan himself.

I opened the door to my apartment. Instantly I began searching, not knowing for what. Only knowing that it could not be anything good. Suddenly, I was no longer in the apartment but on a small river in a canoe. While rowing slowly, I was still searching and began looking into the water. Suddenly, I saw a baseball mitt and reached for it. As I pulled on it from out of the reeds a body of a young boy in his baseball uniform came out. I jumped in the water to pull him to land. Then I noticed he was not the only one. I began working as fast as I could but there were so many children. I shouted at the top of my lungs for people to come help me. The children had been drugged and were being killed by drowning.

A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more (Jeremiah 31:15 NIV)

I recall I got one boy to start breathing. I began to feel that people were coming to help and that all was not lost. I prayed and hoped that we could save them in time. Then the faces of the demons at the bottom of the stairs returned to me, and I was angry. Yet, all my focus had to stay with saving the children, I felt it was for them that I had to keep struggling.

Then I woke up.

So, why am I blogging about this dream? It is simply that I knew its meaning. This dream was speaking to me about the horrors and murders being promoted by abortionists and those who are for the “Right to Murder”. Those that now, in less than twenty years have convinced congress and the Democratic Party that it is ok to kill children after their birth. Usually, many faces of their promoters are beautiful elegant starlets that have sold their soul to a shameless life of pure selfishness with no regard for any other human life. This is an absolute evil, the refusal to deny that human life is special. This is the declaration that only I matter. Hasn’t that always been the greatest human error and greatest depravity? The same people who declare baby murder is just, are just as quickly to determine the elderly are a waste of money, the sick are a draw on our economy and that any handicapped and minority persons should be eliminated.

We are not far from that type of thinking. With careful trickery and back room politics the ultimate evil is being engineered. To deny all humans their rights and to make us all mere cogs and utilities to be used by those invested in the power and enslavement of the masses.

If the people do not wake up from being focused on materialism and not the greater picture of liberty and life. Our rivers will soon overflow with the blood of our children and likely of those the society will deem useless.

All the Diets Under the Sun – Chapter 6 – Settling Down

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-eb9j4-af58a2

In this podcast I discuss the dramatic changes in my life and how it leads me to my all time highest weight. Which sadly I am not to far from again except things are worse now. I am more that 20 years older, the struggle becomes more difficult.

I hope you enjoy it!

Guillermo

A Soul Apart – In Loving Memory of Karina Acosta

Heaven

This poem was written on the news of the death of the young and beautiful Karina Acosta a few years ago. She gave birth to her son in New York City and unfortunately for this world had contracted an infection while in the hospital and died a few shorts day later. She was a professional in the precious metals industry and was working at Mitsui Precious Metals at the time. She was a member of the IPMI and her name is never forgotten. I wish I had a picture of her to include with this to share with the readers. I hope for the readers that somehow the poem imparts the force of presence that was this young woman’s smile and personality.

I knew her,
Too few years
Yet my heart
Is filled with tears

News of her passing
Shall take its toll
On those she touched
With her beautiful soul

Always smiling
A beautiful face
She brought happiness
To any place

From Metro Mexico
She did come
To New York City
She brought the sun

At Peñoles and Mitsui
She was hired
Her gracious presence
Raised them higher

The precious metals
Were her care
They now lose their luster
Without her there

A family’s love
Is left behind
Also left,
Hundreds of friendships
Which she did mine

Before she went
She left a present
Alonso, a beautiful son
Her loving intent

A word,
That comes to mind
In thinking of her
Is love divine

Her loving grace
She gave to fill our hearts
Where it hurts,
Bring it in to mend
The tearing part

Dear Karina
You left us too fast
But you’ve touched us all
A true blessing

That will never pass

(C) G. Miguel Perez-Santalla

Heaven’s Right

Heaven’s Right

Gazing at the ocean

A rhythm of sounds

Waves crash without caution

Miracles abound

–

San Alfonso Retreat House

Creatures in the water

Birds cruising in the air

Man uses its contraptions

To get near there

–

Like the gift of flight

Given to the gulls

Men are given thought

As wind to lift our souls

–

If we sometimes fail

To use it to take flight

Let’s not blame our maker

He has given us our might

–

Instead look to the heavens

Listening for what is right

Its awe filling presence will fill us

With His merciful love each night

©Miguel Perez-Santalla

Value and Time- A Restroom Sage

All through-out out this country we have Hand-dryers in rest rooms. A great way to save on paper waste but is it really helping the environment?
hAND DRYERLet’s think about the more common ones. In most places you have your hand under the dryer for close to a minute. The reason being, you have to run it twice. Still when you walk away from the apparatus in most cases your hands are not as dry as you would like them. In addition to that in some places they also have paper so you take a piece of paper towel to finish the job.
Does this make sense? Of course not, the best decision is to have either a hand dryer that can do the job in 30 seconds or a paper towel that you only need one sheet. Believe it or not, both of these items do exist.
I was in Knoxville airport a few weeks back and after having washed my hand reached for the paper towel. The paper was so absorbent it only took one piece. Last week I was at a restaurant in NYC that hand a hand dryer that only took me one time and I actually think it may have been less than 30 seconds.
In the end it is all about the cost. Some buy the cheap paper or less expensive dryers thinking they are saving money. However in the end the amount of paper used is three times more and the energy used with the poorer quality dryers is also about three times.
In the end analysis the old axiom applies. You get what you pay for. For those of us using the rest rooms in public places we just wish the people behind these decisions were not so short sighted. The less time in these bathrooms the better.

Simplify Life and Enjoy the Moment

As I get older I realize that there is no reason under the sun to have to rush around. Now I am not saying to do the opposite and take your sweet time about things. But there is a balance between being over exuberant and under enthusiastic.
Take for instance going to pick up some take-out food. Last night I realized that to where I was going there are two options. I can take the highway and get there fast or take the back-roads and get there a few minutes later. What is the difference?
I had to weigh the options. The highway I would have to deal with hostile drivers and be on the offensive myself. The other routeSimplify your road does not demand either from me and in fact keeps my more aggressive tendencies at bay. This means that I am able to relax put on some relaxing music and simply enjoy the moment.
I chose the back-roads. The restaurant was on the highway so I had to traverse the road for a short time. Yet choosing the back roads made the experience pleasant. This little life tweak I believe puts me in a better frame of mind and all the day to day worries are not compounded with the stress of putting myself in more demanding situations.
I guess what I am trying to say is that sometimes it is the simple decisions we make that can better enable us to cope with the more difficult problems we have in our life. It seems that everything in life is on a scale. When one side of the scale gets to heavy we need to add to the other side. If we do not learn to do this the scale will tip and all we have worked for will come to naught.

A Couple of My Favorite Chesterton Quotes

G.K. Chesterton“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“An abyss of light”

There is at the back of all our lives an abyss of light, more blinding and unfathomable than any abyss of darkness; and it is the abyss of actuality, of existence, of the fact that things truly are, and that we ourselves are incredibly and sometimes almost incredulously real. It is the fundamental fact of being, as against not being; it is unthinkable, yet we cannot unthink it, though we may sometimes be unthinking about it; unthinking and especially unthanking. For he who has realized this reality knows that it does outweigh, literally to infinity, all lesser regrets or arguments for negation, and that under all our grumblings there is a subconscious substance of gratitude. That light of the positive is the business of the poets, because they see all things in the light of it more than do other men. Chaucer was a child of light and not merely of twilight, the mere red twilight of one passing dawn of revolution, or the grey twilight of one dying day of social decline. He was the immediate heir of something like what Catholics call the Primitive Revelation; that glimpse that was given of the world when God saw that it was good; and so long as the artist gives us glimpses of that, it matters nothing that they are fragmentary or even trivial; whether it be in the mere fact that a medieval Court poet could appreciate a daisy, or that he could write, in a sort of flash of blinding moonshine, of the lover who “slept no more than does the nightingale”. These things belong to the same world of wonder as the primary wonder at the very existence of the world; higher than any common pros and cons, or likes and dislikes, however legitimate. Creation was the greatest of all Revolutions. It was for that, as the ancient poet said, that the morning stars sang together; and the most modern poets, like the medieval poets, may descend very far from that height of realization and stray and stumble and seem distraught; but we shall know them for the Sons of God, when they are still shouting for joy. This is something much more mystical and absolute than any modern thing that is called optimism; for it is only rarely that we realize, like a vision of the heavens filled with a chorus of giants, the primeval duty of Praise.

G.K. Chesterton— Chaucer (1932).

Reason to Rejoice

Hidden pondI was walking on a trail in the Watchung Reservation with my three dogs. It was a hot day and this is the best time to go into the woods were the temperature is typically 10 to 20 degrees cooler. There were very few people in the woods, most likely because a Saturday in August draws people to beaches and pools. It was a pleasure and though we did see others in the woods it was very quiet and I felt very isolated.

I sat for a few moments to give the dogs a rest and to watch and listen to nature unveil itself around me. I sat on a log and I was able to spot some deer about a tenth of a mile away. I also spotted a woodpecker. Later while walking I would see some other birds but most are skittish and once they hear me they move so fast I can’t identify them.

Still as we walked through the woods I couldn’t help but wonder how many persons walked through here. I thought back to the times of George Washington and his men and how they probably passed through here on the way to the battle of Union. I thought about the local Indians and how this was their stomping grounds.Then I looked at all the tress that lovers and travelers carved their initials on.

So many people have passed through here. Some may have thought themselves important. But nature always brings you back to reality as the awesomeness raises my own awareness of my mortality and lack of importance. I am humbled as I walk among the trees many that may be as much as one hundred or more years old.

It dawned on me. Life is a gift and the short time we are here we need to appreciate and use to the best of our abilities. By working towards the greater good with a true love for life and the life of all around us we become a very important part of the life of the world. We become givers of life to the next generation and to those that live around us. Now that is an important function and responsibility.

We all have a responsibility to live to our fullest. That is the gift we call life. So I left the woods feeling invigorated and joyful.

I wish all my walks were as productive!

Have a great life!

Miguel Perez-Santalla

2006- Revisited

From: January, 2006

It was about one year ago I made a difficult change in my life. It didn’t affect many people. It was simply that I had decided to befriend and get to know a homeless person. I felt like St. Francis, I had an aversion to the destitute of society and I needed to break that association and come to know them as children of God.

It so happened that there was a colored woman who every morning would sit in front of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral gift shop on 51st street (right over a grate where heat would come up). I remember before the first day I approached her I used to look down at her. I remember there was always crumbled food next to her and I thought it was disgusting. I always averted contact with people like her believing that many are drug addicts, alcoholic etc. and that I should not give them money because I may be supporting their habit. So though I knew in my mind they actually have the same gift of life from God that I have, I treated them like lesser people.

Then I made the effort. It started at first I would just give her a few dollars a day, which made me feel better. However I truly did not change until she asked me my name. Her name was Ann. She had a beautiful smile when you spoke to her. The crumbs she placed on the ground where there to feed the birds. She was an avid reader and enjoyed science fiction. She smoked cigarettes, but only two or three a day. Every day I saw her brought me great joy. She would ask me about my family, my children, my weekend, and my business trips. I would ask her about her health and if she needed anything. She always said she was fine.

Then one week she was not in her spot for a few days. I was concerned and hoped she would come back soon. On Thursday morning she was back. She told me she has a heart condition and had been in the hospital. I told her I would pray for her recovery and I asked her to quit smoking. That was a few months ago.

Recently, I went to mass with a coworker who I had gotten a Mass said for his departed grandmother. I saw my friend enjoy the mass and feel close to his grandmother a year after her death. We came out of the cathedral and went across the street; I was sharing with him my morning routine and so I introduced him to Ann. Ann said to me, “You’re really happy this morning.” I said I was because my friend Gerry was with me. Gerry said hello and I gave her some money and we said goodbye. It was a special morning.

The week before Ann told me one of her favorite book collections is “The Lord of the Rings”. I was planning on bringing her the full collection in paperback as a gift. Then sadly the day after I spoke to her with Gerry she was not at her normal spot. It has now been almost three weeks since I have seen her. I looked for her at lunch time in different buildings with public parks where she told me she is often found. I did not find her. I have been praying for her everyday hoping that she is well and that I may see her gain.

Sadly I fear that she may not be coming back. I know she would have good and bad days with her heart condition and she often talked it down. Now I am thinking that I may not have done enough to help her. I should have tried harder. I know that I did not give to her as much as she gave to me. She opened my eyes and my heart to the love of God. Her concern for me, a person in a much better state in life, made a significant impression on me. She truly cared for me as a true friend. She had love, the kind of love that we should share and have for all people. She had a truly Christian heart and I will strive to be like her.

I still hold hope that she may come back. But if the good Lord took her I am certain that she is in the bosom of his love. I will continue praying for her everyday not knowing for sure what has happened to her. And if she is in Heaven I know that she prays for me to our Lord.

With love in my heart I say God bless you Ann wherever you may be.

Die for Truth

Over the centuries there have been people willing to courageously speak the truth. Even when the path of least resistance would have secured their own prosperity. The path of least resistance, silence, when one looks at the history of man is the road that allows evil to have its way.

Slavery of the masses has always been achieved by the powerful minority through the ascent to evil by silence and inaction. The threat of punishment or being cast out has been enough to keep people under control. Political correctness is that same ploy used throughout human history. Sadly many would rather bite their tongues when they see evil rather than risk retribution.

Then of course there are those that will risk all to make change that is just and proper. To the men and women who throughout history have stood tall in the face of injustice and tyranny I have the greatest admiration. I pray that if such a challenge were placed before me that I have the courage to do the same. I feel it is better to die with love of truth by our words and deed than to live with complacency towards evil and cowardice in the soul.