Friday, April 8, 2011

Living beliefs

It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away. Kenichi Ohmae

My belief this week has been -- I gotta get this done. And I did. The book, WHERE, that is. The editing. Proofing. Writing of additional copy. Drop-dead date is Tuesday and it is nearing 'real fast'!


In the midst of working on the book, I had to get our sixteen page newsletter written, compiled and off to the printer -- proof that seriously, Miracles do happen, because yesterday, Paul our creative assets guy hit 'upload' and the newsletter is at the printers.

At the same time, I had the pleasure of sitting in on two first year Communications classes as they presented their project summaries. Two separate teams had been coming into the DI, the shelter where I work, for the past three months, researching and compiling data to create two separate projects -- one, a video for our Volunteer Appreciation event. Two, a social media strategy and DVD cover for the launch of our 15 minute documentary, Standing by: A DI Documentary.


In listening to the students present Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, I had some of my beliefs shaken and stirred.


So much is said about today's 'new generation' of cyber-connected, jaded and apathetic youth I was beginning to believe it was true.


It's NOT!


These young people care. Truly care. And, they are willing to play a part, take a stand, be part of making a difference in our world.


What struck me most was that for these young people, coming to the DI, as they kept repeating, changed their lives.

Fear became acceptance. Judgments became understanding. Wounds became wisdom.


It was a pretty amazing, and busy week. And now, I'm off to a meeting at 7, a day of final edits, read-throughs and filling in gaps. This weekend I plan on doing more of the same, as well as visiting so many of my online friends with whom I haven't been able to visit over the past week.

And if anyone else is experiencing trouble with getting Blogger to accept formatting -- HELP! I have to put the HTML code for paragraph break in -- and it still gives me extra paras. If I don't put it in, I don't have any paragraphs, just one long stream of sentences. Anyone?


Thanks so much. May your day be filled with wonder. May your world revolve around you as you stand in the light of your truth and beauty. May we all wear different lenses today. May we all see the world through eyes of wonder that see the beauty of our world in all its complexity and possibility.

8 comments:

Anne Lang Bundy said...

Blogger's new formatting is a REAL stinker. I've tried deleting the paragraph breaks, or tweaking all the mess on the HTML tab. Blogger still wants to rearrange my post, so here's how I deal with it. (There may be an easier way. If so, I'll be glad to hear of it myself!)

I write my post in WordPerfect, copy, and then paste on the "Edit HTML" tab. (MS Word and I aren't good friends. If your text formatting changes between "copy" and "paste," then re-copy and re-paste via Notepad [NOT Wordpad] before you paste into Blogger. Notepad removes ALL formatting any time you need that done.) Once your text has been pasted without formatting, go back and select the spots where you want bold or italic, and enter those. (To help me remember where I want them, I add ** at that spot while I'm composing.)

Next, go to the "Compose" tab and enter any links. I also change any spots where I want a different size or color of text, because it's easier to do here than on the HTML page.

Last step is set the font, if you need to change the face. If you always use only one font, you can select it for the whole blog and be done with it. (I think it's on the "Design" page.) I alternate fonts where I quote Scripture, so I have to manually make the changes. Go to the top of the page, select the first paragraph of text (don't include the space between paragraphs), and set the font. I then go back to the HTML tab. The thing you're looking for is HTML code this comment won't display. It's "<" followed by "/span" followed by ">" with no spaces (7 characters total). Insert the cursor exactly AFTER that code's >, which appears at the end of the first paragraph. Then select the rest of the text that gets that font, CUT it, and repaste immediately BEFORE the <.

If this sounds complicated, email me (buildingHisbody [plus] gmail.com). I can try to answer any questions via email or phone.

Hope that helps! :D

Louise Gallagher said...

Anne! Thank you. I'll give it a go. You are amazing. Thank you

trisha said...

you are an amazing lady. its a blessing to have such a busy and fruitful life.

lots of love.

Maureen said...

Blogger is aware of the paragraph spacing problem. You can find this out by scrolling down your Dashboard page to Other Stuff then Help Resources then clicking on Known Issues. There's a suggestion there along with a statement that the issue is being worked on.

I hope you give yourself five minutes this weekend. Have a lovely one! Hugs.

Anonymous said...

CONGRATS on getting project WHeRE done! Oh, what a feeling, what a rush! Another noteworthy project helping people change the world one day at a time and the youth playing part of changing the world by replacing Fear with acceptance,Judgments with understanding, Wounds with wisdom. Nicely said, Louise. Brilliant missive to take us into the weekend.

Much love to you and the gals!
BA

Hope said...

wonderful post! I wish the same for you, Louise!
have a wonderful weekend!

Claudia said...

wow - sounds like you're really busy - and i'm glad what you write about these young people. it's my experience as well...some don't seem to care - but others do and they make a difference in our world..so there's hope

Anonymous said...

good of you to tell the story about the young students.

enjoy your days