- ‘GOD IS IN THE DETAIL’
- A CHRISTMAS THANK YOU!
- JESUS AND HIS FATHER
- MY LORD IN MY HEART, a Guitar and a Knife -a true story!
- Chillin’ For a Few Weeks!
- CARTOONS by Narvie and Nityangi
- BERT and MARTHA
- COLLECTING & DECLUTTERING – Living & Dying
- DECALCOMANIA (Decals) – Guitar Decoration Part. 1.
- ANZAC DAY, MY FATHER and ‘REGIME CHANGE’ WARS
- GOD ALWAYS LOVES US
- UNCONDITIONAL FRIENDSHIP & KINDNESS – A true story
- ALL IS RIGHT IN THE GARDEN – For Now!
- HOW TO MAKE A PYRAMID BRIDGE Part 1. Introduction
- HOW TO MAKE A PYRAMID BRIDGE Part 2. 20th Century Pyramid Bridge
- HOW TO MAKE A PYRAMID BRIDGE Part 3. Truncated or Chicago Bridge
- HOW TO MAKE A PYRAMID BRIDGE Part 4. 19th Century Pyramid Bridge
- The DUNNING-KRUGER effect – when incompetent people think they are amazing!
- I cured my IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME (IBS) with an ANTIBIOTIC (Amoxicillin)
- HUMILITY IS NOT A WEAKNESS
- TOOL CADDY for my grandson
- A BIG THANK YOU!
- GOSSIP & RUMORS
- “I’VE SEEN THE ELEPHANT!”
- CARTOONS by my 14yr old grandson
- THE BLIND MEN & THE ELEPHANT
- GETTING OLD!
Category: Miscellaneous
GETTING OLD?
WHEN I STARTED SEEING MYSELF AS ‘OLD’.
I remember exactly when I realized I had reached ‘old age’ — or rather my body had reached ‘old age’.
You would think in my seventy’s I should have reached that point long ago. But up until my late sixty’s I felt I was keeping it together. But then an incident occurred that changed that perception:
THE BLIND MEN & THE ELEPHANT
Stories have been used to illustrate important ideas in different cultures for thousands of years, with some of the same stories appearing in more than one culture. This story comes from the Vedic tradition and was told by Srila Bhaktsiddhanta Swami, the guru of the guru of my guru (spiritual teacher).
The Blind Men & the Elephant
A group of blind men heard of a strange animal called an ‘elephant’ from some elderly people. Naturally they had a very strong urge to have first-hand experience of such an animal via the sense of touch. Walking sticks in hand, the blind persons arrived at the elephant stable in the royal palace, and requested the elephant keepers to permit them to touch the elephant’s different limbs.
“I’VE SEEN THE ELEPHANT!”
The first elephant to arrive in the USA was in 1796, and was exhibited around the country, so it was a question people asked — “Have you seen the elephant?”
In the mid 1800’s it was an idea often expressed in the West of America when someone was dying — “You’ve seen the elephant!”— meaning they’ve seen and experienced everything worthwhile in this world and it was now OK to die. http://www.awb.com/dailydose/?p=1097
GOSSIP & RUMORS
One day a parishioner went into the church to see his priest for confession. The priest asked what he wished to confess, and he stated he had been gossiping about someone.
The churchgoer was not thinking this to be a serious sin and expected to be asked to say a couple of “Hail Mary’s.” However, the priest said to him, “Go onto the highest roof-top you can find in the community with a feather-down pillow, cut it open, and let all the feathers fly into the wind, then return to see me next week.”
A BIG THANK YOU!
Thank you to everyone, especially my subscribers, for hanging in there on this website. It has been 5 years now since I started it and it’s a surprise to me I am still around.
I realize that with the variety of subjects with my posts that they are not all going to appeal to everyone, but what surprises me is the many emails and comments I get in support of what I am doing. And although I have my email address charles@koolaru.com in many places throughout the site, in all those 5 years I have only received one negative comment. And it was a pretty pathetic one at that!
So, a big thank you for the support of everyone who reads my posts, especially those who have subscribed to receive notification when new material is posted.
TOOL CADDY* for my Grandson
(* One dictionary definition of ‘Caddy’: a container or device for storing or holding objects when they are not in use).
I have 4 grandsons and 6 granddaughters. All are amazing! One of my grandsons is 14 and loves to build things and is what I call “an ideas person”. Always thinking about how things work and thinking of different ways of doing things.
He lives in the USA and I live in Australia, so I do not get to see him nearly as much as I like.
I have a range of interests and vintage guitars is only a small part of my life, but I’ve always worked with my hands and I have a workbench that reflects this:
My grandson has only a few tools so I decided to give him some small hand tools as a birthday gift and a ‘tool caddy’ to keep them in. I made it ‘flat pack’ so he could put the caddy together himself, and it made it easier to send.
HUMILITY IS NOT A WEAKNESS
It is a quality in developing love of God
Today our children are taught, directly and indirectly, that humility is something that does not get you far in this world. They are told they are “special” – better than others – and that the world owes them.
But for one who is trying to develop love for God, ideas of ‘specialness’ or self-importance go against all spiritual concepts:
Continue reading “HUMILITY IS NOT A WEAKNESS”
FORGIVENESS – a true story
Holding onto anger and bitterness towards someone who has caused us grief hurts me much more than the person my anger is aimed towards.
I want to tell a true story that is well known in New Zealand. It is about a lady who showed great love and forgiveness to those who caused massive upheaval and pain in her life:
In order to help get this story out to a wider audience, I tell it here in my own words. It is a powerful account that can change lives. There are references at the end of the story if you wish to read more about it.
In 1996, a group of Black Power gang members attacked a rival gang member in Taranaki, New Zealand. It was a brutal attack in which the victim’s face was slashed and several of his fingers were severed with a tomahawk.
The attack occurred outside the house of a family man, Christopher Crean, who’d witnessed the attack as he mowed his lawn.
I cured my IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME (IBS) with an ANTIBIOTIC (Amoxicillin)
I’ve been meaning to post about this for some time now in the hope it is of use to someone suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
Up to 12 months ago I had constant diarrhea for 2 years. It started after a particularly hot chilli Indian meal, that I knew at the time I shouldn’t have eaten, however I felt obliged as I was a guest at the meal. The next day was excruciating and no mater what I did over the following weeks the diarrhea continued. I had many tests including 3 different stool tests checking for bad bacteria, a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy (sometimes called an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy) and of course blood tests. Apart from a slightly inflammation of the bowel nothing showed up as a cause.
After 2 years of this, I was thinking it was something I was going to have to live with the rest of my (probably shortened) life.
About 12 months ago I got a throat infection and was prescribed a course of the antibiotic Amoxicillin. My diarrhea immediately stopped. But when I finished the two-week course of the drug the diarrhea came back.
I googled antibiotics and IBS and sure enough there were a few references by sufferers who’d had the same experience, not with Amoxicillin but some other antibiotics, the main one being Rifaximin (Xifaxan). Neomycin, Clarithromycin (Biaxin) and Metronodazole (Flagyl) were also mentioned. As soon as the 2 week course of the antibiotic was stopped the diarrhea returned. One did say that they were cured after two months on antibiotics.
Continue reading “I cured my IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME (IBS) with an ANTIBIOTIC (Amoxicillin)”
The DUNNING-KRUGER effect
Ego and humility – when incompetent people think they are amazing!
I don’t think I ever thought I was amazing at anything. I’ve always looked upon myself as a jack of many things but a master of none. Continue reading “The DUNNING-KRUGER effect”