Harris Rosen, Hero

Heroes

Hero is defined as a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal. I have had many heroes in my life with Mom and Dad at the top of my hero list.

As a youngster I was once rescued in a dream by Roy Rogers on his horse Trigger when he lassoed a giant spider that had chased me to the edge of a cliff. I awoke very grateful to my childhood hero married to the lovely Dale Evans. I listened on the radio and sang Happy Trails to You at each conclusion of their broadcast. As I grew, people like Corrie Ten Boom, Victor Frankl, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi and others who protected and championed human life and value became personal heroes. The ultimate hero in my life is the Lord Jesus Christ who rescued me for all eternity.

Heroes inspire us to enlarge our vision of life and what can be accomplished through a single individual. Heroes make us want to live larger, give more, and leave a legacy for the future on planet Earth. Earth needs heroes in these perilous times. We need men and women of compassion, courage, inspiration and innovation to combat the challenges to peace and provision that surround society today. I read about such an individual the other day and was inspired to share his accomplishment.

Heroes can be found in all walks of life. Harris Rosen is a business man as was Schindler of Schindler’s List. Schindler fought a war against genocide. Harris Rosen chose to fight a war on poverty. His approach could change the entire planet if more businesses adopted his model of intervention.

In the early 1900’s Harris Rosen’s Jewish grandfather emigrated from Russia to New York where he opened a restaurant. Rosen grew up on New York’s lower East side where his parents encouraged him to get an education in order to open opportunity’s door. He took their advice and got a business degree in Hotel administration from Cornell before serving in the U.S. military for three years in Germany and South Korea. He worked for Disney before purchasing his first hotel in Orlando.

Today he still administers seven hotels, resorts and retreats in the Orlando metropolitan area, but after making millions he began an adventure in philanthropy. He thought, “You know, Harris, God has been so incredibly good to you. … It’s time for you to demonstrate that appreciation and start giving back to those who need a helping hand.” God’s goodness flowed through him and inspired a novel idea. He adopted a community. While adoption is a contemporary solution for many of society’s problems, it takes a visionary to adopt a community.

He adopted Tangelo Park, a poor, predominantly African-American neighborhood of about 2,400 residents. Tangelo Park’s problems were probably reminiscent of Harris’ childhood neighborhood. Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the ’40s and ’50s was a crowded ghetto teeming with immigrants and afflicted with disease. Tangelo Park had been orange orchards and then company housing for Martin Marietta. The area had few services nearby for residents and few public transit options. African Americans comprised 90 percent of the community, with many living below the poverty line.

Harris Rosen committed to give every neighborhood child age two to four access to free preschool. Parents have access to parenting classes, vocational courses and technical training at the local YMCA that Rosen expanded. Every high school graduate who is accepted to a Florida public university, community or state college, or vocational school receives a full Harris Rosen Foundation scholarship, which covers tuition, living and educational expenses through graduation.

The impact has been wide and deep. Tangelo Park Elementary is now a grade-A school. High school graduation rates went from 25% to 100%. Every high school senior graduates. Students pursuing higher education have a 75% graduation rate, the highest ethnic ratio in the country.

Rosen considers his Tangelo Park program another template for national policy, in this case, turning around the nation’s struggling neighborhoods without relying on government. If other businesses and foundations would adopt those communities, “We would not recognize America,” he says.

God bless you, Harris Rosen!

How to Search Pinterest

You’ve decided it’s time for Grandma to leave the 20th century and to step into the 21st, computer-savvy, information age.  You will be amazed at the wealth of information that can enrich your everyday life.  One of my favorite resources for my various interests is Pinterest.

After signing up for this treasure trove of ideas (see previous post), https://eternallyyoursblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/how-to-sign-up-for-pinterest/?preview_id=86&preview_nonce=aa4b2e3fa6&post_format=standard&preview=true you will be presented with a page of colorful pins on topics that you choose.  You can pin any of those presented by moving your computer mouse over the pin and clicking on the “pin it” icon.  However, if you are looking for a particular subject, move your cursor to the top of the page to the space that says “Search.” Click in the search bar and type in the topic that you want to pursue.  For Christmas I did very specific searches for my grandchildren like:  “most popular gifts for 11 year old girls,” “how to make lip balm,” and “Mindware catalog.”  The resulting searches gave Mrs. Claus all kinds of advice and “how to” instructions for great Christmas gifts for Grandma’s pride and joys.  Have fun!

 

 

Earthing: Getting Grounded for Better Health

Friends recently introduced us to the investigation of Earthing.  For those of you, like myself, who have never heard of Earthing, a brief explanation is necessary.  The hypothesis is that our bodies’ electrical systems require charging. Free radicals existing in our systems are molecules missing an electron which cause aging and inflammation throughout our bodies.  If free electrons are provided, the free radicals attach an electron and eliminate the inflammation produced in our bodies. So how can electrons be supplied?

The answer proposed by Clinton Ober, Steven Sinatra and Zucker Martin in Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? is that human beings until recently spent much of their time in close contact with the ground.  They walked on it, slept on it, sat on it, and made contact with the electrons that charge the earth’s surface. These electrons migrated through the soles of the feet and the body’s surface area so that people were recharged.  Electron transfer from the Earth through the body has shown a reduction of internal organ tension and inflammation. Chronic pain, stiffness, stress, and a variety of symptoms are reduced.  Reports of Earthing experiments have been written up in several medical journals.

The hypothesis is that modern man has insulated himself and lost touch with the earth.  We spend most of our time in buildings, cars and beds which replace “grounding time” with “insulated time.”  Even our rubber and synthetic soled shoes insulate against the recharging benefits of contact with the Earth.  Reconnecting to the Earth works surprisingly quickly to reenergize fatigued bodies and reduce pain.

Enthused with a health alternative for aching joints and poor sleeping patterns, we purchased a few items from the local hardware store and set up our own experiment with Earthing.  With only a couple of nights sleeping “grounded” we experienced a more restful night’s sleep and are experiencing a new “well-being” and reduced joint pain.  Here’s our homemade “Earthing” experiment.

Using a GRT-3500 outlet tester, we discovered our outlets are not grounded (house built in 1923) which excluded an indoor system. The alternative was an outdoor ground rod system.

To ground ourselves we drove a foot long copper tube into the frozen ground under our bedroom window.  (Colorado’s weather in winter is one reason we couldn’t just run around the yard barefoot to recharge our bodies and needed an indoor alternative.)

We attached a 30 foot, two-wire lamp cord to the copper rod with a hose clamp and ran the cord up and through TV antenna hole in wall of our bedroom.  At the bed we split the two wire cord into single copper strands, one for each of us.  We soldered alligator clips to each of the lamp wire cords.  My husband fashioned rings from 16 gauge copper wire to fit our respective fingers. For sleeping grounded, we attached the alligator clips to the rings.

The copper supplies the conductive highway for the electrons to travel from the ground and into our bodies.  Voila!  We are grounded and are experiencing positive health results.  Investigate this health resource straight from the Earth to you.

In the mail we received Earthing mats from http://www.earthing.com that are 10″ x 27″.  These fit at the bottom of your bed and connect with the copper wires to provide all night grounding while you sleep. You could also use them as a floor mat under your feet at your office desk during the work day if you devised or bought a portable Earthing kit. I’ll update future results in our Earthing health experiment as time reveals results.

 

Robbie Burns Supper

My husband Dennis and I love creating special occasions.  Lately his research into genealogy revealed he was 30% Irish and 26% English, Scottish and Welsh which was enough of an excuse to dip into Scottish heritage and celebrate the birthday of the most famous of Scottish poets, Robert Burns.  His birthday falls on January 25th just one month after Christmas and in the midst of a snowy, white month that could use stirring bagpipe music and single-malt scotch to warm the landscape.

I was commissioned to address the menu which typically includes haggis while Dennis compiled the traditional order of ceremony for the celebration.  Although the name “hagws” or “hagese” was first used in England c. 1430, the dish came to be considered traditionally Scottish, even the national dish, as a result of Burns’ poem “Address to a Haggis” of 1787. Haggis, a sausage-like creation of sheep heart, liver and grains is traditionally served with ruttabega and potatoes boiled and mashed separately, and a glass of Scotch whiskey.

How to Sign up for Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media bulletin board that allows members to explore various interests from the everyday tasks of cooking and gardening to the more exotic trends in fashion or travel. It is a goldmine of tips, techniques, and ideas for the inquisitive mind.

The process of joining Pinterest is relatively simple if you are connected to the internet and have an email address or a Facebook account.  You are five steps from enjoying the world of Pinterest.

1.  Type  http://www.pinterest.com into your web browser.
2.  The sign-up page will appear and ask if you want to sign-up with your email address or your Facebook account.  Type in the address of your choice and then create a password that will allow you to access your account.
3. Fill out the form following your password creation with your name, age and gender.
4. Click on box at bottom of page that says, “Come on in.”  At this point Pinterest will display a number of pictures representing interests and ask that you check at least five subjects which will become your pinterest boards.  You can choose more than five.  Clicking on these topic selections will open hundreds of “pins” on the “interest” that you are pursuing.
5. Finally, you might like to add the “Pinterest button” to your web browser so that you can pin pictures, articles or websites to your pinterest account.

Happy pinning!

Grandma’s Christmas Kits

As a grandmother I enjoy spoiling my grandchildren with activities and gifts that teach, amuse, inspire and create a fun-filled adventure.  In my quest for ideas I discovered a rich resource on Pinterest.  However, as a grandmother, I also discovered that there is a learning curve to climb in order to access and create gift kits and activities.  For those of us born before 1985 and the advent of personal computers,  I found it laughable to create a list of “how-to’s” that grandma had to learn in order to create this gift for a nine year old granddaughter.

• how to sign up for Pinterest
• how to search Pinterest for gifts for 9 year old girls
• how to find recipes for lip gloss
• how to order kit components from Amazon.com
• how to make labels from mailing labels
• how to insert graphics into a mailing label
• how to use You Tube learning tutorials for inserting graphics into mailing labels

So to all the grandma’s out there, persevere.  To live is to learn.  Here’s to life!  Here’s to learning!  Merry Christmas.

How to Create an Electronic Journal

I started journaling late in life in 2010.  I had spent years writing in notebooks that were stashed in various desks, cupboards and filing cabinets until a mentor (one who shares insights, best practices, and their talent) taught me the brilliance of storing all my wandering fancies in one place.  Each morning presents a new adventure to explore this wonderful world and its people, and I love to capture the fleeting “now” in an ongoing chronicle of life neatly contained in a computer file simply titled 2015 Journal.  I sit first thing in the morning before a computer screen drinking my morning coffee, as I read the day’s scripture reading, and write as I am inspired. As the year draws to its close, I anticipate printing the year’s memoir and taking it to the local FedEx Kinkos or UPS Store to be spiral bound.

My journal causes me to examine my life, rejoice over its beauty, and to adjust my heart so that I live a life with no regrets. Spiritually, my writing stimulates me to develop a listening attitude and communication with the Lord. Rereading entries encourages gratitude and faith as I revisit the blessings, testimonies and God incidents throughout the pages. My journals are color coded and red is the color of answered prayers.  For instance, my brother Pete  called one afternoon with a Praise Report!!! Screenings had detected that he had 50% blockages in both of is carotid arteries. He had gone for more tests. The results stated that there were no blockages and very little narrowing of his arteries. Praise, God, that prayer thing works. Hopefully my journals will provide a written legacy of faith for future generations.

I also record the dreams that I feel are God-directed in my journal.  I have a notebook by my bed that I use to write down dreams given in the middle of the night. Dream sequences are colored purple which causes them to stand out for future re-reading. Dreams are important instructions and insights from that Lord that I do not want to overlook. Psalm 16:7 instructs on the importance of dreams when David writes, ” I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.” Journaling has led me into learning more about dream interpretation and listening to the Lord as He speaks to me through the words and pictures of dreams.

Mentally, my journal provides education on subjects and interests I am pursuing.  My mentor when I started journaling was Joseph Peck, the Journal Guy, http://30-days-to-breakthrough.com/. He offers a free 30 day guide with a daily email to inspire personal journals and freely shares tips and insights about journaling.  Presently I’m investigating topics like blogging, marketing, and publishing online.  I insert tips, techniques and good ideas for future use into my journal pages.  My journal has also become an exercise book for writing prose and poetry, my creative outlet about life.

The journal is organized chronologically and gives a daily record of activities.  Quarterly, I list the goals that I have for the next three months.  A study of Harvard graduates found that after two years, the 3 percent who had written goals achieved more financially than the other 97 percent combined!” Extrapolating from this, only 3 percent of people set written goals and those who do earn on average more than 30x as much as those who don’t.

And throughout the year it becomes my weight diary.  Each quarter I determine to lose 10 pounds.  This quarter I’ve only got 15 to go.

One of my goals has always been to be a better letter writer. The journal makes it easy to cut and paste a letter diary that my mother loves to read.  Since she is affected by short-term memory loss, a printed letter can be re-read while a phone conversation is forgotten in minutes.  It’s easy to attach the journal letter with snapshots included to an email and let it wing through the ether to friends and family far away.

An unexpected outcome of journaling was a book that was compiled from a challenge I accepted to study the words of Jesus for 150 days.  After the first month I decided to share my study in book format and so published The Jesus Quest: Meditations on the Words of Jesus which is available on Amazon.com.

You never know where you might end up on your journal adventure.  Let me encourage you to begin.  It will be a breakthrough to many avenues in your life.

Dr. Mary Ellen Schoonover