We lost the living saint who was known simply as "Mother Teresa" in 1997. This would have been her 95th birthday. For eighty-eight years this amazing and miraculous woman single-handedly did more to give comfort and hope and love to the "poorest of the poor" than any other individual of the 20th Century. Now beautified by the Catholic Church she is on the fast track to becoming the most rapidly proclaimed saint in history. I had this vision on the day that she died that all of the angels and saints and Jesus, himself came to greet HER at those "Pearly Gates" when she arrived there. This amazing woman left even the humility of a poor convent in her native Albania to form her own order "The Sisters of Charity" and she and that order of nuns brought hope and love and comfort to those who needed her and them most. Among the many wise things this great nun said was "I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus 'Love One another, as I have loved you!" Ask yourself every day "How has He loved me?" "Do I really love others in the same way?" "Do I forgive others in the same way?" Unless this love and forgiveness is among us at every moment, we can kill ourselves with work and it will ONLY be work-- not love. Work without love is slavery!" She also said "Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than you do in your own weaknesses-- and what we lack will become courage if we listen for his voice in the silence of our hearts!" Amazing words from a small, frail, short and sweet woman who always said that the fruit of love is service and the fruit of service is peace! No matter how many Christian religions exist on this planet and how many different roads To God that they all follow these words of hers sum up our entire belief: as Christians in general "Jesus is my God. Jesus is my Spouse. Jesus is my life. Jesus is my only love. Jesus is my all in all. And oh yes Jesus is my everything! So starting this day, I am saying those words and living those words and forgiving every soul who has hurt me, put me down, chastised me or betrayed me. I forgive them all as God has and always will forgive me. Their small attempts at making me feel inferior or sad or under accomplished are just that-- small potatoes in a field of bounty and beauty and constant blessings. So I don't have fame, fortune and the ability to live as my sisters live-- so what? Someday I will. I know that because God has given me an extrordinary talent without one day of education for it! And God wastes nothing! I can't take expensive vacations any more-- that's okay, I've seen thirteen countries in the world in the first thirty-five years of my life! I am blessed by amazing friends like my arranger Tim Doran who puts up with my bad musical habits and character flaws-- but for all these years, he has stood by my side and helped me and cared about me and works to accomplish my dream (and his) that no one else in the world could even begin to do. He was selected to go to Julliard in his youth. He went another route instead! Trust when I tell you that a Julliard educated composer and arranger would never have worked with the likes of me. Our paths would NEVER have crossed-- now if that doesn't illustrate one of my songs "God Draws Straight With Crooked Lines" I don't know what does! So thank you, God and thank you Tim. And thank you, Mother Teresa for your words of wisdom and the reminder that redaing them today has accomplished for my life!
We lost the living saint who was known simply as "Mother Teresa" in 1997. This would have been her 95th birthday. For eighty-eight years this amazing and miraculous woman single-handedly did more to give comfort and hope and love to the "poorest of the poor" than any other individual of the 20th Century. Now beautified by the Catholic Church she is on the fast track to becoming the most rapidly proclaimed saint in history. I had this vision on the day that she died that all of the angels and saints and Jesus, himself came to greet HER at those "Pearly Gates" when she arrived there. This amazing woman left even the humility of a poor convent in her native Albania to form her own order "The Sisters of Charity" and she and that order of nuns brought hope and love and comfort to those who needed her and them most. Among the many wise things this great nun said was "I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus 'Love One another, as I have loved you!" Ask yourself every day "How has He loved me?" "Do I really love others in the same way?" "Do I forgive others in the same way?" Unless this love and forgiveness is among us at every moment, we can kill ourselves with work and it will ONLY be work-- not love. Work without love is slavery!" She also said "Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than you do in your own weaknesses-- and what we lack will become courage if we listen for his voice in the silence of our hearts!" Amazing words from a small, frail, short and sweet woman who always said that the fruit of love is service and the fruit of service is peace! No matter how many Christian religions exist on this planet and how many different roads To God that they all follow these words of hers sum up our entire belief: as Christians in general "Jesus is my God. Jesus is my Spouse. Jesus is my life. Jesus is my only love. Jesus is my all in all. And oh yes Jesus is my everything! So starting this day, I am saying those words and living those words and forgiving every soul who has hurt me, put me down, chastised me or betrayed me. I forgive them all as God has and always will forgive me. Their small attempts at making me feel inferior or sad or under accomplished are just that-- small potatoes in a field of bounty and beauty and constant blessings. So I don't have fame, fortune and the ability to live as my sisters live-- so what? Someday I will. I know that because God has given me an extrordinary talent without one day of education for it! And God wastes nothing! I can't take expensive vacations any more-- that's okay, I've seen thirteen countries in the world in the first thirty-five years of my life! I am blessed by amazing friends like my arranger Tim Doran who puts up with my bad musical habits and character flaws-- but for all these years, he has stood by my side and helped me and cared about me and works to accomplish my dream (and his) that no one else in the world could even begin to do. He was selected to go to Julliard in his youth. He went another route instead! Trust when I tell you that a Julliard educated composer and arranger would never have worked with the likes of me. Our paths would NEVER have crossed-- now if that doesn't illustrate one of my songs "God Draws Straight With Crooked Lines" I don't know what does! So thank you, God and thank you Tim. And thank you, Mother Teresa for your words of wisdom and the reminder that redaing them today has accomplished for my life! 
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