Thinking about

Today, two things have bothered me.  One is a book that I finished last night and that is lingering today.  The Night Strangers is a ghost/horror story and has all the suspense of and some similarity to Rosemary's Baby.  (Remember the book and the movie with a young Mia Farrow, anyone?  It was a long time ago.) 

 I read The Night Strangers for the R.I.P. Challenge I participate in each year on my book blog--Readers Imbibing Peril.  You know, a kind of pre-Halloween kind of reading challenge that my friend Carl hosts each year.  For the past six years, I've participated in this challenge and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I've read (and occasionally reread) books that involve the supernatural or scary or just plain weird.  

However, even though The Night Strangers is a  good ghost/horror story, it is unsettling, disturbing.  And this morning, after doing my yoga sadhana and pranayama, and beginning my meditation, the book appeared in my mind.  Usually, I can dismiss thoughts and return to meditating, but this morning, I simply couldn't because it had jarred my mood too much.  

The other thing that bothered me was reading about a post and counter-post on a quilting blog and the really unpleasant, and often anonymous, comments that were made.  

So, overall, an unpleasant way to begin the day.  Not even the little bit of rain we received this morning and the wonderfully cooler temperatures we are enjoying  quite rid me of these oppressive feelings.

BUT THEN...

 I happened on a blog post that cheered me up and offered some really good advice in the form of a quote.  Amy's post this morning at The Idea Room puts things in perspective.  Here is the quote:

The world has enough women who are tough;

we need women who are tender.

There are enough women who are coarse;

we need women who are kind.

There are enough women who are rude;

we need women who are refined.

We have enough women of fame and fortune;

we need more women of faith.

We have enough greed;

we need more goodness.

We have enough vanity;

we need more virtue.

We have enough popularity;

we need more purity.

-Margaret D. Nadauld

This quote and Amy's post have begun to restore my equanimity.  It is a reminder to be ever conscious of the choices we make, the things we say, even the things we think because these words and thoughts can be harmful not only to others, but also to ourselves.

Which brings me back to this quote I've use before on this blog and that concludes every email from A Note from the Universe: 

 Thoughts become things...choose the good ones.

**I also want to read Jeffrey Sachs' book The Price of Civilization:  Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity, in which Sachs' "offers not only a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country’s economic ills but also an urgent call for Americans to restore the virtues of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity."