The Anne Report, What’s Going on Now?, provides news about Anne’s current activities. The Main article, The Power of a Calling, shares a beautiful example of the positive impact that a powerful calling can make in a life. The Healthy Living article, Mind Over Matter – Does it Matter?, shows how our beliefs can affect matter. The Anne Talk, Lucy is a Sweet Dog, is a short, humorous song sung to Lucy, Anne’s dog, by Anne’s sister, Lois. The Featured Product This Month highlights Anne’s second book, EZosophy: The Art and Wisdom of EZ or At Least EZier Living. Click to read What is EZosophy? Click to join Abundance Affirmations. Click for Shareables From Anne.

The EZ Mantra: “Everything can be EZ or at least EZier.” -- Anne Sermons Gillis

Living EZosophy, April 23, 2019
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 713.922.0242
Email: anne@annegillis.com

Anne’s Websites:

  The Anne Report

What’s Going on Now?

Dear ,

We are in the process of selling our house. This involves keeping it straight. People call and make an appointment with Central Showing. They can give us as little as one hour’s notice for a showing. If we leave the house for a few hours, we leave it clean and we always keep it relatively clean, because one hour is not enough time to clean up a big mess. When we have a showing, we take the things off the kitchen counter tops and remove our towels and personal items from the bathroom. We have a few bins that we can load up and cart off to the garage. Click here for a video tour of our home.

We are forced to keep a clean house and I love it. Why we can’t do this all the time, I don’t know, but I have the most luxurious feeling, given the state of our clean house. It turns out that keeping a clean house saves time. I don’t throw an item down, when I’m in a hurry. I take the extra 30 seconds to hang it up. It feels like I am in a magic show, and my house is the recipient of this forced magic act.

Our dog recently started taking CBD oil. She hasn’t climbed our upstairs steps for years, but she’s been climbing them lately. A friend called to tell me how well her dog was doing, so I bought some as well, and it works.

Those are the two most important things going on in my life, so that’s it for the Anne Report.

  Main Article

The Power of a Calling

“Have you been fast asleep,
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls
The young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it,
The rainbow connection ...
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

The Rainbow Connection – By Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher

Have you ever had a calling: the knowing that you must do something? A calling is something that comes from deep within, that moves us into a greater expression of ourselves. It is different than a yearning. A yearning comes from feeling incomplete. A yearning holds hands with hopelessness and imagines life without something that we think we need to be happy. A calling doesn’t stop. It peeps through a forest of thoughts and coyly wiles us to itself.

We often have a yearning to do more, be more, but a calling is more creative. It takes who we are and what we know and bakes them into a new possibility. I don’t think we can ignore a calling, because it just doesn’t go away. It’s like a happy mosquito – thrilled with the idea of fresh flesh.

My childhood home had a built-in, book-filled, knotty pine bookcase nestled in a pine paneled den. I grew up looking at a brown set of encyclopedias, two dozen hardback Reader’s Digest books, and an assortment of inspirational books. The books never changed. Eventually I married and left home, and when I returned, the same books were always there.

In the early eighties, a new book appeared. It was Norman Vincent Peale’s book, Positive Imaging: The Powerful Way to Change Your Life. For years, Mom doused me with Peale’s positive attitude material. She was a believer, so I wasn’t surprised that she finally bought one of his books. It was when she went into the nursing home, where she spent the last years of her life, that I inherited the book. It is a book full of possibility, and it calls us to a stronger sense of self.

When I pick up the book and read a chapter or two, I think of mom. Maybe she speaks through the book to bring life lessons. The book, like mom, radiates a kindergarten consciousness. It expresses simply, touches deeply, and promotes imagination. Maybe this book isn’t the holy grail, but I think the following story from Dr. Peale's book, written in my words, illustrates the depth of what it brings through.

     Edith and Karl Taylor were married 23 years. Karl travelled, but when he was out of town, he wrote Edith every day and sent gifts. In 1949, the government sent him to Okinawa, for six months. Ethel received regular letters. She bought a fixer upper and worked at restoring it, to surprise Karl when he returned.

     Eventually Karl’s letters slowed, and one day she received the shock of her life. Karl wrote that he had obtained a quick divorce in Mexico, and that they were no longer married. He had met a 19-year-old woman, Aiko, and they planned to marry. Edith was 48. Karl was just going through a midlife crisis. She thought that his May-December marriage was doomed. She expected Karl would return in a year or two, but he didn’t.

     Marie was born in 1951 and Helen in 1953. Edith sent little presents to the girls and kept in touch with Karl and his new family. Then Edith received the news: Karl had lung cancer and would soon die. He was afraid of what would happen to his family. His medical expenses had used up their savings. Then another shock faced Edith. She knew what she must do – she had a calling. She wrote and told Karl she would take the children and raise them. This was her gift to Karl. She gave him peace of mind. Aiko didn’t want to let her children go, but she had no money and could only offer a life of impoverishment.

     When Karl died, the children came to live with Edith. Edith was happier than ever, caring for the young girls. Aiko wrote frequently, asking about her children, their habits, their fears. Aiko was miserable, her letters were pathetic, and, again, Edith had a calling. She wouldn’t let Aiko’s sorrow continue. She asked Aiko to come to America, to live with her and the two girls.

     She was nervous when she met the plane, but when she saw a scared, tiny, child-like figure exit the plane, she knew it was Aiko. Aiko was much more afraid than Edith. Edith called Aiko’s name and Aiko ran into her arms, hugging and holding on for life. Aiko and Edith went on to raise the girls together, and when the girls left home, Edith and Aiko continued to live together. Edith had a calling that emerged through personal tragedy.

So it is with callings; they won’t leave us alone until we act on them. We don’t have to be afraid we will miss them. When we are kicked off a cliff, the only way to go is down. Callings offer a choiceless adventure. Edith loved Karl and couldn’t let his children wither away in a foreign country, and she couldn’t be a part of Aiko’s suffering. Fortunately, when Edith put aside her pain, the thing that caused that pain became her greatest blessing. The moral of that story: Never underestimate the power of a calling. It may come by way of pain or pleasure, but however it comes, all we can do is to get out of the way, and when we do, our lives become EZier and EZier. And thanks, mom. I love that story.

  Quotes

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  Featured Product This Month

At last, the reprint of EZosophy: The Art of EZ or at Least EZier Living, is out. If you've been wanting an EZier life, this book provides a clear path toward EZ.

EZosophy:The Art and Wisdom of EZ or At Least EZier Living is a simple philosophy that radically changes lives. It is a book for the spiritually-based reader who no longer values the ego driven struggle of contemporary life.

EZosophy will help readers:

• Give up Hard Attacks. Hardaholic no more.
• Drop the drama.
• Make your life EZier. Ease is not indolence. Rather, ease is the art of accomplishment without struggle.
• Learn to identify ego driven suffering (EDS).

Click here to learn more about Anne's book, EZosophy.

Click here to learn about ALL of Anne's books.

  What is EZosophy?

Click the image to learn about EZosophy.

NOTE: If viewing this on a cell phone, be sure to scroll right to see the other column.

  Healthy Living

Mind Over Matter – Does it Matter?

I’ve written about apple cider vinegar (ACV, with the mother) before, but as I sip on it as a part of my 500 calories for today, I’m impressed once more at what it can do. One might ask why am I eating only 500 calories today? I am keen on doing everything I can to keep my mind sharp. There is a family history of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and fasting and calorie restriction are helpful to our brains. It seems that when we have little or no available food for energy, the body starts eating some protein in our bodies that are linked with dementia. I already water fast one day a week, but eating 500 calories twice a week is very helpful to the brain.

I’m trying out a 500-calorie diet today. My vinegar bottle says there are no calories in 2 tablespoons of ACV. I’m going with that even though it doesn’t seem quite right. I looked up ACV and found claims that it fights cancer, sweetens your breath, cuts down your appetite, and eliminates your internal and external yeast problems. It also eats up tumors and adds a little zip to a salad. It can kill many types of harmful bacteria. ACV lowers blood sugar levels and fights diabetes. It helps you lose weight and reduces belly fat. It lowers cholesterol and improves heart health. I guess the medical profession can just quit now, because all the major diseases we have can be healed with ACV!

I don’t know if ACV can do all these things, but since I am drinking ACV today and do so frequently, I like to think it can. The placebo effect, which is based on what we believe to be true, is so powerful that it can change our body chemistry and heal disease.

Whatever we do, it’s best to look for things that support our actions and decisions. If I read all the claims that ACV doesn’t have the research to support those claims, then I do myself no good. That’s why I love to read the benefits claimed in hundreds of articles. Healthy living has as much to do with our minds as it does with our actions. I’m drinking ACV today and eating only 500 calories. Maybe these aren’t the panaceas I think they are, but I don’t care. I’m choosing to believe that I’m on the right track and that I’m taking great care of myself. There are no downsides to taking ACV, and, as far as cutting down on my food, I won’t complain if I lose a pound or two. It’s probably more important to believe in what we do, than to believe that the action and doing of something offers the greatest benefit, and that’s why mind over matter does matter.

If you have any healthy living tips for the newsletter, send them to me at anne@annegillis.com.

  Anne Talk

Lucy is a Sweet Dog

Today’s Anne Talk, Lucy is a Sweet Dog, is a short, humorous song sung to Lucy, Anne’s dog, by Anne’s sister, Lois. Time: 1:40

I ran across this recently and had to share. This video was taken when we were having a family gathering in Florida. My sister, Lois, started singing “Lucy is a sweet dog.” I grabbed my camera and videoed it. I call it dinner theater because my sister was singing with her mouth full of food! Lucy was younger then. The two spots on Lucy’s nose, the ones my sister sang about, now blend into her grey hairs.

  Anne Art

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  Abundance Affirmations

Click to Join Anne's Facebook Group

This group is a place to post uplifting affirmations and thoughts about prosperity and abundant living. Let’s create a right relationship with money so that we feel comfortable about money. Let’s use money as it’s meant to be used, and not as a way to accumulate power or to fill a void. We don’t need money to buy more stuff. We need it to create a world that works for everyone. We want to cast off old beliefs of lack and reclaim our natural state of abundance. Anne, AKA Dr. Money, posts a nightly goodnight for the prosperity team, and everyone who watches them becomes a part of the prosperity team.

  Shareables From Anne

The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

40 Days to Abundance

EZosophy Vows

Vows of Seriousness

Anne's Conscious Carols

  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time
unless otherwise specified.

Sunday, May 19, 2019
11:00 AM Service: "Belonging"
Tapestry Unitarian Universalist Church
5400 Fellowship Lane
(Just off Klein Church Road)
Spring, TX 77379

Contact Anne to book your event:
713.922.0242 or anne@annegillis.com.