Found Not Lost

This morning I received an e-card from a good friend. The card said, to paraphrase, “The greatest reward is to witness the journey of life.” Most of the time when we say we are receiving a reward, we immediately think of material rewards when in truth the greatest rewards are those that we cannot see or buy.

Life Inspirations - Volume 1: Poetry with Purpose is a book of inspirational poetry by Ozell Adkins. Reading some of the excerpts from the book, one is compelled to think more, focus more on how we are living our life. Do we appreciate the life that we have enough? Do we love the people around us enough? Do we care enough about other than our selves?

I like the language of the poems. They are easy to understand, down to earth. I like that. I don’t like poetry that talks way over me. This is like talking to a beloved grandma or friend, it’s comfortable, it’s soothing and it’s inspiring. It makes you want to live more and live freer. It makes you look at your world and inspires you to become a conscious, active part of it. For instance the poem, Along the Way, ends with:

So no matter how busy a rush
You are in from day to day
Please find some time to stop
And help someone along the way.

Straight to the point, direct and hits right at the heart of things. I haven’t read the whole book, just peeked at some of the excerpts; but I think this is a book I’d like to keep in my pocket book for a while so that I can pull it out when I need reminding. Whenever I get one of those ‘oh poor me’ moments, I’d like to read one of these inspirational poems and be reminded that there is always a purpose in all things, even the bad, seemingly insurmountable things. Wherever you are in life, whatever you may be going through, know that there is always a deeper meaning to your suffering and remember that saying about only being awarded what you can carry.

Whenever you say ‘BOOKS’ and ‘FREE’ in the same sentence, you’ve definitely got my attention. I just joined a reading group and found out about this site where you can download books for free. The other sites I’ve looked at you can download either in one type of reader or in PDF file. At Many Books, you can download PDF files but you can also download to a variety of readers including the Kindle. Most of the title are classics but there are still quite a few contemporary titles mixed in.

I have been downloading PDF files as I said and just reading from my laptop, but now with all these titles available for free, I’m almost tempted to get Kindle too. So tell me, do you have a Kindle and if you do, is it really worth it? Do you pull it out and actually use it or is it just sitting in your purse or briefcase? If it is just sitting in your purse, is it heavy?