2.    The Breath You Take – (See above) Also, I think of the complex machinery that activates this life activity.  What a miracle!  We slap a baby’s bottom and it starts.  Then it continues with relatively no input from us for a lifetime. The average respiration rate for a person at rest is about 16 breaths per minute.  This means on average, we breathe about 960 breaths an hour or 23,040 breaths a day or 8,409,600 a year. If a person lives to 80, then that means on average they will take 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime!  That’s you.  That’s me.  Cool.

3.    Those We Love – Why is this?  These are the folks we should appreciate the most, but seldom do.  These are the people we should count in our blessings every day.  But these are the people that we expect to love us back because we love them.  Perhaps it’s the nature of love.  We love and expect love in return.  And you know, it almost always does – return, that is.  In fact, I’ll bet that it always does when our love is pure.  That’s the nature of love.  It’s a circle.  Instinctively we know this and so we tend to take it for granted.

4.    Water – This one’s unfortunately soon to slip out of the top 10.  But most of us who read this blog are still pretty blasé about it.  We turn the tap and the water comes out.  When it doesn’t, we groan. “Oh no” knowing what inconveniences that means for our day.  It’s still free – well in restaurants anyway.  We stand under it in the shower and it wakes us, cleans us, feeds us, grows our plants, keeps us alive.  It’s good stuff.
5.    The People Who Shell The Sunflower Seeds – When I was in grade school I used to love to buy those little packs of sunflower seeds in the shell, put a few in my mouth and separate the seeds from the shell with my teeth and tongue, store the seeds over on the right in one gum and then when I had 10 – 15 shelled, spit the shells out and eat the seeds.  Chomping down on those shelled seeds was always a pleasure.  A lotta work for that simple pleasure.  Then one day I walked into the store and they were selling bags of salted sunflower seeds already shelled!  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  I’ve been eating handfuls every day since then, never thinking about the work it took by somebody to shell those little guys.
6.    Waking Up – What a concept!  Sleep.  We get tired.  We shut down.  We close our eyes to the world around us and enter into another world, another dimension that we really know very little about where we, for all purposes, cease to be, wallowing in deep sleep, sailing off on the wings of strange, often nonsensical dreams, for about a third of our earthly lives.  And we always expect to wake up!  It goes without saying.  It’s a lot to assume if you think about it.
7.    Elimination – We take it in; we put it out.  In between our pipes strip from the matter what we need and send the rest on to hopeful oblivion.  Both inner and outer plumbing processes are totally taken for granted by most of us more fortunate ones.  With the push of a handle, all is well.
8.    Driving Between The Lines – I just got back from LA.  I’m constantly amazed by the swarms of cars on the freeways.  Basically, they all make it home in one piece.  They all do it right.  All those human beings staying in their lanes, thinking their thoughts, listening to their music, hating their bosses, dreaming their dreams, weeping and laughing, yakking and sitting alone spaced out –  driving between the lines.  Essentially we all want to live.  This is the basic principle behind this miraculous action.
9.    The Internet – This is a new one for the top 10.  The information highway, this wondrous cyber space library of fact and figure, google and twitter, instant satisfaction, endless knowledge is fast becoming our new way of life.  Are we amazed by it? Absolutely!  Are we already beginning to take it for granted?  You bet!
10.    Life

Even More Inspiration

• The Road To Inspiration — Peter Link and Julia Wade
• The Ira Awards Part 1
• Experiments of the Sub-conscious Mind / A Five Part Series — Part 2 – Dreams
• Experiments of the Sub-conscious Mind / A Five Part Series — Part 1 – Sleep
• Grieving In Silence
• A Walk In The Woods

Jenny Burton

The Miracle of Affirmation

affirmation, n
1. the act of affirming or asserting as true: opposed to negation or denial.
2. confirmation: ratification — antonym: grief

Jenny Burton grew up a foster child passed from family to family by four different sets of parents who all decided eventually that they just did not want her.  At the age of fourteen, flunking out of high school, verging on a life of no hope and the overwhelming obstacles of poverty in the South Bronx, she was led one Sunday to attend the small storefront church of the Reverend Josephine Richards.

There she found a light, a spiritual leader and, at last, a mother in the robust Reverend Richards.  Eventually, “Rev” took Jenny into her own house and unofficially adopted her.  Instead of a life in the streets, Jenny spent her latter teenage years singing in the choir of The Universal Church of Truth in the South Bronx.  There she found her voice and her commitment to God.  She graduated as high school valedictorian.

She continued to sing in the church choir and hone her considerable gospel chops and talent.  In the mid seventies she recorded a secular song that made it to several R&B charts and so began a secular recording career that spanned fifteen years.  She became a nationally known R&B and Dance Music artist and signed a five-year deal with Atlantic Records where she garnered two gold albums and four top ten singles.  She sang all over the world and had a strong and passionate fan base, but never really found her true satisfaction.

During the time of her secular success, she rarely missed a Sunday singing in the choir in Rev’s church.

In a major upheaval at Atlantic Records, her champions were replaced by others with their own agendas.  Jenny, more often being shunted to the back of the pack, left Atlantic in disappointment — her career seemingly short lived.  Rev was once again there for her — steadfast, strong.

Jenny turned fully to God and the expression of God’s grace and decided to dedicate her work to Inspirational music.  Her amazing vocal group, The Jenny Burton Experience, ran, sold out, at one of New York City’s top clubs for seven years, won the MAC Award for Best Vocal Group and was named Entertainers of the Year in New York City.  They opened for Stevie Wonder at Lincoln Center and became the first Gospel Group to headline in Atlantic City at Resorts International.

Then, once again, the roof caved in — literally.  The amazing run of The Jenny Burton Experience came to an end just as Rev’s old church collapsed leaving both Jenny and Rev destitute.  Jenny went to work in the corporate world scratching out a living in unfamiliar territory.  Rev never really recovered from the toppling of her church.  She passed away several years ago.

Jenny spent four years moving from job to job and hardly sung a note.  Believing her career to be finally over, living alone and facing depression daily, she worked through it and became an extremely capable manager on her job at a New York insurance company.

She never lost the faith that Reverend Richards had instilled in her.

The opportunity came to record her second Inspirational album — this time a solo effort.  She began to sing again.

A miracle is that which is divinely natural.

I Stand For You

Music by Peter Link
Lyrics  by Peter Link & Jenny Burton

I walk the roads you walked
With every step I take
I try to follow you
With every move I make
I see your shining light
And like a magnet
I am drawn to you
God let your light shine through
I’ll bear the torch and share the fire
And carry on the meanings of your life
As I go through life

Oh I’ll remember you
In everything I do
In every step I take
In every move I make
I’ll remember you
And I’ll walk in your shoes
I’ll stand in your grace
I shall not be moved
And what’s more
With all that you stand for

I stand for you
Yeah I stand for you
Ooooohhhhhhh
I stand for you

I dedicate my life
To the wisdom that you taught
I lift your sword of truth
To the battles you have fought
I carry on your name
So all the world will know
Of the light in you
God let your light shine through
And when it all is said and done
Those who’ve known me
Will have known you too
This I hope to do

Yeah I’ll remember you
In everything I do
In every step I take
In every move I make
I’ll remember you
And I’ll walk in your shoes
I’ll stand in your grace
I shall not be moved
And what’s more
With all that you stand for

I stand for you
Yeah I stand for you
Ooooohhhhhhh
I stand for you

I stand for you
I stand for you
You are my light
You are my lighthouse
Your blood is runnin’ through my veins
You stand for the truth
And nothing less
So I got to
Looks like it’s time to get dressed

My feet are shod
With the preparation of the gospel of peace

Got my shield of faith
And the breastplate of righteousness
Hand me down my helmet of salvation
And the sword of the spirit
The whole armor
The whole armor of God

And I’ll stand
I’ll stand
For you!

Even More Inspiration

• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Thinking And Creativity
• God Is doG Spelled Backwards
• What Is A Cantata?
• Drug Healing
• Phoenix Rising