Carpe Diem

Thomas Merton

. . . making the most of every opportunity.

Ephesians 5:16

READING A GREETING SERIES

Every minute life begins all over again.

CARPE

DIEM

This Is Your Day

On the occasion of ...............................................................................................................................

From ...............................................................................................................................

Date ...............................................................................................................................

Carpe Diem:Today Is Your Day Copyright Š 1998, 2014 by Ben Alex A co-production from Scandinavia Publishing House, Drejervej 15, 3. DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark info@scanpublishing.dk Scripture quotations are taken from The New International Bible.

Used by permission Printed in China ISBN 9788771324778

Also in this series: Comfort in Sorrow: Your Way to Recovery A New Beginning: Celebrating Your New Opportunity Closer Than a Sister: The Gift of Friendship

CARPE

DIEM This Is Your day

By Ben Alex

Today is the day “Seize today and trust tomorrow as little as you may.”

Most

-HORACE

of us do not know how to live in the present. We either are haunted by the past or preoccupied with the future. We grew up in a world where 90 percent of the information we received was determined by dos and don’ts. We were told to be careful, to prepare for the future, to become good people, to succeed. We were always getting ready to live but not quite living to the fullest.

Sometimes it is good to stop for a moment, take a deep breath, enjoy the sunset, and become aware of the present. Forget for a moment that the present is a necessary product of the past as well as a necessary cause of the future. Just live. Seize the moment. Say to yourself, “I’m alive, and everything is well. After all, there’s no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”

Now, extend this moment. Steal it from your future. Feed it to your past.

That’s the secret of success.

Some years ago, a man named Mel Fischer decided to search for a Spanish galleon that shipwrecked off the coast of Florida several hundred years before. Fischer believed the ship was loaded with silver and gold. During the salvage, Fischer lost his son in a tragic drowning accident.

-4-

Every morning, as Fischer and his crew got ready to dive into the shark-infested waters, Fischer said “Today is the day!” This was his daily motto for fourteen years. Then one day he finally struck gold. Huge amounts were pulled up from the ocean floor. Fischer’s persistence had paid off.

Today is the day. Make this your life motto and discover that the past and the future take care of themselves. Despite your losses, you may even find a great treasure in the end: the thrill of having lived life to the fullest.

“The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad” - Psalm 118:24

-5-

Today is the day

Resolved to live with all my might while I do live, and as I shall wish I had done ten thousand ages hence.

-Jonathan Edwards

LIFE IS A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. YOU NEVER KNOW what you’re gonna get.

-Forest Gump

LIFE IS LIKE A SCRAMBLED EGG.

-Don Marguis

LIFE IS A GREAT BUNDLE OF LITTLE THINGS.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes -6-

Today is the day “There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love.

And when the time comes --seize it, don’t miss it.”

-Max Lucado

LIFE IS THAT INCURABLE DISEASE FROM WHICH ALL HAVE THUS FAR DIED.

-M.G.Saphir

Life’s a voyage THAT’S HOMEWARD BOUND.

-Herman Metville

-7-

Today is the day I KNOW I AM -THAT SIMPLEST BLISS THAT MILLIONS OF MY BROTHERS MISS.

-Bayard Taylor FOLLOW YOUR BLISS.

-Joseph Campbell LIVE ALL YOU CAN; IT’S A MISTAKE NOT TO.

-Henry James LIFE WAS MEANT TO BE LIVED. AND CUR IOSITY MUST BE KEPT ALIVE.

-Eleanor Roosevelt I SHALL GROW OLD BUT NEVER LOSE LIFE’S ZEST. BECAUSE THE ROAD’S LAST TURN WILL BE THE BEST.

-Henry van Dyke -9-

Today is the day ONE REALM WE HAVE never CONQUERED - THE PURE PRESENT.

-D.H. Lawrence

IN WHAT ALONE IS OURS. THE LIVING NOW.

-Wordsworth

NOW CHOOSE LIFE.

-Deut 30:19

“NOW” IS THE WATCHWORD OF THE WISE.

-C.H. Spurgeon

THERE IS AN HOUR IN A MAN’S LIFE APPOINTED TO MAKE HIS HAPPINESS. IF THEN HE SEIZE IT.

-Beaumont

The present is pregnant with the future.

-Leibnitz -10-

Today is the day SEEK NOT FOR FRESHER FOUNTS AFAR. JUST DROP YOUR BUCKET WHERE YOU ARE.

-Sam Walter Foss EVERY MINUTE LIFE BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN.

-Unknown And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

-Abraham Lincoln

-11-

Today is the day AVOID RUNNING AT ALL TIMES. DON’T LOOK BACK. SOMEONE MIGHT BE GAiNING ON YOU.

-Leroy Paige

We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come.

-A.W. Tozer

MANY PEOPLE ARE SO AFRAID TO DIE THAT THEY NEVER BEGIN TO LIVE.

-Henry van Dyke

DOUBT MAKES THE MOUNTAIN WHICH FAITH CAN MOVE.

-Unknown

LEARN FROM YESTERDAY. LIVE FOR TODAY. HOPE FOR TOMORROW.

-Anonymous 12-

Today is the day

-13-

Today is the day

A WISE MAN WILL MAKE MORE OPPORTUNITIES THAN HE FINDS.

-Francis Bacon

WHEN ONE DOOR IS shut, another OPENS.

-Cervantes

NEXT TO KNOWING WHEN TO SEIZE AN opportunity, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO KNOW WHEN TO FOREGO AN ADVANTAGE.

-Disraeli -14-

Today is the day Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine.

I seek not a long life but a full one like You, Lord Jesus.

-Jim Elliot AS SOON AS THERE IS LIFE THERE IS DANGER.

-Emerson God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

-Reinhold Niebuhr MY LIFE IS LIKE A STROLL UPON THE BEACH. AS NEAR THE OCEAN’S EDGE AS I CAN GO.

-Thoreau

-15-

Today is the day FILL MY HOUR ... SO THAT I MAY NOT SAY, WHILST I HAVE DONE THIS, “BEHOLD, ALSO, AN HOUR OF MY LIFE IS GONE,” - BUT rather “I HAVE LIVED AN HOUR.”

-Emerson

THERE IS LEFT FOR MYSELF BUT ONE DAY IN THE WEEK - TODAY.

-Robert Burdette

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

-Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is a glorious thing to know that your Father God makes no mistakes in directing or permitting that which crosses the path of your life. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. It is our glory to trust Him, no matter what.

-Joni Eareckson Tada -15-

Today is the day “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”

-Galatians 6:10a How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

-George Washington Carver ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT! HEART WITHIN, AND GOD O’ERHEAD!

-Longfellow THE PRESENT IS ALL THOU HAST FOR THY SURE POSSESSING: LIKE THE PATRIARCH’S ANGEL HOLD IT FAST TILL IT GIVES ITS BLESSING.

-John Greenleaf Whittier -16-

Today is the day

-18-

Today is the day THE LESS OF ROUTINE. THE MORE OF LIFE.

-A.B. Alcott

THE FINEST ART IS THE ART OF LIVING.

-John Macy

Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity... Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

-Ephesians 5:15-17

DAYS ARE SCROLLS: WRITE ON THEM WHAT YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED.

-Jewish Proverb

WRITE IT ON YOUR HEART THAT EVERY DAY IS THE BEST DAY IN THE YEAR .

-Emerson

KEEP BREATHING.

-Sophie Tucker -19-

Today is the day THE FUTURE IS NO MORE UNCERTAIN THAN THE PRESENT.

-Walt Whitman

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.

-Corrie Ten Boom

THE FUTURE IS PURCHASED BY PRESENT.

-Samuel Johnson

HOPE IS THE PARENT OF FAITH.

-C.A. Bartol

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS.

-Emily Dickenson

LAY hold of TODAY’S TASK, AND YOU WILL NOT DEPEND SO MUCH UPON TOMORROW’S.

-Seneca -20-

Today is the day IF I KNEW I SHOULD DIE TOMORROW, I’D STILL PLANT AN apple tree today.

-Luther DO NOT COUNT THE SEEDS IN THE APPLE. COUNT THE APPLES IN THE SEED.

-Anonymous

-21-

Today is the day A DAY IS A MINIATURE Eternity.

-Emerson

THE PRESENT IS AN INDIVISIBLE POINT WHICH CUTS IN TWO THE length OF AN INFINITE LINE.

-Diderot

YOUR PRESENT IS...

ELASTIC TO EMBRACE INFINITY.

-Louis Anspacher

Unless IT IS A PRESENT WHICH FORMS A LINK BETWEEN TWO ETERNITIES, REPRESENTING AN ANSWER OF AMEN TO THE PAST AND AN OPENING PRAYER TO THE FUTURE, IT WILL BE A VERY PETTY PRESENT INDEED.

-Solomon Schechter -22-

Today is the day

DAY’S SWEETEST MOMENTS ARE AT DAWN.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

ONLY THAT DAY DAWNS TO WHICH WE ARE AWAKE. THERE IS NO MORE DAY TO DAWN. THE SUN IS BUT A MORNING STAR.

-Thoreau

I love to live on the brink of eternity.

-David Brainerd

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Today is the day