THINK ABOUT IT ...
I went into a store the other day to look at the selection of books on the shelves. What to read . . . what to read.
Actually, I went in to take something back and the person at the register said that I could not be reimbursed but that I would be given store credit. So I walked over to the books and began scanning the titles. Since this store had items regarding the healing arts it contained stones, CD’s for meditation and massage, teas, and such. I just wanted something that I considered ‘normal’. I went to the book section and found all kinds of normal and out-of-this-world literature.
The book that caught my eye was a beautifully bound small one with a powder blue colored jacket, gilded paper edges, a gold ribbon for a bookmark, and the beginning words of a Bible verse on the cover: As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. This verse has to be one of my favorites and it comes from Proverbs 23:7. The first part of the verse reads “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
So I picked it up, it felt good in my hands, and I wondered if I had read it back in the 70's when I was reading not only the Bible for the first time but also inspirational books by Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, etc. I decided that if I had read this book that it would still be a good thing to have, that I really liked the look of it anyway and that I would buy it with my store credit.
I love the smell of new books. It is a smell of pages yet to be turned, words yet to be read, adventures yet to be experienced if only in one’s mind. This “Keepsake Edition”, in its original publication in 1903, did not have a brief biography of James Allen nor his final book entitled Eight Pillars of Prosperity. But it did have words that are powerful and thoughtful. Words which are now repackaged in 2010 and sold in bookstores under different titles and by different authors. There is no new thing or rather thought, may I say, under the sun. There are definitely new things . . . ipods, Kindles, electronics of every kind. But new thoughts?
I don’t think so.
I have been reading a book about Indians and their plight. The book is written by a man who married an Indian woman and in the story, he incorporates Indian beliefs and sayings. He wrote that this particular tribe calls God ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What will Be’. I would like to add some words to the end of this phrase and say ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What Will Be And Speaks It Into Existence’.
Just look at chapter one in Genesis.
So I thought to buy this book and said, “Thank you” to the person behind the cash register. Carrying this little blue-bound book in a bag to my car, I began to be excited about opening its golden-edged pages to read what James Allen thought to write about.
Here are some of his thoughts:
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”
“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”
“As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.”
“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; . . . ” “Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.” (Does this sound like a popular book title to you or a new earth law?)
“The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought . . . ”
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results: . . ”
“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever moving thoughts.”
There are no new thoughts under the sun. Just new book titles and new authors and a new generation who will read the new books and think they are reading new thoughts.
I don’t think so.
What do you think?
© Nancy 7.5.2010
Actually, I went in to take something back and the person at the register said that I could not be reimbursed but that I would be given store credit. So I walked over to the books and began scanning the titles. Since this store had items regarding the healing arts it contained stones, CD’s for meditation and massage, teas, and such. I just wanted something that I considered ‘normal’. I went to the book section and found all kinds of normal and out-of-this-world literature.
The book that caught my eye was a beautifully bound small one with a powder blue colored jacket, gilded paper edges, a gold ribbon for a bookmark, and the beginning words of a Bible verse on the cover: As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. This verse has to be one of my favorites and it comes from Proverbs 23:7. The first part of the verse reads “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
So I picked it up, it felt good in my hands, and I wondered if I had read it back in the 70's when I was reading not only the Bible for the first time but also inspirational books by Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, etc. I decided that if I had read this book that it would still be a good thing to have, that I really liked the look of it anyway and that I would buy it with my store credit.
I love the smell of new books. It is a smell of pages yet to be turned, words yet to be read, adventures yet to be experienced if only in one’s mind. This “Keepsake Edition”, in its original publication in 1903, did not have a brief biography of James Allen nor his final book entitled Eight Pillars of Prosperity. But it did have words that are powerful and thoughtful. Words which are now repackaged in 2010 and sold in bookstores under different titles and by different authors. There is no new thing or rather thought, may I say, under the sun. There are definitely new things . . . ipods, Kindles, electronics of every kind. But new thoughts?
I don’t think so.
I have been reading a book about Indians and their plight. The book is written by a man who married an Indian woman and in the story, he incorporates Indian beliefs and sayings. He wrote that this particular tribe calls God ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What will Be’. I would like to add some words to the end of this phrase and say ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What Will Be And Speaks It Into Existence’.
Just look at chapter one in Genesis.
So I thought to buy this book and said, “Thank you” to the person behind the cash register. Carrying this little blue-bound book in a bag to my car, I began to be excited about opening its golden-edged pages to read what James Allen thought to write about.
Here are some of his thoughts:
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”
“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”
“As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.”
“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; . . . ” “Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.” (Does this sound like a popular book title to you or a new earth law?)
“The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought . . . ”
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results: . . ”
“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever moving thoughts.”
There are no new thoughts under the sun. Just new book titles and new authors and a new generation who will read the new books and think they are reading new thoughts.
I don’t think so.
What do you think?
© Nancy 7.5.2010
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