STUDY MATERIAL

The Love Story

One Sunday afternoon about a year ago a friend called and asked me if I had time to talk and was I sitting down? Then she just kept on talking without even giving me a chance to answer her.
“You won’t believe what I’m about to tell you, Keith! I didn’t know who to call except you.”
Since she’d convinced me that what she was about to say was something really juicy, I let her keep on keeping on.
”Are you sitting down?” she asked again, barely able to contain herself with the magnitude of what she was about to lay on me.
“Yeah, I’m sitting down – what is it?”
“Last night I went to a rock concert with a friend of mine and, after the show, we decided to go back to his house and hang out for a while. I thought I was into it but just a few minutes after I got there, my headspace shifted from wanting to party to wanting to leave — right away!
“Sorry, bud, but I have to go,” I told my friend as I headed for the door.
”What? — Why? It’s raining cats and dogs out there!”
”I don’t know why. I just know I have to right now!“
That didn’t give him much choice but to stand there waving at me as I backed out of his driveway.
As I turned on to the main street, I somehow ended up in a lane that wouldn’t allow me to make the right I’d made so many times before at that first stop light. So I decided to just keep going forward, make a few extra turns and get home that way.
But at the very next intersection, I got in the wrong lane again, so I decided to move along to the next light and then make my turn.
When I got there, I was aware of what I was doing but as I started to steer right, something inside of me said, ‘Don’t turn now. Go to the next light to take your right!’ The feeling (voice) was so strong and sure that, even though I didn’t know why I was doing it and I thought this whole thing was really, really strange, I decided to follow what voice was telling me to do.
Well, the minute did it, I realized that I’d put myself in a place where no one with any common sense or knowledge of the area would want to be. But that didn’t seem to matter because I still felt compelled to drive just a little further and take the next right, at which point the voice inside said, ’Go slow and turn on your brights.’ That’s when I heard myself scream, ’What in the world am I looking for?’
I swear to God, Keith, what happened next totally blew my mind. Out of nowhere, a little child wearing only a diaper ran out in front of my car. I immediately slammed on my brakes, shouted “Oh, my God,” then threw the car into park, jumped out and grabbed that precious child close to me, both of us crying and frightened. “Don’t you worry,” I told the little boy, “I’m here now and I won’t let you go!”
The police showed up just a couple of minutes after I called and one of them immediately took the boy out of my arms. While they were checking him out to make sure he wasn’t injured in any way, one of them asked me what had happened. As soon as I finished telling him what I’m telling you, he told me I could leave. “I’m afraid not, my friend, that just ain’t gonna happen!”
“What do you mean, ma’am?“
“Didn’t you pay any attention to what I just told you?“
“Yes, ma’am, I did. Why’re you asking me that?“
“Well, I believe I’m supposed to be with this child and I ain’t leavin’ ‘til his parents come for him — so you might as well give him back to me!“
“Okay, but that could be a while depending on when the report comes in that he’s missing.“
“Doesn’t matter…I’ll wait as long as I can. So please….” And I opened my arms to take him in.
“As soon as the boy was settled against me, the officer walked us over to his squad car and guided us into the back seat. The child was soon fast asleep, but not me and, after two hours of waiting, I was starting to nod out every few minutes. Besides, I knew I had to be at work in just a few hours, so, even though I didn’t want to let him out of my arms nor my sight, I knew I had to go. So I kissed his precious face and told him I loved him and I even felt that he said it back to me through the appreciation he held in his big blue eyes. As I was handing him back to one of the officers, he told me to be sure to give them my number so he could call me when he knew something.
“I was really relieved when I got the call the next day. What the officer told me is that it turns out that the boy’s family had come to Memphis from New Hampshire to visit relatives and that, on the night I found him, he had awakened around 2:30 and managed to let himself out of the house. For the next hour or so, this little 3-year-old managed to trudge a mile and half through the woods in the pouring rain with no shoes or clothes on until our paths met. The cop couldn’t tell me emphatically enough how thrilled his parents are to have their boy back and how grateful they are to me for what I did.”
After telling this most amazing story, my friend asked me if I thought that she had been prompted by some unseen force to rescue this child. I thought about her question and then I gave her some things to consider.
“What do you think?” I asked first. “Maybe you were rescuing yourself! But for sure the force guiding that experience was not unseen! Everything in it revealed itself, wouldn’t you say? It could be that your love and caring is so great that you summoned him to you and he was feeling his own calling to find you again so that you could be together at that moment in time.
When I first heard this story, and even now as I write it, it puts me in such a state of GRACE that my being explodes with a JOY that makes me cry a river. And that river seems to take me all the way to the Source that I’ve been searching for my whole life! I will forever be grateful to my friend for choosing me to share it with.

 

Henry Ziegland thought he had dodged fate. In 1883, he broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl's brother was so enraged that he hunted down Ziegland and shot him. The brother, believing he had killed Ziegland, then turned his gun on himself and took his own life. But Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet, in fact, had only grazed his face and then lodged in a tree. Ziegland surely thought himself a lucky man. Some years later, however, Ziegland decided to cut down the large tree, which still had the bullet in it. The task seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with a few sticks of dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland's head, killing him. (Source: Ripley's Believe It or Not!)

The human brain is responsible for many complex creations, but it can’t invent the image of people. So the “strangers” that you meet in your dreams actually have the faces of people who you’ve once seen in your real life but forgotten, like your childhood mailman or that guy bumped into on the side walk that one time.
Chances are that you’ve laid their eyes on more than a few individuals, and so the brain as a huge cast of characters to play with when you drift off to sleep. Except for in the case of extreme psychological disorder, every human being dreams. In fact, in a recent study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream but still allowed 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty concentrating, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis in a span of three days.
When they were allowed their REM sleep, their brains compensated for the lost time by increasing the percentage of the sleep spent in the REM stage. Dreams are a window into the subconscious. Even though most of the time, they’re completely random, disorganized, and we forget 90% of them within 10 minutes of waking up; many people have drawn inspiration from their dreams. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was a based on a dream that she had.

The world is inundated with the most prolific beauties of nature ever witnessed. Nearly everywhere there are inhabitants, an amazing piece of Earth’s wonder is never too far away. From huge forests to enormous collections of marine life, our planet shares its natural glory with us in some of the most astounding areas imaginable. Here are 15:
15. Central Sikhote Alin Russian Federation

The Sikhote Alin mountain range contains one the richest and most unusual temperate forests of the world. It is a mixing zone between taiga (an area characterized by coniferous forests) and the subtropics where southern species such as the tiger and Himalayan bear cohabit with northern species such as brown bear and lynx. The site runs form the peaks of the Sikote Alin to the Sea of Japan and is important for the survival of many endangered species such as the Amur tiger.
14. Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn – Switzerland

One of the most glaciated areas in the Alps, the site includes Europe’s largest glacier and a range of classic features resulting from glacial activity such as U-shaped valleys, cirques (an amphitheatre-like valley), horn peaks and moraines (any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated debris). It provides an outstanding geological record of the uplift and compression that formed the High Alps. The diversity of Alpine wildlife is represented in a range of alpine and sub-alpine habitats, and plant colonization in the wake of retreating glaciers provides an outstanding example of plant succession. The impressive vista of the North Wall of the High Alps, centred on the mountains of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, has played an important role in European literature and art.
13. Cerrado Protected Areas Brazil

The two sites included in the designation contain flora and fauna and key habitats that characterize the Cerrado – one of the world’s oldest and most diverse tropical ecosystems. For millennia, the sites have acted as refuges for species during periods of climate change and will be vital for maintaining Cerrado biodiversity during future climate fluctuations.
12. Alejandro de Humboldt National Park Cuba

Complex geology and varied topography have led to a diversity of ecosystems and species unmatched in the insular Caribbean and created one of the most biologically diverse tropical island sites on earth. Many of the underlying rocks are toxic to plants and so species must adapt in order to survive in these hostile environments. This unique process of evolution has resulted in the development of many new species and the park is one of the most important sites in the Western Hemisphere for the conservation of endemic (characteristic of) flora. Endemism of vertebrates and invertebrates is also very high.
11. Galápagos Islands Ecuador

Situated in the Pacific Ocean some 1,000km from the South American continent, the19 islands of the Galápagos have been called a unique ‘living museum and showcase of evolution’. Ongoing volcanic activity reflects the processes that formed the islands. Located at the confluence of three oceanic currents, the Galápagos is a “melting pot” of marine species. These processes, along with the isolation of the islands, led to the development of unusual animal life – such as the land iguana, the giant tortoise and the many types of finches – which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, following his visit in 1835.
10. Lake Turkana National Parks Kenya

Southern Island National Park has been added to Kenya’s Lake Turkana National Parks World Heritage site. The most saline of Africa’s large lakes, Turkana is an outstanding laboratory for the study of plant and animal communities. The three National Parks are a stopover point for migrant waterbirds and are important breeding grounds for Nile crocodile, hippopotamus and a range of venomous snakes. The Koobi Fora deposits, rich in mammalian, molluscan and other fossil remains, have contributed more to understanding paleoenvironments than any other site on the continent.
9. Yellowstone Wyoming, Montana, Idaho (USA)

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,472 square miles (8,987 km²), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. Half of the world’s geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining, nearly-intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone. Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Grizzlies, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in the park.
8. The Grand Canyon Arizona (USA)

The canyon, created by the Colorado River over a period of 6 million years, is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) and attains a depth of more than a mile (1.6 km). Nearly two billion years of the Earth’s history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.
7. Columbia Ice Fields Alberta, Canada

The Columbia Ice field is located in the Canadian Rockies, astride the Continental Divide of North America. The ice field lies partly in the northwestern tip of Banff and the southern end of Jasper National Park. It is about 325 km² in area, 100 to 365 metres (328′ to 1,197′) in depth and receives up to seven meters (23 feet) of snowfall per year. The ice field feeds eight major glaciers, including: Athabasca Glacier, Castleguard Glacier, Columbia Glacier, Dome Glacier, Stutfield Glacier, and the Saskatchewan Glacier. [Image Source - copyright Matthew Walters]
6. The Great Barrier Reef Australia

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s Largest coral reef system. It is composed of roughly 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 2,600 kilometers (1,616 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometers (132,974 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in northeast Australia. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from orbit and is the world’s biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. The Great Barrier Reef supports a wide diversity of life, and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.
5. Angel Falls Venezuela

Angel Falls is the world’s highest free-falling, freshwater waterfall at 979 m (3,212 ft), with a clear drop of 807 m (2,648 ft). It is located in the Canaima National Park, in the Gran Sabana region of Bolivar State, Venezuela. The height of the falls is so great that before getting anywhere near the ground the water is buffeted by the strong winds and turned into mist. The base of the falls feeds into the Churun River, a tributary of the Carrao River.
4. Vredefort Dome Johannesburg, South Africa

Two billion years ago a meteorite 10km in diameter hit the earth about 100km southwest of Johannesburg, creating an enormous impact crater. This area, near Vredefort in the Free State, is now known as the Vredefort Dome. It was voted South Africa’s seventh World Heritage site at Unesco’s 29th World Heritage Committee meeting in Durban in July 2005. The meteorite, larger than Table Mountain, caused a thousand-megaton blast of energy that is now considered the largest meteor impact sight on Earth.
3. Aurora Borealis Northern Hemisphere

Auroras are natural different colored light displays, which are usually observed in the night sky, particularly in the polar zone. In northern latitudes, it is known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as a greenish glow (or sometimes a faint red), as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction. The aurora borealis is also called the ‘northern lights’, as it is only visible in the North sky from the Northern Hemisphere. The aurora borealis most often occurs from September to October and from March to April.
2. The Amazon Rainforest South America

The Amazon Rainforest is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon Basin of South America. The area is also known as Amazonia or the Amazon Basin, and encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.2 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers, located within nine nations: Brazil (with 60 percent of the rainforest), Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. The Amazon represents over half of the planet’s remaining tropical rainforest in the world.
1. Milford Sound New Zealand

Milford Sound is located in the south west of New Zealand’s South Island. Although called a sound, it is more accurately classified as a fjord. Milford Sound, the most famous tourist site of New Zealand, has also been called an eighth Wonder of the World by Rudyard Kipling. It is situated within the Fiordland National Park which is in turn part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. Milford Sound runs 15 kilometres inland from the Tasman Sea and is surrounded by sheer rock faces that rise 1200 metres or more on either side. Among the peaks are The Elephant at 1517 m (4977 ft), said to resemble an elephant’s head, and Lion Mountain, 1302 m (4271 ft), in the shape of a crouching lion. Lush rain forests cling precariously to these cliffs, while seals, penguins, and dolphins frequent the waters. The drive to Milford Sound itself passes through unspoiled mountain landscapes before entering the 1.2 km Homer Tunnel which emerges into rain-forest carpeted canyons that descend to the sound. Near Milford Sound are also locations used to film some of the scenes of the Argonath in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
"Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor.
"Fickleheaded" and "fiddledeedee" are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.
"Asthma" and "isthmi" are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.
"Fortnight" is a contraction of "fourteen nights." In the US "two weeks" is more commonly used.
"Forty" is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. "One" is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.
"Four" is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.
"Hang on Sloopy" is the official rock song of Ohio.
"Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.
"Kemo Sabe", meaning an all knowing one, is actually a mispronunciation by Native American of the Spanish phrase, Quien lo Sabe, meaning one who knows."
The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.
"Ma is as selfless as I am" can be read the same way backwards. If you take away all the spaces you can see that all the letters can be spelled out both ways.
"Mad About You" star Paul Reiser plays the piano on the show's theme song.
"One thousand" contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.
"Ough" can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.
"Rhythms" is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
"Second string," meaning "replacement or backup," comes from the middle ages. An archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke.
"Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when you're talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil."
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
"Tautonyms" are scientific names for which the genus and species are the same.
"Taxi" is spelled exactly the same in English, French, German, Swedish, Portuguese, and Dutch.
"Teh" means "cool" in Thai. (Pronounced "tay").
"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
"THEREIN" is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.
"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und." $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.
1 and 2 are the only numbers where they are values of the numbers of the factors they have.
1 in 5,000 north Atlantic lobsters are born bright blue.