Creative Edge

Gentleman Jim Reeves was perhaps the biggest male star to emerge from the Nashville sound. His mellow baritone voice and muted velvet orchestration combined to create a sound that echoed around his world and lasted for decades to follow. Reeves was capable of singing hard country ("Mexican Joe" went to number one in 1953), but he made his greatest impact as a country-pop crooner. From 1955 through 1969, Reeves was consistently on the country and pop charts -- a remarkable fact in light of his untimely death in an airplane accident in 1964. Not only was he a presence on the American charts, but he became country music's foremost international ambassador and, if anything, was even more popular in Europe and Britain than in his native U.S. Several of his posthumous hits actually outsold his earlier singles; no less than six number one singles arrived in the three years following his burial. In fact, during the '70s and '80s, he continued to have hits with both unrele...

You are holding a cup of tea when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your tea everywhere. Why did you spill the tea? "Because someone bumped into me!!!" Wrong answer. You spilt the tea because there was tea in your cup. Had there been lemonade in the cup, you would have spilt lemonade. Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out. Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it until you get rattled. So we have to ask ourselves... "what's in my cup?" When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? Anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions? Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it. Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.   Life is very much like holding a cup — w...

The number seven's repeated appearance in the depictions of seven serpents and seven stars in diverse ancient cultures sparks curiosity about its shared significance. Across various civilizations like Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt, astronomical knowledge linked the number seven to the observable planets - Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Moreover, mythological and religious contexts attribute a mystical aura to seven, as seen in Hindu mentions of seven worlds and Mesopotamian gods' planetary connections. Symbolically, seven often signifies wholeness or perfection, potentially influenced by the cyclic nature of natural phenomena such as the lunar phases. Through cultural interactions like trade and migration, the symbolism of seven spread and integrated into different societies, offering a plausible explanation for its consistent presence. Serpents and stars accompanying the number seven likely carried specific meanings like fertility, rebirth, spiritual rea...