You hold in your hand the camel's-hair brush of a painter of Life. You stand before the vast white canvas of Time. The paints are your thoughts, emotions and acts.

Cynics and critics wake us up. Kindness often covers up the truth and allows us to sleep on in our ignorance.

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest creative thinkers of all time, strongly recommended the habit of meditation in the dark. He wrote: "For I have found in my own experience that it is of no small benefit, when you lie in bed in the dark, to recall in imagination, one after another, the outlines of the form you have been studying." He often awoke to find his problems solved. Da Vinci would often stand silent and motionless before a painting for hours, without using his brush, as though waiting for spiritual guidance.

A person is alive only to the degree that he or she is aware. To make the most of life we must constantly strive to be aware of the importance of being aware. Be aware of your senses and use them: So often we are distracted and unconscious of the riches our senses can pour into our lives. We eat food without tasting it, listen to music without hearing it, smell without experiencing the pungency of odors and the delicacy of perfumes, touch without feeling the grain or texture, and see without appreciating the beauty around us.

Release your problem to God with a prayer that the answer will come in its own good time and place. Hold the attitude of faith and expectancy, knowing that God has all the answers, that His knowledge is limitless and can never be exhausted.

Read! Read something every day. Discipline yourself to a regular schedule of reading. In fifteen minutes a day you can read twenty books a year.

It is time to browse through the precious books that have meant the most to you that you may rediscover illuminating phrases and sentences to light your pathway to the future.