As I walked over a bridge at the Birmingham Zoo I spotted this loud group of flamingos primping, bathing and chattering at the edge of the water.  A flamingo is a funny looking bird; long toothpick legs, a neck that resembles a serpent and what’s up with their color.  Some were pink, most were orange and a couple were white; a rainbow of color flaunted and strutted their uniqueness in front of my eyes. 

        After I arrived home I did a little research to find out more about my fine feathered friends the flamingos.  I discovered that the color of their plumage is caused because of their diet (I guess momma was right, you are what you eat).  Their characteristic pink coloring is caused by the beta carotene found in a diet rich in shrimp and blue-green algae.  (Am I making you hungry yet?)  Anyway, I found it funny that the things they love to eat had such an impact upon their physical appearance.  What they put into their bodies not only satisfied their hunger but colored their whole world.

        As I thought more about my pink friends I began to realize that I too color my world by the things I put into my body.  Every thought I entertain affects my life.  Jealousy has at times turned me an ugly green color.  At times I have allowed a bad attitude at work to turn my feathers a dingy gray.  Selfishness, bitterness, worry, stubbornness, resentment and anger each have the ability to change our appearance, and trust me, it ain’t pretty when we allow a head full of stinking thinking to contort such a pretty face. 

        Today, look into the eyes of the person looking back at you in the mirror, what do you see?  What thoughts have made you what you are today?  Have your thoughts today been positive or negative?  Are they giving you wings or are they weights dragging you down?  Remember, we are today where our thoughts have brought us; and tomorrow we will be where your thoughts take us.  We have the tremendous opportunity today to determine not only our appearances but also our destinies, all by simply choosing good thoughts.

Something to think about:

• As nothing is easier than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well.

• As soon as a man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

• Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit—and man is his own gardener.

• If, instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as angels give.

• The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.

• The mind grows by what it feeds on.

• Thought serves as a mirror: it shows us the ugliness and the beauty within.

• The universe is only one of our Creators thoughts.

• As we think in our heart, so are we.

Thank you for thinking of me
Rickey Moore