Motivational Readings

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face-lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening.
I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'till morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..." For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me:"I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper.
When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes.
It didn't take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind." I told him he was welcome to come again.
And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.
Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.
When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning, "Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"
Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness' would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.
Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise,it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!" My friend changed my mind. "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden."
She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman, "He won't mind starting in this small body."
All this happened long ago-and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.
The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7b)

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a 5 year old again. I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and skip rocks on a pond. I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and watch the ants walk up it's trunk. I want to think a quarter is more than a dollar bill cause it's prettier and weighs more. I want to go fishing and care more about catching the minnows along the shore than the big bass in the lake. I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes. When all I knew was to be happy because I was blissfully unaware of all the things that should worry me. I want to think the world is fair, and people are honest and good. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, surviving more days in the month than there's money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and losses of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, dreams, imagination, a kiss that makes a boo boo go away, making angels in the snow. So....here's my checkbook and my keys, credit cards and bills too, my 401K statements, my stocks and bonds, my collections, insurance premiums, job, house and the payments too, my email address, cell phone, computer, and watch. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this with me further, you'll have to catch me first, cause, "Tag!"..."You're It!"

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.	2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R's: * Respect for self * Respect for others and * Responsibility for all your actions.	4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.	6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.	8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.	10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.	12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.	14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.	16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.	18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Motivational Readings

Instructions for Life in the new millennium from the Dalai Lama:

REASON, SEASON, or a LIFETIME