Stories of Inspiration
Might As Well Dance
READ VERY SLOWLY.... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.
Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because
they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know
it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who
passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back.
From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't
suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the
word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while
you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my s ister and said, 'How about going
to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have
clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a
late breakfast, It looks like rain.' And my personal favorite: 'It's
Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.
Because we cram so much into our lives, we tend to schedule our
headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when
all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve
toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter,
and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken,
and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan
on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to
adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her
enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and
you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of rollerblades and skip an
elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's
just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and
eliminate the digestive process. The other day , I stopped the car and
bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I
would have died happy.
Now ...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not
something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only
one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?
And why are you waiting?
Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent
this to you.
Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to
the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight
or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on
the fly? When you ask 'How are you?' Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred
chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it
tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a
good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi?'
When you worry and hurry throu gh your day, it i s like an unopened
gift...Thrown away. . Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music
before the song is over.
It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care.
Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then
you'll know you have a circle of friends.
To those I have sent this to... I cherish our friendship and
appreciate all you do.
'Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we
might as well dance!'
The Old Fisherman
THE OLD FISHERMAN
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 a long time 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 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 li ttle 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 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 dente d, 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. There'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 ou! tward a ppearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'
Friends are very special. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear and they share a word of praise. Show your friends how much you care.