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Writer's in Prison

I was doing a guest writing workshop at Susanville State Prison near the Sierra Nevada foothills in northern California. Most of the men doing time there are sentenced to prison because of drugs. They are housed in huge dormitories in bunk beds. They have no privacy, no place to be alone, no place to think quietly. I had great apprehensions when I walked onto the prison grounds. I had taught writing workshops at many California prisons, but those prisons had cells. In Cells, even if they are shared with another inmate, one can find a least a little writing time. Surely the men here at Susanville were not going to be interested in what I had to offer.

I had decided to spend my two days giving a monologue workshop. I wanted the men to have a chance to write and then perform before a camera. I wanted them to see themselves on video before I left the prison at the end of the second day. I felt that life in this prison had probably stripped them of most of their identity and that writing and performance art might restore some sense of who they were or who they could be.

I was pleased that twenty men had signed up for the class. This was the maximum number I had said I could take. I spend the first hour with them, talking about what it was like to be a writer. Telling them that there is a joy and a freedom in the words. That no matter how much they were all forced to be alike, dress alike, eat the same food, keep the same hours, that in their writing they could finally be different. As different as they wanted to be. Writing, I told them, can be the most liberating of all the arts. You can be free with the word. There are no limits. told them that every time I picked up a pencil or sat down at a computer or a typewriter that it was as if I was coming home, coming home to my art, my words, that this was a world that no one else could take away. This art would sustain me throughout all my days.

The men listened well and when I finally had them start their writing projects, they worked hard. There was only one, a young, very handsome blond man, who I worried about. He was reluctant to share during that first day when I had them writing their monologues. Every other student read and rewrote and read again, but this man sat quietly, erasing, writing, tearing up drafts, starting again. Whenever I would approach his desk, he quietly covered his paper with his arms.

“Can I see?” I ask. “It would be easier for me if you didn’t,” he would answer then a shy smile would appear.

I figured, what the heck. Even if he doesn’t share his writing with the class, he’s writing. He is choosing to spend his whole day in this hot stuffy classroom working on something called monologue. That morning he probably didn’t even know the meaning of the word. This should make me happy. But it didn’t. I was concerned about his need for privacy, about his inability to share, knowing that he didn’t think his writing was good enough.

I had worked in prisons for too many years to be fooled by his shyness. I knew that many of the inmates had learned at a very young age that they could do nothing right. They had been abused and tormented as children and lacked any self-confidence. But no matter how much I praised the other prisoners he wouldn’t relent. He went back to his dormitory that evening with his writing tucked into his jeans pocket. Many of the other men just left their work on the desks. Not him. He was taking no chance that I would read it after he was locked away behind the bars. He was right, of course. 1 would have made a beeline right for his desk the minute he got out the door. He had judged me right.

The second day all the men returned to the classroom. This was particularly pleasing to me. Even the young blond man. This was the day for reading and taping. I wondered how the silent, shy student would handle this. I was actually surprised to see him there. He had combed his long, blond hair and his shirt was neatly pressed. He had obviously thought about the fact that he was going to be filmed and wanted to look his best. At last I was going to hear what he wrote.

He didn’t say much during the performances. I had given the men fairly loose instructions about who should be speaking in their monologues. I had, though, told them that I wanted to hear their characters tell me what it is they really wanted, what it was that no one understood about them, and why they needed to talk. He sat there quietly, watching the work of his fellow inmates. One of the men had written a monologue for God, and another had been Abraham Lincoln, another Martin Luther King, Jr. Some of the monologues were funny, others serious. Even though they hadn’t had time to memorize their lines, once they began reading, the scripts in their hands were hardly noticeable, and I was extremely moved by their work.

Finally, he was the only one who hadn’t read his monologue. When all the others were finished I asked him, “Are you ready now?” “I don’t think so,” he answered in such a gentle voice. Then the men were on him.

“Man, if I can do it, you can do it. Try it. You’ll like it. Come on man, don’t be shy. Nobody’s going to judge you here.”

So he got up, took his script to the performance area and stood before the camera. He looked so young. The papers in his hands were shaking like frightened birds, but he looked with determination into the eye of the camera and opened up his monologue.

“My name is Bruce. I am twenty-one years old and I am dead. I am dead because I spent time in prison for drugs and I didn’t care. I didn’t care about me. I went to bed every night just counting the days ‘till I could get out and get that next fix. I would kill for my next fix. I would kill for my next fix.”

He went on about his life, how he was raised in poverty by alcoholic parents, beaten, hungry, no life at all, shuffled back and forth through foster homes. While he read, he showed scars on his body, the burn marks on his arms where a drunken father had extinguished cigarettes, the cuts on his wrists where he had tried to take his own life. I couldn’t help it. The tears began forming in my eyes, hot and painful. My God, why had I asked him to share this horrible pain? Then he got to the end of his story.

“Even though I died right there in prison, I want to tell you something. The reason I need to talk to you today. I have risen again, just like in the Bible. I am reborn. One day a woman came in and told me to write. And I had never written before, but I did it anyway. I sat for eight hours in a chair and focused the way I have never focused before. I could never even sit still before! I wrote out my ugly life, and then I was able to finally feel something. To feel pity. For myself. When no one else was ever able to feel it. And I felt something else. I felt joy. I was writing, and what I was writing was good. I was a writer! And I was going to get up in front of all those men in that class, and I would say that this . . .” At these words he held up his little manuscript. This is more important to me than any drug. What I wanted to tell you was that I died a drug addict, and I was reborn as a writer.”

We all sat there stunned. The camera kept running. He took a self-conscious little bow. Then he said, “Thank you,” once again in his quiet voice. And then the men broke out in spontaneous applause. He walked over to me and took my hands. Inmates are not allowed to touch their teachers, but I let him anyway. “You have given me something,” he said, “that no drug has ever given me. My self-respect.”

I think of him often. I pray that he has continued to find respect for himself through the written word. I know, though, that that day in that room with those men, a writer was born. After a long and terrible journey, a lost soul had come home, home to the words.

By Claire Braz-Valentine
from Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul

Someone Who Understands

A store owner was tacking a sign above his door that read “Puppies For Sale.” Signs like that have a way of attracting small children, and sure enough, a little boy appeared under the store owner’s sign. “How much are you going to sell the puppies for?” he asked.

The store owner replied, “Anywhere from $30 to $50.”

The little boy reached in his pocket and pulled out some change. “I have $2.37,” he said. “Can I please look at them?”

The store owner smiled and whistled and out of the kennel came Lady, who ran down the aisle of his store followed by five teeny tiny balls of fur. One puppy was lagging considerable behind. Immediately the little boy singled out the lagging limping puppy and said, “What’s wrong with that little dog?”

The store owner explained that the veterinarian had examined the little puppy and had discovered it didn’t have a hip socket. It would always limp. It would always be lame. The little boy became excited. “That’s the little puppy that I want to buy.”

The store owner said, “No, you don’t want to buy that little dog. If you really want him, I’ll just give him to you.”

The little boy got quite upset. He looked straight into the store owner’s eyes, pointing his finger and said, “I don’t want you to give him to me. That little dog is worth every bit as much as all the other dogs and I’ll pay full price. In fact I’ll give you $2.37 now, and 50 cents a month until I have him paid for.

The store owner countered, “You really don’t want to buy this little dog. He is never going to be able to jump and play with you like the other puppies.”

To this, the little boy reached down and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a badly twisted, crippled left leg supported by a big metal brace. He looked up at the store owner and softly replied, “Well, I don’t run so well myself, and the little puppy will need someone who understands!”

By Dan Clark
from Chicken Soup for the Soul

Grandpa's Valentine

I was the only family member living close by, so I received the initial call from the nursing home. Grandpa was failing rapidly. I should come. There was nothing to do but hold his hand. “I love you, Grandpa. Thank you for always being there for me.” And silently, I released him.

Memories...memories...six days a week, the farmer in the old blue shirt and bib overalls caring for those Hereford cattle he loved so much...on hot summer days lifting bales of hay from the wagon, plowing the soil, planting the corn and beans and harvesting them in the fall...always working from dawn to dusk. Survival demanded the work, work, work.

But on Sundays, after the morning chores were done, he put on his gray suit and hat. Grandma wore her wine-colored dress and the ivory beads, and they went to church. There was little other social life. Grandpa and Grandma were quiet, peaceful, unemotional people who every day did what they had to do. He was my grandpa -- he had been for 35 years. It was hard to picture him in any other role.

The nurse apologized for having to ask me so soon to please remove Grandpa’s things from the room. It would not take long. There wasn’t much. Then I found it in the top drawer of his nightstand. It looked like a very old handmade valentine. What must have been red paper at one time was a streaked faded pink. A piece of white paper had been glued to the center of the heart. On it, penned in Grandma’s handwriting, were these words:

TO LEE FROM HARRIET

With All My Love,

February 14, 1895

Are you alive? Real? Or are you the most beautiful dream that I have had in years? Are you an angel -- or a figment of my imagination? Someone I fabricated to fill the void? To soothe the pain? Where did you find the time to listen? How could you understand?

You made me laugh when my heart was crying. You took me dancing when I couldn’t take a step. You helped me set new goals when I was dying. You showed me dew drops and I had diamonds. You brought me wildflowers and I had orchids. You sang to me and angelic choirs burst forth in song. You held my hand and my whole being loved you. You gave me a ring and I belonged to you. I belonged to you and I have experienced all.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I read the words. I pictured the old couple I had always known. It’s difficult to imagine your grandparents in any other role than that. What I read was so very beautiful and sacred. Grandpa had kept it all those years. Now it is framed on my dresser, a treasured part of family history.

By Elaine Reese
from Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul

What Mountain Are you Climbing?

New Zealander becomes the first double amputee to haul himself up to the summit

This week, a middle-aged man from New Zealand called Mark Inglis painfully hauled himself up the last few feet to the summit of Mount Everest.

Nothing so unusual in that -- after all, climbing Everest has become so popular its slopes are often crowded, and more than 100 people have scaled the mountain already this year. Except Inglis is different: he has no legs.

Inglis, who lost both his legs to frostbite more than 20 years ago, is the first double amputee to reach the top of Everest. On Monday night he telephoned his wife, Anne, in their New Zealand home from the 29,035-foot summit to let her know he had made it safely.

During his climb, Inglis has been raising funds to provide artificial legs for disabled Tibetans, who live under the shadow of Everest. He made his own ascent on carbon fibre artificial legs specially adapted for climbing.

At one point, one of them snapped in a fall at 21,000 feet, and Inglis had to make running repairs on the mountainside before he could struggle back to his fellow climbers and rebuild it with spare parts.

He joins a small list of climbers who have overcome disabilities to conquer Everest, including a blind American and a Sherpa whose hands had been amputated and who used hooks to climb.

But Inglis insisted that was not what was important to him. "I'm not doing this to be the first double amputee," he told reporters before setting off. "If I am then it's the icing on the cake -- but it's more about I've been climbing most of my life and Everest is the achievement really."

Late on Monday night Inglis's wife answered the phone to hear his voice from Everest.

"I'm at Camp 4. I made it. I did it," he said before the line went dead.

"He's incredible," she said yesterday. "He's dreamt of this all his life, probably. He's over the moon. They didn't expect to be this early, they thought maybe mid to late May, so Mark will be stoked. I imagine they'll be having a few whiskies."

New Zealand has always had a special relationship with Everest, and Sir Edmund Hillary-- together with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay the first to scale Everest-- hailed his countryman's achievement.

"Quite obviously a remarkable effort to actually climb Mt. Everest with a couple of artificial legs. And I have to admit that I admire his considerable effort ... he's done a pretty good job," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Inglis lost his legs in his 20s, when he was working as a mountain rescue guide. He and a fellow climber, Phil Doole, were climbing New Zealand's Mount Cook and got caught in a blizzard. They were trapped in an ice cave for 14 days, and the effort to rescue them became a major news story.

When the rescuers finally got through, Inglis and Doole were barely alive, and both men's legs were so badly affected by frostbite they had to be amputated below the knee.

But he refused to let it stop him climbing -- on his website, he describes the loss of his legs as a "very public hiccup to my climbing profession."

He is also a winemaker, a professional ski guide, and a competitive cyclist -- he won a silver medal in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney.

During his Everest ascent, he has been trying to raise funds and awareness to provide artificial limbs for the disabled in Tibet.

"Disabled people are a rare sight in Tibet, the environment so harsh that few survive," he says on his website. "By creating an opportunity for them to effectively work by sourcing limbs we can give back to them their lives."

The expedition is also hoping to raise money for a centre for landmine and polio victims who have lost their legs in Cambodia.

Inglis' ascent comes amid the annual rush to conquer Everest while the spring sun lasts -- before the onset of the monsoon makes climbing perilous.

Even as news of Inglis' ascent came in, another expedition announced that a Swede and a Norwegian had reached the summit of Everest, and were planning to ski back down.

Justin Huggler
The Independent(May 17, 2006)

Not to be Teased

The Little Girl Who Dared To Wish

As Amy Hagadorn rounded the corner across the hall from her classroom, she collided with a tall boy from the fifth grade running in the opposite direction.

"Watch it , squirt." The boy yelled as he dodged around the little third-grader. Then, with a smirk on his face, the boy took hold of his right leg and mimicked the way Amy limped when she walked.

Amy closed her eyes. Ignore him, she told herself as she headed for her classroom.

But at the end of the day, Amy was still thinking about the tall boy's mean teasing. It wasn't as if her were the only one. It seemed that ever since Amy started the third grade, someone teased her every single day. Kids teased her about her speech or her limping. Amy was tired of it. Sometimes, even in a classroom full of other students, the teasing made her feel all alone.

Back home at the dinner table that evening, Amy was quiet. Her mother knew that things were not going well at school. That's why Patti Hagadorn was happy to have some exciting news to share with her daughter.

"There's a Christmas wish contest on the radio station," Amy's mom announced. "Write a letter to Santa, and you might win a prize. I think someone at this table with blonde curly hair should enter."

Amy giggled. The contest sounded like fun. She started thinking about what she wanted most for Christmas.

A smile took hold of Amy when the idea first came to her. Out came pencil and paper, and Amy went to work on her letter. "Dear Santa Claus," she began.

While Amy worked away at her best printing, the rest of the family tried to guess what she might ask from Santa. Amy's sister, Jamie, and Amy's mom both thought a three-foot Barbie doll would top Amy's wish list. Amy's dad guessed a picture book. But Amy wasn't ready to reveal her secret Christmas wish just then. Here is Amy's letter to Santa, just as she wrote it that night:

Dear Santa Claus,

My name is Amy. I am nine years old. I have a problem at school. Can you help me Santa? Kids laugh at me because of the way I walk and run and talk. I have cerebral palsy. I just want one day where no one laughs at me or makes fun of me.

Love, Amy

At radio station WJLT in Fort Wayne, Indiana, letter poured in for the Christmas wish contest. The workers had fun reading about all the different presents that boys and girls from across the city wanted for Christmas.

When Amy's letter arrived at the radio station, manager Lee Tobin read it carefully. He knew cerebral palsy was a muscle disorder that might confuse the schoolmates of Amy's who didn't understand her disability. He thought it would be good for the people in Fort Wayne to hear about this special third-grader and her unusual wish. Mr. Tobin called up the local newspaper.

The next day, a picture of Amy and her letter to Santa made the front page of the News Sentinel. The story spread quickly. All across the country, newspapers and radio and television stations reported the story of the little girl in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who asked for such a simple yet remarkable Christmas gift -- just one day without teasing.

Suddenly the postman was a regular at the Hagadorn house. Envelopes of all sizes addressed to Amy arrived daily from children and adults all across the nation. They came filled with holiday greetings and words of encouragement.

During that unforgettable Christmas season, over two thousand people from all over the world sent Amy letters of friendship and support. Amy and her family read every single one. Some of the writers had disabilities; some had been teased as children. Each writer had a special message for Amy. Through the cards and letters from strangers, Amy glimpsed a world full of people who truly cared about each other. She realized that no amount or form of teasing could ever make her feel lonely again.

Many people thanked Amy for being brave enough to speak up. Others encouraged her to ignore teasing and to carry her head high. Lynn, a sixth-grader from Texas, sent this message:

"I would like to be your friend," she wrote, "and if you want to visit me, we could have fun. No one would make fun of us, 'cause if they do, we will not even hear them."

Amy did get her wish of a special day without teasing at South Wayne Elementary School. Additionally, everyone at school got another bonus. Teachers and students talked together about how bad teasing can make others feel.

That year the Fort Wayne mayor officially proclaimed December 21 as Amy Jo Hagadorn Day throughout the city. The mayor explained that by daring to make such a simple wish, Amy taught a universal lesson.

"Everyone," said the mayor, "wants and deserves to be treated with respect, dignity and warmth."

By Alan D. Shultz,
from Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul

Staying Open

I'm sure you remember that old story about the monkey who came across some ripe berries in a glass jar. Not surprisingly, the monkey was elated about his find, and immediately plunged his hand inside the jar to grasp a fistful of berries. But when he tried to withdraw his hand, he found he was stuck: the neck of the jar was too small an opening for the monkey's clenched fist to negotiate. He had two choices: hold onto the treasure in his fist and remain imprisoned, or release the treasure and regain his hand. The monkey was in agony, because he did not want to let go of the food.

The moral of that story, of course, is that letting go can be vital to your health. That concept is easy enough to read on paper; in real life, though, it is tougher to grasp. We've all been in the monkey's shoes, after all -- who hasn't tried to hold fast to something at some point, even when it was obviously a poor choice? Come on: we've all done it. Several times.

I once met someone who was holding on for dear life to a job he detested. He had been working hard at it for years, typically he would spend 10 to 14 hours a day slaving over his desk. If you asked him why he didn't look for something else, he would give a totally reasonable answer: "It's all I know."

Then one day, out of the blue, he discovered he had terminal cancer. He was shocked: he was still young, his body was in good shape, and it didn't seem remotely fair to him to be felled by cancer before he had gotten any fun out of life. The doctors told him he had a year left to live.

Stunned into unreasonableness, this fellow quit his job and decided to spend the year enjoying himself -- something he had never done before in his whole life. He had, you remember, held passionately tight to his profession, even though he hated it. But in the face of death, he lost all fear of leaving his job. He packed up a few clothes, cleaned out his bank account and took off for a trip around the world.
We didn't hear from him for several months; as the days slipped by, many of us became increasingly concerned about his wellbeing. Was he all alone in some obscure hotel in South America, getting weak and frail? There was no way to track him down; and we kept worrying about him at a distance.

Ten months later, one of our team got a phone call from the fellow. He was back in the U.S, hale and hearty, and bursting with ideas about starting a new business. The cancer? It had disappeared off the map -- the doctors could no longer see any remnant of it in the X-rays. The man was healed.We couldn't believe our ears.
He stopped by to visit us a few days later, and indeed he looked happy, tanned, vigorous and full of excitement about his new career, which was in a vastly different direction from his previous one. We gathered around him in awe. "But how on earth did you get healed?" we all wanted to know. He said, "Well, my doctor thinks it was because I let go of the job I hated -- and then just dashed out and did all of the things I never let myself do before."

He's still healthy today, many years later. And he loves his work. We say he healed himself of cancer. He says cancer saved his life.

That same story about the monkey was told in a different way by the beloved American comedian Jack Benny. One of Benny's most famous comedy bits is the one in which a robber comes up to him on the street and demands, "Your money -- or your life!"
Benny stares at the robber and then falls into one of his relentlessly long, silent pauses.

Exasperated, the robber repeats his ultimatum: "Your money -- or your life!"
And Benny says, "Don't rush me.......I'm thinking."

Elsa Joy

All Day Long

When I was a kid, I got into a lot of trouble. I got out of school when I was in grade 11, so I didn’t have a huge education to fall back on, so I didn’t say, “I’m going to be a doctor, a lawyer or a surgeon.” I really had to delve inside myself and ask: What are my strengths? What do I love to do? I’ll share a little story with you that really helped me.

My brother, who’s 10 years older than I am, his name is Mark, was a tennis pro and he loved to play tennis. There’s nothing he would love to do more than play tennis. My parents would tell him, “No, you’re never going to make a lot of money just following tennis.” He said, “There are two types of income that I need. One is mental, or psychic income, the other is monetary income. If I have a balance of both, I’m really happy.”

I heard him say that, so I determined when I was younger, “I’m never going to not do what I love to do.” What I recommend to people when I consult or coach them is: What would make you happy if you could do it all day long? Remember when you were a kid and you got to play at something all day long? Not everybody liked the same thing, but when you found the thing you liked to do… I’ve got two little boys. They could do it from morning until night.

The first key is to ask yourself: What is it that if you wouldn’t get paid, you’d do anyway? One of the things I’ve learned is that in every single business - I don’t care what business you give me around the world - somebody is making money doing it. When we match up what we love and become excellent at it, and mix it with proper business practices, we can make money doing what we love.

I don’t care if it’s widgets, babysitting or being a doctor, you have to understand what is it that you’d love to do - if you weren’t getting paid - you’d do it anyway. Then the questions come: What needs to happen in order for me to become outstanding at that? What business practices do I need to learn to convert my love into making money? That’s really what I’ve done.

John Assaraf

We Are Never Alone

After my husband died suddenly from a heart attack on the tennis court, my world crashed around me. My six children were 10, nine, eight, six, three and 18 months, and I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities of earning a living, caring for the children and just plain keeping my head above water.

I was fortunate to find a wonderful housekeeper to care for the children during the week, but from Friday nights to Monday mornings, the children and I were alone, and frankly I was uneasy. Every creak of the house, every unusual noise, any late-night phone call-all filled me with dread. I felt incredibly alone.

One Friday evening I came home from work to find a big beautiful German shepherd on our doorstep. This wonderful strong animal gave every indication that he intended to enter the house and make it his home. I, however, was wary. Where did this obviously well-cared-for dog come from? Was it safe to let the children play with a strange dog? Even though he seemed gentle, he still was powerful and commanded respect. The children took an instant liking to "German" and begged me to let him in. I agreed to let him sleep in the basement until the next day, when we could inquire around the neighborhood for his owner. That night I slept peacefully for the first time in many weeks.

The following morning we made phone calls and checked lost-and-found ads for German's owner, but with no results. German, meanwhile, made himself part of the family and good-naturedly put up with hugs, wrestling and playing in the yard. Saturday night he was still with us, so again he was allowed to sleep in the basement.

On Sunday I had planned to take the children on a picnic. Since I thought it best to leave German behind in case his owner came by, we drove off without him. When we stopped to get gas at a local station, we were amazed to see German racing to the gas station after us. He not only raced to the car, he leaped onto the hood and put his nose on the windshield, looking directly into my eyes. No way was he going to be left behind. So into the station wagon he jumped and settled down in the back for the ride to the picnic. He stayed again Sunday.

Monday morning I let him out for a run while the children got ready for school. He didn't come back. As evening came and German didn't appear, we were all disappointed. We were convinced that he had gone home or been found by his owners, and that we would never see him again. We were wrong. The next Friday evening, German was back on our doorstep. Again we took him in, and again he stayed until Monday morning, when our housekeeper arrived.

This pattern repeated itself every weekend for almost 10 months. We grew more and more fond of German and we looked forward to his coming. We stopped thinking about where he belonged-he belonged to us. We took comfort in his strong, warm presence, and we felt safe with him near us. When we saw German come to attention and perk up his ears, and heard that low growl begin deep in his throat, we knew we were protected.

As German became part of the family he considered it his duty to check every bedroom to be sure each child was snug in bed. When he was satisfied that the last person was tucked in, he took up his position by the front door and remained there until the morning.

Each week, between German's visits, I grew a little stronger, a little braver and more able to cope; every weekend I enjoyed his company. Then one Monday morning we patted his head and let him out for what turned out to be the last time. He never came back. We never saw or heard from German again.

I think of him often. He came when I needed him the most and stayed until I was strong enough to go on alone. Maybe there is a perfectly natural explanation for German's visits to our house-maybe his owner went away on weekends-maybe. I believe German was sent because he was needed, and because no matter how abandoned and alone we feel, somehow, somewhere, someone knows and cares. We are never really alone.

Mary Miller
Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

The Fortune Cookie Prophecy

372 pages
(January 1999)
ISBN: 1558746455


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There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved; it is God's finger on man's shoulder.

--Charles Morgan

I was married three times before I was seven years old.

My older brother Gary performed the ceremonies in our basement. Gary was good at entertaining the family and neighborhood kids with his creative ideas. Since I was the youngest boy in our group, I was often on the receiving end of his creativity.

What I remember most about those weddings is that all the girls were at least five years older than I was, and they all had beautiful eyes that sparkled when they laughed. Those weddings taught me to imagine what it would be like to find my soul mate one day and to be sure that I would know her by her beautiful eyes.

Puberty hit me late. I was still afraid of the opposite sex when I was fifteen, and yet I prayed every night for the girl I would marry. I asked God to help her do well in school and to be happy and full of energy-wherever and whoever she was.

I first kissed a girl when I was twenty-one. From that time forward, I dated many beautiful and talented young ladies, searching for the girl I had prayed for in my youth and still certain that I would know her by her eyes.

One day, my phone rang. "Don," it was my mother. "You know I told you about the Addisons, who moved in next door to us. Well, Clara Addison keeps asking me to invite you over for cards some night."

"Sorry, Mom, I've got a date that night."

"How could you? I haven't even told you what night it is?" my mother responded with exasperation.

"It doesn't matter when. I'm sure the Addisons are nice people, but I'm not going to waste an evening socializing with people who don't have any eligible daughters."

That's how stubborn I was-I was positive that there was no reason for me to go to visit the Addisons.

Years passed. I was twenty-six, and my friends were getting nervous about my prospects. They kept lining up blind dates for me. Many of these dates were fiascoes, and they were interfering with my social life. So I made up a few rules about blind dates:

1. No dates recommended by my mother (moms don't understand the sex-appeal factor).

2. No dates recommended by a female (they're too easy on each other).

3. No dates recommended by a single guy friend (if she's so awesome, how come he hasn't asked her out?).

In three simple steps, I eliminated 90 percent of all my blind dates, including one recommended by my old friend Karen. She called one evening to tell me that she had become good friends with a beautiful girl who reminded her of me. She said she knew we would hit it off. "Sorry," I said, "you're ruled out by rule number two."

"Don," she said, "You're crazy, and your silly rules are eliminating the girl you've been waiting for. But have it your way. Just take her name and phone number, and when you change your mind, call her."

To get Karen to stop bothering me about it, I said I would. The girl's name was Susan Maready. I never called her.

Just a couple of weeks later, I ran into my old buddy Ted in the university cafeteria. "Ted," I said. "You look like you're walking on air."

"Can you see stars under my feet?" he said, laughing. "The fact is, I just got engaged last night."

"Hey, congratulations!"

"Yeah," he said, "at thirty-two, I was beginning to wonder if any woman was going to have me." He pulled his wallet out of his pocket. "Here," he said, suddenly serious, "look at this.

It was a thin strip of paper from a fortune cookie. "You will be married within a year," it said.

"That's wild," I said. "They usually say something that would fit anyone, like 'You have a magnetic personality. They were really taking a chance with that one."

"No kidding," he said. "And look at me now."

A few weeks later, my roommate Charlie and I were eating dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I shared this story about Ted's fortune cookie prediction, and his subsequent engagement. Just then, the waiter brought over our postmeal fortune cookies. Charlie laughed at the coincidence as we opened our cookies. Mine said, "You have a magnetic personality." His said, "You or a close friend will be married within a year." A chill ran up my spine. This was really strange. Something told me to ask Charlie if I could keep his fortune, and he handed it to me with a smile.

Not long afterward, my classmate Brian said he wanted to introduce me to a young woman named Susan Maready. I was sure I'd heard that name before, but couldn't remember how or where. Since Brian was married, and therefore I wouldn't be breaking my "rules" about being fixed up by single guys, I accepted his offer to meet Susan.

Susan and I spoke on the phone, and planned a bike ride and a cookout. Then, the meeting-and as soon as I saw her, my heart started beating hard and wouldn't stop. Her large green eyes did something to me I couldn't explain. But somewhere in me, I knew that it was love at first sight.

After that wonderful evening, I remembered that this hadn't been the first time someone tried to fix me up with Susan. It all came back to me. Her name had been popping up all over the place for a long time. So the next time I had a chance to talk to Brian alone, I asked him about it.

He squirmed and tried to change the subject.

"What is it, Brian?" I asked.

"You'll have to ask Susan," was all he'd say.

So I did.

"I was going to tell you," she said. "I was going to tell you.

"Come on, Susan," I said. "Tell me what? I can't stand the suspense."

"I've been in love with you for years," she said, "since the first time I saw you from the Addisons' living room window. Yes-it was me they wanted you to meet. But you wouldn't let anyone introduce us. You wouldn't let the Addisons set us up; you wouldn't take Karen's word for it that we would like each other. I thought I was never going to meet you."

My heart swelled with love, and I laughed at myself. "Karen was right," I said. "My rules were crazy."

"You're not mad?" she asked.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I'm impressed. I've got only one rule for blind dating now."

She gave me a strange look. "What's that?"

"Never again," I said and kissed her.

We were married seven months later.

Susan and I are convinced that we are true soul mates. When I was fifteen and praying for my future wife, she was fourteen and praying for her future husband.

After we had been married a couple of months, Susan said to me, "Do you want to hear something really strange?"

"Sure," I said. "I love to hear strange things."

"Well, about ten months ago, before I'd met you, my friends and I were at this Chinese restaurant, and…" She pulled a slip of paper from a fortune cookie out of her wallet:

"You will be married within a year…."

Don Buehner

Twins A Parable

Once upon a time, twin boys were conceived.

Weeks passed and the twins developed. As their awareness grew, they laughed for joy: "Isn't it great that we were conceived? Isn't it great to be alive? "

Together the twins explored their worlds. When they found their mother's cord that gave them life, they sang for joy! "How great our mother's love is, that she shares her own life with us!"

As weeks stretched into months, the twins noticed how much each was changing.

"What does it mean?" one asked.

"It means our stay in this world is drawing to an end." said the other.

"But I don't want to go," said one. "I want to stay here always."

"We have no choice," said the other. "But maybe there is life after birth."

"But how can there be?" responded one. "We will shed our life cord and how can life be possible without it? Besides, we have seen evidence that others were here before us, and none of them has returned to tell us there is life after birth. No, this is the end. Maybe there is no mother after all."

"But there has to be," protested the other. "How else did we get here? How do we remain alive?"

"Have you ever seen our mother?" said one.

"Maybe she only lives in our minds. Maybe we made her up because the idea made us feel good."

So the last days in the womb were filled with deep questioning and fear.

Finally, the moment of birth arrived. When the twins had passed from their world, they opened their eyes and cried for joy - for what they saw exceeded their fondest dreams.

That is birth ... and that is death.

Everything is Best

One day Banzan was walking through a market. He overheard a customer say to the butcher, "Give me the best piece of meat you have." "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You can not find any piece of meat that is not the best." At these words, Banzan was enlightened.

FAMILY QUEST FOR TODAY'S HEROES

Worried about the world your children will inherit? So were Laurent and Marie-Hélène de Cherisey.

THE WORLD DOES NOT always run as it should. And that can be frightening. What kind of world will we leave to our children?

In July 2004, we set off with our five children, aged between five and 11, to meet men and women in 14 countries who are working for a fairer world. We wanted to discover the secret of those who, faced with the world's problems, have overcome their sense of powerlessness and started to bring about profound changes. We spent a few days sharing each of their lives and filming them for French television. We produced seven hours of film and two books under the title of Passeurs d'Espoir (hope traffickers), which have become best-sellers (Presse de la Renaissance, 2005).

Our journey started from a dream, one we shared when we first met. Fifteen years and five children later, the dream became reality. Marie-Hélène, a television journalist, took a course in digital camera work in order to film all these 'anonymous heroes'. Laurent sold his marketing business and, with friends, created the Reporters of Hope Association. The idea is a simple one: for everyone to have a part in creating 'a world for our children', we urgently need to develop a 'global information network' to report both on world problems and on initiatives to resolve them.

At the heart of this approach is the idea of people standing up: this can be any of us, when we are ready to change. Change in ourselves helps us to be on the look-out and ready to be involved whenever people's dignity is flouted. We then find the courage to act and take initiatives.

We finalised our project at an Initiatives of Change conference in Caux, Switzerland, in August 2004. There we met the first two of our 18 'pioneers of the 21st Century': Dick Ruffin, an initiator of the Hope in the Cities reconciliation programme, which deals with racial tension and violence in the USA and elsewhere, and Joseph Karanja, a slum kid turned builder of democracy in Kenya. We also had a chance that summer to spend time with Cornelio Sommaruga, the President of the International Association for IofC, who provided us with the preface for our first book.

Our aim was to gather evidence from those who testify, through the initiatives they have taken, that the great social problems of the 21st century have nothing inevitable about them. For this purpose we chose 18 major contemporary issues which make up the TV news headlines: education, health, water, corruption, child abuse, environment, waste disposal, poverty, economic development, energy supplies. All worrying questions: everyday, global ?bad news' which makes us feel there is nothing the individual can do. Through the eyes of our children, we wanted to discover the reality of theseproblems and find out about the solutions being worked out.

The 18 people we met have one thing in common: in the face of these problems, they refused to remain passive and to accept the inevitable. They were not afraid to be the first to take action. Their example is a testimony to man's greatness and to our universal capacity, in the midst of adversity, to find a way to overcome, for the benefit of all.

Take Suzana Padua, for instance. In the 1980s, she discovered the threat to the forests in Southern Brazil, 97 per cent of which had disappeared. Trees and animals were at risk and desertification was accelerating. The government had decided to create huge parks for their protection. The only problem was how to keep out the local people, who were often very poor, and survived on poaching and felling trees.

It dawned on Suzana that the forest could not be saved by keeping people out. She worked out a model of agroforestry which she patiently taught to the most deprived members of the community. This involved alternating the cultivation of such crops as coffee and fruit with tree planting, in order to regenerate the soil. In a few years there was a miracle. All those abandoned families were earning a living replanting the forest. An agreement was concluded with the government to replant 30 per cent of southern Brazil this way. UNESCO voted Suzana Padua's model one of the eight most promising for the planet.

In Thailand, a young academic calleed Pisit made friends with th local fishermen, who were under threat from illegal industrialisation. They were resorting to such desperate measures as fishing with dynamite or cyanide and were eventually being forced to move to the cities. It was a tragedy both for the individuals concerned and for the community.

Pisit did not try to impose his academic expertise. Month by month, as discussions went on, he discovered that these fishermen possessed remarkable know-how handed down through the generations. He urged them to unite in an effort to protect 'their' coast and to defend their rights against illegal industrial fishing, as well as to replant the mangrove forests where the fish laid their eggs. The benefits spiralled. The sea beds were quickly replenished and the nets filled once more. Families came back to the village.

Pisit emerges from all this as an enlightened prophet with a vision of the only type of development which will work for the 21st century-the 'down top' model. He rejected the domination and hand-outs of those who use money to impose 'top down' models, which are unsuited to local realities. Instead, he approached local people, in a spirit of support and cooperation. Their initiatives will prove their own point.

In India, we met a 94-year-old ophthamologist who has inspired a revolutionary approach to the world economy which is both realistic and people-centred. Govindappa Venkataswamy, known by all as Dr V, has developed an effective form of capitalism to serve the millions who, because they have no spending power, are left out of the market studies of the average capitalist. In a country where ten million people have been blinded by cataracts, he applied lessons learnt from the fast food chains to his own specialty of eye surgery.

Dr V has now built five large hospitals in India, without subsidy,and directs a team of 400 surgeons who operate every day, and do so ten times more rapidly than a regular surgeon. This highproductivity means that he can offer free operations to 70 per cent of his patients, who could not otherwise afford them, and still remain cost-effective. In the time that most ophthamologists would take to operate on one person, Dr V's surgeons can operate on ten, of whom three pay. His teams have already operated on two million blind people and expect to operate on the remaining eight million in the coming years.

The operation concerned involves implanting intraocular lenses, which cost $250 in the West. In his situation such costs are out of the question, so he has formed a subsidiary company, Aurolab, which produces lenses of equivalent quality for $5 each, using a similar approach to efficiency and productivity. In a few years Aurolab has become a world leader and a viable company.

These 'best practices' are a tremendous inspiration. The conclusion is simple: models like Dr V's can be developed for all essential products and services required by mankind. If one starts with the price the poorest can pay (most have some purchasing power, even if it is tiny), then, as productivity rises, there is a realistic prospect of access to a non-competitive but profitable world market made up of the billions abandoned by the capitalist system. In such a huge market, production costs can fall drastically. In many spheres of activity where marketing costs reach 50 or 80 per cent of the selling price, there are new and enticing prospects.

Moreover, the motivation of working for profit, while serving the fundamental needs of billions of people at the edge of progress, can generate a fount of energy and knowledge in a company. Finally, allowing a poor person to satisfy his basic needs (for water, food, health, housing, education, work, energy) will turn him and billions like him into economic players with undreamt-of potential for productivity and consumption. A rich vein of durable, global growth!

Other significant examples prove this approach to be neither utopian nor out of the ordinary. They show that international companies need to take these new markets seriously.

In Brazil, we met Fabio, who developed a model of credit-selling to supply the poorest farmers with solar energy at $11 a month- the amount they normally spend on candles and kerosene. As a result, their productivity and income increased four-fold, and the spectre of drift from the land, so damaging to people's dignity, receded. This type of solution could apply to some billion people without electricity in their homes.

In the past, the economic and social sectors have often been unaware of each other or, when they have come together, have not known how to work together. In the context of Dr V's work, our century of globalisation and information offers fantastic new prospects.

Suzana, Pisit, Dick, Joseph, Fabio, Dr V and the rest of our 18 pioneers are happy. They have found joy through discovering ways to enable our generation to offer ?a fairer and more tolerable' world to the eight billion humans soon to inhabit the planet. Meeting them convinced us that, however great the challenges, the solutions exist-and that they will not come from great political or economic organisations, although they have a role in encouraging them.

Change can only come about through the choices and determination of individuals-of every person, each one unique and irreplaceable in the building of 'a world for our children'.

Albina Riez, centre, grew up as one of 11 brothers and sisters in the Amazonian forest of Peru. In spite of his friends' ridicule, her father allowed her to study. When she arrived in Lima, at the age of 18, to start university she was horrified to discover that two thirds of the city's rubbish was left to rot on the streets, riverbanks and sea shore, endangering health and the environment. The poorest areas were most affected, and many people made a dangerous living scavenging.

Albina refused to accept the unacceptable. As a student, she organised a series of voluntary clean-up campaigns. She wrote her thesis on the issue of rubbish disposal-and came up with a scheme for micro-enterprises based on rubbish-clearing and recycling. A revolving loan fund helps local people to set up as rubbish collectors, using specially designed tricycles which enable them to separate the waste as they collect it. In so doing she has transformed a degrading and precarious activity into a valued, profitable and professional occupation. The incomes and social status of those involved have soared, Lima's poorest areas are being transformed, and the idea is spreading to other cities.

FAMILY QUEST FOR TODAY'S HEROES


Worried about the world your children will inherit? So were Laurent and Marie-Hélène de Cherisey.

THE WORLD DOES NOT always run as it should. And that can be frightening. What kind of world will we leave to our children?

In July 2004, we set off with our five children, aged between five and 11, to meet men and women in 14 countries who are working for a fairer world. We wanted to discover the secret of those who, faced with the world's problems, have overcome their sense of powerlessness and started to bring about profound changes. We spent a few days sharing each of their lives and filming them for French television. We produced seven hours of film and two books under the title of Passeurs d'Espoir (hope traffickers), which have become best-sellers (Presse de la Renaissance, 2005).

Our journey started from a dream, one we shared when we first met. Fifteen years and five children later, the dream became reality. Marie-Hélène, a television journalist, took a course in digital camera work in order to film all these 'anonymous heroes'. Laurent sold his marketing business and, with friends, created the Reporters of Hope Association. The idea is a simple one: for everyone to have a part in creating 'a world for our children', we urgently need to develop a 'global information network' to report both on world problems and on initiatives to resolve them.

At the heart of this approach is the idea of people standing up: this can be any of us, when we are ready to change. Change in ourselves helps us to be on the look-out and ready to be involved whenever people's dignity is flouted. We then find the courage to act and take initiatives.

We finalised our project at an Initiatives of Change conference in Caux, Switzerland, in August 2004. There we met the first two of our 18 'pioneers of the 21st Century': Dick Ruffin, an initiator of the Hope in the Cities reconciliation programme, which deals with racial tension and violence in the USA and elsewhere, and Joseph Karanja, a slum kid turned builder of democracy in Kenya. We also had a chance that summer to spend time with Cornelio Sommaruga, the President of the International Association for IofC, who provided us with the preface for our first book.

Our aim was to gather evidence from those who testify, through the initiatives they have taken, that the great social problems of the 21st century have nothing inevitable about them. For this purpose we chose 18 major contemporary issues which make up the TV news headlines: education, health, water, corruption, child abuse, environment, waste disposal, poverty, economic development, energy supplies. All worrying questions: everyday, global ?bad news' which makes us feel there is nothing the individual can do. Through the eyes of our children, we wanted to discover the reality of theseproblems and find out about the solutions being worked out.

The 18 people we met have one thing in common: in the face of these problems, they refused to remain passive and to accept the inevitable. They were not afraid to be the first to take action. Their example is a testimony to man's greatness and to our universal capacity, in the midst of adversity, to find a way to overcome, for the benefit of all.

Take Suzana Padua, for instance. In the 1980s, she discovered the threat to the forests in Southern Brazil, 97 per cent of which had disappeared. Trees and animals were at risk and desertification was accelerating. The government had decided to create huge parks for their protection. The only problem was how to keep out the local people, who were often very poor, and survived on poaching and felling trees.

It dawned on Suzana that the forest could not be saved by keeping people out. She worked out a model of agroforestry which she patiently taught to the most deprived members of the community. This involved alternating the cultivation of such crops as coffee and fruit with tree planting, in order to regenerate the soil. In a few years there was a miracle. All those abandoned families were earning a living replanting the forest. An agreement was concluded with the government to replant 30 per cent of southern Brazil this way. UNESCO voted Suzana Padua's model one of the eight most promising for the planet.

In Thailand, a young academic calleed Pisit made friends with th local fishermen, who were under threat from illegal industrialisation. They were resorting to such desperate measures as fishing with dynamite or cyanide and were eventually being forced to move to the cities. It was a tragedy both for the individuals concerned and for the community.

Pisit did not try to impose his academic expertise. Month by month, as discussions went on, he discovered that these fishermen possessed remarkable know-how handed down through the generations. He urged them to unite in an effort to protect 'their' coast and to defend their rights against illegal industrial fishing, as well as to replant the mangrove forests where the fish laid their eggs. The benefits spiralled. The sea beds were quickly replenished and the nets filled once more. Families came back to the village.

Pisit emerges from all this as an enlightened prophet with a vision of the only type of development which will work for the 21st century-the 'down top' model. He rejected the domination and hand-outs of those who use money to impose 'top down' models, which are unsuited to local realities. Instead, he approached local people, in a spirit of support and cooperation. Their initiatives will prove their own point.

In India, we met a 94-year-old ophthamologist who has inspired a revolutionary approach to the world economy which is both realistic and people-centred. Govindappa Venkataswamy, known by all as Dr V, has developed an effective form of capitalism to serve the millions who, because they have no spending power, are left out of the market studies of the average capitalist. In a country where ten million people have been blinded by cataracts, he applied lessons learnt from the fast food chains to his own specialty of eye surgery.

Dr V has now built five large hospitals in India, without subsidy,and directs a team of 400 surgeons who operate every day, and do so ten times more rapidly than a regular surgeon. This highproductivity means that he can offer free operations to 70 per cent of his patients, who could not otherwise afford them, and still remain cost-effective. In the time that most ophthamologists would take to operate on one person, Dr V's surgeons can operate on ten, of whom three pay. His teams have already operated on two million blind people and expect to operate on the remaining eight million in the coming years.

The operation concerned involves implanting intraocular lenses, which cost $250 in the West. In his situation such costs are out of the question, so he has formed a subsidiary company, Aurolab, which produces lenses of equivalent quality for $5 each, using a similar approach to efficiency and productivity. In a few years Aurolab has become a world leader and a viable company.

These 'best practices' are a tremendous inspiration. The conclusion is simple: models like Dr V's can be developed for all essential products and services required by mankind. If one starts with the price the poorest can pay (most have some purchasing power, even if it is tiny), then, as productivity rises, there is a realistic prospect of access to a non-competitive but profitable world market made up of the billions abandoned by the capitalist system. In such a huge market, production costs can fall drastically. In many spheres of activity where marketing costs reach 50 or 80 per cent of the selling price, there are new and enticing prospects.

Moreover, the motivation of working for profit, while serving the fundamental needs of billions of people at the edge of progress, can generate a fount of energy and knowledge in a company. Finally, allowing a poor person to satisfy his basic needs (for water, food, health, housing, education, work, energy) will turn him and billions like him into economic players with undreamt-of potential for productivity and consumption. A rich vein of durable, global growth!

Other significant examples prove this approach to be neither utopian nor out of the ordinary. They show that international companies need to take these new markets seriously.

In Brazil, we met Fabio, who developed a model of credit-selling to supply the poorest farmers with solar energy at $11 a month- the amount they normally spend on candles and kerosene. As a result, their productivity and income increased four-fold, and the spectre of drift from the land, so damaging to people's dignity, receded. This type of solution could apply to some billion people without electricity in their homes.

In the past, the economic and social sectors have often been unaware of each other or, when they have come together, have not known how to work together. In the context of Dr V's work, our century of globalisation and information offers fantastic new prospects.

Suzana, Pisit, Dick, Joseph, Fabio, Dr V and the rest of our 18 pioneers are happy. They have found joy through discovering ways to enable our generation to offer ?a fairer and more tolerable' world to the eight billion humans soon to inhabit the planet. Meeting them convinced us that, however great the challenges, the solutions exist-and that they will not come from great political or economic organisations, although they have a role in encouraging them.

Change can only come about through the choices and determination of individuals-of every person, each one unique and irreplaceable in the building of 'a world for our children'.

Albina Riez, centre, grew up as one of 11 brothers and sisters in the Amazonian forest of Peru. In spite of his friends' ridicule, her father allowed her to study. When she arrived in Lima, at the age of 18, to start university she was horrified to discover that two thirds of the city's rubbish was left to rot on the streets, riverbanks and sea shore, endangering health and the environment. The poorest areas were most affected, and many people made a dangerous living scavenging.

Albina refused to accept the unacceptable. As a student, she organised a series of voluntary clean-up campaigns. She wrote her thesis on the issue of rubbish disposal-and came up with a scheme for micro-enterprises based on rubbish-clearing and recycling. A revolving loan fund helps local people to set up as rubbish collectors, using specially designed tricycles which enable them to separate the waste as they collect it. In so doing she has transformed a degrading and precarious activity into a valued, profitable and professional occupation. The incomes and social status of those involved have soared, Lima's poorest areas are being transformed, and the idea is spreading to other cities.

Dear God, This is Charles

Dear God,

This is Charles. I turned twelve the other day. If you noticed, I'm typing this letter. Sometimes it's hard for me to write, you know. It's this thing called dysgraphia. I also have Attention Deficit Disorder-oftentimes learning disabilities accompany A.D.D. My IQ was tested at 140, but if you graded my cursive, you'd think I was dumb.

I never could hold a pencil the right way. I never could color in the lines. Every ime I would try, my hand would cramp up and the letters would come out sloppy, the lines too dark, and the marker would get all over my hands. Nobody wanted to switch papers with me to grade them because they couldn't read them. Keith could, but he moved away.

My brain doesn't sense what my hand is doing. I can feel the pencil, but the message doesn't get through right. I have to grip the pencil tighter so my brain knows that I have it in my hand.

It's much easier for me to explain things by talking than it is to write. I'm really good at dictating, but my teachers don't always let me. If I am asked to write an essay on my trip to Washington and Philadelphia, it's like a punishment. But if I can dictate it, or just get up and talk about it, I can tell everyone about the awesomeness of seeing the Declaration of Independence in the National Archives or the feeling of true patriotism that rushed through me when I stood in the room where our founding fathers debated the issues of freedom.

If I got graded on art, I'd fail for sure. There are so many things I can picture in my mind, but my hands just don't draw it the way I see it.
It's okay. I'm not complaining. I'm really doing fine. You see, you gave me a wonderful mind and a great sense of humor. I'm great at figuring things out, and I love to debate. We have some great Bible discussions in class, and that's where I really shine.

I want to be a lawyer when I group up, a trial lawyer in fact. I know I'd be good at that. I would be responsible for researching the crime, examining the evidence and truthfully presenting the case.

You have told me that you made me special when you said that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You have assured me that you will see me through, and that you have plans for me to give me a future and hope.

My parents want to help me, so they bought me a laptop to take to school. My teacher is the best this year! I am allowed to do a lot of my work on the computer. We have a character trait book due every Friday, and guess what? She lets me use Print Shop Deluxe for the artwork. For the first time, I'll be able to show everyone some of the things I have in my mind.

Lord, this is a thank-you letter, just to let you know I'm doing fine. Life's hard sometimes, but you know what? I accept the challenge. I have the faith to see myself through anything. Thanks for making me me. Thanks for loving me unconditionally. Thanks for everything.

In your service,
Charles

Charles Inglehart, age 12
From Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul

Getting Out

The Point of No Return
In an action movie “The Point of No Return” the heroine finds herself in a mafia type gang. She has a love experience while in the gang and wants out. But she is told by the other members that there is no such thing as “out”. She talks with one of the senior women in the group and is told “Such a thing never entered my mind.”
She determines to leave the gang, but it is too dangerous. Finally she is promised that if she does one more big job, she will be helped to leave without the big boss’ knowledge She goes to do the job, and does not kill the intended victim, but gets the information she was sent to get. Several gang members are killed in connection with this job and the man who promised to help her, lets her go, and tells the boss she was killed also. The film ends with the heroine a free woman.

The symbolism of this film is that we are all involved in a gang called the human race, and there is apparently no escape from its suffering short of death. But once the decision is made to break out, the universe comes to our aid and we are set free to be our true selves

The Greater Whole

The sound of children playing is a universal sound of peace. --Rev. Heng Sure

He'd won 4 Olympic Golds, broken 11 world records, and was 25. So he retires?! Speed skater Johann Olav Koss had a much deeper outlook. “You’re very focused on yourself, you’re very narrow-minded and your world is limited. At a certain point you want to see the greater meaning—the greater whole.”

And so Johann went to Eritrea with a plane full of soccer balls, a week after President Afewerki had made an international appeal for food aid. Koss asked him what he thought about his unexpected and unusual contribution to Eritrea's children, and the President said, 'This is the most beautiful gift we have ever received. Finally we are being seen as human beings. We are more than mouths to feed, more than people dying who must be kept alive. We are people. We, too, have dreams and we hope for a better future.'

Be The Change:
Give a child you know, or perhaps don't know, some sports equipment, a toy, a game, or any other tool of play.

Charity Focus

Divine Intervention

I caught a brief segment on MTV where a rock singer and song writer was telling his life story and had entitled it “Divine Intervention” That seemed a bit strange, so I listened. It seems that this singer/songwriter had just gotten out of the military and headed south to find warmer weather.

He only had $40, a duffel bag and his cassette player and so he had to hitchhike. On the way to Memphis he got caught in an ice storm and while trying to hitch a ride, he got deathly cold. He sat down on the ground and almost frozen and began to slip in and out of consciousness. He remembered turning on his cassette player for some comfort and listening to Pink Floyd sing “I Wish You Were Here” He also remembers that he sang those words to God as a prayer just before he lost consciousness completely.

The next thing he remembered was that someone was taking his duffel bag and he thought “Let them steal it, I’m out of here anyway!” But this same good samaritan also picked him up and took him to a hospital. When he was laid in the car to go to the hospital, what was playing on the radio of the driver but “I Wish You Were Here.”

When he got to Memphis, “I Wish You Were Here” became his theme song and he met his future wife while singing that same song. Incredible or not?

Broken Wing

Some people are just doomed to be failures. That's the way some adults look at troubled kids. Maybe you've heard the saying, "A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high." I'm sure that T. J. Ware was made to feel this way almost every day in school.

By high school, T. J. was the most celebrated troublemaker in his town. Teachers literally cringed when they saw his name posted on their classroom lists for the next semester. He wasn't very talkative, didn't answer questions and got into lots of fights. He had flunked almost every class by the time he entered his senior year, yet was being passed on each year to a higher grade level. Teachers didn't want to have him again the following year. T. J. was moving on, but definitely not moving up. I met T. J. for the first time at a weekend leadership retreat. All the students at school had been invited to sign up for ACE training, a program designed to have students become more involved in their communities. T. J. was one of 405 students who signed up. When I showed up to lead their first retreat, the community leaders gave me this overview of the attending students: "We have a total spectrum represented today, from the student body president to T. J. Ware, the boy with the longest arrest record in the history of town." Somehow, I knew that I wasn't the first to hear about T. J.'s darker side as the first words of introduction.

At the start of the retreat, T. J. was literally standing outside the circle of students, against the back wall, with that "go ahead, impress me" look on his face. He didn't readily join the discussion groups, didn't seem to have much to say. But slowly, the interactive games drew him in. The ice really melted when the groups started building a list of positive and negative things that had occurred at school that year. T. J. had some definite thoughts on those situations. The other students in T. J.'s group welcomed his comments. All of a sudden T. J. felt like a part of the group, and before long he was being treated like a leader. He was saying things that made a lot of sense, and everyone was listening. T. J. was a smart guy and he had some great ideas.

The next day, T. J. was very active in all the sessions. By the end of the retreat, he had joined the Homeless Project team. He knew something about poverty, hunger and hopelessness. The other students on the team were impressed with his passionate concern and ideas. They elected T. J. co-chairman of the team. The student council president would be taking his instruction from T. J. Ware.

When T. J. showed up at school on Monday morning, he arrived to a firestorm. A group of teachers were protesting to the school principal about his being elected co-chairman. The very first communitywide service project was to be a giant food drive, organized by the Homeless Project team. These teachers couldn't believe that the principal would allow this crucial beginning to a prestigious, three-year action plan to stay in the incapable hands of T. J. Ware.

They reminded the principal, "He has an arrest record as long as your arm. He'll probably steal half the food." Mr. Coggshall reminded them that the purpose of the ACE program was to uncover any positive passion that a student had and reinforce its practice until true change can take place. The teachers left the meeting shaking their heads in disgust, firmly convinced that failure was imminent.

Two weeks later, T. J. and his friends led a group of 70 students in a drive to collect food. They collected a school record: 2,854 cans of food in just two hours. It was enough to fill the empty shelves in two neighborhood centers, and the food took care of needy families in the area for 75 days. The local newspaper covered the event with a full-page article the next day. That newspaper story was posted on the main bulletin board at school, where everyone could see it. T. J.'s picture was up there for doing something great, for leading a record-setting food drive. Every day he was reminded about what he did. He was being acknowledged as leadership material. T. J. started showing up at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time. He led a second project, collecting 300 blankets and 1,000 pairs of shoes for the homeless shelter. The event he started now yields 9,000 cans of food in one day, taking care of 70 percent of the need for food for one year. T. J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs mending. But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest. T. J. got a job. He became productive. He is flying quite nicely these days.

Jim Hullihan
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul

Unconditional Love

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with. Her last project of the term was called "Smile". The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reaction.

I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway.....so, I thought, this would be a piece of cake (literally).

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonalds, one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special play time with our son.

We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. I did not move an inch...an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible "dirty body" smell...and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men. As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was "smiling"...his beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God's Light as he searched for acceptance.

He said, "Good day" as he counted the few coins he had been clutching. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally deficient and the blue eyed gentle man was his salvation. I held my tears......as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, "Coffee is all Miss" because that was all they could afford (to sit in the restaurant and warm up they had to buy something...they just wanted to be warm).

Then I really felt it...the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me...judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot.

I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue eyed gentleman's cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, "Thank you". I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, "I did not do this for you...God is here working through me to give you hope". I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, "That is why God gave you to me honey....to give me hope". We held hands for a moment and at that time we knew that only because of the Grace were we able to give .....

We are not church goers but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God's sweet love.

I returned to college, on the last evening of class,with this story in hand. I turned in "my project" and the instructor read it....then she looked up at me and said, "Can I share this?" I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings (part of God) share this need to heal.

In my own way I had touched the people at McDonalds, my husband, son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I Graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn....unconditional acceptance......after all....we are here to learn!


Brenda
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web@spiritual-endeavors.org

Our Indestructible Core of Light

A client told me the following archetypal dream:

The devil was attacking me physically, mentally and spiritually. He was attacking me all over my body, and as he attacked, a gauze that was wrapped around me began to come loose. A voice told him to stop but he kept on. His attacks hurt my shoulders stomach and limbs. After his final attack, all of the gauze fell off and nothing was left except an indestructible core. Then he said to the voice “Now you can kill her” but I wasn’t concerned, I was full of joy. I knew I was indestructible at my core. The gauze had hidden this indestructible light and sealed it in.

Afterward she said to me: “The dream said that I am indestructible light but I don’t know it totally yet. Some of my story still keeps re-creating my suffering, and I guess I need to find out more about the specific themes of my false story so that I don’t buy into them again.

When the Waters were Changed

Once upon a time Khidr, the teacher of Moses, gave mankind a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the waters of the world to change their character. On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or pity but not understanding.

At first, he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he made the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

"Free"

A client of mine was driving along a country road pondering her recent family crisis and counseling process. She noticed on the left side of the road that there was a dresser sitting on the ground with a sign that said “FREE” next to it. The next day she drove by the same spot again and was shocked to see that the dresser was still there but the “Free” sign was gone. She roared in laughter all the way home.

I wondered who else “got it” but it really didn’t matter. It was for Catherine. Her paradoxical sense of humor had created her experience. She referred back to this experience several times during her counseling. To her it meant that you can mistake the symbol for the reality. She had seen that her marriage problems were like the stolen sign, but that the dresser was still there.

Carroll J. Wright, Ph.D.

Is That So?

The Zen Master Kakuin lived in a town in Japan. He was held in high regard and many people came to him for spiritual teaching. Then it happened that the teenage daughter of his next-door neighbor became pregnant. When being questioned by her angry and scolding parents as to the identity of the father, she finally told them that he was Hakuin, the Zen Master. In great fury the parents rushed over to Hakuin and told him with much shouting that their daughter had confessed that he was the father. All he replied was “Is that so?”

News of the scandal spread through the town and beyond. The Master lost his reputation. This did not trouble him. Nobody came to see him any more. He remained unmoved. When the child was born, the parents brought the baby to Hakuin. “You are the father, you look after him.” The Master raised the boy as his own son. About five years later the mother remorsefully confessed to her parents that he real father of the child was the young man who worked at the butcher shop. In great distress they went to Hakuin to apologize and ask for forgiveness. “We are really sorry.” We have come to take the child back. Our daughter confessed that you are not the father. “Is that so?” is all that he he would say as he handed the child over to them.

A master lives moment by moment, without taking things personally, without becoming anyone’s victim. He does not resist what is happening. He accepted the child and he let go of the child. The ego cannot do this. It reacts.

Transforming Loss

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. --Joanna Macy

Acclaimed poet and novelist Maxine Hong Kingston returned from her father's funeral to find her home in flames. The fire destroyed the manuscript and all backup copies of a newly written book, "The Fourth Book of Peace". Though initially devastated, Kingston moved past her personal loss and began a workshop for those who had lost much more: Vietnam War veterans. In the process of helping them move towards personal healing and global harmony through their writing, Kingston unexpectedly arrived at her own peace. She wrote the experience into her next book, called "The Fifth Book of Peace".

The next time you experience a loss, see if you can transform it while helping others in similar situations do the same.

http://qad.charityfocus.org

Seeds of Light

This morning I awakened from a dream in which I saw seeds of light raining down from heaven. These seeds of light were understood to be blessings, seeds of love and wisdom, being given freely to all who are receptive, no matter who it is.

It has been said that Jesus was the only completely unhypnotized man in the history of the world. In

Forty days alone in the desert enabled Jesus to travel to the core of existence itself. Layer upon layer of the collective unconscious mind had to be traversed and cut through. Thousands of stories and images of good news/bad news scenarios didn’t cut it. Finally he reached the Very Good that had been lost since Genesis 1:31, the bedrock of reality. Once he reached that level of consciousness, he could not be tempted by anything the world had to offer. He knew that mankind was enslaved by the external symbols of pleasure, fame and power, which shortly fail to satisfy.

He emerged from the desert full of light. He went to the temple in his home town and announced his mission to bring the good news he had found to the world (Luke 4). They handed him the scrolls of scripture and he read from Isaiah 62: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to see free those who are downtrodden, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He was electrifying! He announced what he had found at the very center of existence: the infinite and unequivocal good news. He didn’t get that from society, from the learned, from the libraries, from the politicians and priests, because they didn’t know it.

This announcement angered his listeners when he told them that to qualify for the good news you have to be aware that you are poor, imprisoned, broken-hearted, downtrodden, blind, or grief-stricken. Our whole ego belief system in the story of good and evil has to be falling apart before we are open to the infinite good news. He had come to the chief problem of man: that we have been deceived, mis-educated, brain-washed, misled, falsely indoctrinated, conditioned, and hypnotized. We are ignorant of the truth. We look but we don’t see. We are in a state of amnesia. A complete turn-about is required. Outward behavior won’t cut it. We have to become like a little child, innocent open and without knowledge or we cannot find the Kingdom of Heaven. Is that good news? Not to the ego. Everyone wants to think he or she is right, that we know the score, that we are educated, modern, up-to-date, well-read, computer-literate, good people. The problem is god and other people. The good news is that we are mistaken, asleep in our common sense view of reality, and for the most part we don’t want to be disturbed. Jesus was the Great Disturber. The Grand Inquisitor asked “Jesus, why do you disturb us!” The very crises that come in our lives make us open to the possibility of seeing the false story of good versus evil that makes us poor, imprisoned, blind, starving, broken-hearted and asleep. Infinite Good News now becomes possible.

We're Not Victims Here

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | April 14, 2006

The little girl said the word "porch" and then began sobbing loudly. After her mother comforted her, 5-year-old Kai Leigh Harriott looked up from her blue wheelchair in the hushed courtroom yesterday and faced the man who fired the stray gunshot that paralyzed her nearly three years ago.

''What you done to me was wrong," the dimpled girl with purple and yellow plastic ties in her braids said softly. ''But I still forgive you."

On a summer night in 2003, Anthony Warren of Hyde Park fired three gunshots into the air outside a three-decker in Dorchester to scare two women who lived on the first floor after an argument. One bullet severed the spine of Kai, then 3, who was sitting outside on her family's third-story porch with a sister.

Yesterday, in emotionally wrenching victim-impact statements that left many spectators in tears, Kai and four members of her family told a Suffolk Superior Court judge that the shooting had changed their lives forever, but had also shown them the value of forgiveness.

''We're not victims here; we're victors," said Kai's mother, Tonya David, addressing the court.

Moments later, Warren, 29, a convicted felon who pleaded guilty yesterday to avoid a trial, approached Kai and her family and, in barely audible tones, apologized.

Kai's mother, Tonya, recalled his words later. ''I'm sorry for what I've done to you and your family," she said Warren told her. ''I was known in the street for all the wrong reasons, and now I want to be known for the right reasons."

Tonya shook his handcuffed right hand and embraced him.

Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford called the statements the most moving she had heard in 17 years on the bench. She sentenced Warren to 13 to 15 years in state prison, plus five years on probation, for multiple charges stemming from the shooting, including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious injury.

Botsford said Warren, who had been convicted twice previously of assault and battery, had acted deliberately and recklessly when he pulled the revolver from his waistband and began firing shots. But he never intended to shoot the little girl, who is paralyzed from the waist down, she said. And Botsford was impressed by the ''profound" generosity and forgiveness of Kai's family and by Warren's apology, she said.

Warren, his brother, Cedric Warren, and two friends got into an argument with two sisters who lived on the first floor of a Bowdoin Street building around 11 p.m., said Assistant District Attorney David Fredette.

Cedric Warren had been seething since the night before when a friend of the sisters had stared at him, and he decided to pay the sisters a visit. The four approached the house, where the sisters were on their front porch. When one of the sisters called police during the ensuing argument, Anthony Warren pulled out a revolver and fired three shots into the air that can be heard on the 911 tape.

Kai, an exuberant girl with an electric smile, was sitting on the porch with her sister, Aja David, and was struck in the back. Aja, now 17, grabbed Kai and rushed inside the house, where she realized that Kai had been hit.

Fighting back tears as she stood next to Kai's wheelchair, another sister, a brother, and their mother, Aja told the court that the shooting shattered her family.

''I realize that in life anything can happen to you," she said. ''Kai has been paralyzed. . . . But she is happy. She is happy. . . . She's stronger than me."

Their mother said Kai, who is in kindergarten at the Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown, has never complained about being in a wheelchair. She likes to go down a slide with her 12-year-old brother, Kani David, at a playground near their new home in Roxbury. She paints and plays video games.

But Tonya David cannot forget what her daughter has lost.

''Kai was not born unhealthy or in a wheelchair," she told the court. ''I can still remember the pitter-patter of her little feet."

Tonya, who has since moved, knew that her old neighborhood had crime, she said, but she never dreamed that her children could have been in danger on the third floor of the three-decker. It was a ''serene" oasis, David said, from which she could see Quincy Bay and downtown Boston.

After Kai and her family rejoined the spectators in the courtroom, Warren walked over and apologized, saying that he, too, has a young daughter and she is precious, like Kai.

Then Tonya David asked court officers if she could shake his hand. They said she could. She did. And then she hugged him.

"Free"

A client of mine was driving along a country road pondering her recent family crisis and counseling process. She noticed on the left side of the road that there was a dresser sitting on the ground with a sign that said “FREE” next to it. The next day she drove by the same spot again and was shocked to see that the dresser was still there but the “Free” sign was gone. She roared in laughter all the way home.

I wondered who else “got it” but it really didn’t matter. It was for Catherine. Her paradoxical sense of humor had created her experience. She referred back to this experience several times during her counseling. To her it meant that you can mistake the symbol for the reality. She had seen that her marriage problems were like the stolen sign, but that the dresser was still there.

Everything Happens For a Reason?

Once upon a time, when Adam had decided that everything happens for a reason, an incredible series of events challenged his belief. As he was leaving for home after work one day, he had the thought that he would share with his co-worker therapist, Ron, about his new website. But upon second thought he imagined that Ron would just laugh at the radical approach of his new book described there. So he got in his new truck and left for home. Driving along the interstate just after dark, suddenly a deer bolted from the woods on the right and crashed into his right front fender. Unable to stop due to the heavy flow of traffic, the truck continued to function in spite of the damage.

As Adam sped on down the interstate, thoughts were racing through his mind: “So you think everything happens for a reason. Well, what about this! Your new truck is ruined. A beautiful deer is dead. It will cost you a couple of thousand dollars, and two weeks in the shop, to get it fixed. What sense does all of this make? What purpose could such a useless accident have?” Suddenly, there was a great quiet, an inner peace. Not a thought occurred. Then it came: “Your lack of courage. If you had talked to Ron for a few minutes, this accident would not have happened.” Adam was humiliated but elated. It was all for courage? Yes! That was precisely the truth. Adam saw that it was worth it. The deer gave up his life for Adam’s realization of courage. His truck and his pocketbook took the blow for the awareness of courage. And how much he has needed and found that courage present since that day!

In the Hearts of Men

On the tomb of Rumi:

"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."

Is This heaven or What?

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like Mother of Pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold.

He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?" "This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked. "Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up." The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked. "I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road which led through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

"Excuse me!" he called to the reader. "Do you have any water?" "Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there." The man pointed to a place that couldn't be seen from outside the gate. "Come on in." "How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog. "There should be a bowl by the pump." They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree waiting for them.

"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is Heaven," he answered. "Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's Hell."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?" "No. I can see how you might think so, but we're just happy that they screen out the folks who'll leave their best friends behind."

Heroes Come in All Sizes

SPRINGFIELD - When his mom rolled off the bed and hit the floor, 8-year-old Jacob Clini knew three things: she was not moving, she needed help and he had to find a telephone.

Remembering what his teachers and his cousin had told him about 911, Jacob picked up the phone, punched in the three numbers and saved his mother's life.

His mother, Denise Leclair, one week removed from delivering twins by cesarean section, was rushed to the hospital following the Dec. 22 incident.

She was found to have a ruptured spleen and would spend the next 30 days hospitalized, including three days in intensive care. The reason for the rupture is unclear.

"It is no doubt he saved his mother's life," said acting Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet.

"This young man was remarkable with staying calm and controlled in a frightening situation," he said.

The second-grade pupil at Glenwood Elementary School was honored in a ceremony at police headquarters yesterday with the department's 911 Citizen Hero Award.

With his arm around Jacob, who measured up to his waist, Fitchet said, "Heroes come in all shapes and sizes."

All human beings are part of the tapestry of the universe, part of a pattern which connects. Nothing exists in isolation, in separateness. When I realize this network of grand relationships, I lose the illusion of my separate self. -- Satish Kumar

God Provides

Aaron was shipwrecked on an island. All of his shipmates were drowned. He took the wreckage that washed ashore and built some living quarters--his only hedge against the primitive living conditions on the island. He had a little food, some oil for a lamp, and a few tools and clothes. He built himself a camp and living quarters. One evening when he had gone to get some water, a storm came up and blew over his lamp, starting a fire in which his entire camp and supplies were burned up. Aaron sank into despair, visualizing himself unable to survive without his meager supplies.

Three hours later, a ship docked in the bay, and he was rescued. The captain explained that he had see smoke and decided to investigate.

The Art of Gardening

There were 4 towns. In each town, people were starving to death. Each town had a bag of seeds.

In the first town, no one knew what seeds could do. No one knew how to plant them. Everyone starved.

In the second town, one person knew what seeds were and how
to plant them, but did nothing about it for one reason or another.
Everyone starved.

In the third town, one person knew what seeds were and how to plant them. He proposed to plant them in exchange for being declared the king or ruler. All ate, but were ruled.

In the fourth town, one person knew what seeds were and how to plant them. He not only planted the seeds, but taught everyone the art of gardening. All were fed and free.