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WITandWISDOM(tm) - August 19, 2003 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: The stories that you tell about your past shape your future. - Eric Ransdell in "Fast Company" Source: Reader's Digest, Copyright (c) June 2000, http://www.readersdigest.com/ ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: The Flower By Pastor John R. Ramsey For some time I have had a person provide me with a rose boutonniere to pin on the lapel of my suit every Sunday. Because I always got a flower on Sunday morning, I really did not think much of it. It was a nice gesture that I appreciated, but it became routine. As I was leaving the Sunday service a young man approached me. He walked right up to me and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first I did not know what he was talking about, but then I understood. I said, "Do you mean this?" as I pointed to the rose pinned to my coat. He said, "Yes sir. I would like it if you are just going to throw it away." At this point I smiled and gladly told him that he could have my flower, casually asking him what he was going to do with it. The little boy, who was probably less than 10 years old, looked up at me and said, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my granny. My mother and father got divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but when she married again, she wanted me to live with my father. I lived with him for a while, but he said I could not stay, so he sent me to live with my grandmother. She is so good to me. She cooks for me and takes care of me. She has been so good to me that I want to give that pretty flower to her for loving me." When the little boy finished I could hardly speak. My eyes filled with tears and I knew I had been touched in the depths of my soul. I reached up and unpinned my flower. With the flower in my hand, I looked at the boy and said, "Son, that is the nicest thing I have ever heard, but you can't have this flower because it's not enough. If you'll look in front of the pulpit, you'll see a big bouquet of flowers. Different families buy them for the church each week. Please take those flowers to your granny because she deserves the very best." If I hadn't been touched enough already, he made one last statement and I will always cherish it. He said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet." Source: The Inspired Buffalo, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the-inspired-buffalo/ ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: In A More Ideal World A person should feel as good at 50 as he did at 17 and he would actually be as smart at 50 as he thought he was at 17. You could give away a baby bed without getting pregnant. Forget-me-nots would stimulate the memory. Doing what was good for you would be what you enjoyed doing the most. People always have good reasons to be optimistic. You would never fumble, but if you did, you would recover the ball yourself. The mail would always be early, the check would always be in the mail, and it would be written for more than you expected. Potato chips might have calories, but if you ate them with a dip, the calories would be neutralized. First impressions wouldn't count for nearly as much as ultimate performance. Winning might be a nice thing, but that would be about all. All people could expect to be accepted. Every once in a while at least, a kid who always closed the door softly would be told, "Go back and slam the door." The better food tasted, the less calories it would have. Warranties would be for 13 months and products would fail at 12. Source: The Funnies, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/andychaps_the-funnies ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: No matter how hard my mom tries, every plant or flower she has attempted to grow seems to wither and die an untimely death under her care. But she never gives up hope. While she was visiting home recently, my sister nudged me and pointed to a line of new plants placed by the kitchen window. "Look," she whispered, "death row." Source: Clean Laffs, http://www.shagmail.com/sub/sub-jokes.html ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: Tamworth, England (Ananova): Dannii Minogue accidentally started a new dance trend at an outdoor concert when she tried to alert the crowd to a capsized boat behind them. Dannii's attempts at raising the alarm by frantically pointing at the boat in a lake behind the audience backfired when fans thought she was performing a new dance. They all started pointing back at her, during the concert at Kingsbury Water Park near Tamworth, thinking it was a new craze, reports the Evening Mail. Fortunately the sailor was an experienced member of a sailing club and managed to clamber back safely into his boat. After the show, Dannii said she had wanted to stop singing and shout for help, but was then relieved to see the man was safe. A 13-year-old girl in the audience told how fans were at first puzzled when the singer started pointing her arms. "I thought it might be some new sort of dance craze and started copying - every time she pointed out at us, we pointed back at her," she said. A spokesman for the water park said the sailor, who was in his 20s, was fine. Source: White Board News, http://www.joeha.com/whiteboard/ |