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WITandWISDOM(tm) - October 27, 2006 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich." - Henry Ward Beecher Pulpit Pieces Weekly, http://www.net153.com/best.htm ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: A political enemy once accused Abraham Lincoln of being two-faced. Abe laughed and said, "Now, do you think that if I had another face I'd be wearing this one?" Lincoln, who rose from a Kentucky log cabin to the White House, showed the world what humility really means. In spite of his great power as President, he never lost touch with the people he grew up with, or claimed to be something he wasn't. He never tried to impress people. One of Lincoln's last acts before he left Springfield, Illinois, to go as President to Washington, D.C., was to visit his old law office and say goodbye to his partner, William Herndon. After they finished discussing business, he lay down on the office sofa and stared at the ceiling. "Billy," he asked, "how long have we been together?" "More than sixteen years." "We've never had a cross word, have we?" They talked about the many funny things that had happened through the years, and then, as Abe picked up his books to leave, he pointed to the signboard swinging on its rusty hinges at the foot of the stairway. "Let it hang there," he said. "I want the people to know that the election of a President makes no change in the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. If I live. I'm coming back some time, and we'll go right on practicing law as if nothing had happened." Most politicians from the East thought of Lincoln as an ignorant frontier lawyer. They were sure he could never handle the problems of a President. They knew he could never fit in with the educated, polished people of Washington. Abe never argued about that. He didn't change his homely way of speaking. He kept right on telling his funny stories and didn't worry about whether people admired him or not. "My course," he said, "is as plain as a turnpike road. It is marked out by the Constitution. I am in no doubt which way to go." Although many people didn't like having this long, lean rail-splitter for President, they couldn't help but see honesty and a natural dignity in his face. He never tried to pretend to be what he wasn't and he never forgot the humble background from which the Lord had brought him. Source: Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, by Jeanne Larson and Ruth McLin, © 1979 by the Review and Herald Publishing Association ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: (Ananova 9-27-06) A breakdown patrol man managed to get a stranded woman's car started by using her dog. Juliette Piesley, 39, had changed the battery in her electronic key fob but was then unable to start her car, reports the BBC. When AA patrolman Kevin Gorman arrived at the scene, in Addlestone, Surrey, he found the immobilizer chip was missing. Ms Piesley said her dog George had eaten something, and realizing it was the chip, he put the dog in the front seat and started the car with the key. Mr Gorman said: "I was glad to get the car started for the member. "They will now have to take George with them in the car until things take their natural course. It is the first time that I have had to get a dog to help me to start a car." Source: Ananova http://www.ananova.com ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: My husband was preaching his first full-length series of evangelistic meetings to a small and casual crowd. The sermon on health included an illustration of a careless car owner who damaged his car by failing to read the manual and care for it. As my husband described the young man and his shiny sports car, how he loved to rev the engine, squeal the tires, and terrorize the neighbors, a woman in the crowd piped up, "Hey, he lives around the corner from me!" By Laura Wibberdmg, Lansdale, Pennsylvania ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: (Reuters – July 2006) A Russian teenager survived a lightning strike which was so powerful it vaporized a gold cross on her neck. The bolt hit Marina Motygina, 16, from Ekaterinburg in western Russia on the top of her head and seared through her body into the ground. The necklace she had been wearing was 'atomized', leaving burns in the shape of a cross on her neck, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. Only a couple of links of the chain could be found. A doctor at the local hospital who treated her said: "It is a miracle she has survived. She is fine now but will be staying in hospital for another two weeks. "But she will have deep scars on her neck where the cross was for the rest of her life." Source: Reuters, http://reuters.com