Warm Fuzzies

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><script type="text/javascript" src="http://hb.lycos.com/hb.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ratings.lycos.com/ratings/lycosRating.js.php"></script> <script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[//><!]]></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://scripts.lycos.com/catman/init.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-start.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-middle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-end.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/img/common/ot_noscript.gif?rand=396784" alt="" width="1" height="1" />  <iframe frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="728" height="90" src="http://ad.yieldmanager.com/st?ad_type=iframe&ad_size=728x90&section=209094"></iframe>  </noscript> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="31800640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="6" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Tahoma" ><B>The Message</b></FONT><FONT SIZE="6" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Tahoma" ><B> </b></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Tahoma" ><B> </b></FONT><B>|   </b><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Message"><U><B>The Message Home Page</b></U></A><B> </b><B> |  </b><A HREF="small_group_communication_by_lynn_meade.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Small Group Home Page"><U><B>Small Group Home Page</b></U></A><B>  </b><B> |  </b><A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U><B>Contact Me</b></U></A></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> A Communication Website by Lynn Meade</div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=150 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Warm Fuzzies</div> <div> <IMG SRC="36255570.gif" border=0 width="85" height="87" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.</div> <bR> <div> The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry." </div> <bR> <div> Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different color hair than the other family members. One child suggested that he was adopted and a</div> <div> little girl said, "I know all about adoptions because I was adopted." "What does it mean to be adopted?" asked another child. "It means," said the girl, "that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy."</div> <bR> <div> A four year old was at the pediatrician for a check up. As the doctor looked down her ears with an otoscope, he asked, "Do you think I'll find Big Bird in here?"The little girl stayed silent. Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat.He asked, "Do you think I'll find the Cookie Monster down there?" Again, the little girl was silent.Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heart beat, he asked, "Do you think I'll hear Barney in there?""Oh, no!" the little girl replied. "Jesus is in my heart. Barney's on my underpants!"</div> <bR> <div> An Eye Witness Account from New York City, on a cold day in December:A little boy,10 years old, was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with</div> <div> cold. A lady approached the boy said, "My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?" "I was ASKING God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's reply.The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the little fellow to the back part of the store, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel. By this time the clerk had returned with the socks.Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes. She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, "No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?"</div> <bR> <div> As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears in his eyes, answered the question with these words: "Are you God's Wife?"</div> <bR> <div> SLOW DANCE </div> <div> Have you ever watched kids </div> <div> On a merry-go-round? </div> <div> Or listened to the rain </div> <div> Slapping on the ground? </div> <div> Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight? </div> <div> Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? </div> <div> You better slow down. </div> <div> Don't dance so fast. </div> <div> Time is short. </div> <div> The music won't last. </div> <div> Do you run through each day </div> <div> On the fly? </div> <div> When you ask How are you? </div> <div> Do you hear the reply? </div> <div> When the day is done </div> <div> Do you lie in your bed </div> <div> With the next hundred chores </div> <div> Running through your head? </div> <div> You'd better slow down </div> <div> Don't dance so fast. </div> <div> Time is short. </div> <div> The music won't last. </div> <div> Ever told your child, </div> <div> We'll do it tomorrow? </div> <div> And in your haste, </div> <div> Not see his sorrow? </div> <div> Ever lost touch, </div> <div> Let a good friendship die </div> <div> Cause you never had time </div> <div> To call and say,"hi" </div> <div> You'd better slow down. </div> <div> Don't dance so fast. </div> <div> Time is short. </div> <div> The music won't last. </div> <div> When you run so fast to get somewhere </div> <div> You miss half the fun of getting there. </div> <div> When you worry and hurry through your day, </div> <div> It is like an unopened gift.... </div> <div> Thrown away. </div> <div> Life is not a race. </div> <div> Do take it slower </div> <div> Hear the music </div> <div> Before the song is over. </div> <bR> <div> THE DAFFODIL PRINCIPLE....</div> <div> Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive. "I will come next Tuesday, " I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.</div> <bR> <div> Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn!  The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!"My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.</div> <bR> <div> "I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!"</div> <bR> <div> "We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils." "Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."</div> <bR> <div> After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read, "Daffodil Garden."</div> <bR> <div> We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffro and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.</div> <bR> <div> There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well kept A frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.</div> <bR> <div> The first answer was a simple one."50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."</div> <bR> <div> There it was, The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years</div> <div> before, had begun-one bulb at a time-to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time-often just one baby-step at a time-and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.  When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.</div> <bR> <div> "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.</div> <bR> <div> It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?". . . . . Author Unknown</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> There is no better time than right now to be happy.</div> <div> Happiness is a journey, not a destination!</div> <div> So work like you don't need money,</div> <div> Love like you've never been hurt,</div> <div> And, dance like no one's watching!</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>