In Ecclesiastes 11:1 it says roughly “Cast your bread upon the waters and you will find it after many days.” I keep being astonished at how kind and wonderful people are to our family. Everywhere I turn someone is doing something kind for us. The thought keeps coming to me that this is our bread from past years coming back to us. Only I’m fairly certain that we didn’t throw out this much bread. It seems odd, and somehow backwards, that we should be so greatly blessed for living a lifestyle that so many people only dream of having. I won’t pretend there aren’t hard bits and stressful bits, but it seems like every time we run up against one of them, a friend is right there to help us over.
In semi-related news, I’m going to get to go to a segment of LTUE. Thursday morning a friend/neighbor has volunteered to watch my kids so that I can go watch Howard sit on a panel with all sorts of famous people. The headliner there is Jerry Pournelle. I may actually get a chance to meet him. If nothing else I’ll get to be with Howard for an hour or so sans kids. Maybe lunch will even be involved. The only problem is that, like Cinderella, my time will be limited. I will almost certainly have to dash out in the middle of something very interesting. Oh well. At least I get to go.
Completely unrelated to the prior two thoughts is the fact that we watched Monsters Incorporated today. When that movie hit the theaters Link was a toddler and I found the character Boo to be impossibly advanced for a toddler. It seemed like no toddler could be that alert/aware/verbal so young. I watched it again when gleek was 2 and realized that Boo was actually fairly realistic. Today I watched Boo and thought “she ought to be able to talk better than that.” Patches is “Boo-aged” and he is the chattiest of my kids. Not only is he chatty, but he is very determined to prounouce things correctly. I love it. I love talking with him and watching him get smarter every day.
That’s the end of my thoughts for today. I’ve been too busy dealing with sick and messy house and tired to post regularly. I guess I was saving up.
Bread and water
Have you ever thrown bread in water? When it comes back it is always bigger than what you threw in. (OK, it is yuckier as well, but I can only streatch a metaphore so far)
My thought is that kindness is like investing… if you are kind to ONLY two people, and they are kind to two people, and they are kind to two people… eventually when it comes back, and it has to, if you do the math, there aren’t that many people out there, it unbelievably large and complex.
On the other hand, rudeness and discurtousy works the same way. I knew a guy that was always yelling at people who were trying to do things for him (waiters, bellhops, counter people, etc…) and invariably his reservations were lost, luggage destroyed, food cold, etc… and often before the people involved had a chance to even know about his disposition. He was convinced that everyone was useless and incompetent.
I traveled through most of the same world, traveling hundreds of thousands (millions?) of airline miles, eaten at thousands of restraunts, dealt with uncounted counter people… and have lost my luggage ONCE, had cold food a few times, and can destinctly remember the times that counter people were rude or incompetant to me it happened so seldom. I try to always assume that when these things happen, it isn’t the fault of the person in front of me, assuming it is the FAULT of anyone and not just a mistake or goof, (or just a bad day, I’ve had a few of those) which most of the time it is… and In almost every case I have gotten better service after the problem (with being polite) then that other guy did after demanding his RIGHTS.
Enjoy the nice things that people do for you, I bet that for the most part they enjoy doing them!
unrelated but highly interesting
Sandra, you really need to get your hands on Newsweek (Feb.21,2005 issue)
it’s titled: The Myth of the Perfect Mother
It’s amazing how “bad” perfectionism is and how ingrained that perfectionism is in Moms and society itself.
If nothing else it will make you feel extremely happy and lucky to be a stay at home mom.
p.s. related to your LJ entry. We just gave our last talk in church … thank you for your thoughts about how it all is in your mind / starts in your mind (we used that)…
Charity is Kind, and kindness makes ripples.
Anger or unkindness also makes ripples.
Feels really good when the kindness ripples bounce back to you, huh.
I’m waiting for some of those ripples to come back while I’m packing and moving… (next FRIDAY!?!?)ack!
Have a gooooooood day!