Grace

Grace. What a beautiful word. Even Princess Grace, as beautiful and wonderful as she was, cannot fulfill the vision of this word. In religion it signifies the undeserved Grace of God, Who forgives us of our sins, regardless of how deserving, or not, we are to receive that forgiveness. But we have to ask and ask with true remorse and true regret in our hearts.

Grace, however, has a more tangible meaning to me. It is a word that sums up all that is good, or can be good, in a human being. It is the person who always makes you feel better about yourself. A Norman Vincent Peale in the flesh kind of person. It is that person, who regardless of their challenges in life, always put themselves second (or third, as the case may be) and who always looks out for the needs and wants and desires of others. Grace describes that person who is so beautiful on the inside that you never even consider whether she is beautiful on the outside because outer beauty is insignificant compared to inner beauty. And my friends will tell you, in my case, that must be one wonderful woman.

Grace is that state of being where one possesses no negative thoughts; no criticism of others, no racial prejudice, no sense of being a victim, no feelings of weakness, trouble or dis-harmony. Grace is a special place in the heart. It is a place, where regardless of creed, regardless of looks, regardless of religion, regardless of any external influence, one accepts you for what you are and makes you feel welcome, treasured, important and significant in their life and in the lives of others. It is a gift many of us wish we had, and of which few share, a gift which exemplifies that true sense of grace, of undeserved non-judgmental love and respect.

So what does it mean to you?

We don't stop playing...

Some quotes I like.

We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines> Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. - Mark Twain

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching. - Satchel Paige

Success is a journey, not a destination. - Ben Sweetland

Feel the fear and do it anyway. - Susan Jeffers

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. - Albert Einstein

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. - Helen Keller

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchhill

Be the change you want to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Confuscious

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off of your goal. - Henry Ford

Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a choice. - Barry Neil Kaufman

They can because they think they can. - Virgil

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. - Sydney Harris

Many of lifes failures are people who who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they will never cease to be amused.

A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - Sir Winston Churchhill

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. - e. e. cummings

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

Treat people as if they are what they ought to be, and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Goethe

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Ward

How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. - Churchhill

We judge ourselves by what we feel we are capable of doing while others judge us by what we have already done. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. - William Yeats

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm. and adventures. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes wide open. - Jawaharlal Nehru

Silver Linings

Sometimes the world seems to be a dark, dim place. It's those dark moments that highlight the beauty of our lives. When something does not go the way we hope or plan it might go, while disappointed, we must look for the positive that surely will follow. So if your world seems a bit dim, if dark clouds seem to be dominating your life, know that something grand will come of your troubles, something unexpected. And suddenly you will understand the blessings you've been given.

I'm still unemployed. That bums me out. But I believe that something better than I had will come along. It may take longer than I want. It may be different than I imagine, but I believe it will come. Positive thinking is the only way to make it happen.

We recently had a contract for the sale of our house. The purchasers backed out. I have no idea why. At first I was extremely angry. Their inconsiderate and apparently ill thought out offer, resulted in our house being taken off the market for a week. We had two other people actively interested and one actively bidding to buy the house. We had three people interested in seeing the property at that time. All prospects have moved on to other properties. So I could sit here and be bitter and angry, but those negative thoughts and emotions won't get my house sold. So its time I let go of my anger and focus on the positive opportunity to get a higher offer for our house. Or, perhaps, it isn't out destiny to sell our house right now. We can live with that. Perhaps keeping our house will be the best thing that can happen to us. One never knows. But positive thinking will lead us in the best direction possible.

So if you are feeling down, do something positive to help yourself feel better. Do something to help someone else. Find an uplifting book to read. Get some serious exercise. Try yoga. Be active and seek others who are positive influences in your life and talk about it with them. Don't be afraid to admit you are depressed. That's often the first step in dealing with the solution. Talk about it and if it's affecting your life in a negative way, get professional help. It's an illness and treatment makes it better.

Personally, a good dose of Sun and Sand and Ocean and Children, are remarkable in improving my mood. We've enjoyed seeing Leslie and our other two children join Kim and I tomorrow for four days. It will be the first time in many years that we have all been together for a vacation in Florida. We can't wait to get together with their Grandpa Shaw and Jennifer to enjoy a visit before those two snowbirds fly back to Ohio. So as I sit on the deck and see the sun and the ocean, my mood brightens. The grandeur of the seascape makes the darkness in my life recede. And as it does, I appreciate all the more the glorious beauty that has been created for my enjoyment. Keep smiling! It's infectious.

Kindness of Strangers

I have on my desk a check. I knew it was worthless when I accepted it. Had I had a moment to contemplate my reaction to the presentation of the check, I would have told the lady to put it back in her purse as I did not want to be paid back. I would have urged her to pay my small act of kindness forward. I never intended to cash the check anyway.


She was stopped on one of the busier ramps in Cincinnati off I-71, less than a mile from our home. Her car sat off to the side, with the hood up. She looked frazzled and a bit bedraggled as she waved me over. I dutifully pulled over, ready to commit an act of kindness. She tells me her story. Her car has died and she has called a tow truck and she needs an additional $28.00 to pay for the tow. So I give her $30.00. She asks me to wait a moment. After briefly entering her car, she emerges and returns to my car, thrusting a check through the window. She tells me she has added $5.00 since I was so nice to her and she wants to pay me back. I thank her and tell her I don't want her check, but she insists. So I drive off.


I must confess that had she not given me a check, I'd have driven home and not thought about it any more. But that act made me suspicious of her. So I turned around after driving a few blocks and drove back past the exit ramp. Her car was still there and she was in her car. So I felt like maybe she was telling me the truth. And maybe she was. But the next day, when I went to the bank, I cashed several checks and asked the teller to check to see if her check was good. "No," I was told, "the account is open, but it has been dormant and empty for so long that the sytems is going to close it after the next statement is run. Apparently, she noted, the account address is not accurate as her statements are being returned.


I refuse to believe she was a bad woman. I envisioned her with young children she needed to feed or clothe. So I actually feel badly that I did not insist that she keep the check. How much sleep did she lose, thinking I might report her to the police for giving me a check she knew was not good. I wish so badly that I could have saved her that worry. Then, my kindness might have felt good and whole.


I'm intrigued by the Starbucks "pay it forward" phenomenon. Apparently, every so often, someone in line pays for the coffee of the person behind them. That act then gets passed backward for long periods of time. Who starts these things...and who ends them?


One of John Maxwell's main principles is that giving to others makes you a better person. It's not magic. It's simple. Such activity makes you feel better about yourself. When you feel better about yourself, you treat others better and they treat you better. And the cycle continues. My theory on doing good and its' influence on the world is best illustrated by the rings created by dropping something into water. The ring of waves spreads quickly from the center. Depending on the size of the object, the waves are bigger or smaller and last longer or fade more quickly. But the illustration is lacking. Sometimes, a person who is touched by the wave of kindness is moved to toss a larger gift into the pool of good deeds. And this sets off a larger wave. So I envision, instead, a sort of Rube Goldberg device that is triggered by a wave of kindness and which somehow triggers new waves which repeat the process endlessly. Positive Waves are a perpetual motion machine.


When have you experienced the kindness of a stranger or shown kindness that may have made a difference in someone's life? Have you heard any stories of small acts of kindness that pay large dividends? Does an unexpected smile make a difference in your day? Can you make a difference in someone's day?

Report back next week. Take the challenge. Do something kind for someone and see if it triggers a smile, a sense of good will, a new good deed. It may take longer to see the results. But I believe, regardless of whether you see the results, that goodness breeds goodness. A smile breeds more smiles. Send out a ring of good will this weekend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg

Scents

Spring blossoms with hope and promise. Summer is approaching, the threat of snow is all but gone (at least in Southern Ohio), and the hopes of a New Year that were delivered in January begin to brighten.


And so it is as I skip and hop through spring. And I give thanks for the power of scents.


I pass a flowering bush and a scent hits me with a rush of memories that have long faded, but lie behind a mysterious veil that shrouds my memory banks. That smell of a particular flowering bush instantly propels me back to my days at the College of Wooster, as these bushes grew just outside my door in the Freshman dorm and elsewhere across the campus. Suddenly, I am 21, full of life and energy and seething in raw hormones that create an interesting persona of invincibility, drive and craziness. The power of scent is undeniable.

Too, there are a couple of perfumes that instantly provoke an emotional longing, a sense of lost promise, lost love and a rush of faded photos which I cannot quite make out as they flash through my head. I'm not sure who I associate with which scent, but clearly someone I dated, someone to whom I had a strong emotional attachment once wore that fragrance. Unfortunately, as the fragrance has gotten more and more dated, I have this experience less often. But I love that raw emotional reaction to a simple smell. That longing I've almost forgotten.


The smell of the ocean gives rise to such a complex of reactions it is impossible to sort them all out. My wife and kids and I have vacationed on the ocean for many years. Sometimes as a family on an adventure to Nantucket, or driving through Maine and experiencing such wonders as fairy houses set amidst a deeply wooded island path, a fantasy my children will never forget. Or other trips with best friends, with young children and, later, with teens, who loved the ocean; the wonders of a walk on a beach at night with flashlights, catching crabs, experiencing the sudden jolt of a crab leg striking one's leg in the mysterious inky black of the ocean, finding oneself amidst a veritable school of rays as they forage for food in the shallows by the shore, afraid to move lest a sting might result or a ray might be injured.

Many vacations as a child rush through my head as we explored Florida before it became so overbuilt and crowded. A small cottage on Crystal River, with a spring at the end of the dock, spewing water so clear you could see into the blackness of the hole, 10 feet below the surface, as if it existed at the bottom of your bathtub. I can recall diving down to the hole, feeling the cold rush of water as it emerged, fearful of going into that black darkness, not knowing what might lurk within. Watching from the dock as "Sea Cows," as we called them back then (Manatees), lazily swam past, truly looking like graceful cows floating through the depths of the clear, cool river waters. And I swear to goodness, we always wore flip flops and for some reason at that house or in that place, I always stubbed my big toe. I think I must have done that 15 times in my life and I can't remember my children ever stubbing their toe like that. It would lay open a flap of skin across the width of the big toe and hurt like heck the whole vacation. It seemed to happen every year.


Weeki Watchi, Cyprus Gardens, Parrot Jungle, all left enduring memories from my childhood, as we visited the unusual, the exciting and the natural habitats of Florida and the odd commercial attractions that often grew out of the beauty of nature.


And then the fateful trip as a high school graduate with my best friend, Marc Haugen. My Dad told me I couldn't go. I went anyway. We drove to Myrtle Beach at high speed. Testing the limits of his parent's car, listening to 8 Track tapes of the Temptations, Santana, Leonard Skynard, Clapton, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendricks.


Marc was a lady's man at a very young age. I was a nerd. I'd worn braces all four years of high school. I got them off days before we left for Myrtle Beach! I wish I had access to my senior picture to prove just how nerdy I was. But I hung with the cool guys and I was a little bit of a charming nerd, so I had potential.

We soon met a group of southern girls from Winston Salem, NC. They were the nicest, most beautiful girls I had ever met. Their accents flowed like honey. Lightly tanned, blonde and perfect, they seemed. The week was looking full of promise. Marc quickly became known as "Lance Romance" but one of the girls must have liked his style because they quickly hooked up. We drank "Green Goddamn" and "Purple Passion" and wished like heck we hadn't the next day.


The second day, as I was starting to lay a foundation of hope with one of the girls, Marc and I went to the beach and joined some of the boys from Winston Salem in a game of touch football. At that time in my life, I thought I had the best hands in the world. If I could touch it, I would catch it. I went out for a long pass across the middle. The ball went up in a long, high arch. I took my bead on the ball, changed my angle and knew that nothing would keep me from catching that damn ball. Nothing. But I hadn't calculated in one possibility. That a defender from the opposite side of the field would take the same bead on the same ball at the same speed and leap to catch that ball at the same time, with ball, me and defender all reaching the same point in space in the same moment. In that moment, I experienced a painful reminder of many lessons I had just learned that past year in physics. Mostly that a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless another force acts upon it. Our two bodies acted upon each other in a gruesome, show of force.


I guess he must have outjumped me because my front teeth struck his lower jaw, right at the left side of his face. They sliced his lip, through and through to the bottom of his chin. I don't know how many stitches he required. I don't think he remained for the rest of the week. I got the worst of it though. My perfectly matched, perfectly spaced teeth, resulting from those four years of wearing braces had been re-arranged. My right two incisors were now facing backward, pointing at my epiglottis. The rest of my mouth was numb from the impact. One of my new found friends came up and said, "Let me see your teeth." At that moment I felt fine, but knew I was bleeding. When I showed him, he turned away in disgust and fear. The look on his face told me more than I wanted to know. It was bad.


First we drove to the hospital. The funniest person I have ever met rode with us. I have no idea what his name was. If he didn't become a famous comedian, there is no justice in this world. We laughed our asses off as we drove over there, in spite of my condition. After we waited the obligatory hour, the hospital sent us to an emergency dentist. He took me in, did x-rays and came back with the bad news. I had broken five upper teeth, the two right incisors, were completely broken through (duh!) and the upper bone out of which they grew was broken in three places. He wanted to pull the two lopsided teeth (and give them to me as souvenirs, I guess). So I did the first intelligent thing I had done in 18 years. I asked, "Is there any chance that I could keep those teeth and not need them pulled out?" When he said there was a chance, I quickly told him, "Then you ain't pulling them out." They are still in my head. But on the trip back home, my comedic friend did an hilarious impression of the dentist as an evil bad guy who wished to steal my teeth and collect a big fee from a stupid 18 year old. It was like Boris Karloff was in the car with us.


I left his office with all my teeth. He had pushed the two broken teeth into the best position he could manage and then wired everything together and applied some kind of material that hardened into "tooth cast." My love life was doomed. All those visions of soft kisses, pleasant hugs and who knew what else, were left in the bloody sand of Myrtle Beach.


All these memories are triggered by the scent of the ocean air, plus quite a few more of which I should not speak; mostly those that spring from college forays to the beaches of Daytona, FL.


So share with us the scents that trigger your memories and some of the experiences you might have had as a child or as an adult. Or how scents may trigger something inside of you.


Steve