Blessing others…with a smile

Jack and the butterfly

At the end of my run yesterday, I noticed a butterfly in my neighbor’s driveway. I put my hand close to its front legs, and it crawled onto my finger. As I walked home, I kept thinking it was going to fly away, but it didn’t, so when I got back to our house, I called Jack to show him and asked him to bring a little water with him.

He held out his hand, and the butterfly crawled onto his finger. He’d just washed his hands, so they were damp, and the butterfly stuck out its little tongue and began to drink the tiny drops of water. I went inside to get the camera and then we placed the butterfly on a leaf (with an additional few drops of water in case it was still thirsty) where it stayed for a couple of minutes before flying off.

A number of years ago, I worked for a community of nuns, and one of them had a special love for birds. One hot summer day, a tiny bird landed in the courtyard. Sister Sarah had been talking with me in the kitchen, but noticed it and said, “Everyone thinks that birds need to be fed, but forget that they get very thirsty” as she filled a shallow bowl with water, and took it outside to place near the bird.

Sister Sarah was always doing “little things” like that…things that made life better for everyone she came in contact with. One of the ways that she uplifted me was by smiling when we first saw each other. I always felt like she was genuinely happy to see me, and even now, years later when I think about her smile, it makes me feel good.

I thought about her a lot yesterday …maybe I can’t always offer “concrete” help to another, but I can always give them a smile…at least in my heart.

“Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way”.  Swami Vivekananda

P.S. Jenn Peek was the winner of the book!

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The real reason for my trip

Daisy…sitting in my backseat, waiting to be picked up by her owner.

I took a quick trip to Manchester yesterday. I needed to pick something up, and get a watch battery replaced for Jack. About a mile from the center of downtown Manchester, I noticed what looked like a dog running along the side of the road. I slowed down, and at that moment, she ran into the middle of traffic. Cars were weaving around her so I pulled over and got out of my car to try to slow things down. As I began to approach her, she ran back to the side of the road, in the opposite direction. Hurrying to my car, yet uncertain about how to proceed, I realized that she was again in the center of the road, still running away from me.

I quickly began walking toward her, and heard someone yell, “Mary!” I looked up and my friend Ashley Bridge (a massage therapist who shares the office building with me) had also seen the dog and pulled over. Cambridge is at least 45 minutes from Manchester yet we were both there at that moment. Now the little dog was between us and we were able to grab her.

We called the phone number on her collar, and her very-relieved owner said that she had been on a hike with her dogs when Daisy wandered off, and she’d been looking for her ever since. Daisy is an old dog (I believe her owner said that she was 15) and seemed a little confused but oh so sweet. It was a happy reunion.

I never did get what I went to Manchester for, (the item wasn’t in and the jeweler was out of that type of battery) but it didn’t matter. I realized that the reason I made that trip had nothing to do my original idea.

Do we really ever have to question that we are all somehow connected at the level of the “heart”…connected by Love!? Right before I left for Manchester, I had stopped by the Coop to have a brief chat with my friend Nancy, and used the bathroom before I headed out. As I stood there in the bathroom, a poster (that I had never noticed) caught my eye. The title of it was, “How to Build Community”, and I don’t know why, but I took the time to read it. I liked the poster, but the suggestion that stood out was, “Help a lost dog.”

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.  Blaise Pascal

(Information on how to purchase this poster is in the following link    http://syracuseculturalworkers.com/poster-how-build-community

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A more colorful life; stepping out of old patterns

Coloring my world; some of my recent purchases!

Yesterday, my friend Maria and I were shopping (at my favorite store, Manchester Thrift Store), and I decided to just chose colorful, bright clothes. I tried on one top and laughed out loud (in the dressing room all by myself). I had to show Maria….it looked so silly. She didn’t laugh. She said, “I think it looks great. How much is it?” I told her it was $2. Then she said that if I didn’t buy it, she was going to buy it for me. She went on to tell me, in the nicest possible way, that my wardrobe was sorely lacking in feminine charm!

Over the years, my dress has become more conservative; less colorful, more coverage. It happened gradually, so I was not that aware of it. I have noticed that when shopping, I would pick up and admire bright, colorful, flowing, beaded, sequined things but I never bought them. On the rare occasion that I would try them on, I always felt I looked wrong or foolish. I’ve been buying clothes with an eye to how others would observe me, not how I felt in them.
It is time for a change. It started on my trip last week with my friend Maud, who, like Maria encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone. I am grateful for friends who do this; who encourage us to live larger, take more chances, push the edges of what we think we should or can do.

“As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge”.
Henry Van Dyke

The song below is dedicated to all of my friends who help me to grow (including all of you reading this right now….thank you!)

Oh, and for all of you contest fans, this is the last day of Maria’s wonderful, colorful, potholder contest which you can enter at,

http://www.fullmoonfiberart.com

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Sending out the “friend request”

one of my best friends from high school, Linda Seaman. We have not connected in 35 years...I couldn't find recent photographs of myself with friends...I am going to get some!

I was driving along one day last week, and a song came on the radio that reminded me of a man I had dated (not seriously) before I met Jack, and hadn’t seen since.  I got curious about what he was up to, what he looked like now, and decided to see if he was on Facebook…he seemed like the kind of guy who would be.  I like Facebook….have loved connecting with friends from high school, and yet there is a part of me that also feels, when I am looking someone up or asking them to be my friend, that they might say no, or not respond, or be indifferent.

I went on-line, and as I was about to search Facebook for Barry, I glanced over to the side of the page and it said; “Want to see who has been looking for you on Facebook?” or something like that. I felt a jolt of surprise and thought, “If I can find out who checking on me, then they can see if  I am checking on them! I dont’ want him to think that I was looking him up!”

I was emotionally back in 7th grade. This was not rational.  Why should I be afraid that someone will know that I am thinking about them, or interested in what they are doing? Thinking about others is a good thing isn’t it? For all of the strength and power that we have as human beings, there is, in some of us still, that tender underbelly:  afraid of rejection, looking over-anxious, being judged or not liked, seeming vulnerable to each other.

Life is just too short for that. I didn’t find him on Facebook, but found his obituary. He had died 3 years ago this May. All of the sudden, wondering how I would look seemed so dumb. I didn’t blame myself for not writing earlier…I had not even thought of it, but it did give me a sort of wake up call. The time is now to send out the “friend request”. Sometimes when tragedy hits, the best of us is born. We help, we call, we show up without being asked…we drop our ego’s ceaseless need for attention and protection. But we don’t have to wait…it can also be a choice. There is an old-fashioned poem that I used to have on my wall years ago…I think I’ll put it up again…friends.

…Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish – so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

S.W. Foss

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