springlife

Though there is much to be concerned about, there is far, far more for which to be thankful. Though life's goodness can at times be overshadowed, it is never outweighed.

For every single act that is senselessly destructive, there are thousands more small, quiet acts of love, kindness and compassion. For every person who seeks to hurt, there are many, many more who devote their lives to helping and to healing.

There is goodness to life that cannot be denied.

In the most magnificent vistas and in the smallest details, look closely, for that goodness always comes shining through.

There is no limit to the goodness of life. It grows more abundant with each new encounter. The more you experience and appreciate the goodness of life, the more there is to be lived.

Even when the cold winds blow and the world seems to be covered in foggy shadows, the goodness of life lives on. Open your eyes, open your heart, and you will see that goodness is everywhere.

Though the goodness of life seems at times to suffer setbacks, it always endures. For in the darkest moment it becomes vividly clear that life is a priceless treasure. And so the goodness of life is made even stronger by the very things that would oppose it.

Time and time again when you feared it was gone forever you found that the goodness of life was really only a moment away. Around the next corner, inside every moment, the goodness of life is there to surprise and delight you.

Take a moment to let the goodness of life touch your spirit and calm your thoughts. Then, share your good fortune with another. For the goodness of life grows more and more magnificent each time it is given away.

Though the problems constantly scream for attention and the conflicts appear to rage ever stronger, the goodness of life grows stronger still, quietly, peacefully, with more purpose and meaning than ever before.

Robert De Vincenzo, the great Argentine golfer,  once won a tournament and, after recieving the check and smiling for the cameras, he went to the clubhouse and prepared to leave. Some time later, he walked alone to his car in the parking lot and was approached by a young woman. She congratulated him on his victory and then told him that her child was seriously ill and near death. She did not know how she could pay the doctor’s bills and hospital expenses.
D Vincenzo was touched by her story, and he took out a pen and endorsed his winning check for payment to the woman.“Make some good days for the baby,” he said as he pressed the check into her hand.

The next week he was having lunch in a country club when a Professional Golf Association official came to his table. “Some of the boys in the parking lot last week told me you met a young woman there after you won that tournament.” De Vincenzo nodded. “Well,” said the official, “ I have news for you. She’s a phony. She has no sick baby.She’s not even married. She fleeced you, my friend.”

“You mean there is no baby who is dying?” said De Viincenzo. “That’s right,”said the official.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week, “ De Vincenzo said.

I was swinging on the front gate, trying to decide whether to walk down the street to play with Verna, my best friend in fifth grade, when I saw a tramp come up the road.
“Hello, little girl,” he said. “Is your mama at home?”

I nodded and swung the gate open to let him in the yard. He looked like all the tramps who came to our house from the hobo camp by the river during the Great Depression. His shaggy hair hung below a shapeless hat, and his treadbare shirt and trousers had been rained on and slept in. He smelled like a bonfire.

He shuffled to the door. When my mother appeared, he asked, “Lady, could you spare a bite to eat?”
“I think so. Please sit on the step.”

He dropped onto the narrow wooden platform that served as the front porch of our two-room frame house. In minutes my mother opened the screen and handed him a sandwich made from thick slices of homemde bread and generous chunks of boiled meat. She gave him a tin cup of milk. “ I thank you ,lady,” he said.

I swung on the gate, watching the tramp wolf down the sandwich and drain the cup. Then he stood and walked back through the gate. “They said your mama would feed me,” he told me on the way out.

Verna had said the hobos told one another who would feed them. “They never come to my house, “ she had announced proudly.
So why does Mama feed them? I wondered. A window, she worked as a waitress in the mornings and sewed at nights to earn money. Why should she give anythingto men who didn’t work at all?
I marched inside. “Verna’s mother says those men are too lazy to work. Why do we feed them?
My mother smiled. Her blue housedress matched her eyes and emphasized her auburn hair.
“Lovely, we don’t know why those men don’t work,” she said. “ But they were babies once. And their mothers loved them, like I love you.” She put her hands on my shoulders and drew me close to her apron, which smelled of starch and freshly baked bread.
“I feed them for their mothers, because if you were ever hungry and had nothing to eat, I would want their mothers to feed you.”

A man had a little dughter——an only and much beloved child. He lived only for her, for she was his life. So when she became ill and her illness resisted the efforts of the best obtainable physicians, he became like a man possessed, moving heaven and earth to bring about her restoration to health. His best efforts proved fruitless, however, and the child died. The father was totally irreconcilable. He became a bitter recluse, shutting himself away fom his many friends, refusing every activity that might restore his poise and bring him back to his normal self.

Then one night he had a dream. He was in heaven and witnessing a grand pegeant of all the little child angels. They were marching in an apparently endless line past the Great White Throne. Every white-robed, angelic tot carried a candle. He noticed, however, that one child’s candle was not lit. Then he saw that the child with the dark candle was his own little girl. Rushing towards her, while the pageant faltered, he seized her in his arms, caressed her tenderly, and asked, “How is that your candle is the only one not lit?” “Father, they often relight it, but your tears always put it out again,” she said.

Just then he awoke from his dream. The lesson was crystal clear, and its effects were immediate. From that hour on he was no longer a recluse, but mingled freely and cheerfully with his former friends and associates. No longer would his little darling’s candle be extinguished by his useless tears.

An explorer, a farmer in the forest is seen sitting on the smoking tree stump bucket, and he stepped forward to say hello: "Hello, what do you here?"

The farmer replied: "One time I was about to tear down trees, but big wind and rain at this time, many giant trees fell, it saved me a lot of effort."

"You really lucky!"

"You can say that, there is still time, in the lightning storm I am ready to be burned to the hay to the point of the."

"It was a miracle! Now you're ready to do?"

"I was made to wait for an earthquake to turn potatoes from the ground up."

We recognize that there are indeed some of the world's people, especially good luck to the wind was the wind, to rain was the rain. However, luck can not follow you a lifetime. If everything depends on luck, eventually you get good luck will be nothing, nothing.