For Your Inspiration
Back to main page

 

The Starfish Story

There was a young man walking down a deserted beach just before dawn.In the distance he saw a child. As he approached the child, he saw that she was picking up starfish and carefully tossing them back into the sea.

The young man gazed in curious wonder as the little girl returned to the water’s edge again and again throwing starfish from the sand into the sea.

When he grew closer to the child, the young man asked the child, “Why are you so busy with these starfish and not instead playing in the sand?”

The child explained that she was rescuing them from the sun so they would survive.

The young man looked at the miles of beach ahead and the countless starfish and said, “But there are thousands of beaches and millions of starfish. You can’t rescue them all. How can it make a difference?”

The little girl looked down at the small starfish in her hands and then she said, “It makes a difference to this one.”

More Words To Live By . . . Make a difference WHERE and WHEN you can!

Back to main page

 

 

Light Out of Africa

Our deepest fear
is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
“who am I to be brilliant,
Gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?”
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God,
you're playing small
doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us;
it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fears,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela,
From His 1994 Inaugural Speech
Back to main page

 

 

My Trip To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try and help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this.

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michelangelo's David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It is all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland???,” you say. “What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy! All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy!”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So, you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And, you must learn a whole new language. And, you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. A slower place than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But, after you’ve been there for a while and catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But, everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy. They’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Emily Pearl Kingsley

Back to main page

 

 

CAMP – WHAT IT MEANS TO ME

By Doug Mosdell

Camp is not a place my friend
It’s a spirit within one’s soul.
It’s the way that people all pull together
to attain a common goal.

The people make a camp you see,
the smiles, the laughs, the cries,
And helping each other to live my friend;
For without this a camp just dies.

The grass and the trees are beautiful,
And to be at camp a must.
But people are what it’s all about;
The love, the feeling of trust.
So people make a camp my friend,
For without them it wouldn’t be.
There’d be no one to appreciate
The blade of grass or tree.

I won’t remember the trees or lake
When I leave this place.
But rather the laughter ringing in my ears
And the smile on a happy face.
Back to main page

 

 

 

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

 

There’s an elephant in the room.

It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it.
Yet we squeeze by with, “How are you?” and “I’m fine”
and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.
We talk about the the weather.
We talk about work.
We talk about everything - except the elephant in room.

There’s an elephant in the room. We all know it is there.
We are talking about the elephant as we talk together.
It is constantly on our minds,
for you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all.
But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.

Oh please, say her name.
Oh please, say “Barbara” again.
Oh please, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
For if we talk about her death,
perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say “Barbara” to you and not have you look away?

For if I cannot, then you are leaving me alone. . .
in a room. . .
with an elephant.

Terry Kettering

Back to main page

 

 

More of My Favorite Inspirations. . . .

Lessons Learned

For every petal you pluck from a daisy,
You’re granted one measure of love.
For every rainbow you find with two ends,
I wish you two stars from above.
For every tear you brush from a cheek,
I promise you kindness will follow.
Wherever you walk, under rainbows or stars,
Over daisies, or down lonely hollow.
For every child you play with and talk to,
I grant you one heart full of laughter.
For every smile you place on a face,
I promise you peace ever after.
If you think “I” am giving priceless gifts,
Look close at yourself and your deeds.
The gifts you earned were the lessons you learned
While answering other folks’ needs.

Marlene T. Gerba

Back to main page

 

Listening

Listening is a magnetic
and strange thing,
a creative force.

The friends who listen to us
are the ones we move toward
and we want to sit in their radius.

When we are listened to,
it creates us,
makes us unfold and expand.

Karl Menninger

Back to main page

 

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.

If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.

If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.

If a child lives with security,
He learns to have faith.

If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.

Dorothy Law Holte

 

 

 

 

Memorable Quotes. . . .

 

 

OUR RESPONSIBILITY

We have the responsibility for children:
Who put chocolate fingers everywhere, who like to be tickled,
Who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
Who sneak Popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math books,
Who can never find their shoes,

And we have responsibility for those children:
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who never count potatoes,
Who were born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus, who live in an x-rated world,

We have responsibility for children:
Who bring us sticky kisses and fists full of dandelions,
Who sleep with the dog and bury the goldfish,
Who hug in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
Who cover themselves in band aids and sing off-key,
Who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, who slurp in their soup,

And we have responsibility for children:
Who never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can’t find any bread to steal,
Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser, Whose monsters are real,

We have the responsibility for children:
Who spend all of their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty cloths under their bed and never rinse the tub,
Who don’t like to be kissed in front of the car pool,
Who squirm in church and scream on the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smile can make us cry,

And we have responsibility for children:
Whose nightmares come in the day time,
Who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, move have no being,

We have responsibility for children:
Who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on & for those who don’t get a second chance,
For those we smother and for those who will grab
the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Author Unknown

Back to main page