Best Serious E-mails of the Week 11/15/01

TWO THOUSAND ONE, NINE ELEVEN

Two thousand one, nine eleven
Five thousand plus arrive in heaven
As they pass through the gate,
Thousands more appear in wait

A bearded man with stovepipe hat
Steps forward saying, "Lets sit, lets chat"
They settle down in seats of clouds
A man named Martin shouts out proud
"I have a dream!" and once he did
The Newcomer said, "Your dream still lives."

Groups of soldiers in blue and gray
Others in khaki, and green then say
"We're from Bull Run, Yorktown, the Maine"
The Newcomer said, "You died not in vain."

>From a man on sticks one could hear
"The only thing we have to fear.
The Newcomer said, "We know the rest,
Trust us sir, we've passed that test."

"Courage doesn't hide in caves
You can't bury freedom, in a grave,"
The Newcomers had heard this voice before A distinct Yankees twang from
Hyannisport shores.
A silence fell within the mist
Somehow the Newcomer knew that this
Meant time had come for her to say
What was in the hearts of the five thousand plus that day.

"Back on Earth, we wrote reports,
Watched our children play in sports
Worked our gardens, sang our songs
Went to church and clipped coupons
We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought
Unlike you, great we're not"

The tall man in the stovepipe hat
Stood and said, "Don't talk like that!
Look at your country, look and see
You died for freedom, just like me."

Then, before them all appeared a scene
Of rubbled streets and twisted beams
Death, destruction, smoke and dust
And people working just 'cause they must
Hauling ash, lifting stones,
Knee deep in hell, but not alone

"Look! Blackman, Whiteman, Brownman, Yellowman
Side by side helping their fellow man!"
So said Martin, as he watched the scene
"Even from nightmares, can be born a dream."
Down below three firemen raised
The colors high into ashen haze
The soldiers above had seen it before
On Iwo Jima back in '44

The man on sticks studied everything closely Then shared his perceptions on
what he saw mostly "I see pain, I see tears, I see sorrow - but I don't see
fear."
"You left behind husbands and wives
Daughters and sons and so many lives
Are suffering now because of this wrong
But look very closely. You're not really gone.
All of those people, even those who've never met you
All of their lives, they'll never forget you
Don't you see what has happened?
Don't you see what you've done?
You've brought them together, together as one."

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said
"Take my hand," and from there he led
Five thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven
On this day, two thousand one, nine eleven.

The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next Tuesday", I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!"

My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."

"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. "I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?"

"Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."

After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!"

"We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils."

"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around."

"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign
that read, "Daffodil Garden."

We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and
gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns - great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.

There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn.

"It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.

The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read.

The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain."

The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun -- one bulb at a time -- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top.

Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time -- often just one baby-step at a time -- and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. Start tomorrow," she said.

It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only
ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

WHY WE GET SO MANY EMAILS FORWARDED TO US:

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was
enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that
he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking
beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the
road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along
one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top
of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in
the sunlight. When he was standing before it, he saw
a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother of
pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure
gold.

He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer,
he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough,
he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"

"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.

"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water
brought right up." The man gestured, and the gate began to
open.

"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?"
the traveler asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road
and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill,
he came to a dirt road which led through a farm gate that
looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As
he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against
a tree and reading a book.

"Excuse me!" he called to the reader. "Do you have any
water?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there". The man pointed to a
place that couldn't be seen from outside the gate "Come on
in."

"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.

"There should be a bowl by the pump." They went through the
gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned hand pump
with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took
a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the
man who was standing by the tree waiting for them.

"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is Heaven," was the answer.

"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down
the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly
gates? Nope. That's Hell."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like
that?"

"No. I can see how you might think so, but we're just happy
that they screen out the folks who'll leave their best
friends behind."

Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us
without writing a word, maybe this could explain:

When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch,
guess what you do --you forward jokes.

When you have nothing to say, but still want to keep contact,
you forward jokes.

When you have something to say, but don't know what, and
don't know how, you forward jokes.Ý And to let you know that
you are still remembered, you are still important, you are
still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get? A
forwarded joke.

So my friend, next time if you get a joke, don't think that
you've been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you've
been thought of today and your friend on the other end of
your computer wanted to send you a smile.