A Hundred Virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Kingsley, Letters

     "Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and a hundred virtues which the idle never know."

     "Listening is a priceless and loving gift to another.…Good listeners are patient. They give others the time they need to express their feelings without interruption.

     Don’t worry about coming up with a solution to the problems you hear. Instead, be more interested in how you can help the person say more about how they feel.

     Even if you think you know just what the problem is, resist the temptation to ‘understand too quickly.’ Everyone appreciates being heard out."

Hardest Victory  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aristotle

     "I count him brave who overcomes his desires, than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is the victory over his self."

     "If we can bring ourselves to acknowledge that there are some things God does not control, many good things become possible. We can be angry at what has happened to us, without feeling we are angry at God. More than that, we can recognize our anger at life’s unfairness, our instinctive compassion at seeing people suffer, as coming from God who teaches us to be angry at injustice and to feel compassion for the afflicted."

Religious Principle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Washington

     "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

     "As we pursue the sometimes lonely journey through our own life experiences, the presence of those who walk with us, without words but with great love, frees us and strengthens us to go on. Those who are free inside themselves set us free from the inner fears and insecurities which paralyze us. Those who have known the cost of beginning and ending give us the courage to somehow do it better or at least to try again."

For this Our Beauty  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous

"We thank You for this smiling land of ours,
For all the beauty and the grandeur here;
We thank You most for freedom, dearly bought
By Pilgrim band and sturdy pioneer.
Had they not bravely lived and so endured,
This priceless gift could never have been gained.

In thanks and solemn praise we raise our hearts,
And vow to keep our honor still sustained.
For this our bounty, Lord, we give You thanks
With grateful hearts as brimming as our store.
Our flocks are fed, our fields have yielded well.

Dear Lord, we could not rightly ask for more.
Pray, make us humble for our harvest’s yield
And mindful of our neighbors in distress;
Unless in our abundance he may share,
Then empty is our show of thankfulness."

The Best Things  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Louis Stevenson

     "The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life."

     "The majority of people in our country live every day beneath their God-given potential. Instead of responding to life’s challenges with personal growth and a commitment to specific goals, they are addicted to a dead-end status quo."

Cook Your Goose  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Soundings, Vol. A, #1

"Nothing can cook your goose quicker than a boiling temper."

Look to the Future  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leo Missinne, The Priest, 12/84

     "If you did something wrong, accept it as being wrong. Apologize if you can. Correct what you can and repair the damage as well as you can.

     What you did was wrong and it is now in the past. It is important to look now to the future and let the past remain behind you."

Thanksgiving Lady . . . . . . . . . . . . Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations

     "Thanksgiving might not be celebrated in the United States today, were it not for a patient, persistent woman named Sarah Hale.

     It is well known that the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1621 to give thanks for their winter in the New World.

     In 1789, President Washington issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation to commemorate the first Pilgrim celebration. But Thomas Jefferson, the third president, discontinued it, calling Thanksgiving, ‘a kingly practice.’

     Then in 1828, Mrs. Hale, author of "Mary Had A Little Lamb," began campaigning for the restoration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

     She wrote letters and sought appointments with national leaders from the President down. Time after time she was politely rebuffed, sometimes being told it was ‘impossible’ and ‘impractical,’ and sometimes being dismissed with this-is-none-of-your-business scolding.

     Finally in 1863 President Lincoln listened seriously to her plea that North and South ‘lay aside enmities and strife on (Thanksgiving Day).’ He proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November to be the official ‘National Thanksgiving Day.’ This day was finally ratified by the U.S. Congress in 1941."

     It was Thanksgiving. No delicious smells of turkey roasting, no pies on the sideboard, no festive table setting. The mother had lost her job a few weeks ago and a daughter’s tiny salary went to pay the rent. A son was still in school, and with no father in the home, things looked bleak. The mother was making a stew and had wrapped day-old bread in a paper sack and set it to warming in the oven. When the doorbell rang, the mother panicked. She was proud and didn’t want anyone to know how bad things were.

     When she opened the door, there stood Mr. Gold, a door-to-door salesman who kept everyone supplied with household items.…Now here he stood with his arms full of grocery bags and a shy smile on his face. "Can I come begging to you today?" he asked. "Here it is Thanksgiving Day and I have no place to go and no one to share it with."

     The mother was embarrassed, but invited him in and started to explain. But Mr. Gold interrupted her. "Here I have all this food," he said. "It’s only chicken, but who’s to know?" And he began unpacking the groceries. There was enough for a Thanksgiving feast, from soup to nuts, plus a mincemeat and a pumpkin pie.

Mr. Gold didn’t eat much, but nobody seemed to notice. When he was leaving, he thanked the family for taking such good care of a lonely old man that holiday.