Seize the day

Just a moment in this lifetime,

Just a tragedy ahead,

Not knowing where each turn will lead,

Within seconds we might be dead,



Live each day to the fullest,

Do not stop to wonder why,

Do everything what your heart desires ,

In dreams, reach for the sky,



Surprises at every stop sign,

With its share of wrong ways & dead-ends,

Statistics don’t help you with the future,

They only tell you where you‘ve been,



With so many people among us,

There are no certainties,

& all it takes is just one person,

To reroute history,



Don’t waste one single moment,

How very precious that they are,

What seems a long way off,

It is really not that far.

             - By Teal Henderson


Teal is one of my favorite poets. She lived every day to the fullest & inspired everybody else to do the same.
Hats off to her...!!!

One leaf left...

I noticed one special thing on my birthday morning. The tree outside my bedroom window stood stark & bare, its leaves shriveled & dead, had fallen to the waiting earth. Except for one. Pale, taut, sapped of its nourishing juices, it clung tenaciously to the very top of the tree. One leaf left. One leaf alone against the wind & the chilling snow flurries, hanging on for its life, refusing to give into nature’s persistent invitation to die.


There was something poetic about the way that leaf resisted as long as it did, high at the top, long after the others had gone the way of millions of leaves before them. Day after, as we watched the little drama through me bedroom’s window, my mother openly cheered the leaf’s courage, “Hang in there!” she’d say. And my brother would say, “What’s the matter with you? It’s just a stupid leaf?”

Then one quite moment, as I stood by the window alone, I gleaned an invaluable lesson from that pathetic little leaf. Illuminated by lights from nearby apartments, it still clung stubbornly to the top of the naked tree & watching it, I was suddenly filled with hope – warming, uplifting, healing hope.

It was as if the Lord were telling me that when everything grimly crumbles, when the crowd drifts away without me, when every element seemed to oppose & torment, I can turn to Him for hope & strength to cling to the top & refuse to be defeated.

The next morning, the leaf had finally fallen & been blown away. I knew it eventually would, of course. And like many last hopes, perhaps it was crushed by a careless passerby.

But there would be more in the spring, I thought. There’s always hope.

I love it into him...

I was shopping in a drug store one day. I noticed a small boy taking jars from a low counter & playing 'train' with them on the floor. The clerk saw him & shouted, "Leave those things alone, you'll break them." The child turned a puzzled face to the clerk. At that moment, I noticed that the little boy was not completely normal. After a pause, he began playing with the items. The clerk scolded him again; his voice was louder this time.


Suddenly, a girl about 7 years old appeared from around the end of the counter, ran to the boy & bending on her knees beside him, put an arm about him & began to speak softly. I couldn't hear what she said to him. But the boy slowly & carefully began to replace the items on the shelf.

The little girl then rose to her feet & faced the clerk," He doesn't understand when you talk that way". She said," He understands what I say because I love it into him".

Scorpions sting, humans ...?

A man saw a scorpion floundering around in a puddle of water. Spontaneous desire to save arouses in his heart, and without hesitating he stretched out his hand, lifted out the scorpion from the puddle & put it on dry ground. The scorpion stung him. The scorpion resumed its walk & headed straight again into the puddle.

Seeing it floundering & drowning again, the man picked it up the second time & was again stung. Another man who came along & saw all that happened said to him,” Why are you so stupid? Now you see you have been stung not once but twice! It’s a silly thing to try to save a scorpion!”

The man replied,” Sir, I can’t help it. You see, it is the nature of the scorpion to sting. But it is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting?”

True, the man could have exercised the same wisdom & used a stick to lift out the scorpion. But then he might have thought threat a scorpion in such dire straits would not sting him. Whatever it might be, the moral of the story is in spontaneous response of the man in wanting to save another living being, even though it may be an insect. It also shows that a truly compassionate man is such that even though he may receive ingratitude from a person whom he had helped, it doesn’t matter to him. It is just his nature to help & if he could help again, he would. He doesn’t know how to harbor any bitterness or grudge.

Compassion, then is the language of the heart. At the time when we are motivated by love & compassion, we reach out to help without discrimination as to the race, creed or nationality of another. In the light of compassion, identification to race, creed etc, becomes secondary; they become insignificant.

Don’t give up loving. Don’t give up your goodness even if people around you sting.

Christmas love...

The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3 year old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight & he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning & said, “This is for you, daddy”.

The man was embarrassed his earlier overreaction but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, “Don’t you know, when you give someone a present there is supposed to be something inside?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes & cried, ”Oh! Daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you”.

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl & begged for her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is said that her father kept that gold box by his bed for many years & whenever he was discouraged , he would take out an imaginary kiss & remember the love of the child who had put it there.


In a very real sense, each & every one of us as human beings, have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love & kisses…from our children family members, friends & God. There is simply no other possession anyone could hold, more precious than this.