What's In A Smile?
According to an article in The New York Times, the act of smiling can promote good feelings. Writer Daniel Goleman cites experiments in which researchers found that saying the word cheese caused a person to smile, which in turn created pleasant feelings. On the other hand, saying the word few created a different facial expression, which resulted in negative emotions.
The Measure Of Love
While visiting a Christian's home, I saw these words displayed on a wall plaque: "You love Jesus only as much as you love the person you love the least." I squirmed at those revealing words. Later I found similar words in 1 John 4:20, "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"
After First Sight
In 1991, two operations restored Shirl Jennings' sight after 40 years of blindness. His family and friends reacted with absolute euphoria, but the next day Shirl's fiance recorded in her diary that he was "trying to adjust to being sighted . . . . Not able to trust vision yet. . . . Like [a] baby just learning to see, everything new, exciting, scary, unsure of what seeing means."
Our Work Matters
One of the world's greatest architects, Sir Christopher Wren, undertook the task of helping to rebuild London after it had been nearly destroyed by fire in 1666. One day he visited the site where a large church building was under construction. He called out to a laborer perched high on a scaffold, "What are you doing up there?" With pride that man called back, "I'm helping Sir Christopher Wren build a cathedral!"
In Memory
President Harry Truman was once asked to speak at a fund-raising project to help the children of a White House guard who was slain in the line of duty. With great emotion he said, "You can't imagine just how a man feels when someone else dies for him."
