Have a great Memorial Day holiday, chill out to shed yourself of some stress, enjoying some time with family and friends. Be sure to lift your glass to toast those who came before us, sacrificing their lives for our freedom during war time or those who sacrificed as good friends to help keep us balanced in the mundane places of life. Take time to remember the best people in your life and celebrate them this special holiday."
From Denny: Pull out the tissues because you are going to need them! If you are not crying your eyes out, wondering if you emptied out the tears reservoir, then you need to watch the hour long special of this story. Yes, it's that good. If you are in need of having your faith restored in the goodness of strangers, then this story is for you. These ordinary people will astound, amaze and delight your heart.
The entire town of Grafton, Wisconsin came to the aid of a single mother battling breast cancer who has 13 year old triplets. Two of those triplets are seriously ill with a life long degenerative disease and are already now in wheelchairs. They needed so much. A whole town of neighbors, many who lost their homes and their jobs, came together to help the Longoria family remodel their home so the kids could get around in wider halls and larger spaces.
It's quite an amazing story of what spiritual development is really all about: helping someone else when you have lost so much. There is a man in the process of losing his home because he's been out of work for two months. Yet he came and volunteered every day to renovate the house. There is a hotel owner who gave the family free rooms for the entire time it took to renovate the house.
There is an AIDS charity CEO, living on 40% less income now and facing an uncertain personal financial future, who showed up to organize and raise funding - cheerfully. Another story is of a mother who lost her son 19 years ago and today came to be the interior designer for this family's renovated home. She said this is the first time she has not felt emotional pain since the death of her child.
This first video is a clip that was featured on the news. The other video clips tell the story. The full story and more links are at Dateline and it's an hour show worth watching. It reminds me of a real life story to match the famous Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." What's so much fun about this story of giving is how the giving rolled into something bigger than the project itself. People got into the spirit of giving and the joy was contagious, drawing thousands of people to volunteer during construction or to help fund the project.
A Circle of Hands is a poem written by one of the volunteers to remember the "Hometown Heroes" project that healed the town.
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Psalm 91:11 - And He will give His Angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.
Yesterday I wrote:
From Denny: Since this particular poem was a hard write, and I'm a bit emotionally tired and saturated to say the least, here's the link to my latest poem over at The Social Poets, called Rock, My Children. Found some awesome art photos over at flickr to illustrate it!
Rock, My Children is about how to deal with loss. Never planned on writing about these experiences but lately there has been so much news about people encountering terrible loss in their lives. And, here it is the 911 anniversary, a tough day for so many folks all over the world.
When I was fishing around for inspiration I found Robin's blog Naked in Eden and some of those word phrases sprinkled throughout one of her posts just struck me right (like "abyss of emotion") and before I knew it the poem was forming in my head. Went to flickr first before writing it down as the poem was still a lot of raw emotions swirling and I needed some visual anchors.
Rock, My Children deals with loss, disappointment, and looking to the future for understanding Life's Plan. When you ask the question, you receive the answer though it may take fifteen years like it did in my case.
Received an incredibly awesome comment from fellow spiritual blogger Robin from Naked in Eden after I sent her the link to show her how she had inspired me to write the poem. Just skip on past the poem to read what she has to say it's that great! I've been grinning silly all day - and behind in my posting - since she posted that loving comment...
From Denny: Just found this hilarious true video of a bride laughing so hard at the altar she almost fell over when they were trying to say their vows. The laughter is contagious! Laughter really IS the best medicine!
From Denny: There's nothing like putting your parents up for sale to get the conversation started like this guy did! This news story sounds like a tutorial on how to do it. What started as a fun idea snowballed into a sensation. I can only imagine what his parents told their son off camera ... :)
