Dear Reader:

Dr. Wayne Dyer, popular author and presenter, started his presentation, on occasion, with an orange. He asked the audience or (sometimes) a particular person in the audience to tell him what would happen if he squeezed the orange….what would he get?

The immediate response was: orange juice. He then asked if his mother, father, grandmother, friend, or stranger squeezed the orange what would they get?

Once again the response was: orange juice. Sometimes Dyer would keep this “game” going by asking if he would ever get tart or bitter lemonade or pineapple juice if he squeezed an orange…..Amid loud “No’s” the confident response continued: Orange Juice!

Dyer then asked his audience: Why?  How do you know that every single time you squeeze an orange ….its juice will pour out?

The most common reply was that one will get orange juice if he/she squeezes an orange because it is what is inside.

Exactly! responded Dyer. This is a constant in our knowledge and experience with oranges…when squeezed…no matter the situation….an orange will produce orange juice.

Now….how about you? If your mother, or teacher, or coach, or a friend squeezes you…what will pour out? Do you have a constant?

Suddenly a quiet would come over the crowd….no one was certain about one “correct” response. Cries of “It depends on who and why you are being squeezed….it might be anger or frustration pouring out.”

“That’s right….another voice might call out….What pours out of us can run the gamut, according to our feelings at the time squeezed. Curse words might emerge or laughter.”

Feeling squeezed or stressed…produce unsavory tastes on our tongues, our teeth and the words that emerge are unsavory too.

What would you like your “constant” to be when squeezed? asks Dyer.

“Sweetness” responds one in the audience….more softly “Love” responds a young woman in the back of the auditorium.

“So….we are realizing that we can always depend on an orange to produce the same “sweetness” over and over…no matter the situation when squeezed…but not ourselves. Is this a fair observation?” Dyer concludes.

Shouldn’t every human being on earth’s goal be to have “love” as a constant living within ourselves…the love that pours out every time we are “invisibly” squeezed :)…no matter the trying circumstances we might find ourselves in?

If we sit back and look for a model of constant love….we find the answer immediately ….God. God is Love. And no matter how many times we squeeze Him (when we feel squeezed into a corner and stressed beyond human limitations.)…His love pours out for us. We can depend on its “sweetness” every single time.

*(Isn’t it wonderful that (in spite of the coronavirus) we can still “squeeze” God with both arms arms wide open to encircle our Creator?)

We are children of God. Don’t you think God loves us as we love all our children of the world? Wouldn’t we do anything for our children…even sacrificing ourselves for them?

We know that God’s Love resides in us…in all His children.

So until tomorrow….Father, let us be a “constant” ….a “beacon” of love for all who come into “social distancing” 🙂 with us…Let Your love shine through us when we are “high-fived invisibly” every time.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday I had two visitors, Ann Graves who returned the set of Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache detective series she read during her own breast cancer procedures.

***If anyone in the Summerville area wants to borrow one, please let me know and it will be sitting on the bench by “Little Big Red” waiting on you!

Anne Peterson sent me Louise Penny’s April Newsletter and how she is handling all the new quarantine restrictions… when normally she would be out promoting her next book in the series…but how grateful she is to have a “stay” place (like Lassie said) and friends who buy her groceries…though (I agree) you don’t feel like you can tell them to put all your  favorite/secret junk foods on the list. 🙂

I like this prose she shared with her readers….

Adjusting or going nuts?

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.  (– Albert Camus)

Ann was amazed by “Little Big Red” too and took a picture to send me…(Thanks Kathy Worthington for the banana bread…Ann shared some of hers with me! 🙂

Soon after Gin-g stopped by with a Easter bag… inside I found my own personal bundt cupcake…so good and some more gardening gloves…how did you know I desperately needed some new ones? Cornbread and soup…life is good. As usual Merci Merci dear Gin-g!