Dear Reader:

While walking through the garden last week… this one lone bloom was sitting on a mound of dirt, above ground level, pulled up by some burrowing ” critter” I suppose, with only one central root still intact underground …providing just enough nourishment to sustain life for one single bud. Amazing! Life is a mighty force of nature and a powerful warrior.

Take a moment and think back to your first discovery about the world in which you live and your place in it. Where did your first awareness about good vs evil begin? Stories!

Children six and over need stories to develop their spirituality. If children were always just read stories of good vs good… where nothing bad happened -they would develop a false sense of reality.

Madeleine L’ Engle ( Wrinkle in Time) once wrote: ” Rather than taking the child away from the real world …fictional stories prepare children for living in the real world with courage and expectation.”

” Story, at its heart, is one of the primary modes in which God speaks to us, which means it is one of the main vehicles for God’s truth.”

Einstein’s famous quote on the importance of reading fairy tales to children dealt with intelligence( ” If you want your children to be intelligent, read them a fairy tale-if you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

But, of course, we want our children to develop a moral compass along with intelligence and this is accomplished through Biblical stories, classic children stories and fairy tales. Children always root for the underdog in every good vs bad story-the underdog who symbolizes goodness, justice, and courage against the meanest monster, ogre, or bully!

Today … a great teaching tool is explaining to our children why historical monuments in our country , as well as, other free countries, are lighting up in the colors of Ukraine to symbolically speak up for democracies and freedom everywhere against ” bullies.”

… Or another teaching tool -… President Zelenskyy ( Ukraine) was the Ukrainian voice of Paddington the Bear! Such a likable guy who speaks out for the common man.

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Mollie and Lachlan headed back from NYC yesterday with lots of birthday memories in tact-know they are glad to return to more warmth-frigid temps in NYC. Hope they got to see the Empire State Bldg lit up in blue and yellow at night!

Your prayers are definitely helping our Ya Libby-it is going to be a long road and lots of pain but she is a fighter and hopefully will get settled into a Rehab facility this week-Betsy and family are on top of the situation-prayers for the amazing caregivers too-a stressful job as we all know.