Dear Reader:

Most of us grew up reading or hearing a parent or teacher read us the story of two mice cousins who learn how different life can be… depending on the location of our childhood and later adulthood.

The initial version, titled ” The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” was one of the original Aesop’s Fables. In this version the proud town mouse visits his country cousin-who serves him a simple meal. The town mouse scoffs at the lackluster meal.

So town mouse invites his country cousin to come eat with him. At first all goes well as the cousins dine on white bread and other fine foods. But suddenly they are attacked by the house cat… who had already killed town mouses’ parents.

Country mouse decides to return back home immediately-preferring security to opulence. Or as Aesop concludes: ” I’d rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by fear constantly.”

The beautiful writing prompt that reminded me of this story had nothing to do with cuisine or an abundance of material goods… but an abundance of faith.

Archibald Rutledge, once owner of Hampton Plantation and Poet Laureate of South Carolina writes in his famous memoirs…

” To me it has always appeared that a simple faith is far more natural to people rurally environed than to those amid the artificial cities and palaces of civilization.”

” From the dawn of history… shepherds and herdsmen and woodsmen have been natural worshipers. Lying from birth on the ample sweet bosom of nature, they who are country dwellers never find it hard to sense the nearness and the power and the love of God, whereas the city dweller, surrounded by the work and the power and the imperfections in character of man, are less free to feel God with them. So, at least, it seems to me.”

So until tomorrow…. ” It is my fixed conviction that if a parent can give his children a passionate and wholesome devotion to the outdoors, the fact that he can not leave each of them a fortune does not really matter” Archibald Rutledge

Today is my favorite day… Winnie the Pooh

And here’s another cutie Winnie-straight from the ” beauty parlor.”