Praying for Kindness with Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke

It worked!  I can now resume blogging.  Maybe I will add photos in the future.  Who knows what I will do now that I'm blogging again. 

Our house is kind of small--1840 square feet to be exact.  Book cases line the walls of every room except the bathrooms.  Yes, there is even a book case in our kitchen, and it contains more than just cookbooks.  I've given away many books and sold several to our local Half Price Books store, yet we still have oodles and oodles of books.  I could carpet our entire house with the ones we have and still have books left over.  We are a family of "bookaholics." 

While I love most types of books, I gravitate toward memoirs, biographies and "self-help."  My kids know this, and they know that I will share snippets of what I've read at any given moment.  They usually indulge me, but they've said that they really don't like it when I read to them while we're in the car.  (Lance is driving, of course.)  They're a captive audience then.  (Yes, I keep books in the car, and often read while stopped at red lights.)  Lately, they've heard passages from four of my most recent reads:  The Power of Kindness by Piero Ferrucci, Praying for Strangers by River Jordan, This Time Together by Carol Burnett, and My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke. 

Only two of those books are currently in my possession.  Lance has the Ferrucci book at work (even Microsofties need to be kind), and a friend is reading the Burnett one.  I can't help but share some quotes from the other two.  Thank you for indulging me.

From Praying for Strangers:

"The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer."  (F. B. Meyer)

"We all have the same gift, the same opportunity.  How much does it really take for any of us to slow down to attune ourselves to the human condition, to look for another soul passing through our little universe that might need a word of encouragement? . . . If we only knew how important we are to each other."

"Prayers are worth so very much, but at the same time they are not a substitute for getting involved . . ."

From My Lucky Life . . .:

" . . . you do what you can, say your prayers, and hope for the best."

"Hope is life's essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning.  I think you need somebody to love and take care of, and someone who loves you back.  In that sense, I think the New Testament got it right.  So did the Beatles.  Without love, nothing has any meaning."