Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

THOUGHTFUL – Someone called me not so very long ago to tell me he was looking over two columns I wrote back in 2015. He cited two quotations I used that he really liked.

One was “It’s not how well you’ve lived, but how well you’ve loved.” That, friends, is powerful. Thanks, Luther.

INTRINSIC REWARD- To say that Harold Robinson is truly deserving of the honors and accolades that have come his way is an understatement. His career as a football coach those many years at Williamston High School has set him apart from many of his coaching peers, few of whom ever know such success.

Yet, far more important than all the honors he has received, is the gratification he experienced in the helping to mold, in a positive way, the lives of so many youngsters – often boys on the cusp of early manhood – and seeing how they grew, physically and especially in character development. Such an intrinsic reward cannot be quantified easily. You see, he made a difference.

RUDE & HURTFUL – Perhaps he didn’t intend it to be insensitive when he said, “You sure have lost a lot of weight,” or words to that effect.

I responded by saying that over the past years I had lost around twenty-five pounds, to which he responded with something like “You need to eat more.”

Now, my inclination, as it almost always is when someone comments on my diminished appearance, is to say “What you said is rude and stupid,” or even “I’m dying, you see.” Yet I hold my tongue. (No, I’m not dying, as far as I know.)

A few years ago, a man wouldn’t leave it alone, and even told me what I should eat, and to drink a couple of milkshakes each day. I wanted to say, “I didn’t realize that you’re a nutritionist and a medical doctor.” But I didn’t. It’s just how it is. I would never tell an overweight or obese person what I think they should do. Never.

CONSIDER THE SONG – The church in which I grew up, was baptized and then at the age appropriate time was confirmed, has been going through difficulties, not unsimilar to that which some other Christian denominations are experiencing to one extent or another. About this I choose not to be more specific.

So, please just let me leave you with a song, one that gained enormous popularity at Disneyland and Disney World.

“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears. A world of hopes and world of fears. There’s so much that we share that it’s time we’re aware, it’s a small world

after all.”

Then the chorus: “It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all, it’s a small, small world.”

“There is just one moon and one golden sun. A smile means friendship to everyone. Though the oceans are wide and the mountains divide, it’s a small world after all.”

Then “It’s a small world …” (The chorus)

So, maybe, just maybe, friends, the parishioners in all the churches would do well to sing this song.

Just a thought.  Peace.