Sunday May 30,2021

Good Morning everyone, today is Sunday May 30, 2021, day two of the Memorial Day Holiday Weekend, the weather is absolutely miserable, rainy and cold, it really zaps a lot of your energy. Now it can work two ways, you succumb to it and do nothing and stay in the house or you take charge of the situation and say it is only rain and continue on with your plans with minor alterations. We all have the choice, I think most of you know my plan is to take option two. I will carry on with what I planned to do and deal with the rain the best I can.

My post today deal with two young girls that really at times affected my life. Last night in church, I found these pictures of St. Teresa, the little flower in the back of the church , I seem to always find something there that has meaning to me. I once wrote as a boy I had a makeshift altar in my room, my plan to become a priest. It was really a shelf but I kept all my religious articles on it, my parents once bought me a statue of St Teresa so she had a place of honor on my altar, because I loved her because she taught everything deserved love and god accepted everyone through love, he didn’t care what you were. She also believed in the present, the past was over and don’t dwell on the future live a good life now. So these things were important to me. When I would be up and in pain in the hospital I would pray to her because I knew she lived in terrible pain for a good part of her life with Tuberculosis, and I would start the rosary to calm me down but would always fall asleep without finishing, I recently read she herself did this, and the Blessed Mother realizes the good intentions. Years ago after visiting Normandy on our way back to Paris the tour guide said we would be stopping in Liseux, I said to myself it’s snowing let’s just go back to Paris where it is safe off these mountainous roads. I said this because I did not realize at the time Liseux is the town where St Teresa came from, when I found out I was elated. I spent what seemed like hours in the Basilica at her shrine, to see her body in closed in glass like that just renewed and heightened my love an admiration for her. That experience has never been forgotten and she is never far from me. Everyday I thank her for something as I do with many saints. You think I could get through all this on my own no way. So when I saw those pictures last night I thought I would like to share them with you , so that is what these pictures are, I thought they were beautiful.

At the beginning of the post I said two girls, the second was Hayley Mills the actress, a child star way back when I was a child. She starred in many Disney movies while I was growing up and I always enjoyed them, those were feel good movies they made you happy, no one got killed or hurt by violence they just told nice stories that we don’t see anymore. Maybe that’s why our moral situation is the way it is. However her iconic role was Pollyanna, a young orphan girl who comes to live with her maiden aunt who controls the town. She sets off to make it a better place by being nice, again something lacking today. She played something called the Glad Game with the other characters to show life could always be worse, with the cantankerous old Mrs Snow who is in a wheelchair of her own doing, be glad you still have your hand to do things. The town fell in love with her infectious demeanor. The town held a 4 th of July Celebration as you seen in the mid west but Pollyanna was forbidden to go because her aunt did agreed with the idea of the celebration, however she got there by sneaking out her third floor window, she sang America The Beautiful at the party, the next scene climbing in her window she falls and becomes paralyzed. In the next scene she is depressed with life and is being transported to a city to be operated on, the entire city comes to bid farewell to her even Mrs. Snow out of the wheelchair. She succeeded her infectious personality changed the town. The theme is to always be happy for what you have, don’t look to get more just appreciate the life given to you and work on improving that. As you can tell this is and has always been one of my favorite movies as a teacher I read this book many times to my clas in the afternoon, it set a warm tone to the class. Why I brought this up today, last night in church at the closing of mass they played America the Beautiful, the song just does something to me, maybe it’s the movie, maybe it’s just Patriotism and I am just thankful for all I have and live where I do, or just a plain Proud American.

Well it really is running late and with no sun shinning in the window I took advantage. I certainly do not want you to miss any of your holiday plans, so have a great day in spite of the weather. I have a date for brunch this morning that I am looking forward to. We will talk again soon. Til Tomorrow!