I’m going tosing, play, and be happy to be alive, so my blog is going to take a vacationfor a week. I’ll be back with lotsof fantastic ideas you can use to start the New Year on December 26.
My daughter,Holly, sent this email several weeks ago, and I thought it might be ameaningful reminder to all of us this holiday season. My wish for each of you is that every day for a few momentsyou can forget about the gifts, bills, cooking, and shopping and find time tosing, play, and be happy to be alive!
Wishing love,joy, peace, and hope to all of you! Dr. Jean
Tonight KJ and Idid his last week's homework together. He had to read a story and answer somequestions about it, trying to get to the theme or main idea, which I'mtotally in favor of since my college students struggle with this skill.However, the story was the old fable about the grasshopper and the ant, retold.On the back, the worksheet tells parents that the theme of the story is"Be sure to work hard and save up for bad times." Okay. No problem.But in the story the ant works all summer: "She did not have time to singand play." And what about the grasshopper? "He was happy to be aliveand spent every day doing all of the things he wanted to do... He sang hisgrasshopper songs and played in the summer rain..." What a beautifulthing! Shouldn't we all try to be a bit happier to be alive? Shouldn't we singand play more often? We work way too hard in this country, mostly to buy more stuff that wedon't need anyway. As KJ and I were reading this story together, itstruck me that our country is way too much like the ant--the anton overdrive! We've worked and accumulated so much stuff that wedon't have any time to play. And the poor grasshopper--the ant doesn't evenshare any of her food with him! How mean! Is that the kind of message I want togive KJ, that he shouldn't bother to help people who need help? That it'sprobably their fault anyway? So after he told me the "theme"--whichhe could do without blinking--we talked about how sad the story made me becauseI really like the grasshopper and I think we should all be happy to be alive,and I think we should help people when they need it. He said,"Yea--if the ant went to Disney World she probably wouldn't even goon any rides. She'd just be running around trying to find seeds andstuff and she'd get stepped on because there are way too many people atDisney World." And I thought that was pretty funny! So here's to beinga little bit more like grasshoppers (especially in elementaryschool)!
