Thought for the Day 6/17/2022
Friday Tale - the Daffodil Principle
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say,
"Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I
wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.
"I will come next
Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and
rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally
walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy
children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.
"Forget the daffodils,
Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in
the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to
drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said,
"We drive in this all the time, Mother."
"I was hoping you'd take me over
to the garage to pick up my car." After several minutes, I had to ask,
"Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!" "We're
going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils."
After about twenty minutes, we turned
onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church.
On the far side of the church, I
saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down
the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay
the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of
gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers
were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep
orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow.
Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled
and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of
flowers.
"Who did this?" I
asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on
the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well kept A-frame
house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory.
We walked up to the house. On
the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I know you are
Asking."
The first answer was a simple
one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a
time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer
was, "Began in 1958."
For me, that moment was a
life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who,
for more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her
vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a
time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in
which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary
magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden
taught, is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to
move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step
at time—and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of
time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of
time with small increments of daily effort we too will find we can accomplish
magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a
way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had
thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away
at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might
have been able to achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of
the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said. She was
right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to
make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only
ask, "How can I put this to use today?"
~ Jaroldeen Asplund
Edwards
The beginning of wisdom
is: Acquire wisdom
and with all your acquiring, get
understanding.
~
Proverbs 4:7
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