Rock Talk

Look what I found at the LeClaire, Iowa Community Library! I found this TRUST rock first. It was on the top step, by the railing. I thought it was so cool. I didn’t pick it up, but rather, ran inside and grabbed my phone to take a picture of it. 

Then my eye caught the red one with a white star/flower painted on it. It’s a smaller pebble and it was sitting on a large landscape boulder. I noticed a corner of a white paper sticking out from underneath so I picked it up. On the bottom it read: “By. K.W.  Maryville Rocks 865.  Please post  pic to FB”

I went back to the TRUST rock to check for a tag on the bottom. Sure enough, the same tag was there. I decided to walk around the library to see if any other painted rocks were hiding in plain sight. The smallest of the three pebbles, a little yellow guy,  I found on the edge of a window well.

Courtesy of Google Images

I wonder how many hands and how many different terrains those rocks passed through to get from Tennessee to Iowa. Maybe someone visiting Nashville found one at Tootsies. Maybe one of these little rocks spent time at The Land Between the Lakes. 

Courtesy of Wikipedia

I’d like to think the one that says TRUST had a stop at Christ of the Ozarks, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Maybe one went to the top of the Gateway Arch in Kansas City, Mo.

This artistic form of communication is delightful, and you don’t have to go far to find a Rock Group in your area. Wendy Reyes, a former colleague of mine, started QC Rocks (Quad City Rocks.) You can find them at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1101977619903168/  The Quad City Times did a story a few months back about Wendy and QC Rocks. You can read it here: http://qctimes.com/news/local/bettendorf/rock-your-world-facebook-group-sends-positive-greetings-via-rock/article_0073f289-ce04-5c12-b400-fe90d3108777.html

This past summer the national news had a feature about a woman who wrote inspirational messages in cards and randomly left them to be found by others.The story was about how her random messages seemed to be picked up by just the right person. The person who needed those words of encouragement the most right at that moment. 

In fact, I’ve written a couple of notes myself to library patrons. As a library clerk I see a lot of what’s going on in our patron’s lives based on the subject matter of materials they’ve had shipped in from our cooperating libraries.(Kind of like the mail carrier, right?) A person’s library check-outs are private and not to be discussed or shared with others in any way.

Ummm… I may have overstepped that line when I wrote two post-it notes one day. One note was to a patron I know well. She’s always checking out self-help books. I think she’s a lovely person and too hard on herself. I put a note to that effect in a book she had on hold. And signed my name. The second note went in a pile of cookbooks. The subject was healthy eating when dealing with cancer. This patron had six different books on the topic shipped in from other libraries. I just felt the need to tell them I was praying for them. I did not sign my name to that one.

That day I felt great! I was “being the good I wish to see in the world.” That night, instead of sleeping, the privacy policy ran over and over in my brain. What a way to be fired.  Well, I wasn’t fired. The patron who knows me thanked me for the kind words.  As far as the cancer patient patron’s note, I don’t know who they were,or if the note gave them any comfort.

I don’t think all of this creative communication is random at all. I believe good people are working hard to make our world a better place: one.person.at.a.time. That’s all. Just one person at a time. Let’s help each other friends.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Image from dandingeroz.deviantart.com

I’m sure, like me, you’ve read numerous comments and watched enough news coverage to last a lifetime over the mass murders in Orlando, Florida this past weekend. I don’t want to add to that hype by giving an infected pus-bag shooter any more of my time. Any more of my emotions. Any more my anything.

Crazy only knows crazy and Evilonly knows evil. We’re never going to be able to fix this shit because we willnever have laws that Crazy or Evil will follow; plan to follow or even care to follow.

What does this mean for us, the average citizen who’s maybe trying to raise a family or lead a productive life?  Well, for me, it means I’m going to work even harder to realize my goals. And I’m not going to let pus-bags stop me from living my life by second guessing where they’ll strike next. If I were to do that, then the enemy pus-bag wins.

I want to be the good I wish to see in the world. Based off all the video coverage I’ve seen from Orlando of all the people who helped or lined up to give blood, I think there are more people who agree with me than those who don’t. So many times a call to action comes from disaster, despair, and tragedy. We can all make a difference, if we try.

 

Let’s start small. Our first task is to open our minds to possibility that people who seem “different” from us are not depraved or dangerous because they, in fact do, look or act in a way we consider different. The color of someone’s skin, hair, and eyes has nothing to do with what’s in their hearts. What a person wears or how they look is not a sign of evil. Ideals, hopes and dreams are not wrong, either. Love cannot be wrong.

Lying, cheating, and stealing are wrong. Laziness and apathy is wrong. Murder is wrong. Cowards who murder for their own gain, or in the name of some other entity is an abomination.

Step into someone else’s shoes for a moment before you pass judgment on them. Look at yourself through their eyes. What do they see when they look at you? Will they see hostility? Indifference?  Or will they see common decency offered to one human being from another human being? Think about that. That’s the first step.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21

Until next time,

 Be Good to Yourself and Others,

~Nadine