Passavant Auxiliary
Color Your World
One of my best friends… Sylvia Burke.. drives me crazy. I never know where her mind is. Singing at Seven… 2 hours..mainly her and I.. many lines.. costume changes, and I had to do Act I in my underwear…pressure. Just before the play.. “Did you see the sky tonight?” What?!! “It was sort of orange with some purple..” --Play makeup.. mushrooming… ---ISD. .traveled state.. always took back roads and explored cemeteries. Always arrived home late. I don’t know where Sylvia is right now… probably taking a walk around Franklin Lake while her lunch is getting cold. But I’ll bet you one thing.. She’s not thinking about tomorrow. She’s living in the present.
Friend Richard…day after Thanksgiving. …Just watching people.
Ladies…yard sale.. I was trying to enjoy. They were on a kill and destroy mission. Christmas shopping with same group… I was actually running.
NPR lady…mother trying to get through a door holding a baby and with a young toddler. She said, “As we grow into adulthood we lose the ability to live in the present…to enjoy where we are.”
Me: going grocery shopping with a very young Doug. Kumquats. I’ve never read the label on chow mein noodles.
So many of us have lost the ability to simply enjoy the moment we’re in. Even as you’re sitting here today…
Color your world…but before you paint, you have to scrape. I lied to Dad once about the back fence. Had to paint again next summer. Before you paint, you’ve got to scrape. It’s spring…a time of new beginnings.. time to paint..but first, some scraping so we can learn to live in the present.
What do we scrape away so we can see the colors of our world? Pride..my windshield wipers. Sometimes our Pride at being on top of things, of handling every job well gets in our way of simply enjoying where we are.
Our agenda…Heather Baccus..New Salem.. living in the present.
Our centering on people instead of things… Anyone who’s lost anyone precious knows this lesson..perhaps the hard way. Walks with Grandma in the woods. Tony Compello “Five years from now you’ll be pretty much the same as you are now except for two things: The books you’ve read and the people you’ve met. The people in this room are more important than any task you have to accomplish today. Cherish the people.
Scrape away our critical nature… Charlie Rose show: architect Johnsone: 90 years old. Hottest place in hell for whiners and complainers ..... “If life were 100 times longer, there would still excuse for every getting bored by it.”
Our need to please everyone all the time…Lots of Type A personalities here today. Hiney the Mule
Our need to be anyone but ourselves… James Kern..Mrs. Brown.. be yourself Jeff W...Free Spirit..Robbed and tied.
My Great-grandmother knew how to paint her day… “I guess this is just about the best day God ever made. Haven’t got much done. Got up, fed the chickens, worked around the yard a bit, did a load of wash, scrubbed the upstairs floors then woke the men for breakfast.”
I look around at who’s here and it’s obvious you are the movers and shakers of Jacksonville. You are the busiest people in our community. You are in the greatest danger of missing what’s happening around you. Begin today.. this group of people will never meet together again.. Enjoy it… Scrape the paint of worrying about tomorrow then color your world.
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