Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

July 7, 2007

Today’s Announcements

 We have two birthday greetings today; a happy birthday goes out to our writer, Violet Apted: violetsrblue7@hotmail.com and other to our writer Susan Roberts: twofamily2@earthlink.net

Please pray for my daughter Brenna. She had her baby girl June 30th, but she's in an abusive relationship, and she's got an infection from the C-section. Lizzie is doing well, both are still in the hospital.

Jan: janverhoeff@yahoo.com

Today’s Stories

~**~**~

 IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IN DRAGONS…

By David Wainland

            Years ago, I came across a cartoon of a dragon. The subject caught my attention at once.

I had started collecting dragons decades before, back in 1964, the first year of my marriage. They fascinated me, the looks, the styling’s, the drama and of course the mythology.  Almost every culture has, in its past, employed a dragon. You can find the beast in the ancient orient, in Mexico, South America, all over Europe, into the British Isles and religions so far in the past they are lost to the annals of time. The dragon has dominated our nightmares and our dreams from the beginnings of recorded history.

            They are magnificent colorful creatures, belching smoke and fire with tails whipping in the ghostly winds of the time stream. Monsters dressed in a wingtip spread that cloaks the sun in ominous dusk wherever and whenever they pass. Symbols of fear to some, heroic figures to others.

            My collection, in those days, littered the house. A m?lange of magnificent bronze figurines, wood and ivory carvings, paper gargoyles and painted griffins. I had them all.

            By 1985, I was at the top of my game. My business prospered, money flowed, and I had a home, a wife and two wonderful children.  In fact I had just about everything I wanted or needed. In my arrogance, I ignored the possibility of failure and neglected to temper my haughtiness with humility.  

            Some say, “Man plans and God laughs.”

            In 1986, our business suddenly went sour and within months, our savings were gone to over-stuffed mortgages, luxury car payments and all the unnecessary paraphernalia that surrounded us.

            My wife and I dug in our heels and began the resurgence. Not for the first time in our lives, fate forced us to begin again.

            We scratched our way back.

            One day, while leafing through a magazine in a dentist office, I discovered the dragon cartoon. In a single motion, while my eyes swept the room for an accusatory, I tore the page and without apology, stuffed it into my pocket.

            Hours later and back at home, I unfolded the sheet. It was a simple drawing, but it exposed the truth so completely that hung it in my office for years and perhaps changed my life. 

            The cartoon, castle in the background, was of a dragon, an old English version, with wings swept backwards, leaning vertically against a tree. In one outstretched claw, it held a knight’s lance and picked at bones wedged between carnivorous teeth. On the ground and grass surrounding the scaled brute were helmets, skulls, shields and pieces of broken armor.

Below the drawing in a bold scrawl, a lesson in humility.

I went shopping the next day and purchased a gold dragon charm to wear around my neck. It has hung there all these years.

The caption?

“Sometimes, the Dragon Wins.”

That was my lesson and here is my philosophy.

If you can believe in dragons, you can believe in anything. 

Email david@davidwainland.com

Blog http://360.yahoo.com/davidwainland

If you enjoy my writing, tell your friends. If you don’t, tell me.

~**~**~

 ValueSpeak

A Weekly Column

By Joseph Walker

 vakuespeak@msn.com

HOW WILL THEY KNOW?

Eight-year-old David had never been to a wedding reception before, and when someone explained the process to him he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about going to his first one.

Dressing up? Standing around and talking to aunts and uncles and other assorted old people? Celebrating . . . you know . . . love and stuff?

Yuk.

But then he heard about the food.

“OK,” he thought. “I can do this.”

So he went and put up with having his cheeks lovingly pinched by one aunt and unmercifully kissed by another so he could pack away a fistful of finger sandwiches and enough candy mints and nuts to hold him over until Christmas. He had fun helping some of his older cousins “decorate” the bride and groom’s get-away car, and he laughed when the bride tried to feed so much wedding cake to the groom that most of it oozed out of his mouth and onto the beautiful white tuxedo he was wearing.

Oh, and it didn’t hurt that he had three pieces of wedding cake himself.

But the thing that most captured his attention that day was when it was announced that the bride was about to throw her bridal bouquet. He had no idea what this was about, but he surveyed the scene as it was playing out in front of him: the bride was standing with her back toward a bunch of her friends, sisters and cousins, who clearly were lining up as if they were preparing to catch it.

“Now we’re talking,” David thought as he hurried in and began jockeying for position with his cousins. He didn’t really notice that he was the only boy in the group, and when people around the outside started laughing he just assumed this was a funny wedding tradition that everybody enjoyed.

And it was – especially when the bride tossed her bouquet and David started muscling the girls out of the way so he could leap and catch the bouquet in mid-air. David held up the bouquet triumphantly, expecting to hear cheers of praise and support. Instead he heard laughter. Tons of laughter. And everyone was laughing at him.

Humiliated but not really understanding why, he ran from the room. It wasn’t until later that someone explained to him that the tossing – and subsequent catching – of the bridal bouquet is traditionally a “girls only” event.

“I didn’t know!” David said, his face flushed with embarrassment. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

It’s a good question, isn’t it? Why didn’t someone put an arm around young David and gently explain the tradition to him to help him avoid what to this day he describes as his “most embarrassing moment”? Don’t we have an obligation – especially to young people – to teach, and to explain, and to help them understand? We can’t just assume that they know everything we think they should know. In fact, they won’t know – unless we teach them.

Thankfully, David has evolved into a healthy and well-adjusted adult who has learned a few things through the years. He wasn’t warped by the experience, although for a long time he did everything he could to avoid going to wedding receptions. Then a few years ago he was involved in a special youth ministry at his church. As a result of his involvement with the young people of the area he is invited to dozens of wedding receptions every year. He admits that every time the bride gets ready to toss her bouquet he feels a little twinge of . . well, something.

But not once has he muscled in and tried to catch it.

Joseph Walker

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

When I Walk

Cynthia Groopman

 
when I walk upon this earth,
my heart sings with sunshine and mirth.
With my head held up so high,
I marvel at the vast blue clear sky.
As I joyfully take each step,
God is gently grasping my arm,
guiding me safely and protecting me from harm.
When a cheerful voice says hello,
I bask in fellowship's golden glow.
Admiring all the majestic sights and sounds,
as I journey along my way,
Brings a special zest and meaning to each wonderful day.

Cynthia Groopman

cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net Groopman

Copyright ©2007 Cynthia Groopman

~**~**~

A Rainy Day
Cynthia Groopman

Splash, Splash, Splash,
our feet hurry in a dash.
We must get out of the rain that is falling everywhere,
as we gaze at the raindrops as they sing and dance with flare.
As we look at the wet ground,
the wind swirls the rain round and round.
Each little gray cloud has a gloomy face,
as she misses the sunshine's warm loving embrace.
Each rainy day is dreary,
as our hearts are tired and weary.
For in the rain, children cannot have fun outdoors merrily at play,
and they are lonely with nothing exciting to do,
as the cloak of sadness envelops both me and you.


Cynthia Groopman
cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net Groopman

Copyright ©2004 Cynthia Groopman   

 ~**~**~

 Remembering Sparkling Brown Eyes
Cynthia Groopman

Dazzling in the radiance of the sunshine glow,
were the sparkling brown eyes,
Rejoicing with tremendous awe and surprise.
Enchanted by the spectacular splendor of the sunrise's elegance,
They would sprightly smile and dance.
Softly twinkling like the mirthful stars shining
in the lovely midnight sky,
The sparkling brown eyes would laugh and then sigh.
Marvelous windows revealing this magnificently beautiful world were they,
As they unfolded nature's majestic picturesque in a descriptively charming way.
Suddenly, on a cold winter night,
A savage villain, cruelly robbed the brown eyes of their precious eyesight.
No longer do they glisten and dance at the first light of dawn,
Now the brown eyes do not sparkle but weep and mourn
For all beauty is now seen through the eye that resides in the mind,
Because the brown eyes are sad and are unfortunately blind.

Cynthia L. Groopman
cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net Groopman
Copyright ©2004 Cynthia L. Groopman

~**~**~

Lateness
Cynthia Groopman

Why did you arrive so late?
Learn to be on time and please try not to procrastinate.
You made an appointment to arrive here,
But after waiting four hours, you never did appear.
You never tried to call,
And to apologize to all.
Did you ever learn about punctuality?
And do you know that you made me act impatiently?
You should be aware of the time,
because you wasted the precious hours of the busy day of mine.


Cynthia Groopman
Cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net
Copyright ©2004 Cynthia Groopman

Hi Barbara and Andy,

In answer to your question about my article "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall," you are both correct.  This, as many of my stories, came to me in a dream.  However, I have to admit, that I have been known to have dreams so realistic I thought they really happened.  And vice versa.  I was already in such a sound sleep that when I was awakened to something, after going back to sleep and reawakening, I thought it was a dream, when it was reality. 

The most strange thing to ever happen was when my husband and I had almost the same dream.  We compared notes and couldn't make heads or tails out of it.  We dreamed of a parade or procession, with many fire police stopping traffic, and since we were both fire police our vantage point in the dream was probably from that.  In his dream there was a high public figure, he thinks the President, in the parade.  In mine the procession either went by or stopped at a particular hillside where there is a cemetary.  Some weeks or months later there was a well publicized plane crash where over 20 students and a teacher (can't remember the exact numbers) were killed from the same school in Montoursville, PA.  Days after the crash my father-in-law, who is also a fire police, was telling us he had been kept busy that day with traffic duty for the main funeral procession, several of the students were buried on a hillside cemetary in town.  He said he was glad the President decided not to come, because that would have made traffic duty that much more difficult.

Okay, that's more than you wanted to know.  I'm sorry.  But to conclude the answer to your question, I added a lot of extra things to the "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall" story, like the voice and face of God.  In my dream they weren't quite as specific.

I hope this solves your debate.  That you for your thoughtful response.

Love, Peace and Joy,

Pam

You can also visit me at: Relations at Bella Online ; and, buy my novel "At the Pineapple Inn" at the following link. 
 

Readers Feedback

Re A blind Immigrant Speaks Out-------Thank you Janet for this message.  We forget the source of this country’s strength.  We forget the contributions of so many peoples of different origins and color. They worked and blended to make this the great country that it is. They stirred the melting pot with their genius. We forget that the country continues to grow and mature, and that it continues to need our work and sacrifice and the blending effort of any great recipe.         Louise

A Blind Immigrant Speaks Out: Divided or United? By Janet Perez Eckles:  Yes, you didn’t just only described Bolivia but other third world nations like Nigeria my country.  The third world nations are bastardized because they chose to remain adamant to civilization growth within.  We cherish other civilized nations but we find it difficult to attain that rank in our society.  It is not just the fault of the leaders alone but a problem of generality involving everybody even the unborn child.  I watch lots of happenings in my country and have concluded that even majority of the masses are not ready for improvement in whatever way.  America attained its level of greatness of today because the majorities spoke in one voice and worked towards one goal but is it so today in the third world nations, no.  Her in the third world nations, majority supports ungodliness, majority are corrupt, majority a ignorant, majority are backward and never wanting to see anything good out of their fellows so how can we move forward...  Although, hope is slim, but probably in 3 to 3 decades from now the third world nations shall lead. 

GEORGEWATERS OJEIGBE – Lagos, Nigeria: gojiegbe@oregun.jhplc.com

This I Believe # 14 by Bill Walker: Bill you have hit the nail on the head again!  But be aware that it will be difficult for those nations (two major countries) supporting the middle east campaign.  As you have said, not until they deceased from supplying weapons would the war cease.  Again, the worst would have been done before realization.  I don’t know how many years has gone by but I believe that it is not going to be easy to stop (20 and 4 years/score or so…).  You stop, they hit the more.  You hit, the damage continues (confused state).  It is really hard, it is really a difficult decision to make.  It has started, lets us that finds our faith in Jehovah Lord God hold on to His promises as our only hope.  Out there under the hot desert ground lies a ground – great technological innovation is perceived… Has the cloned soldiers been released now? (think about this question).

GEORGEWATERS OJEIGBE – Lagos, Nigeria: gojiegbe@oregun.jhplc.com

Storytime Tapestry Angels

Angels on earth, they exist they are out there.  Angels come in all ages, shapes and sizes, civil status, and religion.  Their nature is love and their purpose is giving to the less fortunate of this world.  Storytime Tapestry angels are no exception.  These angels are loyal members who have contributed to the upkeep of Storytime Tapestry newsletter so that Storytime Tapestry can continue come to your email box 350 days of the year.

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks