Kindness and the Glad game, as taught by two personal classics...

The Country Bunny
I have a children's book called "The Country Bunny"...and something about little golden shoes.  It is one of those books that I have kept around over the years because it keeps teaching me things. I don't like a few things in it (if you ever read it and want to talk, I'd love to), but there are some messages that just keep teaching me every time I read it to the kids.
It is truly a personal classic.

So, lesson for this week from the Country Bunny.  Story in a nutshell: this bunny wants to grow up to be one of the five Easter Bunnies that deliver eggs, but "ends up" having 21 little baby bunnies instead. As they grow, she teaches them to work in the little cottage, each taking an area of stewardship over which they show joy and do well,..."and there is never a cross word at the happy cottage."

Well, the Grandfather Bunny (who also picks the five Easter Bunnies, who are wise, kind, and fast) learns about all she has done with her children, and how there is never a cross word in their cottage.  He says something that really stuck the last time I read it, "...then you must be very kind."

I thought about this, how the kindness of the Mother Bunny affected the fact that there was never a cross word at the cottage.  It struck me how much of the words and attitudes that my kids use when they interact with each other are a reflection of my own interacting with them--however justified I feel when I am not being kind!

I have focused this week on being kind--truly showing kindness in how I treat them and how I act towards them, and I have already seen such change.  No fair! :)  Does my example have to really be that powerful?   :)  Ahhh....ownership of responsibilities.  I need to look at the good, flip side of this to say, "Wow!  My example is really powerful!"

I believe it was really a true observation (however fictitious the story) that the Grandfather could link the fruits of happiness in the household and between children with the kindness of the mother.

Pollyanna
I think many people have seen or heard of the Disney movie "Pollyanna."  It is fun and sweet.  However, when I saw it on the reading list for 14 year olds in "TJEd for Teens", a leadership education book for youth, I was skeptical.  It seemed too, well,... honestly...naive.

My daughter and I are reading the lists together, as part of our Vanguard group/scholar phase plan, and put it under our month that we are studying the role of God in society and the role of religion.  I didn't realize how perfect and how powerful it was, until I finished it.

The movie is really true to the book, with some slight aberrations, but nothing that took away from the essence of the book, so if you have seen the movie, you will have the basic gist of the book.  However, the book gave more examples about how the "Glad" game really changed the lives of people.   I loved the variety of hard, real situations that were affected by the glad game, and knew, in my heart, (as I first doubted then believed,) that it was true.  To find ways to be glad about whatever situation we are in truly changes hearts and changes lives.

The application really hit home as I was emailing a friend about our holidays, how there were things we missed here in Hungary, but, knowing it was just a couple years, it was no big deal to me.  Then the thought occurred to me that if we really could see how short this life was in the context of eternity, would our attitudes and perspectives change about our trials that we are having?

If we could really see that things were more fleeting than we realize, would we hold onto grudges, concerns, or limitations? Hmmm...food for thought.

I have also played the Glad game so much since finishing the book...really, without intending too.  When a child comes up to me with a concern, I have to stop myself at first from rambling off all the reasons to be glad, knowing that we all need validation and to be heard :).  And, I also realize as did Pollyanna, it is also easier to see how others can be glad, than to see it for ourselves when we are in a situation that is hard. 

However, just reading the process Pollyanna goes through in all these situations of seeing the good and changing people's lives is like a personal training book on "how-to be GLAD!"--something at least I could use more of :).

AH-HAH!  Avot thinks our family is up to doing a Shakespearean play, bless her heart.  As I memorize my lines, one just struck me with a possible deeper meaning.  Romeo is lamenting a lost love (not Juliet) right at the beginning, but I thought the advice from his cousin, Benvolio (me) applies so well to what I have been thinking about:
BENVOLIO
    Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
ROMEO
    O, teach me how I should forget to think.
BENVOLIO
    By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
    Examine other beauties.
  

As we examine "other beauties," giving our eyes liberty to look for the good, we will be much better off, just as Benvolio counselled his cousin.  However, we have to give our eyes liberty, and not fixate on the problem...which is what I tend to do :S. 

I just love connections.