Something to think about...

This has been a crazy month. New job(s), new friends, new things happening in my life. It's amazing how I manage to keep my sanity. Opening my e-mail this afternoon, I was pleased to get a mail from a friend of mine who's now in Sydney. Aside from the usual pleasantries and a lot of stories, she attached something else. I've read it many times before: my e-mail account is definitely not a virgin to forwarded messages. :) But reading it for the nth time, it doesn't lose its luster. And being the occasionally senti person, I figured I'd share it with my friends and those who find themselves lurking in my blogsite. If you've never read it before, I suggest you savor every word of it. If you have, be enlightened again. And Brazil... I love you so much! :)

I dreamed I had an interview with God. "So you would like to interview me?" God asked. "If you have the time", I said. God smiled. "My time is eternity. What questions do you have in mind for me?" "What surprises you most about humankind?" I asked. God answered... "That they get bored with childhood. They rush to grow up and then long to be children again. That they lose their health to make money, and then lose their money to restore their health. That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future. That they live as if they will never die, and die as if they had never lived."

God's hand took mine and we were silent for a while. And then I asked: "As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?" God replied with a smile: "To learn they cannot make anyone love them. What they can do is let themselves be loved. To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least. To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and it takes many years to heal them. To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness. To learn that there are persons who love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings. To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently. To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others. But that they must forgive themselves. And to learn that I am here. Always."

Have a fruitful weekend, friends. And I love you, again, Brazil...