ABOUT LOVE, HOLLYWOOD, and Well…LOVE
The Culture of Hollywood and Why Love Stories Become Twisted When Translated to Screen:
I’m hopeless. AND, I refuse to yeild...
This personal review of a ten year journey to get a film made, once promised to a publisher one year after the book came out, is a typical journey for stories where “love” is defined by those with the money, but perhaps not the heart for it.
In Hollywood it is a battle of, “Hard Love vs. Soft Love…” Case in point: “Jim, Hollywood isn’t really doing your kind of stories. They just aren’t hard enough.”
Suspicions confirmed, the sale of my “soft love” story, New York Times best selling The Last Valentine, was what thousands of fans had been asking about for years, and now ten years later it is where it belonged… Hallmark Hall of Fame and CBS. I never believed that “Hollywood” didn’t have interest in “soft love.” The list of enjoyable hits, even blockbusters is too long.
When it comes to love being “hard,” I realized too late, that he was speaking of the “head contrived love” stories but not the kind that comes from the heart. As long as his mental perspective was fixed, I wasn’t going to shift enthusiasm to area perceived as “not” profitable or at least “interesting” to Hollywood film making contacts.
The truth is, he and I are still friends, but live in different worlds. We come at romance from different experiences and paradigms. His world includes a lot of “Noir” (French word for “black” and meaning cynical, rough, violent, dark, etc. class of novels and film.) I refuse to allow any noir into my world. I mean ZERO. What that comes down to is differing views on “reality.” I’m in love with real love; the warm-hearted journey a man or woman makes in winning at it and…
I’m hopeless.
I’m just not interested in noir; aka “hard love.” Something is wrong with me. I want to understand (therefore explore) a love found in the most gentlemanly and heroic of characters… the kind that makes a woman swoon (and stay swooned) – a love that doesn’t demand, but gives, and then receives through no compulsion, obligation, or manipulated feelings – the soft, gentle, kind, filled to the brim with emotion that comes after the effort. It is a culture full of “we and thee,” not the Hollywood view that portrays movie after movie of a narcissist’s “about me and mine.”
Am I missing something here, Hollywood? Am I all alone on this? I don’t think so. In fact, I know Hollywood is losing money from those who WANT to enjoy a great movie filled with realism – the reality of “how love works” not “how it does not.” Even the Soaps acknowledge love affairs they portray as built upon moral quick sand leading to personal and collective destruction.
I’m hopeless, and that seems to be the bottom line to my romantic notions.
To me LOVE, “amore,” the stuff of true passion, is not the knocking around of bodies flailing away in fits of myopically narrow-minded and so-called “love-making” by the literati of cheap noir novels and film at large – but it is the committed touching of the breath and soul of a partner through willingness to believe in, and cherish her. THEN let the holding, touching, and being one with her begin. I like marriage, for example. I mean, to me that kind of commitment is romantic. If I failed at it, I would try again until I got it right. It is in the EFFORT that the reward of ROMANCE is achieved. It is in loving (the verb synonymous with giving) that loving (the verb synonymous with feeling) is received. Where am I going wrong here?
I learned late that I was dealing with one kind of producer in trying to get a beloved “soft” love story produced. The 1,000’s of pieces of fan mail can’t touch a mind whose heart is not in it. The idea of a gentle love that isn’t believed in cannot be written by even an Academy Award winning film-script writer given 2 chances (true event in the epic journey of The Last Valentine to screen) if his heart isn’t in it. The truth about love in Hollywood often is, “hard is hot” and “soft is cold.” In terms of the heart “soft” is very hot to those of us who like great story lines and don’t want orgasmic gratuity or cynicism to interrupt it.
The exception is CBS and their fabulous alliance with Hallmark Hall of Fame; a realization of what makes a great love story. Stories that have heart are remembered forever and a good story line with “heart” is what it is all about with those producers. We can all be grateful for that.
I believe Hollywood at large is missing out on huge revenue potential from those of us who have “given up” in search of something to “watch” and often just “opt out.” (Hopefully good news for publishers.) Ever said, “There’s nothing on!” or “I can’t find a decent movie!” That is really saying something when there are over 100 channels to choose from vs. the four we had when I was young.
Though I feel friendly toward them, my past book-to-film making team have a different view of what a “good love story” is made of. That’s why it took ten years. They see “hard” and I see “soft.”
Finally, years after the promises, I was able to encourage a script written by a lovely person who is now a dear friend, and she found the perfect production partner to create the long hoped for Hallmark Hall of Fame production, The Last Valentine, becoming a CBS movie of the week in 2009.
I recount this for one simple reason. I’M HOPELESS… and VALENTINE’S DAY is coming up. I’m not giving up on writing gentle love stories for book and film, nor giving up on an audience I believe in and who daily continue to express their belief in me. Love is soft… It was never supposed to be “hard.” The world in its splendor wasn’t created with tunnel vision in mind. Neither was love.
Though 4 years old now, this well thought-out news article bears review – IF Hollywood wants to thrive and enjoy our business and confidence once again.
ON FILM AND TELEVISION AUDIENCE TUNING OUT
Spring 2004 USA Today in “LIFE” section with heading CAN TV BE SAVED? 12 Ways, by Robert Bianco.
The Audience
We can find the answer, I believe, in what happened at the last Super Bowl. The Super Bowl at its height attracted 140 million U.S. viewers. On any given night, only 35 to 40 million people watch network television. That is a differential of approximately 100 million people who don’t watch. And it was, in my opinion, those people who were most offended by what they saw and it was those people who spoke out and were heard.
Therefore, network television panders and caters to the base tastes of a minority of people, the lowest common denominator. It is this minority that keeps the networks and their affiliates in business. If the networks and affiliates gave the people what they really want and not what a perverse minority demands, based on the numbers alone, their ratings would almost triple.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
TIME TESTED VALUES
OATMEAL…It Sticks to Your Ribs
“Jimmy, eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs,” she promised. I never doubted Mom, just wondered how oatmeal took a trip other food didn’t.
That was over 40 years ago. Mom is still with us, and I guess I still believe her. Everything else she taught has proven of great value in my life. So I’d like to share a bit of Mom’s wisdom this year with you. Some will be from the book I wrote which highlights her instructive philosophies to us nine Pratt kids.
The world is in dire need of simple, straightforward medicine of the moral kind; time-tested values. Mom was right about the oatmeal, and she is still right about what works for a person seeking to be happy. Now an excerpt from: MOM, The Woman Who Made Oatmeal Stick to My Ribs.
“M’m, m’m, good!” That famous jingle originating in 1931 still rings in my ears after all these years. In fact, if life on earth were snuffed out, and travelers from a distant planet arrived seeking to understand how we had lived and what caused our demise, they might draw a conclusion or two from what they would find in America’s pantries.
There they would doubtless discover several cans of Campbell’s Soup, a brand that could be called “America’s Official Soup” because it is so ubiquitous. The other item most likely to be discovered would be round, cardboard canisters of oatmeal.
An alien arriving from deep outer space, landing on an earth devoid of living human beings, might radio these initial findings back to his superiors on the mother ship:
“It would seem that the American humans subsisted mainly on two foods. One of them is a liquid mixed with a variety of plant and animal parts. The other is a dry, dusty meal that one can only assume would be hard to swallow. In fact, if eaten in the quantities it appears to have been consumed, it might well be one of the chief killers of this civilization.”
“Explain your conclusion.”
“The dusty meal appears to be almost inedible, due to its dry nature. One would almost certainly choke and die from asphyxiation, unless the meal were mixed with some form of liquid, perhaps the soupy liquid found in the cans.”
“And you say this dry meal is to be found in almost every dwelling?”
“Yes, Commander. And it appears to come from a single, central source.”
“Explain.”
“Each of the containers of this flat, grainy substance displays the likeness of a round-faced, rosy cheeked, white-haired, and cheerful-looking male, wearing a black cloak and a broad brimmed head covering of some type. A hat, I believe the former inhabitants called it.”
“And this hat would signify leadership of the American tribe?”
“It appears so. No doubt they respected him greatly, for his image is always found on these containers of what they called ‘Quaker Oats.’”
“We shall call it oatmeal, for the record,” the commander responds. “Is there any way of knowing what may have induced the inhabitants to consume this dry meal in such large amounts?”
“Perhaps. In one habitation, we found a written message next to the carton containing the dry food.”
“A communication?” the commander in the mother ship responds excitedly. “It might contain valuable, even secret information—perhaps from the happy male himself—their leader,” he adds.
“Yes, Commander. Or might I suggest this message comes from the feminine side of the race. Everywhere, we find images of these American females preparing foodstuffs.”
“Then a message from a female American to the happy man you described?”
“That may be so. Shall I send the message to you through our portable translation screen?”
“Proceed.”
“Scanning.” The alien on the ground passes the note through the handheld device, beaming it up to the command ship.
The words pop up on the screen before the alien commander, seated at the control console of the command ship. He reads: “Jimmy. Don’t forget to eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs. Love, Mom.”
In illustrating a truth, sometimes it is useful to take something to the absurd. Mom was not sophisticated, but she had the knack of unconsciously using metaphors to communicate her teachings. The oatmeal speech she frequently gave us is one such example. In her desire to fortify us against the day ahead, Mom would often say, just as the imaginary mother above, “Eat your oatmeal, children. It will stick to your ribs.”
My younger brother, Rex, the brother I grew up closest to—you know, the one you blame for the mischief you get into, cheat at board games, take advantage of and ask to test the cold water of the swimming pool first—was in the hospital a few years back, awaiting major surgery that would take the surgeon through his rib cage.
I had promised that our family would pray for him, and I called him to let him know I was aware of his needs the hour before the surgery was to take place. He was in a well-known Los Angeles hospital, and I had expected merely to leave a message for him. Somewhat sedated from the effects of prep drugs, my brother personally picked up the phone in his private room. Our conversation went something like this:
“So, Rex, you worried?”
“No . . . not . . . really . . .”
“I’m praying for you.”
“Oh . . . well, uh, I’m . . . kinda . . . drug . . . ged . . . right now.”
“Well, I know everything will go well.”
“Oh . . . O . . . kay . . .” he slurred as the drugs took greater effect. “I’d . . . bet . . . ter . . . go . . . now,” he added, drifting away from the conversation.
“Can you do something for me?” I asked.
“What?” he demanded, but as kindly as he could under the circumstances.
“Ask the doctors a question when you come out of recovery.”
“What?”
“Ask them if they found any oatmeal.”
“What?” he squeaked out. “I got . . . ta . . . go . . . ’Bye . . .”
“’Bye. Love you, Brother.”
Click.
The surgery was a success, and when I called Rex the next day to check on him, I just assumed he would remember our pre-operation conversation of the day before.
“So,” I said. “The prayers worked.”
“Yeah. Guess so,” he answered.
“You ask the doctors the question?”
“What question?”
“You know. They cut through your ribs to get to that gland and fix it, right?”
“Yeah . . . so?”
“So did they find what I asked you to have them look for?”
“Jim, what are you talking about?”
“Oatmeal. Did they find any oatmeal stuck to your ribs?”
Silence.
Rex was still under the influence of the drugs he had been given and wasn’t yet thinking clearly, so I let him off the hook.
“Talk to you later,” I said. “We are remembering you in our prayers. But ask the doctors for me, will you?”
“Yeah . . . sure. ’Bye.”
Click.
See, Mom never lied. Unlike our Dad, who lied to get into World Ward II so he could save the planet, Mom always told the truth. I’m not sure if she ever mentioned it to any of her other children, but Mom definitely had always told me when I lived at home: “Jimmy, eat your oatmeal, it’ll stick to your ribs . . .”
Today my own kitchen cabinets are full of oatmeal—all flavors. I still eat the stuff regularly. But I never quite understood what Mom meant by it “sticking to my ribs.” I have never asked either; I just assumed if she said it would stick, then it would.
I recall as a boy feeling around my ribcage after eating my oatmeal and wondering if it took a trip other foods didn’t. Maybe oatmeal really did hang out down there. “ . . . and it’ll keep you warm,” Mom would add, an assurance that eating the entire bowl would be good for me.
See, I trust Mom. So I had never in my life, not even to this day, in my fifth decade, asked why she thought oatmeal, above all other foods, would adhere to my ribs instead of becoming digested in the normal way. The idea that I took from Mom, especially when I was living thousands of miles away from home in South America, and eating almost daily a soupy gruel of watered-down, cooked oats for breakfast (consumed as a drink rather than a thick porridge) was that oatmeal was good for me and that it would also somehow keep me safe. It was a comforting thing. Whenever I brought the cup of warm, soupy oat drink to my lips, Mom was there with me.
As I think on it now, the oatmeal must have comforted Mom too. She just needed to know that something she did would stick to us away from home, when we seven boys and two girls ventured out into the cold, hard world.
Oatmeal might not literally stick to ribs, but I never, ever, eat it without hearing Mom’s voice. So it wasn’t just the oatmeal that stuck to this boy. The porridge was a symbol of something else that would stay with me—her love and pride in me and the time-tested values she taught, which provided real warmth and a shield against the punches life would deliver. Obeying Mom by eating the hot cereal was a way of assuring myself that I could succeed.
Mom always got it right, because she always gave the best. There are no perfect moms or dads, any more than there are perfect children; but some moms come pretty close. After all is said and done, knowing Mom cares makes a boy feel safe.
And as for the oatmeal, every time I eat it I smile and think about it sticking to my ribs in a special way, a way that causes me to silently say:
“Thanks, Mom. Your warmth and caring has stuck where it matters most, and it still is protecting my heart!”
“Jimmy, eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs,” she promised. I never doubted Mom, just wondered how oatmeal took a trip other food didn’t.
That was over 40 years ago. Mom is still with us, and I guess I still believe her. Everything else she taught has proven of great value in my life. So I’d like to share a bit of Mom’s wisdom this year with you. Some will be from the book I wrote which highlights her instructive philosophies to us nine Pratt kids.
The world is in dire need of simple, straightforward medicine of the moral kind; time-tested values. Mom was right about the oatmeal, and she is still right about what works for a person seeking to be happy. Now an excerpt from: MOM, The Woman Who Made Oatmeal Stick to My Ribs.
“M’m, m’m, good!” That famous jingle originating in 1931 still rings in my ears after all these years. In fact, if life on earth were snuffed out, and travelers from a distant planet arrived seeking to understand how we had lived and what caused our demise, they might draw a conclusion or two from what they would find in America’s pantries.
There they would doubtless discover several cans of Campbell’s Soup, a brand that could be called “America’s Official Soup” because it is so ubiquitous. The other item most likely to be discovered would be round, cardboard canisters of oatmeal.
An alien arriving from deep outer space, landing on an earth devoid of living human beings, might radio these initial findings back to his superiors on the mother ship:
“It would seem that the American humans subsisted mainly on two foods. One of them is a liquid mixed with a variety of plant and animal parts. The other is a dry, dusty meal that one can only assume would be hard to swallow. In fact, if eaten in the quantities it appears to have been consumed, it might well be one of the chief killers of this civilization.”
“Explain your conclusion.”
“The dusty meal appears to be almost inedible, due to its dry nature. One would almost certainly choke and die from asphyxiation, unless the meal were mixed with some form of liquid, perhaps the soupy liquid found in the cans.”
“And you say this dry meal is to be found in almost every dwelling?”
“Yes, Commander. And it appears to come from a single, central source.”
“Explain.”
“Each of the containers of this flat, grainy substance displays the likeness of a round-faced, rosy cheeked, white-haired, and cheerful-looking male, wearing a black cloak and a broad brimmed head covering of some type. A hat, I believe the former inhabitants called it.”
“And this hat would signify leadership of the American tribe?”
“It appears so. No doubt they respected him greatly, for his image is always found on these containers of what they called ‘Quaker Oats.’”
“We shall call it oatmeal, for the record,” the commander responds. “Is there any way of knowing what may have induced the inhabitants to consume this dry meal in such large amounts?”
“Perhaps. In one habitation, we found a written message next to the carton containing the dry food.”
“A communication?” the commander in the mother ship responds excitedly. “It might contain valuable, even secret information—perhaps from the happy male himself—their leader,” he adds.
“Yes, Commander. Or might I suggest this message comes from the feminine side of the race. Everywhere, we find images of these American females preparing foodstuffs.”
“Then a message from a female American to the happy man you described?”
“That may be so. Shall I send the message to you through our portable translation screen?”
“Proceed.”
“Scanning.” The alien on the ground passes the note through the handheld device, beaming it up to the command ship.
The words pop up on the screen before the alien commander, seated at the control console of the command ship. He reads: “Jimmy. Don’t forget to eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs. Love, Mom.”
In illustrating a truth, sometimes it is useful to take something to the absurd. Mom was not sophisticated, but she had the knack of unconsciously using metaphors to communicate her teachings. The oatmeal speech she frequently gave us is one such example. In her desire to fortify us against the day ahead, Mom would often say, just as the imaginary mother above, “Eat your oatmeal, children. It will stick to your ribs.”
My younger brother, Rex, the brother I grew up closest to—you know, the one you blame for the mischief you get into, cheat at board games, take advantage of and ask to test the cold water of the swimming pool first—was in the hospital a few years back, awaiting major surgery that would take the surgeon through his rib cage.
I had promised that our family would pray for him, and I called him to let him know I was aware of his needs the hour before the surgery was to take place. He was in a well-known Los Angeles hospital, and I had expected merely to leave a message for him. Somewhat sedated from the effects of prep drugs, my brother personally picked up the phone in his private room. Our conversation went something like this:
“So, Rex, you worried?”
“No . . . not . . . really . . .”
“I’m praying for you.”
“Oh . . . well, uh, I’m . . . kinda . . . drug . . . ged . . . right now.”
“Well, I know everything will go well.”
“Oh . . . O . . . kay . . .” he slurred as the drugs took greater effect. “I’d . . . bet . . . ter . . . go . . . now,” he added, drifting away from the conversation.
“Can you do something for me?” I asked.
“What?” he demanded, but as kindly as he could under the circumstances.
“Ask the doctors a question when you come out of recovery.”
“What?”
“Ask them if they found any oatmeal.”
“What?” he squeaked out. “I got . . . ta . . . go . . . ’Bye . . .”
“’Bye. Love you, Brother.”
Click.
The surgery was a success, and when I called Rex the next day to check on him, I just assumed he would remember our pre-operation conversation of the day before.
“So,” I said. “The prayers worked.”
“Yeah. Guess so,” he answered.
“You ask the doctors the question?”
“What question?”
“You know. They cut through your ribs to get to that gland and fix it, right?”
“Yeah . . . so?”
“So did they find what I asked you to have them look for?”
“Jim, what are you talking about?”
“Oatmeal. Did they find any oatmeal stuck to your ribs?”
Silence.
Rex was still under the influence of the drugs he had been given and wasn’t yet thinking clearly, so I let him off the hook.
“Talk to you later,” I said. “We are remembering you in our prayers. But ask the doctors for me, will you?”
“Yeah . . . sure. ’Bye.”
Click.
See, Mom never lied. Unlike our Dad, who lied to get into World Ward II so he could save the planet, Mom always told the truth. I’m not sure if she ever mentioned it to any of her other children, but Mom definitely had always told me when I lived at home: “Jimmy, eat your oatmeal, it’ll stick to your ribs . . .”
Today my own kitchen cabinets are full of oatmeal—all flavors. I still eat the stuff regularly. But I never quite understood what Mom meant by it “sticking to my ribs.” I have never asked either; I just assumed if she said it would stick, then it would.
I recall as a boy feeling around my ribcage after eating my oatmeal and wondering if it took a trip other foods didn’t. Maybe oatmeal really did hang out down there. “ . . . and it’ll keep you warm,” Mom would add, an assurance that eating the entire bowl would be good for me.
See, I trust Mom. So I had never in my life, not even to this day, in my fifth decade, asked why she thought oatmeal, above all other foods, would adhere to my ribs instead of becoming digested in the normal way. The idea that I took from Mom, especially when I was living thousands of miles away from home in South America, and eating almost daily a soupy gruel of watered-down, cooked oats for breakfast (consumed as a drink rather than a thick porridge) was that oatmeal was good for me and that it would also somehow keep me safe. It was a comforting thing. Whenever I brought the cup of warm, soupy oat drink to my lips, Mom was there with me.
As I think on it now, the oatmeal must have comforted Mom too. She just needed to know that something she did would stick to us away from home, when we seven boys and two girls ventured out into the cold, hard world.
Oatmeal might not literally stick to ribs, but I never, ever, eat it without hearing Mom’s voice. So it wasn’t just the oatmeal that stuck to this boy. The porridge was a symbol of something else that would stay with me—her love and pride in me and the time-tested values she taught, which provided real warmth and a shield against the punches life would deliver. Obeying Mom by eating the hot cereal was a way of assuring myself that I could succeed.
Mom always got it right, because she always gave the best. There are no perfect moms or dads, any more than there are perfect children; but some moms come pretty close. After all is said and done, knowing Mom cares makes a boy feel safe.
And as for the oatmeal, every time I eat it I smile and think about it sticking to my ribs in a special way, a way that causes me to silently say:
“Thanks, Mom. Your warmth and caring has stuck where it matters most, and it still is protecting my heart!”
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
HEART MATTERS FOR A NEW YEAR
New Heart Resolutions!
New Year's resolutions invite us to challenge our brain in a behavioral contest of change; a sort of "mind over matter" thing where we determine to begin new habits, unload old ones, and become a better person. My recomendation for the New Year is to examine some of what I call "Heart Matters." I will be sharing one weekly blog per month on the topic for 2008.
After all, if your heart works well, so does your brain. Your body can live "brain dead" (not that you would want to) but your body is "dead, dead" if the heart quits. So I begin...
The Steady and Reliable Heart
Your heart is about the same size as your fist. It beats without instruction from the brain. It has intelligent and intuitive capacity. It knows its job and its job is nothing less than assuring your survival. Here are some stunning statistics revealing what your heart actually does to insure you keep on the go each and every day.
Your heart is about the same size as your fist. It beats without instruction from the brain. It has intelligent and intuitive capacity. It knows its job and its job is nothing less than assuring your survival. Here are some stunning statistics revealing what your heart actually does to insure you keep on the go each and every day.
- An average adult body contains about five and one half quarts of blood.
- All the blood vessels in the body joined end to end would stretch 62,000 miles or two and one half times around the earth.
- The heart circulates the body's blood supply about 1,000 times each day.
- The heart pumps the equivalent of 2,000 gallons each day.
- Heart beats per minute range from an average 70 to 120 and over an average life span of 70 years the heart will beat more than 2 billion times.
How important is the human heart? You can lose a kidney, a lung, have paralysis affect various regions of the body, lose parts of mental capacity, or even be “brain-dead,” but if you lose your heart you become dead-dead.I am the lucky survivor of two near death causing internal injuries where life-saving blood transfusions were given me within a space of two years.
Both life-saving events occurred while I was writing my first novel The Last Valentine. In fact I used that singular experience of near death from blood loss to describe the final moments of one of the main characters who had been fatally wounded in the plot’s World War Two battle. See, I understood first hand a stomach wound with blood draining from me at a dangerous rate. I could describe how our hero felt, minute by life draining minute.
Here is what it fells like to be dying from sudden blood loss. You get cold as the blood moves first from the extremities to the vital organs. What decides this blood transfer for you? Your brain? No, the heart decides. It just knows what to do as it furiously picks up speed to send blood where it needs to go to keep the body alive.
As the blood continues to seep out of you, the vital organs are prioritized, and those most vital have the blood rushed to support them. You begin to get the chills even in July. Your heart is racing yet you can barely keep your eyes open – the oxygenated blood that feeds your brain is needed elsewhere. Doctors race to stop the flow of blood and you will be given someone else’s blood while they patch you up. But dying from blood loss doesn’t hurt. As you lose consciousness you also lose concern. A strange surrender envelopes you as you drift into unconsciousness.
Because of my concern for HIV possible tainted blood supplies, which had occurred in the 1990’s, I begged my friend, Dr. Neil Whitaker to find any other way to save me but by transfusion. He answered. “Jim, I don’t think you understand. This could be the ‘Big Adios.’” I recall weakly asking, “You mean as in ‘hasta la vista baby?’ That ‘Big Adios?’” He nodded. “Okay. Send the blood in,” I strained in answer.
It is no wonder my thoughts have turned to the miraculous and moving feeling concerning heart matters as I turned out such titles as, The Last Valentine, Ticket Home, The Good Heart, Paradise Bay, and As A Man Thinketh…In His Heart. The gift of life, the receipt of blood donated anonymously by another, is humbling and causes one to pause in gratitude and wonder at the preciousness of life. Someone with a very good heart offered me the life sustaining blood to carry on, not once but twice. I think about that every time I see the American Red Cross symbol, or “Blood Drive” signs around town.
We often are tempted to extol the human mind as the most brilliant of all God’s creations, the most magnificent computer, unlike anything man can create in all its capacities to compute and process commands and thoughts in real time.
Interestingly, no matter how much the brain demands and begs for our attention, the gentle and forgiving heart just moves on, doing what it does a thousand times each day – sustaining your life, giving you mortality, offering you another chance at life—a tomorrow.
Take time to thank your heart, and to share your heart-felt feelings with others. I’m glad someone unknown to me donated what had once passed through the most magnificent of God’s creations –the human heart!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
