Found Ferne's Gift

There's much to be said about keeping old paper clippings or old letters that touched you when you first received them.  One day, when cleaning out your house for a move, you might come upon them and they'll touch you once again.

I found this little pamphlet tucked way back in the hall closet when I was cleaning on Monday and I'm so glad I kept it.  My mother-in-law (Ferne) often sent her letters written on things such as these because she knew we'd like them as much as she did.  Here is what was printed on the pamphlet in 1974 and sent in July, 1977:

MY CREED

In some way, however small and secret, each of us is a little mad.  Everyone is lonely at bottom and cries to be understood; but we can never entirely understand someone else, and each of us remains part stranger even to those who love us.  It is the weak who are cruel~gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.  Those who do not know fear are not really brave, for courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.  You can understand people better if you look at them~no matter how old or impressive they may be~as if they are children.  For most of us never mature; we simply grow taller.  Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.  The purpose of life is to matter~to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that we lived at all.

I don't know who wrote those words but they touched a nerve in me in 1977 and today.  They're beautifully insightful, not condemning how imperfect we human beings are but accepting the imperfections yet knowing we can all do better with this life we've been granted.

I believe we're here on earth for a reason and that reason might be simply to learn to accept and not judge.  I, for one, haven't learned that particular lesson yet...maybe one day.