peace, colorful peace!

"Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination." ~ Robert Fulghum

I loved reading Robert Fulghum's stories. Simple, happy tales of how we each can have peace in our own little spot in the world. It never was anything of huge fanfare, such as when the Berlin Wall fell, rather it was just small simple stuff, like boxes of 64 Crayons and how everything we ever need to know, we learned in kindergarten. 

"Peace is not something you wish for, it is something you make, something you are, something you do, and something you give away."
The world can sure use some of that right now. In light of our poor economic outlook, of famine in faraway lands, of poverty here in our own once abundant country, it was like a tiny vacation from those worries to read snippets of his wisdom.

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
— Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) 

Take a few moments today to just stop and ponder, not the crud happening and our powerlessness to stop it, but rather, on the tiny thing that we CAN do to bring happiness to another's day! 


"You may never have proof of your importance but you are more important than you think. There are always those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who."
— Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) 

In this life, it isn't important to know who benefited from your wisdom, it's just enough to know that you did the best that you could to bring a smile to the life of another whose road is probably longer and harder than your own. 

"These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first words you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK."