Searching

When I was a young man struggling with many things, that I only thought were difficult to handle, an old friend, and I mean OLD, well into his late eighties, used to interrupt me when my verbal agonizing would get at its worst.  He would abruptly interrupt me, breaking mid-sentence into my monolog of woe, and start telling me a story about his grandma that I know that he had told me fifty times at least.  I would always be respectful and listen, and then laugh along with him at the end.  For months, I thought Ed was getting senile and just couldn't remember telling me that story.  Finally, it occurred to me that old Ed wasn't loosing his memory at all.  He was trying to convey something to me, and he wasn't going to stop telling that story until he was convinced that I had it, and had it good and clear.

The story went something like this.  His grandma was bad about pushing her eye glasses up on her fore head when she was busy working with something that didn't require fine vision, like making biscuits, or shelling out lima beans.  One day she had pushed her glasses up on her forehead and then forgotten where she put them.  She looked all about the house and then became very frustrated at not being able to find them.  Finally she enlisted the help of the grand kids, who promptly spotted them but didn't tell her where they were.  In fact, they began to snicker and laugh at her frustration, and the more she looked and the more they laughed, the more convinced she was that they had hid her eyeglasses from her, and then, she began to get angry.  The kids laughed even harder, and grandma got even more angry.

Finally, giving up and in a fit of agitation and total frustration, she threw herself down into her rocking chair.  She sat down in the chair so hard that it shook her glasses loose from her forehead and they fell back down on her nose and in front of her eyes.  Then grandma realized what the kids had been laughing at, and had a good laugh at herself.  One of the things Ed was trying  to tell me with this story was, that I already had what it took to solve the situation all along, I was just making the problem worse than it was by getting all worked up.

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously.  Sometimes we read motives into other people that don't exist.  Sometimes what we seek is right there with us the whole time, if we will just calm down and look at the most logical place.

Ed's story reminds me of Russel Conwell's little book, "Acres of Diamonds".  Often we hunt far and wide, sacrificing much that needn't be, when what we seek is already there with us, and in the most logical place for it to be.  Many times what we seek is already within us, much like the diamonds that were already within the farm of the young man who traveled off afar to find them in Conwell's story.  Sometimes we eventually realize that for which we were searching, and sometimes, we pass from this life never realizing the richness we already possessed.

For many years I have recommended Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds" and still give it as a gift to those I think will benefit from it.  I used to have the habit of packaging up seven books that I thought would best enrich the future of a young person and give this package as graduation or birthday gifts.  Sometimes I just gave them to young people that I held in high esteem, and felt would actually read the books and benefit.  "Acres of Diamonds" was one of the seven books.  I think it is still in print and I still recommend it, to anyone of any age.  We all can find better in ourselves if we will but look.

PS  I bet you're wondering what the other six books are.  I guess you'll have to keep reading this blog to find out.  It will be worth finding out.  I can honestly promise you that much.