Hidup Itu Indah

Entah kekuatan apa yang ditunjukkan oleh seorang penjual kayu bakar yang sering lewat di depan rumah saya. Umurnya sudah cukup renta sekitar 60 Tahun. Dengan bermodal sepeda ontel yang sudah dimakan usia serta berkarat, Beliau setiap jam 5 pagi sudah membawa tumpukkan kayu bakar yang diikat di belakang sepedanya. Tidak tangung-tanggung, sebelah kiri dan kanan sepeda itu terdapat tumpukan kayu bakar yang sudah siap dijual. Hampir setiap pagi seperti itu.
Saya heran, seharusnya diusianya yang sudah cukup renta itu Beliau cukup istirahat di rumah saja terlebih lagi Beliau adalah seorang wanita. Saya pun tertarik untuk mencari tahu sebenarnya kekuatan apa yang bisa membuat ibu itu sampai bekerja begitu kerasnya.

“Malaikat Tua” Penjual Amplop

Ada sedikit kisah nyata

Setiap menuju ke Masjid Salman ITB untuk shalat Jumat saya selalu melihat seorang bapak tua yang duduk terpekur di depan dagangannya. Dia menjual kertas amplop yang sudah dibungkus di dalam plastik. Sepintas barang jualannya itu terasa “aneh” di antara pedagang lain yang memenuhi pasar kaget di seputaran Jalan Ganesha setiap hari Jumat. Pedagang di pasar kaget umumnya berjualan makanan, pakaian, DVD bajakan, barang mainan anak, sepatu dan barang-barang asesori lainnya. Tentu agak aneh dia “nyempil” sendiri menjual amplop, barang yang tidak terlalu dibutuhkan pada zaman yang serba elektronis seperti saat ini. Masa kejayaan pengiriman surat secara konvensional sudah berlalu, namun bapak itu tetap menjual amplop. Mungkin bapak itu tidak mengikuti perkembangan zaman, apalagi perkembangan teknologi informasi yang serba cepat dan instan, sehingga dia pikir masih ada orang yang membutuhkan amplop untuk berkirim surat.

The stonecutter

There was once a stonecutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.
One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house and through the open gateway saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter.
To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

The power of determination (true story)

A true story about athlete Glenn Cunningham who was horribly burned in a schoolhouse fire at the age of 8. Doctors predicted he would never walk again. Determined to walk, Glenn would throw himself off his wheelchair and pull his body across the yard and along a fence. Twenty-two months later, he took his first steps and through sheer determination, learned to run despite the pain…The little country schoolhouse was heated by an old-fashioned, pot-bellied coal stove. A little boy had the job of coming to school early each day to start the fire and warm the room before his teacher and his classmates arrived.

Mother Teresa Quotes

“We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge. People make mistakes.
We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.

Pause and ponder. Think before you act. Be patient. Forgive & forget. Love one and all.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

“Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us.

It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home.

Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.”

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.”

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

“It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.”

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.”

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

“Peace begins with a smile.”

“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

“Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.”

“Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”

“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

“I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.”

“There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.”

“The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.”

The pretty one, very inspiring

It had been a very long night. Our black cocker spaniel ‘Precious’ was having a difficult delivery. I lay on the floor beside her large four-foot square cage, watching her every movement. Watching and waiting, just in case I had to rush her to the veterinarian.After six hours the puppies started to appear. The first-born was black and white. The second and third puppies were tan and brown in color. The fourth and fifth were also spotted black and white. “One, two, three, four, five,” I counted to myself as I walked down the hallway to wake my wife, Judy, and tell her that everything was fine.

The greatest gift is Love

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them.She said, “I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat.”
“Is the man of the house home?”, they asked.
“No”, she said. “He’s out.”
“Then we cannot come in”, they replied. In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.

The lost wallet, a great love story!

As I walked home one freezing day, I stumbled on a wallet someone had lost in the street. I picked it up and looked inside to find some identification so I could call the owner. But the wallet contained only three dollars and a crumpled letter that looked as if it had been in there for years.The envelope was worn and the only thing that was legible on it was the return address. I started to open the letter, hoping to find some clue. Then I saw the dateline–1924. The letter had been written almost 60 years ago.It was written in a beautiful feminine handwriting on powder blue stationery with a little flower in the left-hand corner. It was a “Dear John” letter that told the recipient, whose name appeared to be Michael, that the writer could not see him anymore because her mother forbade it. Even so, she wrote that she would always love him.

The Cookie Thief

A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.So she munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”With each cookie she took, he took one too, when only one was left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.He offered her half, as he ate the other, she snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother. This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude, why he didn’t even show any gratitude!

Face difficulties positively

This parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule praying or whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together, told them what had happened, and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.Initially the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, HE WOULD SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP!!