JOY ALONG THE WAY: ONE LITTLE THING OF BEAUTY HAS BIG VALUE

The soul sorrowing, spirit depressing, down-heartedness of the war news and pictures batters us unceasingly. We need antidotes to cope with it, to keep us out of Deserts of Confusion and Sloughs of Despond. "Just don't watch. Don't read," some say. But that's like putting a vase of flowers on an ugly, table-top scar or hiding a splinter-festered sore with a Band-Aid.

One looks around desperately for something to hold on to lest human cruelty obliterate the sunshine of living. I see the azaleas and lilacs blooming right on time. The winter resting grass roots send up green blades, the tree leaves uncurl. This is all good and reassuring, but we need some human act to bring joy to our hearts and show that all of mankind's better thoughts, traits, instincts, core beliefs are still there. We're coming upon Rand Kindness Week which will be like a balm in Gilead.

Sometimes, though, a little thing happens that speaks so silently yet so loudly about the still-alive values of man.

The young boy wielding the weed eater around my fences and trellises paused momentarily as I motioned for him to cut down a row of gnarled, green tulip leaves. That's all these tulips have been for three years, and I'm tired of waiting to see if they are ever going to bloom again. It is so hard to get tulip bulbs that send up blooming stems year after year. The first year they are splendid, the second year, mediocre. The third year, nada.

"Just cut down the whole row," I said.

The young lad killed the weed eater's motor, the better to hear me. "All of 'em?" he said, somewhat unbelievably, his gaze upon one tulip near the end of the row that had managed to bloom.

"All of 'em," I reiterated, swinging my arm to encompass the whole ragged row.

I went back into the house only to be confronted with more Kosovo news -- horrible things being reported, the sad faces of old men and women, the frightened look of the beautiful little children. I shut it off, but it is like the "out of sight, but not out of Mind" splinter-infected sore beneath the Band-Aid.

The evening came down softly, sleepy twitterings of birds, a lone dog barking, neighbors coming home from work, lights going on, bedtime. Oh, how would it feel to be driven out of your home, your homelandwith only the clothes on your back, and in a cold country too?

Morning came. Bright sunshine. Robins ecstatically declared a new day. I stepped outside to admire my newly mown law. A spot of color caught my eye. I walked over to where the useless tulip foliage had been cut down. Cut down, that is, except for that one tulip that was blooming. There it stood, brave and somehow beautiful. Evidently the young boy could not bring himself to cut down the one flower, even though I said, "Cut 'em all!" There the tulip stood, testimony to the fact that there are still those who know that a thing of beauty should not be destroyed.

REJOICE!