Speak Out 12/17/09

Christmas cheer

I was shopping at the Dollar Tree store and was getting change to pay for some flowers. The woman who was checking me out handed me a bag with the flowers in them. The woman in front of me had paid for them. I want to thank that woman. I don't know who she was, she wouldn't tell me her name. I was a stranger, and you gave me flowers.

A Christmas gift

AS I was visiting a neighbor today a van pulled up and a man stepped out and asked who the owner of the house was. When my neighbor replied that he was, the man handed him a bag of assorted fruit and wished him a merry Christmas. Turning to me he asked if I lived close by. When I responded yes, he gifted me with the same. You can tell that these fruit bags were put together by caring and generous hands. I want to thank the Glen Allen United Methodist Church. My family wishes you a merry Christmas, and God bless. What greater message can be said by such a simple gesture.

Who knew?

THE great writer Dostoevsky must also have been gifted with precognitive skills. He wrote in "Crime and Punishment" that "talking nonsense is a man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms," thus predicting over a century ago what would be reflected daily in Speak Out.