Readings

These are just a few of our choices. There are many others you can choose from.

You were very special

In all the world there was nobody, nobody like you. Since the beginning of time there had never been another person like you. Nobody had your smile, your eyes, your hands, your hair. Nobody owned your handwriting, your voice. You were special.

Nobody could paint your brush stokes. Nobody had your taste for food or music or dance or art. Nobody in the universe saw things as you did. In all time there had never been anyone who laughed in exactly your way, and what made you laugh or cry or think could have a totally different response in another. So you were special.

You were different from any other person who had ever lived in the history of the universe. You were the only one in the whole creation who had your particular set of abilities. There was always someone who was better at one thing or another. Every person was your superior in at least one way. But nobody in the universe ever had the combination of your talents, your feelings: like a roomful of musical instruments, some might excel in one way or another but nobody could match your symphony. Through all eternity no one would ever walk, talk, think or do exactly like you. You were special.

You were rare and in all rarity there is enormous value and because of your great value the need for you to imitate anyone else was absolutely wrong. You were special and it was no accident that you were. God made you for a special purpose. He had a job for you to do that nobody else could do as well as you could. Out of billions of applicants only one was qualified. Only one had the unique and right combination of what it took and that one was you.

You were very special.

Adapted by Alison Gibbs from You are Very Special by author unknown.

Our Little Life Is Rounded with a Sleep

Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare
The Tempest

The Significant Hours of Our Life

I always think that we all live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life. These significant hours do not announce themselves as coming, but arrive unexpectedly. Nor do they make a great show of themselves; they pass almost unperceived. Often, indeed, their significance comes home to us first as we look back, just as the beauty of a piece of music or a landscape often strikes us first in our recollection of it.

Much that has become our own in gentleness, modesty, kindness, willingness to forgive, in veracity, loyalty, resignation under suffering, we owe to people in whom we have seen and experienced these virtues at work, sometimes in a great matter, sometimes in a small. A thought which had become an act sprang into us like a spark, and lit a new flame within us…

If we had before us those who have thus been a blessing to us, and could tell them how it came about, they would be amazed to learn what passed over from their life into ours.

Albert Schweitzer

Speak to Us of Joy and Sorrow

Then a woman said, ‘Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.’
And He answered:
‘Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed by knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.’

Kahlil Gibran
From The Prophet