What My Friends Have Done Lately

Computers have an important function called Messenger. By way of this function we're able to keep in contact with friends by exchanging emails, keeping up on what people are doing, letting off steam, asking advice, giving advice, ad infinitum. Down at the bottom of some lines this is the notice, YOUR FRIENDS HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING LATELY. I think, what? Any computer that doesn't know what my friends have done lately ought to have its head examined. OK, I'm stretching here but there's a message, not about this computer that I have social issues with, but about our friends.

Robert Louis Stevenson in his poem, THE CELESTIAL SURGEON, reminds us "If I have faltered more or less in my great task of happiness, if I have moved among my race and shown no glorious morning face..." Whether I look or whether I listen I see friends of mine moving among our race and making the faces of others look up in hope and gratitude and appreciation for the gifts of others. I see my friend who is a nurse bringing a healing touch to every patient she touches. I see my friend the auto mechanic fixing cars so we can do things and go places. I see my friend the fireman risking his life every day in his service to the community. I see my friend the teacher bringing knowledge to her students and challenging them to a higher life. I see my little friend Aaron taking his even smaller sister Ellie to the ice cream shop for a cone. I see my artist friend bringing to life with ink and brush the whole panorama of the world. I see friends who, with the smile Robert Louis Stevenson describes, light up the whole environment.

So, here on this glorious morning with cooler weather and the singing of the birds in the trees out in the yard, I say, Get lost, computer, with your unsmiling face and heartless screen. Get it?