Little Miracles
She can be reached at: moore_bobbi@yahoo.com
This week while training a group, I was asked how I came to write “Little Miracles”. The question stemmed from a statement that I had written on the board before class: “Life Is What You Emphasize It To Be”. I have no idea who originally authored that quote, however how I came to believe it was an entirely different and surprising element in my life.
About 10 years ago, when I was attending an interesting seminar (I love seminars because you can learn a lot in a short time), the presenters gave us a very unusual assignment. We were given tags, five that said descriptions like “cold, hard, unlikable, unfriendly, unreasonable”, and five that indicated the opposite such as “warm, friendly, likable, reasonable, or nice”. Our assignment was to pass out all of our tags by walking up to any person in that seminar and sticking a tag on them. We were only allowed to say, ” I am giving you this tag because you look “friendly”, “unfriendly”, etc.
So off we went, very uncomfortable with our task, and started distributing our tags. After we were finished there was one gentleman about 65 years old who had his entire body covered with negative stickers, front and back. He looked sad, but resolved.
The seminar’s conductor knew about this man’s personal history. He asked the gentleman if he would please come up to the front of the podium and speak about himself. What followed was heart-breaking yet beautiful.
John (not his real name) was originally from Hungary. He had been a Baron as a child, living happily with his family until Hitler’s armies invaded his country and moved through the countryside killing virtually everyone in their path. No prisoners were being taken.
It was too late for John and his family to escape so his parents called all the children, family, and servants together. In case the children escaped death, they were given simple maps to follow. The maps included instructions on how to live off the land and scavenge for food as well as directions of likely places they could go to for help. The maps were hidden in the childrens’ shoes and they were quickly dressed in the warmest clothes available for the hopeful, long walk ahead. All of this was done in less than a hour.
The adults, royal and servants alike, agreed to stand around the children and act as a barrier when they were shot. They hoped to protect the children with their own bodies and lives. In the event that any of the children survived they were instructed to “play dead” until they were safe and then, if possible, walk to freedom.
John was the only one to survive through the night. He began his walk to freedom by travelling only at night and hiding or sleeping with the dead during the day for protection from the troops that scoured the countryside. Six weeks later he made it to freedom. Eventually he came to America, started a family of his own, and began a new life.
Most of the seminar participants who listened to John’s story wept with bowed heads. How could so many of us have labeled this man who had suffered so deeply? As he continued to talk it became obvious that he was a happy person though very, very shy.
He had learned to keep a still, straight face on that walk which accounted for why so many of us had believed he looked “grim”. Inside of him there was great joy.
John had decided to emphasize the joy and beauty in his life. He said his parents and friends had wished this for each child should they survive. He said that to do less than to value all the wonder and beauty in the world was to let down the very people who had sacrificed their lives for him.
What he said changed a great many things in my life. It was inspiration to change the way that I looked at the world. It allowed me to see the miracles of life each and every day and to emphasize the joy within myself and in the world around me.