Whose life have you touched today?

The Black Telephone

When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished phone high on the table at the stairway. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone’s number and the correct time.

My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.

I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear.

“Information, please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.

“Information.”

“I hurt my finger…” I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.

“Nobody’s home but me,” I blubbered.

“Are you bleeding?” the voice asked.

“No,”I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”

“Can you open the icebox?” she asked.

I said I could.

“Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger,” said the voice..

After that, I called “Information Please” for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my maths.

She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.

Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, “Information Please,” and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?”

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.”

Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone, “Information Please.”

“Information,” said in the now familiar voice.

“How do I spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much.

“Information Please” belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.

Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please.”

Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well.

“Information.”

I hadn’t planned this, but I heard myself saying,

“Could you please tell me how to spell fix?”

There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have healed by now.”

I laughed, “So it’s really you,” I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?”

“I wonder,” she said, “if you know how much your call meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls.”

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

“Please do,” she said. “Just ask for Sally.”

Three months later I was back in Seattle.

A different voice answered, “Information.”

I asked for Sally.

“Are you a friend?” she said.

“Yes, a very old friend,” I answered.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” She said. “Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”

Before I could hang up, she said,

“Wait a minute, did you say your name was Wayne ?” “

“Yes.” I answered.

Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. “Let me read it to you.”

The note said, “Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean.”

I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.

Never underestimate the impression you may make on others.

Whose life have you touched today?

Why Marry?

Q: Today’s youth are finding it increasingly hard to meet a life partner whom they can marry. Marriage does not seem like it used to be at the time of our parents, with the rates of divorce increasing. Please give us some advice on how to deal with this matter.

A: Marriages will survive longer if men and women understand why they should marry, not whom they should marry. Marriage is a way to expand your love. Before marriage, a young man thinks only about himself, and a young woman thinks only about herself. Before marriage, even if a girl stays next door and falls sick, the boy is not going to bother, because she is not related to him. After marriage, he starts to think, “How can I make her happy? How I can look after her better?” In this way, his love expands only from ‘I’ to ‘we’ even though it was within the family. When they have children, their love expands further to look after the welfare of the children. Before putting one morsel of food in his mouth or her mouth, the mother and father would think whether the children are comfortable, whether they are fed, and whether they are happy. This love teaches them to sacrifice, and through sacrifice alone can you become happy.

All the marriages, which are not based on sacrifice, will not survive long. True love is sacrifice, when you think of others first and yourself later. If husband and wife can think of each other more than themselves and are willing to make sacrifices for each other, then marriage will survive. All cannot take to the path of renunciation and start living for the entire world from day one. For them, the path is from the individual to the family, from the family to society, from society to the nation, and from the nation to the world. In Indian culture, life is divided into four parts: before marriage, you are just an aspirant, a person who is getting educated or learning; the second phase is married life, where you live with your wife and children and take care of them; the third stage is that of social service, where you stop thinking about your own family and start thinking about society; and the fourth phase is the spiritual state, where you only think of God and not even society.

Once you proceed step-by-step, it will happen. That is why I say, when people marry only based on attraction to outer looks, outer beauty, which disappears with time, the ‘love’ that you call love, but I call attachment, will also disappear with time. One who marries looking at inner being, goodness, kindness – that person will stay longer. Unfortunately, it is very rare to find people who are both beautiful outside and inside. That is where people make the wrong choice by considering only outer beauty and start making mistakes. Marriage is to help you learn sacrifice and help you adjust. Without that, one’s selfish nature can never carry on for long.

– sathya sai

Love can transform an enemy into a friend

Hug a day, keeps demons at bay

We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.

– Virginia Satir (1916 – 1988, American author, social worker and known as the Mother of Family Therapy)