Pencil Stubs Online: August 2014

Friday, August 1, 2014

Editor's Corner

By Mary E. Adair

August2014

“The Course in Miracles says a miracle is a shift in perception that removes in me a block between me and my awareness of love's presence.”...Mary Morrissey.

The subject of Love and Miracles is an ongoing one in this late summer issue. The Bible speaks much of Love, (in many different chapters and verses....) and it is the primary subject ventured into by poets the world over. Yet you may never have looked at it quite the way Adam of Bremen spoke through our Merlin of "Merlin Insights." Merlin tells us, "This is a piece I did some while ago now, over a year I think. I used to regularly channel from a very talkative monk named Adam from Bremen in Germany. I did find him on the internet so I know he did exist in that time." Some deep thoughts here.

Judy Kroll aka Featherwind makes a case with a personal example against "Injustice" in her column "On Trek." Peg Jones (Angel Whispers) discusses Joy and suggests ideas for including it in our lives.
Mattie Lennon, (Irish Eyes) spruced up and attended the Miss Ireland pageant and brings us the story of one of the contestants, Susan Jane Dunne, Miss Kilkenny. Thomas F. O'Neill (Introspective) tells a moving story in "Life's Synchronicities."

John I. Blair's column "Always Looking - People Who Made A Difference XX" features the Lady of the Lamp: Florence Nightingale. His two poems for August are "Summer Hawk," and "Healing."
"I Can't Imagine" by Bruce Clifford and "Triumphant ~6-18-2014~ by M. Jay Mansfield aka Fire Eagle are single submissions for August from those two poets. Both of them have had some personal tunnels to get through this year. Bud Lemire presents "At The Band Shell," "Lynn and The Martins," "Within Our Time" and "Competition."

Phillip Hennessy aka Philipo ran across a couple poems he wrote in 2009 not shared by Pencilstubs previously: "Trust" and "A Crushed and Broken Person." Bethany Davies returns with "A Woman's Story."

Special this month is an essay by Susan Diane Lynch aka Spirit 0662 in the articles section: "Life is about Change." It may be exactly what you needed to realize today.

Michael John Fierro is focusing on personal pursuits during this Summer, and will be MIA until further notice. Also absent this issue is Mark Crocker aka Rabbo and his serialized tale about Lexi written from Lexi's perspective, with a busy schedule keeping him from his writing.

As always we thank Mike Craner, our beloved webmaster. His summer has had its peaks and its valleys but yielded many beautiful pictures to preserve memories.

Look for the September issue of Pencil Stubs Online. Note: authors can send in their work for that now.

Click on Mary E. Adair for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.
This issue appears in the ezine at www.pencilstubs.com and also in the blog www.pencilstubs.net with the capability of adding comments at the latter.

Irish Eyes

By Mattie Lennon

The Pecker's Daughter

On Saturday 19th July, in the Ballsbridge Hotel, Miss Cork, Jessica Hayes, was crowned Miss Ireland. Among her 35 co-finalists one was unique.

Miss Kilkenny, Sarah Jane Dunne, daughter of the famous troubadour Pecker Dunne is the first member of the Travelling community to compete in the Miss Ireland Pageant since its inception 67 years ago. She has an Honours Degree from Trinity College but I asked her where did it all start? What was her path to Miss Kilkenny?

“I took part in the Miss University Ireland pageant earlier this year where I represented Trinity College! After doing this I went on to enter 2fm’s Miss Personality competition. This competition was based solely on the entrant’s personality and nobody had a clue as to what we looked like! I was one of 8 finalists and we all used alternative names – mine was ‘Miss Trad’ – so as not to give our identities away, it was all very secretive! The winner of this competition went on to secure a place as a Miss Ireland finalist with the title of Miss Personality.

I didn’t win but I did very well in the competition and went on to compete in the Miss Ireland Semi-finals, where I was selected as ‘Miss Kilkenny’. I was absolutely thrilled to be selected, I really gave it my best shot this year at becoming a Miss Ireland finalist as it is my last year to enter due to age restrictions. I love the whole pageantry thing. I know that there are people out there who really dislike the whole thing but speaking from experience, participating in pageants has really helped give me confidence. I have made so many friends from participating in pageants and I have had so much fun along the way. If you have an interest in modelling, entering pageants like the Miss Ireland, is a great way of networking and gaining experience.”

She is also a talented musician (no surprise there. At what age did she start playing? “I was so young that I actually don't remember! I would say I was around 6 when I started playing the concertina. This was my first instrument and it wasn't until I was 15 that I took up the fiddle.”

Not many Travelers make it to third-level education. What was different here? “My dad always encouraged me to read, from a very young age he had me reading. He was a big reader himself so this had a huge influence on me. He also encouraged me to do well in school and instilled the importance of getting an education. He never pressured me, or any of my siblings, when it came to choosing college or doing exams, he always just encouraged us to do our best and work hard.“

pic shows Sarah Jane with her father

She didn’t feel like an outsider in Trinity but learned that ignorance is everywhere: “It was after finishing a lecture with a group of students from my class in Trinity one morning, and we went to grab a cup of coffee. We were all sitting around, in a group, discussing our teaching practice and how we were finding the course.

I must add that I didn’t really know this group as I had not spent much time with them. One of the girls who was sitting at the table across from me began a tirade about how it annoyed her that ‘traveller children get everything handed to them’. She began a discussion about a traveller girl that was in her class, and how this child was getting help from all angles, and she really seemed upset and disgusted at this.

She went on about the ‘special treatment’ that this child was receiving and how outraged she was at it for a few minutes and when she finished I spoke to her and said, ‘Wow, that is terrible, isn’t it?’, she nodded in agreement, and I went on to state that ‘I am a member of the travelling community and I can assure you that I have never had anything “handed to me”, in fact I have worked extremely hard to get where I am today’. I made my point and expressed my upset at her statement, the whole group sat in discomfort and what had just unfolded! This girls jaw had literally dropped and she made some redundant comment about how she just felt that ‘everyone should be treated equal’! At this point I just got up and left the table. I had made my point and I wasn’t going to sit there and entertain this ignorant girl.”

Sarah Jane at Trinity

And where does the Pecker’s daughter plan to go from here? “I plan to travel, I really want to see the world and now I finally have my degree I can make my plans. Since finishing secondary school I have been putting myself through college and only recently completed my Higher Diploma in Education where I secured an Honours Degree from Trinity College Dublin. I am now a qualified English and Religion secondary school teacher. I am hoping to secure some work so I can save up and go off on my journey.”

The Travelling community is fully behind her; delighted that one of their own has made it. “I have received really positive messages from those who have contacted me since I began receiving media attention. I met two lovely travelling women from Kilkenny on the train back from Dublin recently and they were so proud of me, they praised me for how well-spoken I was on ‘Saturday Night with Miriam’ and gave me some words of encouragement. I have received countless messages on Facebook from members of the Travelling community who have all expressed their happiness at my success. I couldn’t see anyone looking down on me for going to college, and if there are people out there who do then that saddens me, I am sad for them.”

I asked Sarah Jane what she thought of the fact that the trade of Tinsmith is almost dead. “It is sad really, we have a beautiful copper bucket at home in Clare that was given to my dad decades ago by a tinker man. It would be great to see something in place to revive this skill among young travellers.”
It was the first time I asked a Trinity Graduate “are you wide to the gammon?”

“I am of course! My dad was a fluent speaker of Cant and I picked up some of it from him. One of my biggest regrets is not learning to speak it like he could before he passed away. It is a lovely language and a huge part of Traveller culture.”

There’s only one way for the Pecker Dunne’s daughter to go, UP.

Click on Mattie Lennon for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Below: Sarah Jane Dunne

Always Looking – People Who Made A Difference XX:

By John I. Blair

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910, founded Nursing as a respectable trained profession. Born to a wealthy English Unitarian family, Florence was educated by governesses and then by her father. Familiar with Greek, French, German, and Italian, she also studied history, grammar, philosophy, and mathematics.

On February 7, 1837, she said she heard the voice of God telling her that she had a mission in life. It took her some years of searching to identify that mission. This was the first of four occasions when she claimed God spoke to her.

By 1844, she had chosen a different path than the social life and marriage expected of her by her parents, deciding to work in nursing, then not considered a "proper" profession for women. Florence went to Prussia to experience a German training program for nurses. She worked briefly for a Sisters of Mercy hospital near Paris. Her views began to be respected.

In 1853, Florence became superintendent of London’s Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen. When the Crimean War began, reports came back of terrible conditions for wounded and sick soldiers. Florence volunteered to go to Turkey and, at the urging of a family friend, took 38 women as nurses, including 18 Anglican and Roman Catholic nuns. They accompanied her to the war front, leaving England October 21 and entering the military hospital at Scutari, Turkey, November 5, 1854, where Florence headed nursing efforts in English military hospitals until 1856.

Embarkation of Balaklava Soldiers

She established more-sanitary conditions and ordered supplies, beginning with clothing and bedding. She gradually won over cooperation from the military doctors and used significant funds raised by the London Times. Soon she focused more on administration than on actual nursing, but continued to visit the wards and send letters back home from injured and ill soldiers. Her rule that she be the only woman in the wards at night earned her the title “The Lady with the Lamp.” The mortality rate at the hospital fell from 60% at her arrival to 2% six months later.

The Lady of the Lamp

Florence Nightingale applied her interest in mathematics to developing statistical analyses of disease and mortality, inventing the use of the pie chart. She fought both a reluctant military bureaucracy and her own illness with Crimean fever to eventually become general superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the Military Hospitals of the Army (March 16, 1856).

Florence was already a heroine in England when she returned, though she actively worked against public adulation. She helped to establish the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army in 1857, giving evidence to the commission and compiling her own report, published privately in 1858. She also became involved – from London – in advising on sanitation in India.

Florence was quite ill from 1857 until the end of her long life, living in London, mostly as an invalid. Her illness, never identified, may have been organic or psychosomatic – some have even suspected it was intentional, to give her privacy and time to continue her writing. In 1860, she founded the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses in London, using funds contributed by the public to honor her work in the Crimea. In 1861, she helped inspire the Liverpool system of district nursing, which later spread widely.

Elizabeth Blackwell’s plan for opening a Woman’s Medical College (it opened in 1868 and continued for 31 years) was developed in consultation with Florence. The King awarded her the Order of Merit in 1907, making Florence Nightingale the first woman to receive that honor. Florence declined the offer of a national funeral and burial at Westminster Abbey, requesting that her grave be marked simply. Only her initials appear on the family marker in a small cemetery in Hampshire.

Drawn from several sources, including:

womenshistory.about.com/od/nightingale/p/

nightingale.htm

geocities.com/~bread_n_roses/nightin.html

adelaideinstitute.org/Dissenters1/Muirden/nightingale 1.htm

Click on John I. Blair for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

On Trek

By Judith Kroll

Injustice

-- I have a hard time with injustice! I have seen it, been treated unjustly, and feel it strongly now that I am older. Can I stop it? No. What has it done for me? Looking back I now know that I am stronger because of it. I can write about it, pray about it, send it to the universe to help alleviate it. I know I am not alone in how I feel about it. I see tons of videos and quotes, and pictures on facebook, where people abhor injustice, and it makes me send out more love. More love would be the answer in my humble opinion.

It is easier to say, well they can speak up for themselves. Well maybe they can't because of fear. Fear is very powerful. If I knew that I could stop all injustice with a wave of my arm I would. I know fear and injustice isn't in the heavenly realms. If it can be stopped in the heavenly realms, then why can't it be stopped here on planet earth? We need to learn to stop in within ourselves first. It has to be part of us to not want it, or allow it in our lives. Then, and only then will it ripple thru to other people, and finally be eliminated from Planet earth. We are the problem, then we are the solution.

When I was in school, I watched kids berate other kids. I remember , growing up in Massachusetts, the first black family came to our little hamlet. The little girl walked to school, and boys would come up and call her bad names. I watched this, and felt so bad for that little girl. Since I walked to school, the next day I waited for her.. We walked together into the school. The boys called her bad names, and then ME TOO. Names like creampuff for me. That is the worst they could do I guess. So my dear friend and I endured this for about a week. Then, they left us alone.

We can all take a stand against injustice by not allowing it to be part of us. From the book, The afterlife of Billy Fingers, a true story, of a bad boy who passed, and wrote a book with his sister who is still alive here on the planet. So many Truths stick out in that book, but here is one I will always hold dear to me. "Every single life is valuable in ways you cannot imagine or figure out while you're alive. Every single life is a gift."

EVERY SINGLE ONE.. know that, believe that, and changes will start to take affect in yourself, and will mirror out to the rest of the world.
Hugs
Judith...aka Featherwind

Click on Judith Kroll for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Merlin Insights

By Merlin Energy

Given by Adam of Bremen through his connection with Merlin

There is much to say on this subject, equally, a great deal I cannot tell you. This is sad for me as it would put much of the following into perspective. Much of this paper is concerned with love; love, pure and simple. For that is all that we, as spirit, are made of, and so, as the human form of spirit are you, nothing more and nothing less. There is but one state of love, so there is love, or there is absence of love. Absence of love you will recognise as fear.

It is love from which you come, and to which, ultimately you must return. This is the collective energy source, the collective spirit of mankind. It is that from which you come and it is the truth of that which I wish to impart through this paper.

I will pose a question to you at this point. What is love? What is it, of which we all speak so freely? I was a monk and I lived many, many centuries ago; you will find me if you seek. My name was Adam and I came from Bremen. I have spoken through others before and I hope I will get the opportunity to speak again. The medium is foreign to me but the subject is not. I was a monk, and you may well be asking, how could he have known love, a love that could relate to those who live this life today? Oh! I loved!! But I ask you what it is that you are doing in this your life; do you understand what it is that you have come from? When you wish for someone love, do you understand what it is you are wishing for? When you tell someone you love them, do you understand what it is that you are saying. I think not! I ask you again, what is love?

I will ask you to think on this a little longer for it is a very complex subject. It is very deep, and the deeper you go, the deeper you contemplate the subject, the less you realise that you understand of it. It is love, the energy which drives the universe, it is the ultimate energy. When you talk to people and you say to them, I wish you love, it is part of the energy that exists within you that you are offering them, the most private core part of you. At least that is how you perceive it. There are many kinds of love that you will speak of, you will speak about the love you have for your father, for your mother, for your children, for your partner, for the friend with whom you walk through your entire life at their side. All these you speak of in different terms but in reality you have no knowledge of that of which you speak. I ask you again, what is love?

All the types of love of which I have spoken are but one and the same. You may see them as being very different, but they are one and the same. How could this be so? What you are confusing is love the energy and love the emotion. The emotion is meaningless! It does not exist! Love the energy, is that from which the universe is made. It is that which drives the universe. It is that from which you are made. From the minutest part of your very being, it exists, to the largest part of the universe, it exists. It cannot be destroyed, it can be used, it can be abused. But it cannot be destroyed. The form which it takes can be altered, but the energy itself cannot. As the universe has evolved, so we are part of it, you as a spirit are pure energy, you are nothing more. You are pure energy! The universe is the energy from which you have come, the universe is the energy from which you are made and this is love.

You come from an energy source so vast, so powerful, and so enormous in its scope, its power is limitless. And you, you are just the merest part and yet you are all of it. You come from a source so vast where we all are one; we are all from the same. When you give love, you are opening to the source and allowing it to flow through you and it is through this that your energy increases, it builds. The power available to you gets bigger and bigger, the more you connect to it. Love itself cannot be destroyed. Love is energy; energy cannot be destroyed. You can change it, you could use it, you can dissipate it, but you cannot destroy it.

A wave as it crosses the ocean through the water, it is energy. The water moulds itself to the form and the intensity of the energy. That energy is love! This is a hard concept for you as a human soul, without your contact to the larger force. It is a hard concept for you to grasp. You grasp a little and you lose a little. For those who are prepared to open and to live in this purest of states the rewards are great. Your contact with the higher force remains supreme the more you love the more you can love. The more power you use the more you have to use. But how do you use it? How do you use energy in your world? In your world energy is something you buy; you buy it, you use it, it’s gone! The reality is that it has not gone; it has been dissipated, but not gone. This is what bars you from understanding the truth of energy.

Those who choose to open themselves to love, who choose to allow themselves to be part of it, are open, ready to accept, then the love within them grows. In your world you buy energy, you use it, it’s gone. What I bring to you is an inexhaustible supply. The more you use, the more you have. You meet someone in the street and you exchange love, you smile. You have given love and you receive a smile, you have received love. But because of that transaction the amount you received seems equal in many ways to the love you gave. Yet the energy within you, because of this transaction is equal to the sum of the two separate parts. It is an equation that science could not explain. In scientific terms you have one unit, you give one unit and you receive one unit, the result is you still have only one unit but if you give one unit and receive none in return you must be devoid of love. But on the contrary! In what I have explained, you have one unit, you give one unit, you receive one unit, and you have two units. The other soul with whom this transaction took place is now in possession of equal measures to you. From one unit given by you and one unit given by another there are now four units. Four tangible units in existence! This defies all logic and the laws of your physics. The scientist will tell you that it cannot be so, but if you are open to your feeling, you will know that it is so.

So I ask again the question what is love? It is part of the universe. As the universe gets ever bigger, none of it is ever destroyed it changes, it transforms, and it is never destroyed. It is from that which we come and it is upon that which we call, throughout our lives. It is that which we give to another. But when we pass on from this world, our life is not destroyed; the energy which made us so is not destroyed. It is still there! Maybe in this way you can understand a little that the passing from the spirit to the physical requires nothing. To pass from the physical to the spirit, loses nothing. If you take a teaspoon full of water; in itself it is complete and significant. But if you pour that teaspoon full of water into the ocean it immediately appears insignificant and yet it is there. It has gone nowhere. It has not disappeared, it is there. Yet you cannot see it, but it is there. So the love from you in this world is significant. Those around you will have great understanding of the love that you can give, but as you pass you return to the fold from which you came and so the love returns to the ocean.

Those who understood you will remember you; will know that you are there, but to everybody else it will seem as though you have never been, but a part remains.

Click on author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Angel Whispers

By Peg Jones

Have you lost your JOY?

We get busy with the day to day things, our jobs, our children, whether they are kids or young adults, our relationships an everything else in between, We get caught up in the planning, and dealing with organizations, government regs, paying our bills and dealing with our health, the doctors and everything else in between. We hear about the state of the world or of an incident to that is upsetting and then we see how it is all dragged out day to day on every media channel station that speaks about the state of our world.

I will stop there.. I lost my self and forgot I was writing about JOY.

So we forget about our joy, because we are so busy dealing with life… that may be troublesome or time consuming, and also our daily routine.. Life can be crazy, funny, fun, disappointing, tiresome, overwhelming, and boring. We forget about the joy in life, and we forget how to find that joy. And so I asked the universe about joy, particularly some angels who love to talk about JOY…

Ok back to joy… Summer time is good time to talk about JOY, well anytime, I suppose. Do you sometime find that the times we say are going to be joyful, are the most stressful times too? I guess it’s how you choose to deal with these joyful/ stressful times.. Like pre-wedding planning, and the holidays we have at the end of the year, and graduating from college or high School, or any of the other joyful times/ stressful times.

How can we keep these time a bit less stressful? But that is not what I am particularly talking about. Although it is something to mull over, possibly.

What I am talking about is just going through day to day life, doing all that I wrote about above, but forgetting about the joy, as adults who are making transitions, with family friends and our careers, needs, wants, and day to day worries that keep us from the joy that use to be so easy to feel.

In speaking with friends recently, I mentioned something about forgetting the joy and how we have forgotten that the joy is still there .. We just have to embrace it and to access it regularly.

I asked the angels about Joy, which by the way is one their favorite things to speak about…They have given a few pointers, that I hear a lot, from them and others also. So they have encouraged me to write about how we can access our joy a bit more quickly. Of course they say that being appropriate when accessing the joy is a good idea to take into consideration..

These are some their ideas for us when wanting to invite joy into our lives again, when we have forgotten what it was… so here are some pointers they have shared..

1. If life gets so very stressful for you, take that time for you to relax and to take total down time.

2. When there are decisions to be made, be sure you have all the facts and then evaluate the pro’s and con’s of the decision

3. Talk to the friends that make you laugh

4. Do something different, that you would enjoy doing.

5. Go outside, go to the beach, to a lake, or pond, or go the mountains or on a hike, embrace the beauty in your surroundings

6. See a funny show, or movie with friends or close relationship.

7. Do fun activities with your kids, or grandkids

8. Play board games with friends

9. Sing by yourself or with friends and family.

10. Giving your worries and stress to the Universe, the Angels too, and know that they will help you to feel this joy again..

11. Having a sense of humor helps too. The list could be endless. But taking the time in reading this article, and thinking about JOY, in our lives, is a positive thing to consider. Especially if we forget that we truly deserve joy in our lives. And you know you do deserve to have this joy for yourself, and for your loved ones, even when it seems impossible to think of this. Bringing the JOY in our lives and thinking of ways we can do this is something to consider. We all deserve this joy, to help with the stress and frustrations of our life.

So in thinking about joy and how to bring more in, I bet we all can come up with some really creative ways, and I am sure you all have some great ideas, for letting the joy, continue in our life.
I keep hearing that life wasn’t suppose to be this difficult, that balance of body mind and spirit can certainly help too. So get outside, enjoy the fresh air, and thank the angels, our higher power, friends and family ( those who bring us joy) for being a part of our life, and SMILE…..

Can you feel the JOY?

Click on Peg Jones for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Introspective

By Thomas F. O'Neill

Life’s Synchronicities

There were significant moments in Rabbi, Shuman’s life that profoundly changed him - in ways that are beyond comprehension. They could be described as spiritual unexplained encounters that have made him highly receptive to life’s synchronicities. Those same moments have become truly meaningful for him but to fully understand Rabbi, Shuman you have to know his story.

His earliest memories were of his parents taking him to his grandmother’s home. His grandmother had an old antique music box that he would wind up. Inside the box were small figurines of a man and women sitting at a piano. He can remember listening to the music in his grandmother’s living room and the smile the music would bring to her face. Those childhood memories are always with him because those memories represent the love his grandmother had for him and in many ways that love is still with him.

It is said that we are the sum-total of all our experiences so in order to understand Albert Shuman the man you have to understand what he endured as a child. When he was a young boy his family lived in Germany and on his ninth birthday the Nazis gathered up his family and moved them into a Jewish Ghetto. The Jews were eventually packed like cattle into train boxcars and sent to various concentration camps. He still can remember the heat and stench inside the boxcar. He was only nine years old and very frightened from being separated from his family. He was too young to comprehend what was happening to him and the others.

On numerous occasions he spoke about the day he turned eleven years old. It was his second year inside that Nazi concentration camp. He was cold, hungry, and scared and he didn’t know whether his family members were alive or dead. He was living there with the walking dead, the living skeletons, the skin and bones of the malnourished. Those are just some of his recollections of that nightmarish existence at the hands of the Nazis, the so called master race.

Hungry, weak, and detached from all emotion he got the nerve on that particular birthday to walk over to the barbed wire fence. He witnessed many being shot on that fence and for some it was a means of suicide. “If you do not want to go on being starved, climb the fence,” he thought to himself, “let the Nazi guards shoot you.” It was at that moment when those thoughts were racing through his head that he heard the voice of a young girl.

“Do you want my apple?” she asked him in German. She quickly tossed it over the fence. He grabbed it and began eating it when the Nazi guard walked over and whacked him with the butt of his gun.

“Get away from here” the guard yelled at the young girl. Frightened, she turned and ran up a large hill to a farmhouse a mile away from the camp.

“Stay away from there!!!” the girl’s mother said to her in a stern voice.

“Mother, what did those people do?”

“It doesn’t concern us,” her mother yelled, “Stay away from there!!!!”

“There is this young boy there,” she said to her Mother with tears in her eyes. “He looks so sad, so hungry. What could he have done to be treated that way? When I gave him my apple the solder hit him just because he took it,” she said with tears rolling down her face, “those solders are mean.”

“That doesn’t concern us,” she yelled once again at her daughter, “they are there for a reason.”

She then grabbed her daughter’s arm and said, “It doesn’t concern you.”

Everyday young Albert Shuman walked over to the fence and each day the young girl threw an apple to him. He looked at her face through the fence so that he would never forget that young girl’s kindness.

“Someday I will be free from here,” he yelled to her, “don’t worry I will be free from here you will see.” A Nazi guard whacked him with the butt of his rifle.

“Get away from the fence, rodent,” the guard said to him in German. He then smacked young Albert once again with his gun.

“Get away from here if you know what is good of you” the guard yelled to the young girl.

When the young girl's mother saw her daughter returning home crying, she frantically slapped her across the face, “You stubborn, stubborn child, what do I need to do to keep you from going there?” Her mother’s primary concern was simply to keep her and her daughter safe from harm. Her husband and two sons were fighting the Russians on the eastern-front. She didn’t know whether she would ever see them again.

When Albert Shuman was thirteen the Russians moved into East Germany they moved fast and were fierce fighters. The Nazi guards did not have enough time to burn the bodies of the dead. Some of them out of fear of the Russians tried to pass themselves off as Jewish survivors but what set them apart from the others was their well nourished frame. They were quickly rounded up and Albert witnessed some of them being executed on the spot. He wasn’t pleased or shocked by the contempt the Russians had for the Nazis, “getting shot through the head seems much more merciful,” he thought to himself, “than being starved to death.”

The young Russian solders gave Albert and the other survivor’s food and when one of the solders had an apple in his hand. He saw young Albert staring at it, the solder out of compassion handed it to him. Albert unable to speak their language pointed in the direction of where he saw the young girl run each day.

The solder out of curiosity placed Albert’s frail and weak body in a Jeep and drove him to the farmhouse. When they arrived no one was there so Albert took a pen out of the solders shirt pocket and motioned for a piece of paper. Albert wrote “thank you” in German on the paper and placed it with the Apple on the young girl’s porch.

He was the only one in his immediate family that survived those insane nightmarish years. The numbers the Nazi tattooed on Albert's arm when he was a child are now a permanent reminder of what he endured.

He eventually was sent to live with distant relatives in America. It was in America that he struggled to find meaning and purpose in his life. He searched for answers as to why he was one of the survivors. The image of the young girl’s face kept retuning to his dreams at night. Her face instilled in him a determination to live so that one day he could return that kindness. If he could not return the kindness to her then perhaps to another person in need.

When he turned seventeen he enrolled in a rabbinical school and eight years later he became a Rabbi. He wanted others to understand the strength of the human spirit and how the little kind actions of a young girl gave him the strength to survive the Nazis inhumanity.

* * * * * * *

He was living in New York as a Rabbi in the summer of 1960 when he was invited to give a lecture in Baltimore, Maryland. He decided to travel by train rather than drive there alone. He has always enjoyed engaging people in conversation but mostly he enjoys meeting new people and listening to their stories. When he sat down in his seat he noticed a woman that looked so familiar to him, though he could not quite place her. Something inside of him compelled him to sit down across from her on the train.

He was thrilled when he learned that she was from Germany and they conversed in their native language. He was also a bit amused that she was traveling to hear a lecture at the same symposium where he was lecturing.

“Are you Jewish?” he asked her.

“No,” she said in a melancholy tone.

“Then why are you so glum?” he asked in an amusing way trying to lighten her mood.

“I am going to the symposium because one of the lecturers was in a concentration camp near the farmhouse I lived in as a little girl,” she said to him.

She began to tell him her story of what she witnessed just a mile from where she lived. She then told him about the face of the young Jewish boy in the Nazi concentration camp. “I wish I knew what happened to him,” she said as a tear rolled down her face.

“He is fine,” he said while emotionally moved. It was then that the tears welled up in his eyes.

“How could you possibly know that?” she asked.

“Don’t you remember?” he said to her, “I told you I will live. When I got rescued by the Russians I put an apple on your porch.”

She looked at him astonished by his words. “When the Russians came,” she said, “we fled our farmhouse because we didn’t know what was going to happen. My father and two brothers were killed at the eastern-front fighting the Russians”

She then looked into his eyes, “You put an apple on my porch,” she asked.

“I wanted to let you know that I was all right,” he said.

“I thought about you all the time,” she said as she wiped the tears from her face.

“And I, you,” he said.

“I never learned your name,” she said.

“Albert,” came the reply.

“Anna,” she said, “my name is Anna.”

After the lecture he knocked on her hotel room door and when she opened it he handed her an Apple, “I don’t want to lose you again, Anna” he said with deep sincerity that could melt the heart of any woman. He learned that she came to America as an exchange student and remained in America. She became a teacher of history at a high school just a few miles from where he was living.

They soon married but their story doesn’t end here. In 1968 when Albert’s wife received a letter from her Mother in Germany stating that Anna’s Grandmother’s sister is living in a small town in Pennsylvania.

“I would like to go to Pennsylvania and see my Great-Aunt in person, Albert,” she said to him.

“Can’t you just pick up the phone and call her,” Albert asked her.

“Let’s surprise her,” she said

“I don’t even know her,” he replied

Anna got her way, and they drove three hours from New York to that small town in Pennsylvania. When they arrived at the address that was given to Anna by her mother, no one was there.

“No one lived in that house in 20 years,” a man said to them from across the street.

Albert then told Anna, “if we leave now we could get back to New York for a late dinner.”

When Albert and Anna were heading back home they stopped at a red light on the Main Street in that small Pennsylvania town. Anna then noticed a small antique store.

“Let’s stop in there,” she said.

When they were looking around the shop Anna noticed an old music box. Albert in another part of the store was looking at an antique pocket watch. Anna then wound up the music box and they both heard the music. Albert at that moment walked over to Anna and he noticed the small figurines inside the music box of a man and woman sitting at a piano.

“That looks like the music box my grandmother owned,” he said to Anna.

“Where did you get it” he asked the owner.

“Not sure exactly,” came the reply, “it was made in Germany though many years ago.”

“My Grandmother owned one just like this,” he told the owner.

“The bottom drawer in the music box is locked” Anna said to the shop owner, “do you have the key?”

“I don’t have the key but the lock is not that complicated,” he said to her.

The owner walked over to the counter and came back with a small lock pick and opened the bottom drawer in the music box. Inside the drawer was a letter. Anna, surprised at seeing the letter, began to read it.

“It is written in German” she said to Albert, “and it is dated March 16, 1939”

“My Name is Anna Shuman,” she said out loud as she began reading.

“That was my Grandmother’s Name,” Albert told his wife, “she had the same name as you.”

She then continued reading,

“My Name is Anna Shuman” she repeated, “and this is my music box it has been in my family for many, many years. If anything should happen to me I want my Grandson Albert Shuman to have it.

If by chance you should read this letter, Albert, I want you to know that I love you very much and I will always love you. Your happiness means more to me than life itself. Grandmamma Anna”

Albert’s face beamed with emotion and he was unable to hold back his tears,

“how much do you want for the music box?” he asked the shop owner.

“Look I don’t speak German so I don’t know what that letter said,” the shop owner said to them.

Anna translated the letter to the store owner in one simple sentence, “This is his Grandmother’s music box.”

“How much do you want for it?” he repeated, “I will give you whatever you want.”

“Look just take the music box,” the owner said, “it’s yours.”

“How did you come to getting this music box in your shop?” he asked the owner once again.

“I have to go down to the basement and look at the inventory records,” the shop owner said, “it has been here for quite sometime though.”

When the owner returned a short time later he told them, “it was owned by a woman named Olga Hager. I think it was her son that sold it to me. If I recall correctly I think Mrs. Hager is in the Manner Nursing Home now.”

“She’s my Grandmother’s sister,” Anna said to Albert, “that is who we came to see.”

They learned from Olga that her son was in the German army during the war. The Nazis confiscated most of the Jewish families’ belongings in Germany and somehow Olga’s son came in possession of Albert’s Grandmother’s music box. He gave the music box and some of the other Jewish families belongings to Olga. When the war ended, she and her son, left Germany and they brought the music box and various other items to America with them. Years later when Olga was placed in a Nursing Home her son sold the music box and some of her other belongings to the antique dealer. On hearing this from Olga - Albert then realized that the Pocket watch he was looking at in the antique shop was his Father’s watch.

On their way back to New York Anna turned to Albert who was driving and said to him. “The letter in the music box is dated March 16, 1939. We were married on March 16, in 1961.”

“In someway I believe my Grandmamma Anna was determined that I get her music box because she knew how much I loved to play with it as a child,” he then said, “it was her way of saying she never stopped loving me.”

Rabbi Shuman has continued over the years to tell his story at lecture Hall’s and to the average person on the street. The events that occurred in his childhood are heart-wrenchingly painful and those events have become a part of who he is as a person. He and Anna have overcome the darkness and pain of the Nazi regime by becoming each other's light.

* * * * * * *

Albert stood up from his chair on March 16, 2006 at a dinner hall as his wife sat next to him. It was a very special occasion for them. He stood before a crowd of approximately two-hundred people and thanked them for being there to celebrate their forty-fifth wedding adversary. Their three daughters, two sons, and ten grandchildren, were also there to celebrate this heartwarming event.

“All of you know how Anna and I met,” Albert said to them. “You all heard the story many times before so you can relax now because I will not lecture you on our story. If you notice, however, all of you have an apple on your plate. I know, I know,” he repeated, “I wasn’t that fond of apples either, but because of Anna I grew more fond of them. Don’t worry though we have plenty of other food. You won’t leave here hungry, I can promise you that” he said to them as the audience laughed.

“I hope I haven’t offended anyone with the apples it wasn’t meant as an insult,” he said. “I have been told my humor is not always politically correct. I suppose that is why I would never make a good politician. I would always be cracking jokes about the current politics,” he said as the audience laughed because they knew their local Senator was sitting in the room.

“As you already know,” he added, “I love to tell the story of how Anna came back into my life here in America - on a train. We came together again in the land of the free and the land of the brave as that popular song goes.”

He then said, “it doesn’t seem that long ago when I was forever separated from my family when I was shoved and packed into a train’s boxcar in Germany. I was sent to one of those concentration camps as a young boy – by train. Like thousands of others I was sent there. That is where I met my Anna but we to became separated and lost for a time. We were like two corks in the ocean and it seemed as if we were riding each wave on a random destiny. I soon learned though our destiny was set forth by the spirit of our love. We were bound by our soul’s desire because years later when I needed her once again she came back to me to show me how to love.” The audience was silent and they were glued to his every word.

“We came together today,” he said, “so that we could share this moment with our immediate family and with all of you as our extended family. We are all family because we all love and respect one another.” He became visibly emotional and Anna who was sitting next to him reached over and held his hand. He then picked up a glass of wine and took a drink.

The room was quiet as they waited for him to continue speaking. “To some the Nazi regime is ancient history but there are still some who have witnessed the inhumanity and lived. I hope we can learn from what we witnessed so that succeeding generations can never repeat those atrocities. When I came to America before Anna came back into my life, my mind was filled with the chatter of explanations of why and how I should live my life. It wasn’t until I quieted the chatter, I heard the small still whisper of the soul. It guided me and put me in synch with my soul’s desire which is to love and to be loved.”

He then said to the audience, “It has taken me many, many years to figure out that in order to find contentment in life you must first quiet your mind. The mind can become filled with the insignificant matters of life. I was ignoring my heart - never ignore your heart. The heart can put you on the right path - life without love is a wasted life.

You must find the love within you first before you can share that love with others. Don’t wait for others to love you first because you cannot discover love until you begin to love. Then and only then will you find the true synchronicities of life. I have found - when you reach out and care for the welfare of others, others will reach out and care for you. We are never alone in the world. I discovered that through the small acts of kindness from a young girl who threw apples to me, every day, like clock work, over a barbed wire fence” he said with a smile.

He then looked down at Anna, “Our hearts and souls are always intertwined and synchronized with the hearts and souls of our significant others. We are here now sharing our life’s journey - a journey of discovery and wonder. We are sharing this world in order to love and to be loved.”

He then looked over at his children and grandchildren, “I hope my children and grandchildren learn to put aside the insignificant matters and let their heart and soul reveal to them the true beauty in life,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes.

“Albert, let them eat now,” Anna said.

“Thank you,” he said to his family and guests while laughing, “thank you,” he repeated with a big enthusiastic smile on his face, “I am grateful for all of you for being a part of my life and may love always be a significant part of your lives.”

U.S. voice mail: (800) 272-6464

China Cell: 011-86-15114565945

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com

Click on author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Summer Hawk

By John I. Blair

Struggling in the Texas heat,
Stabbing my cane at the dirt,
I focused on the path before me,
Feeling less than blessed.

But when I sought the meager shade
Of some aged mesquite trees,
Then looked up at the cloudless sky,
I saw a hawk, solitary, soaring,

Its wings spread wide,
Catching every molecule of air,
Roving upward on the thermals,
Reaping lift from simple physics.

In lazy circles, perfect figure eights,
It drifted up toward the sun disk,
Oblivious to me
And to the city all around,

Focused solely on the sky,
The ground, the breeze,
Eager for prey,
Food for its chick, fresh meat.

©2014 John I. Blair

Click on John I. Blair for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Triumphant ~6-18-2014~

By M. Jay Mansfield

I have been struck and crippled
but I have not been slowed or beaten
when I could not run I walked
when I could not walk I crawled...
when I couldn`t crawl I slithered
but onward I moved

I reached up
not for a handout
but for a hand hold
and I clawed my way up to face my adversaries
once more

With a fiery glint in my gold and green eyes
I scan the room looking for the next challenge
let them know
I AM HERE
and be damned if I am leaving
GET USED TO ME
I AM HERE
where I belong....
here I stay ©6-18-2014 mjmansfield

Click on M. Jay Mansfield for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.

Healing

By John I. Blair

The raw wound
Of losing you
Has scabbed

Though I hit the scab
Painfully as thoughts
Jump to meet me.

The days and years
Will smooth it to a scar,
Sharp pain ease to dull ache;

But in certain spots,
At certain times,
The hurt will stay.

©2014 John I. Blair