【推荐1】As a working mother, my years passed without time for relaxing. The kids have been out of the nest, and I have been retired. Now I could take some time for ME!

    1     As a lifelong list maker, I did my research. There were relaxation activities like meditation (冥想), exercise, socializing...... I was determined to find the one thing that truly filled my soul. And so I began my not-so-smooth journey to finding myself.

Meditation was the first to come and go. I never fully understood how to shut my mind off. I always felt like I was just waiting for it to end. Next, I tried “Teatime as Me Time.”    2    I imagined sitting across from a dear friend, drinking elegantly from delicate cups, but that is as far as it ever went. I have the fancy tea set (never used) and a shelf full of tea packages that I will never consume. Exercise is a highly recommended me-time activity. But for me, after a week or so of training, exercise time was killing me.    3    

Many other me-time experiments left me wanting less of them, not more. I felt like a failure at this me-time thing. I could spend the whole morning watching the big, fuzzy bees in my garden. In those moments, time stood still.    4    I discovered that I truly desired less emphasis on me altogether.

Maybe the experts had this me-time thing all wrong, and it had little to do with “me” or “time” as I was defining it. Perhaps we are too concerned with how we spend our time instead of enjoying the nothingness of simply being. Instead of viewing it as a hesitation between activities, we can shift our awareness into welcoming timelessness.    5    Maybe a better version of “me time” is simply “be time” ...... or, better yet, “bee time”!

【推荐3】Last year, things didn’t go well to me. Like many people during the pandemic, my husband Paul, lost his job. I was working, but only part-time. I was worried about money, COVID and our future. That’s when our mailboxes really started getting to me.

I’d never liked our mailboxes much, which was already in rough shape and stood at the end of our long driveway with the paint faded and the metal pole rusted (生锈).

One day, someone had driven into the pole, which was now bent slightly. However, because the boxes could still hold the mails and the postman wasn’t complaining, there was no need to replace them. But every time I saw them lately, they reminded me of all the problems in my life.

“Lord, I wish we had better mailboxes,” I found myself thinking one day on my way to work. It was more of a passing thought than a prayer. I probably would have forgotten all about it if it were not for the news we got the next morning.

“Our neighbor just sent a message,” Paul said. “A girl drove her car right into the mailboxes, completely breaking them down.”

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“She wasn’t hurt, but really upset. Shihiem saw it happen. He said she’s just a teenager. He gave her our number and information.”

“That certainly wasn’t in the budget,” I thought. As much as I wanted new mailboxes, getting them would be expensive.

I glanced out of the window. There was an unfamiliar car at the end of the driveway. It was too far away to see what the driver was doing. Surprisingly, about two hours later I found on the spot where rusted mailboxes had once stood was a solid, white post with new, shiny mailbox sitting on each arm—one black, one white. Paul handed me a note.

“Dear Neighbor, I am so, so sorry I hit y’all’s mailbox. I bought and replaced them with new pretty ones. Again, I am so sorry. Have a wonderful, blessed day!”

The writer had included her phone number and address in case we needed anything else.

【推荐3】There was something funny about my shoes. They were blacker than they had been since they were bought. But how could that be?

My first thought was, of course, magic because I knew that I hadn’t done anything to create that shine which was looking so wonderful from the far end of my legs. Then, I called out to my wife, Anita. “Honey, thanks for shining my shoes! They look great! I was thinking I needed to get some new black shoes, but now.” “I didn’t shine your black shoes.” Anita said. “I didn’t shine your brown shoes, either.” Wait a second. My brown shoes? I looked in the closet. A bright glow from the darkest corner confirmed Anita’s report. I paused for a second or two. “So really, thanks,” I said to Anita. “But I didn’t shine them,” she said.

I looked at her searching for any signs of telling lies. Anita certainly won’t lie, hut she will do a bit in the interest of sumething she considera a greater good — like a good joke, for example. Or a secret act of service. “So if you didn’t shine them,” I asked, “who did?” She smiled the confident, sel-satisfied smile.

So I immediately thought of Beth, my youngest daughter who lives close enough to be able to drop by when I wasn’t home to shine my shoes. But her response to my questions forced me to decide that it wasn’t Beth. Who was it?

To be honest, I still don’t know for sure. That’s the way it is with unknown acts of service. I love my shiny shoes. They are finally going to get dirty again. But the memory of those shiny shoes will remain with me, warming my heart forever, and inspiring me to fast acts of kindness of my own.

【推荐1】Rayyan was a 16-year-old student in Grade Ten. By nature, he was proud and considered himself a know-it-all. He always kept himself updated with the latest and firmly believed that he knew everything, but his parents’ faces always reflected sadness to Rayan’s behavior.

“I want to ride a motorcycle! My friend Hans came to school today on his new motorbike that his father gave him on his birthday. I want a bike too!” Rayyan put forward his demand abruptly.

Rayyan appeared quite stubborn to get a motorcycle at any condition. Rayyan’s demand troubled his mother the whole night and she decided to have a calm discussion with him about the matter the next day.

After preparing his favorite dish of chicken, Rayyan’s mother sat in the sofa waiting for her son to come back from school. The doorbell rang and as she pulled the door open, she was shocked to see that Rayyan’s hand and foot were bleeding.

“Are you okay, my dear?” his mother asked as she held his hand. Rayyan lay down in the sofa, staring at the ceiling out of guilt and embarrassment, unable to answer her.

After a few seconds, he put his arms around his mother and started to cry. “Maa... I am sorry! I am really sory, Maa…,” he wept and told his mother about the accident that took place when he rode his friend’s motorbike after school. He had been determined to show his mother that he was old enough to ride a bike.

“I know… I know, my dear son,” she said with a smile on her face, wiping Rayyan’s tears. Rayyan hugged his mother tightly, his weepy eyes reflecting the promise to begin a new and disciplined chapter of his life.