Ancient Egyptians Believed in Only Two Questions After Death: Did you bring joy? | Did you find joy?

Life is like a mirror, we get the best results when we smile at it. —William P. Magee

A Golden Box Filled with Love

By Unknown

Many many decades ago, a man rebuked his 3-year-old daughter for wasting their only roll of rare gold wrapping paper. Money was scarce during this time and he grew ill-tempered when the child was seen using it to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Despite this scolding the girl resolutely continued her task, for she somehow sensed that it was too important to abandon, even at her father’s reprimand.

As soon as the sun hit her sleeping eyelids on Christmas morning she jumped up, fetched the golden treasure, and ran with it to her father’s room. She said excitedly, “This is for you, Daddy!”

Seeing her smile and the glinting gift thrust out from her eager hands softened the man’s heart, so he came near and smiled at her warmly.

“I see you used the golden paper anyway, that is fine my dear”, he said as he reached and thanked her for the glittering prize. But upon opening it he found nothing inside, and his irritation rose yet again, even higher than before, for the princely wrapping had been used for nothing.

He looked at her sternly and said quite crossly, “Aren’t you aware, that when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?”

The smile melted from the little girl’s face and she looked up at him with teary eyes and pleaded:

“Oh but Daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew many kisses into the box. They’re all for you, Daddy!”

The father was crushed. He scooped up his wonderful child with tears threatening his own eyes and implored her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, a tragic accident took the life of this child.

Her father kept her golden fortune on his bed nightstand for the rest of his days, and was beyond grateful for it, for whenever grief overtook him, which was often, he would delicately retrieve a kiss and cherish the love of the, knowing, child who had left it for him there.

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Shoot Not the Iguana (Excerpt from the book Out of Africa Page 243)

By Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixon)

In the reserve I have sometimes come upon the iguanas, the big lizards, as they were sunning themselves upon a flat stone in a river-bed. They are not pretty in shape, but nothing can be imagined more beautiful than their colouring. They shine like a heap of precious stones or like a pane cut out of an old church window. When, as you approach, they swish away, there is a flash of azure, green, and purple over the stones, the colour seems to be standing behind them in the air, like a comet's luminous tail.

Once I shot an iguana. I thought that I should be able to make some pretty things from his skin. A strange thing happened then, that I have never afterwards forgotten. As I went up to him, where he was lying dead upon his stone, and actually while I was walking the few steps, he faded and grew pale; all colour died out of him as in one long sigh, and by the time that I touched him he was grey and dull like a lump of concrete. It was the live impetuous blood pulsating within the animal which had radiated out all that glow and splendour. Now that the flame was put out, and the soul had flown, the iguana was as dead as a sandbag.

Often since I have, in some sort, shot an iguana, and I have remembered the one in the Reserve. Up at Meru I saw a young Native girl with a bracelet on, a leather strap two inches wide, and embroidered all over with very small turquoise-coloured beads which varied a little in colour and played in green, light blue, and ultramarine. It was an extraordinarily live thing; it seemed to draw breath on her arm, so that I wanted it for myself, and made Farah buy it from her. No sooner had it come upon my own arm than it gave up the ghost. It was nothing now, a small, cheap, purchased article of finery. It had been the play of colours, the duet between the turquoise and the 'nègre' -- that quick, sweet, brownish black, like peat and black pottery, of the Native's skin that had created the life of the bracelet.

In the Zoological Museum of Pietermaritzburg, I have seen, in a stuffed deep-water fish in a showcase, the same combination of colouring, which there had survived death; it made me wonder what life can well be like, on the bottom of the sea, to send up something so live and airy. I stood in Meru and looked at my pale hand and at the dead bracelet. It was as if an injustice had been done to a noble thing, as if truth had been suppressed. So sad did it seem that I remembered the saying of the hero in a book that I had read as a child: "I have conquered them all, but I am standing among graves."

In a foreign country and with foreign species of life one should take measures to find out whether things will be keeping their value when dead. To the settlers of East Africa I give the advice: 'For the sake of your own eyes and heart, shoot not the Iguana.'

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Just A Moment Of Kindness

By Joseph J. Mazzella • March 4, 2025

I have no idea why some stores make shelves so high that only a professional basketball player can reach them, but they do. I experienced one of them just the other day. I had just picked up some supplies and was heading to the dog food aisle when I took a short cut through the toy section. That is when I saw them.

A little girl was pointing to the top shelf where the stuffed animal she wanted was. Her Mother was trying to convince her to take one of the similar ones on the lower shelves but the little angel’s heart was set on the one at the top. Mom was only five foot tall at the most and was about to explain that she just couldn’t reach it. That is when I asked if I could try.

Now my vertical leap was never much when I was younger and it has only gotten worse with age, but I jumped up as high as I could, hooked the toy with my finger and caught it on the way down. I handed it to the little girl who cheered and jumped up and down with joy. Her Mom smiled and thanked me and I gave her my warmest your welcome.

I noticed something too as I started to walk away. I felt lighter. I felt better. I felt more like my true self. There was a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart. It was just a moment of kindness. It was just a second of love. Yet, it made my day and nourished my soul. For that moment I was who God wanted me to be.

I think the only way to truly receive love in this life is to give it away. The more love you share, the more love you have. The more love you give, the more love you receive. Love can be given too in a thousand different ways, in the littlest acts of kindness, even in rescuing a stuffed animal from the top shelf and putting it in the loving arms of a little girl.

I Flip Over Pennies So Others Can Find Good Luck
By A Friend

There’s the superstition that finding a ‘heads up’ penny brings good luck.

So whenever I find a tails up penny I flip it over and leave it so that someone else can find some good luck.

As a teenager I saw my mom do that once and she explained why she did it.

That simple act of kindness has stuck with me over the years.

To this day I carry it on for her.

There is something inexpressibly beautiful about the world when the sun begins to rise and fill the dim sky with soft rays of light and only the birds are awake to sing to you “good morning”, while everyone else is curled up in their beds, unaware of the magnificence they’re missing and everything feels so simple.

It’s as if six a.m. is an epiphany that sparks at your fingertips and spreads until you are encompassed entirely by a feeling of clarity. There is something inexpressibly beautiful about being awake to behold the splendor of this world while everyone else is still asleep.
—Madisen Kuhn