Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year's and Up and Down Eggs - Are YOU Carrying Your Part of the Load?

Excerpts taken from "Just Thoughts of a Plain Country Woman" by Lucile Ellingwood Morrow, published January 1, 1953 in the Collinville News. 

"Kathleen, my small granddaughter, says she gets to "pick the
down eggs" and we "pick the ueggs." When she saw I was puzzled by "up and down eggs" shexplained that, since she could noreach the high nests, she would gather the ones in the lower nests while we did the others.
How wise and happy she is without realizing it
How few of uare willing to do the "down" work willingly? How many are resentful of those who have the "up" nests as though the higher nests - or eggs - were any better than those lower down!

And thereby hangs my NeYear's thought. 

What is the only difference between high and low? Physical stature in Kathleen's in case; mental and spiritual capacity in all our cases. It is up to us whether we think high or low and are willing to do our part. . . . .
It is hard for us to realize that we count as individuals,that there has never been before in the world's history a "you" or "me" and that never again will an exact "me" or "you" be born.
Each person is unique. . .
We may not any of us be "indispensable" but it is harder to say which little drop of water added to an already full bowl would
make it overflow.  None is independent of the other and yet each is necessary to make up the whole.
It is said that in a republic, "self-government has always depended
upon six elements of personal character. First, self-reliance; second, personal responsibility; third, thrift; fourth, courage; fifth, individual initiative; and sixth, and most important, faith."
These six essentials of personal character have produced our great
American country.
Now at the beginning of the New Year, it is equally good to renew our character for the year's end and as the new year approaches.
First, let us be self reliant enough to reach up, to look up, and yet at the same time feel responsibility for our own talents, our own growth at our present level
Kathleen is at her level. She is thrifty, too, holding all the eggs she gathers securely in both hands and placing them carefully in the bucket so as not to break any. She has the courage to try, the individual eagerness to beg to go along and help; and supreme faith that while she is doing a perfect job now, some day she will be a "big gurl" who can reach up into the very top nests do her part, and receive even greater responsibility and reward.
When we have finished, she insists on helping to carry the heavy
bucket of eggs to the house, helping to carry her part of the load.

Do you?   Will you?