Life's lessons come at you if you pay attention...

On December 2nd, last year, I told one of my favorite stories:

Two men were walking on the beach, naturally littered with washed-on-the-shore starfish. Every few steps, one of the men would stop, pick up a starfish and throw it back into the sea. After this had happened about half-dozen times, the other man chided him.

"Why are you doing that? There are thousands of starfish on the beach. You can't really make a difference."

First man flipped the starfish he was holding back into the ocean. "I can to that one."

Remember? Of course you do. Well, I have something more to add:

In today's Pickles comic strip (you read the newspaper comics too, right?) Grandpa Earl and grandson Nelson are walking on the beach.

"Do you ever think about rocks, son?"

"No," says Nelson.

"Well," Earl tells him, picking up a rock, "you should."

"Take this rock here. It probably looks the same now as it did a million years ago. I bet it's been sitting here for eons."

Earl then tosses the rock high in the air and says, "WHEE!"

Then he looks at Nelson and says, "That's probably the most fun that rock has had in at least a thousand years!"

OK. So you don't get it. Starfish and rocks are not the same... in a way. But if you squint real hard, you might see that any single action to the least of us, real or fancied, belies a personal commitment to a higher plane of though that starts deep in the spirit and goes outward from there. Not every one sees this the same... but those who do are richer. I believe that.