Bookmarks Of Friendship

Everybody knew him as “Mr. Rogers”, the soft-spoken, always smiling host of a TV show for children: “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” Fred Rogers told stories with profound lessons, sang, shared his popularity with puppets and captured the hearts of people all over the world. Adults, too. His song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” was included in every show and left its indelible mark on the world. Here’s one of many “lessons” Fred Rogers shared with his viewers: “Imagining something may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes the real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.” Everybody wanted to be Fred Roger’s neighbor.

My wife and I have wonderful neighbors all around us. A few days ago, I saw one of those remarkable neighbors at the cluster of mailboxes where…you guessed it…we pick up mail. I opened the little door of my box, saw nothing but empty space, and commented ” Empty again. We never get any mail.” My neighbor must have heard my grumbling, thought “hmm, I can solve that”, went home and painted the two beautiful bookmarks you see in the photo above. From scratch. The real deal. She didn’t buy them at the Hallmark store. She made them. Cut the paper, mixed the paints, dreamed the scenes and then applied brush to paper. Then she put the bookmarks in an envelope, stamped it and dropped it in the mail. Yesterday I opened the little door on my mailbox, saw the envelope, thought to myself: “well, we’ve got mail.” When I opened the envelope and saw these two lovely bookmarks, one for me and one for my wife, I knew in a flash: we’ve got a beautiful gift. We have two hand-crafted pieces of art. We have a very thoughtful neighbor. We have a friend.

The best insight was the last one…we have a friend. All the possessions you can imagine don’t equal the value of a good friend. Maybe today you might want to look around and “count your blessings.” The gift of friendship given and received is priceless. You are richer than you think.

Psalm 133:1 — How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along…and then take the next step: Be a friend.