Influences

It stirs me deeply when I look back and realize that so many people gave me something or were something to me without knowing it.  Some of these people I never met.  Some I merely heard or read things about.    Still others were very close and known intimately.  So many of them had a decisive influence on me.  They came into my life and became “powers” within me.  Much of who I am and what I’ve attempted to do and to live is rooted in the rich soil and the sway of these “Star Persons.”  

My Grandad never knew....

I’ve come to believe that we all live, spiritually, by what other people have given us in the significant moments of our life.  These significant times are unannounced; they often come quietly and unexpectedly.  Sometimes we do not even perceive them until we look back upon the trail of life.  Many of the qualities that may be credited to us, we owe to people in whom we first saw or experienced those qualities being exercised.

If these “Star Persons” who have meant so much to us could stand before us now, and we could tell them how much they influenced us, I think they would be amazed to learn what they passed over from their life into ours.  

[My high school Latin teacher, Mr. Sim, was stunned when his “smart-aleck” student of years ago wrote of how much his patience influenced my life.  His response at 85 years of age:  “I didn’t know.  You made my day!”]

I realize in these quiet moments of a new day the great number of individuals to whom I am indebted.  In the eyes of the world few of these significant others in my life were eminent (though some were), most of them were inconspicuous, but not so for me.  They were “stars,” each one, for they lighted my candle enabling me to see through the darkness.