Zen-Mother

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Thanks to Mother Talk I had the great pleasure recently of reading The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2 : Your Turn by Marlo Thomas and friends. I have loved Marlo Thomas for years for her charitable work and her dedication to children through the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. I also love the topic of the book. Who hasn’t heard the words they needed to hear right at the specific moment when they helped us the most? Sometimes it can just bring a bit of encouragement, sometimes it can be a nudge of motivation, and other times it might be life changing. This books shares stories that illustrate all of this.

It reminded me of some of the times I heard just what I needed to. One that always comes to mind was a day sitting on a beach with my best friend watching a cute guy fish nearby. He was a bit younger and a little wild with a not so reputable past… but I liked him…ALOT. Most of friends felt that I should be setting my sites on older, more established more mature men. Like the ones reading their Bibles at the camp right that moment. I felt like I was being pressured to go in a direction not motivated by love but by security…both financial and religious. That day I let it all out to my best friend and explained how much I liked this guy and how I didn’t want what everyone else seemed to think was best for me. She just looked at me like I had grown a second head and than said “Girl (as she always called me) if you want him…go get him.” That was light bulb moment for me…realizing that duh..it was my choice! I made a decision right then and there and that guy fishing has been my best friend now for 14 years and my husband for nearly ten years. And two major contenders that everyone else thought I was better suited for both ended up in serious marital and personal trouble. I needed to follow my heart…not what other people told me I should do and want.

That is what is so special about this book. It is basically a collection of essays written by everyday men and women from farm communities to big city office cubicles and from hospital wards to prison. These people all tell how the right words at the right time affected their lives for the better or helped become something they never dreamed they could be.

The first story had me in tears as a discouraged navy officer hears the “right” words from a waitress in a fast food restaurant. Another story that had me in tears was that of a man whose fiancé died in the World Trade Center towers on 9-11. A chance encounter at the base of the destruction led him to a schoolgirl far away and the chance to see that life would go on for him.

There was an amusing story about a troubled kid that was still getting into “trouble” at 25 and when she lands herself in jail she learns and important lesson from a prostitute in the same cell. A man doing time in prison learns a little something from an inmate and decides to make the most of his time “doing time” and starts writing a prison newspaper while incarcerated and he begins to win writing awards. When he gets out he becomes a full time writer and a full time good citizen. It really is an inspirational book with many great bits of wisdom and good advice..and maybe even the words you need to hear …right now.

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