Make Every Minute Count

 

"Look carefully then how you walk!  Live purposefully and worthily and accurately,
not as the unwise and witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people."
(Ephesians 5:15)

Springtime in the Missouri Ozarks

Image courtesy/Reddit

Spring has come!  The wild birds have been singing the glad tidings for several days,
but they are such optimistic little souls that I always take their songs of spring with a
grain of pessimism.  The squirrels and the chipmunks have been chattering to me,
telling me the same news, but they are such cheerful busy-bodies 
 that I never believe quite all they say.

But now I know spring is here for as I passed the little creek, on my way to the
mail box this morning, I saw scattered papers caught on the bushes, empty cracker
and sandwich cartons strewn around on the green grass and discolored pasteboard
boxes soaking in the clear water of the spring. I knew then that spring was here,
for the sign of picnickers is more sure than that of singing birds and tender 
 green grass, and there is nothing more unlovely than one of 
 nature's beauty spots defiled in this way.

It is such an unprovoked offense to nature, something like insulting one's host
after enjoying his hospitality.  It takes just a moment to put into the basket the
empty boxes and papers and one can depart gracefully leaving the place all
clean and beautiful for the next time or the next party.

Did you ever arrive all clean and fresh, on a beautiful summer morning, at a
pretty picnic place, and find that someone had been there before you and that
the place was all littered up with dirty papers and buzzing flies? If you have
 and have ever left a place in the same condition, it served you right.

Let's keep the open spaces clean, not fill them up with rubbish!

It is so easy to get things cluttered up, one's day for instance, as well as picnic
places-to fill them with empty, useless things and so make them unlovely and
tiresome. Even though the things with which we fill our days were once
important, if they are serving no good purpose now, they have become trash,
like the empty boxes and papers of the picnickers. It will pay to clean this 
trash away and keep our days as uncluttered as possible.

There are just now so many things that must be done that we are tempted
to spend ourselves recklessly, especially as it is rather difficult to decide
what to eliminate, and we cannot possibly accomplish everything.

 We must continually be weighing and judging and discarding things 
 that are presented to us,  if we would save ourselves, and spend our time
and strength only on those that are important. We may be called upon
to spend our health and strength to the last bit, but we should
see to it that we do not waste them.

"Oh, I am so tired that I just want to sit down and cry," a friend confided
in me, "and here is the club meeting on hand and the lodge practice and
the Red Cross work day and the aid society meeting and the supper at
the school house and the spring sewing and garden and-Oh! I don't see
how I'm ever going to get through with it all!"

Of course she was a little hysterical.  It didn't all have to be done at once,
but it showed how over-tired she was and it was plain that something must
give way-if nothing else, herself.  My friend needed a little open space in her life.

We must none of us shirk.  We must do our part in every way, but let's be sure
we clear away the rubbish, that we do nothing for empty form's sake nor
because someone else does, unless it is the thing that should be done.

Image courtesy/MNopedia

"Make Every Minute Count"
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Author of "The Little House" Books

From the book, 
Laura Ingalls Wilder
A Family Collection
Edited by Richard Marshall
(c.1993)
Barnes & Noble Inc.