Independence Day packs in an exciting, festive feel. You feel ready to look back at history with gratitude and look to
the present with hope.
Life’s always on a great roll and here’s my yummy tri
color lunch - which I absolutely enjoyed in the office canteen.
Ah, and that reminds me of a sweet Japanese story called ‘The
Rolling Rice Cakes.’ It is about an old man and his wife. She packs delicious
rice cakes in his lunchbox when he goes to cut firewood in the forest.
One day, one of the rice cake rolls down into a hole in the
ground!
From the beneath the ground, he hears tiny voices sing:
"Rice cakes, rice cakes,
Nice, fat rice cakes,
Rolling, rolling, rolling – down!”
He loves the beautiful song and rolls down all the rice
cakes to the tiny voices. Unexpectedly, he tumbles into the hole too, where he
is greeted by hundreds of field mice. They had eaten all his rice cakes and
thanked him. As a return gift, they give him a small bag of rice.
The Old Man goes home
with the small bag of his wife. When he tells his wife about what happened, you
can guess the earful she gave him for giving away all her rice cakes! She said,
“Hmmph, this bag of rice wont even make more than than one or two rice cakes!”
But guess what happened?
No matter how much they used, the bag remained fully stocked
with rice, more than they could possibly eat! Now the old man and old woman had plenty of
rice cakes to make as much as they wanted!
Lovely story and a beautiful message, don’t you think? I have
always believed that goodness brings its own reward.
Now, it’s your turn. How did you spend Independence Day? What
were the moments or thoughts that made it special for you?
Waiting to hear from you!
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