The Yellow Rose Of Winter

You can say it's down to global warming if you like (though thanks to the frosts we've been having this week it doesn't feel much like it), but just two streets away from here, behind a low wall and with some savage-looking thorns on either side of it, there blooms one single yellow rose.

No, it's not the "last rose of summer" sort of flower - you know the kind of thing, where it's been blooming for a while and it's just to say managing to hang on to its half-way withered petals.

This one is a real, live, brand-new, very healthy-looking, fragrant yellow rose.

I've been watching the bud for a few days now, not really daring to believe that such a flower could possibly be going to emerge in the middle of December, especially after all the frost... but it's defied the elements, and there it stands in all its beauty and its inspiration.

It seems to lift the spirits of everyone who sees it. People stop to admire it, and wave to the lady who hovers just inside the window, anxiously watching as if she's scared that someone's going to take it home with them (yes, I admit the thought had crossed my mind - but no, I wouldn't really).

People who've seen the rose already smile indulgently at those who are staring at it, awestruck, for the first time. Total strangers greet each other as they marvel at the unexpected sight. This rose is causing a real stir in the neighborhood.

So, where's the useful lesson in all this?

Well, the key lies in just what the rose is doing. Regardless of what other roses do, like blooming in the summertime, this one is simply doing what comes naturally - to it.

No-one's ever told it that it that it's not supposed to flower in December. No-one's conditioned it to believe it should feel guilty that it's bloomed too late for this year's summer and it's way ahead of next year's.

Regardless of the calendar, that rose has simply felt the urge to flower, and, to the delight of all the neighborhood, has vigorously and uninhibitedly gone ahead and done it.

It's simply followed the inner prompting to do all that it can do, and to be all that it can be... and that's exactly what we're all supposed to do.

You own talent doesn't need to be as unexpected and as startling as a rose that flowers in December. It can be something so commonplace that you see it only as the equivalent as one of the many daisies in the grass in springtime.

It doesn't matter in the slightest what it is... as long as it's your own, and you develop it and use it to the best of your ability, in some direction that your deepest inner prompting urges you.

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The unexpected blossoming of just one yellow rose has brightened the lives of all those who have seen it. If you, too, will only be all you can be and do all you can do, you, also, will enrich the lives of many people - and the most important one will be your own.

The Secret Of The Works Canteen

A girl was working in a company canteen. It was just a vacation job so that she could make some money before going on to university, and it was hard work, too, but she was loving every minute of it.

Part of her job was to go in early and have the boiler lit and breakfast ready for her colleagues when they got there. She liked the responsibility, and it meant extra money for her, too – but there was just one problem. The boiler was practically impossible to light.

An engineer took pity on her. Every morning he'd be waiting for her at the station, then he'd take her in his car to work, and light the boiler for her. In return she'd make him breakfast, and the two would chat across their steaming mugs of coffee.

She thought he probably just did it out of kindness, but she was hoping desperately that it meant more than that. Fresh from a convent school, she didn't have a clue how to encourage him... and she was sure he was aware of how she felt about him, anyway. He was 7 years older than she was, after all. If he didn't make a move, it surely had to mean he didn't want to.

The weeks passed, and her vacation job was over. The engineer said nothing, and the girl went home and cried herself to sleep.

She went on to university, and it was several years before she heard of him again. She ran into a friend of his, and asked after the boy she'd liked so much - only to be told that he'd died, just recently, in a tragic accident. She was devastated, and asked if he had left a wife and children.

"No," his friend said sadly. "He never even had a steady girlfriend. The only girl he ever cared about was you." The girl was bewildered.

"But he never even asked me out!" she said. The man couldn't meet her eyes.

Embarrassed, he admitted that the workmates of the engineer had teased him mercilessly about his canteen girlfriend, who, they said, was only making use of him and would forget him the moment that she didn't any longer need his help.

Girls on their way to university, they'd said, just don't go out with small-town engineers.

"My own father's an engineer who comes from a small town," she retorted, "and I'm very proud of him!" The man had tears in his eyes.

"We never meant him any harm," he said. "It was intended as a joke, that's all. We never thought he'd take it seriously. When you left, we just assumed you hadn't wanted to go out with him. We never realized that we'd put him right off asking you!"

Once again, the girl went home in tears - not just of grief, but also anger and frustration that they'd both been too inhibited and shy to go for what they'd so much wanted.

Worse still, they'd both gone right on thinking far too lowly of themselves to dare make contact later, even though she realized now he must have wanted to as much as she did... and there was no way now that it could ever be put right.

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