Friendliness

I had a wonderful exchange this week with someone who is friendliness personified! I dropped Robbin Phillips from Brains on Fire a note to let her know how much I enjoy her blog. It's always rich with inspiration and creativity. Very quickly our exchange became a warm discussion where we found a few strangely coincidental connections.

Robbin then wrote a blog entry that links to the Virtues for Children website about our online discussion, titled 'Finding your company's soul mates'. She finishes off the entry with the words "It’s Friday. Reach out to a soul mate today. Because you can. We have the technology. Trite point maybe, but something we should never take for granted. Because connecting feels really wonderful…"

And she's right... with openness and friendliness connecting does feel wonderful.

Thankfulness / Gratitude

There was a section in Maureen Healy's blog about gratitude that made me smile. She talks about how her dad used to say "Rub a Dub-Dub, Thanks for the Grub" before meals. And although said in a jokey way, it was a reminder about giving thanks.

We have something similar in our house. It began after we'd had Japanese students boarding with us for a while. They would precede each meal by showing respect to the food in front of them with a bow and say the words "Itadaki-masu" (thank you for the food). Now to an un-trained ear Itadaki-masu actually sounds like "eat a duckymus". Who knows what a duckymus is (some sort of duck-billed dinosaur perhaps?), but it tickled our fancy, so now, years later, we still proceed our meals (much to the confusion of guests) with the chant "eat a duckymus". I guess it's similar to Maureen's father with his "rub a dub dub"... it's our way of giving thanks and regardless of words used, the sincerity behind them is always there.

Maureen has some great insights at http://www.growinghappykids.com/

Enthusiasm and chivalry

Here's an enthusiastic bunch, based in Wichita, Kansas, that I've just stumbled across. Although their approach is quite different to that of The Adventures of Mali & Keela, the concept - of using tales of adventure and daring to engage with children and then to inspire and educate about virtues - is very similar.

Their program is called Chivalry for Children and I came to learn of them through Allen Leddon's blog.

In his blog Allen talks about choosing the virtues Honesty, Loyalty, Perseverance, Charity, Humility, Courtesy and Courage for their program designed to bring chivalry back to modern life.

I'm sure Keela's parents - the King and Queen in The Adventures of Mali & Keela - would wholeheartedly approve!

Unity

A few days ago I received an email from Germany. Andrea from The Virtues Project in Germany found me through a friend involved with The Virtues Project in New Zealand. Small World. And getting smaller every day thanks to the power of the internet.

The global network that has grown from the original seeds of The Virtues Project is a wonderful example of unity. Thousands of people all over the world, collectively working to help people live by their highest values.
http://www.virtuesproject.com/directory_us.html
http://www.virtuesproject.com/directory_canada.html
http://www.virtuesproject.com/directory_intl.html

In The Adventures of Mali & Keela, unity is demonstrated by the friends making music together. As a global network, The Virtues Project is also making beautiful music.

Perseverance, and then JOYFULNESS!

The first day of June (well, here in New Zealand it is, the rest of the world is chasing to catch us!). And with the new month, a new beginning... The Adventures of Mali & Keela has just launched!

The journey of creating the book became a personal exploration of the virtues. There were times when, to meet the publishing deadline I would need to spend weekends writing rather than being with my children (yet I was writing about moderation!), times when the ideas just wouldn't flow – I would be writing about creativity, but be at a creative road-block. And so many times I needed to remind myself about perseverance!

And with the kindness of others – editor Sean O'Connor, devoting so much time and wisdom; writing buddy Janice Healey, bouncing ideas with me and adding huge value; Linda Kavelin Popov, whose encouragement topped up my enthusiasm – I came to realize that the pursuit of excellence is made a lot easier with a good dose of unity and love along the way.

I don't want this to sound like an Oscars acceptance speech (even though there are many people I want to thank), but just quickly... publisher Cathy is an angel who embodies so many virtues, particularly trust and caring, so I'd like to use this as an opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to her.

I'd love this blog to become an interactive space, so if you feel like adding a comment, please do!