Second Follow Up To 'Look for Positive Things'

Spirit (Ling): Greetings.

Spirit: Have any of you got a story to tell me briefly, and perhaps observations?

Sitter (J): Ling Would you mind if I went back about seven years? I know it was supposed to be something we’d seen this week, but what happened seven years ago made a big impression on me, and I would love to tell you about it. Would that be all right?

Spirit: Yes but remember, keep things brief.

Sitter: Right. We were living down in Stoke’s Valley, which is not a very desirable locality, and we were just looking after a house for people. We were walking along a rather undesirable area, when a man came out of a house. He had dreadlocks, tattoo, you name it… every single thing he could possibly have, to make him look like a real bad gang member.

I thought “Oh he looks scary!” but as he came out he gave me this smile. It was the most beautiful smile I have ever seen on anybody. It was just beautiful. That was seven years ago and I remember it still today. I think I learnt not to judge by appearances.

Spirit: True, and also the importance of a smile! A good little story.

Sitter Thank you. (Pause)

Sitter (H): I saw lots of nice things and this one perhaps not a lot different to Jennifer’s.

Down town there was lady with a pram, one of those ones that are open towards the front, and a little baby, I think it was a boy, relaxing in it. (It’d be a nice way to travel I think). He looked at me with his eyes as I came up and I said, “Smile”, and he gave me a beautiful smile… one of those children’s smiles that really hit the spot. He went past. It really sort of makes your day.

I just thought, “The world is full of nastiness, even in our own country we’ve got squabbles between people of slightly different colour over here, as to who should own this and who should own that. Such a lot of us just looking at him might think that we know life’s eternal, but perhaps his generation will make a better job of the world, than those of us who are nearing the end of our lives”. It just gives you a little hope that perhaps they might.

Spirit: Thank you. Again the importance of a smile.

Sitter (K): Mine is about a picture that I saw in a magazine. It was a coloured picture of the front end of a horse. The horse had its head down almost touching the grass, and a toddler was alongside the head of this horse just stroking on the side of its face, with the horse kindly nudging the toddler. It made such a lovely picture.

When I thought about it, I thought that given the right conditions, spirit, be it a horse or a toddler, can get very close to each other.

Spirit: How true, and if only more people were aware of this.

Now that you have all started being observant, I hope you will continue without our prompting. Let it be known that we will occasionally say,’ “And what was it this week, or today!”