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Sometimes, answers come in surprising packages. Recently, in fact, I got the inspiration I needed from a package of (of all things) tea bags. You see, Villager editor Liz Stouffer had given me a daunting assignment. Write something about how Carleton-Willard maintains its caring spirit, she said. Tell how it is that this special place not only cares for residents’ physical needs, but somehow also manages to nourish their souls. And by the way (she might have added but diplomatically didn’t)—be brief. I scratched my head over this for days. To be sure, Liz was not the first to call attention to Carleton-Willard’s uniqueness. Others have remarked on the caring that’s so evident here, and how straight-from-the-heart it feels. But could I account for it? I hadn’t a clue how. Then, last weekend, while shuffling around the kitchen in my slippers, I had a sudden craving for a cup of tea, and reached for a box of tea bags. Yanking off the plastic wrapper, I turned the box over, and there found printed the words of Kahlil Gibran: “Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is a light in the heart.” My “That’s it!” startled the cat from its sunny roost above the sink. Gibran, I knew, had hit the nail on the head: It’s easy enough to put on a pretty face. You can dress up a house, or a car, or, for that matter, a retirement community, and chances are, it’ll sell. But for the real value of a thing, you have to look more deeply—and ultimately into the hearts of the people responsible for making the thing what it is. I guess that’s what makes Carleton-Willard special. As beautiful as our Village is on its face—and it’s never more so than now, at summer’s peak—its real beauty comes from the people who live and work here, from the “light in the heart” that each one brings to the community we share. I’d love to think that that light was somehow my doing. But the truth is, it’s Carleton-Willard itself that attracts and retains such exceptional souls. Commitment to service—the ideal on which this community was founded—runs so deep here, you can almost taste it. And for a certain breed of like-minded men and women, there’s simply no other place to be. So, Liz, that’s my answer…though it took Kahlil Gibran and a box of tea bags for me to see it. I’d love to know what others think. Barbara
A. Doyle |
