Every time you smile
Matt in Fairfield, California, with just a few of his many friends at church,
who were bidding him farewell on our last Sunday there in August 2004.
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” — Mother Teresa
I wrote last year about Matt’s smiles, and how they have decorated countless photos and memories in his 28 years. That post is linked below. He’s had some help and encouragement in that regard, because people have showered him with beautiful smiles all his life.
Can you think of anything as easy, simple and free as a smile that adds so much joy to the world? If we could all manage to give away more sincere, honest smiles — not the plastered-on fake kind, but genuine greetings of friendly regard — wouldn’t that instantly improve everyday life? Let’s try it. Smiles open hearts and minds and doors to friendship. They are beautiful things!
Almost one year ago today:
And for a special treat, see Lisa Bruneti’s beautiful collection of smiles from Ecuador!
This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: caring, cheer, friendliness, friendship, gifts of love, good will, happiness, joy, love, open hearts, smiles
Defeat Despair 
Good morning, Julia!
Thank you for again challenging us to do something so simple yet powerful!
You’re welcome, Susan. Your comment is a virtual smile. 😀
I’m so glad for your link to the smiling women of Ecuador. Have you run into links that have broken or changed in the past seven years, as you repost?
Oh, yes, far too many. People erroneously think the internet is the replacement for hard copies and print resources, but nobody seems to realize how subject to alteration, falsification, error and outright disappearance all this digital information is. I’d say that fixing broken links takes easily three to four times more effort than re-posting. And in our cancel culture, whole biographies of significant people are wiped off the internet. This has happened in at least one case linked on this very blog. Beware those who try to cancel history! It’s a totalitarian tactic going back thousands of years to the burning of libraries and the destruction of art. But I digress…