From The Storyteller
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Hello All: C-19 and several days wearing masks has lead me to an awareness that is pretty cool. Enjoy. Doug
Flags “You can always tell if it’s a genuine smile by the eyes”, is the comment made by my daughter, who is a professional portrait photographer. This past week, while sitting at the Ford dealership in Lawrence Kansas, I noticed they had four flags flying. They were the US flag, the Kansas state flag, the University of Kansas flag, and the Ford Motor flag. Which of course led me to consider the purpose of flags. The conclusion I came to is that flags are meant to get our attention, and to communicate a message without words. Example: At the beginning of virtually every high school football game, the national anthem is sung, and the flag is raised. At that moment virtually every one's attention is drawn to the flag, and the wordless message is national pride. The dealership has its four flags flying in the hopes they would attract attention and communicate the wordless message that this Ford dealership is a good place for you to do business. Which led me to recognize that, unlike the dealership, I do not have an actual flag to fly, but I do have a virtual one, my smile. Because I want my smile to tell everyone I encounter the wordless message of “acceptance”, our present reality of wearing masks brings me to “eye smiling”, and my daughter’s comment. Note: When people are wearing masks, being able to detect a person’s smile has some limitations, so for the past 10 days I’ve focused on the eyes above the masks. Her comment appears to be true; people do smile with their eyes. So at least for now, “eye smiling” has become the virtual flag I use to deliver my unchanged wordless message of acceptance. Moral: Paying attention to the wordless message our personal flag shares is important. |