The Right Words

I first fell in love with Marlo Thomas while watching reruns of That Girl. As the daughter of a famous actor, she probably never needed to work a day in her life, but she has dedicating much of her energy to helping children through her support of St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

As a faithful fan of the Diane Rehm show (I have NPR on all day at work), I heard an interview with Ms. Thomas not long ago talking about her recent books The Right Words at the Right Time--Volumes 1 & 2. In the first volume, famous friends of Ms. Thomas recounted tales of words that profoundly affected their lives. She recalled in the interview receiving such a dramatic response from people she encountered every day telling her about the words that changed their lives that she decided to produce a second volume consisting of essays from everyday folks (like us).

So when MotherTalk asked for people to review this second volume, my interest was piqued. I'll admit being a bit concerned I'd be forced to suffer through some vegetable soup is good for you self-help thing. Reading the introduction, I was immediately relieved.

"...People didn't simply send us random thoughts that strung together a
few memorable words from their past. They sent us their stories,
pieces of their lives.

As I'd learned from the first book, the right words
can transform us. They can challenge us at a crossroads; they can help us
through times of sorrow; they can dare us to action. They can be spoken with
love or shouted in anger. The right words can be funny words,
thought-provoking workds, words that prop us up when we think we can go no
further.

And they can be found almost anywhere--in a poem or a songbook,
illuminated on a computer screen, stitched onto a wall-hanging, or
scratched into the dirt with a wooden stick."

Those words jumped out at me as I read them. I had been seriously questioning blogging, the time I spend doing it, the purpose of it all, but in reading these words I recognized exactly what I loved about the blogging community--so many interesting souls offering up their words to others. I know that many of those words had resonated strongly with me and I only hope one or two of mine may have had the same affect.

From this I imagined the rest of the book as a best-of version of posts, so you'll understand why I liked it. What sealed the deal is that all proceeds from the sale of this book (and the first volume) go to support St. Jude's.