Abundance of Virtues

H. Schneider Richard

Description

DISCOVER A DEEP SENSE OF HOPEIN THE WORLD AROUND USA celebration of life, An Abundance of Virtues contains true stories about people who have exemplified one of the five virtues of faith, compassion, truth, courage, and grace. Author Richard H. Schneider, a journalist for more than fifty years presents slice-of-life vignettesboth personal and from interviews he conducted throughout his thirty-eight-year career as an editor with Guideposts magazine.An Abundance of Virtues narrates stories about teacher Marva Collins, who helped failing schoolchildren achieve academic excellence through the power of grace; Reginald Andrews, who leapt onto subway tracks to save a man he didnt know; Jimmy Stewart, whose faith guided him through horrific air battles in World War II; and Donald Seibert, whose commitment to truth helped him rise to become CEO of a major corporation. As a strong ship carries things useful for life and can be a refuge from suffering, the inspirational narratives relayed in An Abundance of Virtues provide motivation and can help others face the challenges on their lifes journey.For some thirty years Dick Schneider was the soul of Guideposts. These are some of his greatest stories ever. Edward Grinnan, Editor in Chief, Guideposts Magazine

Sujets

• Assertiveness

Informations

• Publié par: Inspiring Voices
• Date de parution: 05 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781462401796
• Langue: English

Extrait

My first office at Guideposts was next to Dick Schneider’s. I think the editor-in-chief put me there so I would see what a story-writing dynamo Dick was. When Dick finally retired it took three editors to replace him. For some thirty years he was the soul of Guideposts. These are some of his greatest stories ever.
– Edward Grinnan, Editor in Chief, Guideposts Magazine
Dick has talked to everybody, from Hollywood stars to Gloucester fishermen, from business moguls to railroad mavens, and from all he finds an inspiring story because he himself is an inspiration. His writing is a treasure of hope and faith, just like him.
— Rick Hamlin, Executive Editor of Guideposts Magazine
These are qualities that distinguish the inspirational writer: faith, empathy, perception, optimism, humility, generosity of spirit. Dick Schneider is richly invested with all of them, and they have enabled him to assemble for Guideposts magazine its most abundant body of life-changing stories. In this he has no equal and, very probably, never will. Here are his best.
— Jim McDermott, Roving Editor

AN ABUNDANCE OF VIRTUES
Stories about People Who Have Changed My Life
RICHARD H. SCHNEIDER

 
Copyright © 2012 Richard H. Schneider
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0178-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0180-2 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0179-6 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012941396
Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scriptures marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Inspiring Voices rev. date: 08/27/2012
Contents
Foreword  
Introduction  
Faith  
The Virtue Of Faith  
… And Then The Rooster Crowed!  
Trouble, Thank You  
Guideposts Family Day Of Prayer  
Anchor Watch  
How To Be An Eskimo  
Star Of Wonder  
The Meaning Of Hog Pen Gap  
Quake!  
Act Of Faith  
I’ll Never Forget You, Starr West Jones  
A Different Kind Of Traveling Salesman  
His Mysterious Ways  
Compassion  
The Virtue Of Compassion  
The Good Ship  
Final Salute  
On The Job  
All Alone Out There  
Spring Break Away  
A Dance To Remember  
A Cat Named Sweetie  
A Blessing Of Bears  
World’s Largest Rummage Sale  
The Arlington Ladies  
Gordie Howe: Hockey’s Genial Giant  
It Is A Wonderful Life  
Truth  
The Virtue Of Truth  
Getting There  
The Golden Door  
Be Careful, It’s Contagious!  
Remembering  
Lady Liberty And The Honest Man  
Neighbors  
Finding The View In The Viewfinder  
Break Out Of Boredom  
A Place Like Home  
A Boat For A Fisherman  
A Sea Change  
David Buckley Had An Idea  
Kinfolk  
Sincerely  
Courage  
The Virtue Of Courage  
Dying For Their Faith  
Lights Along The Shore  
The Day Dad Sold Dixie  
A Grand New Flag  
Flight From Fear  
The Four Chaplains—Fifty Years After  
Iona  
A Long, Cold Walk  
Wagons West  
Two Good Men  
A Son Called Peter  
Grace  
The Virtue Of Grace  
The Snoopy Factor  
Chain Reaction  
Tv Is Touched By An Angel  
Guideposts Visits Lew Ayres  
Getting The Best Of The Blues  
I Will Not Let You Fail  
The Shy Visitor  
The Steamship Glasses  
Afterword  
 
For Betty, who has made the last sixty-six years of my life so wonderful.
 
Without the publishing acumen of David Morris, vice president of Guideposts Books and Inspiration Media, and the indefatigable work of my assistant, Sharon Azar, this book would have never seen the light of day.
 
 
 

 
 
How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
Psalm 104:24–26 (NIV)
 
 
“Ordinary people who accomplished the extraordinary through the strength of their virtues, inspired me to try to follow their example.”
Richard H. Schneider
 
 

Foreword  
Strength that Spends Itself on Others
T he year was 1967, and a group of editors was seated around a table in Guidepost’s editorial office in New York City. We were reading the finalists in a story-writing contest to decide who would attend the first Guideposts Writers Workshop.
In the end, we chose only twelve manuscripts from among the thousands of entries. The “prize” would be a grueling week of writing, rewriting, and editing under the guidance of Guideposts editors, all of us sequestered in an isolated French chateau on New York’s Long Island Sound. From before breakfast until long after dinner, we’d conduct a kind of learning marathon.
From the very beginning of the week, one participant stood out. His name was Richard Schneider, whose bio told us he worked in Chicago for the publicity department of Walgreens Drugstores. What intrigued me about Dick was that he never seemed to tire. First to get up in the morning, last to get to bed, he was regularly seated late at night in the chateau lounge rewriting his manuscript on a battered typewriter with the old-fashioned hunt-and-peck method.
But also, Dick found time for others. It was he who brought hot chocolate to a fellow student with a cold. It was he who had the kindest word for someone else’s work. And it was he who often led our morning prayers. Clearly Dick was a strong guy. Very strong.
A few years later, Guideposts asked Dick to move to New York and join our editorial team. Dick proved to be outstanding at ferreting out stories, interviewing subjects, writing, editing. We joked that he was a one-man editorial staff. But beyond working with manuscripts, again, it was Dick who visited sick staffers or soothed a colleague whose work had been rejected. Where did this man find his capacity to give?
Now, after several years at the magazine, Dick has retired with time to write this eye-opening book about virtue. As I picked up the manuscript, I wondered how he would handle such a seemingly old-fashioned subject.
We usually think of virtue as referring to moral behavior. But the Bible uses the word very differently. There, virtue means strength. Virtue and virility are related words, virtue implying strength expended on behalf of others. Luke uses the word in recounting the story of the woman with the issue of blood, which no doctor had been able to staunch. In desperation, she reaches out and touches just the hem of Jesus’ garment. As she does, Jesus “felt virtue go out of Him.” Strength that achieves in an instant what years of “spending all her living” on various cures could not. This is the strength that responds to the pain of others and reaches out to heal. It is the virtue Dick describes in this book.
Elizabeth and John Sherrill
Introduction  
I t was while walking down a Baltimore street one fall evening with hockey great Gordie Howe that I gained a new insight into what we commonly know as virtues: the “better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln called them.
I had come down from New York to interview Gordie Howe for Guideposts . His team at the time, the Houston Aeros, had just won a hard-fought battle with the Baltimore Blades, and we were walking back from the stadium to his hotel. He had suggested that we meet after the game, though I could tell that this forty-seven-year-old man was exhausted.
Even so, fans had trailed after us from the stadium, asking for autographs and trying to engage him in conversation. I had seen other sports stars at times like this, and it was not uncommon to see them simply ignore the fans or turn them away with a brusque “Some other time.”
But not Gordie Howe.
He patiently stopped and exchanged a word or two with each of the eager fans and then cheerfully signed dozens of autographs there under the street light. I could see all too clearly why he was popularly known as the “Genial Giant.”
Later that night, as I rode the train back to New York, I found myself musing on H