[分享]Chicken Soup美文阅读

下天

CS5
  写在前面：another story about "things are not always what they seem"

A Brother Like That
~ Dan Clark ~

A friend of mine named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it. "Is this your car, Mister?" he asked.

Paul nodded. "My brother gave it to me for Christmas." The boy was astounded. "You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn't cost you nothing? Boy, I wish..." He hesitated.

Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.

"I wish," the boy went on, "that I could be a brother like that."

Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, "Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?"

"Oh yes, I'd love that."

After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, "Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?"

Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again. "Will you stop where those two steps are?" the boy asked.

He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car.

"There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And some day I'm gonna give you one just like it... then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I've been trying to tell you about."

Paul got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.

That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when he had said, "It is more blessed to give..."

下天

Too long ! It will spent me much time and money if I read that all! What a pity!

well, you can download them on your hard disk and taste the soup later. OR, buy the Chicken Soup series in bookshops.

after all, they are worthy of reading.

下天

CS6
  写在前面：珍惜和享受生命中的每一天，不要对自己过于吝啬

Everyday is a gift
--- A Story To Live By
by Ann Wells (Los Angeles Times)

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package.  "This," he said, "is not a slip（纸片）. This is lingerie."  He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite（精致的）; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb （蜘蛛网，蛛丝）of lace（花边）. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached.  "Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion." He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician（殡葬员）. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me.  "Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores （琐事）that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special.

I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed my life. I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden.  I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savor（使有风味，尽情享受）, not  endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia （茶花）blossom.  I wear my good blazer （颜色鲜明的运动夹克）to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out （交付，支付）$28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing（畏缩）. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends'.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now. I'm not sure what my sister would have done had she known that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles.  I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I'm guessing--I'll never know.  

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write--one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.  

I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives.

And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special.  Every day, every minute, every breath truly is ... a gift from God.

下天

CS7
  写在前面：记得是《读者》上转载过的文章, 题目好像是”为流浪者种一行蔬菜“；中国也有不少乞丐，但似乎不是种一行蔬菜能够的解决的
  大二时，软件工程老师讲过自己的亲身经历：一日，与儿子逛街，街边一乞丐。师拿出零钱，让儿子交与乞丐。走了几步后，儿子回头惊叫：”爸，乞丐叔叔在打手机！“。师无言。
  火车站、公园也经常有老人和残疾人请求施舍，但他们是真实意义上的乞丐吗？有些幼小的残疾儿童，他们能自己支配所得的施舍吗？还是为幕后者利用？
  中国应该有更好的社会福利机构，为饥饿者种一行蔬菜仅仅只是一个开始

Plant a Row for the Hungry
By Jeff Lowenfels

It was a cold night in Washington, D.C., and I was heading back to the hotel when a man approached me. He asked if I would give him some money so he could get something to eat. I'd read the signs: "Don't give money to panhandlers." So I shook my head and kept walking.

I wasn't prepared for a reply, but with resignation, he said, "I really am homeless and I really am hungry! You can come with me and watch me eat!" But I kept on walking.

The incident bothered me for the rest of the week. I had money in my pocket and it wouldn't have killed me to hand over a buck or two even if he had been lying. On a frigid, cold night, no less, I assumed the worst of a fellow human being.

Flying back to Anchorage, I couldn't help thinking of him. I tried to rationalize my failure to help by assuming government agencies, churches and charities were there to feed him. Besides, you're not supposed to give money to panhandlers.

Somewhere over Seattle, I started to write my weekly garden column for The Anchorage Daily News. Out of the blue, I came up with an idea. Bean's Cafe, the soup kitchen in Anchorage, feeds hundreds of hungry Alaskans every day. Why not try to get all my readers to plant one row in their gardens dedicated to Bean's? Dedicate a row and take it down to Bean's. Clean and simple.

We didn't keep records back then, but the idea began to take off. Folks would fax me or call when they took something in. Those who only grew flowers donated them. Food for the spirit. And salve for my conscience.

In 1995, the Garden Writers Association of America held their annual convention in Anchorage and after learning of Anchorage's program, Plant a Row for Bean's became Plant a Row For The Hungry. The original idea was to have every member of the Garden Writers Association of America write or talk about planting a row for the hungry sometime during the month of April.

As more and more people started working with the Plant a Row concept, new variations cropped up, if you will pardon the pun. Many companies gave free seed to customers and displayed the logo, which also appeared in national gardening publications.

Row markers with the Plant a Row logo were distributed to gardeners to set apart their "Row for the Hungry."

Garden editor Joan Jackson, backed by The San Jose Mercury News and California's nearly year-round growing season, raised more than 30,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables her first year, and showed GWAA how the program could really work. Texas fruit farms donated food to their local food bank after being inspired by Plant a Row. Today the program continues to thrive and grow.

I am stunned that millions of Americans are threatened by hunger. If every gardener in America - and we're seventy million strong - plants one row for the hungry, we can make quite a dent in the number of neighbors who don't have enough to eat. Maybe then I will stop feeling guilty about abandoning a hungry man I could have helped.

lyl315lyl

Yes
It to  long,If I spend much time to read it ,I will cry@

下天

CS8
  写在前面：战争是残酷的，受害的总是老百姓，受伤的总是军人……也许战争发起者在挑起战争前，应该先考虑一下枪口下无辜的人们

Silent Angel
By Duane Shaw

Christmas Day, 1967. I'm a patient at the Ninety-Third Medical Evacuation Hospital near Saigon, Vietnam. Today I'm semi-alert, but unable to sleep and agonizingly scared. The constant aching pain in my arms and a pounding headache make me tense. I feel helpless. My spirit feels empty, and my body feels broken. I want to be back home.

It's impossible to get in a comfortable resting position. I'm forced to try and sleep on my back. Needles, IV tubing and surgical tape are partially covered by bloodstained bandages on my arms.

Two days earlier, my squad's mission was to secure the perimeter of Saigon for a Christmas Day celebration featuring Bob Hope and Hollywood's Raquel Welch. While on a search-and-destroy patrol, near the village Di An, we were ambushed on a jungle trail by a small band of Vietcong guerillas. My right thumb was ripped from my body by AK-47 assault-rifle fire and fragments from a claymore mine grazed my face and neck.

This medical ward has twenty-one sick and injured GIs, and one recently captured, young-looking Cambodian. Restrained, he lays severely wounded in the bed next to mine. I'm filled with anger and hostility. As an infantry combat veteran, I've been brainwashed to despise the Communists and everything they represent.

The first hours are emotionally difficult. I don't want to be next to him. I want to have an American GI to talk with. As time passes my attitude changes; my hatred vanishes. We never utter a word to each other, but we glance into one another's eyes and smile. We're communicating. I feel compassion for him, knowing both of us have lost control of our destiny. We are equals.

The survival of the twenty-two soldiers in the ward is dependent on the attentiveness and medical care from our nurses. Apparently, they never leave our ward or take time off. The nationality, country or cause we were fighting for never interferes with the loving care and nourishment necessary to sustain us. They are our life-keepers, our guardians, our safety net, our hope of returning home. It's nice to just hear a woman's voice. Their presence is our motivation to get well so we can go home to our wives, children, moms, dads, brothers, sisters and friends.

Christmas is a special day, even in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home. Today the nurses are especially loving and gracious. Red Cross volunteers help us write letters to our families. All of us still need special attention plus our routine shots, IVs, blood work and I swallow twenty-two pills three times a day. Even on Christmas, life goes on in our little community, like clockwork, thanks to the dedication of our nurses. They never miss a beat, always friendly and caring.

There's a rumor that General Westmorland and Raquel Welch will visit our ward today and award Purple Hearts to the combat wounded. I'm especially hopeful it's true because I would receive the commendation. The thought of meeting Raquel Welch and General Westmoreland gives me an adrenaline boost that lasts throughout the day.

By early evening we realize they aren't coming. Everyone is very disappointed, especially me. The day's activities cease quickly after a yummy Christmas dinner and most of my ward mates slip off to sleep by seven or eight o'clock.

It's impossible to sleep. The IVs in my arms continue collapsing my veins one by one. I'm pricked and probed by what feels like knives, not needles. My arms are black and blue after many failed attempts to locate a vein for IV fluids. I occasionally doze off, only to be awakened by the agonizing pain of another collapsed vein and infiltrating fluids. My arms are swollen to twice their normal size. This pain is worse than my gunshot wound.

It's 11 o'clock Christmas night. The ward is silent. My comrades and the Cambodian warrior sleep. I'm tense and suffering.

To avoid waking anyone, I silently signal a nurse. She comes to my side and gazes into my tearing eyes. Quietly, she sits on the side of my bed, embraces my arm, removes the IV, then lightly massages my swollen, painful arms.

Gently, she leans over and whispers in my ear, "Merry Christmas," and gives me a long, tender hug. As she withdraws, our eyes connect momentarily. She has tears running down her cheeks. She felt my pain. She turns and moves away, ever so slowly back to her workstation.

The next morning I wake slowly. I have slept throughout the night and feel rested. I see while I slept a new IV was inserted in my arm. The swelling is gone. Suddenly, I remember the nurse coming to my side in the night and my Christmas present. I'm thankful and think of her kindness. I look towards the nurses' workstation to see if I can see my angel nurse but she's gone.

I never see her again, but I will forever honor her compassion toward me on that lonely Christmas night.

下天

Yes
It to  long,If I spend much time to read it ,I will cry@

Read more, you will spend less time and have more fun

eubel

so good.thanks a lot.

下天

CS9
  写在前面：here comes the soup that is shorter and easier to taste

"Are You God?"
By Dan Clark


One cold evening during the holiday season, a little boy about six or seven was standing out in front of a store window. The little child had no shoes on and his clothes were mere rags. A young woman passing by saw the little boy and could read the longing in his pale blue eyes. She took the child by the hand and led him into the store. There she bought him new shoes and a complete suit of warm clothing.

They came back outside into the street and the woman said to the child, “Now you can go home and have a very happy holiday.”

The little boy looked up at her and asked, “are you God, Ma’am?”

She smiled down at him and replied, “No son, I’m just one of His children.”

The little boy then said, “I knew you had to be some relation.”

下天

CS10
  写在前面：祖、女、孙三人恶劣自然条件下的互救。读完之后偶还纳闷：受伤的老太太是如何在黑暗中将其140磅的女儿从悬崖边拉上来的？

Disaster on a Mountain
By Patricia Lorenz

When Ruth Hagan was seventy-eight years old, she visited her daughter Judy and teenage granddaughter Marcy in California. They headed for their cabin, zigzagging forty miles up and down the mountains in their Bronco, from pavement to gravel to a narrow one-lane road of brittle shale and powdery dirt that wound terrifyingly close to cliffs.

After dinner Marcy announced the water tank was low and that she would take the Bronco down to the pump and get water. Ruth was nervous about her young granddaughter driving down the narrow dirt road by herself, but Judy reminded her that Marcy had been driving vehicles up there on the ranch roads since she was twelve.

"Just be careful, Marcy," her mother warned. "They've had a dry spell up here and the cliff side is pretty shaky. Be sure to hug the mountain side."

Ruth said a quick prayer as she and Judy watched Marcy from the big window where they could see the road winding down the mountainside. Fifteen minutes later Judy was still watching when suddenly she screamed, "Oh no! God help us! She went over the cliff, Momma! The Bronco and Marcy - they went over! We have to help her! Come on!"

The cabin door slammed and Judy took off running. Ruth ran behind her, but Judy was quickly out of sight after the first turn in the road. Ruth raced down the steep hill, breathing hard. She ran on and on, down the hill, up the next, trying to catch up with her daughter. It was getting harder and harder to see anything at dusk. Ruth stopped cold and looked around.

She screamed into the darkness "Judy, where are you?" Off to her immediate right and down the cliff she heard, "Down here, Mother! Don't come near the edge! I slipped on loose rocks and fell over. I'm down about twenty feet."

"Oh dear God, Judy, what can I do?"

"Just stay back, Momma! The road is giving out all over! I think I can crawl back up. I saw the white roof of the Bronco when I was falling, Momma, and I heard Marcy calling for help. She's alive! But she's way down there in the ravine. You have to go back to the cabin and phone for help. Tell them to send a helicopter. We have to get Marcy out!"

Ruth resisted looking over the edge to make sure Judy was really okay. She turned around and started running back up the hill she'd just stumbled down. Up one hill, down the next. She had one hill left to climb when she stumbled on loose dirt and rocks and fell on her face. Chest pains took her breath away. She started to sob. "Dear God," she prayed, "please help me get back to the cabin so I can call for help!"

At that moment something went through Ruth. It was like a powerful energy and she knew for certain that somebody was there to help her. She heard the words, "I am here." She stood up, completely relaxed and rested. A surge of pain-free energy propelled her forward.

Ruth ran on confidently, faster than she had before, and up that last big hill. She turned into the cabin driveway, pushed through the front door and dialed 911. She sputtered out the details of the disaster but unfortunately, she had no idea where she was. The dispatcher was totally confused. Ruth had to get Judy up to the phone so she could give directions. Ruth stepped out of the cabin into total darkness. She grabbed a three-foot-long walking stick propped against the cabin door and started running back down the switchback road.

She continued to run with energy and determination through the darkness. Up the hill, down the hill, up the second hill. Suddenly she stopped, not knowing where she was. "Marcy! Judy!" she shouted.

A faint voice cried from directly below. "I'm here, Grandma."

Another voice. "Momma!" It was Judy.

Ruth dropped to her knees, then lay flat on her belly as she scooted herself closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. She held the walking stick over the edge and asked Judy if she could see it.

"I see it, Momma, I'm almost there."

Ruth heard gravel rolling around where Judy was climbing. Within minutes, Judy grabbed the other end of the stick and Ruth pulled her 140-pound daughter up and over that cliff. Judy crawled into her mother's lap, shaking and sweating and immediately passed out.

Ruth held her close and stroked her wet forehead. "Judy, Judy, wake up. We have to get help for Marcy!" Ruth kept talking and rubbing her daughter's head. Finally, Judy came to. Ruth pulled her to her feet, and the two women started walking. Dazed and bleeding, Judy fell three times as they worked their way back to the cabin in the darkness.

When they reached the cabin they heard the phone ringing. It was the volunteer emergency crew on the other end. Judy sputtered out directions to where Marcy was. As soon as she hung up, she and her mother started down the mountain again to meet and guide the rescuers. They trudged up the hill, down the hill. Still full of energy, calm and confident, Ruth held on to Judy, for Judy's sake, not hers.

An hour later, the fire trucks, ambulance, paramedics and, finally, the Flight for Life helicopter arrived. It took three-and-a-half hours to cut Marcy free from the wreckage at the bottom of the cliff. At last the sheriff pulled her out of the back end of the Bronco and carried her to the waiting ambulance. She was rushed to the hospital for treatment of a crushed ankle and severely broken leg, foot and finger.

The next day, when the sheriff came to visit Marcy in the hospital, he shook his head and said, "That mountain didn't beat you."

Ruth Hagan knew the mountain didn't beat them because God was there that night, protecting her, guiding her, breathing strength into her frail body. Ruth, Judy and Marcy all have their lives to prove it.