>Gosh Larry, I wonder what part I played in this coming together of you and
>John. I'm the one who read about Project Rosebud in Coping magazine and
>contacted you for more info on that. Then I let the other MOLers know
>about the project. That's where John came in. So now you 2 have
>connected in such a special way. How wonderful!
I did get a call last week from a teacher in CA who had gotten one of the
rosebuds that one of the students in my class had made. She is a teacher
of handicapped children and wanted to find out how she could get her
students in JTPA involved. I gave her your e-mail address, school address,
and several phone numbers, so I hope that she has been able to get hold of
you. She was REALLY interested in doing something similar with her
students. Mary Ann
Dear Mol'ers
>I really do not know if this is appropriate but I have enclosed two
>items within this intro. First a fact sheet about the Rose of Hope &
>Project ROSEBUDS and related background information about myself and my
>dedication to cancer survivorship.
>
>The second part explains my heart or spirituality. IT is a reflection I
>lovingly gave a year ago on September 30th, 1997 on the 100th
>anniversary of the death of St. Therese the Little Flower of Jesus. She
>also was made the 2nd woman doctor of the Catholic Church for this
>anniversary.
>
>Please understand that I am not trying to convert my belief system onto
>anyone of you. I believe it will introduce me iand place me in context
>of where I fit in God's Rose Garden we call life. I know that life is
>special but now I say to everyone...
>
>"Life is Good but it is such a special gift from God!" and "You cannot
>create a RAINBOW for it is a response to life!"
>
>I used to be nicknamed by my special education kids and lovingly called
>Captain Rainbow. When I left teaching due to the disability cancer left
>in my left leg due to a spindle cell sarcoma I was honored by being
>inducted into the National Teacher Hall of Fame in June of 1997 in
>Emporia Kansas. One of the final things I stated in my acceptance speech
>was...
>
>"The secret is the heart. If you are centered from the heart you can go
>and touch the world! This award takes Captain Rainbow as educator in the
>National Teachers Hall of Fame to Dr. Rainbow as minister with children
>in Hospitals halls of fear!!!
>
>I am honored to have been not only mentally but also spiritually
>connected to John Lehner. He is a true answer to prayer and understands
>me the way few do. I believe that God, through his son Christ got his
>mom, Our Lady to get St. Therese to somehow get us together. I can't
>prove it but I know that's how it happened. I'm a man of fantasy and
>tenacity. I have seen so many of my dreams become realities it used to
>scar me. Now I had to abandon everything in my survivorship... even let
>go of an exemplary 25 silver year educational career with special
>education youth in job training and venture into the abyss. The road
>less if never traveled and become a trailblazer for my cancer
>survivorship and sanity.
>
>Low and behold I never realized there were thousands of others like me
>playing blindmans bluff in the shadow of the harvest moon. And trying to
>make sense out of this life between CAT SCANS!!!!!!! Three and a half
>years later I am finally saying thank you and I am in the midst of the
>miracle and miraculously I found all of you. Be careful what you pray
>for guys and gals you just might get it!!
>
>All I ask in return is that you all do not stop nagging me to complete
>my next mission.. Finish writing the book and going across the street to
>the park district lap pool at out local park district health club and
>swim even though the leg on the left just follows. It something I need
>to do for the stress and a type of needed exercise in this setintary
>life I now lead.. Well that's all folks for now. I hope you enjoy my 10
>Rules of the Roses and wonder do you see yourself in a Tournament of
>Roses???
>
> God Speed John Glen, Dr. Terri Martin, and I love Lucy!!!!
>
> Your new friend,
>
> + Dr. Rainbow +
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Project: ROSEBUDS
>Lawrence J. Baran, Ph D
>18303 South California Avenue, Homewood, IL. 60430
>708-957-0072 708 - 957-3177 E-mail: larrybaran@chicago.avenew.com
>
>Dr. Baran latest accomplishment is his contribution to the National
>Coalition of Cancer Survivors
>(NCCS) “Ribbon of Hope” program: “The Rose of Hope.” He was assisted by
>Homewood-Flossmoor High School Special Education student workers this
>summer in their Job
>Training Partnership Act Grant (JTPA) Program. They assembled and
>packaged over 2000 cancer
>learning kits with all of the needed supplies and lesson plans and sent
>them to teachers
>nationwide. Teaming up with future educator Patrick Mogge of the
>National Education
>Association’s Student Program helped make this national project a
>reality. The acronym
>ROSEBUDS - renewing opportunities for students in education to build
>understanding
>through devotion and service has been the philosophy in the effort to
>instill service learning
>across our nation. They are very proud that this efforts had over
>100,000 American students in
>classrooms involved! In all 50 states kids made “Roses of Hope” for all
>of the cancer survivors
>participating in this weekends MARCH activities. Each student
>participated in a lesson on cancer
>and cancer survivorship. As part of this service project, each student
>wrote a message of hope to
>cancer survivors and then assembled the rose and ribbon and attached it
>to the card. Over
>120,000 Roses of Hope were assembled for all of the cancer survivors
>from all over America
>attending this event.
>Special thanks need to be given to:
> teachers in the 1000 classrooms across America
> 100,000 students from kindergarten through high school who participated
>50 disability youth at Homewood-Flossmoor H.S. who assembled these kits.
> The NCCS and the NEA Student Program for the partnership in this
>effort!
>
>Dr. Baran’s paradigm shift is his 3 1/2 year cancer survivorship.
>Completing his doctorate during
>hospitalizations, cancer left a disability in his left leg ending a
>dynamic 25 year teaching career with
>national acclaim for his exemplary work with the disabled. He boasts
>being the first cancer
>survivor inducted in The National Teacher Hall of Fame 1997, recipient
>of the Valley Forge
>Freedoms Foundation, George Washington Honor Medal 1998, the Readers
>Digest, American
>Hero in Education 1995 and Chicago’s exemplary educational award The
>Golden Apple 1995.
>
> Alias, Doctor Rainbow’s personality is contagious with humor, fantasy
>and a sensitivity to the
>sacred. Larry’s philosophies of “Life is Good!” and ” The secret is the
>heart. When you are
>centered from the heart you can go and touch the world!” have been
>reflected in his speeches
>titled “I Found an Oreo Cookie in My Box of Life’s Chocolates” “Second
>Star to the Right”“ A
>Roadmap for A Survivor’s Trip: Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Following
>the Yellow Brick
>Road” and “Is It a Wonderful Life?” for:
> 3 of the MARCH’s Town Hall Meetings in Cincinnati, Houston and
>Atlanta(Aug. 29, Sept. 19 &
>20th)
> University of Chicago Hospitals Triumph Over Cancer Programs
>Northwestern University’s Friends of Cancer Research
>and numerous National Cancer Survivors Day Celebrations
>=============================================================================
>The following is a reflection I was asked to give at St. Anne's Church ,
>Hazel Crest, Il. on the 100th anniversary of St. Therese's death at the
>age of only 24.September 30th, 1997
>
>The Little Flower’s Life was a ” Tournament of Roses” for Saint Therese
>of
>the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face Sermon / Homily September 30, 1997
>
>“Let my thoughts, the words of my mouth and the meditations of my
>heart be pleasing unto you oh Lord!
>Ring around the rosey a pocket full of posey petals - ashes, ashes we
>all fall down! - Unless we become like little children we can not
>enter
>into the kingdom of God!
>
>The Little Flower’s Life was a ” Tournament of Roses”
>Once upon a time, about 125 years ago there was a woman named
>Zelie Guerin who wanted to become a nun and a man named Louis
>Martin who wanted to become a priest but that was not what
>Providence had planned. She became a lace maker and he became
>a jeweler. They fell deeply in love and married. They had a very upper
>class life with 9 children 7 girls and 2 boys. Four of them died at a
>very
>early ageThe 5 surviving daughters all became nuns. When their
>youngest child was 4 the mother died of breast cancer and when this
>baby, called by her father his “Little Queen” was 21 he died after
>several strokes and years of severe memory loss. Their daughter’s
>name was Therese Martin. Tonight at 7:20 pm became the 100th
>anniversary of achieving her goal of becoming a SAINT, and
>successfully competing in LIFE’S Tournament of Roses, for she said
>:“My mission - to make God loved -It will begin after my death. I
>will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower
>of roses as blessings from God!”
>Therese has many descriptors: shy, known to cry and pout often, a
>spoiled little rich girl,somewhat of a loner, didn’t like school, was
>made
>fun of by her classmates, frivolous in fantasy yet similar to many
>facets of the rainbow. She was tenacious, she loved to get a laugh by
>mimicking others especially other nuns. She loved to sing, have fun,
>write poetry, paint, she loved animal and even had a dog named
>TOM. But above everything else she loved God with a passion!
>Therese was a diamond among glass in God’s Garden ready, willing
>and able to be picked when just at the perfect moment of her
>readiness to bloom where she was going to be planted. In fact this
>is where she received her nick name. At the early teen age of 14 she
>took her daddy in the garden and asked his permission to become a
>nun, like her sisters. Louis reached down with tears in his eyes and
>picked a small white flower, roots and all, and thought this such a
>great honor to give all of his daughters back to God. This little flower
>that he plucked he was now transplanting his, Little Flower into
>the servant soil of the Convent Carmel. Therese later kept this
>flower pressed and saw it break from the stem. She predicted that she
>was to die at a very young age. Her tenacity got her dad to take her to
>Rome and in an audience with the Pope. She did not keep silent, no
>she knelt at and hugged his knees asking for his permission to enter
>the convent. His response, ”If it is God’s will it will happen. Four
>month
>later, at the age of 15 she began this tournament. She chose the
>name St. Therese of the Child Jesus was from her conversion
>experience on her 14th Christmas of no longer giving in to her pouts
>and crying and growing up into the responsibilities of a young adult
>giving up her last NOEL stocking filled with treats and treasures. She
>also loved to view the baby Jesus in the straw and manger in the
>nativity scene especially that Christmas.
>
>Her mother gave her a strong sense of the sacred with devotion to the
>Infant of Prague. My mother also taught me this devotion.”The more
>you honor Me the more I will bless you.” Therese loved her mother’s
>statue of the Infant dressed as a little king with a gold crown.
>Therese
>always believed in one hand the Infant held out a little ball. She
>liked
>to think that at any moment he would toss it to her and she could toss
>it back to him, and they would laugh and play In her own words :
>“Is that you Little Jesus, and have you brought your little ball? Since
>you are God, I should bring a ball to you. Could I be your little ball?
>then you could toss me wherever you pleased. . Please dear Jesus,
>make me into your own little ball, so that sometimes I may rest in your
>hands!”. When she was a little older she learned that what He held
>was not a ball after all - but the weight of the entire sin filled
>WORLD !
>Could the Little Infant have been her First Pitching Coach preparing
>her for first practicing ball tossing for her eventual rose throwing
>ministry from heaven?
>But first she needed a strategy to cope with the tournament of life
>and gain a sort of short-cut entrance to heaven...... know as her
>“Little
>Way” not extraordinary rather very ordinary and definitely NOT
>EASY!!! Tonight let’s reflect her Little Way of Therese’s “Rules for
>the Rose.” Her short-cut to become a saint! While on earth you
>only throw roses to God !! They are the little acts of kindness
>that we offer up. Therese said: “Throwing flowers means offering
>you as firstfruits, the least sighs, the deepest woes, my joys and
>my sorrows, my little sacrifices, These are my flowers!!!!!”
> The nun washing clothes and water splashing in her face and the
>nun’s rosary beads clanging against the pew during vespers.
>ROSE RULE NUMBER
># 1 - Make God happy ! Look at life from His point of view! To know
>love and serve Him in this world and the next! It’s the secret way to
>holiness!
>
># 2 - Create a Real Love for God !
>Become Real - She was as human as you and me! Become faithful,
>hopeful and Courageous. Courage is just fear turned to prayer. Know
>that when you are loved on earth you will show love in heaven.
>
>#3 - Become Humble
> “Learn from Me for I am gentle and Humble of Heart” Humble people
>don’t take themselves to seriously! “If you are humble you will be
>happy!” :She accepted herself, her flaws and failings, her weakness,
>her littleness and nothingness.
>“I am just a grain of sand!”
>
>#4 - Become a Child of God
> Accept God’s will for our life’s. Things don’t run smoothly!!! be you
>single, married or religious! Only when we give up our childish ways
>do we have a chance of becoming a child of God. She was not saying
>become a Peter Pan but be more like a Wendy. Learn to trust and
>obey. Surrender all to God. Trust in God always, do not count on
>your own understanding, acknowledge Him and He will direct your
>path!!!
>#5 - Become the Suffering Servant
> In our times of trials and tribulations - be they emotional, physical,
>dysfunctional or spiritual - Don’t tell God how miserable we are tell
>him
>how happy we are to suffer for Him! Therese claims Christ was happy
>to be our redeemer! “Suffering either propels us inward to our
>misery or outward to cling to God!” “
>Accepting suffering is harmony with God ” In the end of her life She
>had 14 months of darkness of an arid prayer life and then she wasted
>away from Tuberculosis and spat up blood constantly all with joy in
>her heart. She claims our gift from God will be PEACE - that passes
>all understanding! She never pretended it was easy! Therese saw the
>hidden beauty of long suffering in the beauty of the hidden face of
>Christ the Man of Sorrow the True suffering Servant! She saw to
>imitate Jesus was her rose of sharing in the mystery of
>redemptive suffering.We don’t want to suffer but Roses are graces
>from God teaching us redemptive suffering. Because of this she
>added the name St. Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face.
> She had experienced both ends of the rainbow. Being oh so human
>and becoming a child of God. Look over to Therese, Look what she
>has been holding all evening, hidden in the roses the cross.. its been
>there all the time .. it was even here on the world held by the infant’s
>ball - the world and yes it leads us to the Cross. The cross she is
>holding with our crucified Lord.
>
># 6 Always keep your eyes upon the cross!!!!!!!! Therese has always
>had her eyes upon the cross, from the cross upon the world held by
>the infant Jesus to the crucifix she held her entire life of her “LITTLE
>WAY!”
>
>THE ENDING
>At the end of the Tournament of Roses one would always receive a
>laurel of roses for victory. Here is the laurel of roses for Therese for
>achieving her goal of showering the world with roses as blessings.
>Therese the saint of modern times, is proclaiming our new world
>order...showering roses..... from the heart and compassion of Jesus
>all grown up Transfigured, Crucified , Resurrected, and full of infinite
>compassion surrounded by a sacred and merciful heart.. surrounded
>by thorns .. maybe, yes maybe, Rose thorns made up from all of our
>sins, faults, shortcomings and transgressions. But it is out of Jesus’s
>crown of thorns that our rose doth bloom... our lives or hopes our
>sorrows our frailties our illnesses, our disorders, our divorces, even
>our disabilities and cancers and coping with our ultimate mortality. Our
>roses all waiting to bloom to fruition. St. Therese thank you for
>sharing
>your gift and ministry with us during the twentieth century .. let us
>imitate you from this day forward as we enter into the third
>millennium.....
>You loved the child Jesus but you grew by imitating Christ. If we all
>look at your image you taught us the secret of the rose is the secret of
>the heart. If you are centered from the heart you can go and touch the
>world!! you placed roses so lovingly, yes look , so lovingly Roses
>around the Heart, around the crucified heart of Jesus. and he in turn
>up in heaven they are placed through His fingers but I bet that His
>mother our blessed mother helped to pick them from the garden laurel
>of her Immaculate Heart and hands them to His Sacred and Merciful
>HEART of her son, who then hands them to your hands and
>showering theses roses as blessings from heaven upon us so we can
>all become little saints too!!!
>
>Thank you for helping my disability children falilitate over 3 million
>red,
>white and blue roses to the Armed Services and Veterans!
>
>And now with Children and Adults with cancer .. children at Wylers
>and Children Memorial are making them for Adults with cancer... the
>Card with roses...
>Karen the Social worker... the kitchen .. the kids with cancer the
>chemo machine the parents , the syblings, , Tiffany, Annie, Cathleen,
>Jose, Karen and Therese!!!!!! The national rose for cancer!
>
>And now listen to Therese speak to us from a place where love
>never ends!!!Listen to her now speak from heaven - “Well, the little
>child will strew flowers. ...I have no other means of proving my love
>for
>you.... I desire to suffer for love and even rejoice through love; and
>in
>this way I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon
>one without unpetalling it for you. While I am strewing my flowers I
>will
>sing...even when I gather my flowers in the midst of thorns, and my
>song will be all the more melodious in proportion to the length and
>sharpness of the thorns.
>O Jesus what use will my flowers be to you? Ah! I know very well that
>this fragrant shower, these fragile,, worthless petals, these songs of
>love from the littlest of hearts will charm you. Yes, these nothings
>will
>please You. They will bring a smile to the Church Triumphant. She will
>gather up my flowers unpetalled through love and have them pass
>through Your own divine hands, O Jesus. And the Church in heaven,
>which are now infinitely valuable because of your divine touch, upon
>the Church Suffering in order to extinguish its flames and upon the
>church Militant in order to gain the victory for it!
>
>My personal Rose Stories:
>During WWI when France was all but conquered, the soldiers prayed
>to her. She came to them in the front trenches and on the battlefields.
>Many of them saw her there, in her Carmelite robe, as the shells burst
>through the night. She stood at the side of the wounded and the dying,
>and she comforted them. But she came not to the French soldiers
>alone. Many an American soldier was sure that he owed his life to her.
>
>1. Flags in the Desert
> delivering rose kits all over kingdom come...
> 4th grade teacher from my prayer group was hustled into helping....
>and a dear friend..... Maureen Mulkernin
>In her condo parking garage exchanging boxes of roses.
>She told me if I new about St. Therese blessing the troops with these
>roses.. I retorted, Maureen don’t give me any of that Catholic Trivial
>Pursuit Stuff about the saints... I then said, “ This boutonniere has
>represented God & Country to me ... the three roses the trinity and the
>flag country!!!! She responded , “Will you let me explain?” “St.
>Therese ,the little flower’s mission and ministry after her death was
>to
>shower the earth with roses as blessings from Christ!” I was
>astounded.
>That January a women named Helen Grahm from St. Mary’s Kansas
>called me to say thank you for her husband a Captain in the Air Force
>received one and sent it home as his Christmas present. She offered
>the services of the people of Kansas to help make 25,000 of these
>wonderful boutonnieres. I then was inspired to witness to her about St.
>Therese. I asked if she happened to be catholic and she said yes I
>then explained about the blessing of roses from heaven. And how God
>was protecting our troops with these roses. I’ll never forget her return
>phone call several days later.. Helen wanted me to know she received
>a belated Christmas card.. enclosed in the card was a prayer card of
>St threse with the prayer and story of the roses as blessings.
>No one can convince me what those special education kids did wasn’t
>part of a higher calling to do
>God’s work on earth. I believe that each and every man and women in
>the US Armed Services received three blessings as roses Red, White
>and Blue,!!!1
>At the end of two of her books an Therese they tell of soldier of WWII
>Frenchmen praying for her intercession and many spottings of her
>ministering to the wounded and dying in the battle fields and especially
>the American soldiers saw her too!! That gives me such
>convictions!!!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lawrence J. Baran, Ph.D.
>
>Consultant and Public Speaker for:
>Educational Leadership and Entrepreneurship
>Special Education/Vocational Education
>Partnerships in Patriotism
>Cancer Survivorship
>Programs for Youth with Disabilities & Special Medical Needs
>
> National Awards:
>National Teachers Hall of Fame:97
>George Washington Honor Medal:97
>American Hero in Education:95
>Golden Apple:95
>
>Phone and Fax 708 957 - 0072
>
>LarryBaran@chicago.avenew.com
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
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