The Noticer Chapter 3

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

I don't know about you guys who read this book, but I absolutely LOVED the way the old man Jones uses certain animals to characterize each love language.  A cat exemplifies physical touch -- they feel and express love towards their owners this way.  The love language of quality time is represented by the canary.  He actually stated the fact that if a canary is ignored, it will eventually die.  Did anyone out there know that?  I sure didn't.  I guess as people get older, they become like canaries no matter what their love language used to be when they were younger.  What I mean is they just want someone -- anyone-- to spend time with them.  If there's no-one to do that, they eventually pass away from simple neglect.  No wonder why older people in a retirement home just light up when someone comes to visit them.  What about the older people on our street who live alone?  How much of a blessing could we be to them by just stopping by to say hello every now and then?

Then there's the puppy dog, who is the example of the person who thrives on spoken words of approval.  A dog's world is perfect when he is being praised, and crushed when he hears disapproval from his master.  And isn't that just the way it works with our children?  At a very early age, they learn to look forward to our words of praise, and simply shrink into themselves when we express dissatisfaction in a most negative manner.  If we just took the time to think about how we should interact with them rather than react to the things they do, maybe our relationships with our children might grow stronger as they get older.

The goldfish represents our folks who simply want favors and deeds as a token of our love towards them.  I may be wrong about this, but it seems as if most women  (myself included) love it when our spouse and children do things for us: pick up after themselves, wash the dishes so we don't have to, or keep the car clean and serviced.  I wouldn't be surprised if disagreeable moments and spats decreased considerably due to more deeds and services being performed for moms and wives everywhere this week IN ADDITON TO the candy and flowers (NO HINT INTENDED, PASTOR CHRIS -- LOL).

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