DAY THREE

So here's a story. It's about synchronicity, magic, and little miracles. I think you'll like it.

A few months ago, I got an email from a woman named Karen who said she'd picked up a copy of the Grandmother book from a display while standing in the checkout line at a bookstore. It was just before Christmas. The line was long and the book was short, so she had a chance to read the whole thing before she got to the counter. She wanted me to know that she ended up buying ten copies and sent one to a friend in Jordan.

A month later, I got an email from Karen saying her friend in Jordan had sent the book to Lebanon. Then an email saying the person in Lebanon had shared the book with a neighbor who was a professor of political science at the American University in Beirut. They talked about how the story could be used in his curriculum. Finally I got an email from a woman in Lebanon who said her mother (name: Laila) had given her the book.

The only thing I knew about Karen was that she lived in Sonoma County and wrote short, no-frills emails.

Enter a woman named Anne, who phoned me at my home in Ashland the day after I'd decided to make this California book-reading pilgrimage. She, too, lived in Sonoma County, and was eager to share the story about how someone had read the Grandmother story to her meditation group -- whereupon, group members bought several HUNDRED copies to give as Christmas gifts. The group wanted to send me a thank-you card. She was calling to get my address.

Anne wanted to know if I'd ever be coming to Sonoma County to do a reading. "As a matter of fact..." I said. Whereupon, she asked if I'd like to read in Santa Rosa. "Indeed I would!" I said.

I emailed Karen to tell her about the event Anne was going to arrange (I thought they might know each other -- they didn't). Karen wrote back that she is principal of an elementary school in Santa Rosa and wanted to know if I'd come there too. I was so excited!! It had only been a few days since my decision to take the book on the road, and already, sort of by accident, I had two readings!

As it turned out, Brook Hill Elementary School was more than a reading, and Karen was definitely more than a principal. She is a multi-lingual, two-time Fullbright scholar (with programs for educators in Egypt and Jordan) who works 80 hours a week. She has the biggest smile, the hugest heart, and the most enthusiasm and energy I've ever witnessed in one human. And she needs it all.

Brook Hill Elementary is a school in a white-flight neighborhood where more than 90 percent of the students are Hispanic, Cambodian, Vietnamese... most are on the free-lunch program and 60 are homeless. She knows how important it is for the school to be a safe, peaceful, hopeful, loving place. And that's what it is. Adorable, polite, shy-smiley children who run up to her for hugs. Caring teachers who I witnessed spending hours collating and tying turquoise yarn around sets of cards made from students' entries in a peace poster contest.

What Karen planned for my visit was a WHOLE DAY-LONG PEACE EVENT that included the Mayor, the Superintendent of Schools, a member of the School Board, and many significant community others reading peace books in the classrooms. There was a school assembly at noon where children and teachers sang peace songs, and an icecream event where two of the cutest fifth-grade boys you'd ever want to meet bought me a fudgecicle. At 5:30, there was tea party in the multipurpose room for the community. Teachers brought in their china tea sets and lace tableclothes and fresh flowers and cucumber sandwiches and little fancy yummy things! There was a full house!

People visited. I read the story. Children sold their peace cards to raise money so the sixth graders could go to camp. A School Board member told Karen there was magic in the room. Indeed there was.

And, oh yes, Anne -- the woman who started the whole chain of events by phoning me -- she was there, too, along with a member of her meditation group who has bought 25 Grandmother books and takes women friends out for coffee or breakfast or lunch, one at a time, reads them the whole story, and then gives them the book to pass on.

And the people said, "Amen."