As I still must look at my notes rather than close my eyes and speak all eight virtues not from memory but from more deeply and fully from my heart,it is a powerful reminder that God is not finished with me. And to be honest as Mark Twain would have said, I am not so sure about you too.

Scientists at the University of California measured thousands of people at various stages of life and found there were eight common variables among those who reported the happiest and most fulfilling lives, best health for their age group, active and helpful in local volunteer work, tended to believe in a God and an afterlife, and had no doubt they were going there, but were in no hurry. These attributes to bliss are:

1, Count Your Blessings. 2, Commit acts of kindness. 3, Savor the joys of Life. 4, Thank a mentor. 5, Learn to forgive. 6, Stay close to family and friends. 7, Take care of your body. 8, Develop strategies to cope with stress and hardship.And there you are

Science sees us as master apes who have convinced ourselves there is a God and a Heaven if we are good. Thus we grow up, as did I, knowing that Santa will not give us a lump of coal if we were good mostly all year.

We were often loved enough to receive these lessons or be taken to a bible or Sunday school and learn all these lessons, and go home feeling aglow if got to help a little old lady across the street on the way home. And what if we finally listen and find she didn't want to cross the street?

Well,we get to help her back across the street. A boy scout can convince himself that was two good duties, but there is that little doubt, so you look for another little old lady on a street corner. This time you ask.

So even us Adams who God restricted on the communications skills and gave most Eves more intricate verbal circuits Up There, and a gent needs to have had a close relationship with his mom, which I did, to learn to just chat away. Mom knew everything, which seemed just so amazing.

Hopefully you can also tap into these more female virtues, and also share these marvelous memories. I recall asking mom why the government did not just print more money and give it to the poor, and while she was baking cookies she explained that inflation would then drive up the price of everything.

Mom had lived as a child in the brutal depression that now only third people experience, and had seen if we gave away too much and could not match it with income, we could be like the German people in the depression who had to take a wheelbarrow of their money to buy a loaf of bread.

And if you gents are lucky as I was and also have a sister and then daughters and then grand daughters you gradually find you chat along with them all with ease and lucky you, lucky me, thank you God.

They still expect you to be the man, fix the sink, scare off the bear, and I guess so does God but as women become the doctors it is a good thing.

So step by step, Count Your Blessings, and from the second day on Acts of Kindness could be carried out with elegance and grace by you, Mary Poppins, with your magic wand of happiness.