Dear Lord; Good morning Father!<\/p>\n
Father, today marks the birth of someone who greatly influenced my early years, as well as the lives of many other children throughout the world.\u00a0 And while he\u2019s no longer with us here, the legacy he left behind continues to inspire, educate and delight those who read his works.\u00a0 I\u2019m of course speaking of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known by his pen name of Dr. Seuss.<\/p>\n
While he made a point of not speaking to any one religion or group in his writings, his messages of tolerance, understanding and peace were obvious and recurring themes in the books he wrote.\u00a0 Through whimsical characters, engaging stories and tongue-twisting rhymes he made learning fun while passing along the underlying positive messages to his young audience.\u00a0 Even as an adult, I still get a smile reading his stories.<\/p>\n
The one published exception to his self-imposed rule of not writing works with obvious religious connotations came in a full-page, full-color article in the December 23, 1955 issue of Collier\u2019s Magazine, where he wrote \u201cA Prayer for a Child\u201d<\/em>* :<\/p>\n \u201cFrom here on earth,<\/strong><\/em> Please tell all men<\/strong><\/em> (We understand.<\/strong><\/em> Heavenly Father, thank You for the gifts this man brought to me and to so many other children.\u00a0 While his words may not specifically carry Your name, Your Light shone brightly through his works all the same.\u00a0 Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/em><\/p>\n Dear Lord; Good morning Father! Father, today marks the birth of someone who greatly influenced my early years, as well as the lives of many other children throughout the world.\u00a0 And while he\u2019s no longer with us here, the legacy he left behind continues to inspire, educate and delight those who read his works.\u00a0 I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[991,465,207,583,132,320,915,989,487,173,110,208,276,593,916,51,475,345,407,104,355,824,506,845,392,25,445,993,217,205,585,318,73,114,990,697,300,992,348,723,138,454],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-prayer-for-a-child","tag-birth","tag-birthday","tag-books","tag-children","tag-connotations","tag-dear-lord","tag-dr-seuss","tag-earth","tag-father","tag-fun","tag-gift","tag-gifts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-influence","tag-inspire","tag-learn","tag-learning","tag-light","tag-message","tag-messages","tag-morning","tag-need","tag-obvious","tag-peace","tag-positive","tag-positive-messages","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-read","tag-religion","tag-smile","tag-thank-you","tag-theodor-seuss-geisel","tag-understand","tag-understanding","tag-whimsical-characters","tag-word","tag-words","tag-work","tag-works"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-aJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrom my small place<\/strong><\/em>
\nI ask of You<\/strong><\/em>
\nWay out in space:<\/strong><\/em>
\nPlease tell all men<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn every land<\/strong><\/em>
\nWhat You and I<\/strong><\/em>
\nBoth understand . . .<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\nThat Peace is Good.<\/strong><\/em>
\nThat’s all<\/strong><\/em>
\nThat need be understood<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn every world<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn Your great sky.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\nBoth You and I.)\u201d \u2013 Theodor Seuss Geisel<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n*The poem and image used are Trademark and Copyright of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"