A creative mom Danielle Lindemann is a mother to a soon-to-be 3-year-old daughter. When she received the Disney-brand book What Is A Princess? as a gift for her daughter, Lindemann thought the messages seemed a little shallow.

Lindemann’s efforts included changing “A princess is kind” to “A princess is kind of a badass” and completing the sentence “A princess likes to dress up”. “I just want my daughter to see that she can be anything she wants,” the mom explained, “She can also speak her own mind and be a doctor or a senator if she wants.”

After Lindemann made the changes, she thought her daughter might be a bit confused, but the daughter actually just rolled with it. Lindemann did not intend for many people to see her edits. She just found it amusing. Though she didn’t imagine having such a wide audience, Lindemann says she thinks it’s great if her edits make people smile or even think a bit differently about gender models.

Further, Lindemann added, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with girls (or boys!) wanting to put on something sparkly and feel pretty. But when the ruling idea is that girls — and women — are judged mainly on their physical appearance in a way that boys and men are not, I think it’s important to model some other values for these girls as well.”

As a parent, she believes it’s important to show girls that their worth does not lie only in their physical appearance and that their other qualities are valuable and important. For her, if there were a variety of children’s books out there in which little girls were shown playing with trucks and trains and learning to be engineers and surgeons, and if there were books out there in which boys were shown getting a kick out of dressing up in fancy clothes, it would be a different world.

“At present, it’s not that world. But time will tell,” she stressed.

Not long ago, a good friend of mine asked me to help him in a halfway house in Nashville. I agreed and made my way there one evening.

When I got there, I sat with my friend and talked about how he ended up there. As we talked, another man came up, lighting up his cigarette as he sat down. He had dark, leather skin, and looked like he had endured the sun, the rain, and the wind for long, long time. I couldn’t tell how old he was, but I was sure that he was younger than he looked.

Through a bit of conversation, I found out that he had been on the streets for many, many years.

Without my asking, he started describing life as a homeless man. How he got food; how he stayed warm; how he got money. And he told me something that caught my attention.

He said, “You want to know how I keep my stuff safe at night?”

“Sure, “ I replied.

“I put it up in the trees.”

“Why is it safe in the trees?” I asked.

“The homeless are always looking for treasure on the ground--- coins, something someone’s dropped, half-smoked cigarettes. I know if I put my stuff in the trees, they’ll never find it because they never look up. Never. “

Profound words from an unexpected place. And his message is for all of us.

We all have our particular search. We’re looking for treasure on this earth. But what we are REALLY looking for is right there above us. There’s really nothing we need on the ground.

In fact, it’s surrounding us.