I am smitten by, and have quoted before, author Christopher Morley’s last message to his friends when he died in 1957. “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is badContinue reading “What’s out there”
Category Archives: Free yourself
a sky is full of reasons
I think a sky is full of reasons to look up. I think there is no end to up and stars go on forever. I think a world of possibilities is a lifetime. I think the more I think the less I see. I think looking up shows all the reasons to hope. I thinkContinue reading “a sky is full of reasons”
Like Harvesting
We check back to see if anybody “Liked” our words and/or pictures – we peek at the sales figures – seeking signs of validation and approval, some little marker that we made a connection. That’s OK. That’s one reason to write – to reach minds, sometimes to change other minds, and sometimes to say thingsContinue reading “Like Harvesting”
The War Prayer
116 years or so after he wrote it, Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” remains powerfully relevant. For everyone who applauds the New Boss’s bombing of the Middle East today: The War Prayer by Mark Twain It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, inContinue reading “The War Prayer”
People want peace
There it was, in the middle of a writing exercise where the mentor said “number a page from 1 to 25 and write 25 sentences as fast as you can, beginning with the words “I wish …” In the middle of things like “I wish I exercised more” and “I wish I would finish myContinue reading “People want peace”
The good common sense of the Sabbath
“Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Six days of work, and then rest. I encountered the article that Anne Helen Petersen used as the basis of her book Can’t Even: How Millennials became the Burnout Generation, and something about her descriptions of burnout sounded, well, a little like me. I am not a millennial.Continue reading “The good common sense of the Sabbath”
All things lead to hope
There it is again. Here it? A spark of life, and where life is, there is hope. The ruins of yesterday can be rebuilt. The harsh edges may be smoothed over. The debris and the wreckage can be cleared away and replaced by new, glistening structures built on a foundation of love and peace. TheContinue reading “All things lead to hope”
And the music is still everywhere
“I want to live,” the soul says with every fiber of its being. “I want to soar. I want to fly. I want to dance. I want to feel. I want to run, I want to sit still and drink all this in, I want to swim, I want to float quietly in the sunlight.”Continue reading “And the music is still everywhere”
Heed the quiet
Take a deep breath and listen for peace, and you will find it. The world calls us to chaos, but if we pause to listen, there is that still small voice — hear it? Turn from the chaos and listen.
Enough!
Enough! Enough shouting in anger and indignation and oh so outrage. Enough, sez I. Enough woe is me I wish life were easier. Enough crying how dark it is out there. Enough, enough, enough. Yep, we’ve all heard enough angry partisans to last us a lifetime. I’ve heard enough indignant mutterings to know you’re indignant.Continue reading “Enough!”
