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Imagine that Everyone Is Enlightened

So I finished The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay.  In its place I have placed in the “meditation room” a book by Richard Carlson, Ph.D. entitled Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff… and it’s all small stuff. The title of the essay I read this morning was Imagine that Everyone Is Enlightened Except You. It immediately made me think of my first rule of driving:  Everyone on the road is an idiot except me, AND I should not be too sure about myself.

The base premise of the essay is that every obnoxious driver, discourteous clerk, line cutter, etc is actually an enlightened person that is trying to teach you a necessary lesson. They are teaching you about patience, forbearance, acceptance, etc.

Part of me finds this an interesting concept of how to go through your day and deal with all the frustrations, big and little, that come our way.  It would certainly help to maintain your blood pressure in an acceptable range.  But it does remind me a bit of the old joke about the man who prayed for patience.  Boy, did the deity send him some lessons to learn patience.

But then part of me thinks, “Well, Grasshopper, maybe you’re the enlightened person trying to teach them a lesson when you flip them off or get in their face…”

But then you say, “Oh Grasshopper, cannot you see that is two sides of the same coin?”

Must be a lot of us out there needing to get us some learning!

And so it goes…

Keep well.

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…and a HUG around the Neck

A while back I wrote a little story, A bushel and a peck… about buying a small painting while we  were in New Orleans. The painting has a little bird with the saying, “I Love You, a Bushel and a Peck”.  I speculated in that posting about completing the ditty with another painting that said “…and a Hug around the Neck”. 

I contacted the artist, Katie Leese, at her website JeanBird.com.  I told her what I wanted. She sent me a couple pictures of possible backgrounds, and the artistic Señora picked one. Katie’s surcharge for custom work was only $10 more than the price of one of her paintings on her website or at her stand in New Orleans  I think the pair display very nicely in our kitchen. Most importantly, they make both our hearts glad when we see them.  It was money well spent.

Keep well.

 

 

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Serendipity

Robin and I were in St. Charles visiting some friends.  After we crossed the Missouri River, we took the back way home.  We drove down River Valley Drive and eventually turned up the steep hill that is Hog Hollow Drive.  About half up we came across this.  For wild turkeys they were not the least skittish.

Serendipity

Keep well.

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Sarah’s Smiles

“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ~~ Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

There are many different words that I could and do use to describe my wife, Robin. One such word would be charismatic; people are just attracted to her. She genuinely loves people, and people love her back.  She is kind and patient, qualities that served her well during her 30 plus years as a special education teacher. She is also a bit ADHD, but she uses it to good stead, getting a lot done with her need to keep moving and to be doing something.

She has also experienced great strife and loss in her life.  She and her mother had a very “complicated” relationship. Continue reading “Sarah’s Smiles”

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Word of the Day – Dingle

  • Noun: Dingle
    1. a small wooded valley
  • Synonyms:
    1. dale
    2. dell
    3. vale
    4. valley
    5. glen
  • Usage:
    1. “The hobbits saw that they were descending into a great dingle, almost as round as a bowl, very wide and deep crowned at the rim with the high dark evergreen hedge. “
  • Encountered:
    1. While rereading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for the umpteenth time

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #876

yeah I know you did not ask!

Okay, this one is a little off-color.

For some reason I began to think of the word junk as being used as an euphemism for the male genitalia.  A brief search on the Internet describes the origin of this use of the word as murky.  First use in print with this context was in gay literature.  To me, it seems a little counter-intuitive to use the word, junk, this way.  Most guys that I know strive to keep their “junk” very well polished, one way or another, not something you typically do with junk. (Insert your own comedic rim shot here.)

Just for grins and giggles, if you are interested here are a couple links of the multitude of articles on the subject.

Origins of ‘junk’ as slang are murky

Even the New York Times weighed in: On Language:Junk

 

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The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

I bought this book a while back for Señora after hearing the author interviewed on an NPR podcast. He sounded like an interesting fellow and the two readings that he did during the interview were (wait for it) delightful.    With Señora’s health issues she occasionally struggles with her mood.  This book struck me as a possibility to shine a little light into her days.  She was grateful for the gift and placed it on the nightstand on her side of the bed.

I noticed after a while that she was not reading it much as the bookmark had hardly marched past the first few pages.  In fact she had only read the first 11 essays.  Since she was not reading it, I placed it in the downstairs baño Continue reading “The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,294

yeah I know you did not ask!

Okay, I am officially totally sick and tired of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  I almost never read these celebrity stories, and these two are all over my Internet news feeds. Perhaps my aversion is the result of my opinion that Prince Harry is one of the most henpecked men on the planet. She just cannot be that good!

Henpecked was not my first word choice, but I try to keep it somewhat clean unless I truly need the seasoning of profanity.

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That Old Time Gospel Music

I had passed the following around in an email.  In response to a reply I decided to post it on Curmudgeon-Alley and add a little something to it. My Jewish wife was playing Amazing Grace on the piano and was singing along… She just loves the music, but I still find it humorous, her selection  of this song as it is epitomical Christian hymn. Many years in various choirs has also resulted in her singing many  Christmas songs this time of year.  On the other hand (my hand),  I find it ironic that as an agnostic that I like gospel music so much.  It harkens back to my childhood.  My mother’s mother, Mama Carr, seemed to always have had a gospel station tuned in on her big plastic desk top radio.  I have many fond memories of her and her house.

Now just for Jeanne… I know you were looking for Robin’s performance, but you will have to settle for Elvis.

 

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Quote of the Day — Theodore Roosevelt

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.” – Theodore Roosevelt

 

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