Every
Child
Has known God.
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come dance with Me."
Come
Dance.
A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.
That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered
And did some serious binge drinking.
They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.
Then the "night candle" rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
Said to his friend—for no apparent
Reason,
"What should we do about that moon?"
Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music
Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.
Did you know that Scholl Exercise Sandals boxes are the perfect size for holding plastic slide containers? We have several Scholl boxes full of slides in our basement.
I’ve been transferring some old photos from slides to digital. As I sorted through the images choosing which ones to transfer, I contemplated the Scholl’s box.
Exercise sandals? In no way was that footwear appropriate for exercise.
I owned several pairs myself and loved them, but I never once wore them to go for a run, or even a brisk walk for that matter. I would never have considered wearing them to join a pick-up game of ball.
Those sandals count as exercise footwear only if anything we put on our feet to walk around is also to be considered exercise wear: exercise rubber boots, exercise, socks, exercise stilettos.
Great marketing idea, I guess, because people love to think they are exercising, but accurate? I don’t think so.
We’re still falling for similar misleading advertising for diet and exercise products, according to this Saturday Evening Post article: “Con Watch: Avoiding Weight Loss Scams.” Will we never learn?
I’m going to put on my exercise slippers and walk to the fridge while I think about it.
A few weeks ago in her post Planned Spontaneity, Laurie Buchanan of Tuesdays with Laurie contemplated the different growing patterns of trees and pondered how that compared to how we lead our lives.
Are you a planner, with specific ideas of which you want to go?
Do you live haphazardly, bending every which way?
Like most people, she is a cross between two styles: 70% planned, 30% free spirit.
I am about 50/50, but when I was younger I led a much more planned existence. Spontaneity made me uneasy back then. In fact, friends used to make fun of my wary stick-to-routine life and pushed me to step outside my comfort zone.
And then I became a freelance writer. Talk about unpredictable.
I have developed more comfort with the “unexpected.”
Once I discovered that some of my most amazing life experiences occurred when I said, “Let’s go this way and see what happens,” spontaneity came more easily. When I allowed life to unfold naturally, it always seemed to lead me to an important and life-changing experience.
“Given the unpredictability of this crazy world, it’s good to be able to grow with the flow,” I wrote in Laurie’s comment section, and that feels true to me. Best not to cling to plans in this COVID time, am I right? It has forced even the most wary of us out of any routines we might have been sticking to.
I’m trying to grow with that flow. All of this feels important and life-changing.
But, how can we hasten slowly? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
And yet, it seems we do. All the good stuff comes out of hastening slowly.
A university degree: scribbling notes and typing assignments during caffeine-driven all-nighters . . . for four years
A thriving marriage: juggling careers and taking whirlwind vacations, chasing around after toddlers, paying down the mortgage . . . for decades
Children: pacing the floor during sleepless nights, car pooling to hockey games, gritting teeth at parent-teacher interviews, wanting everything to be perfect for them . . . for, well, forever
Published writing: handwriting first drafts, transcribing messy second drafts, editing, reading aloud, pacing, getting up in the middle of the night to change a word . . . for days, weeks, years
When rewards are slow coming, it is easy to get discouraged. Whether it is raising money for a good cause, learning a language, landing a recording contract, establishing the perfect garden, or mastering the “Moonlight Sonata” on piano, we must push on.
And if we stop typing, juggling, paying, pacing, gritting, planting, weeding, watering, playing, practising, reciting, conversing—if we stop hastening—then we never reach the goal.
Whatever your destination, hasten to it, and slowly you will arrive.
One person had died in my country. I tried to imagine who that one person was. Perhaps it was a mother from Newfoundland, or someone’s petite soeur from Québec, or a farmer from the prairies, or a former lighthouse keeper on the British Columbia coast.
Somewhere in my country yesterday a family was grieving.
This morning I checked the stats. At the time I started writing, there were +1481 new deaths worldwide.
I tried to imagine who those people were. Perhaps they were mothers from Florida, or someone’s petites soeurs from France, or farmers in Russia, or former lighthouse keepers in Australia.
Just now I reloaded the page, and it looks like this. In the last half hour the number increased by +1.
The number +1 allows us to try to imagine that person. We can empathize. When the number is much larger, it becomes impossible to draw individuals in our minds. The empathy thins out or disappears. But we can’t forget that the large number is made up of 1s.
