Looking Back

Pixabay

It is amazing how quickly we can forget from where we have come from.  If we allow ourselves to be always forwards looking to greener fields, which many people teach is the right was to proceed in life, we can loose contact with how we got to this point anyway.  Who were the people, and what were the circumstances that have given us our outlook on life?  Do you recall that teacher who showed confidence in your abilities, and encouraged you to look beyond your self-imposed horizons?  Do we remember the loves found, and loves lost that taught us how to love, or sadly how not to?  Are we thankful for those rough times, when it just seemed that life was going nowhere, or worse still spiraling out of control?  Yet, you are still here, how did those moments make it that you are?

We are the sum of every person we have ever met.  We are the legacy of the events that framed us.  Let’s take a few moments to day to reflect and recall, and then move onwards into the unknown.
From whence have you came?

And to what place do you now go?

What were those fertile fields –

That nurtured and helped you grow?

You are but one person,

But yet a multifaceted being

You have been moulded and shaped

Everyday by life’s everythings.

 

Padre

 

Peppermint

Jim Adams has challenged us to spice it up  this week on Song Lyric Sunday.  Terms like Cinnamon/Mint/Parsley/Pepper/Rosemary/Sage/Salt/Thyme were noted in the challenge, and I have gone with peppermint.  The song written by Joey Dee and Henry Glover,  and released by Joey Dee and the Starliters in 1961.  It became a favourite during the Twist dance era.  It has had several covers and is just fun.

Padre

Lyrics

Well, gonna do a dance and it goes like this

The name of the dance is the peppermint twist

In a night like this – a peppermint twist

Round and round, up and down

Round and round, up and down

Around and around, and a up and down and a

One, two, three kick, one, two, three go

Well, meet me baby on a Boni’bay Street

The dance where the peppermint twist is me

We want to learn to do this – the peppermint twist

It’s allright, all night

It’s allright (allright, allright, allright)

It’s okay all day

It’s okay (okay, okay, okay)

You want to learn to do this – the peppermint twist

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

You want to learn to do this – the peppermint twist

Come on everybody, lay your hands

Ah, you looking good

I’m gonna sing my song and it won’t take long

I’m gonna do the twist and it goes like this

Round and round, up and down

Round and round, up and down

Around and around, and a up and down and a

One, two, three kick, one, two, three go

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

I want to learn to do this – the peppermint twist

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah, (yeah, yeah, yeah)

I want to learn to do this – the peppermint twist…

 

Source: LyricFind

 

Songwriters: Henry Glover / Joseph Di Nicola

 

Peppermint Twist lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management

 

 

Gently Glide Away

 

Pixaby

Epitome of quiet calmness

Side by side skimming

Content with things what may

Facing the world together

Companions forever

As together they gently glide away

 

Padre

 

 

Explorer

Unsplash

He was noted as an explorer – intrepid

A pathfinder for all who followed

While others at home, in self-pity wallowed

He sought new horizons and scenes

His arrival from afar had caused celebration

His homecoming was quite the thing

Everyone wanted to know what he’d bought

While out at the Mall – shopping

 

Padre

 

Weekend Writing Prompt #159 – Intrepid in 52 words

FOWC with Fandango — Homecoming

 

 

Point of View

Pixabay.com

Into the depths

Amid scenes of decay

Descent into

A world of chaos

That depresses – dismays

Up from the depths

To possibilities new

Ascent into

A better day

 

Padre

 

Inspiration Call Writing Prompt

Seek First The Kingdom

Pixabay

Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
do not trust your own cleverness.
Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle. (Prov 23: 4-5)

While it used to be a common saying, that someone was trying to “keep up with the Jones,” we have as a society moved beyond that.  Now we want to be the Jones.  Or better still the Kardashians.  Even our public leaders at the highest levels speak of their accomplishments, and focus on their poll numbers.

Wealth and fame have become ends in themselves, and having enough just isn’t enough.  The problem with such an approach is that it is self perpetuating.  The insatiable desire for more leaves us discontented.

The Proverb warns about this lust for material gain and fame.  It cautions against trusting in our own cunning, and implies God’s disapproval of claiming that His gifts of talent are our own accomplishment.

If the Covid crisis has shown nothing else, it shows how illusory worldly security is.  A microscopic organism can bring down economies, much less individual savings, or even whole portfolios.

Let’s then seek joy and contentment in the things that are more enduring.  Let us be thankful for our families, friends, and communities.  Let us be grateful for food in our bellies, roofs over our heads, and fresh air and clean water.  But let us also acknowledge the One who has bestowed these upon us.  And once we recognise these as gifts, let us share them with those who lack them.  Riches may well “sprout wings” and fly away.  But let us not hold them captive like a caged bird whose incarceration leads to death.  Rather, let them fly free to thrive and bless others.

All that glitters is not gold

There are things more valuable we are told

Virtue and honour,

Good deeds and kindnesses to unfold

Are the real riches manifold

To be apace with Kim and Caitlyn do not seek

Especially if in doing so you trod on the weak

But follow a path loving, seeking just enough

Remember God when followed,

Will provide the other stuff (Matt 6:33)

 

Padre

 

 

Warning!

photo by Raúl Nájera via Unsplash

Heed this warning, don’t go ahead

Do not enter, once this sign you’ve read

The last guy who ignored it, on a landmine tread

 

Padre

 

Three Line Tales, Week 226

 

 

 

 

To Read, To Know, To Live

Tale Weaver

It is said that “knowledge is power.”  Humans have an incredible ability to obtain knowledge.  However, two obstacles stand between an individual and the harnessing of that power.  The first is access, and the second is retention.

As individuals we have the limitation of experience.  We cannot know what we have not encountered.  Our great grandparents could not “know” about a life aided (or controlled) by iPhones.  Leonardo da Vinci, for all his genius, could not know what it is to experience flight.  Even today, there are realms in which we as individuals cannot roam.  When was the last time you saw a unicorn?

Even when we do experience something, we cannot always hold onto it.  There is just too much “knowledge” out there.  Arthur Conan Doyle put the expression of this idea into the mouth of Sherlock Holmes:

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. . . . It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

Put simply – we cannot retain everything we learn.

However, these twin obstructions to our knowledge based power have a cure: reading.

If knowledge is power, then the manifestation of that power is words.  Recording, and accessing the written word gives us an avenue to experience the knowledge of things we have not encountered for ourselves.  We can through reading “meet” that illusive unicorn.   Furthermore, we don’t need to clog the “attics” of our mind.  We can store knowledge in a written form, and retrieve it selectively as and when we want it.

All of the power of the world.  All of the knowledge of the generations can be yours when you read.

 

Padre

Tale Weaver – #277 – Reading

 

 

 

Water Under The Bridge

CCC #81

That’s water under the bridge they say

But just what does that mean?

Is is waters that have flowed away,

Or those that have yet to be seen?

 

That’s water under the bridge they say

The mistakes and follies we’ve made

But is it not those very things

That make us what we are today?

 

That’s water under the bridge they say

I wait expectant of what the new tide will bring

What opportunities, joys, and friendships new

Will make my heart and soul to sing?

 

Padre

 

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #81

 

 

Reflection

Pixabay

Your head resting upon my shoulder

A fleeting smile and suggestive wink

Caresses upon a summer’s eve

Your clutter above the bathroom sink

These things I long for –

To name but very few –

What I am trying to say –

Is in the end that I miss you.

 

Padre

 

Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge: End a piece of prose or poetry with the phrase “I miss you”