Category Inspirational

FMM 9 21 18 Do your Thing

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ~ Berthold Auerbach. One of the challenges of writing a message every Friday morning, is trying to knit together the variety of threads that catch my interest during the week.  Some weeks random items come together in a harmonious message, eventually; at other times […]

FMM 9 14 18 Change the Lens

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau.  Wales is known as the land of song.  It is the land of my forefathers too; both of my parents were descended from men and women that lived in that historic piece of the United Kingdom.  It is a […]

FMM 9 7 18 Raising the Bar

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~  Nelson Mandela. My father-in-law was a character. He was well known in the village where he lived, for he was loud, he did […]

8 31 18 I’m with Them

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~ Frederick Douglass. Music formed the backdrop to my formative years.  In a little Jamaican town where the Saturday open air market was our mall, and the only place we got dressed up to go was church, we milked every ounce of pleasure out of music.  […]

FMM 8 24 18 New World Order

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”~ Stephen Hawking. I never forget the first time I heard the saying that the definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting to get different results.  I was in one of those continuing education classes, trying to get my hours at the last minute […]

FMM 8 17 18 Out for the Count

“Without music, life would be a mistake” ― Friedrich Nietzsche. Fridays used to be mental arithmetic day when I was in primary (elementary) school in Jamaica.  It was a special day anyway, a good half of the students had to stay home to help with the chores, so there was space to spread out on the […]

FMM 8 10 18 Shadow Boxing

“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” ~ Malorie Blackman. I was not a girlie girl when I was young.  I am constantly flummoxed by the way little girls nowadays are in such a rush to grow up.  I remember being quite annoyed at receiving […]

FMM 8 3 18 Book of Rules

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have”. ~ James A. Baldwin. I know most people love to say that preachers’ and teachers’ kids are the worst.  In Jamaica we would say ‘parson pickni a di baddiss!’  But the reality of growing up in […]

FMM 7 27 18 Never Quit!

“He that is down need fear no fall; he that is low,  no pride.”~ John Bunyan. I can think of a number of times in my life when I have stood on my high horse, determined to make a stand about something, only to have it backfire in some way.  Or times when I have […]

FMM 7 20 18 It’s only Birds

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”~ Langston Hughes. There are a few songs from my childhood memories that feature birds.  In wintertime in England we worried about poor robin-redbreast, who had to keep himself warm, by hiding his head under his wing (poor thing).  We […]