“It is not the critic who counts…” Theodore Roosevelt. This Friday morning, my message will be brief, for a variety of reasons. I have been reflecting on how difficult it can be, when you are a people pleaser from childhood, to be criticized. It feels personal. When I was in a position to be making […]
“You may bury my body down by the highway side. So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride.” ~Robert Johnson. There is something about music that transports us. Last Saturday I was visiting Atlanta, and in one day experienced three distinct genres of music. I drove with my daughter-in-law to get […]
‘The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than both of them.” ~ Marcus Garvey. It may be an advantage, or a disadvantage, but ever since I was seven, I have lived in countries and cultures that were not mine by birth. Moving from the UK to Jamaica at that age […]
“We’re one people, and we all live in the same house. Not the American house, but the world house.” ~ John Lewis. The best authors pull you in with their first sentence. It was Charles Dickens, that great storyteller, who has one of the best first sentences of all times, which inspired the title of […]
Let us now praise unfamous women, And our mothers that begat us. (Adapted from Ecclesiasticus 44:1). It may sound strange, but I find much to appreciate in a funeral. I have often learned more about the person who died at the celebration of their life, than I knew of them when alive. It so happens that last week I […]
“Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.” ~ Buddha. Last month I participated in a daily challenge. The challenge was daily, my participation was more sporadic. We were given a prompt to write a poem. One day the prompt […]
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” ~ H.L. Mencken This morning I find myself unable to give the energy I need to an original Friday Morning Message. I have been working on a big report at work, and have to acknowledge that I can’t do everything, so this morning I had […]
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” ~ Albert Einstein. If all things were equal, I would live within sight of mountains. Anyone who knows me, knows this about me. I was born in a city (Manchester, UK) which is not far from the Pennines, a chain of hills that separate […]
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” ~ John Muir. The week between Christmas and the New Year has always been special to me, mostly because my birthday falls in this week. Today is extra special because […]
“A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. With Christmas almost upon us, it has been interesting to reflect on the strange absence of […]
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