Tag Archives: Jamaica

FMM 1 6 2023 Higher Ground

“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 […]

FMM 12 16 2022 What is your intention?

FMM 12 16 2022 What is your intention? “Life, if well lived, is long enough.” ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca. December is the best month.  I say this, of course, because it is the month of my birth.  And then there is that other great day that falls just five days before my day.  As a […]

11 18 2022 Citizen of the World

“We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.”~ Haile Selassie. My grandmother was born in Patagonia, Argentina. Her parents had […]

FMM 11 11 2022 The Untethered Spirit

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” ~ Thomas Merton. My father went to Jamaica in 1963, having accepted two jobs. One was to be minister of a charge with only three churches (the usual charge had five or more churches), and the other to be chaplain and part time teacher at the […]

FMM 10 14 2022 Poets and Pragmatists

“Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.” ~ Sigmund Freud. I still own a book of poetry that was sent to me by one of my aunts when I was about 8 or 9.  The title called to me, ‘The Littlest one, his book’ since I was the youngest, […]

FMM 10 7 2022 Joyful Together

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” ~ Karl Barth. You don’t hear the word ‘sulking’ much anymore. I am not sure what the current term is for holding on to anger in a silent, brooding way.  I clearly remember a couple of episodes from my childhood where I milked a good ‘sulk’ for as […]

FMM 9 2 2022 Living History

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl. I often wonder what happened to Evelyn.  The first school I went to in Jamaica was a private ‘Prep’ school, run by a married […]

FMM 8 12 2022 This Land is Whose Land?

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” ~ Albert Camus. I don’t know when it was that I first began to truly appreciate nature.  I remember the night that my father woke up my brother and I to […]

FMM 7 22 2022 Collective Conscience

“Conscience is a man’s compass.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh. I am not sure when my fascination with the history and culture of Native Americans began. When I was about 7 years old, my mother was not able to be present with me for some event, and I was rewarded with a special doll I had […]

6 17 2022 Let us now Praise

“When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.” ~ Coretta Scott King. I have been blessed to have had many strong women in my life who showed me a template of […]