Thoughts on Hope, Old and New

You might, perhaps, give up on yourself, but would you so easily give up on others in your life you care deeply about? And might that be the secret to sustaining hope -- each of us being another's hope? I will not give up on you if you will not give up on me.  

Hope is not a plan, but without hope, nothing else is a plan, either.

Why would you chase a hopeless dream?  Perhaps for the dream. Perhaps for the chase.  Perhaps to meet another hopeless dreamer.

What does a lifetime of hope give you?  It gives you a hopeful life, and in the end, what more can you hope for?

And No One The Wiser

 It is now 65 years since I published my first "aphorism," thus striking off on the tangent that became a life's journey. I had, at the start, a high opinion of the aphorism as an art form, characterizing it as 

"A single sentence that totally exhausts its subject."  

In later years, I became a bit less reverent of the genre, offering the following observation:

"The aphorist finds in every truth a wise saying and in ever contradiction -- two wise sayings."

And today, in the clarity of old age, I offer two candid assessments, including a definition of the word  "aphorism" that I suspect will prove definitive:

"One is more apt to become wise by doing fool things than by reading wise sayings."

"Aphorism:  a truth trivialized by cleverness."

Don't say you weren't warned. (smile)

Sunday Sermonettes

There resides in the human soul a sense of unworthiness, which, if you deny the existence of a Higher Good, raises the question,, "Compared to what?"

What you know for sure about someone qualified to speak for God is that you are equally qualified.

It is always the good who judge themselves.  The wicked know enough to ask for a jury.

 

A religious belief can be true although all who proclaim it publicly privately doubt it; indeed when all who proclaim it publicly are hypocrites. 

There are the truths you try to live by and the lies that make it possible.

Mind Droppings

 If there is a lesson to be learned from reading biographies, it is that no one enters this life with a plan.

To know all the facts about anyone is to be considerably more informed on the subject than they are.

It is always the member last admitted who believes that standards for membership should now be raised.

Many a high school drop-out believes in a God who is all-knowing, but few believe in a God who is better educated.

You will never change someone's mind who regards everything you tell them as a nefarious plot to change their mind.

If you believe that there is only so much wealth to go around, you will eventually believe that there is only so much freedom to go around.

If there's one thing evil does well, and good not so well, it is to establish societies for its preservation. 

It is the goal of the unjust not to defy the law but to become the law.

Thoughts at Age 86+

 "To be beautiful, you need only be beautiful in someone's eyes, and it continually amazes how little actual beauty that requires."

"It is hard, when you discover that someone can't handle the truth, not to keep telling it to them."


"There is a point in getting to know you when people come to understand you, but how do you tell them to stop right there?"


"I shudder to think...which is why I have largely given up the practice."


"Sometimes it seems like you've spent your whole life preparing for an inspection that never happened."

"Life never tires of testing the proposition that life must go on."


"It always surprises how much of any human emotion is just time that needs to go by."

The Daily Battle

 "Remember this -- that you are exceptional, no matter how hard the requirements of everyday living try to make you average."

I, My Shadow

This Sun you speak of, my shadow asks,

This invisible light in the skies,

Why does it never reveal itself?

Why does it hide from my eyes?

This Heavenly Thing that created me,

This lantern somewhere above,

Why do I never feel its warmth?

Where, for me, is its love?

And what to a shadow does it mean

 To be born of some mystical Light,

If only to fade at the end of the day

And vanish into the night?

Monday's Child

A poem written in the final days of the 2nd Iraq War

"Monday's child is fair of face..."

She cradled in her soft embrace
her Monday's child, fair of face,
a winsome brown-eyed baby boy,
in all her life no greater joy.

She watched him grow, a handsome lad,
so much the image of his dad
that neighbors called him little Bill,
but he, he could not wait until --

-- the day he turned a bare eighteen
to march away, a proud Marine
to follow his commander's voice
and fight the latest war of choice.

They brought him home, his face disguised.
To glance beneath was not advised.
She smothered in a last embrace
her Monday's child, fair of face.

-- Robert Brault

Immortality

Would you really want to be immortal -- to live forever in this life with no chance of escape? Is it even possible to remain sane before such a prospect?  Besides which, what crime did you commit that you should be sentenced to life with no possibility of parole?  

More Common Sense From Mom

O, how much wiser I would be

If I could sit me on my knee

And pat myself upon the head

And say the words my mother said.

"My son," she said, so lovingly,

"You mustn't sit you on your knee.

You'll dislocate your lower back

And strain your sacroiliac."

Mental Maunderings

 "If every individual on earth were perfectly objective, would there be such a thing as an individual?"

"What if instead of a parallel universe, there were a perpendicular universe?  Discuss."

Did you know that the Washington Monument was named after Abraham Lincoln? That's right -- Lincoln was named in 1809; the Washington Monument wasn't named until 1888.  

"Why does every person now living think they are going to die when no person now living ever has?"

If you can say, "She sells seashells by the seashore," why is it so hard to say, "I'm sorry."