It occurs to me…

Photo taken of a wall of the Henley Building in Galveston. Thought has been rolling around in my head recently as things unfold.

I started reading Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety.  I say “started reading” because I am so captivated by the first chapter that I keep rereading it.  A bit foreboding, perhaps, and some might say dark, even, perhaps, morose, with lines like these (writing of a group of close friends): “What ever happened to the passion we all had to improve ourselves, live up to our potential, leave a mark on the world?….Leave a mark on the world.  Indeed, the world left marks on us.” 

There is that trade off, it seems.  The more one wants to “leave a mark on the world” the more one is exposed to being “marked up” by the world.  And perhaps that is why I am skittish about moving on to Chapter 2.

From A Distance popped up on my playlist recently, a great song by Julie Gold, made popular by Nancy Griffith, then Bette Midler. The song rattled around in my head a while. The photo is of the kazoo that sits on a shelf in my home office, proving the point that one never knows when a kazoo will come in handy.

Photo taken recently while attending some work related lab work. I thought the contrast in material was interesting.

Howard Thurman strikes a chord today when he writes about “the fine art of gracious living.”  Of it he writes: “It is the antidote to much of the crudeness and coarseness of modern life.”  It is the way to combat “the supercilious flippancy used as the common coin of daily intercourse.”  

That sent me to the dictionary as I had not seen/heard the word “supercilious” in so long I wanted to make sure I understood it. Webster defines it as “coolly and patronizingly haughty” whereas the online dictionary defines it as “behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others.” What a great word, though I am concerned that is using it, one becomes it.

That aside, pick either definition. Thurman, as usual, has it correct.  “The fine art of gracious living” is a good prescription for the “crudeness and coarseness of modern life.” 

And since I have the dictionary open — per Websters: “Gracious” – “marked by kindness and courtesy.”

Indeed, particularly today, a little of that goes a long way, always has, always will.

The words aren’t quite there, but sometimes a photo does just fine without them, perhaps better. Sharing this photo taken in Galveston in April.

In times, on days, like these, I take solace in the lyrics of this David Wilcox song. It doesn’t fix things, but it gives me hope.

From. St. Augustine:

“Thou hast made us for Thyself and our souls are restless ‘til they find their rest in Thee.”  

Quoted by Howard Thurman after (as the answer to) this:

“Whether your childhood was sad or happy as you look back upon it, there is one thing that is true.  There were moments of intense and complete joy, which for the instant left nothing to be desired….  Do you remember?  It was a foretaste of something for which you would be in quest all the rest of your days….”

One to chew on from Howard Thurman, Deep Is The Hunger:

“One reason why high dedication is so difficult is to be found is the fact that it is extremely arduous to formulate for oneself a purpose that is sufficiently high to be challenging and, at the same time, capable of demanding the consent of both one’s mind and heart. To so much, one’s heart may say “yes” while the mind says “no.”  War at one’s center — this is the tragedy of modern man.”

A lot to digest here, but it occurs to me that this is, indeed, where the daily “battle” is often fought.

From Mary Oliver’s Snow Geese:

…I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us….”

I’ve never thought of those breath-holding moments in that way, an effort to stop time, but it fits.  Immediately on being overtaken by that sense of wonder, we take that deep breath and hold it, as if in doing so we can freeze the moment in time.  And while we can’t stop time, thankfully, most of those moments, at least some of them, are stored in a virtual photo album lodged deep in the recesses of the mind.  It is as if the deep breath depresses the button and the camera of the mind does its thing.  We can, as we choose, pull those memories out and at recall the moment “something wonderful…touched us.”