Water into Wine

The other day I was doing a final edit on a client story.  My boss suggested that I not use toilet paper as an example of what someone might run in to buy on the way home from work when describing a market that features both specialty products as well as the every day. So, I shot off an email to the editor and directed him to please ‘change toilet paper to milk.’

Then I started to chuckle.  The power of the pen may be great, and certain words put together can comfort or challenge, but the power to miraculously turn one item into another is really out of its purview.

Jon Bon Jovi said, “Miracles happen every day.  Change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” We’re familiar with historical miracles, first passed down generation to generation, then recorded.  Modern technology has made it possible for us to see what the parting of the Red Sea might have been like.  Faith helps us believe that the oil in the lamps lasted for eight days. 

The miracles in my life often pass me by.  Sure, there’s the birth of a child, the car that swerved in time, or during this season, re-birth all around us.  But, it’s the small ones – the angry or sarcastic word not said, the email not sent, the voice not raised – that need to be marked.  It’s the second helping not taken, the money not spent, the door not opened, the cleansing tears, the energetic walk that helps us keep faith with ourselves and that we need to celebrate and share. 

Wayne Dyer, said, “Miracles come in moments.  Be ready and willing.”  I’m going to keep my eye out and my heart open.

Wishing you many moments this week,

Marilyn

 

Destinies

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
                                                …Mahatma Gandhi

 

In a week when we marked the 271^st anniversary of Handel’s Messiah and witnessed the lowest and highest of the human spirit, I ran across these words.  

 

I find them profound and beautiful. 

 

Also true.  I tracked one belief – my firm belief that if you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing then things work out – through that logic and can confirm the outcome. 

 

I invite you to do the same and share if you’d like...

 

...for I also find them comforting.

 

Marilyn

Those Annoying Haunting Melodies

It’s been a rainy week.  One morning when the drizzle became a downpour while I was driving my goddaughter to school, she started to sing, “Rain, rain, go away.” She turned and asked, “what’s that song about ‘bumped his head, went to bed, and couldn’t get up in the morning?’”

That’s all we could remember, but we kept humming ‘rain, rain, go away, come again some other day’ straining to think of the rest.  It was hours before that simple ditty stopped dancing around in my brain.

You’ve had a similar experience.  It’s probably how the saying “It’s on the tip of my tongue” originated.  You know the answer will be there if you just think hard enough.  Maybe this phenomenon all began when one of our ancestors thought ‘now what is that sound?  What happens next?’ and was suddenly reminded, ‘oh, yes, it’s a bear charging out of the woods!’ before running in the opposite direction. 

Another guess is that this is a universal occurrence, which is where I’m going in today’s musing.  So much of the reported news is beyond irritating and depressing.  It’s disappointing and even scary.   But from Kim Jong Un to angry baseball players to whiny leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle, we all get the hiccups, have déjà vu moments, and get frustrated at those annoying melodies we can’t get out of our heads. 

We have more in common as human beings than those ideologies that divide us.  Perhaps if we looked at those, concentrated on those, then office politics, village dramas, and international skirmishes could tone down a notch.  People might see and listen rather than be blinded by perception.  Some newscasters might be put out of business instead of making us think we care about whose baby bump is bigger and that Justin Bieber’s visit to Anne Frank’s house is significant.

Oh, also under the category of ‘not newsworthy’ is the fact that I remembered Peter, Paul, and Mary had an album that featured “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring…” and the melody suddenly came alive. 

Wishing you a common annoying human experience this week rather than bleak headlines,

Marilyn

My Huckleberry Friend

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. …Robert Frost

 

White buds close to ground

Bright chirping above my head

Spring, despite cold hands

 

Back in the day when I thought poetry had to rhyme I wrote notebooks full of mostly religious verse.  Those pages got tossed during some move or spring cleaning.  What I do still have is my first book of poems, a family heirloom copyright 1918.  As I read the book today, few of the poems are good or even make sense.  Many are racist, certainly sexist, and the pictures and words are often scary.  They are, however, typical for the time. 

Between Mother Goose and Shakespeare were the poetic and often meaningful lyrics of songs that reflect the sentiment, fashion, charm, and issues of the day.  For every ‘One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater’ there is a ‘Let It Be;’ for a ‘Grandma Got Run Over By Reindeer,’ a ‘Oh, Holy Night.’  It is that poetry we have no trouble memorizing and talking about and that today’s generations compose and post.

April is Poetry Month, which is what brought this to mind.  I may not know any rap, let alone know it by heart, but I have heard from twenty-somethings and younger that some of it is as fun as ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ that some of today’s lyricists write things as true as ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning,’ as inspirational as ‘Climb Every Mountain’ or, for me, as wistful as ‘Moon River’ where two drifters are ‘off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see.  We’re after that same rainbow’s end, waitin’ round the bend, my huckleberry friend….’

What’s your favorite form of poetry, poem, lyric, or poet?  May you find some room for musing on the poetry in your life sometime this month.

Marilyn