Archives for posts with tag: inspitation

“One of life’s best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.” ~ Robert Fulghum
I found this quote in the blog from Dennis Merritt Jones-author and speaker. This struck a cord with me. How often I do mistake an inconvenience for a problem. Fortunately I am learning to respond thoughtfully as opposed to just immediately reacting. I actually broke a few alarm clocks throwing them across the room because they rang- of course I was much younger. It reminds me of the bell that goes off in my mind when I use the words: never, always, must, can’t, and my personal favorite, should. I know they are just words but when I changed must and should in my mind to I choose to do something, it made a real difference. That old serenity prayer about knowing what you can change and what you can not change is real wisdom. I can only control and change myself and even that gets shaky sometimes. My thought for today. Just in case you think I am getting to serious I offer this prayer on a card my daughter gave to me.

“May those who Love us, truly Love us and those that can’t , May God turneth their hearts.
And if he can’t turn their hearts, May He turn their ankles so that we may know them by their limping.”
http://greatcosmichappyass.com/index.htm

When Bella and I go to the park we see many flowers but two of them are very different. They even bloom all year.  I have admired these 6 foot tall flowers often. One day I decided to go in and see how much they cost just for fun.  They were a couple hundred which didn’t really surprise me. What did surprise me was the art. I also had a real affection for the bell you rang for service- a car horn which I had to ring or honk actually. The back room looked like I would expect a welding shop to look with pieces of steel and things in a state of half repaired.  The front room had a couch and chairs and art. Fun and beauty are around every corner.

The Associated Press is reporting that the lights on Broadway will be dimmed Friday night to honor the memory of Gore Vidal, whose play “The Best Man” is in the midst of a successful run at the  Schoenfield Theatre.

At 86, Mr Vidal passed away from us at his home of pneumonia. Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-four novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and a political commentator, an educator and a patriot. I admired his mind and his ability to speak his mind irregardless of others reaction.  He was one of my heroes.  I can’t say I always agreed with him, although I often did or always applauded his behavior. In 1968, I happened to watch the ill-fated exchanges on television between himself and William F. Buckley, Jr.- two powerful men with opposing opinions on just about everything. This may be when the phrase socially appropriate speech was born.

He wrote his first novel at 19 while in the army. The year I was born, 1948 he wrote “The City and the Pillar” which caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality. Mr.Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation. The man was unappologetic about being gay but I hope he will be remembered for his novels about history,or his mystery novels or essays on the nature of national politics and critiques of american expansionism / imperialism. He was passionately political , ran for Congress himself and actively supported others over the years.  He helped me to formulate my own opinions on politics, free speech, and the direction of this nation. 

Two of my favorite quotes attributed to him :
 ”Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.”
“There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

references: http://www.gorevidalnow.com/  ,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal , http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19074230
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal ,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/01/gore-vidal-dies , http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/01/gore-vidal-best-quotes

 

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