When you truly love someone

…being faithful should be easy.  

But, as we’ve recently seen regarding the scandalous Ashley Madison story.  In today’s absence of moral conscience, many men and women are taking to the Internet to fulfill daring fantasies through the anonymity of the online world of mystery, romance, and casual sex.  

Faithful spouses are being duped by their partners who hide shamelessly behind a screenname…not caring that what they’re actually doing will eventually have dire consequences.  

If you are one of those spouses whose been fooled by your partner. Leave.  

Being faithful is easy.  And there is someone out there who will agree.  

Happy Father’s Day Dad

Mom and dad. Dad wrote those words on there. They were married almost 45 years before he passed. Happy Father’s Day dad. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you.  

And that my dear friends….

is marriage in a nutshell:
  

Letting go……..

There is a difference between saying goodbye and letting go. Goodbye is not permanent. You can meet years later as old friends and share what happened in your life. You can smile and laugh about all the nonsense that you both went through. However, letting go is being okay with never seeing this person ever again…being okay with never knowing how their life turned out…being okay with fifty or more years of silence… being okay with running into that person at a grocery store and having them not acknowledge your presence. This is the part of life that doesn’t sit well with me and never will. It tears my heart in pieces, robs me of gratitude, drains me of anything positive and eats at the faith that holds on. It goes against kindness.

Shannon L. Alder

Silence is Golden

for a reason…..



Reconnecting

Writing isn’t always easy.  Either you feel it or you don’t. And when you’ve suffered from writer’s block (like I have, for years) you don’t.

What does it take to become inspired?

Well, for me it takes really digging deep within myself, sorting out any negative feelings and trying to come up with a way to take those feelings and pen some sort of outlet.

I have read about authors whose brilliance was discovered from some type of catalyst.

When I was a teen it was easy to dig deep and find those feelings. Today, not so much. And when your soul feels life too much….immersed in doubt and in pain…..the pen is either silenced or screams for release.

The beauty of words release my soul…….

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.” The English Patient

Ode to Fall

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
― Albert Camus

 

Fall is my favorite “bestest” season.  Spring comes in at a close second when nature renews herself and comes “out of the closet” from winter’s chilly embrace.

Love the changing of the leaves, Halloween right around the corner with goblins and witches, ghosts and ghouls.

Growing up in the country, the fields and little hills of Southern Indiana, I feel blessed that my childhood was a-washed in nature’s splendid colors.

 

 

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I feel bad for those living in cities where sadly it seems (unless you have a well-kept park) the only sense of colorful style comes from clothing shops and television monitors.  Come out here to the Midwest or head upstate to Maine or down South to Tennessee..immerse yourself in all of God’s wondrous creation.

 

 

“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cezanne

 

Learning to let go

Perhaps because we are all fond of our memories and detest change, I’ve always tried to figure out why it is so hard to let go? Let go of old habits, past hurts, fading fond memories? Why is it so difficult to demolish these old bridges and move forward???

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Perhaps we hold on to illusions of what we think is “right.”  We can’t move forward if we are stuck in a misconception of reality.  And what causes us to distort our perceived perception of truth.

The older we get the more difficult it becomes to welcome change. I see it at work, I see it with my mom and definitely I saw this with dad.

“We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.”
― C. JoyBell C.

What baffles the mind is why people hold on to things which create and cause only pain?

A word to the wise….

“Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.” Omar Bradley