Timeless Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey.  It is an account of her life as a young governess in two different households.  It is told in the first person and it very much reads like a diary or what we would call a journal today.

I could have written so many notes to put aside as keepsakes because her innermost thoughts and word choices held great meaning for me. Though the work was written 170 years ago (1847), the human experience has not changed.

Due to her proper English background, she had learned to hold her responses to others in check though her feelings ran quite deep.  Today, many people would have spoken these feelings with little hesitation but she had learned to hold them in abeyance.

Here are several scenarios along with the surrounding circumstances taken from the text:

New Boss – “Her company was extremely irksome to me.” (Mrs. Bloomfield)

Job Duties – “The task of instruction was as arduous for the body as the mind.”

Job Stress – “They may crush but they shall not subdue me.”

Self-Talk – “’Be calm, be calm whatever happens,’ I said to myself.”

The Incorrigible Children – “And night and morning, I implored Divine Assistance to the end.”

Applying Parental Advice – “My mother had warned me before to mention them as little as possible to her, for people did not like to be told of their children’s faults and so I concluded I was to keep silence on them altogether.”

After traveling in the snow – “I sat down beside the small, smoldering fire and amused myself with a hearty fit of crying.”

Further prayers – “My prayers, my tears, my wishes, my fears and lamentations were witnessed by myself and heaven alone.”

I really cherished this book by the youngest Bronte sister, Anne.  Haven’t we all had these feelings?  Shouldn’t we pause before we actually voice our deepest sentiments so that we will not offend others?

Lynn M.                                                          August 26, 2017

 

 

Scraping off the Barnacles

A barnacle is something that attaches itself to the bottom of a boat.  It weighs it down over time and one might say that it gets a proverbial free ride.  In life, sometimes, things and negative people have subtle ways of latching on to us as well.

For a long time, like the boat, we don’t realize what is impeding our progress.  We just know that we are not advancing or gaining at the desired speed. Our movement has been comprised and hampered.

So like boat owners, we must periodically pull our boats ashore and do a thorough inspection.  When we see that we have been besieged by barnacles such as bad thoughts, unhealthy conditions or toxic company, we know that it is time to make an investment.

It is time to have the barnacles scraped off of the bottom of the boat, no matter how deeply they have managed to lodge themselves onto our backs or hidden sides.  They have multiplied because they act deceptively and operate in low lying places that we rarely have a chance to examine or view openly.

Once we, have had an overhaul, we will naturally feel our movement’s original buoyancy.  We will then be free to move at a mercurial pace as we sail into new and wonderful adventures!

Lynn M.

August 17, 2017

Smoother Air!

What do airplanes do when they hit a pocket of turbulence?  They change altitudes until they reach a more comfortable path.  When chaos ensues in our lives, we must do the same thing and change our levels of existence.  We have to go higher in our thinking and take action.  Dr. Wayne Dyer said. “When we change the way we look at things, things change.”

Most difficult situations come to teach us something that we need to know.  Many things of beauty grow away from the light.  We may not understand what magnificent thing is taking place, but in the due season, it will become crystal clear.

So after wiping away tears and spending hours of precious downtime in the darkened closet of our thoughts, the fog will eventually evaporate.  We will witness how things fell into place and take note of all of the lessons learned.

Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Sorrow has its rewards.  It never leaves us where it found us.” We will change in some form or fashion and end with a clearer view. We will see that the so-called villains appeared to push us higher onto our correct flight plan.

We all have a divine purpose and some of us actually find it while too many others continually circle and circle around and never touchdown. Unfortunately, some are never able to put the pieces together and align themselves with the best courses of action for their lives.

Our greatest possible achievement is to land safely.  When it is all said and done, we want  to leave a blueprint for those who are coming behind us.  We should want our lives to matter to others and not be one who simply takes up breathing space.

So, when the next bumpy pockets of air encompass us, we should make a concerted effort to switch gears and ascend to newer heights.  Though we may have feelings of fear during these harrowing times, we must move on up a little higher as we change locations, mindsets and altitudes.  As we rise in our thinking,  we can make the necessary adjustments so that we can breathe easier in the thinner, smoother air!

Lynn M.                                                                                           August 12, 2017

Inspired to Write?

Writers, what inspires you?  What makes you pick up a pen or pull out a laptop?  Many things inspire me.  It can be the singing of the birds, the laughter or tears of a child, the rising or setting of the sun or some lyrics or special tune. Or, inspiration may come from conversations with newly acquired friends or from fond remembrances of old acquaintances.

I personally feel that writers need a muse. They need something or someone who piques their interest and heightens certain emotions.  Then, ideas began to flow onto the paper or computer screen. During the overflow of ideas, many of life’s past situations come forth to aid in clearly telling the tale.

Writers may have to take a host of positive traits seen in others and bundle them to create one likeable character or use a composite of adverse attributes to develop that not-so-likeable character.  Yet something has to impress the writer’s consciousness so that they will start a new project because writing itself is no easy task.

Writers can peer into a glass darkly and see the light that others simply cannot detect.  They have great imaginations which often hinge on speaking to the unvoiced emotions of others. Their art awakens those identifiable feelings in its readers though they may not have been spoken. That is the link! That is the voice!  Mostly, that is the hook!

I would venture to say that writers need a muse. They need some form of inspiration that sparks that flame. Then they can write something which will take others along for an unforgettable and vicarious experience.

Writers, “What inspires you?”

 

Lynn M.                                                                                                         August 5, 2017