Month: January 2023

KICK

       I have often felt ‘kicked’ by life, as if it’s just an old, cruel bully who sometimes hounds me with its fury. Many times in my life, I’ve felt like I was being booted around by situations and people, which often made me start kicking back, as if existence was a constant contest between nasty aggressors. However, in the last few decades of my 81 years, I’ve begun to see that all the fierce kicks life seems to give are actually soft and affectionate, more like easygoing shoves than ferocious whacks. Life, it seems, wants to help me ‘kick’ my habit of nervous, slapdash thinking, and it does this by softly pushing me, with occasional silent punches, toward acceptance, and maybe even some wisdom, and perhaps even spot-on gladness. I guess I should have a grateful attitude toward life – maybe even a feeling of devoted friendship for this enduring friend who sometimes uses kicks called disappointment and sorrow to softly bulldoze me toward insight and understanding. 😊

COMFORT


Comfort
(what Ellie G., age 42, Blessings, CT, said)

"I always say at least
I have a roof over my head,
and sometimes I see it up there,
the stretching sky, the consecrated stars,
the silent mystery that makes
my life seem small in an illustrious way.
I get comfort from finding strength
in small things, maybe mist among trees,
or the way curtains curl in breezes,
or the sounds of birds that rinse
my mind with songs.  My comfort
comes from the soothing earth,
the simple, reassuring sky."