Hate !

I so often find myself pulling back when tempted to say that I hate something. I just find the word an impossible word to allow over my lips. It is such a very harsh word and action. That being said I have more than once been on The receiving end of hatred. 

Hatred is like acid. It has the ability to destroy the container in which it is held but can do even more damage to that on which it is poured.

I think the worst story of hatred I ever heard about was of the man who obviously had a serious issue with his two daughters. Before dying, he wrote a will leaving his two daughters £1each. He also left them a curse hoping that their deaths would be soon after his own And that it would be lingering and painful.

He also hoped they ended in hell and suffered for eternity. I am sure like me you find this a most terrible thought. Here certainly was a person who had a sad end and probably an equally sad life.

A man who hated being patted on the back decided to do something about it. He packed explosive into a pack on his back and waited to be patted on the back. Determined to rid himself of such people. Of course in the process he also killed himself.

Hating is like burning down your house to kill a rat.

I wish you a love filled day, on such a day there is no room for the H word.

Apologies that this is such a short post. Have a great day.

Do we know the value?

I find it more and more frustrating when I listen to what it is that we consider being of value. It seems that so often the things that I have considered to be of value all my life seems less and less so in modern society. When we listen to politicians and those in places of influence it seems that being economical with the truth is the order of the day. I have always and hope I always will found honesty to be one of the most valuable commodity there is. yet time after time I hear all this talk of fake news and such. What is fake news? Lies simply as that. 

We now even have a part of the BBC website devoted to helping young people to judge what is true and what is false. Sadly I often find that even here there is much to be desired in the honesty stakes. 

We seem to live in an age where we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

A young girl, about 8 years old, mentioned that her mother's birthday was soon approaching. When asked if she was going to make a birthday card on her father's computer. She said, "No. If you make one on the computer they don't keep it on the refrigerator as long as when you make one yourself."

here at least was somebody who seemed to grasp the value of the things in life that matter.

I will never forget the true story I read about a man and his old family Bible.

It was the story of a man who loved old books. He met an acquaintance who had just thrown away a Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations. 

"I couldn't read it," the friend explained. "Somebody named Guten-something had printed it." 

"Not Gutenberg!" the book lover exclaimed in horror. "That Bible was one of the first books ever printed. Why a copy just sold for over two million dollars!

" His friend was unimpressed. "Mine wouldn't have brought a dollar. Some fellow named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German." 

It seems more and more important in this day and age of shallow thinking and the cult of personalities that we stop and have a little rethink about just what it is that is of value. 

There seems nothing more saddening than the daily hurt and harm caused by those who more and more make statements they know to be untrue, but they fit the message they wish to give and honesty pays the price. 

it is the case that if you have a friend you can rely on and know that when they speak they do so with a genuine to be true and honest those are friends well worthy of holding on to. 

We seem to live in shallow times where elections and all sorts are won and lost on the back of lies and nobody seems to care.

Have a friend filled day and may your friends be like the many I have, honest and true. 

Excuses.

A friends dogs.

As a teacher, I was never amazed to hear some of the wonderful excuses that students could concoct from seemingly nowhere to justify their failure to accomplish a task or to submit homework tasks. of course, the most obvious one that recurred frequently was the old chestnut, "My dog ate my homework." There must have been a great many pretty disturbed dogs lived in the area. 

I was sitting yesterday, wishing I was doing something other than just sitting, and I was thinking about the most used such excuses. 

1. I forgot.
2. No one told me to go ahead. 
3. I didn't think it was that important.
4. Wait until the boss comes back and ask him. 
5. I didn't know you were in a hurry for it. 
6. That's the way we've always done it. 
7. That's not in my department. 
8. How was I to know this was different? 
9. I'm waiting for an O.K. 
10. That's his job, not mine.

But of course, you will probably know even better ones than those!.

Then there were the excuses put forward not by the student but by the parent on behalf of the student.  I am aware that some of those would never have had the deft touch of a parent but were fairly poor attempts at forged excuses, some of them are so obviously so I wondered why they even bothered to try.

1. Dear school: Please ackuse John for bring absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. I wonder how long the parent had been living in a 33-day January with such poor spelling.

2. Chris has an acre in his side. Now that could well be very painful.

3. Mary could not come to school because she is bothered by very close veins.

4. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken off his face.
5. I kept Billie home because she had to go Christmas shopping because I didn't know what size she wears. 

6. Please excuse Gloria. She has been sick and under the doctor.  I felt for that poor doctor.

7. My son is under the doctors care and should not take P.E. Please execute him.

8. Lillie was absent from school yesterday as she had a groing over. 

9. Please excuse Ray Friday. He has lose vowels. 

10. Please excuse Joyce from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday she fell out of a tree and misplaced her hip.

11. Please excuse Blanche from jim today. She is administrating. 

12. Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in his growing part.

13. My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent the weekend with the Marines. 

14. Please excuse Dianne from Being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps. 

15. Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault. I somehow thought that took two people but thee you are.

Have a smile and a good day. 

Just listen for a moment.

Even in a Crowd?

It has been a very difficult week and more, unable to do very much if anything even the ability to concentrate or do any reasonable thinking seemed to have left me. I cannot ever remember feeling so weak and exhausted in many years.

if there is anything good that comes out of such situations, and I am sure there is, then it is the ability to just reflect and reassess just where one is at. I have done much of that. Some of the things that come home are those precious moments of learning about the things that are important in life.

One of those meaningful moments came back to and fortunately I learned something then that I think I have managed to carry through life with me. 

I remember once I found myself with too many commitments in too few days. 

Of course, I got nervous and tense about it. I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day, Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.

I distinctly remember after meal one evening, the words of my daughter. 

She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, "Dad, I want to tell you something and I'll tell you really fast."

"Suddenly realising her frustration, I answered, "It is ok, you can tell me and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." I'll never forget her answer. 

"Then listen slowly." 

I learned that day something I have never failed to remember except for the very odd occasion.

The gentle and proper way of handling people. 

1. Listen to the other person's story. 

2. Listen to the other person's full story. 

3. Listen to the other person's full story first. 

Then maybe then open your mouth and say something. 

Being a talker is much easier than being a listener.  It is possible to make a measure of how good we are at it.

1) Since you think about four times faster than a person usually talks, do you use this time to think about other things while you're keeping track of the conversation?

2) Do you listen primarily to facts rather than ideas when someone is speaking?

3) Do you avoid listening to things you feel will be too difficult to understand? 

4) Can you tell from a person's appearance and delivery that there won't be anything worthwhile said? 

5) When someone is talking to you do you appear to be paying attention when you're not?

6) Do certain words and phrases prejudice you so you cannot listen objectively? 

7) When listening are you distracted by outside sights and sounds? 

I would suspect when anybody reads this the answer to what kind of listener we are becomes rather obvious.    

It is nice to be back, not sure if I will manage every day but it is at least a beginning. have a marvellous day. 

Just a little tact.

I have been feeling pretty miserable these last few days and unlike me a bit sorry for myself. Never the less I thought I would attempt and small blog and a quick sketch while sitting in bed. When I said a quick sketch I meant a quick sketch and you cannot get much quicker than this. This involves only a few strokes and put down with not too much thought of what I was doing. I had thought or even noticed it was red white and blue.

 I was reminded of an occasion when such colours would have been the order of the day but being new to the ministry it had never for one minute crossed my mind. I had been invited to give an after-dinner speech at a local group. My wife had made me a large collection of vestment fronts of a variety of colours. I had a white one for weddings a black one for funerals. She had also made me some in other colours so that I could ring the changes.

I thought not a thing about this evening and my speech and turned up with a lovely green one. As I entered the hall everything was decked out in red white and blue and my green went down like a lead balloon. Not exactly the height of tact.

Tact is indeed a wonderful thing if we can remember. I wonder how often in all innocence I have been less than tactful.

There is a story that when a minister friend of mine was speaking at a convention of farmers.  His wife and mine were sitting in the audience with another friend. My friend in his speech said, "I grew up on a farm and one thing I know about farming  is it means manure, manure, manure, and more manure."  

At this point, the other friend whispered to my friend's wife, "Mary, why on earth don't you get Harry to say fertilizer?" 

"Good Lord, Helen," replied the wife, "You have no idea how many years it has taken me to get him to say manure!"  

Another friend was invited to speak at the police Christmas dinner. Everything was going very well and a jovial evening was being had by all until my friend told the following tale. Christmas is a marvellous time but it is also a very difficult time. As a father of three girls finding the money to fulfil the desires of them all is not easy. This year my daughter said she wanted a cowboy outfit. I told her I would do my very best but I was not sure I could afford to buy the Strathclyde Police Force.

He was warned on the way out to be careful not to be seen speeding.

When pointing out a mistake by another person, always consider the person's feelings. Milton Berle was dining with his wife, Ruth, in a restaurant.  When a waiter put too much pepper on her salad. Mrs Berle tasted it and said, "Hmm. Needs more salad."

I suppose the bottom line is simple, think before you act and think twice before you speak. 

Have a marvellous day.

A Waste of good time?

Now here is a real mixture of a painting. You can certainly see those Scottish influences of the trees my French influences in the buildings but yet I have tried to capture the style of Chinese art.

It would be so much easier just to do things all the same way but I have never in life chosen the easy options.

Easy options I do not seem to like but one thing I like even less is waste. I am always looking for ways to use things again and again.

I heard a humorous story about a woman who fell out of a second-floor window and landed in a slow-moving rubbish lorry. Half-buried in the litter, she tried without success to get the driver's attention. 

A foreign diplomat standing on the sidewalk saw her and quipped, "Another example of how wasteful people are. That woman looks like she's good for at least another 10 years."

Sometimes it is better not to try and impress. 

A rich man was determined to give his mothers day present that would outshine all others. 

He read of a bird that had a vocabulary of 4000 words, could speak in numerous languages and sing 3 operatic arias. He immediately bought the bird for £2,000 and had it delivered to his mother. The next day he phoned to see if she had received the bird. 

"What did you think of the bird?" he asked. She replied, "It was delicious."

I suppose in the end whether something is a waste or not depends on who is making the judgement. 

A very well know politician kept a diary. One day he entered, "Went fishing with my son today--a day wasted." 

His son also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, He made this entry, "Went fishing with my father, the most wonderful day of my life!" 

The father thought he was wasting his time while fishing with his son, but his son saw it as an investment of time. The only way to tell the difference between wasting and investing is to know one's ultimate purpose in life and to judge accordingly. 

There are sometimes in life that is just never a waste because they are times spent having quality time with friends and family.

Apologies this is a short blog this morning but just not feeling at all up to sitting for long hours at the computer today. Have a good day.

Barbed Wire and Roses.

Barbed Wire and Roses.

I had not ventured into the realms of abstract for some time so thought I would just for a bit return to that are of work. I was thinking that the weather we have been having here where I live had two distinct sides to it. There was the fact that all of the roads in and out of the village for times had become impassible. Delivery trucks were not getting into the village so the little local store was having problems getting the much-needed commodities, shelves were looking very empty, apart from the fruit shelf which suited me just fine.

On the other side of the coin when I went out walking I saw some really beautiful scenery that captivated my attention. SO I hoped this abstract in some ways captured my thoughts and feelings and some of the colours. 

The other aspect of the period of snow also brought memories of childhood. Such memories also brought an acute awareness of how things have changed over the years.

I do not remember ever having a day off school because of inclement weather. What I can remember is teachers standing in front of the class dressed in fur coats to keep warm and we wearing outdoor clothing. Now I am aware that teachers now have to travel and must be safe whereas most of my teachers lived locally.

We have come a long way. I just so wish that some would appreciate that this is the case. in spite of all the things that are so much better, there are still some who are just never happy. They manage to find something to complain about and look to blame somebody.

I discovered this in my reading and study, it most certainly shows how things have moved.

This notice was put up in the office to announce the change of working conditions for the good of the staff. Read and consider.

1. This firm has reduced the hours of work, and the clerical staff will now only have to be present between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays.

2. Clothing must be of a sober nature. The clerical staff will not disport themselves in raiment of bright colours, nor will they wear hose unless in good repair.

3. Overshoes and topcoats may not be worn in the office, but neck scarves and headwear may be worn in inclement weather.

4. A stove is provided for the benefit of the clerical staff. Coal and wood must be kept in the locker. It is recommended that each member of the clerical staff bring four pounds of coal each day during the cold weather.

5. No member of the clerical staff may leave the room without permission from the supervisor.

6. No talking is allowed during business hours.

7. The craving for tobacco, wine, or spirits is a human weakness, and as such is forbidden to all members of the clerical staff.

8. Now that the hours of business have been drastically reduced, the partaking of food is allowed between 11:30 and noon, but work will not on any account cease.

9. Members of the clerical staff will provide their own pens. A new sharpener is available on application to the supervisor.

10. The supervisor will nominate a senior clerk to be responsible for the cleanliness of the main office and the private office. All boys and juniors will report to him 40 minutes before prayers and will remain after closing hours for similar work. Brushes, brooms, scrubber, and soap are provided by the owners.( How generous of them)

11. The owners recognize the generosity of the new labour laws but will expect a great rise in output of work to compensate for these near Utopian conditions.

I make no comment but I am sure there are still some who say that things are still not good enough for this day and age. 

Have a marvellous day I have just remembered I do not have to go out, no work I wonder how I can fill my day?