Vocabulary lesson.

Yesterday I played golf with my son. I am sure you know what golf is? It is a game that certainly helps you learn about a great many emotions and even some new words.

The last time I played  I came home feeling that I had played fairly well. That day I had played alone and that makes a great world of a difference. The odd bad shot can very easily be forgotten because nobody else saw it. When playing with my son every little misshit becomes something else. Now when your son turns up with a friend how very different the game becomes. Now it becomes competitive and every stroke is precious and has to be played well.

When you manage to hit a birdie, one stroke less than it is meant to take to play the hole you feel the excitement. When you take one or two more than ought to have been taken you experience frustration. So many emotions in one day.

A father was trying to explain this to his son and the son listened intently. He then asked his father, "What is the difference between irritation, aggravation and frustration?"

The father thinks hard but cannot find the correct explanation. He gets out his phone and puts it on speakerphone so that his sone can hear the conversation.

He dials a number and when it is answered he asks if Alf is there.

The person on the other end says that there is no Alf there and hangs up. The father tells his son, "Now that is an irritation."

He then dials the same number, again and again, asks for Alf. 

This time the person on the other end angrily responds. "There is no Alf here. If you call again asking for him I am going to report you to the police."

That says the father is, aggravation.

The son looks at him and tells his father he sees the difference but asks him, "What about frustration?"

The father again dials the same number. When it is answered he says, "Hello this is Alf. Have you had any calls for me?'

I will not share the response but I think you will understand.

If no! I advise you to take up the game of golf.

Have a great day.

Blast from the past.

One way or another in the past few weeks I have been thinking back to my time as a minister and the churches in which I was. I have also looked back at how it all began. No doubt the working on the book I worked on while I was a minister has played its part.

Away back to my first visit to church to meet a group of people who later formed a hymn writing and singing group called Group 96. Psalm 96 begins with the words, "Sing a new song to the lord."

It has been a bit of an emotional time and I am full of mixed feeling as I begin to reach the end of the work.

I suppose because of this I have found myself in many conversations with people about how it is doing.  Strangely enough at the coffee morning yesterday where I was helping out selling plants somebody I would never have considered interested in my writing was saying that he was thoroughly enjoying my second book. 

I spoke to somebody from my second church and there just might be a return visit in the offing, this will be another emotional moment. 

I was asked by another person if as a minister I had done any Christenings? Of course, my answer was no, but I had done hundreds of baptisms. A little discussion between what was the difference took place. Christenings happened in the Roman Catholic Church and baptisms in the Church of Scotland. That being the difference many still spoke only of Christenings. maybe this is because that is what all the card makers called it. 

This reminded me of the tale of Jack.

Each Friday, after work, weather permitting jack had a barbeque. He liked nothing more than cooking a venison steak on the grill and sitting in the sun with it and a glass of beer.  All of jacks neighbours were Roman Catholic and in those days they did not eat meat on a Friday so the smell began to get to them. They finally could take it no longer and spoke to their Priest. 

The priest eventually persuaded Jack to become a Roman Catholic. After some classes, Jack was Christened in the church.

The priest sprinkled him with holy water and said, "You were born a Baptist and raised a Baptist, now you are a Roman Catholic.' The neighbours were delighted until the next Friday night came along. 

The aroma of cooking Venison could be smelled all over the place. The priest was called and came in haste. 

As the priest rounded the building and into Jacks back garden there was jack clutching his rosary beads. The priest ready to give him a ticking off watched and listened. 

Jack had in his hand a small bottle of Holy Water, which he was carefully sprinkling over the grilling meat and chanting,  "You were born a deer, you were raised a deer, but now you are a catfish."

it was permissible to eat fish on a Friday.

Have a great day.

  

 

 

The Kings Seeds.

I have spent some time in the past week and more in one way or another thinking about plants. Maybe it is because last Friday and tomorrow have been the planting up of the summer seedlings. Or maybe it is because I have had all the bushes removed from the back garden. They were becoming almost unmanageable, and the fence behind was falling apart. So after today, I will have a new fence but hardly any plants in my back garden.

So one way or another my thoughts have turned to plants.

As I walked yesterday I was wondering about what I might do short and long term with my back garden? Short term is one thing but at my age what is long term?

I remembered the tale of the King who was growing old and wondered how to select his successor for training. He announced a competition. Every boy was to collect and seed from the palace and the boy who grew the best plant would succeed.

They all collected their seeds and went home. Each boy prepared his pot and planted his seed and began watering. 

Soon there was much talk about leaves and shoots appearing and who was managing to grow the biggest plant.

Haun had taken great care of his seed and how he had planted it. But nothing was growing.

On the day when all the pots were to be brought to the palace, his was still empty.  His mother told him to take his pot as it was and show it to the king.

On the way to the palace, he saw so many beautiful plants and he had nothing. he wondered why he was going at all.

As they all stood before the king he wandered among them until he came to Haun. Here is the winner he declared.

They all looked amazed. The King then said that to be a king you had to be honest and upright. All of the seeds that had been given out had been heated in an oven and so none of them could have grown. All the others had obviously planted other seeds while Haun had been honest about his.

Have a marvellous day. Honesty is not always easy but it is always best.

Coffee and chips.

I met a man on the golf course yesterday on three different occasions.  Each time we passed he stopped and spoke. The first time he complained about the wind and how he was not managing to hit his ball as far as he normally would.

The second time we met he complained about how cold it was. He just could not get heat in his hands at all and so was not playing a good round.

The thirds time we met he complained about how dry and hard the ground was after all the dry weather we have had. It is almost impossible to predict the roll of the ball.

At this point, I bit my tongue because I almost said why do you not just give up a go and sit in the clubhouse and have a nice warming bowl of chips and a warm cup of coffee. I am sure he would not have appreciated my comments at all. Probably the coffee would be too bitter.

There was once a man lived in a village. Everybody in the village avoided him because all he ever did was complain about how bad everything was.

Then all of a sudden the whispering around the village changed. People began to say that something had happened he was telling funny stories and making people laugh.

Somebody decided to go and speak with him and ask why the change?  He did just that.

The man said, "I have been chasing happiness for almost eighty years and never found it. The other week there I decided to stop looking and just take life as it comes. Would you believe I have never been happier in my life."

There are some people who it seems are born to be complainers and those who take life as it is and are happier for it.

How good it was to meet a friend at the car park who said, "Was that wind when it was at our back not marvellous how far the ball travelled. The dry ground also took the ball further. Now I am going to get a warm cup of coffee and I might even get a bowl of chips."

Have a marvellous day.

Chasing moons.

I am at last going to take some time off and play some golf hopefully it will not be too windy which would just be my fortune having allowed myself to get too busy in the first place.

I will play on my own today so I will have time to consider the shots I play and to reflect for a few hours on life. I already know as I write that last sentence that I will probably allow my mind to wander back to the next chapter that has to be written for my latest book.

At least I have made the effort to find some time to myself. What brought this about?

Let me share this tale to help.

There once lived in China a very clever man. His name was Huojia. The trouble with him was that as clever as he was he never really took time to stop and notice the wonders of the world.

One day having worked hard all day he realised he needed to go to the well to gather some water. As he approached the well, bucket in hand he looked down into the water. What he saw was the moon shining brightly down at the bottom of the well. "Oh my goodness what a really sad pity this is. I need to find a way to rescue the moon and set it free."

He ran home and got a large fish hook from his shed. When he arrived back at the well he took the rope from his bucket and attached the hook, his aim was to fish the moon out of the well.

After many attempts, all failing miserably he felt something had caught on his hook. At last, he thought and began to pull in an attempt to free the moon. he pulled and he pulled. Then giving one great effort he pulled as hard as he could. The rope broke, and Haojia fell on his back. As he lay back he sighed, the moon was back in its place in the sky where it belonged.

He was very happy for the moon but the trouble for him was that now he did not have a long enough piece of rope to fill his bucket with water.

It is so often the case that we allow ourselves to get so caught up in running around doing things without really taking time to think things through. In the end, we find ourselves doing this and that and never doing anything to the best of our ability. Better to do one thing at a time to the very best of your worth and then you will not end up on your back chasing moons.

Have a fruitful day.

Time to breathe.

Back to square one, the painting without the titles and the name. I chose this because the aim of the book I am working on is to create time and space for quiet contemplation. A time each day to gather thoughts before facing the hectic day ahead.

Maybe I need to take this a bit more seriously myself, I ended up yesterday with far too much to do and ended up not getting it all done. Today looks as though it will be another day of the same with no time left to write.

It is so simple to allow ourselves to become overloaded. This is even worse when it is a person who is supposed to be retired and plenty of time to spare. 

There is a lovely and very true story of a famous archaeologist who was working in deepest Peru. He had employed local tribesmen to help carry all the need equipment to the site of the dig.

After many hours of travelling through difficult terrain, the locals laid down their loads and sat down refusing to go any further. Despite all the protestations of the archaeologist and the persuasion, he could not get them to move. Through a translator, he explained that he was paying them above the expected rate and he expected them to cooperate with him. In spite of all, they refused to move.

Then all of a sudden without a word they all stood up picked up their loads and resumed the journey. There seemed to be a complete change of attitude among all of them. Once again they sang as they travelled.

When the bewildered archaeologist asked what had happened and what the stop was all about he was told, "They could not move any further because they had been moving too fast and they had to wait for their souls to catch up."

Now, whether you believe in a soul or not, there is a strong message here in this tale. We all have to take some time to allow our inner being to catch up. To steady our lives, take time out to gather ourselves and our thoughts before making haste yet again. 

So before you get about the business of the day, relax for a moment and then enjoy it.

What lies behind the door?

While playing golf yesterday in the calm and peace of the day I had time to ponder. It is a shame I did just that rather than ponder more seriously the next golf shot I was going to play. But then that for me is life, I frequently make wrong choices, or follow the way of doing things that I always choose. 

It is a bit like the criminal who was brought before the judge to pay for his crimes. Found guilty he was given the choice of the noose, the rope, or he could choose to go behind the big dark door and take his chances. Looking at the door he promptly chose the rope, it would, after all, be over much more quickly.

As the noose was being placed around his neck he looked at the judge and asked him what was behind the dark door? The judge smiled and told him freedom.

" It is amazing," said the judge, 'everybody makes that same choice." Freedom or the drop and rather than take a chance most opt for the known.

A powerful reminder about how many of us, like myself, choose the familiar. We are so afraid of the unknown that we get our selves all tied up in the familiar. The alternative might lead to less pain and unhappiness but because we do not know what it is we stick with what we know.

We keep the door of freedom and happiness closed.

We are a planet full of people walking about with the metaphysical ropes around our necks, wondering why we feel a bit emotionally and spiritually dead to the world around us in all its beauty.

Today decide to finally take off the ropes that bind you and possibly even blind you to great possibilities

Open a few doors that will lead to new opportunities, unfamiliar but new and different. Who knows just where you might find yourself.

Whatever you choose the rope or the door have a marvellous day.

I