June 29, 2019

 YAWN 

A  yawn, 

a universal, all languages, message, 

like a crossing guard’s hand signal 

to stop everything 

and let another’s being to catch up 

with itself and then get back to where 

it was and where it was going. 

Oh, “Hi!” and “Hello!” 

“Now what were you trying to say?” 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June  29, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“I hope,  when I stop,  people will think that I mattered.”  

Martina Navratilova, 

International Herald Tribune, 

July 22, 1986.

WALKING  INTO

Walking into ….

Yes I do a lot of that in a lifetime. 

Front doors, side doors, glass,

opened, closed, hesitant … doors …. 

I look around: I see faces. Who’s there? 

What’s there?  Now what? I pause. 

Life …. I’ve been in a lot of places,

a lot of spaces, a lot of lives …. 

Now what? How many more doors do I enter

before I'll then end up being carried out? 

Ok, there is always the background music - while I trust  in God there is no, “That’s it!” 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June  28, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.”  

Bertrand Russell, 

Quoted by Alan Wood, 

Bertrand Russell,  

Simon and Schuster, 1958

June 27, 2019

PERPETUAL  HELP

Now that’s quite a job description

for anyone to post: “Perpetual Help!”

To be there when one is a baby:

obviously. Every mother does that.

To be there when a couple runs

out of wine at their wedding: wonderful.

To be there when one has to carry their

cross to death on the hill called “Calvary”.

And to be doing that ever since for the

helpless, the hurting the shoeless. Amen.

 © Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June 27, 

Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

June  27, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Prayer for many is like a foreign land.  When we go there, we go as tourists.  Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place.  Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else.”  

Robert McAfee Brown, 

Introduction to John B. Coburn, 

Prayer and Personal Religion, 

Westminster, 1967

June 26, 2019

PRAYER

It can be formal with chiseled words - 

from a heavy ritual book with ribbons - 

but most prayers are screams from 

people all around the planet seeing 

a fabulous sunset or waterfall and

feeling “Wow!” or blurting out, 
"Oh my God!" or it could be a sudden

shrieked yell for “Help!”  in a car as

it’s crashing and smashing into the

car in front of it on Route 95 - or

just a  grandparent’s prayer for their

daughter’s kid heading off to college.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June  26, 2019 

Thought for today:

“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the  existence  of God as it would be for even  Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.”  

Frederick Buechner, 

Wishful Thinking: 

a Thelogical ABC, 

Harper and Row, 1973

June  25, 2019

A DOZEN YELLOW ROSES

I was sick and surprise,

someone sent  me

a dozen yellow roses.

Now they are sick.

The petals are starting

to crumble and fade.

But I’m getting better

Is this the way life works?

Substitution and comparison?

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June  25, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“I was a 14-year-old boy for 30 years.” 

Mickey Rooney on his  roles  in movies. 

Quoted in New York Journal American, 

April 15, 1958

June 24, 2019

DOES  EVERYONE 

Does everyone in the audience 

have a song in their body -  a tap 

in their fingers - a dance  in their toes - 

 a tear in their eyes - and a hope in their 

heart that we’re all in this together? 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June  24, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it  is  the illusion of knowledge.” 

Daniel J Boorstein, 

Washington Post, 

January 29, 1984

June 23, 2019

BODY  AND  BLOOD

At his last meal before he died 

he rubbed his hands…. He sensed 

his blood flowing through his being - 

as he said to the world, “This is my body….
This is my blood. I’m giving my all to you.” 

At his last meal before he died 

he looked at his disciples surrounding 

him. He was asking them in prayer 

to say to the world, “This is my body….
This is my blood. I’m giving my all to you.” 

At his last meal before he died 

he closed his eyes and feeling the 

wind and the air that touched all 

the world he said, “This is my body….
This is my blood. I’m giving my all to you.” 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

June 23, 2019

Thought for today: 

“I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I ought to do, but I don’t know where to begin.” 

Stephen Bayne - on becoming 

first executive of the Anglican Communion, 

Time, January 25. 1960