January 21, 2023
Long before cellphones, people spent
their days in inner conversations with
the other – the key person in their life –
especially when the person is elsewhere.
Time there is where and when we are
talking to the important people in our lives –
talking, thinking, being in the heart of
another – but often – we too are elsewhere.
© Reflections,
Andy Costello
January 21, 2023
Quote for Today
"Standing, as I do, in view of God and eternity. I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."
Edith Cavell [1865-1915]
English nurse, executed by
the Germans for assisting
in to escape of British soldiers
from occupied Belgium.
[The Times October 23, 1915
January 20, 2023
LAKE TAKANASSEE
A mile all around which I walked
1,000 times – not round – not oval –
lake sized – here in West End, N.J. -
with a dozen brand new benches –
on its edge – put there in 2022.
A place to walk – a place to sit –
a place to watch the birds taking off
and landing – on the water - an airport –
a place to walk every morning or afternoon
or run in the spring, summer, fall evenings.
How long did it take folks to figure out
it was as good a place to be at as
the Atlantic Ocean just a hall mile away?
How many more places around here are
just waiting for me to walk to – to discover?
© Reflections, Andy Costello
January 19, 2023
UNDERNEATH
IT ALL
© Reflections,
Andy Costello
January 17, 2023
BE CAREFUL
Be careful, comments can kill.
Criticisms can cut and
wound.
Silence can silence
the other person.
We can crush a bug who
is
just going out for a
morning walk –
just as we too are
going out for
our morning walk. The
bug only
got to see its
first few moments of life –
but we got our chance to dance
a thousand dances so far – and
we didn’t notice we
killed that bug.
How can the world stop
the bombing
of the Ukraine – the
killing of
the children – whom we
never
saw getting into the
dance of life –
and they didn’t either?
© Reflections,
Andy Costello
January 16, 2023
PHONE
CALLS
It seems to me that every time
I begin to speak to you, you reach
for your cell phone. That usually
stops me from talking to you –
not with a cell phone – but with just
my slightly tightening teeth here in this room.
To be honest – I’ve never called you
and said, “When you do this, it makes
me ask myself, ‘Am I that boring?’"
Now of course I’ve thought about this a bit.
Then I’ve noticed, I do the same thing to you
and others when I’m hearing the same stories
I’ve heard you tell a hundred times.
I guess I figure my stories are better.
So I'm now asking, "Long before cell phones,
did cave men and women –
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle –
Dante, Beatrice, Joan of
Arc -
everyone – that thinks the other
is not listening to them think this
same thing I’m thinking right now?"
© Reflections,
Andy Costello
January 15, 2023
SCRATCH, SCRATCH
Trying to find understanding in a hurt,
in something that happened to me – in
something that stopped my going down
the highway 73 miles per hour in a 65
mile per hour zone – a pot hole,
a broken chunk of tire in the middle of
the lane I’m in. “Uh oh! Oh no! Whoa!”
Switching lanes in my brain – now where
was I back there, back then, back when
I moved forward to where I was before
I slowed down? Scratch,
scratch ….
What was under what just happened?
When in the horror of it all, in the
crowning with thorns, with the falls
on the way to the cross, in the pounding
of the nails into hands and feet,
when did Jesus figure out why he said,
“Father forgive them, they don’t know
what they are doing?” Scratch. Scratch.
© Reflections,
Andy Costello
