December 30, 2020

 

COINS 

Coins, pennies, nickels
dimes, quarters, half dollars,
rest easy in dishes and jars
on bureau tops and desk drawers,
and outside in the earth around
the world are coins worth millions
and millions of dollars from way
way back – unused, unknown,
unaccounted for – and deep
within all of us is love much
more valuable unused, unknown,
and unaccounted for.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

December  30, 2020

 

Thought for Today

 

“And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?”

Frederick Buechner, 

The Magnficent Defeat

December  29,  2020

HOW  TO  WIN 

AN  ARGUMENT EVERY  TIME

 
Arguing with another is stupid
most of the time.  The other has
their mind up – and so do I.
 
As they say, “It’s a waste of time
and energy to argue in the first place.”
Remember Nelson Mandela. Be smart.
 
So if you want to win an argument
every time simply say, “You're smart.
I'm smart. You got a brain. Me too."

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

December  29, 2020

Thought for Today

 

“Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.”

 

Robert Lynd

December  28,  2020

SOUNDS LIKE 

The  dog barks,
the train whistles,
the radiator rattles,
the December cold
combines with everything metal,
and you’re just sitting there,
snoring. You haven’t said
a thing new since November.
Where are you as we come
to the end of this worst of years?

                                                                         © Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

 December  28, 2020

 Thought for Today

 

“The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood.”

 

Richard Paul Evans,

The Christmas Box 

December 27, 2020

PRISON  CELL  ARCHITECT

 
Is there a chapter in a book
on architecture or a class in
architect school about how
to build a prison cell?
 
If there is,  does it make windows
an absolute necessity– and how high –
so a prisoner can see the sky or low so  
as to see more – like a father with a son?
 
Would architects in learning the profession
talk about room for  shelves  for books and
windows to let in the sound of birds outside –
as well as trains in the distance?
 
How about chapels, churches, mosques?
Do prison architects bring up questions about
recreation, schooling, spirituality, exercise,
prisoners’ family, the future as well as the past? 
 
Do wardens, guards, prison psychologists and
doctors consider questions other than worry
about escape?  Who and what am I missing in
this short meandering wondering about prisons?

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020