January 18, 2023

Quote for Today

"Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." 

John Singer Sargent [1856-1925]

January  17,  2023

Quote for Today

"If someone claps his hand a sound arises. Listen to the sound of the single hand."

Hakuin [1686-1769] 

Attributed to this Japanese monk,

writer and artist, founder 

of modern Japanese Zen

 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  16, 2023

Quote for Today

"Ten years after your death

I meet on a page of your journal, as never before,

The shock of your joy."

Ted Hughes [1930-1998]

Visit   [1998]

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

 January 15, 2023

Quote for Today

"To know all is to forgive all."

Proverb