Tag: build up

We are Curators

Jennifred Jones

Oxford dictionary states ‘a curator is a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection’. 

Another quick google search states curators ‘also may research, authenticate, evaluate, and categorize the specimens in a collection.’

Reading from the NYT Licensing  website,  “News curation is the process of finding, analyzing, filtering, preserving and sharing the most relevant information on a specific topic…going through many different sources, choosing the best ones and then sharing these sources in an easy-to-read format…” https://nytlicensing.com/latest/methods/what-is-news-curation/

They are distilling from all the noise, opinions, viewpoints and other ‘fluff’, what really matters… collecting it, authenticating, evaluating, and categorizing it, keeping it, to present it in a useful vantage point for their readers.

We do the same thing in a multitude of categories in our own lives and families…collecting, sorting, analyzing, keeping, preserving and then ‘presenting’ to family and friends what we think and believe and have done. (whether it is a thing, idea or philosophy)

My aim is to be curator of good…any kind of good….helpful things, ideas, peoples, places…I want to find them, collect, analyze, evaluate, keep, preserve and present them to you.

We need to see them, we need to hear them, we need to experience them, we need to support them.

Good builds us up.

What will we choose to curate?

I will begin listing a few good websites, links, blogs, uTubes, etc. I curated and share them with you.
  • This beautiful woman, had her own interior design business and left it to start a non-profit redesigning and beautifying women/children shelters; equipping them with lovely sewing rooms to begin ‘crafting’ a new life filled with hope for them. Her home ground is the Detroit area, but her idea/mission now helps women all across the nation. She has a tremendous staff and volunteers there; however anyone can volunteer to sew needed travel size pillowcases, dolls, capes for kids…check it out. http://www.enchantedmakeovers.org.

The Power Struggle…

Jennifred Jones

“Give me my way or else!”

“Why won’t you just do what I say?”

“They should make a law about…”

Fear, intimidation, threats, control….powering over another human for personal gain. Selfishly thinking only about themselves.

We all have power to wield in one area of our life or another.

How are we going to use it?

Power is a form of strength, and we have been given it to affect change, to solve a problem, to make something better, to lead others in the right direction, to right wrongs.

Sometimes when we feel weak and powerless, we use our power to hurt instead of help, control instead of lead, intimidate instead of love, destroy instead of build up, power over instead of work alongside.

This is the power struggle we all wrestle with…how am I going to use my power in the current unpleasant situation I face?

I have power, and I have the power to choose wisely to do what I know is best. I will choose.

You Provoke Me!

Jennifred Jones

I heard several versions of this phrase repeatedly growing up… ‘Stop provoking me!’, ‘Don’t provoke me!’ It was usually a result of an antagonistic action. When we kids were being sassy and rebellious, mother would say, “Stop provoking me!” In other words, ‘you’re asking for it…shape up or you’re going to get it!’

What does that strange word mean? Well, it rhymes with ‘poke’… could be almost restated, prod, goad, maybe even push or stir up….(’I’m going to stir up some batter and cookies are going to come out of it.’)

To provoke someone means you are intending to generate a response…a reaction.

It’s interesting though, God uses the word provoke in a positive sense. He says, ‘provoke one another to do good works.’

That caught my attention the first time I saw it.

To me, it meant I could do or say something, all by myself, that could cause, encourage, ‘incite’, wake –up, provoke! someone to do good! That was powerful to me!

I could be a force to ‘incite’ good, to help other people want to do good for their benefit and their family’s good.

Much today tries to incite people to do bad, think bad, be bad, treat other people bad, treat themselves bad… but I, (we) have the same amount of power to incite (provoke) people to do good!

That really is revolutionary!

I am just me! Little ole’ me, yet I can be a provoker of good and be an influence wherever I go to ‘poke, prod, goad, push, stir-up, incite, wake-up, encourage, provoke, make them want to do good!!!

No rallying speech necessary… just live my life before others… happy, free, smiling, encouraging, helping, thanking, praying,  building people up in whatever their current state of affliction might be…saying something that might help them see their situation from a different angle so they don’t  give in to despair.

We can be the counter-balance.

In spite of all the provocation to do ill towards others, we can provoke others to want to do good.

Who will you provoke today?