Tag: life

My Stack

Jennifred Jones

There is a stack of post-it notes by my laptop. It has been there for years…not the same papers in the pile, but the stack is still there.

Every day new thoughts emerge to share with my readers. Who knows where to start? So I jot them down …most of the time…so they aren’t forgotten and soon there are so many!

Today I begin again: (This came to me while I was making applesauce)

Read You Own Book!  (This is today’s post)

Your book is you. There are many chapters to your book. Which one are you on now? Which chapters have passed? Which chapters are you still living or trying to live in?

Books are written successively. One chapter leads to the next. We don’t write backwards. We write always moving forward because life moves forward. It is not to become stagnant.

Do not put your book – your life – back on some dusty old shelf not to be seen or read by anyone. Keep it open – the pages turning- writing new and better chapters of your explorations and points of interest. Make sure your book is as interesting as possible so you will want to keep writing. Others will see what you’ve written and want to read it, and you will want to remember how and what you did.

Keep working on your book. Keep working on you. Everyday our life is published somewhere.

The Angst of Beauty

Jennifred Jones

Most beauty was created because of ugliness.

Many of the artists whose work we love…creating masterpieces which bring us joy and happiness and amazement…created during a time of doubt, unhappiness, great depression, personal trial and disappointment…even sickness. It was the beauty they saw in their mind and began to create that caused them to survive their turmoils.

Could beauty be the solution to many of our problems? Are we caught in the fog of ugliness and despair – unable to see the beauty all around us?

The soft baby bunny, the early morning singing of birds, the silver pussy willows announcing spring, the laugh of a small child, the hug of a friend, the clear blue sky, the color of a rock in the rain, a warm cup of tea and a candle in the evening.

What do you see? Through the angst of life, can you still see beauty? Can you envision it? Can you somehow cause yourself to promote more beauty? Can you be the glistening raindrop on a barren dry soil? Can you be the smile while hiding your own tears to a weary soul? Can you see and envision hope for a better day, a better tomorrow when all you see and hear is ugliness and ruin?

What has broken your heart so you can no longer see a good future? Can you take the broken pieces and build something new, something stronger, something so beautiful that all the brokenness and ruin no longer is seen? All that remains is the work of beauty you created. That is the beauty others will see. And it will inspire them to see beauty through their own brokenness.

Live Life!

Jennifred Jones

That sounds odd. What do you mean live life? I’m already alive!

Maybe, maybe not. How many of us are consumed in one way or another watching and waiting for the next bad thing to happen? We’re keeping up all right with everything except our own lives. It’s so easy with instant access to every event on the planet that we’re always thinking about what’s happening ‘over there’ and not tending to what’s happening ‘over here’.

We’re not ‘over there’ wherever that may be to you on the globe. We’re here at our own home, our hometown, with our own family and neighbors and friends. They need us and they need us first! Don’t neglect the ones in your vicinity at the expense of keeping up with the people ‘over there’.

Yes, we have a very important life to live, and we live it here – where we live, at our house with our family, in our own yard with our neighbors and friends who desperately need the real-life connection only those close to them can give. Right now, let’s forget all the charities we could be helping with ‘over there’ when there are ‘charities’ at home we need to — we must attend to first!

Charity is just another word for love. Let’s give ourselves first to our own to laugh and love and live every day. The news and unpleasant things will continue to happen, but our family and friends will grow up and move on and we will have missed living happily together if we’re living our life ‘over there’ at the cost of truly living ‘over here’ where those closest to us are.

Today, I choose to focus on living here.