I am sure that we all have daydreamed or reminisced about events from our past or our current attitudes towards current events and situations. At such time, I often wander through the dimly lit hallways, attics, and cellars of my mind, poking at crumpled piles of refuse on the floor, opening long abandoned closets and crawl spaces, and leafing through stacks of weathered books and documents. What I find sometimes uncovers pleasant memories, and sometimes not-so pleasant ones. Past events…..
While there is nothing wrong with silence, and silence in fact can be a useful strategy to diffuse a tense situation, allowing cooler heads to prevail, the silent treatment is often employed specifically to punish or force a reaction from the other person.
Friends and followers, I will be taking a break from the blogging until January 2019. Please look for my new postings in late January 2019. Until then, thanks for your engagement and I look forward to see you next year. A.E. Fonner
It’s Autumn, and the two big maple trees in front of my house have been shedding leaves for a couple of weeks now. The front yard has the beginnings of a nice, thick carpet of dry leaves; and the gutters are filling up. I have a leaf blower that makes short work of gathering up the leaves, if the leaves are dry, that is. I was planning to work on that this weekend; but, nature isn’t going to cooperate as…..
The idea of living in the present is timeless and wise. At my place of employment, I was given a small, plastic sign that had the words, “Be here now,” emblazoned on it to place on my desk, reminding me to stay focused on the task at hand, thereby reducing errors. Other great thinkers have said it more eloquently (1): “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future,…..
“’What is truth?’ Pilate retorted.” (John18:38) This in response to Jesus’s assertion that he had come to testify to the truth and that those on the side of the truth listens to him. Having found no basis for the charges leveled against the Nazarene, Pilot’s question led him between a rock and a hard place: do what he knew to be the right thing and release the man, or succumb to the demands of the frenzied mob, all the while…..
Gratitude is defined in merriem-webster.com as, “the state of being grateful; thankfulness.” Mr. Webster further defines grateful as, “appreciative of benefits received.” So, I express gratitude following receipt of some benefit; and, the benefit is realized from some expectation I have. Katie Lane (@allamericanlane) recently reminded me that gratitude is a great way to battle negativity; but, unreasonable expectations can lead to disharmony as I pile unreasonable or irrational hopes upon unsuspecting family, friends, or acquaintances (twitter.com, 9/20/18). Of course,…..
When I was a small boy, I would find myself captivated by the wooded hills of Southwest Pennsylvania. They were steep and high, mountains to a small boy. And the woods were deep, dark, and mysterious. Those hills were inspiring and wondrous, and deserving of a certain reverence. I couldn’t help but be awed by their beauty, even to this day. Steven Handel reminds us that awe is a positive emotion that is, “an overwhelming feeling of amazement for something…..
“wtf is this shit?” That was the comment one individual made in response to a recent facebook post about my poetry anthology, Reborn and Other Versifications. No serious inquiry as to the subject matter, no friendly congratulations, no thoughtful critique. Simply the vulgar question, “wtf is this shit?” I don’t know the person who framed the question so eloquently; nor do I know why he asked the question in the way he did. Feedback is a gift, for sure; how…..
Roger Kemenetz in his piece, “Dreams and the Poetic Imagination,” wrote that Wordsworth, one of literature’s great poets, found value in “restorative images” for healing the “impaired imagination” through contemplation of historical dramatic events that Wordsworth referred to as “spots of time.”1 What Wordsworth learned was born out, I believe, through a study conducted at the University of Birmingham that demonstrated that intentionally recalling memories can lead to forgetting other experiences. In other words, the study suggested that the recall…..