Image by: Randal E. Cubreth
Birmingham, AL

Proverbs 21:2 (KJV)

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts."

Whom Would You Be

“How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.”

-Coco Chanel

(borrowed from http://blog.mccutcheonweb.com/)

Bending the Truth

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

- HH Munro

Political Science

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his listeners of his own assertions.

-Plato - Dialogues, Phaedo

Take a Left Please

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

-Robert Frost

...When We Have the Stars

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”

-Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

-Robert Frost (1916)

A Study in Perspective

"I remember when,
I remember,
I remember when I lost my mind.
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions have an echo
in so much space.

And when you're out there,
without care...
Yeah, I was out of touch.
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough-
I just knew too much.
Does that make me crazy?
Probably.

And I hope that you are having the time of your life.
But think twice, that's my only advice.

Come on now, who do you,
who do you,
who do you,
who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha - Bless your soul.
You really think you're in control?
Well, I think you're crazy.
Just like me.

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb,
and all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them.

Ever since I was little,
ever since I was little it looked like fun.
And it's no coincidence I've come.
And I can die when I'm done.
But maybe I'm crazy.
Maybe you're crazy.
Maybe we're crazy...

Probably."

- Crazy
by Gnarls Barkley

Tilting Windmills

Round,
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Like the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
Or the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of his hair?

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

- "The Windmills of My Mind"
The Theme from Thomas Crown Affair (1967)
performed by Noel Harrison

The Meaning of Life

"For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Amazing Grace

"A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."

- Tennessee Williams

Bigger Than Life

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.
The most massive characters are seared with scars."

-Khalil Gabran

From Grief to Glory

Decadence
Again the templed forest
Is changed to haunts of gloom,
It's vesture, drooping, dying,
A garment for the tomb.
And I must leave you mourning,
When death would bring you grief.
For I'm the fleeting summer
And you are the fading leaf.

Love in Grief
O love, so brief appearing
Within a summer day,
As rapture in the temple
Whose colonnades are clay.
O love and loved in sorrow
Lie fallow and forlorn
While God prepares the morrow,
The endless wedding morn.

Spring Returns
Murmuring merrily rounde-lay
Out from the cool, cool shade,
Into the sun,
Babbles a brooklet to carry away
Dawn and dream in its magic spray
Into the sun.

Life
Its voice impels the forest
Again to stir with song
Tranforming grief to glory
As life begins to throng
The parting pain is healing
And love unites with love
The Father fills His temple
With music from above.

- lyrics by Oscar R. Overby (1936)

Pagan Symbolism - Modern Public Health Issue

"Cinderella dressed in yella,
Went upstairs to kiss a fella,
Made a mistake and kissed a snake.
How many doctors did it take
1, 2, 3, . . . ."

From St. Olaf

O day full of grace, which we behold,
Now gently to view ascending;
Thou over the earth thy reign unfold,
Good cheer to all mortals lending,
That children of light in every clime
May prove that the night is ending.

How blest was that gracious midnight hour,
When God in our flesh was given;
Then flushed the dawn with light and power,
That spread o’er the darkened heaven;
Then rose o’er the world that sun divine
Which gloom from our hearts hath driven.

Yea, were every tree endowed with speech,
And every leaflet singing,
They never with praise God’s worth could reach,
Though earth with their praise were ringing.
Who fully could praise the light of life
Who light to our souls is bringing?

With joy we depart to the promised land,
And there we shall walk in endless light.

—Danish, 14th century/Nicolai F.S. Grundtvig, 1826
tr. O.H. Smeby, G.T. Rygh, C. Doving, 1911