The Old Ferry Keepers Cottage, Loch Eriboll at North Coast 500

photo by thewkendphotographer (instagram)

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

when the world

goes mad

become wildly kind

to everyone

everyone

everyone

everyone

my love,

~ you can’t control

much

but you control how

you treat others

in these breaking news

heartbreaking times

when nothing feels

certain

let your raw kindness

be a certainty

allow your compassion

to become a North Star

stamped up in

the sky for

others to follow

back home

~ john roedel

(art by Jungsuk Lee)

“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.

And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”

– Hannah Arendt (14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) German historian and philosopher

“174 years ago there was a huge storm in northern Scotland, and it uncovered something strange.
From beneath the soil emerged a perfectly preserved village older than the Pyramids, and it even had furniture.” “Of particular interest because so many daily use items from furniture to utensils to cookware survived.”

How much of our history is hidden beneath our feet?

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”

“You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

“Because someone bumped into me!!!”

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So we have to ask ourselves… “what’s in my cup?”

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratitude, peace and humility?

Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting tendencies?

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.

Today let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.”