Tag: love

Valentines

Happy Valentine’s Day!

As I write this, I have a dessert treat in the oven for this evening and E and L are sharing a Valentine’s Day tea in London. We are happy that they have a chance to spend Valentine’s Day together in this year of being separated by an ocean most of the time.

It is also the birthday of one of my cousins. His mom, one of my dad’s sisters, always wanted a son born on Valentine’s Day and she got her wish.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t have another child because she was Rh negative and her son was Rh positive. Because she was now sensitized to Rh factors, her antibodies would have attacked the blood of another Rh positive child. If the baby survived, it would have needed an immediate total blood transfusion. Most couples in those circumstances chose not to risk a second pregnancy.

Like my aunt, I am Rh negative, but I was fortunate to be pregnant after the development of RhoGAM. I had one shot during pregnancy and a second after I gave birth to E, who is Rh positive, so that I would not develop antibodies to Rh factors. This enabled me to later have daughter T without risk to her blood.

Valentine’s Day is another day to be thankful for family and for good medical care.

One-Liner Wednesday: MLK quote

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
~~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays and/or Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/18/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-1817-prompt-for-fun/

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One-Liner Wednesday: three little words

Love trumps hate.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/11/16/one-liner-wednesday-words-and-grace/.

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One-Liner Wednesday: love

“Love is not something you do; love is Someone you are.”
~~~Richard Rohr
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/05/one-liner-wednesday-the-temptation-of-a-masochist/

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Florence Foster Jenkins

A family friend when I was a child often said, “Well, bless her heart,” whenever someone did something well-meaning or wholeheartedly.

Meryl Streep discussing Florence Foster Jenkins, whom she portrays in the new film of the same name, says that people at the time had one of two reactions to hearing Florence sing, either “bless her” or laughter.

Both of these are shown in the film.

Florence was a piano prodigy as a child, who lost her ability to play due to a physical condition. She continued to love music and, in adulthood. became an important musical philanthropist in New York City.

Florence liked to sing with heart and emotion. What she didn’t realize was that her physical malady had adversely affected both her ability to sing on pitch and her recognition that she was not singing on pitch. In order not to hurt her, her husband and her friends protected her from finding out the truth.

I love Meryl Streep’s work. She always brings depth into her portrayals as she does here. As a singer myself, although a choral soprano rather than a coloratura who can toss off the “Queen of the Night” aria at the drop of a hat, I was amazed at Streep’s ability to sing as Florence did – almost, but not quite up to the pitch.

On Fandango, the movie is listed as both a comedy and a drama. While there are moments of laughter, I can’t think of the film as a comedy. I think it is better characterized as a reflection on the power of music, service, friendship, and love in the face of adversity.

Florence, bless your heart. Meryl, thank you for bringing this powerful story to us.

One-Liner Wednesday: Love

“Our challenge today is to trust the power of love at the heart of life, to let ourselves be seized by love, to create and invent ways for love to evolve into a global wholeness of unity, compassion, justice, and peacemaking.”
~~~ Ilia Delio

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/03/one-liner-wednesday-it-was-the-beginning-of-the-end/

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SoCS: wrapping up the week in a few seconds

I am taking a second while it is still Saturday to slip in an under-the-wire SoCS post before I go to bed.

I hope everyone has had a good week. It has been a strange week here in the US with the Republican convention, but I want to assure readers in other countries that the US is not the dangerous place that the speakers at the convention make it out to be. Crime is actually down.

I think we need less fear and suspicion and more love and empathy.

That goes for all nations.

Good night. Wishing you all peace.
JC
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “second.”  Come join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-2316/

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living in Zootopia?

Given that the movie Zootopia came out in the spring when we were busy dealing with Grandma’s death, I saw it for the first time recently in our local late-run movie theater.  I found a number of uncomfortable parallels about racism, sexism, prejudice, jumping to often unwarranted conclusions, and fear and fear-mongering.

I feel like I am living in the midst of those things.

After the shootings in Baton Rouge yesterday, the public officials in Louisiana tried to quell rumors and pleaded for calm. President Obama then reiterated his calls for civility and for toning down divisive rhetoric, especially important as we enter two weeks of political conventions.

We need to pull together as community, as a nation, and as citizens of the world.

I am adding my voice to this effort, as I tried to do in this recent post.

I admit to being disheartened by those who are publicly blaming President Obama for the deaths of the police officers, following years of hateful rhetoric that has so many not only questioning our civic institutions’ legitimacy but also falling into violent extremism, hate speech, fear, mistrust, and/or hyper-individualism.

We are better than this.

We have brains that can gather facts and reach reasonable conclusions from them.

We have hearts to love others and to move us to care for them.

We have bodies that enable us to interact with our loved ones and for the common good.

We must not allow ourselves to be bullied, misled, or blinded by hatred or fear.

We need each other.

We are connected to each other.

We must respect each other’s human dignity.

Never forget.

waking up to more violence

The level of violence in the United States and in the world was already much too high.

And then, there was this week.

It’s too much to bear.

Yet, we must go on.

But not with violence.

Not with vengeance.

We need to stop to reflect, to examine our problems as a society, to consider how to act with greater justice, mercy, peace, and love, to put the best solutions into practice, to uphold the dignity of each person and protect their safety.

We are all wounded, which makes us vulnerable.

Many want to repay violence with violence, but that is what has gotten us into our current untenable position.

The way of non-violence is not easy, but what has the way of violence gotten us?

I wish there was a way to magically draw us into harmonious communities, but there isn’t.

All I can do is look to my own thoughts and heart and keep them focused on positive change, not violence and vengeance.

And I can beg you to do the same.

SoCS: what I long for

Things I long for – or long for more abundantly:

peace
sleep
more hours to write
more hours when my brain is operating clearly enough to write
love
good health for my family, friends, and everyone else, too
co-operation for the common good
caring about important things
for public sanity and good will in the face of so many challenges
unity
an end to hunger, oppression, and deprivation

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This short and impossible list is  brought to be Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “long.” Come join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-216/

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