Be Kind to One Another

3WW: hardship; echo;softly.

Is Christmas a hardship or a pleasure?  Can it be one, the other, or both?

As snow falls softly and Christmas Bells echo, be kind to one another.

***

Just Thinking–

Is mental health

Or behavioral health

What we need to address

In a new and better way?

Is it gun control

Or impulse control

That causes the problems

We experience today?

When the more violent the game

The greater the fame,

Is what we are taught,

And is every day play,

And what we watch on TV

Is filled with brutality

How can we not,

Be led astray?

Something is wrong

When innocence gone

Doesn’t make us see

The price we pay.

Please open our minds

To ideas—all kinds

And let us make tomorrow

A better day.

****

More  thoughts–

We must teach our youth

The elemental truth

That violence

Is not the way.

Frustration and anger,

Hurt and pain are a danger

And the lure of fame

Can lead them astray.

Many hearts are broken,

Broken wide open

With a crevice

That won’t go away.

 

 

 

My Mother’s China Cabinet

It’s my house, but I call it Mother’s china cabinet because so many of the items in it once belonged to her. We built the cabinet on the North wall of the dining room.  In the evening, when the sun sets, the wood appears almost pink, but in the morning when the sun is bright the cabinet appears white.

My parents did not live a lavish life style, but my mother accumulated an abnormal amount of dishes during her life time and now many of them are mine.  China plates so white they appear translucent peek through the glass doors, matching cups dangle from hooks above the bowls and sauce dishes.  This is not Mother’s original set of gold-rimmed China.  The first set was run through her dishwasher until the gold rim washed away.  After we were grown she replaced them with this set.   This set does not go in the dishwasher.

Six paneled doors house the heirlooms hidden on the shelves below.  There is a set of 1940’s art deco wine glasses, slightly cloudy from years of use;  a Victorian spoon holder, its cherry color still bright; and the bowl we called the Jell-O bowl.  These are all reminders of another era.  During my childhood the china platters were filled with both turkey and ham at Christmas time.  We drank cranberry juice cocktail from the wine glasses and a concoction of whipped cream, fruit and Jell-O filled the almost square “Jell-O bowl.”

Today these dishes stay safely nestled on the shelves as if their only purpose is to be on display.  Perhaps I will get them out and use them this year on Christmas Day.

Three word Wednesday: dangle, lavish, abnormal.