Author: Anne

This author has written 807 articles

OUTWITTED

He drew a circle that shut me out – Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout. 

But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!

Poem by Edwin Markem titled OUTWITTED

Edwin Markham, original name Charles Edward Anson Markham, (1852 – 1940), was an American poet and lecturer, best-known for his poem of social protest, “The Man with the Hoe.” The youngest son of pioneer parents, Markham grew up on an isolated valley ranch in the Suisun hills in central California. After graduation from college, he became first a teacher and then a school administrator. In 1899 he gained national fame with the publication in the San Francisco Examiner of “The Man with the Hoe.” It was inspired by Jean Francois Millet’s painting.  Markham made the French peasant the symbol of the exploited classes throughout the world. Its success enabled Markham to devote himself to writing and lecturing—in which he concerned himself with social and industrial, as well as poetic, problems.

REFLECTION:

  • What circles have you drawn that keep people out?
  • Can you draw a larger circle to let others in?
  • What does that look like?  Feel like?
  • Start drawing!

USELESS??

“No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burden of another.”

FROM:  Charles Dickins  Quoted from his novel:  Dr. Marigold 

Charles Dickens,  (1812 – 1870) was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian era.  His many volumes include such works as  A Christmas Carol, David  Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend and Doctor Marigold.  

REFLECTION:

  • Have you lightened the burden of another recently?
  • If not, how can you?
  • Make an effort today to ease someone’s burden.

YOUR WHY

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. 

Quote by Frederich Nietzsche 

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through the consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment’s secularism,  expressed in his observation that “God is dead,” in a way that determined the agenda for many of Europe’s most-celebrated intellectuals after his death.

REFLECTION:

  • Do you have a WHY to live?
  • What is it?
  • Are you living it now?
  • How can you embrace your why more fully today?