SoCS: Thoughts on War and Peace (with an old song and a newer song)

 Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cent/scent/sent.” Use them in any form you like. Use one, use two or use them all. Bonus points if you use all three, and Cheryl will put your next drink on David’s tab. I know, you used to get bonus points for two, but inflation… Enjoy!

(Thank you to Dan for filling in for our usual host, Linda Hill who has been without electricity!)

Of all the Russians sent to fight against the people of Ukraine, I wonder how many want to be there. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to fight in a war, but there are some mercenaries. We watch so many movies and TV shows about fighting, battles, violence… sometimes for a cause which makes for good drama…. I wonder if there are people sent to take Ukraine from her people who are against the war but cannot go home due to repercussions they or their families would have to face. I wonder if any have melted into the countryside and escaped – went AWOL (absent without leave) Probably not many.

The letters my father sent to my mother from Vietnam hint at the struggle to remain fighting in a war where children were killed or left homeless. My mother wanted him to come home. My father wanted to come home. But there was never really any question about what he would actually do. His sense of duty was stronger than desires for home and family and the needs of love. He fulfilled his obligation to the US government. The war haunted him for the rest of his life.

For centuries there have been wars. Maybe some of them have been justified, but most, I believe are not. When will we ever learn? It would be better to chase the scent of flowers than to fight with violence.

Do you remember this song by Peter Paul & Mary? I didn’t remember how pretty the harmonies were for such a sad song.

When will we ever learn? One day, maybe, peace will spread. How, I don’t know, but it will take work and focus on peace, focus on using our words in positive ways. Compromise. Voting out the egomaniacs. All kinds of complicated contributing factors to war and peace. We can only hope, pray, and work for peace in our lives and the lives we touch. It will take work, because we are not perfect. We will get angry, but we can learn to cope in non-violent ways. Smell the flowers and hope one day more people will value peace. And the people will say, that we don’t wanna fight no more, there’ll be no more war, and the children will play….

~~~

For more streams of consciousness, and other details, visit our host, Linda Hill by clicking HERE. Thanks, again to Dan at No Facilities for today’s prompt. Oh, and thanks, Dan for letting us know that … “Linda’s electricity has left the building,” and not using the word, “power,” because we can still have power without electricity. I hope Linda has her electricity back on by now or very, very soon!

SoCS: Buttercups!

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt is “butter.”

We are not going to write about, wait, who’s we? Me and the cat? She’s not interested in writing. She just wants to cuddle since she hid most of the day yesterday in the bedroom where maybe she was trapped. I don’t know. But I don’t want to write about the first thing that popped into my head, the butter in the refrigerator and object of my cheating in my endeavors to be vegan for lent. I’d rather write about the second thing that popped into my head:

Buttercup!

Photo of buttercups my daughter, Ayla, took in the mountains

Then, I thought of Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride and found this commentary about how she is not just a typical, helpless, fairy tale princess. She is not in love with the prince. She loves to ride her horse. It made me like her more. I didn’t realize until recently that the same woman who played Princess Buttercup, played Jenny in Forest Gump. Back to the commentary.

Horses and freedom. My horse phase was more than a phase. I actually had my own horse in my twenties. I miss horses. And the beach. But there’s no reason I know of that we can’t go back to the things we love in some way or other – if it’s meant to be, we will find a way. Trust the Timing.

Spring is coming. With buttercups!

That was way more fun that writing about my awful side effects from Moderna 1 and 2. But that is over and done with, and I’m very glad. I survived, and I’m thankful for my strong immune reaction.

Buttercups! Daisies! Roses! Orchids!

Check out the orchids and other flowers blooming in time lapse from Nat Geo! They even have fairy tale like music to go with the images of Princess Bride riding her horse. That’s my stream of consciousness for this Saturday.

But wait!

I forgot all about sharing that commercial where they sing the buttercup song. Can I have three videos in one post? Let’s see! I’m not promoting the product. I just love TV commercials that use old songs like this. I’d totally be singing with her if I was in the store. It doesn’t matter that the lyrics are sorta sad. It’s got a good beat and it’s easy to sing to.

For more on Stream of Consciousness Saturday, like rules and stuff, visit our host, Linda Hill at the link below!

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 6, 2021 | (lindaghill.com)

Feeling the Earth

Today’s SoCS prompt is: rib

Our ribs protect our heart and lungs. Have you noticed that the branches that take air to our body through our lungs, look like tree branches? The earth’s atmosphere protects all life on our planet – the planet we share with all other life on earth. Who protects the earth?

Back home in my own backyard, I am gifted with little clover flowers flourishing along with the “weeds.” Nothing is a weed if it has a flower.

And here is my amaryllis saying, Hello!

The earth is breathing hard today as I write this on Friday afternoon. High winds blow in the treetops. Where are my wind chimes? Still packed in a box somewhere. The leaves make music that sounds like waves in the ocean. This is a wondrous planet! As Earth Day approaches, celebrate the planet that gives us life. Celebrate every day you take a breath.

Please take a look at this post from Sue Dreamwalker. The song “Mother Earth” is powerful.

https://suedreamwalker.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/wake-up-to-nature-and-to-ourselves/

Can you feel her heartbeat beneath your feet?

Oh, and Happy Easter! I believe Jesus wants us to take care of these marvelous gifts from the Creator, including the gift of our own lives and each other.

For more on the Stream of Consciousness Saturday,  visit Linda G. Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/04/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-20-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Flowers and Faith

Today’s theme for Song Lyric Sunday is about flowers. Helen, our gracious host, aYsked that we post a song with a flower in the title or lyrics. First, I want to share about my mother’s miracle flower.

When Mom was close to 80, she had this red, plastic flower in a small pot on the coffee table. She called it her miracle flower because he never had to water it. It stayed red and beautiful. Around that time, I’d read something about mental health being a dedication to reality at all costs. I was all serious business in those days and wanted my mom to be mentally healthy. So I told her something like, “I don’t know mom, I think this flower might be plastic.” She  looked at me like I was crazy and insisted her flower was real. Then she changed the subject. To this day, I wish I’d joined my mom in celebrating her miracle flower. What would it have hurt? She only had a few more years to live.

My mom’s ditzy-ness embarrassed me when I was younger. I didn’t understand why some of my friends thought she was so sweet. Now, I get it. In the end, Mom’s faith was more important than whether a flower was real or plastic. So, before I post a flower song, I want to share this beautiful version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” which was one of my mom’s favorites:

Remembering Mom’s song (and her faith) helped me during the lonely years. Maybe she planted a seed.

My flower song reminds me of my first love, a love that faded and became dormant but never died. It was like “a seed, that with the sun’s love, in the spring became a rose.”

(You can read more about my first love on my Work In Progress page.)

Inter-faith Dreams and Gardening

The first thing that popped into my head when I read Linda’s post for today (inter) was “Inter-faith.” But then I wanted to go look up inter-  so I could understand the word more.

Dictionary.com says:

a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it meant “between,” “among,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” “reciprocally,” “together,” “during” ( intercept; interest); on this model, used in the formation of…

What if we could sit down at a table and share about our faith and work toward understanding one another? A picnic table would be nice, or a round table, like King Arthur had. What if we just listened to each other and looked for common ground? But accepted the differences too! I know it might not be easy. But it would be interesting. I use that word a lot, interesting. But I like it. It would be interesting if we could be open-minded.

We have strong beliefs about some things, so it’s not always easy. Like yesterday I went to feed my feral cats at church and one of our church members who loves to do landscaping was planting the Easter lilies in the garden. Then he started pulling up these plants that I like with purple flowers on them because they are looking leggy and past their peak. I said I thought they were pretty. We’ve had a similar discussion before. We have different philosophies about gardening. I don’t like to kill anything and therefore have a very natural looking yard. Some people would call it overgrown, and they would think they were being nice in saying that when they think it’s a mess.

Anyway, I wanted to get on a soapbox and only briefly mentioned that I didn’t like to kill things. Then I went into the parish hall to wash the cat dish and I prayed: God help me with this. Help me be…. just help me. When I went back out, I saw that the garden did actually look a little better without the scraggly, leggy purple headed stalks. I took one bunch home and planted it in my overgrown yard, and the rest are going to another church member. I helped my friend clean up a little and told him the garden did look better.

So, we both have strong opinions about gardens, which we shared, and we ended up on good terms. Lots of different kinds of flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees in the world. I’m not crazy about zinnias but my friend is. No particular reason. I love honeysuckle and mimosas, but some people think they’re invasive. I think they’re prolific and beautiful. Sometimes honeysuckle intertwines and takes over. And I do have to cut it back some. For the most part, we can coexist, we can tolerate each other’s beliefs. We can figure out a way to respect each other. Sometimes we compromise, sometimes we don’t.

This is a stream of consciousness post, so I don’t have to have a tidy ending. Tidy is not something I’m into anyway. I much prefer interesting.

I just did some research and found out my leggy flower friends are Tradescantia, aka: spiderwort. They come in purple, blue, pink and white, and they are prolific.

Today’s stream of consciousness prompt was: “inter-” provided by our interesting host, Linda G. Hill. You can find her and other SOC posts at:

https://lindaghill.com/2017/05/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-617/

Here are the rules for SoCS:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!