Day 136: Words, Words, Words – Ecclesiastes 3.1-8 (KJV)

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

Day 113: “Just Get On With the Show”

My writer’s block continues, so today I’m sharing a short rumination from Dolly Parton, who offered the following thoughts to her audience during a recent concert in North Carolina.

“I wish we could gather up all this love and all this energy that we’re feeling tonight and put that in some little bottles and just send it all over the world, just to heal all this stuff. … But they’ve just got us all just scared to death with all this political terrorism. People are just afraid to do anything, really. People said, ‘Oh, it’s the end of time’ … But nobody knows when the end is coming. …  It might be today, and it might be tomorrow, or in a million years or two; but in the meantime, we’ve gotta be happy, we’ve gotta work together, we’ve gotta do better. We’ve got to dream more, care more, do more, be more, and it wouldn’t hurt to pray more, right? So let’s just stop this whole doomsday attitude and just get on with the show.”

Day 100: Words, Words, Words – “I Hear America Singing” (1867)

“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at
work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.”

— Walt Whitman