Pregnant

From two lines
instead of one
read in the window of a little white stick.


Just married,
barely grown;
a new life ahead,
an old one behind.


One last smoke,
I'll be good to my babe.
Other decisions will have to wait.


No honeymoon,
no newlywed year;
we're starting a family.
A family!


It's all a shock,
but there's no time to feel it.
We mustn't be selfish,
we cannot regret.


We're not home.
No loved ones round here.
No one to encourage,
no one to understand.
Everyone else
are youths, as we.
What can a young family glean from them?


Afraid? We cannot be.
There is someone about to arrive.
He will need us to be strong.


Oh, Lord!
May we be strong!
?

A Soldier's Orders: My One Great Regret

He came home one afternoon
with some papers in his hand.
His countenance was hesitant.
It was sickening news.

Our little family had a decision to make.
To reside in a new land,
amongst a new language
and a new culture
even further from our home!
Three years away
for our young family.

Or ...

One final year.
One more year to a normal life!
to a life back home!
to a start with our own little family!

Just one more year.

But a year separated.
Husband and wife,
Father and son
oceans apart.
Milestones apart.

Decide.

Decide.

How?! Damn this!
Oh, my heart!



decide



One year or three?
Is this what it comes to?
It is how we see it.
Our babe still in arms,
still a nursling.
We make our choice.
One year.

So it was.

One year apart.
Husband and wife,
Father and son,
each suffering and longing
across the oceans.

Our infant leaves his mother's arms
to walk
and to talk.
Our babe in arms becomes a boy
and doesn't know his daddy.

One year lost.
Gone.
Vanished.

A boy should have his dad.

Let it never be neglected,
the necessity of the bond.

This is my haunt.
My one great regret.

Dictatorship of Pride

It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices [Pride] can smuggle itself into the very centre of our religious life. But you can see why.

The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly.

For the same reason, Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy’s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity - that is, by Pride.

The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride - just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

How To Preserve a Husband c.1910

Be careful in your selection;
do not choose too young.
And take only such varieties as have been reared
in good moral atmosphere.
When once decided upon and selected,
let that part remain forever settled
And give your entire thought to preparation for domestic use.


Some insist on keeping them in a pickle,
While others are constantly getting them into hot water.
This only makes them sour, hard and sometimes bitter.
Even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender, and good
By garnishing them with patience, well sweetened with smiles,
And flavored with kisses - to taste.


Then wrap them well in a mantle of charity.
Keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion
And serve with peaches and cream.
When thus prepared they will keep for years.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,


If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or be lied about don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;


If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;


If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,


If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


~ Rudyard Kipling

The Happiest Home

Where is the happiest home on earth?
'Tis not 'mid scenes of noisy mirth;
But where God's favor, sought aright,
Fills every breast with joy and light.


The richest home? It is not found
Where wealth and splendor most abound;
But whereso'er, in hall or cot,
Man lives contented with their lot.


The fairest home? It is not placed
In scenes with outward beauty graced,
But where kind words and smiles impart
A constant sunshine to the heart.


On such a home of peace and love
God showers His blessings from above,
And angels, watching o'er it, cry,
"Lo, this is like our home on high!"




~ Author unknown

A Few Words From Great-Aunt Matilda ...

"Youth is what you might call the spearhead of it all. But that's not really what's so worrying. They - whoever they are - work through youth. Youth in every country. Youth urged on. Youth chanting slogans - slogans that sound exciting, though they don't always know what they mean. So easy to start a revolution. That's natural to youth. All youth has always rebelled. You rebel, you pull down, you want the world to be different from what it is. But you're blind, too. There are bandages over the eyes of youth. They can't see where things are taking them. What's going to come next? What's in front of them? And who is behind them, urging them on? That's what's frightening about it. You know, someone holding out the carrot to get the donkey to come along and at the same time there is someone behind the donkey urging it on with a stick."

~ Lady Matilda Cleckheaton, "Passenger To Frankfurt" by Agatha Christie, 1970

Unfortunately, this was my first Christie.  A frightful dud.  Given my amusement with Poirot and Miss Marple on Masterpiece, I was a bit shocked.  I had been collecting Christies as I found them at garage sales and thrift shops.  As it turns out, serendipity brought my hand to this book.  For it seems to consistently receive the worst ratings of her many works.  Certainly each author is entitled their dud. 

Still, there is great-aunt Matilda.  Most assuredly a refreshing and redeeming character in a dreadfully stale "thriller."  I have recollections of following the proverbial carrot as a youth.  Until I realized it was something unwise and/or unhealthy dangling it before me.


"Leadership, besides being a great creative force, can be diabolical ... " ~ Jan Smuts