My plans have changed three times for this weekend. Now we are actually here…I have been out all day…and this evening I am going to be in my little nest resting. Jack is at an event. I will see him again tomorrow 🙂
I am looking forward to an early night. I need to do a lot of catching up with reading your posts in my WP Reader. But first I think I shall have a shower and put on some PJs.
Meanwhile…this is my SHARE-YOUR-WORLD post. I think most of you know already that wonderful Melanie, the creator of sparksfromacombustiblemind, very kindly provides questions for each week for bloggers to answer in a post of their own. This is Melanie’s original SHARE-YOUR-WORLD post for this week:
https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2019/11/04/share-your-world-11-4-19/
Questions
What is the meaning of true love?
To me, true love is motivated by warm feelings and based on the noblest of principles. It’s not just sentiment. It’s certainly more than hormones and physical attraction. It is expressed in words, acts and deeds.
We are all learners at love. Love is the reason we are alive. Our Creator first loved us. If we want to understand true love and imitate it, He provides the best possible example.
Do acts of kindness have a motive?
Most actions have some sort of motive, including acts of kindness. Usually that motive is a good one. I think about how I can make people smile, make them feel appreciated, good about themselves, needed and loved. Why? Because I know that so many others have been kind to me and made me feel better about being alive. So I am highly motivated to be liberal in acts of kindness.
In fact, it’s a very good idea to spend time thinking about the people you know and asking what you could do to show a little more kindness to them. Is there something you could thank or commend them for? Could you spend some time with them, offer a little gift, take them out for tea and cake? There are countless ways to show kindness, but to become richer in acts of kindness, think about people and be motivated.
If you just leave kindness to chance and spontaneity – well, those acts of kindness are unlikely to be as frequent as those you plan. Kindness can become your default setting. Standing up for someone on the bus or train, opening a door for them, remembering to say thank you…let kindness overflow in everything you do. Unkindness is pants!
Sometimes people use kindness to win trust and affection, but then take advantage of that. That is a bad motive! Their kindness proves false when those selfish sinister motives are manifest.
If we live in a civilized world why do we see so many distinctions between rich and poor?
The love of many has grown cold. Greed for more and more has driven economies. This world’s economic system is severely flawed, grossly inadequate. The extremes in poverty and wealth indicate it is completely unsustainable.
I googled the definition of “civilised” and this was the result:
an advanced stage of social and cultural development
There are so many shocking acts committed than indicate that whatever this world might aspire to and claim to be, it is riddled with barbaric, immoral, cruel abuses. Over here in England recently, a lorry was found containing people who had come from Vietnam to seek “a better life”. Within the lorry’s refrigerated unit all of them had died. I found it too horrific to watch the news reports in detail. It was so disturbing.
I had to do some training for work about human slavery. It was so very upsetting.
I find it hard to understand why some people take so much pride in human advancements in technology and industry, when so many millions of people’s lives have been devastated by the greed of others.
It is not good enough that there are some people who are ok, live comfortably (a small minority with absurd amounts of money) and for others to be going to bed hungry every day despite working for hours. I long for the day when everyone on earth will be cared for with love.
Do we love ourselves more in the virtual world than in the real world?
“The virtual world”? Is this supposed to be our online persona?
I think I am careful in real life and online when it comes to my security. As for loving myself…well, I think I have a balanced view of myself on the whole. I am aware of my good points and my not so good points, my strengths and weaknesses, my mistakes and the things I am proud of. I am fairly candid both in real life and online.
I think that in general I have a balanced view of myself. I don’t put myself down. But neither do I take myself too seriously. I have no pretensions per se. I’m just one of the billions of people living on this beautiful planet, trying to contribute what I can to goodness and peace. I think you would get that in real life and online.
I think the only difference that I can perceive is that online, I can take my time to explain something. I can go back to a subject and write about it as often as I feel I need to. That has been good for me. So I guess it is rather self-indulgent. In real life, I can’t do that to people. Sometimes they don’t have time for a deep conversation, sometimes I worry that I might depress the person I am talking to, sometimes I can’t make sense of my own thoughts. It is one of the reasons why I started writing about personal matters on this blog.
It has been a huge release for pent up emotions that I didn’t seem to be able to deal with effectively before.
Gratitude Question
Are you grateful?
Yes. Mainly for everything that our Creator has done, is doing and will do. I love creation so much. What a home we have! What amazing creatures we share this planet with. Skies. I have been gazing at skies quite a bit recently with Jack. Skies are just incredible.
I am extremely grateful for and to my family, wonderful friends, Goldfinch and my lovely Jack.
I am grateful for my small but pretty little nest, with affordable rent. I am grateful for a comfortable bed and good food. I am grateful for all of these things, yet it is so so sad that when I climb into bed there are millions and millions who will go to bed with very little comfort. They may be lacking clean water, or food. They may live in fear of crime, diseases, warfare, or a family member who abuses them.
I am so grateful to know that our Creator will not allow this to go on much longer. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not going to last much longer! Soon this world will be governed by love – true love!
I googled songs about a happy life…and this came up. It’s just piano music, but as I was reading the words on the screen, it made me feel such enormous happiness. I am living for the day when every human and every creature on this planet is thriving!
I am seeing sides to “Jack” that I didn’t see before. Well, I don’t think he particularly exhibited them to me before now. He can be so sweet and thoughtful…at times. (The rest of the time he is a bundle of unpredictable energy, that I have to be on constant alert for!)
I was pleased as punch with him! But he also had the idea of printing one of the photos of he and I that he has taken in recent weeks, it’s a lovely photo, and he bought a frame, and now I have that sitting in the row of family photos.
I began learning British Sign Language when I was sixteen and acted as an interpreter for friends and clients who were deaf for ten years.
I still hope to learn how to play the guitar properly and the piano. I found music lessons discouraging at school to be honest. I was given a tenor horn (not my choice) to learn to play. It was a nightmare to transport it on the school bus, so I gave up.
I intend to travel the whole earth, as slowly as possible. I hope that will be in a boat, that I have made. Only I don’t really want to do it alone. I would like the man I am in love with to have built the boat with me, and to be sailing with me. It makes me feel so excited to think of all the members of my human family that I have never met yet. I would love to meet them and for them to share their “corner” of the globe with me. Their cuisine, their music and dance, their culture, and the natural beauty of their home, the local wildlife. I am looking forward to the adventure of lifetime! I would like to live and work everywhere on the planet.
What is a serious blogger? Is it a blogger who really knows what they are doing? Someone who has been able to create a beautiful website and perhaps uses it professionally? Perhaps they produce helpful articles, substantiated with extensive references? Perhaps they also have links to other online resources, affiliate links or other recommendations? Perhaps they have mometirsed their blog or use it to promote their business? Is that a serious blogger?
Stuart, from Croydon, was the one who made me take the plunge. He and I used to be in touch a lot, mainly via e-mail. He was kind and said he looked forward to coming home from work and catching up with my long e-mails. (I have been writing letter and e-mails to family and friends since I was a child.)
I also thought it a bit odd to write something strangers would read. All my letters and e-mails have been to friends and family I know and love. So it was easy to know what to talk about, what they will be interested in, what they will find amusing or meaningful. How on earth do you know what to write to complete strangers?
So…to say the least I did not have very high expectations of blogging! But, a friend who used WordPress set up an account for me and picked some of the short stories I had and posted them all on the same day. Nothing happened. Hardly any feedback. But then I started participating in writing prompts and things got more interesting. It brought me into contact with some great bloggers.
Erm…my Nespresso machine?
Lots of ways. I like variety.
What kind of loyalty? Nobody is perfect. We all do and say things that are off the mark. So we all need loyal love, underserved kindness, graciousness form others. I would maintain loyal friendship and support to someone who might injure me or do something wrong. That might mean forgiving them or overlooking what they have done.
I have not bought any bottled water (I used to buy it for work) for a couple of years. I just use my reusable water bottle. I also have a reusable coffee cup (two actually) that I take around with me. I use canvass shopping bags (which so far have lasted me for several years) instead of plastic carrier bags.
When we were little girls we used to swim with a local club, at least three times a week after school (for several hours). We loved swimming. We were always in the pool until closing time, trying to pretend we didn’t hear the calls from the lifeguards and our parents that it was closing time. So when we climbed out of the pool, we didn’t have time to dry our hair properly because they wanted to lock the doors! We would run out into the cold hair with dripping hair and run as fast as we could to the car (sometimes we would run to the chip shop begging out parents to buy us a bag of chips to share in the car).
Caramel 