May 5, 2024, An evil comes from a neighbouring evil. Latin Proverb

A photo a day upload for yesterday was “city lights”. This is from the archives. My night time photo excursions are limited these days. 

My next upload for yesterday is “open”. I took several photos for this image, an open flower, an open door, an open car trunk. This one won. 

The next upload on the 4th of May is “favourite shot”.  This is my favorite from today. I think that is what the “assignment” intended rather than one from over a period of time. I have several of those, more than several over so may years. After all Ansel Adams says “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”

Life today. Church was about the same today in regard to the number of people who were there for the service. It was our communion day also, that is uplifting and a time of renewal. 

The first photo upload for today is “clocking out”. The thing that stuck in my mind for this one  was a   time clock. I’m sure there are other ways of imagining “clocking out”. Anyway, I chose the time clock I see frequently, though I don’t personally use it. 

After I left church, I stopped to fill my gas tank. While I was there, I checked to see it they had the local Sunday paper. They did. I don’t know if I told of my frustration with my home delivery of the paper a while back. I have gotten the Sunday paper for years. I also subscribe to the digital service for the weekly news.  For years the papers use to be delivered to my front porch where it was under the roof and kept dry and was easy for me to get to. About a year ago the delivery method changed. The paper was thrown into the yard, the drive way or even the neighbor’s drive way, partly for the memories of Sunday morning most of my life. That meant going out in inclement weather to find and pick up my paper. More currently the paper was delivered some weeks and missed other weeks. I was charged either way. About a month ago I gave up and cancelled the paper delivery. I have missed having the paper on Sunday mornings. So I called around to see if I could buy the paper at grocery stores, or at the library, the answer was that none of those places carried it. I even considered having it delivered by mail. Finally, I learned that it is delivered for sale at some gas stations around the community. So now I have my paper back. So small in the scheme of things but oh does it feel good to have it back in my house on a Sunday morning. 

The next upload today is “love”. There are so many things I could use for this photo. There are so many things I “love”. But this one was in my vision today when I was on the lookout for an appropriate photo for this “assignment”. 

The rest of the day will by my typical Sunday afternoon. I will refresh, renew and restore my spirit and prepare for the week ahead. 

Another upload for today is “pink”. As I sat in church this morning I noticed that  the altar flowers were different shades of pink s it would be the perfect shot for today. 

The word today is degree.   Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. Aristotle.  Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. Mary Wollstonecraft. Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves. Honore de Balzac.  As for reputation, though it be a glorious instrument of advancing our Master's service, yet there is a better than that: a clean heart, a single eye, and a soul full of God. A fair exchange if, by the loss of reputation, we can purchase the lowest degree of purity of heart. John Wesley.  Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. Voltaire.  We boil at different degrees. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Is it not hard that even those who are with us should be against us - that a man's enemies, in some degree, should be those of the same household of faith? Yet so it is. John Wesley.  I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything. James Boswell.  Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.  An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains. Henri Frederic Amiel.  

This is another of those days that I needed a fourth upload for the day. This one is called “piers or docks”. I am not around bodies of water often or places where there are docks and piers. Those words may have other meanings in checking a thesaurus but I chose this photo as my expression of piers and docks from the archives.

Article: I think in conversations where views differ, persuasion with respect and lack of  “manipulation” is necessary to make a point and keep relationships in tact. I may need practice in this area, I open my mouth too quickly sometimes. The title to this article is “As humans, we all want self-respect – and keeping that in mind might be the missing ingredient when you try to change someone’s mind”.  It was written by a professor of philosophy. The author used as a reference in his research a German philosopher named Immanuel Kant who wrote a book on ethics. He wrote that we have “a certain duty when we try to correct others’ beliefs”. We shouldn’t consider what they think as poor judgement or completely wrong. We should allow them  to “maintain their self-respect” and try to “find something reasonable in their views”. The article mentions that a “key factor in persuasion is attention”. Another thing that should be taken into consideration is the persons need for social belonging. That part of the issue should be taken into consideration particularly in public settings. Toward the end of the article it is mentioned that persuasion takes “juggling”. We need to “slow things down”. Try to find time to “learn something from the other person in return”. This helps both persons self respect in the conversation.

Dinner will be out of the freezer this evening, chili I think.

Joy

            in closing for today.....an image of a “lost” or misplaced tire