Susan's Thursday morning note August 6, 2020
"Moxie" quotations. "David had it – Goliath didn't!"
Good morning! My trees and flowers are thinking about awakening. The leaves are just beginning to move a little and the damp flowers want to greet the sun, but not ready yet to open their tent doors covering their beauty. I hold a mug that my mom “stole” from a hotel in Texas. She absolutely loved this small mug at a huge hotel & just couldn’t resist the temptation of bringing it home. We never let her hear the end of of it, and now, this simple little mug is my favorite. Plain. Small. Mom. Now my treasure. My angel of dawn quietly arrived this morning with a small bouquet of daisies. Showing me the simplicity of nature. Such unassuming beauty around me.
I picture flowers and trees opening right now in the middle of fields and forests. They have possibly never even once been observed by any human eye. I can picture them opening right this moment as the sun hits my fingers. The sun hitting my flowers. The sun hitting my child’s feet. The wilderness flowers and trees will not be observed, yet I picture them standing with all their beauty greeting this day.
A legendary story tells of a rich man who observed a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam of a great cathedral. He was puzzled and asked the carpenter, “Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.” The workman replied, “Because God sees.” Do these wildflowers and trees think the same? As they greet this day seemingly unnoticed to they whisper “thank you” to their creator who sees and is given joy? Joy in his creation striving to be all they are regardless of observation? Do they have “Moxie?”
“Moxie. It’s a street-smart spirit that’s as old as recorded history, and as new as the rising sun. David had it. Goliath didn’t. It’s that intangible tangible. You don’t learn it in school and you can’t get it from a book. It can jump oceans and move mountains. It says, “Make your life what it can be. Take your life wherever it can go.” Kobi Yamada
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift of life is yours; it is an amazing journey; and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. Dan Zadra
Let’s give the historians something to write about. Proprtius
I am here to live out loud. Emile Zola
We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams. We are the movers and shakers of the world forever, it seems. Arthur O’Shaughnessy
If it’s me against 48, I feel sorry for the 48. Margaret Thatcher
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I might have. Abraham Lincoln
I am not afraid…I was born to do this. Joan of Arc
Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. Bertolt Brecht
Do we dare be ourselves? That is the question that counts. Pablo Casals
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting. .E. Cummings
They can’t censor the gleam in my eye. Charles Laughton
When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take, choose the bolder. General W.J. Slim
Come give us a taste of your quality. William Shakespeare
A possibility was born the day you were born and it will live as long as you live. Marcus Solero
“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” J. M. Barrie
We all have made our plans, our goals, our dreams. Then we realize the sands in our timers have flowed so quickly. We look into our memories and see written what we didn’t plan or foresee. Are we going to settle for where we are now? Are we going to blame others or circumstances? Are we going to stop pursuing dreams, pursuing excellence, pursuing goodness. Will we show moxie? Begin writing new lines? Entries of courage. Today. A new empty page. Will the entry tonight show words that we helped others make it through their stories? Keeping the thought forefront in our minds of the Native Americans, “Never judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.” Or, possibly as the carver with his bird knowing only God will see, will we enter lines without a lot of interaction, but instead to open in our wild area, thoughts and actions unobserved by others, but opening our minds and thoughts. All of us, continually writing our personal stories to being chapters we look back on without shame.
Let’s take our lives to the next chapter. Make our decisions today matter. Significant. Make decisions that we may share with no one but that make ourselves proud. Moxie. If we don’t have this trait, then let’s have this new chapter begin with, “Today I decided to add moxie to the chapters in the rest of my book…”
Thank you for letting me write to you again this Thursday. I hope I’m in the store when you come in, but if I’m not – know I thank you for letting me have this beautiful store for you. If you have time to come by we will have the smiles, friendship, and books which may hold words that will change your life. Susan
Latin for this week:
Numquam secundus” – Never second best
Works Cited:
Yamada, Kobi. Moxie. Seattle. Compendium, Inc. 2006.