Jessie's Piece (Reprise)

The following poem is fanciful (There is no Jessie, in reality).   It reflects a philosophy that I find personally appealing – the idea of a “universal crazy quilt”, stitched together from each and every life, however short the life, however sized or shaped or colored -- each life a unique patch.

JESSIE’S PIECE

The world’s a jigsaw, once I thought,
With each of us a piece to fit,
A predetermined Grand Design
And each of us a part of it.

I thought that God must surely have
A blueprint of His final goal,
And all who come into this life
Are meant to play some fated role.

But when my little Jessie died,
It seemed to me but sheer caprice.
Where fits a child in God’s design
Who never lived to add her piece?

How often did I walk alone
To still the anguish in my heart,
To ask why God would make a plan
In which my child had no part.

One day, upon a village square,
I happened by a tiny shop.
What random step had led me there?
What in the window made me stop?

It was a quilt, a crazy quilt,
Each piece a brightly-colored patch,
A joyful, glowing work of art
From scraps you’d think would never match.

I looked upon the quilt in awe
To think a thing so oddly fine
Was stitched from fragments never made
To fit to anyone’s design.

I wondered then if God might wish
That in this way His world be built,
Each life a motley-colored scrap,
And He the weaver of the quilt.

If such be true, I realize,
My child’s life, though short it be,
Is yet a joyful, shining patch
In God’s eternal tapestry.

I looked upon the quilt and saw
A patch that seemed but sheer caprice,
So whimsical it made me smile.
I knew it was my Jessie's piece.

~~ Robert Brault

Thoughts Mostly New

(This post was formerly titled, "Dear Terri, Here's Another Chance.")


"The most certain way to banish a negative thought is to require that it have a purpose."


"Eventually you realize that your whole life up to now has been preparation, and you begin to suspect that the rest might be preparation, too."


"As important as it is to keep picking yourself up and brushing yourself off, it's also important to stop tripping over your own two feet."


"What separates Halloween from all other days is that the ghosts and goblins can be bought off with a smaller-size Snickers bar."


"One day, in your search for happiness, you find a partner by your side, and you realize that your happiness has come to help you search."


"Imagine, in the first winter, the odds you could get against the first spring."


"When your life seems given to trivial concerns, it is usually because you've succeeded in keeping them trivial."


"There is no logical thread that begins with a packet of seeds and ends in despair."


"Once you fix it in your mind that life itself is a gift, you begin to find happiness in just about everything."


"Next time you toast an anniversary, ask yourself when was the last time you toasted your plans."


"Perhaps we are given a body that heals so that we won't waste our lives looking for band-aids."


~~ Robert Brault

Just To Say Hello Again

Just back from Italy and finding it hard to shake off the jet lag and get back into the groove.  But I want to post something  just to say, "I'm back."   Here are a few thoughts from the archives.




On the Susan Boyle UTube phenomenon

"Possibly we overrate Miss Boyle's accomplishment, for what has she proved but that an individual can aspire, that a cheerful perseverance can prevail, that an imprisoning mold can be cast off and that life, after all, can be fair."


"One dream is realized, and twenty million other dreams are fetched from the closet, dusted off and tried on again for size."


"Is it a sin to share vicariously the shining moment of another? Hardly, for the triumph of one underdog is a triumph for the species. To paraphrase the poet, Send not to know for whom the crowd cheers, it cheers for thee."




When Death Comes For Us

When Death comes for us
may our lives be already safely stored away
in the minds and hearts and memories of those we have loved,
and in the happiness and well-being of all we have helped,
and may death find no life to take from us
but shuffle off defeated,
having relieved us only of our dying.




A stray reverie

"I remember Halloweens of long ago and a child in a ghost costume, and somehow it seems more real to me than the memory of long-ago Christmases and a ghost in a child costume."


~~ Robert Brault

Off To Italy

Joan and I are taking a two-week bus tour of Italy.  If you've stopped by to check out the calendar, please click the link over on the right sidebar.  Ciao.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Venice!

Watercolor by Joan Brault

Under every full moon
I recall a lagoon
Where a mandolin played,
And memories stir
Of the dreamers we were
And the plans that we made.

Grist From The Thought Mill

Did you hear?  The FBI arrested a guy with a printing press who was running a stimulus program out of his basement.


"The most convincing argument that God exists is that the job position so clearly exists."


"When it seems that something can't be done, start it, and see if the rest of it can be done."


"Nothing distracts from life's purpose so much as the events following birth."


Obituary in The Optimist's Weekly: "In lieu of flowers, send smelling salts."


"Failure is the insufficient foresight to have a fuzzy enough goal."


"There are things about myself I would never reveal.  You'd have to waterboard me -- or there would have to be a lull in the conversation at a cocktail party."


"There are two things I'd like to have back:  Every word I ever said to break an embarrassing silence and every number I ever wrote on a napkin."


"You wonder sometimes if God might appreciate a little less praise and a little more understanding."


"When you think about it, staying together for the sake of the kids would make a pretty good pre-nuptial agreement."


"You get to an age when there are really just two reasons to get up in the morning -- for goodness sake and for heaven's sake."


"The thing about the birth of a child is that it makes every chance thing that ever happened to you seem like the hand of fate."


"A man finds love and is satisfied.  A woman finds love and insists on turning it into happiness."


"The world knows how to straighten out a spoiled child but never makes it up to a child deprived."

~~ Robert Brault