"Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee"

 A Carrot, an Egg, and a cup of Coffee... You will never look at a cup of Coffee the same, again.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about how things were so hard for her.  She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen.  She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil.

In the first she placed Carrots, in the second she placed Eggs, and in the last she placed ground Coffee beans.  She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners.  She fished the Carrots out and placed them in a bowl.  She pulled the Eggs out, and placed them in a bowl.  Then she ladled the Coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, `Tell me what you see?'

`Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee,' she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the Carrots.  She did and noted that they were soft.  The mother then asked the daughter to take an Egg and break it.  After pulling off the shell,

she observed the hard boiled Egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the Coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted the rich aroma.  The daughter then asked,`What does this mean, Mother?'

Her mother explained that each one of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water.  Each reacted differently.  The Carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting.  However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.  The Egg had been fragile.  Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior.  But after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.  The Coffee beans were unique, however.  After they were in the water, they changed the water.

`Which are you?', she asked her daughter. `When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a Carrot, an Egg, or a Coffee bean?'

Think of this: Which am I?  Am I the Carrot that seems Strong, but with pain and adversity, do I  wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the Egg that starts with a malleable Heart, but changes with the heat?  Did I have a fluid Spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship, or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?  Does my shell look the same, but on the Inside am I bitter and tough, with a stiff Spirit and a hardened Heart?

Or am I like the Coffee bean?  The Bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings you pain.  When the water gets hot it releases the fragrance and the flavor.  If you are like the Bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.  When the hour is the darkest and trials are the greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do You handle adversity?  Are you a Carrot, an Egg, or a Coffee Bean?

~Unknown

~Beannaichte'

20 January, 2016
 

~May you have enough Happiness to make you Kind and Compassionate~enough Trials to make you Strong~ enough Sorrow to keep you Sensitive to Others~and enough Hope to keep you Happy!

"The Realm Untenanted"

While starvation is the ultimate powerlessness and the 

antithesis of survival, hunger strike is a remarkable vehicle   

for gaining political clout. It is entirely disarming. The spectacle 

of a human being who is wasting away physically for the sake

of an ideal is one that approaches the godly. The hunger strike,

an ancient Irish form of protest, found a ritual expression in 1981, when ten men, in utter discipline, fasted to their deaths in a

Northern Ireland jail. The way in which the fasts began, staggered

as they were, felt like a silent procession up to a great door,

one man standing to the side as the next was presented.

This was the door of institutional justice, but became a door into the dark, a dark that the men seemed to illumine as they entered.

It was, for me, one of the most profoundly affecting periods

of the Northern Irish conflict, and one that, when remembered,

arouses feelings of admiration, annoyance, and guilt.

Starvation always possesses an accusatory quality, whether

it is in the face of a Kenyan woman who glares at the camera lens,

or in the emaciated appearance of Lavinia Kerwick, whose anorexia seemed to me to be a form of rage against a system that

 would send the man who raped her back onto the streets before

she had a chance to recover. In Katie Donovan's poem,

"Strike", the aggrieved hunger striker will feed the community

with the remains of her body. Her physical disintegration will

give life to her sense of justice, and give flesh to her ideal.

A fasting person may deepen my faith in human

 transcendence;the first images I saw of early nineteenth-century

Famine victims sent me into denial.  I still remember the moment.

It was in school, and I may have been around eight. I opened

a page of my History book and saw a drawing of a 

starving woman and her child. Until then, I had been under the impression that only black people died of hunger, and

the only black people I had ever seen were small faces on

the sides of charity boxes.  They were black babies, half-toy,

half-human,who lived in some land suspended between fantasy

 and the earth. Looking back, I amaze myself with the efficiency that I deployed in blocking all reaction to the picture.

But when I sat down to write a poem called "Easter-1995-

Hunger", it was the first image that returned.

...a woman and her daughter in a history book,

their bones pointing out from their flesh.

They weren't even black.

And I don't want to see my face,

I don't want to stroke the bones of my disgrace.

That I could be the one to die

that I'd have the power to destroy...

~ From "Irish Spirit";

Maighread Medbh

Ireland

~ Beannaichte'

13 January, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Sweet Love"

Sweet Love,
 don't deny me just a hand to hold
I may not always be the one who sees
I find myself blinded, from time to time
Reaching out for someone who can take the lead
And in my weariness I've tried to cry-
Though my eyes are dry,
I've cried inside.



Sweet Love,
let me Lay myself Beside you
And  Listen to your breathing til it slows
 Long enough to Dream a Vision of my Life
Wrapped up in the Gentle Winds that blow
A Vision of a Life lived long, ago-
I see it,
 though the Lights are low.
 


Sweet Love,
like the Leaves that fall
The Scenes go Drifting by my eyes
I remember Holding you
Telling you, it will be all right
You know the Road looks Straight, from far Away
But it Turned into a Blind curve-
And I've Lost my Way.
 


Sweet Love,
let me Lay Beside you~
Wrapped up in the Gentle Winds that blow...

 

~Kate Wolf
U.S.A.

~Beannaichte'
 5 January, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com

"A Different Christmas Poem"

 The embers glowed softly, and in this dim light

I gazed round the room and cherished the sight

My wife was asleep, her head on my chest

My daughter beside me, angelic in rest

Outside the snow fell, in a blanket of white

Transforming the lawn to a winter delight.

* * * * *

The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe

Complete the Magic that is Christmas Eve

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing so deep

Secure and surrounded by Love, I would sleep

In perfect contentment, or so it would seem

So slumbered, perhaps, I started to dream.

* * * * *  

The sound wasn't loud and it wasn't near

But I opened my eye when it tickled my ear

Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know

Then the sound of footsteps, outside in the snow

My Soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear

And I crept to the door to see who was near.

* * * * *

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night

A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight

A Soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years olde

Perhaps a Trooper, huddled here in the cold

Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled

Standing watch over me, my wife and my child.

 

* * * * *

"What are you doing?"I asked, without fear

"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here

Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve

You should be at home, on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment, I saw his eyes shift

Away from the cold and the snow blown in the drifts.

* * * * *

 He looked to the window ~

that  danced with a warm fire's light

Then he sighed and he said, "It's really all right."

"I'm out here by choice, I'm here every night

It's my Duty to stand at the front of the line

That separates you from the Darkest of times."

* * * * *

"No one had to ask, beg, or implore me

I'm Proud to stand here, like my Father's before me

My Gramps died in Europe, on a day in December

Then he said,"That's a Christmas Gram always remembers"

I've not seen my own son in more than a while

But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

 * * * * *

Then he bent down and carefully pulled from his bag

The Red, White, and Blue, American Flag

"I can live through the cold and the being alone

Away from my Family, my house and my Home

I can stand at my post, through the rain and the sleet

I can sleep in a foxhole, with little to eat

I can carry the Weight of killing another

Or lay down my Life, with a Sister and Brother

Who Stand at the Front with Any and All

To Ensure for all Time ~ this Flag will not fall."

* * * * *

"So go back inside, he said, harbour no fright

Your Family is waiting and it'll be all right"

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least?"

"Give you money," I asked, or prepare you a feast?"

It seems all too little for all that You've done

For being away from your wife and your son"

Then his eye welled a Tear, that held No regret

"Just tell us you'll Love us, and Never Forget."

* * * * *

"To Fight for our Rights back at Home, while we're gone

To Stand your own Watch, no matter how long

For when we come Home - either standing or dead

To Know you Remember- we fought and we bled

Is Payment enough, and with that we will Trust

That we mattered to you, as you mattered to us.

* * * * *

~ Christmas will be coming soon and much credit

is due to our Service Men and Women, for our being able to celebrate

these Festivities.

Let's pay a bit of what we owe...

As a People, and as a Nation ~
stop and think of our Heroes, living and dead,
who sacrificed themselves, for us.
Remember, the greatest thing we can do
for our Men and Women, in Uniform,
is to pray daily for their safety
and the end to hostilities.
We must pray for their Families
who are also making
sacrifices, for us.  
+
~Merry Christmas! 

~Beannaichte'
1 December, 2015


SemperFi

@beannaichte.twitter.com