Kansas Star

Poems of Childhood

Eugene Field 

With illustrations by Maxfield Parrish

The Dinkey-Bird

In an ocean, 'way out yonder

(As all sapient people know),

Is the land of Wonder-Wander, 

Whither children love to go;

It's their playing, romping, swinging,

That give great joy to me

While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing

In the amfalula tree!

There the gum-drops grow like cherries,

And taffy's thick as peas--

Caramels you pick like berries

When, and where, and how you please;

Big red sugar plums are clinging

To the cliffs beside that sea

Where the Dinkey-Bird is singing

In the amfalula tree.

So when children shout and scamper

And make merry all the day,

When there's naught to put a damper

To the ardor of their play;

When I hear their laughter ringing,

Them I'm sure as sure can be 

That the Dinkey-Bird is singing

In the amfalula tree.

For the Dinkey-Bird's bravuras

And staccatos are so sweet--

His roulades, appoggiaturas,

And robustos so complete,

That the youth of every nation--

Be they near or far away--

Have especial delectation

In that gladsome roundelay.

Their eyes grow bright and brighter

Their lungs begin to crow,

Their hearts get light and lighter,

And their cheeks are all aglow;

For an echo cometh bringing

The news to all and me,

That the Dinkey-Bird is singing

In the amfalula tree.

I'm sure you like to go there

To see your feathered friend--

And so many goodies grow there

You would like to comprehend!

Speed, little dreams, your winging

To that land across the sea

Where the Dinkey-Bird is singing

In the amfalula tree!

Soul

Session Six 

Leader:  Lord Jesus we believe that you are present with us now that you as we gather in your name. We ask that you guide everything we do and say with your light and love.  Now follow these instructions closely and in silence:

Close your eyes and relax yourself completely. Begin with your face muscles (pause), shoulders (pause), arms and torso (pause), legs and feet (pause).

If you still feel any tenseness anywhere, relax it.

Now I am going to read a brief passage. Try to see, feel, hear, smell, taste everything that is described (pause and then read reflectively):

We had spent several weeks in southern Spain, at the hottest time of the year.  Every morning my young son went to the balcony of our hotel to see what kind of day it would be, and every day it was the same--inexhaustibly sunny=untile one morning I heard a whoop of joy and the exultant words, "Hurray! It's reaining!"

Glorious to see the dusty streets and rooftops running with rain!

Delightful to breathe the cleansed air, to smell the wet earth!

Through the whole of that sreaming day, Longfellow's poem sang in my mind:  "How beautiful in the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad snd fiery street, In the narrow land, How beautiful is the rain!" (pause.) Elizebyth Starr Hill "Hurray! It's Raining!"

Now imagine you are lying on a deserted beach. It has been torridly hot all day. Suddenly a cloud appears, then a breeze, and then drops of resreshing rain. (pause)

See the raindrops fall on the lake, forming millions of tiny little ringlets. 

(30-second pause.)

Listen to the rain falling on the lake, the beach, and on metal objects on or near the beach. 

(30-second pause)

Feel the rain fall on your body, soothing it, running down you shoulders, arms, and face. 

(30-second pause)

Taste the rain as it falls on your parched lips and trickles across them. 

(30-second pause)

Now, for the next 3 or 5 minutes, just lie there, enjoying the rain with all of your 5 senses. 

(Silent Period)

Mark Link, SJ

          YOU

Prayer for Beginners 

and Those Who 

Have Forgotten How

         

October 19 2013
Potholderz Stacey Peter

Alice

Change your Brain Change your Life

(before 25)

Jesse Payne, Ed.D.

Chapter 16

Working the Brain to be Smarter

pg. 216 

Researchers at Columbia University compared hundreds of fifth grade children who were praised for their intelligence with those who were praised for their efforts and hard work. The study (1998) showed that the kids who were praised for being smart became more performance oriented and were less prepared to deal with setbacks. When faced with a challenging task, they were less likely to tackle it with persistence, they exhibited less enjoyment and they did less well on it than the children who were praised for their efforts and hard work. Also, the kids who earned praise for being smart tended to say that intelligence couldn't be improved or developed. Students who were praised for their efforts and hard work believed that they could learn strategies to improve their intelligence and performance.

An important element of intelligence is self-control. Research shows that preschoolers who know how to delay gratification achieve higher academic performance, cope better with stress and frustration, and have better social and cognitive skills as adolescents. Psychology professor and researcher Walter Mischel's famous "marshmallow experiment" illustrates how this works. In the late 1960's Mischel and his colleagues invited dozens of preschoolers into a laboratory room one at a time and had them sit down at a table on which there was a single marshmallow. The researchers told each child that he or she could either eat the marshmallow right away or wait for several minutes and get two marshmallows. Some of the children couldn't wait and ate the marshmallow right away. Other children came up with ways to distract themselves, such as clapping their hands, or to manipulate the environment, such as turning their chair so they faced away from the marshmallow, to keep themselves from eating it.

Mischel followed these children for fourteen years and found that those who were able to delay gratification, to wait for two marshmallows, fared much better in life than those who ate the marshmallow right away. The "waiters" had higher self-esteem, were better at coping with stress and frustration, performed better academically, scored an average of 210 points higher on their SATs and were more socially adept than the "gobblers."

October 19 2013

Potholderz Stacey Peter

Hour Glass II

Understanding Stupiddity

James F. Welles, Ph.D.

III The Schema as Adaptive

Language--Norms--Groups--Roles

pg. 61 The Self

Against stupidity the very gods 

Themselves contend in vain.

Schiller, The Maid of Orleans, III, 6.

Of course, this is a crucial conflict if the job is related to relief efforts and public safety. 

As a person shifts roles with changing circumstances, certain attitudes and elements of behavior remain constant and define the "Self". As a manifestation of the individual's core schema, the self consists of perceptions, motivers and experiences fundamental to identity. Moving outward from this central, consistent essence of character, each person has multiple, superficial attitudes and behavioral programs designed for the various roles to be played--each slightly different and each relating to a different reference group. Behavior in any situation is an expression of the self drawn out by the given role applied to specific conditions. 

Expression of the self by role playing may not always be healthy. Although it is normal for people to play roles, in that most people do so most of the times, it can be distressing. If playing a particular role means hiding one's real self, then that is the price that must be paid for the social reward of acceptance. While it may be psychologically distressing to hide from a required role, it can be socially deleterious to bury oneself in a role. Roles and situations are often said to dehumanize or "Deindividuate" the people caught up in them, but it is very human for individuals to take narrow roles to uncritical extremes. Even the happy state of "Being oneself" in a congruent environment can be both ideal and injurious, if the role has become limited or the environment artificially contrived. An example might be the archetypical "Pig" policeman who loves to push people around and gets away with it as long as official word of his abuses can be contained within the precinct.

October 13

Temple Court

"Black Dog"

Led Zeppelin

Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing, gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way, watch your honey drip, can't keep away.

[Chorus:]
Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah. Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.
I gotta roll, can't stand still, got a flaming heart, can't get my fill
Eyes that shine burning red, dreams of you all through my head.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.

Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby, tell me that you'll do me now
Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby, do me like you do me now
Didn't take too long 'fore I found out, what people mean by down and out.
Spent my money, took my car, started telling her friends she's gonna be a star.
I don't know but I been told, a big-legged woman ain't got no soul.

[Chorus]

All I ask for when I pray, steady rollin' woman gonna come my way.
Need a woman gonna hold my hand, won't tell me no lies, make me a happy man.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah

October 4

Windmill Square

IV

The Cave

Autumn, 97 A.V.

No light, but rather darkness visible

Served only to duscover sights of woe.

--Milton,

Paradise Lost

Chapter 24

--"Hello, she said.

I am sorry I have been away. I've missed you.

--I've missed you, too.

The space around them had altered; the room had dispersed into a darkness in which only the two of them existed, like a pair of actors on a spotlit stage.

Something is changing. 

--Yes. I think that it is.

You will need to go to him. Amy.

--Who? Who should I go to?

He's different from the others. I could see it the first time I laid eyes on him. A glass of iced tea. That was all he wanted, to cool himself off in the heat. He loved that woman with his whole heart. But you know that, too, don't you Amy?

--Yes.

An ocean of time, that's what I told him. That's what I can give you. Anthony, an ocean of time. A sudden bitterness came into his face. I always did hate Texas, you know. He had yet to look at her; Amy sensed that the conversation neither required nor even allowed this. Then: I was thinking just now about the camp. The two of us, reading together; playing Monopoly. Park Place, Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens. You always beat me. 

--I think you let me.

Wolgast chuckled to himself. No, it was always you, fair and square. And Jacob Marley. A Christmas Carol, that was your favorite. I think you had the whole book memorized. Do you remember?

--I remember all of it. The day it snowed. Making the snow angels.

He wore the chains he forged in life. Wolgast frowned in sudden puzzlement. It was such a sad story.

The Twelve

Justin Cronin

Blocks in a Box

Rocco  "Got a million dollars?" 

 Frank  "No."

 Rocco  "How much?"

 Frank  "Nothing.

Rocco  "But your a wise guy." 

Frank  "You see, I was educated only in impractical things. With you it's just the opposite."

Excerpt from Key Largo 1948

October 1