Author Archives: Patricia Ann

A Family Is…

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A Family is a deeply rooted tree with branches of different strengths all receiving nourishment from an infinite source.

A Family is where character is formed, values are learned, ethics are created, and society is preserved.

A Family is where all members contribute and share, cooperate and work, and accept their responsibilities toward the good of the group.

A Family is where holidays are celebrated with feasting, birthdays acknowledged with gifts, and thoughts of days gone by kept alive with fond remembrances.

A Family is where each can find solace and comfort in grief, pleasure and laughter in joy, and kindness and encouragement in daily living.

A Family is a haven of rest, a sanctuary of peace, and most of all a harbor of love.

I believe most, if not all, of these quotes were written by Manny Feldman.

 

 

 

Mysterious Ways

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Faith is a gift from God. Is it a supernatural gift? I believe everything about God is supernatural, and this brief modified excerpt from my book, My Precious Life, will explain why I believe that.

In 1977, a banner heralding the message, I’ve found it! You can find it too! had been hanging in my seventeen-year-old son’s room for several weeks. Dann had left the poster behind when he went to live with his dad. I often wondered what it meant, but didn’t give it too much thought until one evening, Kelly, who was ten, and had taken over his brother’s room asked, “Mom, what does that sign mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but somehow I’ll find out.”

Just then the phone rang. It was a soft-spoken woman who asked me a question.

“Have you seen a sign around with the message, ‘I’ve found it, you can find it too’?”

The hairs stood up on my arms and my body began to tingle. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Yes,” I replied, “I have.”

“Do you know what it means?” she asked.

“No,” I admitted, as the tingling sensation increased.

The woman explained that it was a message from several inter-denominational churches, encouraging people to come to God. Her message was uplifting, and at the end of it, my caller asked permission to pray with me.

It was a simple prayer to renew my faith, and ended with an invitation to attend the church she was representing. Her name was Mrs. Williams. She thanked me for listening, and said I was the first positive response after the many calls she had made that night. I told her of the conversation Kelly and I had shared just moments before her call.

“God does work in mysterious ways,” she responded.

Well, yes he does, I thought to myself as I went back to answer Kelly’s question about the meaning of the poster.

Thinking back on that particular evening, Isaiah 65:24 comes to mind: Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.

I just love His mysterious ways!

 

 

 

 

The Victim (Reblogged)

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I first posted this blog August 1, 2014 and then in again in September of that year and now it needs to be posted again When are we ever going to learn? (I wrote the poem in 1995 and it is still relevant.) 

Do you remember a post where I mentioned that a marriage counselor once told me I think too much? Well, you know, he may have been right after all. It seems to me that more of us should do more thinking. I don’t mean random, willy-nilly, helter-skelter thoughts, but deep down, deliberate thoughts that lead to changes in the way we see ourselves and others; the way we see our world and the way we live in it.

In 1995 I wrote this poem called The Victim. It’s about crimes and war and unsound government, and the entire world possibly becoming victim to all of these things. And then thinking about the poem in a new light, I realized that it’s not only crimes and wars and unsound government that hurt people, but the way we treat each other on a daily basis. The sad part of all of this is the take heed part. If we don’t take heed, nothing changes, and if we do?

THE VICTIM

People dead

before their time,

victims

of some heinous crime.

Callous killers,

world’s worst foes,

victims

of God only knows.

Wars created

through sheer greed,

victims

of abnormal need.

Governments

whose rule a hoax,

victims

of the peoples’ votes.

Our planet Earth,

soon indigent,

victim

of our ignorance.

World, take heed!

The time has come

for remedy

lest you become

the victim.

©1995

When I stop and think about it, I don’t mind being the victim of too much thought. Please join me; let’s help make the world a better place by looking at the way we think, and changing what needs to be changed. Only by recognizing that our part in global destruction may begin in our own thought patterns, the thoughts we hold about ourselves and each other, may we be a part of the solution.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement…Romans 12:3

 

 

 

On The Sidewalk of Life

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On Monday of this week, I had the sad opportunity to attend the funeral of a fifty-two-year-old young man who was a long-time member of my church. Andrew was the epitome of good nature, good deeds, and good looks. He was also the recipient of ominous cardiovascular genetics. His father and brother both died of this deadly disease at a very early age. Although his mother also had the gene, she did live a longer life, and Andrew became her solitary caregiver after she suffered a stroke in her early seventies.

This young man took care of his mother in the same way she cared for him as a child. He was always by her side, taking her to movies, out to dinner, to church functions, and to church every Sunday. When Andrew smiled, it lit up a room; when he laughed, it could be heard clear across Scarborough, and if Andrew cried, nobody heard it.

And his good works didn’t stop with his mother. On one occasion, I met Andrew when he was shopping at a Superstore where I had just purchased a patio set of table, four chairs and an umbrella. Seeing me trying to cram this whole set into my little Kia Magentis, totally without success, Andrew promptly pulled his van up behind me and loaded my patio furniture into it. “Where to, Patricia?” he asked with his famous brilliant smile. He followed me to my house, unloaded my set, and offered to put it all together for me. But I declined that extra service and sent him on his way, with a huge hug of thanks, to get his mother’s groceries. Not long after that, Andrew’s mother suffered a major stroke which ended her life, and saw him handle the final act of seeing to his mom’s last wishes.

That’s how Andrew walked the sidewalk of life. Everything he did was from the goodness of his heart; one that never functioned physically the way it was meant to.

After his mother’s death, Andrew began admitting to having problems with his heart. In spite of that, he picked up the pieces of life without his mom, and carried on living with a new sense of freedom, when he wasn’t in hospital for one procedure or another.

And then Andrew was gone. A massive heart attack took him in his sleep. I’m told he knew his days were numbered, but not for one moment do I believe that he gave in to self pity. I’m told that on his final day on earth, he mentioned to a neighbour that he wasn’t feeling well but went about filling the bird bath and feeder so that his feathered friends were looked after. That’s the kind of guy he was.

As the clergyman who did his funeral service told us, this good natured young man got off the sidewalk of life and onto the stairway to Heaven.  And he only did so after a final act of kindness.

Can you imagine how many angels were waiting for Andrew at the top of that stairway?

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Conclusion Jumper

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I have a son who has an amazing sense of dry humor, a quick wit, and the ability to laugh you out of a somber mood with a mere turn of a phrase. There was a time, in his teenage years, that I took him to task for an imagined offense because my mind mistakenly raced ahead of his explanation of his whereabouts on a particular occasion.

When I apologized for misjudging the situation, he quietly said, “That’s okay, Mrs. Conclusion Jumper.” No animosity, no recrimination, not a tinge of resentment was forthcoming from his seventeen-year-old mouth; just “That’s okay, Mrs. Conclusion Jumper.” I’ve never forgotten that sentence, and it was a sentence in more ways than one–because I did jump to conclusions more often than I cared to admit. It was a life lesson.

How many times do we jump to conclusions, mistakenly taking something totally out of context, and in that very act, potentially destroying a lifelong relationship or friendship?

The wonderful thing about life is that it gives us so many chances to learn its lessons. It sends people to us like this dear son to point us in the right direction, to make us aware of our shortcomings, and to change our way of thinking and looking at things.

It is up to us to learn these lessons, wherever and from whomever they are coming. It is up to us to see that we just might have come to the wrong conclusion.

I would love to think that some who read this blog will get just a little bit of insight, but…I don’t want to jump to conclusions.

 

On Being a Mother

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I’ve recently met a young mom in “Bloggersville” who has three special gifts from God: boy/girl seventeen-year-old twins, and a fifteen-year-old daughter. She tells us that they keep her on her toes and on her knees. I can relate to that, having raised three daughters and two sons, all eighteen months to two years apart except for the youngest who came along seven years later. It was not an easy task, but would I trade it for anything else in the world? Not on your life…or mine! In 1977 after a particularly trying time coping with four teenagers and a ten-year-old (yes, Family to the 5 Power, I know where you’re coming from!) the words of one of my most popular poems came to me. Here then, is On Being a Mother.

Nobody warned you

How great was the task

Of being a mother

How long it would last

It’s no nine to five job

You don’t punch a clock

It isn’t routine

You have to take stock

There isn’t a pension

Or retirement plan

It’s all overtime

You supply on demand

But you know you’ve been paid

When your daughter or son

Softly kisses your cheek

Saying, “I love you, Mom.”

©1977

In my opinion, motherhood is the most important job in the world. Someone may argue that point and say, “Well, I happen to think rocket science or brain surgery is the most important job in the world.” Please be reminded that without a mother there would be no rocket scientist or brain surgeon. So Moms, keep on keeping on. Even though nobody warned you how great was the task, it is a great task.

 

The Happiness Factor

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Cast your bread upon the water and after many days you will find it again. (Ecclesiastes 11:1) Well, I cast my bread in the way of an appreciative blog to a fellow blogger and behold it came back twenty-fold within hours!

I couldn’t help myself. This person’s posts made me happy, and I just wanted them to know that. What do you think happened? Antryump reblogged my blog and before I knew it I had twenty-two “likes”, where four to six are the norm, and twelve has been the utmost.

Light bulb moment! Making someone else happy doubled my happiness factor. What a great thing to know–and practice!

To me, this is another life lesson, one which I am overjoyed to learn.

While happiness is many things to many people, and has been for me as well, this is the ultimate boomerang experience–simple in its simplicity. Bring happiness to others, even unwittingly, and feel the reciprocating effect manifest in your life.

As the 1971 song by Canadian rock band, Crowbar, says so aptly, “Oh, what a feeling, what a rush!”

Try it, you’ll like it!

 

A Toast to Antryump

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For those who may be unfamiliar, Antryump is a blogger who painstakingly posts of exemplary writers of bygone days–wonderful writers whose works will never be forgotten. And so I, whose works will be forgotten by most, would like to pay Antryump this tribute.

I toast you Antryump

because you triumph

over everyday mundane

by expressing thoughts

and quotes and words

of men of long-held fame:

Kahlil, Confucius, Socrates,

Emerson and Rumi:

men who from centuries past

still are speaking to me.

Mandella, Tolstoy, even Steve,

men of rare content

are brought to life

because of you

and precious hours spent.

It is with pleasure that I read

your each and every post

and dwell on words

that from the past,

speak to me the most.

So, thank you Antryump,

for being you,

and bringing light to bear

on these great artists, who through you,

make us more aware.

©Patricia Ann Boyes/2014

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then? (Samuel Taylor Coleridge – 1772-1834)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Published!

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It has been one month since I first posted this, and My Precious Life, the book, is alive and well, with good sales and feedback. The most repeated comment I hear is, “It’s wonderful, I couldn’t put it down!” How precious is that to a first time author’s ears? As I said in the book, I thank God for giving me the courage to put my life on paper for all the world to see, warts and all. And I thank all who will read it because we all have a story to tell.

Patricia Ann's avatarMy Precious Life

This is a celebratory blog!

Today, after approving the author copies of My Precious Life, Westbow Press advised that the book is going to print tomorrow morning (or this morning, depending on your part of the world.)

I am thrilled and excited and can’t stop saying “Thank You, God!”

“Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you,” He said. And once started, the pages just kept filling up until the work was completed. That scripture, Jeremiah 30:2, has meant a lot to me this past year. It seemed like God was always whispering that encouragement in my ear. I’m so glad I listen to His still, small, voice. Like I wrote in the introduction to My Precious Life, it is exciting, and holy and fun.

So, to all my new blogger friends, My Precious Life is available at 25,000 online book stores around the world:…

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