So You Think You Have No Worth?

Somebody spotted it the other day I think it might have been Susan, I am so sorry I cannot remember. She spotted that something more was going on in my life and that once I got that sorted the painting would follow. I said nothing at the time but I think that maybe there was more truth in it than I had thought.
I took a look one day, well I was forced to, somebody commented on my weight increase. I think they kindly said, “Mmmm nice spread of tummy there.” When I looked I was not too happy with what I saw. So I have been doing a bit of stock taking.

There is this wonderful and yet frightening journey I have been travelling, called Life. It is good to stop now and again and take stock of it, just to remind ourselves of how the journey has been. So often I have heard people ask the question, “Why me?”

The easy answer is of course, why not me? Having thought about it a bit I have another slant on it. How else could I have become the person I am if I had not made the journey I have made?

My life, my journey is the very tool that has taught me the how and why of living. It neither matters that I have had good and bad experiences. It only matters that I learned something important from each experience. The goodness of an action speaks for itself, learning the error of a bad experience may not reveal itself so easily. The difference in the two journeys is how I use them to learn and to improve my life.

I know it was a phrase overused, but I liked it when Forest Gump said life was like a box of chocolates. The trouble is it often seems that the box is all the same flavours. Well it is up to me to choose an assorted box. My life has indeed been an assorted box, some bits I have loved some bits have been real bad experiences.

I am so fortunate that I have been able to make a teacher out of life’s experiences I have learned from my journey how to have a good day. My teacher, my life's journey has shown me the bad days, but in so doing this, I choose not to allow bad days to accompany me on future journeys. Dying can change your perspective in just one heartbeat. Death can show you every reason that just simply being alive is the greatest box of chocolates of all, as Jerry reminds us all each and every day. I find that for me my journey both good and bad, happy or sad remains a great challenge. To be able to just breath, aye that's life at its very best and what a wonderful and exciting journey it's been, and will continue to be.

The nice spread of tummy is almost gone completely.

Yesterday I got the shortest haircut I have had in years, though still not short enough to please everybody. Yesterday I received a wonderful gift from another blogger of a beautiful drawing. I discovered somebody special was getting over an illness.

Life was good and whoever it was who said it was correct, the painting will most surely come.

I hope my ramblings today are not too personal to be of any use to anybody else. If so once again, apologies.

I am off to have a run and remember all of you the wonderful world of blogging.

This blog is linked to my other. Love Reaches Deep

Remembering Important People

Since beginning this blog 178 days ago I have done much remembering of people in my life. Those who I have worked with those who have helped me and those I have been fortunate enough to help. One person I have never mentioned, and that is remiss of me is probably the one person who made my change of life possible.


I have already told how I got involved writing music and modern hymns while still 20 and wild. How I became friendly with a minister who encouraged me to think of my future. This minister told me of an evening class to be held in the university. He was wise enough to know he would not on his own convince me of the existence of a god. I decided to give it a try.

On my first night there I noticed the other attendees were mainly old ladies. I must have looked so odd standing there in their midst. My hair was halfway down my back and I was dressed in jeans and an old shirt.

There was one old lady came over to speak to me. She introduced herself to me as Agnes Ross. We talked most of that evening. The next evening I went she was waiting outside the hall dressed in her expensive fur coat. Again we chatted over coffee and after the lecture. This went on for the duration of the course.

Never once did she try to change my thinking, she just listened and commented. When I told her I intended to try and get to collage she offered to purchase the books I might need. When I got the needed qualifications for collage she invited me for dinner, there she offered to assist me for a further year if I considered not taking the collage place and trying for university. She introduced me to the dean of the faculty of divinity who offered to manage my studies.

My life had made a turn all down to an old lady in a fur coat. Amazing really because I forgot to mention I had this thing about old ladies and fur coats from the highbrow parts of Edinburgh. But then as you see what did I know about real people, I was so full of prejudices I had a hard time seeing past the fur.

Oh one other thing, it is no accident that my son is named Ross.

In the most unexpected places move the saints of the earth.

This blog is linked to my other. Self

The Ways of People

Yesterday I passed through the place of my birth. I saw the shop I used to serve customers in when I first left school. I left school at the age of 15 because, in the opinion of the head teacher, further education would be a waste of my time. In his opinion I would never be more than a manual labourer. I do not know if he ever found out how wrong he was, but that is history now. Yesterday I chuckled as I remembered some of the events of those early working days.

The customers each had their own ways and pleasing them could sometimes be difficult. I remember the lady who after getting all the meat she wanted asked for a bone for making soup. I went into the back shop and brought a lovely big knuckle bone. She asked how much it would be. When I told her I would give it to her for free she refused to take it. She was sure there had to be something wrong with it. I took it back through and split it in half and told this one would cost her a small amount. She left happy.

The staff at an old people's home were puzzled when one of the residents began gargling with TCP. They asked her why but all she would say was that something had happened at the post-office. This is what actually occurred.

The old lady, who rarely ventured out, had visited the post office to post a letter.

She bought a stamp, and since there was a long queue behind her she stepped aside. She put her change in her purse, licked the stamp and put it on her letter. Despite pressing and thumping and licking it again, the stamp failed to stick.

"Excuse me, this stamp won't stick," said the old lady.

"You need to peel the paper off the back," explained the clerk.

The old lady put on her spectacles, fiddled for a few seconds to peel off the backing paper - and then licked the stamp again.

"It still won't stick," interrupted the old lady again.

"It's a self-stick stamp," said the assistant.

"Well this one isn't sticking at all - there's something wrong with it," demanded the old lady.

"Well it won't stick now because you've licked it."

"Well I'm totally confused now," said the old lady.

"Just give it here and I'll post it for you," said the cashier, and doing her best to explain continued, "These new stamps don't need licking. They are self-sticking. They save time. They are already sticky."

The old lady continued to look blankly at the assistant.

"Look," said the well-meaning but desperate post-office clerk, "Just imagine they've already been licked..."

Which sent the old lady scurrying out of the door and across the road to the chemist.

I wonder if there are things I do that make others look at me and ask why.

This blog is linked to my other.1812 Overture

The True Student

I remember meeting a young man in the prison who seemed to be quieter than most of the other prisoners. He spent his day getting on with what he was told to do, never arguing or causing any disturbance. I should have known his name but sadly I did not I knew him as fingers. One day I had the opportunity to sit with him in his “peter” the name all prisoners had for their cells. We sat together and he spoke to me of his youth. His father was really unknown to him have spent most of his young life in prison himself. His mother struggled to raise him.


I asked him why he was called fingers. He said to me, “Do you really want to know padre?” “Yes,” I said. He spoke for a few minutes more directing my attention to a picture on his cork board. When I looked back to his face he handed me my wallet. He asked me if I had a key in my possession other than my cells master key. I showed him a key he studied it for about four minutes and gave me it back.

On my next visit he gave me a key made of some scrap metal he had got his hands on. The key fitted the door of my garage. Here was a man with a talent that he was surely wasting. I needed to think about this but I had grown strangely interested in this young man and knew he and I were to become friends as only a prisoner and chaplain can. We had just made the first step of an interesting little journey.

A young student one day asked his master a question about the quality of the good student. The master looked to the student and said there are two kinds of learners. The first one on learning a little he shouts from the rooftops of his knowledge. He is quick to tell others and boast. The good student learns and in learning he discovers there is so much more yet to learn and quietly goes about the business of learning.

You are going to discover that “fingers” was one of those.



Thank you all once again for the many comments made yesterday I appreciate them all. I hope to be like the good student and now go and learn the more there is yet to learn.


This blog is linked to my other where I talk about the artwork used here:-  Sunflowers

The Golfer and the Elf

A golfer was playing his usual morning round of golf. He was having a fairly good round if not setting the course on fire. He was playing down the fifth fairway about to play his second shot. Just as he addressed the ball with his trusty seven iron something really strange happened. A little elf jumped out of the long grass and perched on his ball. The golfer stopped in disbelief. The little elf in his high pitched voice asked him, “How are you today good sir?” “I am well,” said the golfer. “Well,” said the elf, “I am here to offer you a wonderful opportunity. You can ask me any question you wish and I will give you a very truthful answer.” The golfer considered all the question he might ask of the elf. Would he be wealthy? Would he be happy in his life? Would he have children and have a beautiful wife?


Eventually he decided on the best question. The one he most wanted answered. So he spoke to the elf and he asked him, “Can you tell me, are there golf courses in heaven? The elf said, “I am not sure give me just a second or two to go and find out.”

The golfer waited, looking at his ball in disbelief. True to his word the elf appeared back to his place on top of the golf ball. “OK,” says he, “I have the answer to your question. There is good news and there is bad news.” “Right,” says the golfer, “give me the good news first. “There are wonderful golf courses in heaven. There you will find beautiful fairways and greens as smooth and true as billiard tables. You can play golf of a very high standard because you will have the best of clubs and everything else needed to play first class golf.”

“Wonderful,” says the golfer. “What is the bad news?” “Well,” says the elf, “you are due on the first tee at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Are there art studios in heaven? Who cares? There may well be. There may or may not be a heaven. This might be all there is. Those are big questions indeed. But there is little we can do about finding the answers. What we can do is get on with living and creating and being the very best that we can at this moment in time.

Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow, live this precious moment now as if it was the last you were to have. As you take the brush in hand or the chisel or whatever implement you use to create do so with a burning desire to create the greatest you have ever done.

This is the way of Tao.

This blog is linked to another which I consider to be a small addition to this blog where I look at the artwork and why the chosen artwork was used. I did not wish to clutter this blog with that inforamtion Maybe I was wrong? It can be seen at :- The Cheeky Chappie

Cut Fingers, Music and Life Changing Moments.

Having suffered a spell of painters block has given me much time to reflect. The positive side of this is that it has reinforced the idea that such times are often the moments of change and from the empty low points comes the next stage of creativity. I remember one just such moment in my life that did in fact become life changing. As readers of this blog know I started out as a butcher and working in a slaughterhouse. Not the most intellectually taxing job on the planet. But then I had been told that I was not one of life’s intellectuals. Well after a number of years getting through and getting by with playing in a band some evenings and working during the day. Making and spending too much money on pursuits that could only lead to disaster came two events that were to change my life. The first was just a simple cut finger.


I had cut my finger badly and had to go to hospital to have it stitched. So with a towel wrapped round it I presented myself at accident and emergency. I was told to go and sit in the waiting area and to keep the finger raised as much as possible and I would be attended to soon. After a bit a lady appeared with a mop and pail. She asked if I could move to another seat while she mopped up the blood dripping from my elbow. I waited. Some time later a nurse came and asked me what I was waiting for. Well. I am waiting for that bit floor over there to dry was my response. The finger was stitched but I had made up my mind there and then that I was finished with the playing silly it was time to have a rethink about my life.

At the same time a new minister had arrived in my home town. Now that was not something that interested me, having been brought up by a father who was positively anti-religion. This minister came to visit me. Brave man really. After putting up with my tirade against religion we started to talk. It turned out he was a real wonderful guy. Deeply caring, and with a head full of good thoughts and great ideas. It seemed he had a group of young people writing new hymns. Trouble was he said they could not write music, “Would I consider giving them just a little of my time to help them?” Life changing moment. It was not to be too much later I was to head off to Iona a little Island off the coast of Scotland. But that is for another day and another time.

For today my thought is this. That the low and the bleak times should never been seen as the end in themselves. They can so easily become the turning points, the beginning of something better. Somebody made a comment that I knew nothing about art. They were right I do not. This much I do know though it has become very much a part of my life and has given me a motive to get up in the morning and to rejoice that I still seem to be able to bring some joy to the lives of others. So here is to all the painters blocks taking place right now. May they be life changing moments that go on to enhance the world of art. When I was a minister of religion I used to call these moments, “Dark nights of the soul”. What could we invent for the painters block, because it sounds more like something for beheading that the birth of new creativity? Has anybody go any suggestions? I have started to call my block moments my, “Moments under the rainbow.” I apologise for this little meander this morning, but it has been good to reflect back.

Can I say at that this blog never ever sets out to upset or offend but to open up routes for discussion. Ralph