Thought for today:
"While I am a great believer in the process of 'kiss and make up,' there are some reconciliations that I could never feel quite comfortable with.
For instance; if someone has been a lifelong foe, and for whatever stated reasons they suddenly start snuggling up to me affectionately and want to make peace. That is a time when my innate suspicions and sense of mistrust would begin to rise and I would find myself in danger of being highly sceptical of their true motives.
I would find this baser nature of mine placing the power of 'positivism' and 'negativism' in direct conflict with each other. Momentarily, I would find myself overriding my better conscience and my belief in the saying, 'everyone deserves a second chance.' Then, just as Satan smiled at the prospect of securing himself another soul convert, I'd hear my late mother's voice in the background and would find myself having been pulled back towards the gates of goodness once more from the jaws of hell.
Mum would say, 'Stay positive, Billy and believe. Believe in truth, love, sincerity, trust, self and God. Believe in these things and all things will become possible; even a hungry fox comforting a poorly chicken.'
In later life, one of my two most popular children's books that sold over 50,000 copies and which the late Princess Diana asked me to send her to read to the young Princes, William and Harry when they were respectively aged 9 and 7 years, was called 'Sleezy the Fox'. The book theme is 'Second chances' and the story plot involves the taming of a wild fox to the extent that the fox finishes up comforting poorly chickens instead of eating them!
In fact, the more I think about things, the more I am coming to fully appreciate just how much our past plays an active part and strong influence in most of what we do today and go on to do in later life; and although past, present and future are interdependent in the degree of influence they exercise over our mind and body, the three dimensions of our life remain connected from cradle to grave.
For instance, over the past two months, I have been engaging in daily singing practice to improve my lung functioning (which incidentally continues to gradually improve).
The strange thing is that all of the forty plus songs I have so far sung has a particular memory association in my mind that is connected to my past. This goes back to songs that my grandmother sang 70 years ago and my mother, father and uncles sang as far back as 50 years ago; along with places I've been to, films I saw as a young boy, and things I did as a young man.
It looks like we presently reside in the skeleton form of our past, and our experiences provide us with a bit of fresh meat on the bone. And, when we die and are buried, our flesh will gradually depart our body once more, leaving us a buried skeleton of memories we once held in another lifetime." William Forde: March 26th, 2018.
