per·i·pa·tet·ic
ˌperēpəˈtedik/
adjective
  1. 1.
    traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods.
    "the peripatetic nature of military life"
    synonyms:nomadic, itinerant, traveling, wandering, roving, roaming, migrant,migratory, unsettled
    "I could never get used to her peripatetic lifestyle"
  2. 2.
    Aristotelian.
noun
  1. 1.
    a person who travels from place to place.
  2. 2.
    an Aristotelian philosopher.

Monday, January 30, 2012

A Sunday Leftovers Story


The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word... (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, "The Poet, 1844")

Yesterday morning we visited a church we had never been to before. We've passed by it many times in the past year as we travel back and forth between Tallahassee and Havana and wondered what sort of place it might be. The church website doesn't give much indication of its nature. In fact, it doesn't make much sense. You would think that if some entity is trying to make itself known to the world, it would use some elegance of expression or at least clearly describe its mission or purpose for being. Maybe their Facebook page does a better job. I'm not sure because I don't use that particular social medium. A blog and a Twitter account already occupy too much of my time!

At any rate, upon our visit to the church that offers new hope--what's wrong with the old one, I'd like to know?--we discovered the members of the congregation to be friendly enough (and wonderfully diverse), the sermon enlightening (if a little too emphatically delivered), and the music uplifting. Though we may not be going back, I'm glad that we did make the effort. The whole experience was just what I needed to fine tune a story that I had written very early in the morning. It sharpened the knife, so to speak, that trimmed the fat and carved the roast, I mean the story, to be served up for your dining, I mean reading, pleasure. Please help yourself here in my other kitchen (Big Bend Over Easy in Florida) and enjoy our Sunday leftovers!

8 comments:

  1. I liked the sarcastic remarks u used in this post..like "what happened to the old one.."

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  2. Thanks, Tomz. It (sarcasm) tends to creep up on you when you get older. Gotta be more careful about letting it out of its cage, though. I'm not sure, but it may be what's keeping commenters away. It's got some wicked teeth:)

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  3. Dear Walk2write,
    I loved your remark about the old hope and thought it humorous, not sarcastic. I try (!) to give up to think about commenters - it is the same with 'likes' on Facebook - always totally astonishing why they like something or when they comment. Meanwhile I believe that it is a question of time, too: so many wonderful blogs, so many comments to read/write/answer. I tested it with my photo-blog Britta's Happiness of the Day - no followers and almost no comments, and that is fine - I feel free. So everything has two sides - I see the great stats of that blog - and maybe dear Emerson is, as often, oh so right with simplicity?

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  4. Hi W2W .. too many other blogs to follow and two blogs - I can cope with one blog per person .. I just can't dash backwards and forwards ...

    I love visiting your blog and reading your info, nature and see around your area .. just sometimes lots going on too ..

    Cheers for now .. Hilary

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  5. The mood is interesting if forbodding. I don't know much about the ocean and less about hurricans. We have a giant cold inland sea just north of us and that alone can scare the crap outof me....

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  6. Hi W2W .. I'm glad that you took time out to look and see what was going on .. we can only learn more from each experience .. cheers Hilary

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  7. Margaret and I will be going on a church adventure tomorrow, an inter-faith church that is housing an exhibit of our art

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  8. The best time to visit a church is when no one is there.
    Its so serene and calm.

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