The Generous Mr. Lovewell

One of my favorite albums of the past year, maybe of all time, is Mercy Me's "The Generous Mr. Lovewell". The title track of the album is a description of my heart, my desire, the way I want to live and the way I want to be known.

So many times we stop short of extending ourselves because we somehow have been convinced that if the gesture isn't "big" enough or "grand" enough then it isn't even worth doing anything. Where did this crap idea come from? From the bigger is better society we live in? Well it's crap. Yeah, I said it. I have found, just in the past month or so, that the smallest gesture of kindness, the smallest act of compassion, whatever it is I have been compelled to do and yet think is small has made the BIGGEST impact. Bigger is not better in most cases. I always knew that even the smallest gesture we make could make a huge difference to someone else but I have really seen it as I purposely practice daily. A tootsie roll smile, in the words of one recipient, "makes my day"! Seriously? I was just being goofy, silly, light-hearted and what I thought was "small" was actually huge in this person's day.

Love isn't or shouldn't be about the size of the gesture, the grandness of the moment, the monetary value of the act. Love is about how well we each do it. How WELL do you love? It is the smallest things that make the greatest changes. Want to change your world? Then love well.

The Generous Mr. Lovewell

Mercy Me and their DL about the idea behind The Generous Mr. Lovewell

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

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