For Monday, August 13: You need to start

Start by doing what is necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. St. Francis of Assisi

The talk of "just begin" isn't new to this 365. I've already talked about it quite a bit but us humans have the worst memories. We just can't seem to remember the really important stuff for long. So here we are again at a variation of "just begin".
No baby I know has ever started just walking. There's a reason for the phrase "baby steps". That doesn't apply to just babies, it applies to anything in life we are learning to begin. We take small "baby" steps forward. We learn to get our legs underneath us, our balance right, and then our steps get bigger and bigger as we practice. We begin to walk with more confidence as we continue to be faithful to take the steps. Assisi has it right - "baby steps" are what is necessary, getting our legs and balance working together are what is possible, and running? Well running is accomplishing the impossible. But you need to start.

Comments

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.

A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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