Day 113: Found in the Pages of a Book

Leaning on Ann Voscamp's Joy Dares a bit for today's.

I read some really good books over the past weekend and some tidbits of wisdom popped up in their pages and made me grateful that I came across the words, several days later and I'm still chewing on bits and pieces - that's when you know it is good stuff! I'm grateful for thought provoking things hiding in all sorts of places. A few bits of wisdom that have me thinking:

"An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the less it talks." African Proverb
While this is an African proverb so therefore most likely published in multiple ways and places, I ran across it in "Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away" by Christie Watson.

"Periods in the wilderness or desert were not lost time. You might find life, wildflowers, fossils, sources of water." Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook of Meaning, Hope, and Repair

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."
Psalm 62:5-8, NIV

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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