Put Something In

Put Something In

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

‘Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something silly in the world

That ain’t been there before. 

~ Shel Silverstein  

Shel Silverstein Quotes on Aging

Best Shel Silverstein Quotes on Aging


Put Something In

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

‘Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something silly in the world

That ain’t been there before. 

~ Shel Silverstein

A Place for Mom’s most engaging Facebook post was the Shel Silverstein poem, “The Little Boy and Old Man.” Due to it’s popularity, we’ve collected more of Silverstein’s wisdom for you and your loved ones to share in today’s post.

Shel Silverstein (1930-1999), is known as one of America’s most beloved poets for children, but true Silverstein fans know his wisdom and humor transcends age. In fact, his poems have just as much to tell us about being an adult and getting older, as he never stopped writing or drawing throughout his life.

Proving that you’re never too old for a little imagination and a lot of laughter, we shared his poem The Little Boy and Old Man on our blog and Facebook page, and it proved to be one of our most popular posts ever.

So, we’ve scoured his impressive oeuvre for more gems on life and aging for all, and reprinted a variety of poems and quotes here. Some are short and pithy, some are longer, but all of them are sure to prompt a smile.  

Shel Silverstein on Aging

The Little Boy and Old Man

Said the little boy, sometimes I drop my spoon.

Said the little old man, I do that too.

The little boy whispered, I wet my pants.

I do too, laughed the old man.

Said the little boy, I often cry.

The old man nodded. So do I.

But worst of all, said the boy,

it seems grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

I know what you mean, said the little old man.

“If the track is tough and the hill is rough,

thinking you can just ain’t enough!”

Listen to the Mustn’ts

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,

Listen to the DON’TS

Listen to the SHOULDN’TS

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me—

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

Put Something In

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

‘Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something silly in the world

That ain’t been there before.

How Many, How Much

How many slams in an old screen door?

Depends how loud you shut it.

How many slices in a bread?

Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?

Depends how good you live ’em.

How much love inside a friend?

Depends how much you give ’em.

“There are no happy endings.

Endings are the saddest part,

So just give me a happy middle

And a very happy start.”

Frozen Dream

I’ll take the dream I had last night

And put it in my freezer,

So someday long and far away

When I’m an old grey geezer,

I’ll take it out and thaw it out,

This lovely dream I’ve frozen,

And boil it up and sit me down

A dip my old cold toes in.

We’re all worth the same

When we turn off the light.

from The Giving Tree

…And after a long time the boy came back again.

“I am sorry, Boy,” said the tree, “but I have nothing left to give you-

My apples are gone.”

“My teeth are too weak for apples,” said the boy.

“My branches are gone,” said the tree.

“You cannot swing on them-“

“I am too old to swing on branches,” said the boy.

“My trunk is gone,” said the tree.

“You cannot climb-“

“I am too tired to climb,” said the boy.

“I am sorry,” sighed the tree.

“I wish that I could give you something… but I have nothing left. I am an old stump. I am sorry…”

“I don’t need very much now,” said the boy, “just a quiet pleace to sit and rest. I am very tired.”

“Well,” said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could,

“well, an old stump is a good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.”

And the boy did.

And the tree was happy.

…All the magic I have known, I’ve had to make myself.

Have we missed any of your favorite poems? Please share them with us in the comments below!

Related Articles:

• Quote: The Little Boy and Old Man
• The Splendor of Maxine
• Senior Reflections: Life Wisdom Worth Remembering

Best Shel Silverstein Quotes on Aging posted by Sarah Stevenson





About the Author Sarah J. Stevenson is a writer, artist, editor and graphic designer living in Northern California. Her visual art has been exhibited around California, and her writing has appeared





Link: https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/4-1-14-shel-silverstein-aging-quotes/  

Huntress and Buffalo

What is Life?

What is Life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time.

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass

and loses itself in the Sunset."

-Crowfoot....April 1890, on his deathbed

Vatican Bans Book on Female Masturbation

Jun 5, 2012 

The Catholic Church cracks down on a nun’s book in praise of self-love.

The members of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are tough when it comes to the finer points of church creed. And this year, under the direction of Cardinal William Levada, they’ve been especially busy inspecting various branches of the Catholic Church. 

In April, they came down hard on American nuns for pushing “radical feminist themes” by focusing too much on the poor and not enough on the Church’s pet issues like opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of women priests. 

In May, they chastised the Girl Scouts for linking to groups such as Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, which advocate condom use to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Now, the CDF is pointing a condemnatory finger at a book called Just Love, by one Sister Margaret A. Farley, and the author’s apparently controversial take that self-love—i.e., masturbation—is just fine.

The Vatican slammed the autoerotic act as “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action,” in their latest mandate released yesterday, and dating from March 30, in response to the 2006 tome. (The book’s full title is Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.)

Farley, who is a Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale University’s Divinity School, meant for her book to give guidance on sexual mores, geared to a modern Catholic audience. 

Instead, the CDF said, it “has been a cause of confusion among the faithful” and that “the Congregation decided to undertake an examination following the procedure for ‘examination in cases of urgency’”—basically, a vehicle to institute a book ban.

Among the CDF’s many complaints, the group says the book is dangerous reading because “it contains erroneous propositions, the dissemination of which risks grave harm to the faithful.” 

They go on to accuse Farley of blatantly ignoring church doctrine when it comes to masturbation, homosexual acts, and divorce.

So what does Sister Farley have to say about the “gravely disordered action”? 

In a passage that seems to take its cue from Dr. Ruth, she writes,

“Masturbation usually does not raise any moral questions at all ... it is surely the case that many women have found great good in self-pleasuring—perhaps especially in the discovery of their own possibilities for pleasure—something many had not experienced or even known about in their ordinary sexual relations with husbands or lovers.

 In this way, it could be said that masturbation actually serves relationships rather than hindering them.” Farley also goes on to note that “same-sex relationships and activities can be justified according to the same sexual ethic as heterosexual relationships and activities … therefore same-sex oriented persons as well as their activities can and should be respected whether or not they have a choice to be otherwise.”

The Vatican's doctrinal office criticized Sister Margaret A. Farley for her writings on sex and masturbation in her book "Just Love." (Right: Yale Divinity School)

The Vatican handily disagrees on both points, and said so in the notification sent to Sister Farley. “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose. For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.” In other words, the old Catholic argument that sex is for procreation, not pleasure.

Using the same logic, the CDF slammed Farley’s tolerance of homosexuality, declaring, “basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

In a passage that seems to take its cue from Dr. Ruth, Sister Farley writes, 'Masturbation usually does not raise any moral questions at all … it is surely the case that many women have found great good in self-pleasuring.'

The CDF’s notification to Sister Farley is effectively a book ban, in that it warns Catholic teachers against referring to the text.  

“The Congregation warns the faithful that her book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church,” the CDF declared. 

“Consequently it cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.”

In her own response to the statement posted on the Yale website, Sister Farley defended her work. 

“Although my responses to some particular sexual ethical questions do depart from some traditional Christian responses, I have tried to show that they nonetheless reflect a deep coherence with the central aims and insights of these theological and moral traditions,” 
she said.

“Whether through interpretation of biblical texts, or through an attempt to understand ‘concrete reality’ (an approach at the heart of ‘natural law’), the fact that Christians (and others) have achieved new knowledge and deeper understanding of human embodiment and sexuality seems to require that we at least examine the possibility of development in sexual ethics.  

This is what my book, Just Love, is about.”

Sister Farley says she never intended the book to be used as a teaching tool, but rather as an assessment of modern human sexuality in the context of Catholic life—a topic which has proven to be a touchy subject indeed, especially at the Vatican. 

Link: Vatican Bans Book on Female Masturbation - The Daily Beast

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

My daily struggle is to understand what is important, to my situation, in the constant barrage of information on the Internet.  

What can and should be ignored?  

Is my purpose to seek distraction, novelty and entertainment? 

Or is the goal and purpose to my Net Surfing to gain valuable knowledge?  

What do I hope to accomplish?

“There are things that attract human attention, and there is often a huge gap between what is important and what is attractive and interesting."

- Yuval Noah Harari   

  

And Donald Trump has not helped make being informed easy with all his mixed messages.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell