Day: August 1, 2021

Unable to Bridge the Gap

Fandango29 Comments

“I have a meeting at the church with the pastor,” Suzanne said to her boyfriend Travis. “Wanna come with?”

“I’ll pass,” Travis said.

“But why, Travis?” she asked. “I really want you there with me.”

“Suzanne, you know how put off I am by anything to do with organized religion,” he said. “The whole concept is too dogmatic. There are all these rules about what you must and mustn’t do with your life and stupid rituals you’re expected to follow. I’m just not into that shit.”

Suzanne’s eyes started to tear up. “I wanted you to meet my pastor. I was hoping he could give us advice about how to make our relationship work, given that I love Jesus and you don’t even believe in God.”

“Look Suzanne,” Travis said, “we’ve got a good thing going between us and I adore you, but we just don’t see eye to eye on this religious stuff. I know how strongly you feel, but there is nothing you or your pastor could say that would cause me to shift my position on this.”

“Oh Travis,” Suzanne said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it, “I love you so much and all I want for you is to have your soul saved. When you meet with the pastor, I’m sure that he will have some very poignant advice that will help you navigate the rough waters of disbelief.”

“I’m sorry, Suzanne,” Travis said, “I really hoped we could get past this and that we could be spend our lives together while giving each other the space to do our own thing on this religion thing. But I guess it’s too wide of a gap for us to bridge.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Suzanne asked.

“I think that’s for the best,” Travis said.

“Well you can just go straight to hell and burn for eternity,” Suzanne said between sobs. “I tried to save your soul, but the devil has stolen it.”

Travis stood up, looked at Suzanne, and said, “Definitely too wide of a gap. Bye Suzanne. I wish you the best.”

Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (meeting), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (dogmatic), Your Daily Word Prompt (advice), The Daily Spur (shift), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (poignant).

Just FYI, this fictional tale is loosely based on a real conversation with a girl I was dating when in my twenties. We were very compatible in almost every other way but our belief systems. Of course, the names have been changed in this story to protect the innocent.

Who Won the Week — 8/1/2021

Fandango17 Comments

The idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

My pick for who won the week this week is bipartisanship.

I kid you not. It’s a concept that hasn’t been experienced in American politics since before Barrack Obama was elected President in 2008. But this week it seemed to surface, at least to a small extent.

The U.S. Senate voted on Friday to move forward with a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The procedural measure needed only a simple majority to pass. The 67-to-32 vote, which saw 17 Republican senators vote in favor, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, join all 50 Democratic senators, to move forward on the bill. It came just hours after centrist senators in both parties and the White House reached a long-sought compromise on the bill, more than half of which — about $550 billion — would go to new federal money for roads, bridges, rail, transit, water, and other physical infrastructure programs.

The effort to pass the bipartisan deal is one part of a dual track strategy from Democrats as they will simultaneously push forward on a second, and far more sweeping, right effort to enact major pieces of Biden’s agenda through the budget reconciliation process, which will allow them to enact legislation with only Democratic votes.

The Republican support for the procedural motion does not mean they will back the final bill. It will need 60 votes to get through the Senate. The Democrats have to navigate an evenly split Senate and a narrow majority in the House to pass both infrastructure bills. One defection would sink the Democratic bill in the Senate.

The first step in passing that larger bill will be for the Senate to adopt a budget resolution. Senate Majority LeaderSchumer said that they remain “on track” to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution before the start of the congressional recess on August 9th.

So here’s to a glimmer of hope that bipartisanship may actually break through the partisan divide and that Congress might actually get something done for We the People.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

My Last Photo — July ‘21

Fandango11 Comments
Brian, aka Bushboy, posted his monthly prompt that asks us to…
  1. Post the last photo from our camera’s SD card or the last photo from our phone taken in July.
  2. No editing — who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like, or the subject matter didn’t cooperate?
  3. No explanations needed — just the photo will do.
  4. Create a pingback to Brian’s post or link in the comments.
  5. Tag “The Last Photo.”

So here’s the last photo I took on my iPhone in July.

I took this photo specifically for this prompt and I decided to get a little, well, artistic, with this shot by going black and white and shooting it in portrait mode on my iPhone.

Care for a banana, anyone?

Song Lyric Sunday — Beautiful

Fandango9 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim Adams gave us “alluring,” “beautiful,” “charming,” “graceful,” and “seductive” as our themes. The song that immediately came to mind was Carole King’s “Beautiful.” I know I’m not the only one who will choose this song, but it’s just such an upbeat, inspiring song, so I’m sticking with it.

“Beautiful” was written by Carole King and it was first released on her 1971 award-winning album Tapestry. The song was never released as a single, but it still holds a notable position in Carole King’s repertoire and she sings it at most of her live performances. It was the inspiration behind the title of a 2013 Broadway musical that centered on Carole’s life. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical has been an internationally successful production.

The song contains a simple message about loving one’s self and, in turn, showing such love for the world around you. King wrote, “I’m not exactly sure when I figured out that the way I perceived others on a given day was a reflection of how I was feeling.”

She said that she came up with the idea for the song while riding the New York City subway, which she described as a place where one will come across many gloomy, uninspired, and frustrated faces. It bothered her encountering people in such sour moods. She perhaps naively believed that if these same gloomy individuals were to emit love rather than negativity, those around them would return the positivity and love to them.

Here are the lyrics to “Beautiful.”

You’ve got to get up every morning
With a smile in your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes you will
That you’re beautiful, as you feel

Waiting at the station with a workday wind a-blowing
I’ve got nothing to do but watch the passers-by
Mirrored in their faces I see frustration growing
And they don’t see it showing, why do I?

You’ve got to get up every morning
With a smile in your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes you will
That you’re beautiful as you feel

I have often asked myself the reason for sadness
In a world where tears are just a lullaby
If there’s any answer, maybe love can end the madness
Maybe not, oh, but we can only try

You’ve got to get up every morning
With a smile in your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes you will
That you’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful as you feel

FOWC with Fandango — Dogmatic

Fandango12 Comments

FOWCWelcome to August 1, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “dogmatic.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.