I dedicate my song today to four Facebook friends who celebrate their birthday. We wish a happy birthday to Vesna Armstrong who lives in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England: Roseanne Hahessy, and Mary Butler who live in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland: James Fahey who comes from Blackpool in Lancashire, England. Enjoy your special day, everyone, and thank you for being my Facebook friend.
My song today is ‘Under the Moon of Love’. This song was written by Tommy Boyce and Curtis Lee. It was first recorded in 1961 by Curtis Lee and was produced by Phil Spector. Lee's recording peaked on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ at Number 46 on November 27, 1961
In 1976 the song was revived by rock and roll ‘Showaddywaddy’ and became a major hit in the UK. The Mike Hurst-produced version went on to spend three weeks at the top of the ‘UK Singles' chart in December that year.
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Those who swear their love by the moon will need to renew their love vow every quarter to remain as true and as constant this season to the next.
There is a part of me that says if a husband and wife or any couple who are in a long-term relationship were obliged by the law of God and the law of the land to renew their love vows every few years (much like we do with the MOT on our car periodically) then fewer marriages would break down and would far more relationships would remain ‘fit for purpose’.
I have never quite understood why we treat human relationships as being any less vulnerable toward the numerous changes in circumstances that surround us than we would a fresh loaf of bread or any other food item for instance. Both supply sustenance and require protection if we want to maintain their shelf-life and quality for as long as possible. Just as leaving food unattended in its larder or fridge for lengthy periods will see it rot, so relationships that are left unnourished and unprotected will also wither and die.
One of life’s most precious roles that are ever bestowed upon an individual is to become a custodian and a gatekeeper of love. It matters not if we guard and protect the love of another as their parent, spouse, lover, sibling, relative, friend or good neighbour, the mere fact that we act as guard and protector underlines the sheer necessity of the role and reminds us that left unattended, love can die as quickly as be born.
As far as I have ever known, my first love (the love of my mother) was no more than an introduction to my second, third, fourth, fifth and all subsequent loves I ever knew. Had I not had a lasting love bond with my mother, I may never have known the love of my father, brothers, sisters, family, friends, neighbours, sweethearts, lovers and wives, as well as I, did. Love is the cornerstone of every positive construction that mankind has ever erected, for upon it is built the dwelling of the heart’s home. People who are taught to express their love as children, go on to become loving and expressive partners and parents in their own right, and unfortunately, individuals who had repression of their emotions modelled to them as children instead of their expression, will always find it harder to feel loved, or indeed express the love they have for another in either word or deed.
When I was engaged in the role of Marriage guidance counsellor at the start of my Probation Officer career, I naturally wanted to be a force for good, and to me, that meant one thing primarily; I needed to become a ‘Mr Fix it’, whatever the problem was, or however difficult it was to resolve. This implied that I viewed my task as coming up with the solution. It was my job to find the best exit strategy. I could not have been farther from the truth in my assessment, even had I tried. Little did I appreciate at the time what was involved in being a successful social worker. I did not yet understand that to help a person move forward, I would have to learn to emotionally stand back. I did not fully appreciate that it is impossible to access the mind of another. interpret the meaning of its self-talk and internal messages, and understand their actions without having full regard to the nature of their feelings, the accuracy of their perceptions, the value and belief structure they operated on, and the level of pain they were experiencing at any given time.
It took more years than I had on my young shoulders of experience then, and far more wisdom than my head was capable of containing under my own limited umbrella of understanding. Ten years of a thirty-year profession would pass me by before I realised that even if I knew the answer to the problem posed, even if I knew the remedy required to effect the cure, that like any effective doctor, I could prescribe the correct pill to take, but it would be wrong for me to put it in the client’s mouth and ask them to swallow. It took me ages before I realised that doing it on behalf of anyone else instead of teaching them to help themselves, would effectively be denying them internalising their own life experience. Such worker intrusion would simply invalidate the client experience and prevent them from ever attaining personal knowledge and enough understanding, hindsight and insight to benefit from what had happened to them, thereby preventing an unnecessary re-occurrence.
It took me a full decade before I started all my client interviews with the invaluable introduction, “Hello, there. I am Mr Forde. How can I help you?”
This type of introduction was taught to me by a colleague called Joyce who has recently left this earth a lesser place than when she occupied it. Joyce told me that every new client we see is like opening our own house door to a visitor, be they a stranger, relative, neighbour or friend. Joyce told me that instead of attempting to immediately assess the situation, we are better concentrating on the very first words which are spoken upon first seeing the visitor (their words and ours). Our automatic questions being silently voiced upon opening the door are usually, “Who are you? Where are you from, and what do you want with me at this time of day?”
Joyce pointed out that our opening introduction could either make the stranger feel a welcome or an unwelcomed visitor to our door. “I would always advise starting off every introduction by stating your name,” Joyce said, adding, “This way, you will communicate who you are. Even though you are strangers, knowing your name will make them feel less of a stranger and is more likely to place them at greater ease. If you begin your conversation with the other person by saying, ‘How can I help you?’, it becomes harder, indeed virtually impossible for you to duck out of genuinely helping them later on in the discussion.”
Not only was Joyce’s advice sound for strangers, it works as well with family visitors, neighbours and close friends far better than you might think. Imagine having unarranged visitors turn up at your home halfway through your favourite television programme of the week. Upon opening the door, your face will probably say it all for you before you open your mouth. Your words might say, “Hello there. Lovely to see you!”, but unfortunately, because your face has betrayed you throughout, the message that has been communicated to your visitors is of the opposite order. Even your actions/inactivity conspire to reveal your pretence. The mere fact that you turn down the television, yet leave it switched on as your visitors enter the lounge, indicates your hope that they will not stay long. Your visitors do not need to have won the Brain of Britain contest to pick up the opposite meaning to your spoken words. With or without the sound of the television, such action still shouts out to them, “I was listening to that before you lot turned up like a bad penny at my front door!”
There are times in one’s life when not only is it natural to feel pain, but is also informative. The presence of pain tells us that something is wrong in the body, whereas terminal illnesses can live and fester within us for several years before producing sufficient discomfort to seek out medical assistance. Pain is a necessary barometer toward monitoring and maintaining good health. For me, 'pain' has long represented life.
Many people will have cause to grieve after the loss of a loved one, and even were we able to take all the pain away from them, it would be unhealthy to do so. Just as water can purify, so can pain justify. Was a parent or spouse to lose their child or partner to a tragic accident, it requires the experience of feeling the pain of the loss, before the mind and body can find harmony once more. However much we want to take away the pain of another experiencing bereavement, it would be unproductive and unhealthy for us to do so.
Before traumatic hurt can be worked out of oneself, humans often find it necessary to put their painful emotions through the body wringer. All people respond to pain differently, and all people grieve in different ways. That is why finding out about any individual, however long you have known them, will always be more easily attained by your listening skills than your talking ones. What people are invariably seeking is finding new meaning for their old experiences. They need your presence, your listening ear and your natural empathy, not your solutions. It is their questions that require satisfactory resolution, and as a rule, they will already know the answers, but as yet are unable to accept them.
Ironically, my most important learnings of thirty years of specialised experience had been discovered centuries ago, even though they may have been stripped down and redressed in conventional thought and alternative new age methods. The essential learnings of my lifetime’s experiences are those very same truths that my mother, and her mother, and her mother discovered long ago. They can be summarised as stated in the adages below:
It is hard to teach an old monkey new tricks.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
We never miss the water as much as when the well runs dry.
Whenever I broadly assess the breadth of my academic learning and worldly wisdom gained in 78 years of life study, everything I have ever done has been to find just one more way of proving what all our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers instinctively knew, having discovered in their own day. There may have been a thousand new theories propounded throughout the years to create more modern explanation, along with a million new thoughts behind the original fact/truth to lend it more credibility, but the fact remains, that there is very little in this world of ours that is new. At the end of the day when all the water of worldly wisdom has been drained from the cooking pot of life, we are left with the very same fact/ truth that you now know, that your mother knew, and that her mother knew, and her grandmother also knew.
Until earth and sky stand presently at God's side on the Day of Judgement, there is neither east nor west, border, birth, culture, or creed that grows in strength through division, hate and isolation as opposed to flourishing in friendship, love and companionship.
When two humans stand face to face, though they come from different ends of the earth, they also come from one heavenly body, one universe, and one truth. Truth is like God. It was, it is, and ever shall be. So, academics of the world, stop trying to teach your grandma to suck eggs.
Love and peace
Bill xxx
My song today is ‘Under the Moon of Love’. This song was written by Tommy Boyce and Curtis Lee. It was first recorded in 1961 by Curtis Lee and was produced by Phil Spector. Lee's recording peaked on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ at Number 46 on November 27, 1961
In 1976 the song was revived by rock and roll ‘Showaddywaddy’ and became a major hit in the UK. The Mike Hurst-produced version went on to spend three weeks at the top of the ‘UK Singles' chart in December that year.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Those who swear their love by the moon will need to renew their love vow every quarter to remain as true and as constant this season to the next.
There is a part of me that says if a husband and wife or any couple who are in a long-term relationship were obliged by the law of God and the law of the land to renew their love vows every few years (much like we do with the MOT on our car periodically) then fewer marriages would break down and would far more relationships would remain ‘fit for purpose’.
I have never quite understood why we treat human relationships as being any less vulnerable toward the numerous changes in circumstances that surround us than we would a fresh loaf of bread or any other food item for instance. Both supply sustenance and require protection if we want to maintain their shelf-life and quality for as long as possible. Just as leaving food unattended in its larder or fridge for lengthy periods will see it rot, so relationships that are left unnourished and unprotected will also wither and die.
One of life’s most precious roles that are ever bestowed upon an individual is to become a custodian and a gatekeeper of love. It matters not if we guard and protect the love of another as their parent, spouse, lover, sibling, relative, friend or good neighbour, the mere fact that we act as guard and protector underlines the sheer necessity of the role and reminds us that left unattended, love can die as quickly as be born.
As far as I have ever known, my first love (the love of my mother) was no more than an introduction to my second, third, fourth, fifth and all subsequent loves I ever knew. Had I not had a lasting love bond with my mother, I may never have known the love of my father, brothers, sisters, family, friends, neighbours, sweethearts, lovers and wives, as well as I, did. Love is the cornerstone of every positive construction that mankind has ever erected, for upon it is built the dwelling of the heart’s home. People who are taught to express their love as children, go on to become loving and expressive partners and parents in their own right, and unfortunately, individuals who had repression of their emotions modelled to them as children instead of their expression, will always find it harder to feel loved, or indeed express the love they have for another in either word or deed.
When I was engaged in the role of Marriage guidance counsellor at the start of my Probation Officer career, I naturally wanted to be a force for good, and to me, that meant one thing primarily; I needed to become a ‘Mr Fix it’, whatever the problem was, or however difficult it was to resolve. This implied that I viewed my task as coming up with the solution. It was my job to find the best exit strategy. I could not have been farther from the truth in my assessment, even had I tried. Little did I appreciate at the time what was involved in being a successful social worker. I did not yet understand that to help a person move forward, I would have to learn to emotionally stand back. I did not fully appreciate that it is impossible to access the mind of another. interpret the meaning of its self-talk and internal messages, and understand their actions without having full regard to the nature of their feelings, the accuracy of their perceptions, the value and belief structure they operated on, and the level of pain they were experiencing at any given time.
It took more years than I had on my young shoulders of experience then, and far more wisdom than my head was capable of containing under my own limited umbrella of understanding. Ten years of a thirty-year profession would pass me by before I realised that even if I knew the answer to the problem posed, even if I knew the remedy required to effect the cure, that like any effective doctor, I could prescribe the correct pill to take, but it would be wrong for me to put it in the client’s mouth and ask them to swallow. It took me ages before I realised that doing it on behalf of anyone else instead of teaching them to help themselves, would effectively be denying them internalising their own life experience. Such worker intrusion would simply invalidate the client experience and prevent them from ever attaining personal knowledge and enough understanding, hindsight and insight to benefit from what had happened to them, thereby preventing an unnecessary re-occurrence.
It took me a full decade before I started all my client interviews with the invaluable introduction, “Hello, there. I am Mr Forde. How can I help you?”
This type of introduction was taught to me by a colleague called Joyce who has recently left this earth a lesser place than when she occupied it. Joyce told me that every new client we see is like opening our own house door to a visitor, be they a stranger, relative, neighbour or friend. Joyce told me that instead of attempting to immediately assess the situation, we are better concentrating on the very first words which are spoken upon first seeing the visitor (their words and ours). Our automatic questions being silently voiced upon opening the door are usually, “Who are you? Where are you from, and what do you want with me at this time of day?”
Joyce pointed out that our opening introduction could either make the stranger feel a welcome or an unwelcomed visitor to our door. “I would always advise starting off every introduction by stating your name,” Joyce said, adding, “This way, you will communicate who you are. Even though you are strangers, knowing your name will make them feel less of a stranger and is more likely to place them at greater ease. If you begin your conversation with the other person by saying, ‘How can I help you?’, it becomes harder, indeed virtually impossible for you to duck out of genuinely helping them later on in the discussion.”
Not only was Joyce’s advice sound for strangers, it works as well with family visitors, neighbours and close friends far better than you might think. Imagine having unarranged visitors turn up at your home halfway through your favourite television programme of the week. Upon opening the door, your face will probably say it all for you before you open your mouth. Your words might say, “Hello there. Lovely to see you!”, but unfortunately, because your face has betrayed you throughout, the message that has been communicated to your visitors is of the opposite order. Even your actions/inactivity conspire to reveal your pretence. The mere fact that you turn down the television, yet leave it switched on as your visitors enter the lounge, indicates your hope that they will not stay long. Your visitors do not need to have won the Brain of Britain contest to pick up the opposite meaning to your spoken words. With or without the sound of the television, such action still shouts out to them, “I was listening to that before you lot turned up like a bad penny at my front door!”
There are times in one’s life when not only is it natural to feel pain, but is also informative. The presence of pain tells us that something is wrong in the body, whereas terminal illnesses can live and fester within us for several years before producing sufficient discomfort to seek out medical assistance. Pain is a necessary barometer toward monitoring and maintaining good health. For me, 'pain' has long represented life.
Many people will have cause to grieve after the loss of a loved one, and even were we able to take all the pain away from them, it would be unhealthy to do so. Just as water can purify, so can pain justify. Was a parent or spouse to lose their child or partner to a tragic accident, it requires the experience of feeling the pain of the loss, before the mind and body can find harmony once more. However much we want to take away the pain of another experiencing bereavement, it would be unproductive and unhealthy for us to do so.
Before traumatic hurt can be worked out of oneself, humans often find it necessary to put their painful emotions through the body wringer. All people respond to pain differently, and all people grieve in different ways. That is why finding out about any individual, however long you have known them, will always be more easily attained by your listening skills than your talking ones. What people are invariably seeking is finding new meaning for their old experiences. They need your presence, your listening ear and your natural empathy, not your solutions. It is their questions that require satisfactory resolution, and as a rule, they will already know the answers, but as yet are unable to accept them.
Ironically, my most important learnings of thirty years of specialised experience had been discovered centuries ago, even though they may have been stripped down and redressed in conventional thought and alternative new age methods. The essential learnings of my lifetime’s experiences are those very same truths that my mother, and her mother, and her mother discovered long ago. They can be summarised as stated in the adages below:
It is hard to teach an old monkey new tricks.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
We never miss the water as much as when the well runs dry.
Whenever I broadly assess the breadth of my academic learning and worldly wisdom gained in 78 years of life study, everything I have ever done has been to find just one more way of proving what all our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers instinctively knew, having discovered in their own day. There may have been a thousand new theories propounded throughout the years to create more modern explanation, along with a million new thoughts behind the original fact/truth to lend it more credibility, but the fact remains, that there is very little in this world of ours that is new. At the end of the day when all the water of worldly wisdom has been drained from the cooking pot of life, we are left with the very same fact/ truth that you now know, that your mother knew, and that her mother knew, and her grandmother also knew.
Until earth and sky stand presently at God's side on the Day of Judgement, there is neither east nor west, border, birth, culture, or creed that grows in strength through division, hate and isolation as opposed to flourishing in friendship, love and companionship.
When two humans stand face to face, though they come from different ends of the earth, they also come from one heavenly body, one universe, and one truth. Truth is like God. It was, it is, and ever shall be. So, academics of the world, stop trying to teach your grandma to suck eggs.
Love and peace
Bill xxx
