{"id":1685,"date":"2009-01-23T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T10:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:30:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:30:35","slug":"poetry-friday-words-to-live-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1685","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Words to Live By"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_nIccA6r7lXY\/SXhVt3It62I\/AAAAAAAABT0\/Xt3QoKbkHvA\/s1600-h\/Dunkeld_Church09.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Dunkeld Presbyterian Church, Dunkeld, Scotland\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 552px; height: 372px;\" src=\"https:\/\/writingya.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/Dunkeld_Church09.jpg\" hspace=\"10\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Earlier this week, the words of Rabbi Hillel echoed through my head, as the change of administration in the country took place. &#8220;We understand,&#8221; the gentleman said, &#8220;that greatness is never a given.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Do we understand?<\/p>\n<p>Nothing is a given, and never has been. No one is handing out greatness or goodness or change or hope. Everything has to be&#8230; taken, hands opened, accepted, reached for, grasped, and achieved.<\/p>\n<p>If we are just for ourselves, then who are we?<br \/>If we are not for ourselves, then who will be?<br \/>If we don&#8217;t reach out now, when will we?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps a strange thing, to place the words of an ancient Jerusalem scholar on the side of a whitewashed Presbyterian church. But I think the wisdom of Rabbi Hillel is transcendent enough to work, and the imagery of a plain and practical church, with its churchyard full of the past, speaks to the generations behind and before us who knew:<\/p>\n<p>Nothing is a given.<br \/>What a world, in which we have a chance to make something of ourselves&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Poetry Friday is at <a href=\"http:\/\/laurasalas.livejournal.com\/126244.html\" target= _blank>Laura&#8217;s place<\/a>. And don&#8217;t miss her fabulous picture of the dungeon at Urquhart Castle, and the &#8220;15 Words or More&#8221; poems which came from that prompt. Some pretty intense observations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, the words of Rabbi Hillel echoed through my head, as the change of administration in the country took place. &#8220;We understand,&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[93,10],"class_list":["post-1685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-poetry-friday","tag-views"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5442,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions\/5442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}