Empty Chairs

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

“Always remember that you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” 

Winnie the Pooh

There is an empty chair at the table this year. 

In some cases more than one. 

As we sit and reminisce of times gone by. 

You can’t help but look at that empty spot. 

You miss them, their voice, their general presence every day. 

You think, “What are they doing? Are they okay?”

You pray, you call, you message and you wait. 

You want to see their precious face. 

Why is that chair empty you may ask?

Well that chair is empty because someone is doing freedom’s task.

They are serving, working, and giving of their time. 

So that we can enjoy a fine meal in times that are quite sublime.

Sublime you say? I don’t know about that. 

But if you take a minute and really think of those who are supporting freedom’s task.

They are giving of their time, their talents of free will.

Could you do it if you were called?

I am sure only a few will.

Remember those families with the empty chair. 

Remember that this is a chair of someone of whom they have great care. 

They have little to recourse but to pray.

Their prayers ring out each and every day. 

That empty chair sits at the table as a reminder to you and me.

That there are those who think outside of themselves for the cause of liberty.

Whether that time be on a massive boat, the sandbox, or the trees. 

Remember those who are without family.

Thanksgiving in itself is a time to pause and reflect. 

Reflect on those things of which we are blessed. 

So please in all of your turkey, dressing, and various sundry things. 

Think of that empty chair that sits at the table. 

Bring others to mind. 

This will elevate your will to be kind. 

To be thankful. 

To be full of gratitude. 

That is what the empty chair would want. 

Remember the empty chair that can’t enjoy the day. 

Remember the family, they too have a hollow place. 

They know in their hearts that their loved one is doing the right thing. 

It’s hard. It is a weighty feeling, there are at times no words to convey. 

Just what that empty chair means. 

Today after going to the store for what seemed like the four millionth time… I checked my attitude. Rather than complain I prayed. I felt an overwhelming urge to write this. We are missing some loved ones terribly this year. This is for you brave ones who sacrifice. To all of those mamas who are having their first holiday without their babies. My prayers are with you. The very first time our son was in the sandbox I missed him terribly. I knew what he was doing, I knew the cause, I knew that he would go without reserve. My husband and I were well aware that this comes with the territory of deployments. It doesn’t make it any less hard. Prayer is a must. Absolute must. There is nothing worse than being a mama bear who cannot do anything but pray for your baby that is seven thousand miles away. You don’t know exactly where they are located or what they are doing. But if you could… you would be there at a moment’s notice. To those who have lost their loved one. I cannot imagine your pain. I pray that you will be comforted on this day and every day. This year we find ourselves with another kid that is across the pond. We will miss our loved ones terribly. Very terribly. But we know that this again would be a possibility. We pray. We Wait. We anticipate. We stay still. We listen. We ask for God’s grace. We sing. We cry. We know that in time. They will be home again and that chair will be back to where it should reside. God Bless those who serve. God Bless those who sacrifice. 

My books are on Amazon!

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

The Case of the Missing Moo-Cow Bell

The Case of the Missing Bumbly Wumbly Bee

The Case of the Missing Wellies

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk

The Case of the Missing Ornaments

Clean it Up! Wash it Up!

Coming soon!  

Appalachian Allegory: A Southern Novel

The Gift of Clean Sheets

I took this at a Naval Base in Rhode Island.  It just reminds me of your mind after you spent time cleaning inside...  a beautiful canvas that can be built upon.

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Clean Sheets

To be clean, what does that mean?

To be washed from dirt and impurities. 

To be refreshed and given a new scent that doesn’t contain the foul smells.

To be dried in the sun or dried with heat.

To make sure the item is free of germs.

What needs cleaning in your life?

What have you neglected for a long time?

Have you cleared your mind of constant negative thoughts?

Have you cleaned up your words?

Have you cleaned up your actions?

We all need a little cleaning to wash off the dust of daily life. 

So take a moment, do a little cleaning. 

This will change your actions. 

You know that feeling of laying down on freshly laundered sheets?  It feels amazing!  Maybe that is specific to our family but clean sheets are quite important. Having children in the military, they take clean to another level. Our twin boys attend a military college.  Each week their room is inspected for cleanliness.  The hangers have to contain exactly one finger length between each shirt or pants.  They have to own a footlocker for your miscellaneous items.  The floor has to be clean, the bathroom spotless.  If something fails inspection they get demerits. Pretty astounding, right?  Think about when you do not clean things in your home.  We are all guilty of this activity.  What happens?  The dirt, dust and grime build up because of neglect.  When you do finally reach the moment to cleanse and polish the items it takes twice as long to scrub, dust, sweet and mop the area.  Not only does this take extra time, you have an increased chance of getting sick because the dirt, dust, germs deteriorate air quality in your home.  If you have clutter everywhere what happens?  You trip and fall and in some cases get hurt.  I can hear you saying, “I hate to clean.” Agreed.  I know a handful of folks who like to clean but the necessity to clean never goes away.  Now, let us move this into our everyday life.  What happens if you do not take a little time to wash off and sanitize our thoughts and our spiritual life? We start to thrive off negative thoughts and emotions.  If you wake up in a negative mindset that sets the tone for your entire day.  Positive folks want others to be happy.  Even if their circumstances are vastly different.  Recently I read a quote that said, “It’s hard to be happy when you do not clean up or even throw out what is making you sad.” It is not always easy or even possible, but perhaps a little dusting off would help you make it to a better place mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  Those of us who have kids, particularly a quiver full fought the battle of cleaning constantly with kids when they were little.  When our daughter was about 8 years old she was quite distraught because she could not find a particular stuffed animal that was important to her.  My husband and I walked into her room and it looked like a tornado had blown through not once but several times.  It was utter chaos. Our parenting style was we were not going to do everything for them but rather start helping them and guiding them and ultimately they finish the job.  We told her to start by picking things up off the floor.  Find the garbage and put it in the trash, put the clothes in the basket, etc. Our daughter took everything, clothes, stuffed animals, trash, everything and deposited said items onto her bed.  She came to us quite proud that she had “cleaned” her room.  We walked into her room and well, yes the room was clean but the bed looked like the tornado just picked everything up and put it on her bed.  In all of her “cleaning” she still had not found the all important stuffed animal.  We told her to perhaps actually take everything off the bed and put it in their special place.  After all, she will eventually have to go to bed and well, it would be hard to sleep on that pile.  “I’ll just sleep on the floor.” She said, with a sigh we were in for the long haul helping her clean her room.  We threw away the garbage.  Put the toys in their special place and what do you know?  Her important stuffed animal was at the bottom of the pile.  How many times do we chuck everything into a corner or pile our “dirty bits” on top of a metaphorical bed?  I know I am guilty of these actions a lot.  We all need to take a little time each week or each day to put on those clean sheets.  Clean out that pile of negative emotions, find that small sliver of clean and start to declutter our life. I would add in this particularly dark time in the world it is so necessary to clean those spiritual sheets.  Wash our minds, scrub our souls.  Pray for others.  I leave you with a witty quote from Lauren Bacall: “The best things in life are clean living, good works and big sapphires.  And not in that order.”

  My books are on Amazon:  

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

Clean it Up! Wash it Up!

Coming soon:

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk

The Case of the Missing Ornaments

Appalachian Allegory

The Gift of Hurry up and Wait

Waiting.. it provides the perfect moment....  
Photo credit: My husband

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Hurry up and Wait

“If we learn to enjoy waiting, we don’t have to wait to enjoy.”

Kazuaki Tanahashi

Hurry up and Wait!

That is an interesting phrase.

It means to spend a lot of time waiting.  

Sometimes for days.

It may be hours or minutes. 

But waiting, it’s hard particularly when you are the one wanting and anticipating.

It can be sharp, it can be boring, it can be filled with lots of silence.

Take that time, use those moments to pray and reflect.

Hurry up and wait can be a gift both to your current self and future self. .

Let that time teach you patience

Let that time make you more gracious.

Let the time give you discipline to grow, to gain wisdom and discovery.

You may discover you are not ready for the given situation.

You may discover another path from taking the time. 

So Hurry up and wait! It is a good use of your time. 

I marvel at the fact that once again…. I wrote this over a year ago.  It was like God was writing a note to me (and I hope others)... to wait.  To pray.  I am impatient this morning… I want t be recovered fully… doing the things.  I want my writing to be successful.  My music to be shared, to have a new and better job… and mostly to be back to health.  Mostly, I want to be able to do more for my very loving and helpful family.  When I woke up this morning… and mind you, I was groggy from the new meds of getting my body back in the right direction.  The words that kept coming to my mind were to wait and pray.  Waiting is a teacher.  I am not good at it.  In fact, I am very bad at it.  So much so that I would probably jump farther, do more… and still get it wrong.  There is an art to stopping, praying, and most of all… waiting.  

Hurry up and Wait!  My sons in the Army talk about this often.  Serving in the military gives you a lot of time to sit and ruminate.  So much so that this phrase has web pages dedicated to this very subject. Military Hurry up and Wait is defined as: the long standing tradition of making everyone come in 6 hours before any training event, travel or other military activities.  I have heard this phrase uttered countless times by all 4 of my sons.  But what can waiting really teach us?  First, in a society where we are inundated with information from just about everywhere, particularly with the 24 hour news cycle, waiting can give us time to make a judgment about a given situation.  How many times has something been reported as fact only to have a correction issued within a few hours or days?  Waiting gives us discernment.  Secondly, waiting can give us perspective.  When any given situation arises our first reaction is not always the best reaction.  My brother is a very quiet, well spoken individual.  In his professional position he employs quite a lot of folks.  He has the ability to make decisions that impact the lives of a lot of people.  I asked him how he deals with this on a daily basis.  He told me that if someone comes to him with a difficult situation that needs to be reckoned with in a timely manner… he stops and says, “Give me a moment to answer your question.  I want to pause and ponder the best course of action.”  That single response changed my frame of mind completely simply because our first response is not always the best response particularly if the situation is difficult.  Thirdly, Waiting can teach us empathy.  Sadly empathy has taken a back seat in life these days.  Pausing can help us gain insight into what others are experiencing.  I often find that social media, television, our society in general celebrates narcissism.  There is definitely a need for a correction towards empathy, sympathy and general goodwill to each other.  Finally, hurrying up and waiting gives us fortitude.  The phrase, “Good things come to those who wait.” comes to mind.  Think about some of the rewards the endurance of waiting gives you. Waiting can give you much needed rest.  Waiting can open doors to bigger and better opportunities. Most of all, waiting gives us wisdom.  Wisdom about ourselves and wisdom concerning others.  In our fast paced world, it takes some time occasionally to hurry up and wait.   

Source: wearethemighty.com

The Gift of Green Rolling Hills

We enjoyed riding through the rolling hills of Kentucky

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

"Nature is the purest portal to inner peace."

Angie Weland Crosby

The Gift of Green Rolling Hills

To see nature and enjoy it, one must take the time.

To pause, to breathe, to look, to listen, at all that nature has in its design.

To see the blue sky, the rolling hills and the mountains. 

To see the flat lands, and even the areas that some people would not deign to even consider beautiful and grand, but they are there. 

They are there in creation to cause us, to pause and reflect about all these different expressions of creation. 

Life is often spent on a tiny little screen. 

It is sad honestly. 

Because nature and life around you is grand indeed.

Some say, "People are terrible, why bother."

But, dear readers, if you take a moment and ponder that thought.

Is that not where this phrase took root and started to grow?

Not stopping, not looking, not even taking a moment to breathe. 

It has caused us humans to really start to be a culture in great need. 

So pause, if even for a moment and look at all the beauty that surrounds you.

It may be hard for some because life itself is dark all around them.

Find that speck of light, that patch of green. 

Restore your soul, look to others and plant some seeds.

Seeds of humanity, goodness and grace.

So that when humanity is unkind to you...

You can face it with forgiveness, love, humility, all those things that humanity needs.

I promise you, dear reader. Your spirit will grow and thrive when life is full of weeds.

Today we took a very long journey to Fort Knox, Kentucky.  It was about a six hour drive on a good day.  We encountered traffic.  We encoutered buggies!  Seriously!  A horse and buggy! We encountered pasture dogs.  We were out in the sticks.  There was a bad wreck on the interstate that we were traveling on.  Our GPS re-routed us on to some pretty interesting country roads.  As we traveled further north the mountains were nothing short of absolutely gorgeous. It is summer, the green of the trees are lovely and the mountains played a tune like Bach.  When I think of tall mountains I often think of Johann Sebastian Bach.  I often wonder if he took his inspiration for some of his Toccatas and Fugues from looking at the Alps.  Their peaks are so high that they touch the hand of God.  After driving way up in the mountains we entered the state of Kentucky.  The rolling hills that were the most beautiful green were a sight to behold.  We even had a little Bed and Breakfast that was right near fields and fields of wheat and corn.  Living in a pretty populated area makes you forget the beauty of nature and all that it involves.  I would add that during this trip we were so out in the middle of nowhere that our cell phones had little to no service.  We had to look at nature and enjoy each other.  When is that last time you took a moment to do just that?  Put down the phone and the computer.  Turn off the TV and go take in some nature?  It is a quite simple concept I must admit... but driving through these gorgeous areas in silence and just taking things in was almost like a deposit into the soul.  Do you ever make deposits into your soul? Do you ever put down that little screen?  It might do you just a little bit of good and in turn, one day it might do someone else some good.  As I sit here in this little cabin in the woods with no wifi... no real cell service, my kindle is dead.  There were not any decent shows on the tele... I had to pause. I had to reflect.  I had to realize that we get to do this journey once on this big blue ball.  Find something ordinary to do in an extraordinary place.  It does not have to be far from you, it could be at a park down the street.  I encourage you all to restock your spirit and soul by taking in the beauty of nature.  It just might do you some good. 

My books are on Amazon!  

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

The Gift of Pedals

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Pedals

“Life is like a piano.  What you get out of it depends on how you play it.”

Tom Lehrer

On a piano there are 3 pedals, they all serve a purpose.

One sustains, one dampens, and one is sustenuto.

Each pedal serves a purpose in the crafting of a melody.

When you choose the sustain pedal, it blends the melody.

It makes the sound continue, even when you have left those keys.

The damper, or soft pedal, or the Una corda dampens the sound.

It makes the sound more subtle, a little softer sound. 

The sostenuto sustains only a few notes at a time.  You play the notes, touch the pedal and the piano maintains their sound.  

You can play other notes with sostenuto, but they are not maintained.  The notes almost sound like staccato, almost like the trillings of a bird. 

Life is much like pedals, if you take a moment to see. 

Some things sustain, some things soften, and others hold in place.

So let us learn from pedals they are after all how we have such beautiful melodies.

Pedals.  Kind of an interesting choice, right?  The piano is an absolutely amazing instrument.  I am often in awe of just how the keys, the strings, the hammers, and the pedals work.  First, we will talk about the sustain pedal.  It is rare to encounter a piece of music that does not use the sustain pedal.  The pedal basically enables you to play a note, when you lift your finger from the note, a damper pad stops the note from ringing out.  The sustain pedal removes the damper pad from the note allowing the notes to ring longer.  If we liken this concept to life,  what sustains us?  Is it a diet of news, social media, or negative influences?  Or, do we have a diet that is awash in constructive and pragmatic exercises?  There is a caution with the sustain pedal.  In the words of the composer Claude Debussy: “Abusing the pedal is only a means of covering up the lack of technique, making a lot of noise to drown out the music you are slaughtering!” That was a harsh sentiment but Debussy did have a point.  Too much of anything will muddy up our focus and our attitude.  Hence, we must maintain a more productive way to use our sustain pedal.  The sustenuto pedal is a lot like the sustain pedal; the difference is that the pedal only holds the notes that are already being played at the moment when the pedal is down.  This pedal is what we are made of.  Our roots, our soul, our moral compass, our scruples.  Hopefully those scruples are to do good to those around us.  When other notes are introduced to the sustenuto pedal they still add to the melody; they are just not sustained in the base chord.  In life this is other people, other opinions, other notions that may or may not resonate with us but we can have them in our life.  They contribute to the melody.  Finally, the last pedal.  Some refer to it as the damper pedal, others refer to it as the soft pedal.  It is also referred to as the Una Corda pedal.  Most strings in a piano are grouped in threes.  When you use this pedal, it shifts the entire keyboard to the right, making a softer sound.  What are the dampers or soft things in life?  They may be our moments of meditation, moments of pause.  It could be people who help us find our center.  Or, we could be the person that shows others how to be the voice of reason, the voice of encouragement, or a gentle reminder that we can do this.  For me the damper pedal is to take a moment and listen.  After all, we have 2 ears and one mouth.  Sometimes it is good to just listen.  There are also many methods of pedaling.  Delayed, half, preliminary and simultaneous.  These methods mean that we are all different, we all bring a different mindset to the table. A different sound, a different melody that can make our world a much better place.  I leave you all dear readers with the words of Arthur Rubenstein: “The pedal is the soul of the piano.”.  Let’s be pedals! 

*Source flowkey.com

The Gift of Serving Others

Serving others is refreshing... much like a cool rain.  Photo credit: My husband.

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Serving Others

“We can’t help everyone, but we can help someone.”

Ronald Reagan

To serve, to give, means to look outside of yourself. 

To pause, take a moment, and see someone else.

To take the focus from inward to outward, to find a new way to see.

So much of life is finding the right path. 

Have you paused for a moment and wondered if that is the same for someone else?

To look outside of yourself, to see the human being in need, it’s a gift that needs to be passed on for all to see.

To know that we are part of a bigger purpose and plan.

That plan involves blessings that are truly quite grand.

That little act of service can make a huge difference to someone, even if it is in a very small way. 

Put down the phone, look outside your bubble. 

Find someone who needs a blessing.

Find someone who needs a kind deed. 

It will keep you quite humble. 

Life is less about self and more about selflessness.

Find someone who needs a blessing, a word of edification.

I promise you that act of service will come back and help you find your blessing. 

One of the reasons that my husband and I encouraged our kids to do some sort of civil service was to let them know that life is about something bigger than self.  We live in a society where selfies are everywhere.  When I scroll through social media, a lot of what I see is selfie after selfie.  While I am not opposed to the occasional selfie, I often cringe.  I have an acquaintance who calls them, “Narcissisties.”  Again, I took a few selfies when I was blessed to be in the Alps.  It was awesome.  However, how do we really balance this need to take pictures of self or magnify the self?  We do that by serving others.  Now, the military is not for everyone obviously.. but what can we do to help others?  To be of service to others? To edify others?  That starts with the decision to realize that there are a lot of folks out there who need just one simple act of kindness.  One prayer. One, “God Bless Your Day.” One act of just listening.  I am a talker.  Those that know me would gasp in horror…. Not really!  My husband reminds me often that I have two ears and one mouth.  I should listen more.  It is true.  Just the act of listening to someone can take a weight off of the shoulders of another.  I have worked with seniors for about fifteen years.  It is one of my joys and callings in life.  Did you know that it highlights some of these sweet little old folk’s life to just listen to them talk about their grandchildren?  While self care is important, serving others is also right up there in importance.  Did you know in some countries civil service is encouraged to take the primary focus off of self? In this world of selfies and, “Me! Me! Me!” What can we do to bring it to, “Build each other up?” Growing up in the belly of the south, one of the first scriptures I can remember is when the disciples asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment.  He commented quite succinctly that it was to “Love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.  If that is true then well, it should be pretty easy to build others up, right?  I will leave you all with this.  I am moved to tears quite often that our children are pretty great.  Even greater still is that five of them realized that it was important to serve a greater purpose than self.  I often think of those brave ones in WWII who risked their lives to be part of the bigger picture.  We live in a time and place where that is not necessarily our greatest risk.  We have our heroes in uniform of whom I am so very, very glad to be called a military mom.  What can we do? How can we serve? How can we make a difference?  I would wager it starts looking prayerfully outward.  That focus will inevitably bring your perspective back to the inward blessing of knowing that you have blessed someone else.  I leave you dear readers with a quote from Albert Einstein: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”  

The Gift of a Four Leaf Clover

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Four Leaf Clovers

“You look like a four clover leaf.  Lucky to have and hard to find.”

Dharam Singh Rathore

Do you have a four leaf clover?

Do you believe in the lore of luck that the clover brings?

If you were to find a four leaf clover would you make a wish or two?

Can there be four leaf clovers in our life?

Could those clovers be grace, hope, and love and most of all faith?

Grace to help you move through each day with an attitude of forgiveness and doing what is right..

Hope that springs eternal, even when things seem grim. 

Love to guide your soul, mind, and spirit in positive and interesting ways. 

Most of all faith and confidence.  Conviction to embody the best of all that you can be. 

Make your life like a clover, a really rare leaf to find.  

They are the most precious, the most difficult but the best leaf to find. 

As I look over this writing that I wrote well over 8 months ago, I really do see that these little musings are a gift to my future self. I hope that they are a gift to someone else as well.  Tonight, I am sitting in one of my son’s kitchen on a military base.  There are clearly military exercises going on at the moment because the tank fire is literally rattling the windows.  This little bit of excitement gave me pause to think about faith.  About bravery.  About being four leaf clovers to those around us.  This past year has taught me a lot, some of those lost values have been faith.  To believe.  Hope, to know that it springs eternal and patience, to know that God has a plan.  To top it off, prayer.  A much needed daily respite that adds to the recipe of life.  Those brave souls training as I sit here in the kitchen are training in the rain and wind for what day very might well be war.  I can take a lesson from these moments of life.  

Recently, our music player was playing pop hits from the 1940’s.  First, pop and the 1940’s does not always come to mind as pop music, but I digress.  The lovely song “I’m looking over a four leaf clover” came on the speaker.  What a delightfully upbeat song.  This brought to mind, as you would guess, four leaf clovers.  How many of us when we were kids were told to go and search for the four leaf clovers so that we could have luck?  Many times in the summer time we would walk barefoot in the fields of clover searching for the coveted leaf.  I remember finding the clovers and rejoicing because I was the lucky one!  What are your odds of finding a four leaf clover?  A quick google search shared that your chances are about one in ten thousand to be exact.  A rare find indeed.  Here is a little tidbit gleaned from research as well.  The odds of finding a five leaf clover are one and twenty four thousand!  Celts believed that the four leaf clover had magical powers of protection to ward off evil and bad luck.  They would literally carry a clover in their pocket for protection.  Of course, Saint Patrick of Ireland also used both the 3 leaf and 4 leaf clover in teaching about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  To find one was truly a gift.  How does a four leaf clover relate to our everyday life?  We should strive to be that rare and hard to find gift in our unique and interesting ways.  Being a pianist for many, many years you encounter one overarching theme with musicians.  My music professor used to say, “There can be only one pianist in the room at a time.  They don’t share very well.”  In my experience that has been typically true.  Until one day I met one of the most selfless musicians I had ever encountered.  She was our church pianist.  She had the most beautiful soft touch.  She wrote beautiful music, she had a beautiful soul.  When we came to be members at this church she wholeheartedly encouraged other pianists to play as much as they wanted.  Her philosophy was that the way a person plays is a direct reflection of their personality.  Hers was soft spoken and beautiful.  Another pianist's touch was a bit more forceful and firm.  When she was asked why she shared her bench so willingly she responded with, “We have musical gifts to share, it would be a shame for me to hog the bench and not let others hear their musical style.”  This pianist, dear readers, was a clover.  A rare find.  A pianist one out of ten thousand.  How can you be a clover?  Think about those four little leaves.  Grace, hope, love, and faith.  Find a small moment each day to encompass these values.  I am quite sure you will be that lucky leaf that is indeed a unique and precious find.  

Source: rd.com weathernetwork.com

My books are on Amazon!

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

The Case of the Missing Moo-Cow Bell

The Case of the Missing Bumbly Wumbly Bee

The Case of the Missing Wellies

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk

The Case of the Missing Ornaments

Clean it Up! Wash it Up!

Coming soon!

Appalachian Allegory

A Southern Novel

Check out my page on Patheos.com

Positive Pensees