Sermons in Stones: Theme Reveal for A to Z April Challenge 2014

Image by Samantha Redstreake Geary

A Zen proverb says, “When the student is ready, the Master will come.”

So true, and yet ever so often, it is equally true that the masters sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting to catch our attention, while we, the students, dawdle. These masters don’t always wear halos around their heads, and they don’t always sermonise.

What’s more, a good many of them aren’t even wise. They have erred. Badly.

They have fallen flat on their faces and got goo all over it.

It is precisely that inexperience, that failure, that can teach us important lessons in the bargain.

If only we would learn from other people’s stories!

If only we paid attention to the things other people say.

Or didn’t.

It might expand our world view, don't you think?

What was that Shakespeare said about finding tongues in trees, books in running brooks, and sermons in stones?

                                  
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I took part in last year’s A to Z April Challenge with lessons for my two children, known on my blog as La Niña and El Niño. The challenge was a very special one for me. It brought me face to face with a whole host of bloggers. It was also my first experience of daily blogging, at least for 26 out of 30 days, which was a huge jump over my previous once-a-month posting habits.

Time to jump into the fray again. And see what this year’s challenge teaches me.

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All through April, I shall attempt to bring to you, arranged in order of the English alphabet, certain voices and perspectives:

a) That we know of but still bear repetition

b) That we take for granted and scarcely think about

c) That we’ve never thought about

Some of the voices I will present in these pages over the next month are those of humans. But there are many that are non-living, and quite a few that are completely intangible, and yet, in some strange, inexplicable way, totally real.

Hope you’ll join me as I journey from A through Z all through April.

While you wait for April 1st to dawn, you could pass the time in reading the posts I wrote as part of A to Z April Challenge 2013. You'll find them in the top navigation bar. For best results, I'd recommend starting from A is for Awe.

As Julie Andrews said, Let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start.




I just hope this pans out as good as it sounds right now inside my head.