HOW HAVE YOU BEEN SHAPED?

 

So many people shape our lives.  When we ponder why we act in certain ways, what we have learned from others and who influences us, we end up being thankful.  It's a lovely way to spend some stolen minutes.  I'm thanking Bella Grace magazine for this idea.  

Here's the prompt:  Who are you a product of? In what way?  As habitual or meaningful as you like.

I dry my cast iron skillet over the burner because that's what my mother did.   My grilled cheese sandwiches are just a tad burnt because my father made them that way for me.  Grandpa Jake dug worms for fishing.  From watching him, I'm careful of each worm the spade turns up in my garden.  Because Grandma Viola loved jewelry, I have her rings to cherish.  From my mother I inherited the diary her father kept during WWI.  With a friend we traced everywhere he went during his four years in France; my interest in that history grows from the diary.  The cranberry-orange nut bread we eat at Christmas is my Aunt Ruthie's recipe; I'm named for her.  My father took us to the St. Louis Art Museum as children and I enjoy nothing more than a day at a city museum.  My mother's exuberance for life was catching.  Mr McCormick got us 8th graders to sing Faure's Requiem  and inspired an ever-after love for that piece and classical choral music. But for him I would have no idea what a 16th century madrigal or motet is; do children learn that these days?  I found the benefits of expressive writing in Ms Beyer's 9th grade creative writing course.  In college our Milton professor introduced the class to the serious Christianity of Paradise Lost.  I was baptized the semester I took that course.  And this just touches the surface. 

I bet you're thinking of who has influenced you as you read this. Why you love music or fishing or baseball.  Who taught you to knit or kick a soccer ball or repair just about anything that's broken.  Why you value education or treasure our National Parks.  Whose recipes are your favorites?  Who told you Bible stories as a child, or helped you find faith?      

Our responses to the prompt are likely much longer than any reader of a post could bear.  Once begun the writing flows.  But thinking about what we're thankful for, or as a gratitude exercise, or just riffling through the trunk of our past for the good things that have touched us . . . why not take time for that?  

                         In peace, Nina Naomi