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Posts Tagged ‘john lennon’

Imagine: A World at Peace

Posted in Art, Journeys, tagged , , on September 9, 2021| 1 Comment »

From my Sketchbook

          Fifty years ago, just before we got out of Vietnam, pretty much the same way we got out of Afghanistan last month, and how England got out of Afghanistan in 1842, John Lennon sang a song that brought tears to my eyes every time I heard it.

          It did the same again this morning as I listened to it on my car radio while running an early morning errand.  The song is titled Imagine, and it’s a call for world peace and brotherhood, and asks listeners to imagine what that would be like.

          As my tears flowed once again, I tried hard to imagine such a world, and also thought of Peter, Paul and Mary’s words of 50 years ago as well.  “When will we ever learn …” they sang.

          Lennon was denigrated because Imagine asks that people imagine a world without religion, without heaven and without hell. But looking around, one can’t help but see how religion has created wars, not peace.

          Just as an example, I recall one of my favorite childhood hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers.

          Lennon’s song doesn’t ask for us to imagine a godless world, at least as I understand the lyrics, just that it not be an organized thing in which everyone is expected to believe the same thing – and if they don’t, they’re bad.

Lennon ends Imagine by singing that he may be a dreamer, but that he is not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.

           I admit it. I’m a dreamer. And thinking about the possibility of world peace makes me cry. I know I’m not going to see it. But it sure would be nice if my great-grandchildren could.

           Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Posted in Journeys, tagged , , , on April 17, 2013| 7 Comments »

A Song for the World

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality … I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The Recipe for No More Bombs

This “Song for Today” blog  http://tinyurl.com/dym9q9v touched my heart. I hope it touches yours as well.

Flowers for all the souls in agony today because of some hate-filled mind. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Flowers for all the souls in agony today because of some hate-filled mind. — Photo by Pat Bean

Imagine

By John Lennon

Imagine there is no heaven, It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, Above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.

            Imagine there’s no countries. Is isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.

            Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

            You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, And the world will live as one.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Grief, Growth and Grace http://abqsuz48.wordpress.com/ A brand new blog by my friend Susan. Check it out.

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What Makes You Happy?

Posted in Journeys, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on March 19, 2013| 12 Comments »

            “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon

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I Discovered it was Everything and Nothing

            In the midst of one of the most unhappy periods of my life, I realized I was a happy person. Not the delightful, delirious, delicious tickling of the inner self when all is right with the world, but the knowledge that a kind of happiness lived within me that no amount of outside sorrow could touch.

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This pair of sandhill cranes made my birding passion happy. — Photo by Pat Bean

            Although I struggled for weeks to get through the day, I still awoke each morning with a hope, verging on knowledge, that my days would get better. I also realized I still had a zest for life that made me glad to see and appreciate the sunrise and the little details of the day that so often go unnoticed, like the smile of a child or the tiny drop of dew on a yellow rose.

            While lingering effects from that difficult period over 30 years ago still occasionally touch my life, and those of people I love, the happiness within, along with my zest for life, have not dulled. In fact, they have only grown.

            I wonder sometimes if I’m singularly blessed, or if others also have an inner happiness that cannot be destroyed? As a writer, I’m always observing people, and I have come to a conclusion that while I’m not alone in having this trait, I might be among the minority.

            I awake each day with gratefulness in my heart for being so blessed.

            Bean’s Pat: I gotta pee http://tinyurl.com/coobdul As a person who tent-camped until she was 65 and bought her RV, Gypsy Lee, this was a blog that brought back many memories and had me laughing out loud.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

Posted in Favorite Places, Journeys, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on September 15, 2012| 11 Comments »

            “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” – Robert Frost

Part of my everyday Sunday life was sitting on the back steps of my grandmother’s home early in the morning watching her wring a chicken’s neck so we could have the best fried chicken in the world for dinner. It spooked me the way the headless body of the chicken would flop around. My grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Dallas is now condemned. — Photo by Pat Bean

Mine from the Ages of 3 to 11

These are the steps I ran up every week day to catch the school bus. I tripped on them once and chipped a tooth, which the dentist said was why it finally fell out when I was in my 60s. — Photo by Pat Bean

When I was 11 years old my grandmother, the only person I thought loved me – of course I was wrong – died. My whole world then changed, and it wasn’t for the better.

I recently searched out my grandmother’s old home. As Robert Frost said, life had moved on. But the memories of my everyday life as it was back then are still etched into my soul.

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon

  

This is the tree in the next door neighbor’s yard that I climbed most everyday. I loved this old tree, which back then was young and perfect. The house on the right was a corn field. — Photo by Pat Bean

          “Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.” – Anton Chekhov .

 

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