Author Archives: James Pyles

Quoting: Life as a Growth Seminar

When people go to workshops and seminars that will help them develop and grow, they are willing to try out all types of exercises and experiments. They consider it fun and enjoyable to do things that they have not done before and might even have experienced as distressful. But since it is being defined as part of the growth experience, they reframe it in a positive manner. In fact, the more difficult something is, the more you gain by trying it out. When you view your entire life as a growth seminar and all that happens as just exercises and experiments, each experience teaches you something. You learn something from each reaction. You learn how to prepare yourself for similar things that might occur in the future. The difficult becomes fun. Even what is not that enjoyable is viewed in a positive light for it enriches you and adds depth.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s “Happiness”,p.117

Quoting: Assess Your Growth in Marriage

pliskin

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin – Found at the website promoting the book “The Light From Zion.”

Everyone wants a happy marriage. The best way to ensure a happy marriage is to master the ability to experience joy in your life with each moment of growth. And each moment is an opportunity to grow. There are many forms of growth in marriage. Growth can mean you are happy with your marriage and constantly grateful to G-d. Growth can mean that you have a partnership that is eternal for both of you. Growth can mean that you are increasing your appreciation for doing acts of kindness. Growth can mean that you are improving in your character traits. Growth can mean that you act in an elevated manner even though things are difficult. Growth can mean that you develop resources to turn around a difficult situation. Growth can mean that you transcend your natural tendencies in order to be compassionate and forgiving.

Growth can mean that you make sacrifices for the benefit of your spouse and children. Growth can mean that you sustain a loving and respecting manner – even though this may not be reciprocated. Growth can even mean that you have the courage to end an abusive situation. Growth always means that you act according to G-d’s will.

Growth always means that the Torah is your guide for which patterns of speech and action to increase… and which to eliminate from your repertoire.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book entitled “Marriage” – ArtScroll Publications, 1998, Chapter One, pp. 61-2

The Devil’s Day

calm

© Sue Vincent

Everybody calls me the Devil, and right now I wish I really was, because the only way I’m gonna save little 10-year-old Gracie Budd’s life is to stop a real Devil. Hard to believe, it being so quiet, green, and peaceful out here, but I ain’t got much time if I’m going to stop Albert Fish from killing and eating poor Gracie.

How the hell did I get myself in this mess? No, I didn’t do it. Maybe God did it. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m a 16-year-old printer’s devil named Timothy Patrick Quinn, and on April 13, 1928, I started hearing radio messages from the future.

One reason they call me “devil” is because that’s my job. I’m a printer’s devil, an apprentice in the print shop under old Shamus MacPherson at the New York Post. Been doing that since I was 12, mainly mixing tubs of ink and sorting metal type in the hellbox, putting those fit to be used again back in the job case, and melting down the broken bits.

Our foreman, Grady Owens brought a brand new All American Mohawk Lyric S50 radio right into the shop, saying it would help us boys pass the time a bit easier. Had to turn the sound way up on account of all the noise from the printers, but we got to hear berries tunes like “Cow Cow Blues,” “A Gay Caballero,” and “Sonny Boy.”

I could even hear it on the dock while having a smoke with the loaders and the colored Joes who swept up the place. Even the old truckers respected me on account of my bouts at Clancy’s Boxing Gym. I’ve always been big for my age, and ever since I was a tyke, I liked mixing it up with the guys.

I get over to Clancy’s whenever I can. He says I’ve got potential, says I fight hard enough to knock out the Devil himself, which is another reason they call me that. Turns out, though, I’d have to earn that name in a different way, even if it damn near killed me.

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Quoting: Learn from All of Life

Be resolved to learn constantly from everyone in your immediate surroundings. When you see someone with positive character traits, learn from him traits you can work on developing. And when you see someone with negative traits, focus on the harm of having those traits!

Keep learning from life itself. There is no phenomenon in the world from which you cannot learn something practical. By utilizing every opportunity to gain wisdom, you will constantly keep improving and growing.

Today, list at least five people you encounter frequently. Then think of a positive quality you can learn from each one.

-See Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz – Beair Mechokaik, p.192

One Honest Man

totem

© J.S. Brand

“A totem pole? I’ve known you for forty years, and you never told me you were native.” Leon Bell stood, looking incredulously at the creation of his friend and neighbor Marshall Griffin.

“I’m not, but why can’t I have my own monument to the symbols that I consider important?”

“But this is a public park. You can’t just deface a tree…”

Marshall scowled up at his friend from his blue lawn chair. “What do you mean deface? This is art.”

“I guess I don’t know what art is,” Leon growled back.

Marshall smiled. “You’re the only honest person I know.”

I wrote this for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 100.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the image. It vaguely resembles a totem pole, but the symbols weren’t what I’d consider traditionally first nations, so I pondered “cultural appropriation” and how to play that out. That’s when I came up with Leon and Marshall, two old friends who no longer have time for false politeness or illusions of propriety.

To read more stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

Quoting: Breathe in Life

Often what seems to be a depressing situation is due only to the lack of fresh air. Get out into the air and breathe deeply, or at least open the window and fill your lungs.

Your emotions become normalized when your body is invigorated by the influx of cool, moist and moving air. This often has immediate effects. Drink deeply of the Almighty’s bounty, and inhale a lungful of the champagne of life.

Sources: Sing, You Righteous, p.315; Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s Gateway to Happiness, p.182

The Ronnenberg Confession

 

girl in cave

Image credit – Michal Matczak

The Haunted Wordsmith proposed a challenge whereby participants would pick the book of their choice (hardcopy or digital), turn to page 62, select line 6, and use that as the basis for crafting a poem, short story, or some other creative work.

Since I just checked out Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle from the public library, I decided to use that:

“And must have all the other artifacts in stock examined by University lab.”

As Professor Sterling Piper’s senior research assistant, twenty-two year old Gabriela Wallace had a valid key card to access his private research lab in McCarthy Hall at all hours. However, she still crept like literal thief in the night, dressed all in black, including gloves, and wearing sound absorbing shoes. It was after eleven on a Friday night as she navigated the work benches and displays by dim light.

If anyone checked the logs and discovered she’d been here, she could easily say she’d been catching up on collating recent samples sent over from Scripps, which she sorely needed to do. However, her mission tonight was notably different and infinitely more critical.

The straps of her backpack were uncomfortably tight, but she couldn’t afford to have the weight on her back moving enough to make noise. She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous as beads of sweat continued to form on her toffee-colored forehead, except that if she was caught, she could be condemned as an enemy of the state and executed.

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I Voted!

high castle

Image Credit: James Pyles – Cover of Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Man in the High Castle”

Now before you freak out at the photo, no I didn’t vote for the Nazi party or the Axis powers. My son and I were discussing the television version of the late Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle last Sunday, and I realized I probably hadn’t read the novel since the mid-1970s.

So after voting, I swung by the Public Library and checked out a copy. Since public libraries have free and totally unrestricted WiFi (Hooray freedom!), I took the opportunity to email this photo to myself so I could post the image all over the place (blogging, social media, etc…). So here it is.

I took an early lunch so I could hit my polling place while it was relatively uncrowded. Really, I was in and out in about fifteen minutes, and it’s like a five-minute walk from my house. I was tempted to stop by home, but my wife is watching our three-year-old granddaughter while her Mom’s at work, and I know that while she’d be happy to see me, she wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t stay.

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Seven Weeks of the Devil

hell's kitchen

Hell’s Kitchen in the 1920s – This file is licensed under a free license.

I was working as a printer’s devil for old man MacPherson, me, an Irish boy of only sixteen, but it was good pay, through my hands became black as night as I sorted the cast metal type in the hellbox and put ’em back in the job case. I’d gotten used to the noise, but in order to kill the monotony, Grady Owens, the chief printer, set up a radio so we could listen to music and the news, though he had to turn the volume up pretty high.

I figured I’d do my hitch at MacPherson’s, learn my way around the trade, then move up to something more substantial. Occasionally, he’d have me move heavy reams of newsprint, but I didn’t mind. Gave me a chance to wash my hands, then have a smoke with the other boys and men on the dock before putting my back into it. Even the older Joes respected me on account of my bouts at Clancy’s on the weekends. Clancy says I’ve got potential, box like the devil, which is another reason they call me that name.

I’ve always been big for my age, which causes Ma fits because she keeps having to let the hem out of my trouser legs.

For a long while, I didn’t have a clue that what I was hearing on the radio was different than everyone else. While they were listening to “Cow Cow Blues,” “A Gay Caballero,” and “Sonny Boy,” I was hearing nothing but the news. That wouldn’t be too unusual, but I’d get all kinds of news, from different days, and weeks, and months, all in the same hour.

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