Blog 3472 – 05.6.2025

“Flower Strewn Pathways”

Today’s subject is one of those that I have already addressed several times in the ten plus years that I have been writing this daily blog:

http://www.theencouragingword.co

The quote comes from the opening lines of a poem by Annie Johnson Flint that goes:

The “flower strewn pathways” reminds me of the flower girl at weddings who usually proceeds the bride down the aisle scattering rose pedals where first the bride will walk and then the married couple on their first walk out into the world as man and wife.

God may never have promised us flower strewn pathways, but another line from another poem says, “He shall have flowers wherever he goes” and that has been my experience this go round. You see, not only do I believe that we create our own life experiences by our thoughts, words and deeds, in that order, but I also believe, contrary to what I was taught as a child, that we get not one life to live but many, as many as we choose, perhaps till we get it right.

To me “He shall have flowers wherever he goes” is another way of expressing the particular outlook on life that I choose. Muppet’s bandleader, Doctor Tooth says it a bit differently, “There’s a party all the time for them that choose.” Are there trials and troubles to face? Certainly! Are there bumpy roads, dry and dusty or boggy roads so wet muddy as to be all but impossible to traverse? That too, but there are also flower strewn pathways and a there is a continuous party for them that choose.

For anyone looking to find excuses to whine or to complain, to just sit it out or to quit, there are indeed plenty of excuses to chose that course, still I has been my experience that living with the expectation of flowers, and a party with singing and dancing, helps us manifest a far more abundant life. So my advice in the words of the old English poem that must have inspired the words of the New Christy Minstrels song in the link below, is to “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” Or in the words of more recent country song: “If you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

“TODAY” ❈ The New Christy Minstrels ❈ 1964

“TODAY” ❈ The New Christy Minstrels ❈ 1964

Today

Author’s note: Today is my brother Robert’s birthday. Happy birthday, Robert Wayne White. In your own words, “Name it, frame it, and claims it.”