Five Star Friday's 126th Edition Is Brought to You By John McCrae

This Five Star Friday roundup is brought to you by war, red underwear, kindness, fiction, photography tips, happiness, contentment, inspiration, a friend, family, a wake of a different colour, the law, complicatedness, love of a child, and John McCrae:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

     — John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields”

And please, please, please don’t hesitate to leave links to your own good writing in the comments. Winter has arrived for this Canadian, and I need something to go with my hot chocolate over the weekend.

Happy Friday!

"I Don’t Have The Patience For This BS" from Centre of the Universe:

I can totally support the Canadian soldiers who are stationed all over the world fighting for what is good and what is right and what we as Canadians take for granted every day. And I can support those soldiers and STILL KNOW THAT WAR IS WRONG. Morally, ethically, absolutely wrong.

"Celebrating Sidewalk Lessons" from Happy Simple

"Gratitude, Tumbleweed and Flannel Sheets" from Musings de Mommy

"The Red Underwear" from In Pursuit of Martha Points:

If you don’t have any red knickers in your lingerie drawer right now, go get some. If there’s a woman in your life who needs some bolstering, go buy her some. Every woman needs red underwear. Because there’s not much we can’t face if we’re properly armored in a pair of audacious, scarlet undies.

"Letters From A Little Boy To Himself As An Adult" from Captain Robert

"Taking A Good Long Look" from Pacing the Panic Room

"I Never Wanted A Flying Car That Much, Anyway..." from Follows the Sun:

...if you’re not happy to do what you’re doing, if you’re not full of that belief that you are living in this wonderful future world and you can take it by storm, well, this isn’t anything new, but you can’t. You can’t do what you don’t think you can do, and I suggest that you walk away from all the poison that is there in this Future (non-Utopian), the addiction of TV-on-the-Internet, the things that can break you apart, you turn away and you actually look at the sunlight.

Find your belief. Find your joy, right? And when you’re all jazzed up on happiness, come back and do what needs to be done, because by that time you’ll know what it is, and because we live – corny though it may be – in a wonderful world, you can do it.

"All Growed Up" from The Accidental Olympian

"Getting to a 9 on The (Admittedly Arbitrary) Happiness Scale" from Gwen Bell

"Thank You, Muhammad" from The Muskrat:

Most of the soldiers assigned to the area stayed away from the young Iraqi, but I found him fascinating. I learned how he was taken off by henchmen for being too sick to stand when one of Saddam Hussein’s sons passed on the street, but they felt sorry for him a few minutes later and tossed him out of the back seat just down the road. I’d ask him the questions I was sure I wasn’t supposed to ask, like about Islam, terrorism, and the chemical weapons drums we’d found not far away.

"And She Danced (And Dyed Her Hair Purple)" from Still Breathing

"Not Having Brain Cancer Isn’t The Same As Being Happy" from Ordinary Art

"That's Joe Frazier's Gym. Joe Frazier's Gym is for sale..." from Fever:

He didn't kill the girl he raped or anything.
He wasn't that sort of bad guy.
He was accused of raping a girl after he got her pregnant. A girl he later married.
And spent the rest of her life with.
It was some sort of statutory offense. She was almost 17 he was barely 18. He was sentenced to ten years in jail. Her daddy was a lawyer. A white lawyer. It was the early sixties.

Stuff like that happened back then. I think there is a song about that or something.

Or something.

"Good Night Moon, Spanish Moss Frost, And Heart Break" from A Design So Vast

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Comments

[kelly]

Just wanted to say that the post by Fever was so lovely. I ached reading it. So glad it was sent in.

[slouchy]

Wonderful choices.

I was pleased by how this post of mine, called Reddest Flower, Blackest Ice, turned out.

[Lori @ In Pursuit of Martha Points]

Sometime soon, I will stop crying when I read my own damned words.

Honestly. I promise.

But I think mostly I cry in gratitude that they touched someone else. It feels like passing along a gift.

I'm so glad you liked them, and read Kay's story. And shared it with others.

Passing along a gift.

[Patti Murphy]

I'm in such good company here. Thanks for putting my post in the list. It's an honour.