Riehlife Contemplation: What are the rivers you need and want to cross? Jimmy Cliff’s “Too Many Rivers to Cross” can be used as a writing prompt and a life prompt, too.

Jimmy Cliff’s “Too Many Rivers To Cross” was one of the sound track songs from my time in Botswana and Ghana in the 1970s. There were a lot of rivers to cross, and I learned how to cross them…not all at once, but slowly, and one by one. This also made a great slow dance [...]

Riehlife Meditation on Bumps and Mountains…across the plains of our worlds—conversation starter and writing prompt

When one wrinkle is made smooth, I notice a bump beyond…in the distance…and want to go there and explore. What could that bump be? A mountain, perhaps? Or, just a molehill?
I see a vast plain, like a tapestry carpet stretching out before me…miles to the mountain.
I will journey over the plains, but need to [...]

Riehlife Writing Idea: Sensory Scan as Memory Prompt

When Jake Lorfing and I were talking yesterday about some long ago work I felt would be worthy writing material, he said, “But I don’t remember anything; it’s too long ago.”
I suggested he do a Sensory Scan. You can do this, too.
1) Take each sense in turn: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.
2) Scan each sense. [...]

“I kept my mouth shut.” (Conversation starter)

“It almost killed me to do so, but I kept my mouth shut….”
Tell us about a situation in which you found you had to just shut up, or you’d be in really big trouble, one way or another, or just a big bore, or unkind.
For John Flinn, it was that no place is ever as [...]

Pigheaded Pills and Other Personality Patent Medicine (Conversation Starter)

If you could choose some aspect of your personality to improve…and all it took was taking a pill, what would you choose? Choose something fun.
Pig-headedness, say?
Tell us the trait you’d like pills developed for to make you just a little bit nicer to be around. Just don’t make me agree with you. At [...]

Cool Doctors: You gotta love a doctor who…

Okay, here’s a fun little game you can play with our regular readers. Speaking with a friend over the phone, we started this list. If you’d like to join in, just hit the comment button and add to the list.

Antique figure of doctor in a lab coat studying an X-ray
(Enesco collectible from www.goantiques.com)
YOU GOTTA LOVE [...]