Wrinkles And Wisecracks by Bob Jones

 

“If wisdom comes with age, then I don’t have wrinkles, they’re just wisecracks.”

 

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

 

 

Words are lyrical.

 

Listen to the sound of the word, wrinkle. The appearance of wrinkles may be irritating but at least the word has a cool sound.

 

I like how Ardis Mayo draws the best out of wrinkles by calling them, “maps of wisdom.” And Jennifer Chesak, a Nashville-based writing instructor, imagines wrinkles as fine lines that “represent life's worth-it moments like grins that have stretched across our faces.”

 

Mark Twain wrote, “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”

 

Are you starting to feel better about wrinkles? I hope so. You and I are collecting them as we age. Perhaps you can see those smile lines in a new way as "wisecracks".  Ha!

 

I can’t help but think of Madeline L’Engle when I think of wrinkles.

 

Have you read her book, A Wrinkle in Time?  In 1960, 26 publishers wrinkled up their noses at her first attempt at a novel. It was, in L'Engle's words, "too different," and "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and had a female protagonist in a children’s science fiction book".

 

However, the book was hugely successful, winning literary awards, and was turned into a movie, a TV series, an opera, and even a theatre production.

 

L’Engle set out to show that the fight against evil requires more than great knowledge and intelligence. Intelligence without morality can easily slip into an authoritarian and brutal reality. Rather, that fight requires embracing those things that pure mental intelligence can’t grasp—love, courage, self-sacrifice, and humility.

 

The world needs writers like you, who furrow your brow as you ponder how your words can make the difference you know is so needed. 

 

Salt your writing with love, having the courage to write the truth, and the self-sacrifice of vulnerability. Add in the humility of humour and you'll keep those wisecracks coming.

Bob furrows his brow as he writes at REVwords.com