Yesterday, I saw this “Message in a Bottle” at a public art installation near the hospital where I work:
Here’s the description of “Message in a Bottle” by Janet Kawada and Bette Ann Libby:
For centuries, bottles have been used for preservation and as vessels to carry thoughts and memories. They have the capacity to last much longer than we anticipate. Finding an unexpected relic of a bygone time gives the discoverer a moment to consider. WHO left it, WHAT was that person doing here and WHERE did they come from? Yearning for peace, love, a better future, frightened, hopeful, adventurous or all of the above. Did we welcome them? Maya Angelou states, The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
In a way, every blog post is a message in a bottle from me — yearning for peace, love, a better future, frightened, hopeful, etc. Also, my photos often try to capture a message in a bottle from somebody else.
What message in a bottle do you notice here, now?
Because it’s National Tell a Joke Day, here are some “message in a bottle” jokes.
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Here’s “Message in a Bottle” by the Police:
I look forward to your message in the comments bottle, below.
Thanks to all who have sent or received a message in a bottle, including YOU.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 
I’m really thankful that you don’t keep your messages to us bottled up, Ann.
I’m really thankful for all your messages too, my friend.
Your photos of people on deserted islands with bottles reminds me of the Tom Hanks movie, Cast Away. I watched it last night with my Japanese daughter-in-law, who had not seen it before. It’s a good movie. (And quite a large chunk of it needs no translation.) Tom Hanks’ character didn’t even have a bottle to capture water in for drinking, and so he had to use coconut shells. We should be careful about throwing things out but we should perhaps also value them more, was my takeaway.
Is Rosh Hashanah coming up soon? That sign took me by surprise! I had better check the calendar
Thank you for sending your messages, Maureen, which always make a difference.
The work of art? Always the great meal!
As regards opinion on one’s work or in blogging. We do put it out there like the bottle at sea, hoping to get a response. We may not get what we hope for, but that’s the chance taken to be heard.
If we write because there is something that needs to come out, then the type of response should have no bearing or stifling of that word. The reader has the free will to take it or leave it, and likewise the writer has the same free will as regards the possible response.
To thine own self be true.
It matters not what others think of us except if that other is God. For one shouldn’t change their views and chance their soul on the opinion of one who is likely a carrier of some flaw himself. But, God? What is pleasing to Him is soul saving to the one who pleases.
-Alan
Thank you for this wonderful message, Alan.
Right now my thoughts are all on messages in bottles and how, when I was very young, I put some messages in bottles with my address asking whoever found the bottles to write to me. No one ever did. But this morning a guy who delivered a new dryer told me, “I’m also an artist and, you know, when you’re an artist you realize everything is creation.”
And I’ve been thinking about him all day.
Thanks for sending this out there, Chris, and for all your other creative messages.
the pic of the children -“where the world comes for answers.”
love the message in a bottle installation and the thoughts behind it
Love your messages, beth.