Braver
The ‘Batterings’ which life threw upon her Soul
during the first half of her tumultuous existence
have made her practically clairvoyant.
She now sees clearly and with instant premonition
her own circular-patterns, the masks of others,
both the insincere and the good of heart…
as distinctly as peering in through a window pane.
She pauses, within herself, often…
it’s not fear, nor hesitation exactly,
but rather a ‘Feeling Out,’ a ‘Sensing’ underneath.
Familiar with most Lures, Tricks and Traps,
she walks a far less dangerous and crooked road now.
The ‘Correct People’ around the Hearth of your Heart
are the Key to avoiding mental and emotional assassination.
Keeping Bitterness at bay, never giving in to Hatred
and refusing to see anything but the Truth,
undiluted or distorted, by rose-tinted spectacles
is both her way of staying sane and progressing un-blindly
through the haphazard maze and battlefield of each new day.
Through Rose Colored Glasses -- Betty Lu Aldridge
The ‘Batterings’ which life threw upon her Soul
during the first half of her tumultuous existence
have made her practically clairvoyant.
She now sees clearly and with instant premonition
her own circular-patterns, the masks of others,
both the insincere and the good of heart…
as distinctly as peering in through a window pane.
She pauses, within herself, often…
it’s not fear, nor hesitation exactly,
but rather a ‘Feeling Out,’ a ‘Sensing’ underneath.
Familiar with most Lures, Tricks and Traps,
she walks a far less dangerous and crooked road now.
The ‘Correct People’ around the Hearth of your Heart
are the Key to avoiding mental and emotional assassination.
Keeping Bitterness at bay, never giving in to Hatred
and refusing to see anything but the Truth,
undiluted or distorted, by rose-tinted spectacles
is both her way of staying sane and progressing un-blindly
through the haphazard maze and battlefield of each new day.
Many sources claim that the term "rose colored glasses" dates to the American Civil War (1861-1865) when wounded soldiers battling with depression were given them as treatment, under the theory was that the wearer would see things under a more positive light. The use of tinted lenses of various colors for therapeutic purposes (such as treating jaundice), especially since the 18th century. Indeed, a recent study at the University of Birmingham, England, tested a group of migraine sufferers; those who wore glasses with a rose colored tint called FL-41, originally developed to reduce sensitivity to fluorescent lighting by preferentially blocking blue-green light,experienced a reduction in the number of migraines from 6.2 episodes per month to 1.6. But the phrase predates the Civil War; the adjectives "rosy" and "rose-colored" have been in use in the sense of "hopeful" or "optimistic" since the 1700s. In "Tom Brown at Oxford," Thomas Hughes' sequel to his wildly popular "Tom Brown's School Days," it was claimed that "Oxford was a sort of Utopia to the Captain. He continued to behold towers, and quadrangles, and chapels, through rose-colored glasses." This novel was first published in serial form in "Macmillan Magazine" in 1859 and then as a book in 1861. But the phrase was already well-known. In 1846, W.A. wrote in "Fewell: A Series of Essays of Opinion for Churchmen" that clergymen were naturally tempted "to strive after popularity; to be easy and compliant; to inquire but little; and to permit the decencies, and suitabilities, and respectabilities of society to take the place of discipline -- in short to see every thing rose-color; and if rose-color be not there, to put upon his nose rose-colored glasses." So the phrase already meant denying or ignoring unpleasant truths. A bit earlier, in 1843, Mary Davenant discussed "The Ideal and the Real" in "Godey's Lady's Book," she claimed that they were a source of deception for the wearer, who leaves common sense behind when he puts them on: "A man in love is easily deceived. I have seen more of life than you have, my dear, simply because I look at people with my own eyes, instead of through rose-coloured glasses as you do." In a review of "Elliotson's Principles and Practice of Medicine" in "The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal" (December 13, 1843), they were described as a form of intentional self-delusion, committed out of sentiment or personal friendship, that prevents an honest critical appraisal. In 1834 Mary Boddington published "Slight Reminiscences of the Rhine, Switzerland, and a Corner of Italy" in which she used the phrase to indicate a kind of natural sunniness of outlook that helps transform the world into a more optimistic image. There is a similar phrase in French that is at least as early as 1841, when it was claimed that the smiling optimist looks at life through pink glasses ("lunettes roses"). The idiom "pink glasses" also exists in German ("etwas durch rosarote brille sehen") and in Czech ("vidět něco skrz růžové brýle"). The Czechs associate the phrase to Jan Amos Komenský (Ioannes Amos Comenius), the 17th-century pedagogue who is considered to be the father of education; in 1 623 he finished his first version of his satirical allegory, "Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart," still the most widely read work of old Czech literature; in it pilgrim is accompanied by a Mr. Delusion, who presents him with a pair of glasses "ground from assumption and habit," which distort the pilgrim's perception so that he only seldom glimpses reality (even in the Castle of Wisdom he sees only Vanity).
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