Heaven's Menu (Tell His Story)

 Today I'd like to introduce our wonderful neighbours, Pam and Tony, and their GOURMET food truck, Som-Tin-Ta Eat.

Not only are they terrific people and their kind of Christians I hope to be someday, but their cooking is epic. From pulled pork to grilled cheese to quesadillas...not to mention the world's best tortilla chips...they offer a culinary slice of Heaven.

If you don't live near Belen, New Mexico, I pity you.

BUT Pam has started a blog, and contained within the inaugural post is her recipe for pulled pork sandwiches.

Click HERE, and prepare to be swept

 away!

Pam and Tony can also be found on Facebook.

Sylvia asks, Please share!

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Ode To My Wife

 This is Henry the Deaf Pit Bull, helping me collect Barb's laundry. Goldie the Cat is just visible under his belly. They're pals.

I don't think you will ever know 

just what you mean to me,

for every day the feelings grow

'bout how you set me free

from the squalor of my birth,

from the early years of woe...

it was you who taught me worth,

and that in faith I'd go

down a road not steeped in death,

nor IEDs at every turn;

that in God's grace I'd take a breath

and every day I'd learn

of the Christ Who died that I 

would never have the need to cry.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is MIGHT.

I wished one day that I might 

find a gal that I could stand,

one with keen and steady sight

and a skilled and able hand

who could fix a broken door 

and then splint a broken leg.

I would have asked God for more,

but I didn't want to beg

for a warm and caring heart,

and a smile to melt my own,

digestion that would never fart,

and who'd let me use her phone

to call Heaven and give praise 

for her all through all my days.

Syl figures that she shares in this. But ice cream does give her gas 

A Prayer For The Living (Tell His Story)

 Where have all the good days gone,

the days of health, the days of strength?

Every day now, 'fore the dawn,

I know there will be pain at length,

but I cannot turn from my task

to hold genuinely to a smile,

so this, my Lord, is all I ask,

that You hold me all the while

my body fades and wastes away,

through the endless aching night

and through the challenge of the day

that I remain, and that I might 

pass on the blessings I've received 

to the ones in greater need.

Syl suggests I not pass on my ice cream.

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The Least Of These

We plan our days for times so great

that awe will drop us to our knees,

not taking care and time to wait 

and appreciate the least of these,

the brave weed-flower by the trail

to Grand Canyon's overlook;

we pass by in haste and fail

the test we never knew we took

that calls us to the caring glance

for the man beside the road

who perhaps had blown each chance

and now, with failure as his load

travels through a life of night

hoping for a mercy-light.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is WITHOUT.

They do without the things we take

for granted every single day,

and of nothing still can make

a plan, a life, a hope, a way

in places we don't deign to see,

and of course refuse to go.

So, we ask, how can it be

that Least Of These profess to know

the Christ that joins us in our feasts,

who's honoured in Easter Parade?

These people (more akin to beasts!)

seem to be why Heaven was made,

and when our Earthly days are gone

are the host that cheers us on?

Sylvia's chances were blown for her, as she waited in a field to die... until Barb stepped in.

Sometimes Things Don't Work Out (Tell His Story)

I promised to be honest, even when it's uncomfortable and embarrassing. This is both.

Trying to find food I can digest, that's light and still nutritious... I know!

Air-popped popcorn!

Some things really do not work

but yet have lessons they can teach

which bring you up with a sharp jerk

like a Pit Bull on a leash.

This was popcorn, fresh and light,

the brand was said to be the best,

and Barb and I thought it just might 

be much better to digest 

than bread or rice or fruit cocktail,

and it would give sodium,

but it proved an epic fail,

and earned itself opprobrium

when through intestines it had run

tore me, yes, a brand new 'one'.

Syl was glad to finish up the popcorn.

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Hope On The Installment Plan

Hope without action is just wishful thinking.

The action can be physical, putting your heart into a future through the work of your hands. A new garden, a book you're writing, a home improvement. For me, it's building a small aeroplane (not a model, one I can fly).

Or it can be mental. There's the story of an American pilot who was shot down over North Viet Nam, and kept in awful conditions, in solitary confinement.

He could have surrendered to despair. Instead, he built his dream house...in his head. He drew up the plans, dug the foundations, built the walls, did the electrical and plumbing work...and did not let up, even for a day.

When released in 1973, he went home...and built that house.

You can't let cancer leave you sour;

you can find hope, you can!

But its bill comes due every hour

on God's installment plan.

It would be nice were it an app

to download to your brain,

but thinking like that is a trap

for it won't long remain

without the work that you put in

each and every day.

If you really want to win,

this is the only way,

to pay in effort every cost

that keeps your hope from being lost.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is SCARED.

Don't be scared to be afraid,

don't be afraid of shaking knees,

for that's the way that life is made,

and if you do not freeze

you'll find you, trembling, can go on

through things you thought you could not face;

you'll find that when all hope is gone

it leaves a kind of grace

that is the province of the lost 

who cannot hope for safety,

and who no longer count the cost

and learn a rawboned gaiety 

that leaves them dancing in the night,

shining with an inner light.

Syl finds hope in the existence of ice cream.

The Elephant In The Room (Tell His Story)

 

I think it's really time to fly

away from anger, loathing, hate;

wave it all a stern goodbye 

before the whole thing gets too late.

I don't know who you voted for,

and, in truth, I do not care.

I'm glad to open up a door

and offer you a comfy chair

and a cup of chamomile

along with a warm croissant.

The two of us can keep it real

and usher out the elephant 

that these days is in the room,

his acrid droppings hell's perfume.

Syl would go for a croissant.

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