Looking Forward Together

Marriage is not about two people looking at each other. Do that for too long, and it's "Good grief, what was I thinking? (Grief is the Five Minute Friday word-prompt, an I had to work it in somehow. Hey, don't laugh...it works, kinda.)

No, marriage is all about two people looking forward together, with shared values, and a shared vision.

I think that we should find a way

to work together, Barb and I,

at a job that’s also play,

and is sweet unto the eye.

We do have our share of talents,

quick response and no mean strength,

agility, and also balance;

oh, I could go on at length!

There is one venue that will serve

our skill-set cornucopia,

and thus we really do deserve

a shot at Wrestlemania,

a coed tag-team none can match,

Genghis Kong and SassyQuatch.

For anyone who's wondering how it's going, the simple answer is, really bad. Can't take anything near a full breath, and tumours in the armpits have my arms out at an angle, like the Michelin Man.

But hey, would Hulk Hogan quit? Jesse Ventura? Me neither!

Music from Barry Manilow, with Daybreak, simply because I like the song.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

When Heroes Fall

Alex Trebek is gone, fallen victim to pancreatic cancer.

He was a good man, a staunch Christian, as recorded in his words, from Guideposts (the embedded link in the quotation is a tribute to his wife, Jean):

“There were moments of great pain, days when certain bodily functions no longer functioned, and sudden massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it really was worth fighting on. But I brushed that aside quickly because that would have been a massive betrayal–a betrayal of my wife and soulmate Jean who has given her all to help me survive. And it would certainly have been a betrayal of my faith in God and the millions of prayers that have been said on my behalf.”

Pancreatic cancer is a horrible, cruel thing...the pain it engenders is unreal, and the humiliations, in uncontollable bowels and vomiting and soul-destroying fatigue and depression...well.

I never met Mr. Trebek. But his fight, carried out in faith and in public, was my lodestar.

If he could do it, I could try.

I am bereft. I know I should look to God, but I did look to Alex.

Hope isn't canceled, but it took a hit (and cancel is the Five Minute Friday word prompt this week).

The world’s a little paler

beneath the winter sky,

and hope is somehow staler

when heroes have to die.

We followed your bright shining light,

courage like the hardest stone,

but now God has called the fight

and gently brought you home.

I’m glad your battle’s finished,

and that Heaven is your gift,

but my heart, it feels diminished

and I find myself adrift

upon a sea without a shore

where your tall sails are seen no more.

A musical tribute from the Dropkick Murphys, with Forever. If the video doesn't come up, please click here.)

"Your strength is the power that carried me through...forever."

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Don't Go There

 This is not a post I wanted to write.

I want you to remember me as something like Tony Stark, at the finale of Avengers: Endgame

That would not, however, be the truth, and as things continue downhill (new and bigger tumours, making it hard to breathe, among other things...and as for the other things, don't ask), I find my mind going places that are weak and maudlin...

I think, but for the love of Mike,

don’t think on it too long,

what my world might be like

when I am dead and gone.

Will the dogs prick up their ears,

run barking to the door

when they dream that they hear

a voice that comes no more?

Will Barb, on waking, smell the bread

that I once used to bake,

and remembering that I am dead

wish there was some mistake

and though she’s not the sort to cry,

put head in hands, and ask God Why?

I would guess that everyone who's watching death approach thinks this...what will thing be like without me? Will there be an echo of my presence where I once walked?

The answer is, well, of course. As John Donne wrote, Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Every death's a loss; every death changes things.

So it's a natural path for the mind to follow. It's also (to my mind) the wrong path, because it bespeaks a lack of trust in God, and something of a repudiation of Paul in Phil. 3:13-14

13 - Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14 - I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

In looking forward, I can't look back, and I have to place everything that I will be leaving behind in God's hands. I can't allow the sentimentality, and, yes, the self-pity, to distract from the road ahead, for how I live the coming days is what will truly determine how I am remembered.

And after all, you can't plow a straight furrow while looking over your shoulder.

Look ahead. Don't look back. (And ahead is the Five Minute Friday prompt this week.)

I woul love to hear your thoughts. Am I wrong, here? Am I overlaying an asumption of perection on human nature, the nature that God loves?

Music from Jenn Johnson, with Goodness of God. (Click here if the video doesn't appear.)

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

The Dog At Mortlake Terrace

 Those of you with a grounding in art history are (I hope!) saying YESSSS!

J/M/W Turner's painting, Mortlake Terrace, is one of his signature pieces. It has a quiet, elegaic quality, a celebration of watching the Lord Mayor's barge just ended (note the doll on the chair, and the hoop) on a mild evening...except for The Dog.

Turner always provided a focal point to his paintings, but this time, someone beat him to it. While the painting was a work in progress, a pal of Turner's came into his studio (while the master was out on an errand), saw the lack of a focus, and cut out a playful paper dog, affixing him to the balustrade.

When Turner returned, he nonchalantly made some adjustments to the dog's position, and varnished the mutt into posterity.

Focus.

Cancer's been a true gift, because it's given me just that, the need to focus on what's important in life. Not a cool leather jacket, or a badass watch, or a muscle car (yes, I was into that)...not the stuff that defined Who I Am...

..but What I Do.

An example...Belle, Assistant Service dog (she looks exactly like a plush German Shepherd toy one minght win at a fun-fair) is awfully slow to have a BM when I walk her. She gets distracted...she's very young...and it generally takes 30-40 minutes to eke a performance out of her. (I should mention that there are a lot of other dogs here who need walking...who do 'perform' more quickly.)

But, what, now, does that matter? Do I have something more important to do?

I won't write the Great American Novel, or do any of the things I once thought were my deserved destiny.

But I can enjoy each minute sharing the world with a growing, eager canine mind. I can enjoy living on this desert mesa, undet the sun and under the stars (and, sometimes, in the falling snow, which does speed Belle up!).

I can focus on the time I have left, and not decry what's been taken.

And I find, though I should not be surprised, that what the Lord has given me is far, far more meaningful (and fun!) than what's been left behind.

The focus of life’s picture,

the thing that draws the eye,

is sharpened by the stricture

that one is marked to die.

No more the languid lazy days

the flowed from dawn to dawn;

they’re past recall, and anyways,

I’m kinda glad they’re gone,

for now I have a purpose clear,

to live each precious hour,

to embrace what I hold dear

and stop to smell each flower.

Each moment saved is one that’s gained

until one’s living cup is drained.

Here's a delightful video on focus and hope...Dire Straits, with Walk Of Life.(Click here if the video oesn't appear on your evice.)

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

What No-One Wants To Talk About

 It's something no-one really want to talk about.

Losing faith.

It's been a hellish week of pain and puke and growing tumours and...can it get worse? (Short answer: yes, it can.)

If it were punishment, I could accept that...but it seemed more like indifference.

So my faith flagged.

Not faith that there is a God, mind you...the sheer complexity of life, and the huge odd against it developing randomly (something like 4 to the 300th power against a 300-ribosome chain of DNA building itself from 4 basic amino acids, to start...which translate to 4 times ten to the 180th power...which is a 4 followed by 180 zeros...as a comparison, if the Earth is really 4 billion years old, that's 2 times ten to the fifteenth power seconds...a lot smaller).

Yes, I know about Bartel and Sostak's 1993 experiment that 'showed' that catalytic RNA molecules could speed up the process significantly, but they 'selected in' the catalytic RNA (they compared it to dog-breeding for desired coat qualities) and provided a friendly and stable environment for the reactive process. In other words, they added a form of intelligent design to the equation.

So, yeah, I believe in a Creator.

But is the Creator beneficent? Does He care about me, or am I merely an expenaable pawn on a comic chessboard?

I can't get there through reading Scripture, or through Praise and Worship, or through listening at the feet of learned men.

But I can get there through context.

And the context off Christianity consists of three days at a long-ago Passover.

"Father, why have you abandoned Me?"

Jesus could ask the quetion we seem to be afraid to approach. He asked it for us, at the beginning of His journey.

The three-day road from the Cross to the empty tomb.

God didn't come to live among us as a man so that we'd have easy, pain-free lives, and have all our worldly dreams come true. God isn't Santa Claus.

He came to defeat the grave for us. And that, for me, is enough.

He died in blood and mire, the blood and mire in which our lives are based.

And then He rose, that we might rise.

(OK, a slight correction to the 'listening at the feet of learned men' bit above...I never had doubt about the veracity of the Resurrection, but don't have the energy now to explain why, so may I direct you to Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ?)

Are You really out there, God?

Do you really care?

Is my thinking deeply flawed;

am I talking to the air?

Is there something left for me

as bitter days wind down,

or is my testimony

the miming of a clown?

I search on King James’ pages,

in words of preaching men,

in tomes by august sages,

and it is only then

that I see when doubt and mistrust loom,

Christ’s context is the empty tomb.

Music from John Denver, with Looking For Space. (Click here if the video doen't appear.)

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.