Your Dying Spouse 652 - Sonnetry

And so, I've written over eleven hundred sonnets since the beginning of the year.

Printed out in 12-point type one after the other, they would reach about 210 feet. Useless trivia can be fun, yeah?

It does beg the question of Why. The effort could have gone into a novel and a lot of rewriting, and that would have had a far better chance of commercial success. Poems don't sell.

The answer's twofold:

1. The structure of a Shakespearean sonnet forces my mind and heart into needed discipline; the rhyme and meter are fixed. When dealing with a lot of pain and fatigue, I find that this lends both strength and a sense of achievement.
2. By far the majority have been written as comments to others' blog posts; well over nine hundred of that eleven hundred. It's thus a means of communication, since I don't get out, and no-one comes here.

I could also say that it's fun, because I don't know of anyone else commenting in verse. Who doesn't want to be unique?

And...I've had some feedback, that some of these poems resonated with some readers, and were important to them.

I mean, that's why I write.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll make formal poetry cool again. 

Music from Gordon Lightfoot, with If You Could Read My Mind.

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.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 651 - It's OK To Despair

So often I hear Christians beating themselves up for feeling despair, thinking that their faith is somehow not strong enough.

That's baloney. Jesus despaired, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and later, on the Cross.

"Father, why have You forsaken Me?"

If He's allowed despair, so are you.

You just have to work not to let it win. You can't stop birds flying over your head, but you don't have to let them nest in your hair.

Jesus made the path for you, to despair, and beyond it.

Take His Hand.

He knows the way.

The poem below originally appeared as a comment to the Books and Such Literary Management blog post Quotes To Inspire Your Writing Life, written by Rachel Kent.

I wish that I were in the place

where affirming words could guide my way,

but hope's now lost, with little trace

and I've forgotten how to pray.

In the past they raised my heart,

beloved phrases, held so dear;

but in this loathsome bleeding's start,

someone get me out of here.

And silence, like a cold dark weight

covers all my once-good earth;

in mocking stillness informs the fate

of what I thought God planned from birth.

In freighted echo, Calvary-cry,

"Father, I'm forsaken...WHY?"

Music from For King And Country, with Shoulders.

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.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 650 - If You Love Me, God, Then Why..? {FMF}

Gordon Lightfoot said it best, and most poignantly, in The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald:

Does any man know

where the love of God goes

when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

Indeed.

If we're the children of a loving God, then how in blazes can He allow shipwrecks and cancers and genocide and the trafficking of children?

Does He really care?

Is He even there?

It's tempting to say that the question's unanswerable, and that you've just got to have faith in a purpose you can't see, but that's a cheap way out.

So here goes, with my version...

For our place in Creation to be meaningful, God had to include free will; the choice of Adam and Eve, and the choice we all face every day, for good or evil, for faith or apostasy.

Without free will, we're puppets. Not children of God.

But with free will, we can go seriously off the rails, hurting ourselves...and hurting others.

And that free will carries over into nature, beause through it, death by things like cancer entered the world.

I suspect God strongly wants to rescue us from this, but if He does, He negates His own purpose in creating us...back to being a puppeteer. 

He has, in a sense, tied His own hands...and the only thing He can do is be there for us. The trials that come from free will can be awful, but He is still bigger than they are, and He offers that 'bigness' to us.

We may not survive, but we will not perish, if we but take His hand.

You say, God, that you love me,

and I'm the apple of Your eye.

Then why did you craft this destiny

for which I have to die?

Don't get me wrong, I know the score;

death cometh from the Fall,

but what did I do to earn much more

pain, before your homeward call?

It seems You are the mighty hammer

and I, the humble nail

who cannot but reply in stammer

from this cancer's durance vile.

Came God's reply, so loud and kind,

"Like my Son who died, you are Mine."

Now, I'll bet that at this point you're expecting to see the The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald as the musical theme...

...but this has been a heavy post, so let's have some fun with The Ramones, and I Don't Wanna Grow Up. (It's the closing credits song from Shazam!, a really wonderful movie that portrays Christian faith as normal.)

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.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 649 - Will We Have Feet In Heaven?

I don't think about Heaven a lot - what will be, will be - but recently Barb and I talked for a bit about what our 'bodies' would be like.

Would they be 'celestial', or would they be soething like what we have now, only perfected?

We won't have infirmities, but will we, like Jesus, carry scars? And what about tats...will they be just...LOST????

I don't have any, and neither does Barb...but what about those who do, and treasure them?

Barb, ever the pragmatist, also pondered the question of waste elimination. I somehow doubt that will be a problem.

And there are other questions...

Do you think that when we get there,

that we will have our feet?

I suspect that we might need a pair

to walk some golden street.

Or maybe we'll have wheel and tire,

with sound treadlife untold,

so passerby we can inspire;

burnouts on the streets of gold!

Or perhaps we'll soar on wings,

above the Throne a barrel-roll,

but what congestion that could bring

for God's air-traffic control!

My feeling's feet, and that's what I'd choose,

but tell me...shall we be needing shoes?

What do you think? What will we 'be' in Heaven?

Apropos nothing, here's A-Ha with Take On Me, and a delightfully cheesy 80s music video.

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.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.