Your Dying Spouse 716 - Useful

Giving up gets tempting, and I have lately skirted the edge of that cliff.

Hand it all over to God, say No More!, and just stop making the effort to look forward into tomorrow...because today sucks, and tomorrow will be worse.

Still work to do, though, and here's a sonnet to me.

Here's something that you ought

to know; it should be said,

and I've given it a bit of thought:

you're no good to me dead.

I know you are in too much pain

to let your faint hope thrive,

but you're smart, so use your brain

and bring this home alive.

Learn that awful has an end,

that terror-wells run dry,

that misery can be a friend

and God saw Jesus cry.

So suck it up, Cochise, and live

for we need what you have to give.

Here's Bon Jovi, with Blaze Of Glory.

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 715 - Both Sides Now

It seems to me that Christmas, the birth of God in human form, didn't bring unity to Creation.

It brought contradiction, in which a Baby is a Saviour, a King is a servant, and the innocent pay the blood-debt of sin.

And it's precisely that dynamic tension, like the wind-filled sails on a yacht, that makes the whole thing go.

It's an end and a beginning,

it's a win and it's a loss,

saintly virtue while you're sinning

and it's cheap at twice the cost.

You'll be flying when you're grounded,

on the wings of leaden feet,

and you're free when you're impounded

on the gold-encrusted street.

You'll be sailing when you're sinking,

you'll be empty when you're full;

there are no thoughts when you are thinking

and the Servant comes to rule.

The only answer I can give

is that by dying, you will live.

Here's Judy Collins, with Both Sides Now.

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 714 - A Small Gift

This morning when I opened the front door, Navajo Girl was there, waiting for breakfast.

She's owned by a Navajo family down the street, and their other dogs don't like her much; they beat her up when they can.

So she comes here.

There's a history, and what meaning there is to Christmas, maybe it starts with this.

A puppy caught up in the fence,

and when I set her free,

I received my recompense:

she crapped all over me.

She ran back home a-crying,

But this was not the end,

and there’s no denying

That I have made a friend.

In the morn she’ll patient, sit

outside the garden gate

to see how much food I fit

upon her breakfast-plate.

Perhaps this is the Yuletide essence:

a gracious, small and friendly presence.

Music from Jars of Clay, with Love Came Down At Christmas.

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 713 - How Can We Feel Christmas?

I hate not being able to help the person I love most in all the world.

With the death of Barb's dad, and the moving-away of her dearest friends, Christmas just isn't the same. She recently commented that, having no living parents, she's now the older generation, and that's a lonely place to be.

And there's me, seemingly worse by the day, with weird swellings, an unearthly paleness under my normally yellow-cast skin, and exaggeratedly careful movements, because everything hurts too much. It's hard for her to see.

It's so hard to feel Christmas-y.

I wish I could help.

How can we feel Christmas

when so much has changed?

When there has been so much loss,

and hearts are disarrayed?

How can we view the scenes

of families joined in joy

when only, now, in our dreams

can their presence we employ?

How can we drive pass the home

of friends who've moved away

without descent to sorrow-zone

for an empty Christmas Day?

Lights and trees won't heal the sorrow,

but, in Christ, there is tomorrow.

Here are Aly and A.J. with Greatest Time Of Year.

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 712 - A Christmas Gift {Five Minute Friday}

Christmas came early for Yellow Boy.

He's a little Pittie who's been hanging around, accepting food and water but not letting anyone near.

And this morning he said, the heck with it.

I was outside with a leash, checking his whereabouts prior to walking Denali the Manic Husky, when he came running up and stuck his head through the collar.

Now he's inside, in a quarantine crate (we don't know his background), but he's warm, and his belly is full. As I write this he's trying to stay awake...afraid, I think, that this was all a dream.

It's not, little guy. Merry Christmas!

And for everyone out there in Five Minute Friday Land and beyond, here's my Christmas gift to you.

I think I’ve eaten too much chicken;

their strutting specters haunt my dreams,

there’s been excessive finger-lickin’;

can you, someone, hear my screams?

They crowd around, with sharpened beaks

and eyes aflame from long abuse;

each will find that which he seeks,

a part of ‘human’ he can use.

I say I did not run the fryer,

nor sever wing from juicy breast,

but their icy words are dire:

“You have robbed our very nest.”

I am lost in hell’s worst frights,

beset by hordes of poultrygeists.

Although I'm sorely tempted to offer Rufus Thomas' Do The Funky Chicken, insted the musical accompaniment will be from the Goo Goo Dolls, with my favourite Chritmas song, Better Days.

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.