Your Dying Spouse 765 - I Hate Jesus, And So Do You {Five Minute Friday}

When we’ve chosen sides,

when it’s Us and Them,

the spear rips through His Side

and Christ has died again.

OK, time for another pop quiz.

In the past weeks, did you feel a quiet sense of satisfaction seeing protestors topple statues dear to folks you don’t really like? “About time!”

In the past few weeks, did you feel a sense of quiet satisfaction in seeing protestors with whom you do not agree tear-gassed? “About time!”

If you can honestly say you didn’t, go to the head of the line and St. Peter will ask for your autograph as you pass through Heaven’s gates.

Otherwise, for the rest of us (myself included)…well, “Uh, oh.”

But wait! Jesus, He’s on the side of Right, and He would have been out there in the crowd, leading a chant!

That’s what the zealots thought. You know…like, Judas?

Yeah, there ya go…Jesus, man, He was law and order…render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s!

Comfortable over there, standing next to Caiaphas?

Jesus Christ was not a revolutionary, ready to take His place on the barricades, Molotov cocktail in hand. That disappointed the zealots, and that’s why Judas betrayed Him.

Nor was He a strong supporter of the establishment, counseling full cooperation with the authorities. That’s why the Pharisees feared Him, and that’s why they arranged to have Him killed.

Jesus had a fairly simple message. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

We’re not doing too well with this.

Every time we shake our fists at the cops, every time we give a demonstrator the finger, every time we wish ill on Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi, we’re crucifying our Lord, all over again.

I hate Jesus, this I know;

He’s so blind He will not see,

He won’t go where I would go,

He will not agree with me.

He’s a rebel ‘gainst our rule

(He’s a pawn of Pharisees),

He’s become the zealots’ tool

(He wants us to die on knees).

We’ll find a way to make it seem

(He won’t raise His fist and shout),

that every day He doth blaspheme

(for silver we can sell Him out).

Either way, we will not choose

to accept His version of Good News.

We've made a plastic Jesus, just like the song (first heard in Cool Hand Luke), and here performed by Billy Idol. We've done this, and we have to deal with it...with, perhaps, some wry humour.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 764 - Cold Rice

One o the really hard things about being terminal is that nothing tastes right. Spices make me sick, sweets become sour, and the wonderful nutty taste of stout is not so wonderful as it returns to the light of day.

So rice is about the best thing. A bit of butter, a bit of salt.

And if I care to think about it, it becomes a miracle.

The cold rice

upon which you meditate

will become summer’s banquet.

I have no idea what music to set this to, so how about the Fab Four, and Yellow Submarine?

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.

Your Dying Spouse 763 - Keep The Laughter Going {Five Minute Friday}

This was going to be a totaly different post, containing the answers we all need forhealing divions, hanling panemics, and finding in masques a fashion-statement (yes, masques)...but it's been a really bad week, and I kinda misplaced my notes.

Bad week, as in, I can barely eat, and have not the breath to even whistle (which is important as I used a whistle...yes, that one...to get Barb's attention so I could sign to her, since speech is gone).

The one thing I have learned through this whole...thing...is that you have to intentionally keep your humour up. It's perishable; let the laughter die, and resurrection can be real hard as the gloom-sharks close in.

You've got to laugh, and you have to keep the joke-tank full. Because otherwise, you look at a world you are leaving, an you want to cry...and those tears, maybe you can't stop.

It's really worth it, and worth is the Five Minute Friday prompt this week.

So, a hypothetical question...if Jesus had, at the Cana weing, turned water into Bud, would that have been His first beericle? (Some researchers, BTW, contend that the daily 'spoilproof' beverage was actually a kin of beer, far cheaper than wine).

And another...does Swiss cheese come from the milk of holy cows?

And if anyone's still with me...

This is just disaster,

this is just a mess,

so with fashion as my master,

I shall put on a dress,

apply a bit of lip-gloss,

scarf by C. Dior,

and giving bouncy hair a toss

head on out the door

to neighbours’ vast amazement,

friends’ horrified surprise;

they’ll hide out in their basements

to protect their eyes

from what they should have never seen,

and it’s not even Halloween.

And so, music from Boy George and Culture Club, with Karma Chameleon....I wonder if our world today needs some of the spirit of the music and the video?

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.

How We Win

How can spring prevail

against winter's icy heart
but with a warm smile?

Over to George Harrison, with a live performance of Here Comes The Sun.

Your Dying Spouse 761 - The Looter In The Mirror {Five Minute Friday}

And there it went, the opportunity for change, its spark dying like the embers floating up rom a looted Auto Zone.

The death of George Floyd in police restraint rightly horrified millions, and pointed with stunning clarity the need for change.

For a little while, there, it looked like people were coming together. And then it blew apart, in an orgy of destruction, thievery, and violence directed mainly against police, but also toward anyone brave enough to try to stand up to the thugs.

The Santa Monica Music Center, which since 1972 had provided lessons and instruments to unerprivileged kids, was ransacked and wrecked.

A landmark Minneapolis restaurant, set to reopen in just days, after the coronavirus closure, was burned to the ground, and won't be rebuilt.

A retired police officer in St. Louis, working as a security guard, was murered when the pawn shop he was defending was looted. The officer happened to be black.

The popular narrative is that the peaceful protestors and the rioters are different, that they are somehow identifiable groups...and for some that's certainly true.

But there are many who in the day stand in Sonshine, and who choose to remain for the pagan bacchanals of darkness.

Devotion to Christ and a greedy thirst for destruction coexist in every heart. We all carry the mark of Cain.

Don't scoff...maybe you never robbed a liquor store or set fire to someone's car, but did you ever feel hurt by something your spouse said, and then planned and delivered a scathing comeback that left him or her white-faced and shocked?

Did you ever premeditate the attempted murder of a soul you'd promised to love and cherish?

A lot of commercials during the COVID thing said, "We're all in this together!" It's a nice thought, and a good way to sell face masks.

Well, we're all in this together, too.

Racism and Antifa and abortion are horrible, but they are symptoms of an illness we've allowed into our world through acquiesence and ignorance and ennui and a perceived guilt for somehow not being sensitive enough, not being tolerant enough.

Not tolerant enough...odd, that, because the illness is intolerance of God.

We've pushed Him away, tired of His rules, thinking His commandments unfair because they cramp some folks' style.

No commandment is safe. Those who break them are often lauded, and criticim of these worthies earns the critic profane censure (and a host of social media unfollows).

And now, having given in to our darker nature, here we are. It will be a long road back even to that imperfect place we were before.

The riots will be the remembered legacy, as they were in Watts and Detroit and Liberty City and Ferguson. No one will recall the peaceful protests except those who took part, and those memories will fade.

Commissions will be formed, some new laws will be enacted limiting police use of force, qualified immunity may go away. Reparations will be added to a House bill, and quietly removed in committee.

And nothing will change, because you can't legislate the generation of love.

Only time and peace and intention and grace can do that, and those are gone from this place, sent sadly away by our darker angels.

They have a right to feel neglected;

we surely should have listened more,

but the past can't be corrected

by the burning of my neighbour's store.

Frustration's understandable,

and there are things we need to change,

but that does not excuse the vandal,

even fueled by hopeless rage,

for he is dragging others down

to that dark and limbic place

where the good intentions drown

so very far from chance of grace.

I fear that we will not be quit

of this, until the torches are unlit.

Music from The King, with In The Ghetto.

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.