I Got My Life Back, And Now What?

 It's the cry of everyone besieged by circumstance or illness..."I want my life back!"

And now, having survived a sustained fever of 107 with cancer as a pre-existing condition, something that should have killed me...I have my life back.

What should I do with it?

God has an answer, for now. (Yes, I talk with God these days. He's a good conversationalist.)

Anyway, here's God's suggestion as to what I should do with my life:

"Right now, nothing. This is your time to heal. You're a skeleton, and you have to let Me grow purpose on your bones. I am not in any rush, so enjoy this time, and I will enjoy it with you."

So that's what I'll do. I will continue to write blog posts, though answering comments is still beyond me (I can only sit up for a little while each day, still); Barb reads them to me, and I truly appreciate your friendship and love.

I'll try to at least visit your posts through the week, and say Hi. Please bear with me?

I wrote this sonnet for fun, just before I got sick. I hope you like it. I made up the term 'frogularity', and Barb thought it too good to lose.

The Land of Frogularity
where goats serve tiramisu,
and there's no need for charity,
for all know what to do
to care for fellow critters,
high-five or belly-rub,
then have five pints of bitters
quite nightly, in the pub.
We race our ancient roadsters
until the bonnet's hot,
then use the steel as toasters
and warm the cooking pot
upon the steaming engine-head
that we may have soup with our bread.

Only By God's Grace

I am alive, after several days with a fever of 107; dark side of living, bright side of dying.

It is solely and completely God's Grace.

Recovery will be slow (but has begun); I won't be able to read or reply to comments but Barb will read them to me.

Meanwhile, I'm just so glad to be alive.

Some Evil Days

 This should not have been written, because yesterday, I should have been dead.

Been very sick; high and consistent fever since Saturday, trying to breathe around a solid 'block' in my chest...and yesterday Barb thought the jig was up, with a temperature of 104.5 and breath that really had to be pushed.

And then the fever broke, and breathing became more normal.

Not out of the woods but I'm here.

I won't get to many of your Five Minute Friday posts...if any...and certainly with no sonnets. I'm too tired.

But I hope you'll like this Ode to Barb, the last one I wrote before I was overwhelmed.

She stands there in her do-rag
and her mirrored shades;
some peers are now becoming hags,
but that's not how Barb's made.
She's got a small chain steering wheel
in her sport utility,
and speakers that will let you feel
hip-hop in her vicinity.
She's put in top hydraulic gear,
the best she could afford;
Christ on dashboard makes it clear
she's low-ridin' for the Lord,
and when bright Heaven's days arrive
she'll school the cholos how to drive.

Here's WAR, with Low Rider (please click here if the video doesn't load on your device).

Stepping Aside For A Brighter Voice

 Sometimes you have to just doff your ballcap, in awe.

I will step aside today,

by my, and not by cancer's, choice,

in the hope that you will stay

to listen to a brighter voice

that speaks hard truth with love and grace,

and sings faith in angelic tone

that would bring tears to iron face

and rend a heart of granite-stone.

And so I ask you, stop awhile,

and hear these things that must be heard,

and at the end, perhaps you'll smile

as your heart holds every word

so simply offered as a plea,

“Please don't turn away from me.”

Over now to Jane Marczweski, aka 'Nightbirde'. If the video doesn't come up on your device, please click here.

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.

Lift - What I Should Never Ask

 It's solid in the bones now, and with the tumours I can barely walk. Dog's are learning to do their business off leash, while I lean on a tree-stump.

And at night, the bones are the worst...something I was told to expect. Sleep's overrated.

Sometimes, I am tempted to pray for release. It's wrong (and I'm not suicidal), but what was never close to a wish hovers around the edge of my mind.

Dear God, my bones are near the end,
I hobble where I once was swift
and do know what this doth portend;
forgive me if I pray for lift
past the things that are to come,
past this long and aching fate,
pray you take me, make me young
again, to walk through Heaven's Gate.
I know that I need more resolve,
and asking this, hang head in shame,
but shame does not weakness absolve,
so make me fit to play this game
as long as I still walk this earth
until my day of full re-birth.

Music from The Fifth Dimension, with (what else?) Up, Up And Away.

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.

A Few Mil In Vanuatu

 Last night was just horrendous...unremitting pancreatic pain that made me weep...and this morning's got acute nausea added, and just getting to me feet makes it really hard to breathe (and swollen, painful feet...what's that about?). 

I still say I'm living the dream (nearer my God to thee!) but some aspects of cancer are kind of messy, and why don't they show those in the Hallmark movies?

Ordinary life has gotten pretty difficult. Things like walking, eating, sleeping, breathing, and other things.

So one might assume that since I've been to Heaven and back twice (March 14 and May 3), that it's lately been on my mind.

No, not really.

See, it's kind of like having a lot of money in an offshore tax haven. You can't bring the money here; to spend it you have to go there. Sure, you can dream about it and look over your account statements, but if you still have a life right here, that's a kind of futile pursuit.

And it takes away from the life you're living...I mean, look at it from Barb's perspective. Would you want to be married to someone who was dreaming about being somewhere else, even if that place was Heaven?

She deserves better, the dogs deserve better, and everyone I touch through this blog deserves better...as in, my undivided attention.

So Heaven's my swelling bank account in Vanuatu. I think about it sometimes, but I'm not sketching out the beachfront bar I'm going to open. Time enough for that later. It's waiting for me, no worries.

As for the promised narratives, they are coming...Barb's pastor has strongly recommended that these are all written up and presented as one witness, and that's what I'll do.

This is a strange and awkward position to be in, for me...getting tapped by God to carry this message of hope become certainty. But I'll do my best.

I've seen the place where angels dwell

with Almighty Lord on high;

I've come to know it very well,

and it's not up in the sky,

but on a brightly transformed earth,

free at last from death and sin,

an Eden given fresh new birth

so that we may now begin

through all forever's golden ages

to see what gentle God intended

when at first He wrote the pages

that once were torn, but now are mended

so that we, beloved of His heart

may in His Heaven play our part.

Music from Coldplay, with their charming music video Life In Technicolour II (please click here if the video doesn't come up on your device).

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.

If You Could Do It Over..?

 I call it the Devil's Question.

"If you had it to do over..?

For one thing, it's futile; we don't have anything to do over, and while learning from mistakes is smart, going back and building alternate universes in your mind is something for science fiction...bad science fiction.

For another thing, it's ungrateful, and often unkind. I've made many bad decisions in my life, and can be considered, without prejudice, a worldly failure. Never quite made it to my dreams and aspirations, except for saving a lot of stray dogs (at huge cost to relationship, including and especially marriage...we typically have to step outside to talk...yes, Barb is a saint, because of the barking when we start to speak, and friends are consigned to lawn furniture by the workshop for a visit).

And they were a choice, one that took the place of so many other things...travel, dining out, hobbies, serious writing.

But those dogs had literally no other options, and they've made up in love what they have cost in care...would I reset my life, if I could, and consign them to the oblivion they faced?

In a more prideful vein, the poetry thing...had I the money (again, choices!) and the health (well, luck)h, I would have been working on aeroplanes and racing cars...but from what I have been told, I've done a bit of good through my words. Far more than if I'd followed the Machines Of My Dreams.

But there is something beyond being grateful for the blessings of the 'road taken'...our failures, and the dreams that fade and crumble, can open our hearts to compassion, to deeper love (for how we yearn to be comforted, as children, when our toys are broken!), and through these to a Visitor.

If we let Him in, God drops by, in disguise.

“Do you ever sometimes wish you had

done the whole thing differently,

replacing with good what went bad,

and drinking deep of victory

instead of failure's bitter brew

(that you know so well by now!);

tell me, is this what you would do

if, perhaps, I showed you how?”

I looked back on my book of days,

and they looked back into my eyes,

to offer not reproach nor praise,

for either would be scarlet lies;

life's not defined by what is gained,

but by the hidden God we've entertained.

There's a lovely cantata, composed by Lars-Erik Larssen, called Forkladd Gud (God In Disguise); below is the movement (#8) that has always enchanted me. I hope you like it (and please click here if the video doesn't come up on your device).

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.

Replaceable Me

Things are really bad, and I usually now get Barb out of bed every night, when I'm screaming in pain, but nonetheless, I do try to keep fit.

To the point where today, Barb had a stubborn juice-bottle that she asked me to open.

She asked, kind of rhetorically, "What will I do when you're gone?"

My response was, "Get a good pair of channel-lock pliers, some duct tape, and some JB Weld. That'll do it."

We can delve deep into this conversational exchange, but what's the point?

The juice-top lid was staying on,

and you had to ask for aid;

“When you're gone, what will I do?”

That, my dear, is what you said.

I understand the deep emotion

that doth lie behind this plaint;

not disrespecting your devotion,

don't make me what I ain't.

Get some channel-locking pliers,

duct-tape, and some JB Weld,

and you'll find that hell's own fires

can, with these, be distant-held.

I love you, dear but am a tool

that is, at end, replaceable.

Apologies to those who left comments that went unanswered. With the spring winds come long interruptions in internet service, and I've been really, really sick. Internet works in the wee hours, but I just can't anymore.

Music from Brad Paisley, with I'm Gonna Miss Her. Please click here if the video doesn't load on your device.

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.