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.
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.
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.
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.
