A Book Worth Reading (Tell His Story)

 I don't do this often, but I have a book recommendation for you...J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.

Now, if you're a committed Democrat, please don't turn away, because even though the author is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, this isn't a political book.

It's a meditation on what it was like to grow up in the decaying industrial Midwest, a place ignored by both political parties. Vance describes the challenges his family faced, and how they often failed their children, and themselves. He tells, with painful candor, of the pervading sense of hopelessness, and the scourge of drugs.

These are good people, whose parents and grandparents came down from the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia to work in the steel mills and auto plants, only to see the work sent overseas, and the towns die, vibrant Main Streets abandoned to decay in the snow and the rain and the sun and the wind.

The story isn't self-serving. He's up-front about his own inadequacies, and about the influences...his grandparents, the United States Marine Corps, and his wife... that allowed him to escape the bitter fate of friends and family.

Vance doesn't offer a menu of solutions, and recognizes that there may really be none. He just wants to represent a demographic that may be doomed.

Also, it's a demographic of which my wife's family is part.

Sylvia would offer ice cream and a hug, if she could.

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Faith On A Really Hard Day

 

Today was rough, as in I don't know how to keep going. Things are narrowing, with fewer options for coping.

And now it simply falls away,

the world that I thought I could make,

the world of love and work and play;

God, is this some big mistake?

Did You spin the roulette wheel,

putting all my chips on Red

when fate went in for the steal

to put the ball on black instead?

I trust Your love and love Your grace,

and wish I could be more like You,

but have You turned away Your face 

for want of better things to do?

I'll take this place that You've prepared,

but You should know, I'm really scared.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is REWIND.

I gots to rewind that scene

and let it play out once again,

'cause it really was so keen

and cool and, too, it had some brain

and made me think 'bout what it meant,

what the actors tried to say,

for that is the pure true intent

of a real good teleplay,

and maybe if we could do that,

rewind some real weird-ass days,

we would find we could knock flat

the walls of life's meander-maze

and make sense of the path we've trod 

on the way to finding God.

Three minutes thirty seconds. Cool.

Syl is scared, too. She doesn't like mazes. She got caught in one, a maze of chaparral and mesquite, at night. We found her by her whimpering, and the glow of her eyes in the torch's beam.

WWJD About The Chosen? (Tell His Story)

 And so we have four seasons of The Chosen, probably the biggest thing in Christian media since Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea.

The series has its critics; some feel that any portrayal of Jesus violates the Second Commandment, and that the approach to characterization and dialogue are entirely too speculative.

For others, the Jesus portrayed by Jonathan Roumie doesn't match the Jesus of their heart, and the rather striking characterization of Simon and Matthew are jarring.

On the other had, many praise the fidelity to the Gospel accounts, notwithstanding the need to fill in details, both physical and character-wise, to bring setting and story to life.

What do you think? Have you seen The Chosen in whole or part?

If you quit, what drove you away?

How do you think Jesus feels?

In this house, we like it. A lot.

And Sylvia is half in love with Matthew's dog.

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The Vineyard

 I am not a plaster saint,

and I won't pretend to be

something that I truly ain't,

so don't you go and preach at me

about abstaining from my beer

to follow Jesus Christ;

the Bible makes it really clear

that wine wasn't sacrificed.

Look at the Cana wedding feast;

if the Christ was a teetotaler,

don't you think He would at least 

have turned wine back to water?

In Heaven we'll have us a brew,

and He will save one just for you.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is MAKE. I damaged an eye, so I will make this short.

Make and mend, the wise men say,

for we cannot have it all,

not even days when we pretend

to be Cinderella at the ball,

for soon or late the hour strikes,

and the Visa bill comes due,

and we cringe and whimper 'Yikes!

Can I skin a quid off you?'

Better far to live within

the means ability has set,

for it is some kind of sin

to walk on past that and forget

that we just cannot spend our way

out of the debt from yesterday.

Not sure what I was trying to say there, do you? But it took less than five minutes!

Sylvia does love her wine. Well, mine, when she can steal it.

Death By Rhetoric (Tell His Story)

Requiesce in pace, Cory Compertore 

We shout about the ones we hate 

until our faces go bright red,

and in this call down a fate

in which a gentle man is dead.

A day is spent to reconsider,

calls for unity and grace,

but anger is a raging river,

a thrill that no peace can replace,

and here, my God, we go again,

"He's an existential threat!",

and thus the rain dance brings the rain

and thus it is not over yet,

and will not be, 'till this, our home,

goes the way of ancient Rome.

Sylvia would organize mass time-outs.

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The Song Does Not Remain The Same

 

I guess it is how I was made,

but it don't trouble in the least 

to sit beneath the shining blade

at Damocles' fancy feast,

so pass smooth Southern whiskey,

and pass the fine cigars.

Pass the party girls (so frisky!)

who'll take me to the stars,

and let's all hoot and holler,

'cause all the world's a game,

but friend, it does not follow 

that the song remains the same

for one day soon joy will be full

for child, drunk, and dumb animal.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is CAPACITY.

I'm guilty of a paucity 

of blog participation;

it's just past my capacity,

and thus, the situation 

of wanting to respond in kind

to my far-distant friends,

but lack of O2 slows the mind,

and this is how it ends,

with brave words on Thursday night,

resolve that I'll do better,

but I am just plumb out of fight,

and typing every letter 

is such weight upon my chest,

but I remain, doing my best.

It took over five minutes, but I am just so tired now 

Sylvia rather resents the term 'dumb animal', and I have learned to appreciate the term 'finger food'.

Where Has Civility Gone? (Tell His Story)

 I'm too ill to write much, beyond hosting the linkup.

But recent days, in which a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity has has media pundits and congresscritters suggesting that the sitting president could legally order the murder of a political opponent...

Is this our country now, where no heads are hung in shame, and the darkest passions are given voice?

I don't want to see it, and thank God for cancer.

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Bee Not Afraid

 I was just thinking about bees and Israelites, and rembered a fragment from a song I heard at church:

"...bees aren't afraid,

they go before you making 

honey so sweet 

to mix into your tea."

This must have been a great comfort to Moses and the gang on their way to the land of milk and honey.

And I had never thought of bees as brave...in fact, I hoped they weren't 'cause I'm allergic too bee stings...but think of it, they had to be brave to be a Plague of Egypt, and help the Israelites escape.

Really makes me think.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is SPECIFIC.

We have got to bee specific 

when we talk 'bout stinging bugs

that can be far from terrific;

in fact, I really think they're thugs

looking for someone to stab,

not caring if they die in sending

me to a cold mort'ary slab

anaphylaxis as my ending.

That did nearly happen once,

and I thought that I was heaven-bound,

but I am not quite the dunce

and in the years since I have found

that avoidance of the lethal stings

lies in killing all the bloody things.

Three minutes forty-five.

Syl thinks I have a bee in my bonnet.

What's Your Take On Medical Marijuana ((Tell His Story)

 First, a disclaimer. I don't use medical marijuana; I've never smoked the stuff at all, and never will. I don't like handing over the control of my brain to chemicals (I don't take opioids for the cancer thing, either).

That being said, I am aware of the benefits it can bring to some people, and am really appalled at the patchwork laws we have. In my state, medical and small amounts of recreational weed are legal, but the federales set up rolling checkpoints to interdict the product.

It's kinda nuts, guys. Make up your minds. Either accept it for medical use or ban it, but this wink-and-nod stuff is corrosive to the rule of law we need to share.

If you need medical weed and have (or choose) to travel, good luck. If you fly and TSA finds it, you're busted (though they don't specifically look for it).

In some states you may choose to visit, and medical marijuana is legal, you may be able to buy it directly with an authorizing card, or arrange up to thirty days ahead of time. In other states, you're out of luck.

Why the inconsistency? Part of it is undoubtedly cultural, that marijuana was seen as an outlaw drug, and a precursor to worse things.

But another reason may be found in the sonnet below. It doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion, but rather thoughts that I've seen expressed in online cancer forums.

And so, if you're with me to here...what would Jesus do? Wine mixed with myrrh was given Him on the Cross, presumably to control the pain, but what would He say about marijuana and opioids and the other things we turn to?

I honestly don't have a clue.

Temp'erture and dew point

and all their little friends.

It's too damp out to smoke a joint

before the night-time ends.

See, I've got a condition,

and weed settles me down.

Why should I need permission 

from some suited DC clown?

But that's the way the whole thing goes,

no thinking 'bout the little guy,

for as most all people knows,

the fingers in Big Pharma pie

will close the door to cleaner care

because there is no profit there.

Sylvia worries about my having excessive pain, but figures that cuddles and ice cream will fix anything.

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