Ready To Hang With Jesus? (Tell His Story)

 

They will hate you and revile you,

curse the Gospel you hold dear

for they cannot stand Him true,

the God who is their deepest fear,

and they will try to break your heart

make you  for your faith atone.

If you refuse to play your part 

then they will gladly break each bone,

and you will let your hands be tied,

pray for them in your surrender,

for rebellion will have died 

the more often you remember

that the road to Calvary 

must be your willing destiny.

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The Stone In The Path

 On the morning after Beau's passing.

Only thirteen days, and a Great Dane can really grab hold of your heart, even as his is failing.

Barb says she feels like she's lost her security blanket.

It was heartbreaking, but knowing Beau was worth it.

I'm sorry to have been negligent in visiting your blogs, and replying to your comments. I'm on oxygen most of the time, and still have an O2 saturation averaging 85%. It does leave one tired, and makes coherent writing almost impossible.

Don't know what's causing it. Don't much care. Life goes on.

Life goes on and on and on,

times of plenty, times of lack,

and you sometimes don't know what's gone

because in trying to look back

you dash your foot against a stone 

that the Lord's placed in your way

that you might rethink, atone 

for not seeing the new day 

that God has set up just for you

just past the horizon's curve,

saying that what you must do

is reach out with joy, reach out with verve,

and leave the past to fade to air,

then turn to gold in His heart's care.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is SOME.

I used to be some kind of lucky,

dancing 'tween the raindrops' fall

and then my life got kinda sucky 

and I didn't feel the luck at all 

and looked at life with fatalism,

thinking I was born to lose,

not seeing that there was a schism 

and that it was mine to choose.

Not my fate, for that's beyond

control of any mortal man,

but rather, how I would respond

to that bright mysterious plan

that led me through my gain and loss

to sit at the foot of the cross.

Three minutes plus.

It's Crazy Out There (Tell His Story)

The days march by, each weirder yet,

and talking heads have naught to say,

but just what you gonna bet

that they will jabber anyway 

to try to make some kind of sense

of what's senseless in the end,

thinking there is recompense

in that which even God can't mend.

This all reminds me of a tale,

here in this bewildered hour,

of that great construction fail,

the raising up of Babel's Tower

when on display there came to be

just how dumb people can be.

Sylvia knows dogs are SO MUCH smarter.

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Almost

 The Five Minute Friday keyword this week is ALMOST.

I almost had a future,

I almost had a life 

except for one slipped suture 

beneath a surgeon's knife,

and all the rest just fell apart,

and only dreams remain.

I'm left as master of the art

of coping with the pain.

I guess I should be furious

at that mistake which went unseen,

but I'm not even curious 

'bout everything that might have been,

and I turn away because 

it's futile, that which never was.

Four minutes.

Music from Andy Williams, with Almost There

College Kids (Tell His Story)

 Originally, there was here something of a diatribe (in sonnet form) against the Ivy League college kids and their current 'political' protestations.

But I cut the thing, for I understand their motivations better, after a night of reflection, and ice cream shared with Sylvia.

This is just a way to cut classes, and maybe get exams postponed 

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Barb Has A Beau

 

This sonnet first appeared as a comment to the Steve Laube Agency blog on April 18, and I had so much fun writing it that I decided to re-use it.

Yes, I’m having a great day,

and laughing through the pain,

all because, I’ve got to say,

we got a new Great Dane!

His name is Beau, and he is large,

with drooly massive head,

and he’s shown that he's in charge

by sleeping on Barb’s bed,

and my oh my, the springs did groan

‘neath Beau’s colossal weight,

and my oh my, poor Barb did moan

in seeing that her fate

would be to sleep upon the rug

with her cheerful gassy Pug.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is LONELY. Which I never am.

There's a dog on every chair,

and projects piled throughout the place.

I live without a lonely care,

for I live in a state of grace,

tied, yes, to the oxygen 

that lets me live and breathe away.

There's no point in Remember When,

for I've more blessings on this day 

than most will see,their whole lives through,

so I've let go the cherished past.

Each hour now brings something new,

and though I wasn't built to last

I will go fast instead of far,

and burn out as a shooting star.

Just a few ticks past three minutes.

Music from Bob Lind, with Elusive Butterfly

Sylvia just saw the first butterfly of spring!

When We Tolerate Hate (Tell His Story)

 The thugs with torches soon will come

for the despised Jew.

Next they'll take the Muslim,

and then they'll turn on you,

for we thought we should tolerate 

the thought with which we disagree,

even that embracing hate,

ignoring history 

that should have taught us discernment 

had we the wit to hear

without this misplaced sentiment

that long has been held dear,

the notion that beneath the skin

evil men are yet our kin.

Sylvia knows evil first-hand. She was abandoned to die with a broken leg and a dead puppy in her womb in a July Texas field.

  In the absence of music (Blogger won't let me link a video on my phone), here are a couple of things pictures of Sylvia, my blog's public face, on an ice-cream run.

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Gimli's Lament

Yes, I am an imposing person.

Not, unfortunately, Dwayne-Johnson-imposing.

With a height of 68 inches and a shoulder span of 28 inches, I look a lot more like Gimli

Athletics always were my thing,

a kind of comforting home port,

and I had a lot to bring

to most every contact sport

with its grunting and its sweat,

anxious doctor standing by,

but I say in truth I've yet

to see dudes messed up to die.

We all did this for its sake

'cause dames did not stand by to see

faces mashed, hear femurs break;

at the beach they'd rather be,

but when you're wide as you are tall

you just don't do beach volleyball.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is LIMIT.

Not feeling too well this morning, do may I offer a haiku?

Limitless skies of desert winter

surrender to warm haze

of spring.

Sylvia's short and wide too. She doesn't mind.

Taxing Times (Tell His Story)

 Render unto Caesar 

that which belongs to him

even when your empty freezer 

is looking pretty grim,

even when you don't agree

with your taxes' ute'lization,

'cause you've a mansion they can't see

as your final destination.

So simmer down effrontery,

go ahead and dial it back

even if the country 

is down the wrongest track,

and lift your heart and soul and eyes 

to His love, the greatest prize.

Music from the Bellamy Brothers, with Jesus Is Coming

Sylvia thinks all tax revenue should be spent on ice cream.

For her.

But she'll share.

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The Tears Of Captain America

I'm on oxygen now

So, it seems is my poor, belaboured country, the last Gulliver, set upon by Lilliputians.

If everything is possible

then nothing can be true,

then Styx is therefore crossable

for liberty is through.

If every fancy truly matters

and virtue is just taste,

then our Constitution's tatters,

and it was all a foolish waste,

the courage and the discipline

attending that which we held dear,

so pass the nitroglycerin

and run it into Lincoln's ear

to get behind each Rushmore face

and blow the thing to outer space.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is COMPLICATE. I'll keep it simple.

Republicans and Democrats

and Independents too

are haughty proud elitist cats,

nothing like me and you.

Term limits might have done the trick

way back in the day,

but those in power now will pick

a Xeroxed protegé.

The Founding Fathers roll their eyes,

and pour another gin,

for it is no surprise,

the trap that we are in,

accepting betters' simple tales

gifting us with complicated fails.

Five minutes, just. The last couplet was hard.

Music from Aaron Lewis, with Am I The Only One?

Sylvia is there, too. In almost any other country, she, an ailing Pit Bull, would have been left to die.

Not here.

Easter Hangover (Tell His Story)

Sorry this is a day late. Had some technical difficulties, and now need to be on oxygen much of the time.

 Easter Day has come and gone

and Jesus Christ is risen,

so why'd you think you still belong

in the same old prison?

He didn't suffer for your right

to a hurts-so-darn-good wallow,

which would make Good Friday night

a little hard to swallow,

so please don't ask JC to fix

that which He made new.

Old dogs, they can learn new tricks,

and Bubba, so can you,

so ditch the teary altar call

'cause you already have it all.

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The Sasquatch Beautification Project

The other day Barb was combing her hair in preparation for church, and I said, "Oh, it's the Sasquatch Beautification Project, eh?"

So I had to write the poem below as penance.

It's better than a full-body cast.

I have come to the conclusion

that eyes are privileged to see;

Barb must be optic delusion,

none can be lovely as she.

I thought that she was pretty hot

on the morning that we met,

a feeling that I'll truly not

be able ever to forget,

but now I am forced to say

that the years exert a cost

on all others every day;

compared to Barb their cause is lost,

and their envy makes them green

beside cutest Sasquatch I have seen.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is ALREADY.

So have your dried your hair already?

C'mon, c'mon, you gotta go!

Just stand right there, still and steady,

and I will let the dryer blow,

but hey, there's lots of sparks a-flyin'

and the thing seems really dead,

but I know your hair needs drying,

and I have just the thing instead!

I'll just fetch my tanks and torch

and my trusty heating tip.

They're right out there on the porch,

I'll get them in and then let rip

and start you out upon your day

with hair that's dried the redneck way.

Three minutes thirty, and you're telling me you've NEVER done this?

Music from The Charlie Daniels Band, with The Legend Of Wooley Swamp

Sylvia is glad I didn't need a body cast. Bites don't heal well beneath plaster.

 

The Joy Of Sects (Tell His Story)

 There's Baptists and there's Nazarenes,

and Holy Rollers too.

There's Jesuits (the Lord's Marines!);

which one of them are you?

Are you feller bilong Pope

(that's Nugini Pidgin)?

Just where do you place your hope

in this Café of Religion?

I know, I know, our hope's in God,

and not in man-made scaffolding,

but we're human, and we're flawed,

and need a set of rules to bring

us to that mighty Throne of Grace

with courage left to see His Face.

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The Burden Of Forgiveness

 It's the hardest thing I've had to do,

the least appealing job to face,

to gird myself and stand next to

who wronged me and offer them grace

through forgiving in Your presence,

through a willingness to love,

not because that is my essence,

but I must choose to rise above

the hates that were all I could see,

that choking fetid dumpster fire,

for something that's transcended me,

for the dousing of the pyre

that its hot smoke may not affright

the purity of Heaven's light.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is BLAME.

I blame those whom I must forgive,

and hold them to a strict account

for making life harder to live,

for I'm called to the full amount

of seeing sin inside of me,

and knowing that I am no better

than those whose faults I clearly see,

whose brotherhood becomes a fetter

to make be stand up by their side

in the palace of the King.

I really would prefer to hide

and let God do His thing,

but I have to be prepared

for a judgement that is shared.

Four minutes and YUCK! I hated to write that.

Music from the Traveling Wilburys, with Handle With Care

Sylvia's forgiveness requires ice cream.

Don't Be Yourself (Tell His Story)

I once set out to find myself, but I wasn't there.

Good thing, too.

Don't let yourself define you

(I can hardly make this clearer!).

You have just got to see through

that image in the mirror,

for it's a most worldly thing,

a creature of a grasping greed,

obsessed with status and with bling,

and bowing to the septic need

to stand apart from God the Maker,

a clay idol on its own

for whom time will be undertaker

before the beast is fully grown,

so look on through the looking glass

to the place where saints and angels pass.

Music from The Killers, with Human

They're maybe the most British band that isn't British.

Sylvia doesn't need to know herself as long as there's ice cream.

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