A Need For Growth

I could write about our country's crying need to grow up for Pete's sake!, but I don't think that's gonna happen any time soon, so I won't.

I could write about the need for spiritual growth when facing terminal cancer...or I could write about the growths (hahaha) in my neck, along my ribs, and elsewhere...but I'll spare you.

Or I could talk about the way in which pain-induced insomnia has helped me grow as a writer.

Eureka!

And so I wrote about hair.

Barb will get a trim today,

but I wish she’d wait a bit,

for she's quite well on the way

to look like Cousin Itt,

that character, high-pitched, hirsute

that you saw on the TV,

and found him so endrearing, cute

on Addams Family.

Barb’s hair grows at pace furious,

with a savage kind of grace

so one will soon be curious

just to see her face.

She’s well along the shaggy road;

right now she’s in Chewbacca mode.

For those who may not recall, Cousin Itt was a rather shaggy chap who usually wore a bowler hat, and spoke in high-pitched gibberish, thus (the videos are really short)...

But there was a time when he stepped out from behind the hair...so to speak...

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.

God, Satan, & Me

Satan came in the middle of the night, when the cancer-pain was at its worst.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Same same."

"Hard to die a failure, eh?"

"Yeah, well..."

Satan's a liar, but the most effective lies are 99% true.

My life is a litany of failure, failure mainly due to the sins of pride and avarice.

I failed Barb. I didn't hear, or listen to, the things she neeed from our marriage. I'm darned lucky she's the forgiving sort. I was on a bender, chasing projects and plans, and left her in the background.

I saved a lot of unwanted dogs, but never really got to know most of them. They're loved, they're cared for (and they tend to live a few years longer than most...16 and 17-year-olds are the norm), but I only got to know, really, a few. I was chasing other things at the same time. I let them slide. I wanted to write books, race cars, and build aeroplanes and speedboats, for Pete's sake. What screwed-up priorities.

And I failed myself; most of my high-flown plans got nowhere, because, like the Bible dude who tried to build a tower without checking his resources, I couldn't finish them.

Then God showed up. "He's right, you know," saith the Lord.

"Say WHAT?"

"You failed at the things you planned, and you faile due to your sin. That's flat."

I was silent. Having these dudes in agreement, I was in big trouble.

"However..." And then God continued speaking, and Satan silded himself out the door.

God's didn't say it's all right, that He'll fix everything.

He didn't offer Double for my Trouble, or to turn my setbacks into setups for greater things.

He didn't say that my purposes will be fulfilled.

He did say that His purposes are fulfilled. Always.

He did say, "Your sins are forgiven."

And He said that if I accept that forgiveness, I am His, and He is mine, that His purpose for me is my salvation through Him.

Satan came at midnight,

an urbane, well-spoke man,

and said, “Do I have this right,

you failed in every plan?

You failed your dogs and lovely wife,

you failed at writing’s purpose;

broken dreams now line your life,

and I guess that means you’re worthless.”

And God said, “Boy, that is all true,

but I know something deeper;

what your sin has done to you,

no matter, you’re a keeper,

for however bad you've been livin’,

it’s over now, and you’re forgiven.”

The most appropriate music I could find was The Weight, performed by The Band. If the video doesn't appear, click here.

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.

Eighty-Eight Words

Down the bloodslick road we tumble

from the midden to the sea;

you say you are set to rumble,

well, me buckos, so are we.

You have axes, long sharp knives,

we have baseball bats and guns,

and not many will survive

for now Satan’s joined the fun.

We will meet you in the township,

we shall crush your thick skull-domes,

but we’ll find, on our return trip

families dead within our homes,

And as we weep amid the gore,

perhaps we should have talked some more.

Music from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Moon Rising. Please click here if the video doesn't come up.

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.

Buddhist Plutonian Conversion Romance

 Today's post was supposed to be quite different from what you'll read below. It was to deal with the dichotomy of using humour to fight cancer, which at the same time keeps people and God at arms length...

...hey, cheer up! It won't be that!

Because, this morning, God intervened, and had Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency put up a post (well worth reading!) on upcoming trends in fiction, and she used an example which set me a sonnet-challenge (note to readers, this was originally intended for September 3, 2020's Five Minute Friday linkup...which had to be canceled).

"...if I were to sell a novel on Buddhists traveling to Pluto and, as a result, converting to Christianity while finding romance with Plutonians, I might start a trend of “Buddhist Plutonian Conversion Romances.” 

You've got to admit, that's iresistible.

To far Pluto did they travel,

fifteen Buddhists, heads all shaved,

but meditative plans unraveled

when they met fifteen Amish babes

who were there, Rumspringa trip

to that planet (well, it isn’t)

in a barn-raised rocket ship

never dreaming that their visit

would become a kind of mission

(good thing that they never tarried)

and the Buddhists became Christians

and of course, they all got married

and journeyed then right back to Earth

to give new writing genre birth.

If you found the sixth line puzzling, Pluto actually isn’t considered a planet any more; the IAU demoted it some years back.

And what better musical selection than the supergroup Europe, with The Final Countdown? (Click here if the video doesn't appear for you.)

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 'Do Is You

Barb got a haircut the other day, and we really had a bit of a disagreement about  the chosen style. Haircuts should telegraph character and personality.

I mean, really, when you think of Barb (at least through my descriptions), what do you see...this...

...or this?

I lost the argument, but have to say, the Mohawk does look pretty good on her.

The choice to take the trouble for styling hair, even when working remotely and seeing almost no-one, is important. It bespeaks self-care, and the resolve to do the right thing, even when no-one is watching.

Do it in one part of your life, and it spills over into other areas. When discipline becoes a habit, the whole world spins a bit more smoothly.

It's the same when you are terminally ill. Dying is not an excuse for slacking; it's a call to even greater discipline.

You don't slop around in a dressing-gown; you dress for the work you're doing (in this case, caring for a multitude of ogs, and writing to witness God's grace.

You don't abandon the dreams you had; you work on them,d aily, in the faith that a miracle may yet come.

And most of all, you don't give voice to despair. Though no-one may be listening, and even if they listen, they condescend, you speak hope always.

And you never, ever give up.

You may ask...what kind of haircut do I have? I've let it grow out to my shoulders (no, I will not post a picture), for two reasons.

First, that it keep my neck from keeping sunburned while I am caring for the dogs.

Second, that there's a massive tumour on the right side of my neck; the long hair keeps it in shadow, if I look in a mirror. Otherwise it would really be discouraging.

I do avoid mirrors.

Barb got a haircut yesterday,

and it pleases her

to have it cut just that way,

like short retriever-fur.

It is her head after all,

but haircut is assertion,

and for boldness there’s a call

to define the inner person.

She’s vocally quite confident,

and she’s really cool;

kind but never hesitant

to slap down, hard, a fool

so if it had been up to me,

she’d have hair cut like Mr. T.

And if you touch Barb's truck, she, too, will gladly feed you your socks.

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.