God Don't Make Junk

Regardless of what President Biden says, people are not garbage.

Not even him.

I don't hold with what you hold dear;

it, to me, does not ring true.

But may I make this very clear,

I still believe in you.

My conscience tells me something,

yours says something else,

but let difference that we bring

sit on a dusty shelf,

and let us both behold the Christ 

that shines out of our eyes.

Accept what He has sacrificed,

and thus reject the lies

that tell us that Our Side is the best,

and let the devil take the rest.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is UNEXPECTED.

It was quite unexpected,

the things some people said.

I really felt rejected,

and they wished that I was dead

because I could not quite agree

with what to them was true,

and it seemed they could not see

that you are me is you.

Is this what Christ died for?

Is this why He rose again,

that we might close and bolt the door,

and in darkness remain

with just the warmth we generate 

through hearts that are brim-full with hate?

Three minutes.

Sylvia, having once been thrown away, heartily agrees.

I Command You To Vote For...(Tell His Story)

 Someone. Just vote for someone, according to your conscience.

Both of the major candidates (and all of the lesser ones) are imperfect, and there's no Abe Lincoln among them (and if you've read Shelby Foote, you know that Honest Abe was pretty badly flawed as well).

Nonetheless.

I would suggest you follow Russell Crowe's advice from this one-minute clip from Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World 

Besides, why pass up a chance to see Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany?

Sylvia agrees.

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Aw, Come ON!

 Things are really messed up with my left leg; it finally fractured at the metastasis in the femur, and walking any distance (like, one step) takes everything I have.

So no apologies for the sonnet below. It pretty well reflests the you've-got-to-be-KIDDING! mood.

It has seemed so very long,

at least that's how it seems to me,

and now it's like the Beach Boys song

about the troubled Sloop John B,

whose singer and his old grandpa

through Nassau town did fighting roam,

and falling afoul of law

just really wants to head for home,

and I can understand the feeling,

because my leg, it fin'ly broke,

and I don't really look appealing,

as with staff and sandals (it's no joke)

I gimp under the desert sky,

like some bearded Bible guy.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is WEIGHT.

It's now one of my best friends

in this really painful state,

tennis balls fixed to both ends 

and thick enough to bear my weight.

It's 'bout four feet, a little more,

and it is never out of reach

unless I want to hit the floor 

(My, oh, my, what pride can teach

when I think it's just a short way,

so why must I retrieve my staff,

and then as on the floor I lay

I hear the saints and angels laugh

that they've really seen it all,

how pride doth go before the fall.).

Three minutes and a bit.

And here, for your listening pleasure, is Sloop John B 

Sylvia thinks it rather funny, actually. She had a broken leg when we got here; why am I  complaining?

Songs (Tell His Story)

 Just for fun, songs about Chihuahuas.

To the tune of Let The River Run...

Let Chihuahuas run!

Let all their barking wake the neighbours,

they sleep too long anyway!

Or, from Mary Poppins...

Chim, chimney, chim chimney, chim chim, Chihuahua,

they watch T. D. Jakes and they watch Creflo Dollar!

Chim chimney, chim chimney, chim chim Chi Chi,

they're learning about Christianity.

Sylvia wants a song now, too.

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Name It And Claim It

The only way that I can claim

the blessings of these dreadful days

is to endeavour to attain

a life of constant thanks and praise

from which 'I wish' is banished,

and 'if only ' turned away,

'why me' forever vanished,

to make a room where grace can stay.

I cannot look behind me now;

the dead, they must entomb their own.

It is for me to practice how

to do that which I've always known,

that however high the toll,

I am His, He makes me whole.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is UNDECIDED.

Some may be undecided,

but I'll say now that I ain't.

God will not be derided,

and I have no complaint

about the hard cold circumstance

that I daily face.

I will choose to laugh and dance,

be caught up in the grace

that transcends metastases,

and a failing heart.

Even in shadow of these,

I can still play my part

for the Lord that I believe 

until it's time for me to leave.

Three minutes thirty on the first attempt, which the Internet ate. Three minutes for what's above.

Sylvia says, Yeah, but I was His FIRST.

 

Social Metastases (Tell His Story)

 Been thinking about metastatic cancer. I have a couple, one that lately fractured a femur, and another in my humerus on the same (left) side, which strikes me as funny. Geddit?

But what about social metastases?

Here's one. 

In the 1960s, the United States Supreme Court effectively redefined the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to remove religious influence from public schools. That's the cancer.

Today, rather than being taught basic skills, elementary school kids are being invited to explore their own pronouns, which they likely can't even spell. That's the metastasis.

This isn't intended as a blanket condemnation of teachers, but rather of the administrative environment in which they're compelled to work...and, yes please pay attention to school board elections!

Can you think of other examples?

Sylvia likes being a 'she'. Thinks it makes her scarier.

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Deference

 There are those who might well think

that cancer's a hard fall,

but my life did not just sink

in wind and wave that ruined all.

Yes, it's very hard to breathe 

and harder still to walk,

but I have blessings to receive,

and so I dare not talk

in front of those who stand today

in ruins of a well-loved life,

who saw possessions swept away

with children, husband, wife,

and I'll respect their misery

with no words 'bout poor, poor me.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is FLEE.

I really don't know how t'would be,

to pack my lifetime in a truck,

and join the passing throng to flee,

trusting to both God and luck

that there might still be something left

when at last we're bade return 

to that stolid warp and weft 

of what we'd worked so hard to earn.

Is it worth the the sunny days

and the balmy tropic nights

beneath which the soft ocean lays

awash in coruscating lights,

hinting not of cold blank fury

when they become both judge and jury?

Sylvia says that was spoken like a true Pittie, except that she hates getting wet and WILL complain.