Your Dying Spouse 754 - Still Here, Sort Of

Thought I was going to die. Didn't.

Kind of wished I could, but not really.

Still a lot to do.

Harder to breathe, and I'm not digesting anything (don't ask).

But I'll keep doing my best.

If you ask just how it is,

will we lose, or win?

All that I can tell you’s this:

things look pretty grim.

The systems are a-shuttin’ down,

supplies not gettin’ through;

breathin’s more like tryin’ to drown,

and there’s nothin’ I can do

except to smile and give a wave

to those worse off than me;

there may not be much to save

but my sanity,

for though I have to drink this cup,

I raise my hand; my thumb is up.

Music from Rod Stewart, with Forever Young.

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 Dying Spouse 753 - To Show A Human Face {Five Minute Friday}

(Note to readers:  this is the post Andrew had intended for Five Minute Friday on May 7, 2020; he went down very hard before it could be complete and posted. Please excuse any typos, as it was not completely finished, and please understand that response to comments may be delayed/)

So...how did you do?

Did you see all of the videos of family teamwork, making masks from old phone books and rubber bands, while your big achievement was keeping the cat away from the toilet paper stash?

Did you see the enchanted couples working together to whip up gourmet meals every night, and enjoying candlelight and conversation, while you were making grilled cheese sandwiches...again?

Did you see people coming together (at proper social istancing intervals) to serenade the shut-in elderly, and then return to Netflix with a grumpily guilty conscience?

In other words...

Were you human?

And are you now beating yourself up, for having missed a good solid crisis that could showcase your fatih?

If you're a bit angry with yourself that you were sharp when you might have been kind, that you didn't fully appreciate those around you even when they got on your nerves, that you sometimes reacte with exasperation rather than smiling patience, well, you're not alone, for...

A long time ago in a place far, far away...

Matthew 17:15-17

Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

You can just see Jesus rolling His eyes, and Mary, in the background: "If You do that once that once too often they'll get stuck that way."

Matthew 21:12-13

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

(The whip He made is described in John 2:15)

Overturning furniture and chasing people around with a whip does bring on an appetite...

Matthew 21:18-19

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.

And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

Now, it's true that in the following verses, when the diciples were amaed that he could kill a tree with a word, Jesus turned it into a teaching experience on faith. But it started with the fact that He was hungry, and peeved that there were no figs.

A lot of people want these instances to be 'holified'; they want to see Jesus in a pure light where all of His irritation and impatience are grounded in Divinity, and that's fine, except for one thing.

We're turning away a gift He gave us, the gift of the human-ness He freely took on.

He came here to be one of us, to share our laughter and our tears, our joy and our pain, our fears (remember the Garden of Gethsemane), and yes, our anger and sometimes waspish irritation.

It's wrong to exclude Him, to put Him on a pedestal of our own making.

So be OK with yourself, and with the times you failed at being what you thought you were supposed to be.

He gets it.

One day soon you will emerge

to blink in unaccustomed light;

what grade do you think you’ve earned

in this long and dismal fight?

Did you reach out with kind heart

to those who shrank in fear,

to help them make a hope-filled start

in bringing Jesus near?

Or did you see the other side

of self beyond dim flick’ring taper,

trying to find a place to hide

your stash of toilet paper?

If you’re alive and you remain,

you have the chance to start again.

Music from The Bellamy Brothers.

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.

The End

This will be their last attack;

the coal-dark flag’s unfurled.

Ammo state is going black;

for God’s sake, roll the world!

I fought for all we have and are,

for all that we hold dear,

but now it has gone way too far;

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

I understand the days we live,

and their unfeeling laws;

thus, one last command to give:

fire mission, on my pos.

Give me time to genuflect,

then airburst, brother, for effect.

Your Dying Spouse 752 - Paul's Dead, And I'm Not

This morning, as I was getting ready to walk Roscoe (aka Yellow Boy, the abandoned Pit who literally leapt into my arms just before Christmas), the poem below came into my head, in full. I just had to write it down.

Its thesis is the urban legend in 1967, that Paul McCartney had died and was replaced by a lookalike ('WIlliam Campbell'), that some of the more popular songs contained hints, and that if you played certain songs backwards you'd be clued in. (You can find out a bit more here.)

I'd always thought that was pretty hokey, and consciously paid it no heed...but apparently my subconscious saw things differently, and has now the satisfaction of speaking out.

A glorious perplexity,

conundrums up the Great Yazoo

have surely put a hex on me,

and I don’t know what to do.

If you play it backwards,

you’ll hear that Paul Is Dead,

but is that harbinger towards

the world that lies ahead?

I am scared to try the thing,

for what about causality?

Could my actions somehow bring

this curse to dread reality?

And if played forward, immediate-after,

will Paul rise, to cheers and laughter?

The odd thing is that the whole thing was in fact deliberate; these were some rather young English boys just having fun.

For a musical selection, how about Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band...in the second verse, you'll hear 'the one and only Billy Shears', which is a play on words ("Billy's here.") introducing Paul's 'lookalike replacement', William Campbell.

Isn't this a lot more fun than reading about cancer or COVID-19?

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 Dying Spouse 751 - Bring Back The World You Love {Five Minute Friday}

It can be pretty distressing to see, the scowls beneath the masks, the curses mumbled, the angry eyes.

There's bee a lot of good, with people trying to help those less ortunate, keeping neighbours' spirits up.

But there's been a dark side to lockdowns, stay-at-home, and social distancing. I'm sure you've seen it at the grocery, waiting in line for take-out food, and sometimes even in your own home.

And it's up to us to bring back the world we knew.

You can't do it through legislation.

You can't tweet it back to life.

It's only through example, and through love, that care and compassion will return.

To bring back the world you love,

this must be your task;

keep a healing touch through gloves,

and smile beneath your mask.

So many now are stressed and frazzled,

so many lost their certainty,

and in the moment won't be dazzled

by talk of God's eternity.

But ministry, it can go on

through kindly eyes, a wave of hand,

and soon will come another dawn

that you can help bring to the land

sunrise where love again begins,

a daybreak where compassion wins.

Music from Jewel, with Only Kindness Matters.

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.