About a mile from where we now live is the Upper Room Chapel. This is one of the buildings remaining from the former Heritage USA.
In the evening of the second and fourth Saturdays of the month there is worship singing in the top floor followed by fellowship in the basement.
We went there last Saturday and I noticed the doors. Here are a few pictures of them.
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The entrance door.Doors to very small rooms. I heard there were healing services offered here in the past, but I don’t know what these tiny rooms were originally used for. I did hear from a friend after the service a story of a man with only weeks to live who agreed to go to the Upper Room for healing as a last resort. As he walked up the steps his pain left him and he knew he was healed before even entering the chapel.A view of the outside
We moved to Fort Mill, South Carolina, three years ago without knowing much about the place. It is now home. May our Father’s kingdom come and His will be done in the greater Charlotte area.
Emperor Dunklematerie reviewed the budget for the next year noting the line for the University of Noital. He asked his royal advisors, Why so much money for Noital?
“But, your Highness, they do so much good that doesn’t need to be done,” one advisor said.
Dunklematerie knew that all of his advisors were doctorates of something or other from that university. None of them would row against the current of support for their alma mater.
Regretting every penny, Emperor Dunklematerie groaned, Ach . . . go ahead and fund them.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “row” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Proverbs 17:16 KJV – Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?
I listened to all 28 chapters of the Gospel of Matthew one after the other today. Some parallels stood out like Peter’s denial and the betrayal of Judas. They both bitterly regretted what they did.
I remember well the beatitudes and the woes. However, I didn’t associate them with each other until now. The structure of this gospel is well crafted as one would expect. It was inspired by no ordinary muse, after all, but by the Holy Spirit Himself.
The Nine Beatitudes
Matthew 5:3-12 KJV – 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
The Eight Woes
Matthew 23:13-31 KJV – 13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! 17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. 19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? 20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. 23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. 25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
When reading the Bible online I have found Blue Letter Bible to be very helpful. I can copy verses and then paste them on photos (like the one at the bottom of this post). It also includes a well-formatted interlinear option among other tools.
Sometimes I just want to hear the Bible read slowly with the dialog dramatized. The Time Is Up channel offers such a dramatized, slow reading of the books of the Bible. Earlier today, I listened to Daniel.
Time Is Up
The Bible Society in Israel also offers dramatizations of the scriptures, but these are in Hebrew.
Don’t know Hebrew? It’s not that hard to learn, at least to learn well enough to not be intimidated by an interlinear translation, but ask the Holy Spirit if learning Hebrew is what you should be doing now. If He encourages you, one resource that has helped me is the Alef with Beth biblical Hebrew lessons.
Alef With Beth
Whether you know Hebrew or not there are many wonderful songs you can enjoy such as those offered by Shilo Ben Hod and MIQEDEM.
Emperor Dunklematerie walked down the street in his new clothes which were so finely made that he might have appeared – to the untrained eye – naked.
“I applaud our glorious Emperor who’s not only a brilliant scientist but a connoisseur of the arts,” one well-paid servant of the realm posted with a billion AI-generated likes.
Another showcased the ingenious tailors who fashioned the exquisite clothing out of the “density of the darkest gravity”.
And another remarked how pricelessly expensive those designer clothes were with holes in them everywhere – not just the knees – to cover the Emperor “in the cosmic void itself”.
Unfortunately, once a certain breed of children reach a certain age and before they reach a certain other age when they start thinking like they’re supposed to, there’s not much you can do with them. Thanks to them the whole world got to see AI-manipulated clips of Dunklematerie before their social media accounts where locked.
The following photos were taken last year at Mirabell, the garden in Salzburg, Austria, where the song, Do Re Me, from the Sound of Music was partially filmed.
I think I was in the 8th grade when our class went to see this film at a theater in Chicago when it first came out in 1965.
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One entrance with a view of the castle in the distanceFlowers along a rock wallFrom inside the garden
One of the dwarf statues. Others can be seen around the circle.
The garden is in the last part of the song, but there are many views of Salzburg before that
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 