Dale offers the prompt “buildings of the past” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. The photos are from an old home preserved in a park in northern Illinois.
Here is my poem for Linda Kruschke’s Paint Chip challenge.
A tiny trinket out of jade
deceptively was smoothly made.
I bought it. Why? I do not know.
My dreaming mind got caught, went slow.
I wonder now how much I paid.
תועבת יהוה דרך רשׁע ומרדף צדקה יאהב
Proverbs 15:9 Masoretic Text with various translations
I learned from Michael Wilson’s blog that the San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone had called on the Catholic Church to deny Communion to prominent pro-abortion Catholics.
I agree with Archbishop Cordileone, but would add a twist to his call making it relevant even for non-Catholics: All Christians should advise those who are pro-abortion to refrain from Communion until they have repented.
Does that sound harsh?
What would be harsh would be Satan’s accusations full of finger-pointing and despair with no hope of forgiveness on the other side. However, this call is different. It is a call to the discomfort of repentance and the liberation of change where pardon replaces that crash into the brick wall.
A viewpoint from a worldview
will hide unconsciously
what’s false and sometimes what is true.
It justifies what we would do
and even how we see.
Eugenia offers this week the prompt “viewpoint”.
May I from truth not wish to stray.
What’s unknown underlies each whim
on which I float, through which I swim,
until I find a better way,
repent, and pray this time I may
have turned from weakness to what’s right.
My day presumes a previous night
where darkness showed me odd-ball dreams
I thought were pure till morning’s beams
contrasted evil with good light.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “whim” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
Although Rebekah told Isaac of the prophecy she received that Jacob, the second-born of her twins and her favorite, was to receive the blessing, as the boys matured Esau, the first-born and Isaac’s favorite, seemed to Isaac better able to carry any burdens his blessing might require.
In his old age with failing eyesight, Isaac decided to give the blessing to Esau rather than Jacob without telling Rebekah, but she overheard his plan and improvised one of her own. She prepared the meal Isaac requested from Esau, covered Jacob’s arms with fur to imitate Esau’s hairy skin and dressed him in Esau’s clothing to deceive her husband. Not even Jacob, willing though he was to go along with it, thought her plan would work, but it did.
After realizing he had been fooled, Isaac reluctantly remembered the prophecy and remained faithful to it reaffirming the blessing he unwittingly gave to Jacob. Esau, however, wanted revenge and so Rebekah convinced Isaac to send Jacob off on the pretext of finding a suitable wife, not one like Esau found among the locals, knowing that she would likely never see Jacob again.
Denise offers the prompt “improvise” for this week’s Six Sentence Story.
A more complete and accurate description of what happened to Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob begins at Genesis 25:19. The insight that Rebekah did not see Jacob again came from Pastor Colin Smith’s sermon last Sunday.
I don’t know what I’d do with gold
unless it’s for a wedding ring.
A garden would be more my thing
with plants whose leaves were green and bold.
Between us there’s much fruit to hold.
We offer praise and share our meals.
We watch and pray. The truth reveals
our next assignments. See the ways
this paradise fulfills our days
and how each day renews and heals.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “gold” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.
Also this week Eugenia offers the prompt “paradise”.
Dale offers the prompt “on a small scale” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I’m hoping these bees are small enough.
Linda Kruschke’s Paint Chip challenge this week featured occasional poetry for Mother’s Day.
Gaia really wasn’t there
the way my mother was.
The full moon of the night or dawn
were never heartbeats I’d count on
the way my mother’s was.
Rafael walked home with his daughter, Celia, to bring her back to her mother. Celia told him about Derek, and she wondered how he knew so much about him? Rafael didn’t think he knew much at all.
They climbed the stairs to the second story apartment wondering what Celia’s mother would say or do when she saw her daughter again after two years. The silence of their searching eyes overcame the hardened words and deeds from their memories. Then tears restored their lost connection.
Denise offers the prompt “connection” for this weeek’s Six Sentence Stories. This story continues from Walk – Six Sentence Story.
Dale offers “my green world” as the prompt for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
And here is my submission to Linda Kruschke’s Paint Chip poetry challenge for this week.
There’s quicksand by the pearly gates
for those who wander off the way,
who love the breezy, sleazy mud.
Then pleasure pops – another dud.
On pins and needles now they say,
“Let’s try again!” And there they stay.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 