Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

Washington Prayer March 2020

Today is the Washington Prayer March, The Return. Psalm 51 is a psalm David wrote after being exposed by Nathan for his relationship with Bathsheba. Many verses are memorable especially verse 10 (12 in the Tehillim) where David asks God to create in him a clean heart, something only God can do.

לֵ֣ב טָ֭הוֹר בְּרָא־לִ֣י אֱלֹהִ֑ים וְר֥וּחַ נָ֝כ֗וֹן חַדֵּ֥שׁ בְּקִרְבִּֽי׃

Tehillim 51:12 Sefaria

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalms 51:10 King James Version

Be part of The Return with this live video presentation and/or listen to Christene Jackman’s Choneni Elohim below.

Lyrics by King David, music by Christene Jackman: Choneni Elohim

Look

When rain returns the barren land
Is filled with blooms we all can see,
A resurrection mystery,
A pouring that we understand
As blessings from an open hand.
A year ago we doubted. Look!
There’s water flowing in the brook.
Those ways we’ve turned from have somehow
Been transformed into nothing now
Like drivel from an unread book.

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use the word “look” as the C rhyme in a poem with rhyme scheme ABBAACCDDC.

Stacked Wood
Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image
Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

Elastic Truth – Six Sentence Story

“We engage them with intimidation and bait them with lies to trip them up and trap them in emotional and costly accusations.”

“That sounds, however, like something they could avoid.”

“Some of them can, but we have successfully undermined – made elastic – the ethical foundations of others so much so that we are able to keep a significant part of their population fearful and gullible about anything their media gives us the opportunities to tell them.”

“What backup is there if this doesn’t work?”

“As backup we have compromised key politicians, officials and professional leadership who can be blackmailed if need be to act in our interests and we’ve manipulated their radicalized stooges to foment social unrest – and, don’t forget, our scientists have now proven that they can engineer targeted and deadly viruses.”

“So, if what you’re telling me is true, as long as they keep shooting themselves in the foot, we have a chance to get our hands around their throats.”

Linked to Six Sentence Story where Denise offers the prompt word “elastic” which must appear somewhere in a story of only six sentences.

Sunrise Over Pond Techny Park
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

The Everyday Into the Unusual

An ordinary, tiny bug
Lived on a painted wall.
Before he died
He tried and tried
To understand it all.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of turning “the everyday into the unusual”. The photos are of graffiti on top of graffiti but viewed up-close. Although the messages were somewhat confusing even at normal distance the paint made the bridge over the brook in the forest preserve colorful.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I realized I made a mistake in my algorithm to verify the records in the 3x+1 problem and fixed it. My best time with the incorrect code was 352 seconds as I reported last week. My best time with the new code was 354 seconds. Although I haven’t repeated the runs to find the variance in these timings, I was relieved that the correction did not seem to significantly harm the performance. That was enough to make me smile even though I am still a long way from my 10-second goal.

More Graffiti Detail Under the Train Bridge
Cosmic Photo Challenge

Sunday Walk 7 – Rosh Hashanah

17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. 20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. 22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Romans 11:17-24 King James Version

The Feast of Trumpets began last Friday. Below is Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jewish pastor, explaining the significance of the feast especially for today and blowing the trumpets.

Jonathan Cahn, The Feast of Trumpets

Mice, or Rather the Mouse

“There isn’t much we mice can do.”

“Let alone one mouse”.  

“What has a lion ever done for us? He’s probably trapped for a good reason.”

And so they tried to discourage Tamar from helping the lion escape from the ropes binding him.

“If you’re going to help him, don’t lecture him about his diet.”

“He might eat you.”

“Or smash you.”

Tamar recognized him. He’s the one who let her go. A quiet voice told her to gnaw the rope and then get out of the way.

So she did and when she did the other mice helped.

Linked to Carrot Ranch’s September 17th Flash Fiction Challenge where Charli Mills offers the theme of mice. This is a retelling of Aesop’s Fable of the Lion and the Mouse.

Morning Praise

Fall – Décima

Dark witches of the winter know
Some spells they heard in full-moon fall.
Their Ba’al doesn't know it all.
His shadows flicker where they go
When morning light lets failings show.
Those who wake in time may see
How ignorance loves mystery,
How feelings masquerade as good,
How petty sins start ticking. Could
They all explode mechanically?

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use “fall” as a rhyme word in the B lines where the rhyme pattern is ABBAACCDDC. The photos are from around October/November of last year.

Gray Sky
Gray Sky
Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image
Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image