The Lord resides within his mind, or so he thinks, but not his heart. His wheelchair today won’t start. The internet goes blank. He’s blind.
He rises standing there to find rebellion as his mental mesh is torn revealing fallen flesh. Knocked down his demons seek the door. His heart’s been cleaned renewed now for a will aligned and temple fresh.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word fresh to be used in a C-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I am thinking of Psalm 51:10.
Gerald deciphered the script covering the small tablet. The scribe who wrote it did not anticipate that he would have a reader four thousand years in the future. Indeed, given the evils of the conquering lord whose forces had killed almost everyone in his own house, all the scribe hoped for was the world’s imminent end.
At that end, when the real Lord appeared, every tear would be wiped away as praise and thanksgiving joined in an eternal caress. The scribe prayed for mercy, or so Gerald imagined reading now between the lines of the tightly written tablet.
In the meanwhile the currently reigning lord of calamity was busy devouring the land with no time to waste on mercy.
Denise offers the word “scribe” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. And Eugenia offers the word “caress” for her prompt this week.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
The opposite of trusting in the Lord and listening for the Shepherd’s voice is autonomy. Autonomy is trusting in my own understanding and goodness. The delusion that I am doing something good is what drives me down the road to hell powered by those good intentions.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Great Divorce, a tale of deluded shades who preferred hell to heaven, either we say to God, “Thy will be done,” or God says that right back to us.
The following video from Answers in Genesis Canada shows how human autonomy pervades our culture, and perhaps even our own personal worldviews, in rejecting the Lord by following our own understanding justified by a belief in our own goodness.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Terumah 4 Adar, 5782 – February 5, 2022 Torah:Exodus 25:1-27:19 Haftarah:I Kings 5:26-6:13 Brit Chadashah:2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Matthew 5:33-37 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Sunrise with clouds, boat, water, sun and departing darkness
This hazy morning’s white with snow that’s covering the summer grass, depositing a fluffy mass. May spring appear and let things grow. The winter’s beautiful although it’s much too cold with silent chills. I’d rather sleep than look for thrills while running out about the park where footsteps leave a foot deep mark, unless that’s what I hear He wills.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “mass” to be used in the B-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s prompt. Eugenia offers “hazy” for her prompt this week.
George loved to stir-fry Steve’s faults. Every now and then he force-fed Steve a taste. Steve himself had a kettle of righteousness in which he boiled every embarrassing detail he could recall or invent from George’s past.
Although this provided some satisfaction for these two friends, it never satisfied them long enough to stop.
Since so far nothing major happened neither expected anything to wear down as a result of their mischief. When it did both knew the other side needed to apologize though neither knew how they could bring themselves to forgive should that happen.
The top photo is a sunrise coming through silhouetted palm trees. The bottom is an afternoon storm coming in over the Atlantic Ocean.
The lighted path and the sunrise (though not shades of grey) provided contrast hopefully accentuating the darkness in the rest of the photo. These photos were taken some time ago.
Evening clouds over Miami Beach with a lighted path
If the eighteenth-century botanist, looking for the first time through the old idols of Linneaus’ fixed and timeless classification into the new perspective of biological evolution, felt a sense of liberation and of light, it can have been but a candle-flame compared with the first glimpse we now get of the familiar world and human history lying together, bathed in the light of the evolution of consciousness.
Owen Barfield’s literary estate associates him with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. When I was trying to understand Saving the Appearances in the 1970s as an undergraduate in a Catholic college I wrongly lumped him with theistic existentialists such as Gabriel Marcel or Martin Buber and social critics such as Jacques Ellul or Ivan Illich. As I saw it they were the good guys offering guidance. I recently read the book again to try to see what went wrong in my own thinking at that time.
Barfield has this to say about Jesus, “If we accept at all the claims made by Christ Jesus concerning his own mission, we must accept that he came to make possible in the course of time the transition of all men from original to final participation; and we shall regard the institution of the Eucharist as a preparation – a preparation (we shall not forget) which has so far only been operant for the sidereally paltry period of nineteen hundred years or so.” (pages 170-171)
As a philosopher with a captive audience he did not have to bother trying to convince his readers with much evidence, whether biblical, logical or empirical, for why we “must accept” his assertions. I wonder today if he had a clue what the mission of Jesus was. By “paltry period” I suspect he thought we still had millions, or even billions, of years of consciousness evolution before us. What I realize today is when one takes the ancient myths of evolution seriously, in spite of the evidence of entropy going against them, one begins dismissing or distorting the Creation, the Fall, the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus and the Last Days.
Why people find the myths of evolution believable, indeed why I used to believe them looking forward to some Age of Aquarius, is not clear to me. If one likes believing such things one might glibly talk about an evolution of this or that as Barfield does of consciousness. If one doesn’t, one could think of such beliefs as a centuries long buildup to the fulfillment of prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 where Paul predicted a rebellion preceding the day of the Lord.
Admittedly I did not understand Barfield as an undergraduate, but today I wonder just how much there was worth understanding. His stature as an authority made me think that reimagining his own beliefs was more important than reading the Bible. That helped lead me astray. I forgive him for that, knowing that I need forgiveness as well.
It’s holiness that makes us hush not happiness that runs away with pleasures leading us astray in nightmares while the waters rush.
With affirmations rich and plush we thank the Lord who made the sky, who made the earth and birds that fly and creatures on the land below and in the water. See! They show the glory of our God on high.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “hush” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge and Eugenia offers “affirmations” for this week’s prompt. I was thinking of Jerry Bridges’ book, The Pursuit of Holiness.
With so many things that could go wrong but wouldn’t, Brian was worried. Survival depended on manna from heaven. Having no control over heaven he wondered, What if the manna stops?
It’s not that Brian didn’t like walking on water once he knew he wouldn’t sink. It was the actual stepping out of the boat that bothered him.
Regardless of these concerns, needless perhaps but afflicting Brian’s mind, there was no other way to the shelter.
Denise offers the word “shelter” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
