As Evie realized she was getting nowhere at the University of Noital she began mass producing and selling Apple Poof Delight. In no time her business venture was a phenomenal success.
She put a large patch on each package where a warning was written to all those eating the delicacy that, indeed, they could vanish if they ate it – all of which only increased sales. For the worry warts she offered the consolation that if they should stop eating the delicacy for three weeks straight they would no longer be subject to the vanishing which her statistics showed happened mainly to people who should have vanished long ago anyway.
Since people tend to believe what they read, they acknowledged, one and all and passed the info on, that they could always stop eating the stuff, even though they never did, and so it made sense to always continue eating it.
Although this was contended by those logically inclined to nitpick – especially after the third helping of Apple Poof – most everyone got the point that they could always continue since they could always stop, though no one could any longer find a good reason why anyone would ever want to stop, and Evie became a gazillionaire almost overnight.
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Denise offers the prompt word “patch” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
In her book, Healing from Heaven1, Lilian B. Yeomans spoke of many cures such as the barefoot cure, the grape cure or the mud cure and some of them even worked to some extent. However, she claimed that the only sure cure is the praise cure.
She also mentioned that some of these cures are very expensive and the praise cure is the most expensive of all, but the full cost of the praise cure was paid by Jesus.
How do you apply the praise cure? Start giving praise in words and song for what Jesus has done for you. And there is no reason to stop even after whatever ails you has disappeared.
One song of praise among many including many of the psalms
Be healed in Jesus name. The kingdom of God has come near to you.
This book is one of four by Yeomans collected in His Healing Power, Harrison House Publishers, 2003. The original book was published in 1935 by Gospel Publishing House. The 1973 edition can be viewed online from Internet Archive. The chapter, “The Praise Cure” starts on page 53 in that edition. ↩︎
When his wife with a tone more of annoyance than concern reported that Professor Weissalles did not return home again last night, campus security questioned Evie, the teaching assistant at the University of Noital assigned to his Advanced Nescience class.
He pushed all my buttons, she said.
What happened to him?
Poof!
Knowing Evie held a BA with honors in nescience they didn’t expect to get much out of her until she began what would end up being a needlessly lengthy confession, but they only heard the first sentence before they, too, vanished.
OK, I’ll admit Igave him the apple, but it was his own fault that he ate it just like the two of you did.
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Denise offers the prompt word “tone” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Genesis 3:6 KJV – 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
It looks like there’s a snail on the white half of the wall, center left.
When I think of C.S. Lewis the first thing that comes to mind is his novel, The Great Divorce. In that novel one of his characters, the Teacher, has the following to say which I formatted below as a poem:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God: ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.1
So, assuming you do not want to be in hell, how do you get out of whatever hell you might be in? By hell I mean addiction, sin, or even illness. The Holy Spirit provides the way.
I am grateful to Diane Marshall for linking to this video.
The Holy Spirit is your Get Out Of Hell Free card.
C.S. Lewis: Five Books in One Volume, 1969, page 156. ↩︎
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.
Brian spent most of his life running away from blessings, but they overtook him anyway. His heart changed as he physically stopped, turned around and went home. Although the time he wasted overtaking useless stuff overwhelmed him, he was relieved that he no longer felt compelled to do any of that.
They say the narrow way is narrow and Brian was just beginning to realize how narrow, yet fulfilling, it was.
One day the devil challenged God, “Being omniscient and all, surely You still know, even though You might not want to remember, all those wicked things I got Brian to do, don’t You?”
The devil stared at God trying without success to penetrate the Light with the dense darkness of his trimmed vision hoping God would give him a philosophically precise answer this time that he could pick apart with satisfaction through eternity, but all God said was, “Nope.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “trim” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Hebrews 10:16-17 KJV – 16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 