I don’t know why he waited there
with eyes all worried sizing me.
He’d run I knew eventually
off to his family, friends, some where
my camera couldn’t reach. We stare.
He’s wishing for a shady rock,
some plants or weeds, a builder’s block,
a hole that only good guys know.
Abruptly it was time to go.
I’m innocent, but triggered shock.
Ronovan Hestor offers the rhyme word “shock” to be used in a C line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
Dale offers the theme “against the wind” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I found this song on Dianne Marshall’s blog The Marshall Report. It makes me think of being born again in expectation of the end times.
I have been watching videos to better understand the Epistle of Jude. I wanted to know who those false teachers were that Jude warned the believers about and what was their message. While reading through John Gideon Hartnett’s post Bridge to Babylon and following his links things started to make sense even though Hartnett did not mention Jude at all.
Here is the bottom line as I currently see it. The false teachers used gnostic philosophy to discredit Jesus as our Lord and that conceptual error led to moral depravity.
There’s got to be more to it than that, but that’s how I see it at the moment.
η γαρ αποκαραδοκια της κτισεως την αποκαλυψιν των υιων του θεου απεκδεχεται
Romans 8:19 Textus Receptus with various translations
Does an extraordinary claim require extraordinary evidence? If one thinks of ordinary as natural, something one can see, touch or measure, and one thinks of extra as super, then it might make sense to transform extraordinary into supernatural just to help us see what’s at stake. From that new perspective, a supernatural claim would seem to require supernatural evidence.
True, some proudly deny the supernatural entirely. They might as well deny the extraordinary itself, but such a denial would itself be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary or supernatural evidence to justify it.
Pause for a moment.
Without the supernatural there would be no words to describe the ordinary if the ordinary could exist at all. That we take words for granted does not mean they are ordinary or can be completely reduced to something natural. We are just used to the extraordinary, the supernatural, pervading our lives in spite of our denials.
Furthermore, we use these words that are extraordinary to form presuppositions, or believed assumptions that cannot be reduced to the ordinary, in order to rationalize those very denials.
Those presuppositions are part of our spiritual environment. Can we change our minds? From this environment do we produce wholesome fruit worth offering to our loved ones? Can we repent if that fruit is rotten? Can we be forgiven?
We sink into the waters aware of those presuppositions, those mundane, questionable, unwholesome, but extraordinary claims. As we are brought back up, having repented, having changed our minds, the Lord renews in us a right spirit and creates in us a clean heart.
Now that’s extraordinary.
My thoughts expressed here were motivated from reading Michael Wilson’s post Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? which led me to Frank Turek’s podcast. When Eugenia offered the word “extraordinary” for this week’s prompt I figured the coincidence was significant.
לב טהור ברא לי אלהים ורוח נכון חדשׁ בקרבי
Psalm 51:10 Masoretic Text with various translations
Lost angels chained in darkness spit,
“Witchcraft, pitchcraft, scortune, tortune,
Lucifer, push up proud fortune!”
Repentance? Nothing came of it.
They praised once. So? They now have quit.
Deep darkness takes all space away
with thoughts and sounds to mark the day
or separate dark day from night.
“Oh, God, why did we leave the light?”
Of course, they know, but now can’t say.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “fortune” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I was thinking of Jude 1:6.
As expected the corrupt judge released the assassins back onto the streets. Their attorney filed a complaint against the officers who made the arrests, but no one at the station knew who those officers were. Not even the medics in the ambulance who received the assassins with all the paperwork neatly printed out could identify them.
Since the surgeon who removed the bullets from their arms didn’t notice the tracking devices that the shots were intended to deliver, once the assassins were released Helen began logging their journey.
Pointing to her monitor, Helen said, “The way these guys wander about the city I wonder if they took the blue pill or the red pill.”
“They’re dumb enough to take both.”
Denise offers the prompt word “journey” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story. This is a continuation from Theory – Six Sentence Story. The next part is Filter – Six Sentence Story.
Dale offers the prompt “before the leaves” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Last week Mark Shields posted the following song on his blog This Day With God – A Spiritual Journey.
Zelda Rene left a comment on my last Sunday Walk referencing Max Lucado. Here is a short message from him on forgiveness.
Today I tossed my dreamcatcher.
You wonder, did it work? I’d say
that when it did, the stuff it brought
was stuff I’d wished it hadn’t caught
but it thought was OK.
This week Eugenia offers us the prompt “dreamcatcher”.
When Headquarters collapsed the surviving complicit agencies frantically made attempts to cover their tracks by assigning two hitmen to take out Bill and Timothy inside a bar. Upon entering the bar the hitmen noted the location of the barmaid and a quarrelling couple along with their primary targets.
In more civilized times opponents, in theory, would face each other on dusty streets with cemeteries in full view where one or both would be forced to rest in peace while the decent folk got out of the way.
Today when the two assassins with bitcoins dancing in their heads drew their weapons the quarrelling couple stopped quarrelling and, in spite of shots being fired, arrested these valuable sources of information on this side of eternity.
After the couple escorted the hitmen out of the bar Timothy permitted the owner with his clientele back in. Although Bill tried to convince them, scoffers all, that they were filming an action movie, it was only when the barmaid handed the owner and each of his customers envelopes generously stuffed with cold, hard, fiat cash that everyone was happy.
Denise offers the word “theory” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story. This story continues from Rodeo – Six Sentence Story. Next: Journey – Six Sentence Story.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 