Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Cream of the Crop

This week for the Cosmic Photo Challenge Dale asks us to feature our favorite photos of the past year under the theme of “cream of the crop”. Above is a fall view of Lake Michigan from the top of the ravine at Lake Bluff, Illinois, and the other shows a cup of goji berry tea next to my prepared notes for a meeting.

What made me smile this past week (for Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile) was a realization of the significance of various personal events over the past year, some very small, which made possible other such events. By contrast many public events of 2020 were awful, but these more private ones I think of now as Red Sea moments (Exodus 14) where I had to go from one side to the other of some situation with a command to do so, or else. When I imagine what my life would have been like today if I had not obeyed these commands I am overwhelmed with joyful gratitude.

I doubt the Israelites felt comfortable crossing the Red Sea given those ominous mountains of water on both sides, but if they had not obeyed, they would have had to face the Egyptians behind them. Imagine their gratitude at the privilege of being guided from one shore to the other.

The realization that made me smile this past week was the sense that I was not alone and I might well have become lost if I didn’t go forward. There are those who might choose to explain such commands or guidance as the workings of my imagination. However, there is a difference between imagining how the Israelites must have felt to experiencing it oneself. Remembrance brings forth gratitude and gratitude put a joyful smile on my face.

Merry Christmas!

I am adding this post to Crystal Grimes Holiday Blogging Party.

Sunday Walk 20 – Advent

Michael Bublé, Silent Night

Listening to Crystal Grimes’ performance of her arrangement of “The Friendly Beasts” was the first time I think I’ve heard the song. However, it felt very familiar and beautiful. Merry Christmas! It is coming soon.

Scarecrow – Friday Fictioneers

Gerald made crosses and dressed them in tarp and rags to look like people blocking the way. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt while he was laying the drain pipes.

He considered using warning cones rather than those scarecrows, or scare-people, but how boring would that have been? Besides Gerald wanted to make them like he wanted to drain that seasonal wetland. In a week he was done.

Rather than keep them away the scare-people attracted his neighbors. They gave Gerald ideas for other scare-critters and new opportunities to use them.

Linked to Friday Fictioneers where Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo above by Sandra Crook as the prompt.

Gift

Take care that you are not deceived.
To gutters petty pleasures drift.
Think not on rights. It’s all a gift.
Forget what you thought you achieved.
Fake gold can only leave you grieved
since none has value in the end.
Note: Falsehood never had a friend.
Beware His wrath. Avoid the curse.
Avoid the path from bad to worse
where spirals flush the flesh they rend.

In Ronovan Hester’s Décima Poetry Challenge we are asked to use the rhyme word “gift” in the B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.

This poem is a meditation on 2 Timothy 3. Although somber, rejoice. If you can see the Gift, stay the course and have a Merry Christmas! And if you don’t, there’s still time.

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
2 Timothy 3:13 King James Version

Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image — Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

Change – Six Sentence Story

As Greg approached the store a woman sitting by the streetlight asked him for a dollar and he gave her one.

Inside the store Greg bought a single Christmas card for Bill who called him the day before from a distant part of the country complaining that no one wanted anything to do with him anymore. Greg knew long ago that the toxicity of alcohol had been triggering Bill’s eruptions of deluded omnipotence and he was even beginning to become aware of the devious sources manipulating his own personality. Without any expectation that what he was about to do would do any good Greg picked a card that expressed a humble message of joy and he decided to call Bill back on Christmas Eve to see how he was doing.

After paying for the card Greg saw a dollar bill in the change he received and gave it to the woman on the sidewalk. She tucked this additional treasure away with the others.

Denise offers the prompt word “change” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Crystal Grimes is hosting a Holiday Blogging Party to which I am linking this post.

GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon — GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

Resolutions

Chel Owens challenges us to write a funny, clean limerick about “resolutions”.

Those demons look deeply demented.
Based on deeds, none of them have repented.
Resolutions to keep
Are not won on the cheap.
With such demons you’ll turn up tormented.

Unfortunately I doubt that limerick’s funny. Here’s another attempt.

How I wish I could make resolutions
That would stick when they’re stuck in solutions
When solutions go weak
Resolutions will streak
At the cost of some nasty pollutions.

And that limerick doesn’t make any sense. Here’s another attempt.

Every plan I attempt goes to pot.
Every dream I cook up has a spot.
Resolutions today
May resolve in some way,
But they’re not, though, the kind that I’ve got.

And so I give up my resolution to write a limerick.

Linked to A Mused Poetry Contest.

Snappers’ Choice

When Alice saw the rabbit hole,
she wondered: “Do I dare to go?”
She went. Praise God. Raise gratitude.
She found her winding way back home.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “snappers’ choice”, or photos of my own choosing. These are pictures taken about a week ago near the beach.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I was thinking this past week of Matthew 6:13, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (NIV)

I smiled when I thought the temptation from the evil one might be for me to get my own way (or its way) when instead I should be rejecting it. When I do get my own way, that is, when my own will was done, I wondered if that were also His will for me? And that made me suspicious of the lyrics in the song, I Did It My Way.

Ahh! Going down that rabbit hole made me smile all the more with gratitude as things started to make sense from that context. Now to find my way back home.

Crystal Grimes is hosting a Holiday Blogging Party to which I am linking this post. May all of you have a blessed Hanukkah and a merry Christmas.

Sunday Walk 19 – Festival of Lights

¹⁴Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. ¹⁶Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 King James Version

I read two impressive blog posts this past week about Christmas. Julie’s post (CookieCrumbsToLiveBy) associated “cancel Christmas” with Scrooge. Mario Murillo’s post pointed out the “supernatural power of Christmas”. There’s more going on with Christmas than meets the eye. I don’t want to miss it.

The thought of politicians, some of whom I doubt were validly elected given the evidence of voter fraud in the US, trying to come up with excuses to make it difficult for us to celebrate Christmas, or to discredit Christmas in some way, makes me want to celebrate Christmas all the more.

And I feel the same about Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication (John 10:22), the Festival of Lights, that we are currently in. May the fire of your light pierce the darkness of night.

Josh Groban, O Holy Night

Knocking

His knuckles tapped the door to knock.
Would no one on the inside hear?
But then came Jane, who wiped a tear,
and Jim, a target safe to mock.
They looked outside, released the lock,
and called the others, “Come and see!”
But none would bother. Faithfully
both Jim and Jane dressed in pure white,
gave thanks like it were Christmas night,
and shared a meal among just three.

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the goal is to use the rhyme word “knock” in the A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.

I imagine Jim and Jane as those rare members of the church in Laodicea, as recorded in Revelation 3:20, who were willing to open the door.

Crystal Grimes is hosting a Holiday Blogging Party to which I am linking this post.

Menu – Six Sentence Story

Given his diet Greg knew he shouldn’t eat much of anything on the menu. As a compromise he ordered a huge bowl of nachos with sour cream, guacamole and “the works”, whatever that was, and shared it with everyone at the table. It went well with their burgers and beers and Greg had plenty himself.

“Hmmm,” Greg thought, “Those nachos taste good.” He wondered if he should break his diet and risk ordering a burger and beer.

He thought and thought and thought and thought and decided not to since by that time everyone else had thankfully finished theirs.

Linked to Six Sentence Stories where Denise offers the prompt word “menu”.