Dale offers the prompt, up, down, sideways, for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
For the up direction, I chose clouds during a sunset.
For the down direction, I chose an ancient pavement which was so far down it was below the normal walking surface.
For the sideways direction, while waiting for a sunrise, I noticed the moon which thankfully my phone was able to capture clearly enough.
Simon leased a room above the cafe a block from the Charles Bridge. He told them he was a tourist and they told him how to get to Prague’s Old Town. Since they didn’t understand why he was alone nor why he tipped so well in the cafe, some speculated that something was going to happen.
However, while Simon was there nothing happened. Even after he left nothing much happened and nothing at all happened that could be linked back to him.
This story is a tale of what happens when nothing happens – or, look at it this way – from nothing you get nothing unless you have the ability to speak the words (which most of us unwittingly do) to curse or bless the unexpected into existence.
______
Denise offers the prompt word “lease” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
This is my second story for the week. Those who speculate that I have nothing better to do may be right.
Genesis 1:3 KJV – And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
It strengthens us when we obey.
He guides us on the narrow way.
He leads us on that way today
and His voice I will follow.
______
Ronovan Hester offers the inspiration “strength” for this week’s Ovi Poetry Challenge. Also posted on Poet’s Corner.
Matthew 7:13-14 KJV – 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
After hearing that Thomas’s lease was terminated the minister gave Thomas $1,000 in cash with no strings attached.
Thomas refused it.
Then the minister gave Thomas a check for $100,000 with no strings attached.
Again Thomas refused it.
Finally the minister came back with a cashier’s check for $10,000,000 which he personally placed into Thomas’s hand all with no strings attached.
Once again Thomas refused to give the devil any grounds to say that the devil made him rich knowing that there was no gift from the devil, the father of lies, without a string attached.
______
Denise offers the prompt word “lease” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Genesis 14:21-23 KJV – 21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.
22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,
23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
Dale offers the prompt “here’s some cool stuff I found” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
One of the places I walk to in order to take pictures of the sunset is a small park.
The photos show my walk to and from that park as the sun set recently.
______
Our words affirm who we think we are.
Beyond their truth values, they are powerful spells. They bless. They curse. Though others might get in the way, we ourselves are the ones who are blessed or defiled by what comes out of our own mouths.1
A song written by Joni Mitchell called Woodstock2 in 1969 influenced me through the early 1970s. In the final refrain is a declaration of what Mitchell thought we were.
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
However, as I’ve come to realize, there is no natural way that we could be stardust and as a metaphor the idea is sentimental nonsense.
There are those who fantasize how that stardust to man might have happened, but the only thing they proclaim is their rebellion against a Creator. Dust from a supernova cannot get back together again no matter how often one waves a magic wand – or a professor’s hand – insisting on billions of years of evolution.
And yet, back in the 1970s, I had no problem believing such mythology. I had no more problem with it than an ancient Greek would have had with Zeus or a Hindu with Krishna. Those were the words spoken to me and those were the words I chose to listen to. Today, I repent of that misleading idolatry.
That our bodies come from the earth is true.3 However, the dust of the earth has never been stardust no more than it has ever been pixie dust.
The words we speak and the words we listen to matter. I can testify – first hand – that God is not mocked. What we sow we shall reap.4
I can also testify that repentance brings more joy than delusion, rebellion and disobedience5.
Matthew 6:10 KJV – Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Biblical prayer is a command spoken to the earth that the Lord’s will be done throughout it.
That includes not merely the problems we face, but ourselves as well.
Matthew 6:7 KJV – 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Prayer is not a powerless, showy, vain speaking.
Prayer is our thoughts and words confirmed by our actions conforming only to the Lord’s will, not to our own.
When we get our thoughts, words and actions in line with the Lord’s will we pray effortlessly and without ceasing, because we then no longer know how to do anything else but insist that the Father’s kingdom come and that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Sliding glass doors are doors, but since you can see through them they are also windows.
So think of this as Thursday Windows.
These are pictures taken from where we are staying.
______
______
Linked to Thursday Doors.
The rivers flow. The waters go.
Understand: the rivers flow.
Are you thirsty? Drink and so
they’ll flow from you as well.
______
Ronovan Hester offers the inspiration “understand” for this week’s Ovi Poetry Challenge. Also posted on Poet’s Corner.
John 7:37-38 KJV – 37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 