Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Sunday Walk 46 – Salt and Light

I am grateful to Cassa Bassa for a reference to a lecture by David Pawson on salt and light as mentioned in Matthew 5:13-16. I found a version of it which I am linking below.

As Pawson says, we live in “a world of dirt and disease and darkness” without salt and without light (about 21:20).

We are the salt that fertilizes the dirt. We are the salt that prevents disease from spreading. We are the light showing the way through the darkness. We are the light pointing out the ways of the world to avoid.

If the salt becomes contaminated with the ways of the world, of what use is it? If the lamp refuses to shine for those who have lost their way, why light it?

Weekly Bible Reading: Exodus (Audio: King James Version read by Alexander Scourby) Leviticus (Audio: King James Version read by Alexander Scourby)
Commentary: David Pawson, Exodus, Part 2 of 2, Leviticus, Part 1 of 2, Unlocking the Bible

Celebration

In faded denim, rosy blush,
he offers her a polished stone
from water where the rivers rush.
She knows that she is not alone.
In greens and yellow, alpine light,
Today the festive way is bright.

Eugenia offers the word “celebration” for this week’s Thursday Prompt. Linda Kruschke offers these paint chip phrases, “mystical, faded denim, lipstick, halo, blush, polished stone, and alpine“. At least four should be used in a sixain stanza.

Remnant – Six Sentence Story

The door of the boat was shut from the outside.

The fountains of the deep opened and the rains began. The earth quaked sending tsunamis over the land in wave after devastating wave burying living creatures successively in higher and higher mucky graves. In a few months there was no place to hide as the entire surface of the earth became a sea. When the waters retreated dry land emerged, eroded and tortured, above the waters.

The remnant left the boat.

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

For details related to my story see Genesis 6-9. Dr. Georgia Purdom provides even more details.

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

Blow – Décima

Lot didn’t want to leave that day,
but angels dragged them by the hand.
His daughters didn’t understand.
His wife looked back. She’d have to stay.

“I drifted slowly from the way
through sweet deception. What a blow:
I thought I knew; I didn’t know.
That’s why we’re rushing out of there.
We heard the screaming in the air,
but it has stopped. We have to go.”

Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “blow” to be used in a C line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC in this week’s challenge. I was thinking about Lot and Sodom from Genesis 19.

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

On the Coast

Dale offers the theme “on the coast” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. Here are some views of the Atlantic Ocean in southern Florida.

Eugenia offers the prompt “nature” for this week’s Thursday Prompt.

Nature

Sunrise yellow, orange and blue –
rain may entertain us, too.

Sunday Walk 45 – Satan

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Ephesians 6:11, King James Bible 1769

In the past when I wanted to see the hidden world of devils or Satan I would read M. Scott Peck’s 1998 book People of the Lie. Peck attempted to develop a psychology of evil which led him into exorcisms with the help of Malachi Martin. See Martin’s 1976 book Hostage to the Devil. There were also C.S. Lewis’s accounts of Screwtape and Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters and the possessed shadows of hell in The Great Divorce who thought everyone else was the problem. However, much of this seemed remote from my normal reality.

Today, given the social context of fake news, fake science, fake elections, psyops and bioweapons, someone seems to have let Satan out of his cage if he ever was caged at all. Here are a few recent items I’ve come across.

Mario Murillo notes that just dabbling in the occult, even as a game, can leave one open to demonic influence unlike the conscious surrender required to receive the Holy Spirit. While I’ve heard this before, the urgency today seems new.
Geri Ungurean takes a look at Greek mythology as real and possibly satanic in a recent post.
John Gideon Hartnett provides a link to Altiyan Childs’ experiences with freemasonry. Childs’ video is over five hours long, but you’ll find there many examples of the covered eye, the hidden hand, the 666 finger sign and other symbolic communications I didn’t know existed before.
I found on Dianne Marshall’s blog Trey Smith’s video (linked below) which provides an overview of ancient history as it relates to Satan.

Although I’ve always thought Satan and his devils were real and needed to be avoided, at least as an intellectual exercise, today I wish I knew better how to put on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. Today I see why Jesus told us (Matthew 6:5-13) to pray to be delivered from the evil one.

Weekly Bible Reading: Genesis (Audio: King James Version read by Alexander Scourby) and Exodus (Audio: King James Version read by Alexander Scourby)
Commentary: David Pawson, Genesis Part 7 of 7 and Exodus Part 1 of 2, Unlocking the Bible

Wake

He checks off tasks as they are done.
Tomorrow there’s another wake.
Today he wonders should he take
those profits his investments won?

While counting on the routine sun
productively he wastes his day.
Tonight in Sodom there’s a play.
He’ll miss that wake. The dead don’t mind.
He wonders if he’ll ever find
the reason why. No time to pray.

Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “wake” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s Décima Poetry Challenge.

Quarter – Six Sentence Story

With less than a quarter of his pieces remaining and seemingly desperate John moved his queen to a square adjacent to Tom’s king tempting Tom to capture her.

“Although I could win this game right now,” Tom announced as he took the bait removing John’s queen from the board and giving the plastic piece a messy kiss, “I’ll take your queen, you senile fool, just like I took that Miriam of yours long ago.”

After Tom’s capture of John’s queen, John moved a pawn to Tom’s edge of the board with a diagonally unobstructed view aimed right at Tom’s newly exposed king and with the right to exchange that pawn for any piece he wanted. John replaced the pawn with a diagonally powerful bishop as nursing home aides entered to wheel them back to their respective rooms.

“Why didn’t you get another queen, idiot?”

“I had one, Tom, until you took her away, but I only needed a bishop to checkmate you.”

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

Two Challenges

Dale offers the theme “in bloom” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.

Linda Kruschke’s Paint Chip Challenge this past week requires us to use ten of the following:

sunflower, watermelon, pool, in your eyes, clear skies, before the rain, margarita, hot sauce, zest for life, heavenly, sunshine, total eclipse, out of the blue, the whole enchilada, and yellow brick road

Loss

In your eyes I saw clear skies
before the rain that day.
All left at once out of the blue,
the sunshine and the sunflower, too,
the hot sauce zest for life I knew.
Our margarita laughing pool
shut down. You went away.

Sunday Walk 44 – Bible Reading

Jim Lee asked his readers when during the day we read the Bible? I could say I was following a yearly Bible reading plan with a small group and read the verses of the day when the notice arrived.

However, I thought why not start my own plan in addition to this focusing on each book in succession with a commentary as a guide?

I started this two weeks ago using David Pawson’s one hundred lecture series Unlocking the Bible. This commentary covers the whole Bible at an introductory level. I divided those one hundred lectures into two videos per week to make the plan last about a year.

This week I am continuing with Genesis. On each of these Sunday Walks I will link to an audio of the book I’m reading along with links to two of Pawson’s lectures.

Weekly Bible Reading: Genesis (Audio: King James Version read by Alexander Scourby)
Commentary: David Pawson, Genesis Part 5 of 7 and Part 6 of 7, Unlocking the Bible