As James was wallowing in his favorite garbage someone called his name. When he saw that no one was there he went back to making a wreck of his life.
Then James heard the same voice that called him earlier tell him to become a minister of the Gospel. Fat chance that was going to happen, he thought, but the voice interrupted him with You’re goofing off on holy ground! The voice had that je ne sais quoi that made it too real to be unreal even for a garbage connoisseur like James.
His friends were shocked as they watched James take out the garbage and turn that fat chance into a sure bet that he would do something with his life that he had never suspected.
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Denise offers the prompt word “wreck” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Stephen worked on his speech the whole week to make sure every word and every pause, noted with a comma, was just right.
When the day came for him to speak he didn’t want to forget anything. He printed his speech in big letters on many sheets of paper so he could see the words clearly.
As he looked out upon the crowd who were wondering what he would have to say gusts of wind carried away those sheets of paper leaving him with, seemingly, nothing to rely on as he spoke.
Although what Stephen said was in line with what he had prepared the words that came out of his own mouth surprised him. The crowd prepared its punch with murderous anger but when it was all over Stephen was carried away, victorious, by the King of glory.
Acts 7:54-56 KJV 54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
George decided to write his Philosophy of Everything so future generations could be as confused as he was.
He wrote and wrote and wrote explaining how spacetimes instantiated invisible worlds wherever a wavefunction collapsed. Not liking the idea of other people’s minds getting in the way with objections, he reduced them to mindless matter. He called his branch of philosophical foam The New Mysterianism of the Matter Mind.
Eventually George published his book.
Not even the devil bothered to read it.
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Denise offers the prompt word “foam” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Colossians 2:8 KJV Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Looking at the relics of his past, those lingering memories of his old habits, George couldn’t see how he got from there to here no matter how many self-help programs he pursued. Oh, sure, he gave most of those programs five-stars, but he knew none of them helped and none of them did.
The problem was that it’s hard to love when one loves to whine. And George’s imagination gave him plenty of targets for his wrath.
Then George gave up, figuring it was most likely all his own fault. Laughing, the Lord said, “Finally!”
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Denise offers the prompt word “relic” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.
The idea for this story came from Mary “Tq Housecat” who called Romans 5:1-9 “the best six-sentence story ever written!”
Between the evening and the morning Bryan’s dream suddenly came true. When he realized what had happened he began dancing and shouting with joy.
Offended by all the noise, Bryan’s mind, being rational and all, reminded him, “Your dream couldn’t have happened in a billion years!”
Bryan’s celebrating stopped.
Though officially brainless, Bryan’s gut made an observation: “Well, we do know that a dream with a supposed look-back time of a billion years actually happened, don’t we?” The confused body parts remained silent until they felt Bryan himself resume his joy with thankfulness.
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Denise offers the prompt word “dream” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.
Genesis 1:5 KJV And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
When Gerald’s daughter acted goofy, he said, Don’t worry. He reminded her that she finished college with an advanced degree in half the time it took him to do so.
When Gerald’s son acted goofy, he said, Don’t worry. In the good old days his own brain used to hatch even worse ideas that he unfortunately followed.
When Gerald’s wife acted goofy, he said, Don’t worry. I still love you.
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Denise offers the prompt word “hatch” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.
Romans 8:37-39 KJV 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love locks attached to a bridge with their keys thrown into the river for safe keeping
Brian was a mathematician. He loved to pontificate on all kinds of nonsense like how many infinities can dance on the head of a pin. When George, an astronomer, asked him for advice Brian was confident he could dial up more elegant advice than George’s empirical predisposition could handle.
What George wanted to know, however, was why were the research schedules of the space and terrestrial telescopes suddenly put on hold to gather data on specific dense regions within three parsecs of Sagittarius A*? Before Brian’s speculations found words, reports came in of the appearance of unrecognized stars whose light had just passed through the gravitational potential near the Milky Way’s center of mass.
Brian thought to himself that this ominously felt like the beginning of the end, and he was right, but his worldview blinded him from seeing just what was ending.
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Denise offers the prompt word “dial” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.
Seemingly unprovoked and coming from who-knows-where, certainly not from him, George heard the words enunciate through his mind: Don’t let the devil run your mouth.
“How do I know you’re not the devil giving me that advice?” George countered in self-defense.
Why would the devil give you such advice?
A swirl of confusion funneled through George’s mind reaching down to his heart where it came to rest like soft vanilla ice cream filling a generous cone. When he saw the topping dipped in melted chocolate and offered to him, he didn’t know how to respond to this unexpected kindness, indeed uncalled-for kindness given everything he had done, except to regret pretty much—no—he regretted every wacky thing he ever said.
“Ok,” George cried through tears of joy, “I’ll keep my mouth shut unless it be in praise of You.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “swirl” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.
Job 42:1-9 KJV 1 Then Job answered the LORD, and said, 2 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. 3 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 4 Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. 5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. 7 And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. 8 Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them: the LORD also accepted Job.
From the platform provided by the Kaibab Plateau George looked down into the Grand Canyon. He saw the water-deposited sedimentation layers on the canyon’s opposite side. He looked deep into the canyon where he saw the Colorado River flowing at the base of a relatively tiny channel it had eroded away.
George realized that no mere river could have eroded such a gorge in the earth after smoothing the huge planation region upon which he stood. Initially he thought some lake or sea must have burst its dam over 50 million years ago, but given erosion rates nothing that old would still be here for him to see.
Then he wondered: maybe, just maybe, some kid in his basement, with nothing better to do, instantiated a simulation of him, his memories and his sensations of this whole canyon riddled plateau, because in George’s stony heart that nonsense would be more tolerable than acknowledging what actually happened.
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Denise offers the prompt word “platform” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Genesis 8:1-3 KJV 1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; 2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; 3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 