It’s the weekend, right? Let’s relax and party, maybe do a little rap for Michelle’s #JanuaryWritingPrompts (“space juice”), Sammi’s #WWP (100 words, “crucible”), and Linda’s #JusJoJan & #SOC (“limitless”). Hope you enjoy it! ❤️
Photo by Anjana C from Pexels
I know what you’re thinking You say I’m just dreaming Maybe drinking space juice Telling me you’re cool too loose so intellectual not buying puffy clouds of television charlatans but you’re at Oprah’s book club sold on a Joseph Campbell mythic spiel of deity.
Listen, I’m not crazy look at what’s been given me my faith, a light leading me through this dark crucible called life I can see glory where you deny the invisible chasing material illusions hanging on to your blinders chained down, walled up by circumstance when you could be glorying in the limitless grandeur¹ of God.
¹Ecclesiastes 3:11 Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
When I first saw, “Servant,” the #JusJoJan prompt for today, the first thought that popped into my head was, “Christ Jesus,” and then the words of Phiippians 2:5-11*(see below). My quandary? M’s prompt word: “Twin-engine turbines.” But it proved to be a blessing in disguise as it gave me the shape of the story: a parable. Serendipity!
Our Life, His Work: A Parable
–What are you making, child? the Servant asked. Everywhere metal sheets and rotor blades lay in a tangle of wires. –See this twin-engine turbine? The boy held up a photo. My 3-D printer makes it simple. –Simple, eh? The boy looked around before answering. -Well, it’ll just take a few days, maybe weeks …. maybe months …. His voice trailed away. It looked simpler when I got started. But somewhere along the way, I lost track of what I was meant to do. He took in the tangled mess around him and finally the shiny aircraft in his photograph. His face fell. –Well, now, said the Servant, it will be a grand thing when it’s done. Maybe you could use a little help. Mine, for example. The boy looked up, his face suddenly alight with hope and renewed confidence. –Really? Will you help? Please. The Servant looked down at the expectant face, his own lit with Love. –It’s why I came, child.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2: 5-11(ESV)
Michelle's January 3, 2021 Writing Prompt: "Twin-engine turbines"
Linda's Just Jot It for January 3rd, "Servant"
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Tree roots in a Sandy Ground (‘Les racines’) (1882), drawing, 51.5 × 70.7 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. Wikimedia Commons.
And still the Light abides and the darkness has not overcome it: though rabbit-wild my exiled spirit roams where bare limbed shadows squawk of quasi-subliminal maws in which the world in mammoth caves watches figures on Olympian walls cavorting corporate-jet-fueled and calls them gods.
Written for dVerse Quadrille 117: "The Dude Abides"
A quadrille is 44 words, and this time
Lisa asks us to use the word "abide."
Click on Mr. Linky and join in!
Deuteronomy 7: 9 — Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.
Ephesians 1: 3-4 — Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Psalm 27:5 — For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.
Are You not the Light, O Lord, and we but the mirror? Disperse the clouds that obstruct Thy light and be Thou our vision. Amen.
“Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.”
Beautiful bedtime song from Fernando Ortega: “Jesus, King of Angels.”
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus be with you tonight and give you a good night’s sleep free from all anxiety to greet the new day with fresh hope.
Jesus, King of angles, Heaven’s light
Shine your face upon this house tonight.
Let no evil come into my dreams,
Light of Heaven, keep me in your peace.
Remind me how you made dark spirits flee,
And spoke your power to the raging sea,
And spoke your mercy to a sinful man –
Remind me, Jesus, for this is what I am.
The universe is vast beyond the stars
But Your are mindful when a sparrow falls
And mindful of the anxious thoughts
That find me, surround me, and bind me
With all my heart I love you,
Sovereign Lord.
Tomorrow, let me love you even more,
And rise to speak
The goodness of Your name
Until I close my eyes in sleep again.
The universe is vast beyond the stars
But you are mindful when a sparrow falls
And mindful of the anxious thoughts
That find me, surround me, and bind me
Jesus, King of angels, Heaven’s light
Hold my hand,
And keep me through this night
Tonight’s too cloudy and sometimes stormy, but last night’s clouds rolling in didn’t quite obstruct the distant moon, fixed in the sky to remind us of God’s sovereignty.
Linda is the host for One Liner Wednesday. Here’s my very first, and I’m counting on all to go by the primeval math of ancient wisdoms, namely that one quote with two questions is a one liner! 🧡
It’s always struck me as wondrous – amazing, really, given the time and cultural norms – that the first person that Christ spoke to after his resurrection was Mary Magdalene, a woman from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons. A great sinner like us, she loved the God who came to atone for her sins and give her the peace for which her heart yearned.
Mary Magdalene was present at his crucifixion, his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
The 22nd of July is Mary Magdalene’s day on the Anglican & Catholic church calendar. Let this day remind you of the woman who, in the midst of her tears, found a new hope on a Sunday’s dawn some two thousand years ago, a hope that we too share through Jesus Christ.
Do you want to know more about the gospel? Please click on the link above (C.S. Lewis on “Jolly Beggars”) or here.
