the STONE

The STONE

Slumbering peacefully in the warm depths of the Earth,

He spoke and we became, molten, His energy our mirth.

But, pressures soon began to force us apart.

We soon cooled, and hardening began to start.

Granite, bedrock, such names we would be called.

Mountains, whole ranges, the nations we walled.

Fallen creation would groan and would quake.

And, many of us, from the rest we would break.

Fragments, down from the heights, into the darkness did roll.

Far away from the sunrise, no purpose, no glory, no goal?!

Then came the children, “king of the mountain” on me they’d play!

But, then came sons of Adam, “this stone here cannot stay! Take it away”

With chisels and hammers, they cut and whittled me down.

Like a shorn lion, just cold and gray and smooth and nearly round.

What are they doing? For a tomb?!  Am I nothing more than a door?

Banished, abused, tossed away, forgotten, barely a stone anymore!?

Once long ago, a stone followed them along, providing much needed water.

One he called the “Stone,” of his closest, one of the Twelve, known as Peter!

Some selected, as part of an altar, Adam’s sons through blood to be reclaimed.

Another a pillow, then memorial, for one who wrestled all night, by an angel renamed.

Oddly, I once heard “the stone they rejected” was one of His names?!

And, He said that if need be, we stones His glory would shout and proclaim!

But, the One who calmed the seas, was behind me entombed, with a Roman seal.

And, the guards wrestled me into place and whispered, “stone, be still.”

Three dreary days slowly had passed, and this stone, unbelievably, rolled away.

The cold One on the slab, with a hint of a grin, whispered, “Today is the Day!”

This old stone, from some forgotten crag, with creation’s deep impulse, then rolled UP the hill.

Though the angels reached out, their Maker to obey; their hands I did barely even feel?!

The disappointments, the isolation, this seemingly abused life is my story.

It has all been leading to that moment:  around, down, then up, all to His glory!

My place is secured in the story of the followers of the Cross.

Even if my exact place on this Rock has now been seemingly lost.

This story is not about places nor things nor relics to which they cling.

It is all about, ever, always and only about Jesus,  the Heavenly King

One of his Twelve wrote of this Rock melting with fervent heat?!

Maybe, we will start over, and as before, feel the tread of His feet?

But, what seemed like forever, centuries, even eons, waiting so long.

This stone’s witness is now written down, even lately recorded in song!

.
Glorious Day (Living He loved me) ~Casting Crowns –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXp6xcY5IqU

Songwriters: Michael Bleecker / Mark Hall

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises

One day when sin was as black as could be

Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin

Dwelt among men, my example is He

Word became flesh and the light shined among us

His glory revealed

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He's coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain

One day they nailed Him to die on a tree

Suffering anguish, despised and rejected

Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He

Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree

And took the nails for me

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He's coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer

One day the stone rolled away from the door

Then He arose, over death He had conquered

Now is ascended, my Lord evermore

Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him

From rising again

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He's coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming

One day the skies with His glories will shine

Wonderful day, my Beloved One bringing

My Savior Jesus is mine

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He's coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

Glorious day

Oh glorious day

(mad, midnight musings of a messed-up mind  –  spurred by a line in a hymn, this morning)

the Serpent's Hiss-s-s-s

The Serpent’s Hiss-s-s-s

Before Your holy throne we ever come as sinners.

The best of us are but weak, shortsighted strugglers.

Sadly, many have ceased; into the void they settled.

Yet, a few proudly, defiantly proclaim to be “sanctified”?!

Just how are we possibly ever going to even survive?

This snake-pit is dark, deep, demonic and is strong!

Our sinful hearts are split asunder, and severely soiled!

How can our journey through this valley ever succeed?

Jesus, the Snake’s head You surely must stomp!

You alone ever will be our sanctuary and salvation!

The demons back to Hell, You can with a word dismiss!

Our only hope to conquer and thrive, will always be this,

Our feeble efforts engendered and enlivened by Your Spirit!

You alone are our hope, our life, our Lord, our only assurance!

TRIBULATION

TRIBULATION

Let there be celebration.
Not just hopeless toleration.

Tumbling into consternation,
Pushed toward my destination?!

Turn to Him in desperation,
Thanking Him for maturation.

Let it be for my education.
A higher plane of elevation.

Then to Him give all adoration.
He is working my sanctification.

Soon will be my glorification,
arising to Him, above tribulation!

Celebrate, not just tolerate.
Let it educate and elevate.

Be not stressed; pass the test!

ANGER

ANGER

"19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." (James 1)


ANGER is... (an ode to wrath)

No matter my choice, somehow there is anger.
Somebody is shaking their head and giving me the "fanger"!
Make a bad turn in traffic, and there is now danger.
You now have an enemy, who before was a stranger?!

Anger is insidious.

On my new, unblemished truck there is now a ding!
Some fool in the parking lot cares not how that stings?!
Isn't life really about me and all of my things?!
The answer is surely known by Google, or maybe Bing?!

Anger is pandemic.

I am a conservative, and you are a liberal.
Cross me again, and it might be your funeral!
Far from the Garden, we yet suffer from the Fall.
Right or left, white or black, angry are we all?!

Anger is pervasive.

Take a deep breath, and for a moment, step back.
Ask, "for my part, what is it that I lack?"
With no Wind in our sail, how can we change our tack?
Where are we headed?  Calm seas, or into the black?

Anger is destructive.

Is it greed or poverty causing all the stress?
Maybe I just need contentment, with much or less?
With His grace I have already been overly blessed!
Now, how shall we respond to what may be His test?!

In our anger, biting and clawing, will we all be consumed?
I fear lest we change we are all surely doomed.

40 YEARS

40 YEARS

Wandering around forty years in the wilderness,
Without faith they had sorely failed the test.
Back to bondage in Egypt they thought they'd go;
What He was doing, they stubbornly just did not know.

Forty years ago, together, we this journey began.
All I can say is "I would love to do it all again!"
In faith we have watched Him cause the waters to part.
Providing and guiding, we were always, ever in His heart.

Like father Abraham, we left family to a land unknown.
Like two sparrows, by the Wind we were ever blown!
Yes! His eye was upon us, always,  wherever we went.
Though, sometimes His guidance was barely a whispered hint?!

Friends we have made all along the winding way.
Without them we would not be the same today?!
Many, many are the memories, both joys and tears.
But, O, so quickly have slipped by the years.

A new child came, every time the anchor we'd hoist!
Thinking of them now, only makes my eyes moist.
Along came a princess, and then, next came two prophets.
Now they have grown and flown, with their own little eaglets.

Long ago, You planned these forty years of bliss,
With us journeying on, collecting "what is this"!
We have picked up grace, mercy,  and forgiveness for starts.
Two becoming one; the whole greater than the parts.

Decades ago, I nervously reached for your soft hand.
Later, though foiled, a stolen kiss was my wishful plan!
So far, forty years we have thankfully been given.
Two decades more? Maybe! But, forever together, beside you in Heaven!

For ever and ever!
Melanie and Jerry.

Thank you, Jesus.

SOMETIMES

SOMETIMES

Sometimes, I almost touch the unreachable.
Sometimes, I almost hear the silence of eternity.
Sometimes, I almost see the invisible.
Sometimes, I almost comprehend the mystery.
Sometimes, I almost taste that for which I hunger, but cannot obtain.
Sometimes ... moments of ...  glimpses of the secret ... sometimes ...

O Father,
Lift me up to unattainable heights, craggy aeries! beyond the starry constellations! into your very Throne Room!
Whisper in my ear what even angels cannot hear.
Open my eyes to visions of the other.
Wrap my mind around fathomless truth.
Seat me at your banquet table and let me ever feast.
Not sometimes, but always and forever!

REGRETS

REGRETS
1. All the books not read.
2. The novels I never wrote.
3. All the lost untold.
4. Places not seen.
5. Time wasted.
6. Sins indulged.
7. Insights eluded.
8. Love unexpressed.
9. Friends neglected.
10. Opportunities squandered.
11. Hungry unfed.
12. Destitute unhelped.

TRIGGERS

TRIGGERS

Let worry trigger prayer.
Let anger trigger prayer.
Let envy trigger prayer.
Let greed trigger prayer.
Let lust trigger prayer.
"...put to death what is earthly in you..."

Christian?

Christian?

Called
Conviction
Consecration
Complacency
Compromising
Controlled
Contemplative
Carnal
Cool/lukewarm
Consumed
Conflagration/on fire
Crazy fool
Construct-only/form
Core/inner man
Cross-bearing
Crucified
Crowned

MERCIES

Impunity is an illusion.
Elusion is a delusion.
Wild oats will sprout.
One reaps what is sown.
Blood will cry from the ground.
Mercy!
May my heart never harden beyond sensitivity to Your touch.
May my conscience never scar beyond recognition of Your voice calling me home.
Thank You for pain.
Praise You for the nauseous gut.
Never let me go.
Show yourself to be merciful and mighty!
Forgive me!
 Overwhelm me with the peace of your presence.
The devouring horde has done its due.
Restore the beauty; replace the squandered.
Rise up and show us your glory!

STAGES/SYMPTOMS

STAGES/SYMPTOMS

SILLY
STUBBORN
SHALLOW
SPIRITUAL
SERIOUS
SCHOLASTIC
SERVANT
SENSUAL
STUPID
SOMBER
SOMETIMES
STEADY
SELFISH
SELFLESS
STRONG
SICKLY
SILENT
SHARING

HERESY

I was raised picking tulips and trash-canning them!  I understood a dichotomy between C's and A's.  And, before that, a wider gulf between RC's and Prots.  Throw into the mix EO's and Copts.  It was "us, and not even all of us" sectarianism at its best!

Where is the unity? Is it in our theology?  Is it in our culture?  Is it in our "baptism of the Spirit"?  Is it in our focus on world problems and suffering? 

The music is echoing. The dream's reawakening. The dancing feet are tapping.

Thanks for the stimulating fellowship, albeit, only in a cyber kaffeeklatsch. 

I have grown to admire the Wesleyan tradition.  Dated a Methodist in HS. My mama was a Methodist.  Married a girl from a Nazarene Church family.  Attending a Holiness Church that is evolving into a community church, much to the chagrin of the leadership?!  Really admire CW's hymns.  Have a few FB friends who are thoughtful, spiritual, UMC preachers, all female?!  Sometimes they seem to be more concerned with saving the Earth, than saving the world.

Visited a RC church during an Ireland vacation.  They closed the assembly with "Amazing Grace"?!  Wow!  with an Irish brogue!  They prayed for famine victims in Africa! (think potato famine, "The Hunger") God was moving among the "papists"?!

The RC's shove out the Prots. The C's arrogantly denigrate the A's.  The C's and A's lock arms and " heretic" the P(elagian)'s.  On and on it goes?!

Surely there are some sine qua non's?!  But, we crucify one another over a very long list, including translating Bible into English, down to, nowadays, not using KJV?!

It leaves me disheartened.  I have pulled back, looking at mystics, and spiritual bloggers.  Jesus IS the reason I hold on.  I try to "let it go" with the rest of it.

TWO WAYS

The way of Adam or the way of the second Adam?
The Mount of blessings or the Mount of curses?
The Broadway or the narrow
 way?
Life or death?
Light or Darkness?
Sons of God or Daughters of men?
I am the way the truth the life!

SIN BEGINS

Sin Begins, and Thus, We Win!

Us He made, though He knew we would fail.
Only one simple command, them He did tell.
It was no surprise; it actually was planned.
"This is the only way they will make the Promised Land."

"Fail they will, no matter how them we bless;
Confidence, oddly, will be their greatest weakness.
Down through the ages, again and again,
They must look up to Us, or be hopelessly in sin!"

"We will tell the first murder, sin he must master.
Then, banished, wandering alone, he will return home faster!
The same story of the prodigal son coming to his senses,
Will be repeatedly relived in the hearts with no defenses"

To the rich, young ruler, He gave a simple command,
"Sell all and give to the poor of the land..."
"The Ten you have kept, yes this is all true;
I will give you one, that I know you cannot do!"

The Law was never the way nor the cure,
Though successfully keeping it, certainly has its allure.
The Darkness obscures and distorts even our best.
Lo, the proud, are the cursed, and the cursed, are the blessed!

Weakness is strength and Failure their greatest rabbi.
When all looks lost, only then on Me they will rely!
The Snake will hiss and even bruise His heel.
But losing on the hill, will only seal the deal!

In Your mercy, you let us sin?!
In our losing, through You, we win!

BHM - RDC

BHM -- RDC

Black History Month
Rupert Dickson Cornelson

 So, I began to muse on a civil rights activist, Rupert Dickson Cornelson

From rural southern Mississippi, a hotbed of racial tension?! Economic hard times forced RDC to leave home when 14, becoming merchant marine.  Only after 51 years, five decades, of hard work, did he retire.  Sent money home. Gave it to needy folks. Tithed (plus!) at his church.  I only wish I knew stories on his upbringing that made him the man he was.  Taught me to be “color blind”

1.       BHM Story #1 – Being from MS, some fellows surrounded, Rupert, the young kid with the dark curls, and confirmed his Mississippi roots.  They then asked him if he would be interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan. I do not know the details, but something in his heart told him to politely answer, “no thanks…”  I guess they walked away and forgot about him.  That had to have been a tense moment for a teenager, far away from home, on a ship in the Atlantic.

2.       BHM Story #2 – “would you be interested in joining the NAACP, Mr. Dick?”  This question was asked by a group of locals some four decades later, in his south Alabama home.  They knew his heart and the stand he had made to treat all with respect and dignity.  Interestingly, he turned them down, not because of disagreement with their cause, though.  He explained, “I will just try to do my good through my church… but thanks for asking…”

3.       BHM Story #3 – A new home for the Lyles, new converts driving 30 miles to church, was a problem.  They worked in the local school, but lived across the county line, out in the rural area.  Seemingly, there were no homes available (for them) according to the local real estate people.  So, Rupert and Millie went to a real estate agent, and expressed an interest in a home in town.  Several  options were discussed.  Then, they showed up in the real estate office, with the Lyles!  Now, the Lyles had a new home nearer to their jobs and their new church.  The neighborhood was now integrated, though.

4.       BHM Story #4 – Also, there was a confrontation with another church elder who wanted to build “them” their own church. The demographics of the church was changing, starting with Howard and Lula Mae.  Howard was the “yard man” for Ruth, one of the church members.  Then Starling and Shirley (Howard’s son) … Blacks were coming in the front door; and, whites were slipping out the back door.  The elders met, and considered options.  Finally, “…they make me sick to my stomach…” was the first honest thing said by one of the leaders.  Finally, that elder left, driving 30 miles or more to another church, who never asked him why?!

5.       BHM Story #5 – I also remember a work interaction – Daddy was on a creeper, slid up under some equipment, working, and another fellow kicked his foot and said they needed to talk.  He asked, “Dick, are niggers going to church with you? Don’t you know that those black apes have no souls…”   Daddy just looked at him, and with a silent prayer, answered, “anyone welcome there, even you.”  Then, he slid back under the equipment, and went back to work.

6.       BHM Story #6 – There was a family meeting about going to all-white private school.  We were hold outs at the local high school, now integrated for two years.  I was playing on the high school football team with some new, BIG transfers!  But, this new school year began with several bomb threats that emptied out the classrooms, every other day.  It was chaos.  (likely it was a recruiting device for the local “academy” to get all the whites over there?!)  It was a dilemma, a hard place “between the sea and Satan”.  After a couple of weeks, Dad told us three kids that our mother was a nervous wreck, worried about us kids.  We would have to leave the public school.  “but…” “I know we have not raised you to be racist, but…”  I made new friends, but at the other academy on the other end of the county! 

7.       BHM Story #7 – A more ominous memory is one when I, as a teen, overheard whispered breakfast chatter about a threatened “burning cross” in front of the church building. (1970’s)  Nothing ever happened.  But, one has to wonder how the demons were maneuvering behind the scenes?!

8.       BHM Story #8 – After a while, with a different preacher, or two, it was time to locate a new minister.  Small churches, in the best of times, often have to do this every two or three years.  After some discussion, Dad suggested, “we have had white preachers; time to hire a black preacher…reach out into both communities…”

9.       BHM Story #9 – Somewhere along the way, in my teen years, family discussion turned toward spouse selection!  It was understood that marrying an unbeliever was not an option.  "We are not concerned about the color of your date; but her faith..." “marry a Christian, a black Christian over a white unbeliever…” (do not misunderstand this)  They were NOT suggesting that a second-rate believer was better than a first-rate unbeliever.  The point was to look on the heart, not the skin. They were just impressing upon their children the need to marry a believer.  With all the troubles that mixed race marriages have to overcome, a mixed faith marriage was worse, eternally worse.  I do suspect that the ultimate test of racism may be one's feelings about "interracial marriage"?!  There is but one race, though, the human race.

10.   BHM Story #10 – I left for Bible college on a Trailways bus.  My first car was not bought until I was 20 years old, a 1967 Ford.  My parents bought it from a machinist at the mill where Dad worked.  As I took the keys from my dad, he cautioned, “I would take off the front plate…”  The previous owner had a nice “Stars and Bars” plate on the front.  Even then, in the late 1970’s, my dad was sensitive to the perspective of others, blacks, who saw remnants of the Old South, as reminders of slavery.  In this decade, all this has boiled over with statues being torn down, even monuments of former Supreme Court justices.  (there is a similar story about a Maltese Cross that I had traded somebody for at school, as a 4^th grader)

11.   BHM Story #11 – This story involves my dad, only indirectly, and is cutting humor.  Mama had taken me clothes shopping for Bible college.  Blue jeans, tee shirts, and flannels were not going to be enough.  I selected a few dress shirts, a tie or two, some dress shoes, and was trying on some nice dress pants.  I am not a fashion mogul, and do not want to be one.  But, the salesman quietly whispered to me, as I tried on some snazzy, polyester bell bottoms with a cummerbund style waist, “… sir, mostly those blacks wear those pants…”.  He completely disappeared as I looked at him, without flinching, and straight-facedly informed him that my dad was black!  Daddy was at work, so the lie was successful, on several fronts!

12.   BHM Story #12 – Finally, at his funeral, 2010, two groups were there, as one, family and church: Norse/highlanders and African Americans!  And all were welcome at the reception at Aunt Sally Jean’s house after the funeral.  I guess he was from a long line of whites who were “color blind”?!

Perhaps “color blind” is not the best descriptor of this heart condition?  Maybe, “diversity appreciation”?  That is a little cumbersome, maybe.