Faith · poetry · Sermon Recap

Sermon Recap 05.26.24

Sally10 Comments

I look for what I should be doing
Since I am captain of my soul
What is it I should be pursuing?
What should I do to be made whole?

Surely, I can make some changes
In my approach to living life
Surely I can rearrange this
Remove all this unneeded strife

And yet, and yet, and yet again
I know I am not in control
I bow my head, contrite amen –
So be it, God — I yield the goal

To “not my will, but Yours be done –“
It’s not my race, but Yours I run

A few weeks ago I had decided to try to process the Sunday sermon by taking notes and writing something later.

Last week was my first week doing it. It accomplished these things:

First, I went to church. I’ve been skipping so much lately.

I told Fr. N. that I was mad at God.

“Is that okay?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Go ahead and swear at God. Tell Him this is shitty.”

It’s just that I spent so much time and effort praying about a situation that did not resolve the way I wanted to do. What’s up with that, God?

Second, I semi-paid attention. Okay — I was distracted that morning. I pulled myself away from the distraction long enough to write a single line which I read back to Fr. N. later in the week.

“You paid attention!” he said. That may have been an overstatement. Here’s the line:

The places where we have fallen flat on our faces — those are the places where God comes.

Third, I wrote a post to process it. It turned out to be pretty personal so I didn’t publish it. I realized that writing something and NOT publishing is okay, too. It felt good to write and process, though.

This week, I went to church in part because the lectionary readings (and therefore the sermon fodder) were some of my favorites passages: Isaiah 6 and John 3.

Fr. N. went with John 3. I settled in, waiting for him to talk about the wind. You know, how it “blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8)

It’s verses like that that encourage me to embrace the mystery. Too long I attended churches that knew all the answers.

Fr N, however, didn’t get the wind memo. He went in a different direction: baptism.

He talked about how Nicodemus wanted something that he, Nicodemus, could do, and instead Jesus told him something that was impossible.

Rereading my notes from yesterday’s sermon led to today’s sonnet.

It’s not entirely what Fr. N said, but it’s what I needed to hear.

Life

Getting Old

Sally7 Comments

I almost titled this post “My Left Hip,” because, dang, my left hip is hurting today.

Oh, it’s been hurting for a while. I thought it had to do with my hip flexor, but when stretching and rest didn’t help, I got an x-ray.

The results came back and I had to look up half the terms — “diffuse osteopenia” — the predecessor to osteoporosis. At least it’s NOT osteoporosis, right? “Subchondral lucency in the left acetabulum” — this has something to do with osteoarthritis, I think?

In any event, I have to wait until mid-June to see someone in Orthopedics.

In the meantime, I keep moving. Sitting hurts. Standing up from sitting is THE WORST.

But standing and walking are fine. I actually feel better after a good walk.

So I tell myself throughout the day, “Get up and move.”

There are people in the “rest” camp. They say things like, “You must rest.”

Trust me, though — rest doesn’t help. Lying in bed — the ultimate rest, right? — can be painful. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel the pain radiating from my hip down my leg.

So I listen to my body and move as much as I can during the day.

Yesterday, however, I overdid. I won’t even tell you what I did, but it was strenuous and it was a mistake. My left hip is hurting today.

Seriously, who has time for this stuff?

Thank God for Advil.

This post was inspired by my left hip and Linda Hill’s “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” whose prompt today was “move.”

fiction

The TIFU meter

Sally8 Comments

“Damn! This manual is ridiculous!” Joe said. He said on the floor at the edge of the veranda, marking pages with his fingers while leafing further into the book.

“What are you looking for?” His neighbor Alex peered over at him

“My TIFU meter isn’t functioning. I’m trying to figure out how to reset it.” Joe replied without even an upward glance. “Damnation,” he muttered while continuing his search.

“Teefoo meter?” Alex puzzled. “What’s that?”

Joe’s head shot up. “What?! Don’t you have one? TIFU stands for This Is F….” His last words were drowned out by blaring car horn.

Alex blinked at him. Finally he said, “I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This Is Fu…” A loud car drowned out the words this time.

Alex shook his head. “I still didn’t get that.”

“Damn,” muttered Joe. “When you wonder if the problem is you or the situation, you get the TIFU meter, turn it on, fit the wand in the upright holder so it can sense whatever, and the meter will read whether the situation is ….” More traffic noise. More car horns.

Alex asked, “Could you please say that one more time?”

“Fu–” Airplane. Bus horn. Fire whistle.

Alex watched Joe mouthing the words, probably shouting them, over and over, but there was too much noise.

Until there wasn’t.

“–CKED UP! THIS IS F–” Joe stopped his shouting. It was quiet momentarily.

Finally he said, “It’s situations like this that broke my meter.”

This is my response to the Unicorn Challenge. It’s a simple challenge: write no more that 250 words using the photo as a prompt.

One of my coworkers refered to his FU meter today. I looked at him, puzzled. He explained, without the niceties of street noise drowning him out.

“Damn thing is busted,” he said. “Either that or this situation is TOTALLY F–“

The front desk phone rang at that moment.

I was literally saved by the bell.

poetry

Editing

Sally16 Comments

Remeber
[back-back-back] mber
When we used white out
[back-back-back-back] -out
Or the coree
[back-back] rective tape on the typewti
[back-back] riter to fix all the typose
[back] ?

Yeah, well
I’ll bet kids these t
[back] days have no idea of what we went through
Just o
[back] to repair silly mistakes —
Those fat-fingered ones we all make

Now control-Z is my best friend
As well as that back space key

I have yet to figure out how kids type with their thumbs, though.
[back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back] on their phoe
[back] nes with their thumbs, though –
And with higher accuracy ta
[back] than I have even though I took a keyboarding class.

Crazy, yes?

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week. Poet-of-the-week Suzanne Brace asked us to: “Compose a poem that conveys ‘Movement’, using repetition to move your ideas and imagery forward.”

However, I didn’t move forward. Pretty sure I was doing a lot of moving backward.

fiction

Eavesdropping on a Conversation

Sally27 Comments

“What does domestic mean, Mom?”

“It has to do with home. Why do you ask?”

“See that sign? It says, ‘Domestic animals.’ So a domestic animal lives in a home? Don’t all animals have homes?”

“Yes, but a domestic animal lives in a people home.”

“Like a dog?”

“Yes.”

“Like a cat?”

“Yes.”

“Like a mouse?”

“Hmmm… well, that depends. If the mouse is a pet in a cage, I suppose it’s domestic, but if it’s living in the walls of the house and raiding out cereal cupboard, it’s not.”

“Do people put mouses on leashes?”

“Mice.”

“Do people put mice on leashes?”

“I’ve never seen that, but people do a lot of strange things.”

“Why can’t domestic animals go on the beach?”

“Probably because they might ‘go’ on the beach. You know, poop or something.”

“A wild animal might do that, too. I betcha wild animals DO do it.”

“Yup.”

“So if I caught a mouse that lived in the walls of the house, I could bring it to the beach and I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“I suppose…”

“But if I made a tiny leash and put it on my pet mouse and brought it to the beach, I would get in trouble.

“AND if I caught one of those coyotes I hear howling at night and brought it to the beach, that would be okay, because coyotes are wild, right?”

“Please don’t try to catch a coyote.”

“I just want to understand the rules, Mom. Sheesh.”

Unicorn Challenge — write no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.

Here’s the actual photo:

I used the photo feature of Google translate to read the words.

Jenne Gray had already translated the sign, though. Her translation: ‘Domestic animals, even on leads, are banned from the beach from 6h – 21h’.

It still begs the question of wild animals.

Life

I Thought I Knew

Sally11 Comments

Yesterday, when I went into work at 5 AM and entered the building, I thought I smelled something.

What’s that smell? I thought.

Smells niggle, don’t they — tickling some unreachable place in the brain.

Oh — I knew the smell, or at least thought that I did.

Cannabis.

I shook my head. I certainly was not going to be the one who turned in someone on the night cleaning crew, but sheesh, they should know better. What you do on your time is your business, but what you do when you’re on the clock — not so much.

It was about an hour later that one of my early morning co-workers came by to see me.

“Did you see that this morning?” he asked.

“What?” I replied, somewhat confused. I had seen nothing unusual on the way into work and we both drive the same route.

“Right by the side door,” he said, gesturing with his chin to the door he uses. I actually use a different door when I come in.

I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything,” I said.

“You must have smelled it then,” he said.

I shook my head again.

“That huge skunk?!” he said. “It had obviously just sprayed, but I was worried it might try to get me too! We were that close.” He indicated a spot about 5 yards away.

I shook my head now for a different reason. Do skunk and cannabis smell similar? A quick google search affirmed that they, indeed, DO smell somewhat alike.

I thought I knew what I was smelling.

Guess I was wrong.

Sorry, night guys!

This is in response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: What’s that smell?

I haven’t done SoC writing in a while — too busy, too tired, life too full, all the excuses. When I read her prompt this week, though, I had just had my cannabis-skunk experience so I wrote it out.

poetry

Signs of Hope

Sally15 Comments

Dandelions: dreams, prayers
Each seed holding hardy hope
Wind blows it beyond our dares
To where we thrive, more than cope

The poem started off as another unpronounceable Irish form — but the form had way too many rules, so I made up my own rules: a quatrain, every line 7 syllables, abab rhyme scheme. I suppose I should make up a name for it?

“Every seed is a bit of Optimism” — this sign was one I painted to go on our barn. When I took it out to the barn, though, it was hard to read from the road, so I painted over it and painted this one instead:

I’ve watched people turn around and come back to photograph the sign on the barn. Some even hop out of their cars and pose in front of it.

We all need reminders of hope, right?

Thank you to Sadje who came up with the prompt of “HOPE” for W3 this week.

fiction

Choices

Sally10 Comments

“As a token of my gratitude, I want to give you a gift.” The little man who was speaking was still brushing dirt off his odd sparkly garment and examining the rips and tears caused by the dogs.

Dan shook his head. It all seemed surreal. He had seen the dogs chasing the man. He had watched them biting at his legs as he disappeared through a little hole in the dilapadated door. He yelled and kicked the dogs to drive them away before opening the broken door to check on the man.

And there the man sat, on the floor, studying his hands and legs for injury, tsk-tsking at the holes he would have to mend in his leggings.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked. “Can I help you?”

“No, no, no,” replied the man, his voice high and squeaky, like an old door hinge. “Let me give you a gift.”

He withdrew from his pocket a small ornate key.

“This key will open one of those three boxes,” he said, gesturing to three boxes that Dan hadn’t noticed on a shelf in the corner.

“The red box holds love. You will have a life full of love,” the man said, “but also great heartbreak.

“The blue box holds adventure. You will go and do amazing things — the sky is the limit — but have no one special to share them with.

“The yellow box holds enough — nothing amazing, but always enough money, enough people, enough time.

“Which will you choose?”

Unicorn Challenge again. So simple: write no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.

I looked up “SERRURERIE” and learned that it’s a locksmith’s shop — hence, the key.

But seriously — which would you choose?

fiction

The Swan

Sally8 Comments

Something about that bird niggled at Toby.

It made his head hurt, so he sat on his haunches and scratched at his left ear.

What was it?

The bird was beautiful, majestic, tall-necked, proud. It swiveled its head to observe the lone spectator.

Toby could have sworn that the bird smirked at him with its glance. As if swans could smirk.

Still, something niggled, so he scratched his ear.

The swan turned and swam past him again, going in the opposite direction. This time it definitely smirked at him. He had heard it honking a greeting to the other swans in the canal. Then it looked at him, smirked, and HISSED.

The hiss was an awful warning. Frightening and fierce. Yet, Toby had done nothing to threaten the swan.

No, no, no, he said, in a low gutteral growl. Who’s threatening who here, mister?

The swan continued to stare and smirk, swiveling its head on its long graceful neck.

Toby yipped at swan’s receding tail. Hey! Have we met before?

It stopped and turned back again. This time it headed to the bank and flapped up onto the path. The hurried waddle meant more than business, Toby decided, as he stopped scratching his ear and cowered down on the cobbled path.

The swan stopped in front of Toby, lifting its head and neck so it was taller than tall, flapping its wings out to a huge wingspan.

Remember me now? it hissed.

This is my submission for the Unicorn Challenge this week. The Unicorn Challenge is simple — no more than 250 words and base them on the photo prompt.

I tried to look inside the mind of a dog — but the dog just wanted to scratch its ear. Ear mites? Or deep thoughts?

Faith · poetry

Adrift

Sally13 Comments

Adrift
In a coracle
No oar
Unmoored
Belonging only
To the One
Who authors
Currents
And winds

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week which is to write a free verse poem of not more than 12 lines with a theme of belonging.

I’ve been feeling a bit at loose ends lately, like I’ve lost my footing. Even my faith, which has been my bedrock, has felt shaky. Belonging to a church feels like a crock. Speaking Christianese, which once felt so natural, now feels false.

I am, indeed, unmoored — and yet I belong.