Tag: Blogging from A to Z

A to Z Blogging Challenge

D is for Darkness

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The original creation of light (Genesis 1) itself is almost too extraordinary to take in. The little cook-out on the beach (John 21) is almost too ordinary to take seriously. … Only a saint or a visionary can begin to understand God setting the very sun on fire in the heavens, and therefore God takes another tack. By sheltering a spark with a pair of cupped hands and blowing on it, the Light of the World gets enough of a fire going to make breakfast. It’s not apt to be your interest in cosmology or even in theology that draws you to it so much as that empty feeling in your stomach. You don’t have to understand anything very complicated. All you’re asked to do it to take a step or two forward through the darkness and start digging in.

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

C is for Chanting

Sally4 Comments

Words wear out after a while, especially religious words… When a prayer or a psalm or a passage from the Gospels is chanted, we hear the words again… We remember that they are not only meaning but music and mystery. … Of course, chanting wears out after a while too.

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

One of my children said that when people pray prayers together in a service they sound like robots. I suppose it could sound that way.

I like how Buechner refers to them as music and mystery.

They are polished rocks, made smooth and beautiful by time and use.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · elderly

B is for Boredom

Sally6 Comments

You can be bored by virtually anything if you put your mind to it… To be bored is to turn down cold whatever life is offering you at the moment. It is to cast a jaundiced eye at life in general including most of all your own life. You feel nothing is worth getting excited about because you are yourself not worth getting excited about.

~~ Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

I can honestly say that boredom has not been a part of my life. Instead of nothing to do, I have a thousand things to do and not time enough for them all.

I liked this quote because it reminded that the people who are bored are simply not engaged in life. I think about the pall of depression that can settle over our elderly who are in long-term care settings. It’s hard to be engaged there — but a visit from a friend or family member can brighten a whole day. It sparks memories and conversation. It reminds them that are loved and remembered and valued.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

A is for Apologists

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“C. S. Lewis once said something to the effect that no Christian doctrine ever looked so threadbare to him as when he had just finished successfully defending it. … In order to defend the faith successfully — which is the business of apologists — they need to reduce it to a defendable size. It’s easier to hold a fortress against the enemy than to hold a landscape.”

~~ Frederich Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

A is for Apologists defending a landscape, not a fortress.

My faith is pretty threadbare these days. I look at my country embracing “Christian” principles and am ashamed.

Jesus never behaved the way these people are behaving. We’re back to The Crusades, a most shameful part of Christian history.

When we feel that we have to defend God, we are, in a sense, thinking ourselves bigger and stronger than God. He doesn’t need me to defend Him. Seriously.

What He wants is for me to be kind and loving. To emulate Him.

We “defend” God not with a sword, but by being kind. We demonstrate not with angry words and violent actions, but with gentleness. If someone thinks differently than we do, we still call them beloved, not lunatic.

I will defend the landscape that is my faltering faith by planting seeds. My sword has been beaten into a plowshare.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · poetry

Nazareth

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Can anything good come out of Nazareth? — John 1:46

It’s a speck
On the map
Nazareth
Let’s recap:

It was home
To a mere
300
(so I hear)

Nothing big
Nothing key
Just a spot
Zilch to see

Yet from there
Came the Christ
Who for us:
Sacrificed

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · Faith · poetry

Many

Sally3 Comments

What are they for so many? — John 6:9

A few loaves?
And two fish?
What are they?
Futile wish

That somehow
These would feed
A crowd? Ha!
No, indeed.

And yet once
Broken, they
Did just that —
“How?” You say

Magic? Was
It Divine?
I don’t know –
Yet, I dine

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · poetry

Love

Sally4 Comments

“Simon, son of John, do you love me…?” John 21:15, 17

Oh, the ache
To be asked
This question
Three times! Cast

Your net! Catch
Some fish — these
Were easy!
Yes, a breeze

Compared with
Do you love
Me? It hurts
To think of

Peter — so
Brash, headstrong
Impulsive
Sometimes wrong

Forced to think
And reply
Yes, yes, yes —
You know I

Do. You know
Ev’rything.
Follow you?
Anything!

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

Confession: I got stuck on K. It sits in my draft folder, half-written. I’ll circle back — but, for now, I’m moving on with L.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · Faith · poetry

Judge

Sally5 Comments

“Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” — John 7:51

people are
quick to judge
then often can’t
even budge

when they hear
facts that tell
another
tale. Lord, quell

my judgment
change my mind
let me be
open, kind.

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · poetry

Identity

Sally2 Comments

Who are you? John 1:19

Who are you?
Who are you
Really? What
Do you do

That makes you
You — unique
Distinctive
So to speak

Why are you?
What is your
Purpose? What
Are you for?

Who are you
Really? Know
Yourself. Be
You. Now go.

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · poetry

How

Sally3 Comments

How can these things be? John 3:9

Don’t explain
Don’t even
Try to — Just
Believe in

Mystery
“The wind blows…
You hear it…”
But who knows

Where and why
It begins
And ends, or
How earth spins

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have a big problem with people who think they know everything, especially religious people.

The more someone thinks they know God, the converse is true. I know less about God today than I did last year or five years or twenty-five years ago. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.