This is one of my favorite stories — the woman caught in adultery, the scribes and the Pharisees who want to stone her, and Jesus there, writing in the dirt.
Don’t you want to know what he was writing? I do. I think about that question a lot.
But we’ll never know. We only know that He didn’t condemn this woman when it felt like the whole world was.
Pretty amazing.
How can I be like that?
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.
Constant Begun with sleep loss Cleaning up bodily fluids Listening An umbrella of security The gift of time Hard work
This is my response to the W3prompt this week given by Murisopsis.
She asked us to write a Cameo whose form is Heptastich (7 lines), Syllabic (2-5-8-3-8-7-3), and unrhymed. Also, she wanted the theme of love and added “try to incorporate some other kinds of love for a change.”
My youngest daughter called the other day because she had food poisoning or a stomach bug or some such thing. She spent the night on the bathroom floor.
Had she been closer, I would have gotten her ginger ale and saltine crackers, and taken care of cleaning out the throw-up bucket for her.
I’ve done it.
Love is cleaning up vomit.
One time, when I was taking care of my father, he collapsed on the way to the bathroom and wet himself quite thoroughly. We called the ambulance, but he wanted to be presentable when they arrived so I helped clean him up and got him dry clothes.
“You shouldn’t have to do this,” he said, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
Love is cleaning up urine.
My oldest daughter is expecting her first child. I remember as a young mom going to a baby shower for another new mom. We were all supposed to write advice for the new mom on little cards. Everyone write things like, “Tell your child you love him/her every day,” or “Live, laugh, love.” I had just had a horrible outing with my baby, where he did one of those poopy things that up his back and down his leg and got all over me when I tried to change him. We were an hour away from home. For the baby shower I wrote, “Always have a spare change of clothes in the car for you and your baby.” I was dead serious. It drew a lot of laughter at the shower.
Love is cleaning up poop that’s everywhere.
Can I say here that love isn’t candlelit dinners? It isn’t fun vacations. It isn’t bouquets of flowers or pretty jewelry. It’s the nitty gritty stuff of life.
Is that the kind of love you were talking about Murisopsis?
Command come? A strong arm? Lifted chin? Wisdom? Smarm?
Who are these? Why do their Words carry Anywhere?
Yet we yield To what they Say, believe. We obey
And turn blind Eye, deaf ear. Instead of Faults, we hear
What we want To hear. We nod and don’t Disagree.
Authori- Ty. Poo-poo. Let me think. Same for you.
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. These verses inspired today’s poem.
John 7:26 …Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
John 7:48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
When it became more and more evident that there was something different about Jesus, the common people began looking around to see what the “authorities” thought of him — hence the questions — hence my poem. But they were AFRAID to say anything — John 7:13 Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
But, between you and me, this particular topic is a sore spot with me. Depending on what news source you watch or read, you will have very different views of what is going on in the world from those who watch the other news. We need to be a THINKING people, who investigate the truths and falsehoods of what we’re being fed.
My darling, Much better than quarreling Is this: I will stroke your hair, Swear
Devotion To you while you’ve no notion (Have you?) of whose side I’m on. Yawn
My pretty; Sleep on my lap. I pity Your great surprise when you wake. Take
Care, dumb thing. Out of the strong came something. Sweet fool, you yielded to me Key
Expertise That I might put you at ease And take from you that which God [prod]
Had conferred On you. Soon the deed’s occurred — Come take the hair of this mutt! Cut!
The W3 prompt for this week was to write an ekphrastic poem about the Rubens’ painting of Samson and Delilah.
The more I looked at the painting, the more I disliked Delilah. She’s so false. What did Samson see in her? Well, I think that’s pretty clear in the painting, too.
This is an Irish form I’ve used before: deibide baise fri toin. Syllable count for each quatrain: 3-7-7-1. Rhyme scheme: aabb. The first two lines rhyme on two syllables, and the last two rhyme on one.
The poet of the week gave an additional challenge of including a line from Samson’s riddle: “Out of the strong came something sweet.”
Dear Barbara, Remember when We used to pray And say amen
To all of our Troubles and cares Passing them on – Gone – to “One Upstairs”
Who heard our words Read our mettle Enclosing us Thus to settle
And face what came– Oh! Life was hard Especially Yours. See — one card
Then another — Life dealt you crap Death, illness, hell Fell in your lap
Week after week We bowed our heads We wept, we prayed Life frayed to shreds
Why did we stop? I don’t recall Did we give up? Our cups to fall
And break, as did Our friendship? I Wish I knew what Shut that door. Why?
Why do people Move on from God, Friends, prayers, tears? Fears? Fatigue? Fraud?
I am a fraud Yes, yes. That’s true But we did pray A day or two
I was out for a drive with a friend the other night, and suddenly I recognized the landscape, the roads, the buildings. It had been years since I had driven out there but I used to meet weekly to pray with a friend. She lived out there.
We stopped meeting rather abruptly some 20 years ago — and I don’t remember why. I don’t remember a falling out. I don’t remember a lot of things from those years. They were so stressful.
But the stresses in my life were miniscule in comparison with hers.
This poem came out of the hashing around of those memories.
I need to add that faith failures — the doubts, the fatigue — they are all MINE, not hers. Pretty sure, anyway.
“Please select Me!” She wanted to direct The gardener as he scanned, Hand
Already Full of flowers, gaze steady. He looked for one final bloom. Gloom
Just settled Over her. Her gold petaled Head drooped in an oh-so-sad Bad
Way. Downcast, Rejected, again outcast, Passed over. But then he stopped Dropped
His pruner “I wish I’d seen you sooner,” He said to her. “You are sweet! Meet
Your sidekicks.” [snip!] She joined the spray, transfixed By the beauty around her. “We’re
Delighted You can join us!” She sighted A welcoming rose and mum. “Come!”
This is for the W3 challenge this week. Heather (Sgeoil) challenged the participants to do a little personification. I had an idea for a flower being plucked from the garden for a bouquet (inspired in part by the bouquet that was on my bedside table when I stayed at my son’s house). My idea involved going in that sacrificial direction of losing life for the sake of something bigger. But, as you can see, it went in a totally different direction.
I wish I understood my own process.
AND — because I like Celtic forms, I went with a Deibide Baise Fri Toin, and Irish form with aabb rhyme scheme and syllable count of 3-7-7-1 for each stanza. The first two lines rhyme on a 2 syllable word and the last two lines rhyme on one syllable.
The poem is made up of quatrains with an aabb rhyme scheme. Syllable count 3-7-7-1. Lines one and two rhyme on a two-syllable word; lines three and four rhyme on a monosyllabic word.
The prompt on January 4 from the 64 Million Artists creativity challenge was to write a short letter to yourself from the perspective of an object that you use, or maybe misuse everyday. Honestly, I NEVER use my yellow pens. I have a basket full of a variety of pens in a variety of colors.
My favorites are brown, green, grey, and blue — earth, ocean, sky.
My least favorite is red. It feels too corrective — probably going back to my school days.
I like yellow. I just can’t always see what I’ve written when I use yellow.
“Can I have a little kitty?” I asked my dad one day. My mother put me up to it; she knew what he would say. When I had first asked her, she said, “You need to ask your dad.” The thought of having NO kitten made me rather sad – So in my simple six-year-old heart, I began to pray.
When I first saw those kittens, much to my dismay, The lady said to ask my mom and I knew I must obey So I asked my mom with every ounce of sweetness that I had — Can I have a little kitty?
My father loved to tell this tale. I can hear him now portray How this funny freckled blonde-haired girl stole his heart away With such a simple question — and he would often add “How could I say no to that?” Yes, he would be a cad To deny his own dear daughter the joy that came with one “Okay” Can I have a little kitty?
The cat’s name was Ichibon. We lived on an army base at the time, and the family with the kittens had recently returned from a stint in Japan. Ichibon means #1 in Japanese, and she was allegedly the first kitten born in the litter.
Ichibon was first in a long long string of cats in my life. Today, I have an obese cat who doesn’t understand that he’s supposed to be a working cat and taking care of the mice in this house — but that’s probably a poem for another day.
When my granddaughter was littler (she’s now a big 4 years old), I wasn’t working full-time and would go babysit once a week. So. Much. Fun.
Anyhoo — she was just a wee little thing, and I would put on music to play in the background while we played. I had a whole playlist for her.
I pulled it up the other day because I (obviously) hadn’t played it in a long time. It was a lot of Scottish songs. My granddaughter loved Ally Bally Bee and “danced” to it — which involved running around the couch.
I loved The Broon Coo, a song about a mischievous cow that breaks oot and eats all the hay and neaps (turnips) and chases the ducks.
Cows are near and dear to my heart. The cow population is our area has significantly declined over the 50+ years since my parents bought the house I am now living in. When we first moved here, though, there was a working dairy farm next door.
I wrote a poem about it some years ago and thought that I had posted it. Maybe I had and then took it down. Who knows? It happened to be in my overfull WordPress draft folder and I’ll put it at the bottom of this post. It’s not really stream-of-consciousness, you know.
If you’ve ever experienced feeding a cow something from your hand, you’ll know that it’s an unforgettable thing. The smoothness of their nose. The tongue pulling whatever it is off your hand. The slow patient chewing that ensues.
So many people are just in a hurry when they eat. They could learn a lesson from cows.
A horse’s muzzle is dry and it will use its lips to take whatever you’re holding. A cow’s nose is slimy — but in the best of ways, if there can be a best of ways for slime.
I used to walk down the road and play music for the cows. They would walk alongside me on their side of the fence.
Then there was the year the cows stampeded up our road when the guy was trying to load them in a truck. He eventually rounded them all up, save one — and there were feral cow sightings over the winter that year as it wandered the back hills. I don’t know whatever happened to it.
But the Broon Coo song is about a cow that breaks out and gets into trouble — which is what my poem is also about (kind of) except our cow was a black-and-white Holstein.
So I’ll leave you here with a few cow pictures and a poem. 🙂
When my parents bought the farm (literally) Pa Jackson was over the hill (euphemistically and literally)
He milked the cows by hand While the barn cats tumbled in the hay (euphemistically and literally) I watched with wide eyes (the milking, not the euphemistic tumbling)
The Jacksons had a bull To do the job of the artificial inseminator And when our pet heifer, Sock-it-to-me-Sunshine, Wandered over To visit the Jacksons’ cows The bull also got to know her (euphemistically)
Then, our heifer Was in the family way (euphemistically) She was loaded on a truck And sent to a home For unwed cows
The next summer The Jackson’s cows Were also loaded onto trucks And sent to auction Because Pa Jackson was Extremely Over the hill (euphemistically)
A few years later We read in the newspaper That he had bought the farm. (euphemistically)
