Like this flower child, I’m over the top gleeful. Timing perfection!
I’ve shared confusion And dismay for the slowness Of resolutions.
But if I let go – And put it all in God’s hands, His timing’s perfect!
I can’t tell you more Than to say I see the light At the tunnel’s end.
Yesterday I worked All day to finalize the Membership notice
Our Number One pick Has accepted our first call – Returning to preach.
The congregation Will hear her message. It’s all in God’s hands.
The Lord says, “Relax! Know I have got you covered. It’ll be alright.”
Embrace excitement! Continue to be in prayer. Let God surprise you.
You know I have been knee-deep in the process of trying to find the pastor candidate God has in mind for our Presbyterian Church here in Ennis, MT.
It’s been nearly a year of searching. By the end of this month, I should be able to show you her face… and tell you about her. Meantime, she will return in a couple of weeks and preach to our congregation and they will be given the chance to vote. If they approve, then the Presbytery gets to vote.
The Lord says, “Paaay-shuns!!”
It will all happen in His perfect timing. I believe that. But, I can’t contain my excitement at the prospects of what the future holds!
Pray with me that it all happens as God intends- In His perfect timing.
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Esther 4:14
Perhaps you were born for such a time as this.
Wait expectantly! Open your eyes to the fulfillment of your deepest prayers!
Is your memory slipping? Mine is. The bad news is, my sweetheart’s memory is slipping down the same slope as mine. That’s not good news. For 59 years, we’ve covered for one another. Now we need someone else with a blanket and a diary… the blanket to cover our faux pas – and a diary to go back and retrieve the lost information!
Do you recall … neither of us remembering the actual color, size, and details of our luggage? Did you laugh with us? Well now, it is a situation where BOTH of us forgot about receiving something a year ago… denying it, causing someone else a lot of frustration, and needing a huge dose of forgiveness for the trouble we caused.
In the Haibun above, I addressed the short story and the diary idea in my prose – and then added a two-part Haiku to the story. Thanks for the inspiration from Dwight Roth who often contributes Haibun to d’versepoetry.com … and does it so well. Check out today’s post from Roth Poetry:
There are days when it seems harder than others to put on a happy face, don’t you agree? I don’t have a lot of those, so when I do, they usually are memorable.
I remember one such day when my dad was out of sorts. He was a business owner. Not the typical image of a “business owner” that comes to mind when you hear that description. His business was a Tallow Works. Do you know what that is? It’s a place that picks up dead animals from farmers and ranchers and meat scraps from butcher shops. All parts of those animals and scraps are processed. It’s a smelly business.
It’s devastating Beloved animals die Someone hauls them off
This is called a Haibun. It is a brief couple of paragraphs of prose, followed by a Haiku that adds dimension to the prose!
Oh, Lordy, Lordy!! My blog is supposed to share love, joy, peace, faith, and unity. How I got off on a kick of wanting to share various forms of poetry is all Dwight Roth’s fault! Blame him! He tried my Shadorma poetry and invited me to try his Haibun.
But he can’t be blamed for my morbid Haibun and photo today. My mind just went there after reading a post by someone who was recalling a sadness from their childhood. That day when Dad and I went to pick up a dead horse sticks in my memory because the horse was a child’s pet. It wasn’t like one of a herd of beef cattle or some old cow that got into the clover field, ate too much, bloated, and bit the dust!
My experiences with my dad, riding with him on weekends as we went to various farms to pick up the dead animals, usually were not sad times. I treasured one-on-one time with Daddy, and I was happy to get that time under whatever circumstances! The death of animals didn’t seem morbid to me. It was just part of the cycle of life! You know – like egg to tadpole, froglet to frog!
But on that particular Saturday, the animal’s young owner was there, crying as Dad hauled her beloved horse into the truck and we drove away. The horse did not represent the cycle of life. It was too young, and so was its owner! That was a day when it was harder to put on a happy face, you know?
This weekend Bob & I are headed to my brother-in-law’s funeral. He was 86. He led a good life. He was a believer who knew where he was headed when he left this earth. But, he had just had a knee replacement – just a week before – and he thought he had a lot of years left to enjoy the greater mobility that knee would give him. However, it is not our privilege to count our days!
Dying is, indeed, part of the cycle of life!
“Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
— John 11:26
S’pose that horse and sweet little girl will be reunited in Heaven?
It’s the life cycle Beloved animals die Are they in Heaven?
The roaring Of an angry cat Who’s hungry Tells you “Run!” Especially a lion – Not a pussy cat!
The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5. So, like the haiku, the lines are relatively short. Rather poetically, the origin of the shadorma is mysterious.
‘Twas two weeks later When her decomposed body Washed its way ashore
Only dental charts Helped to identify her Memories are raw
Never imagined Her pain was so very deep Didn’t see the signs
So much is known now Nearly forty years ago We just weren’t aware
Today it’s rampant Especially Montana Third in the nation
Growing suicides It’s not a good statistic Something must be done
These are images from Leonard Cohen’s impactful video. (Haven’t watched it yet? Go back up to that link. Take five minutes and then come on back.) The poetry and his raspy, musical voice will touch your heart. You’ll carry it with you.
You’ll ask yourself, “What Happens to the Heart?” and you will want to be more aware, more compassionate, more helpful. You’ll look in your friend’s eyes. You’ll study your loved one’s face. You’ll ask questions. You’ll care. And you’ll want to know WHAT CAN I DO? When you see sadness, despair, loneliness, you’ll want to help. How??
There are visible Ways we can show how we care Check out resources
Reach out to others Make meaningful connections Share your thoughtfulness
Embrace Connections They can make the difference YOU are important!
Thanks for dropping by JanBeek
Sending you love and hugs – Stay Connected!! See ya tomorrow
We were having one of my favorite meals, spaghetti with meat sauce, when I first told my family that I had broken up with my fiance’. My dad nearly choked on his mouthful. My mom shoved her plate of spaghetti half-way across the table!
To this day, I can’t eat spaghetti with meat sauce without remembering that day.
My fiance’ and I had been engaged for about a year. He was in the army, stationed in Germany. I was a senior in college, missing the social life, trying to remain true to my engagement. I wanted to attend the school’s dances and other social functions. It was hard!
Rather than being untrue to my boyfriend who was so far away (we had not seen each other in six months), I broke off with him. Obviously, my parents were devastated. Especially when they learned the guy I wanted to date was a divorce’.
“Why buy a used car when you can have a new one?” my dad finally spoke. Then he got up and walked out of the room. (Yes, Dad was a man of few words, but a list of prejudices a mile long!)
Mom followed him, without speaking a word. That was so unlike her.
Proverbs 6: 20-23
20 My son, obey your father’s commands,and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. 21 Keep their words always in your heart. Tie them around your neck. 22 When you walk, their counsel will lead you. When you sleep, they will protect you. When you wake up, they will advise you. 23 For their command is a lamp and their instruction a light; their corrective discipline is the way to life.
The man I broke up with was from a family very much like my own. He grew up in the same area I did. We shared common roots. My parent and his got along wonderfully. The man I wanted to date was nine years older than I. I won’t get into why he was so attractive to me, but suffice to say, my parents’ dismay touched me deeply.
They let me have my “fling.” They did not bad-mouth my new friend. But when my ex-boyfriend came home on leave, they invited him over. When I returned home from college that weekend, he was there. I realized how much I loved him. That love has carried us through 58 years of marriage. Not always perfect, not always blissful, but always respectful, and always knitted together in prayer, faith in God, and common purpose. The love has grown as years passed – and I am grateful every day for my parents’ wisdom.
Put a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of me. I can taste the kindness of my parents in every meatball. I can hear my mom’s silence and feel her prayers in every slurp of pasta. I feel my dad’s concern about age differences and divorce. I keep their love in my heart with every Italian meal! God bless ’em!!
Today at d’Verse we are trying a new form of poetry. Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic, involuntary experiences of a second one. There are over 80 types of synesthesia described by science. Nearly every combination of sensory experiences or cognitive concepts is possible.
Seeing music as colors is one form of synesthesia. Perceiving letters as personalities is another one, or seeing numbers in color. Even hearing colors or touching smells.
How about tasting memories? Do you have any of those?
This post is a combination prompt: 1) My Madison Valley Writers’ Group Prompt was the title of the blog, and 2) the d’Verse prompt informed the style and content. It’s not poetry… but it may qualify as Synesthesia. What do you think?
Problems Creep in Usually they’re unbidden Happened all week long Blame
Gifted With Love From my Lord I did move forward Strength
Possibilities Are fueled By firm beliefs Making hard things easier Faith
One step at a time Life is easier with faith Just follow the Light!
This last one’s a Haiku, but the preceding series of three poems (written in the German-inspired style of Elfchen or Elevenie) shares a total of eleven words in each poem, with a sequence by line of one, two, three, four, and one words.
I hope you had a good week. Enjoy your weekend. Thanks for visiting JanBeek. See ya tomorrow.
No, this “old coot” (who may have a wonderful sense of humor locked inside, by the way) is not sixty-four. He’s much older… and he reminds me of the subject of the poem below.
It’s a seven-syllable poem. I read somewhere, “Seven-syllable lines in English verse can have several different names.” I call mine heptameter. I heard that somewhere. I didn’t make it up.
Seven syllables on each line… a true story here… first published in our
Madison County Writers Anthology for the year. The subject was a 96-year-old for whom I was a senior companion. He was a hoot of an old coot!
a heptameter
The poem rings a loneliness bell, doesn’t it? Ah, but he loved company and he had a million stories locked inside, aching to be told.
Do you know a senior who lives alone? Why not decide to visit today – or give him/her a call.
By the way, doing a little research with Siri, I learned that in English poetry, you only count syllables in Haiku (a form borrowed from another language, of course)… not usually in other poetry forms. Other languages, like French, count syllables in most forms of poetry. The reason English poems don’t was explained this way: English is a stress-timed language, and French is a syllable-timed language. This means that in English, the number of stressed syllables in a line is generally more important than the total number of syllables … (and besides, depending upon what part of the country you’re from, the syllables differ … y’all relate, raught?)
Nevertheless, it was fun to write my Heptameter. You should try it. It’s fun!
