Month: February 2016

#Haiku: tight and warm

For various and sundry reasons, I’ve not been in a writing/blogging frame-of-mind recently. Though generally I really enjoy writing and it usually makes me feel better, I’ve just not been in the zone – or even near the zone – lately. But today I’m feeling it a bit; and I miss participating and reading the many posts I usually do so I’m going to try to steal a few quality minutes today. 

This week our host, Ronovan, brings us two new prompt words – tight and warm – that inspired this new haiku. 

winter chill abounds
wrapped tight and warm protected
Spring brings butterflies

Ah, how I look forward to the change alluded to in this haiku! As many of you know, winter is not my favorite season! But Spring, that whole different story!

Have a blessed week all 🙂

Flame and Ruby: a haiku 

Well, I I might be technically late this week since it’s after midnight now and I just realized I’ve not posted a haiku for Ronovan’s weekly challenge. But late or not here it goes!

Tonight I attended my daughter and son in law’s gender reveal party, something totally new to me. Basically the family (and they) found out the sex of their baby tonight; it’s their first child and our second grandchild. 

My daughter is the best daughter a dad could hope for, bar none. Her birthday is in July, as is her due date, so this was inspired by her and the son she’s carrying. 

a dazzling gemstone
sparkling amidst the sunshine
flaming red ruby

Luke 9:29

This piece spoke to me today, and would on many days, today. I found truth and comfort in the author’s words, as I hope you may, too. 

Go to the mercy-seat as a little child to a mother’s knee!– George Everard, “Jesus on the Holy Mount” 1884

“As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning!” Luke 9:29 

 

There is a transforming efficacy of true prayer! While Christ was praying, Divine light and glory came upon Him from above.

And so in another way, it is with the believer. Imagine a child of God who has had a difficult day of toil and anxiety. He has been all day long in contact with the world, its turmoil, its business–and perchance he has been ruffled with the evil tempers or angry words of those he has met.

But the evening comes. He has a quiet half hour for communion with his Best Friend. Then, as he dwells upon some sweet promise of the Word, as he rolls the burden of the day upon a Father in Heaven–there comes back a quiet joy, a calm peace into his soul. A new strength is imparted, and a new view is taken of life’s duties and temptations. The discipline of heavenly wisdom is recognized, and instead of the jaded look and wearied spirit–there is power and life and gladness and hope found upspringing within the heart!

Never, never let the Christian be robbed of the comfort of prayer by the thought of being unfitted for its exercise. You are tempted, it may be, to think that because the mind has been overstrained, and you are tired and weary–that therefore it is impossible to make the effort for prayer. 

Let it be just the other way: “I need the quiet of my Father’s presence to soothe this throbbing brow, to rest this fainting heart–and I must have it.” Then go to the mercy-seat as a little child to a mother’s knee. Your words need not be many, but let them be from your heart–to the heart of your Father in Heaven!

Star and Child: a #haiku 

Reading the prompt words for this week’s haiku challenge offered up by our friend Ronovan, child and star, I was immediately taken back in time, to a simpler time in my life: my childhood. 

laying on warm grass
gazing at stars far above
cloaked in childlike awe

I can remember warm, humid summer evenings spent exhausted, laying on the lawn, looking at the stars so far away but so bright. I remember thinking about how beautiful they were in the patterns we have “made up” for them. My dad was stationed on the USS Orion when he was on active duty so I could easily identify this constellation from a young ago. To this day I still find myself looking for Orion in the sky – and thinking about Dad. 

Even at that young age, pre-teen, I imagined how God might have hung them as is described in the account of the Creation in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. I  still do that, too. But these days I do it from the comfort of a chair (I’d never get myself up off the ground! LOL), often while sipping on my pipe. 

“Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set these lights in the sky to light the earth,

And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:14-17, 19‬ ‭NLT‬‬