To those I love

 I wish you a rough time

to polish your shine

I wish you a hard time

to soften you

I wish you challenges

to strength you

I wish you gut-wrenching agony

whatever it takes

to turn you toward God

to seek the balm of Giliad

to let Him wrap your wounds in His holy hands

And I will cheer you

stand by you

encourage you

as my personal trainer has done to me

through sweat and tears

through toil and sorrow

we gain the strength

to serve

to shine

to actually become ourselves, the ourselves we are capable of becoming

but only if someone is there to bind our wounds

massage those poor muscles

and if only we seek Him

 

"Our so-called leaders still think they can bargain with physics & negotiate with nature. They speak to flowers in the language of economics. They hold up their income reports to impress the wild animals. They read stock-market analysis to the ocean, like fools." –

@GretaThunberg

Doomsday/The End of the World

 Sometimes, I want them to get on with it, already

how can we live in a world as broken as this one?

Sometimes, I wish this perfect moment would pause

as we sit in the joy life has brought

Sometimes, I recognize the inevitable march of time

the progression towards conclusion

One foretold by prophets

predicted by scientists

but like birth, we do not know when

only that it is getting close

and like birth, we approach it with some fear and trembling

but in the end, we have a new world to hold

Gentle Rain

We still have gentle rain

amidst drought and floods 

we still have gentleness 

amidst war and famine

We still can love 

when others hate

we still can share 

when we hope for enough

We still have gentle rain 

here and now

where we can plant and we can plow

Praise him in beautiful

 Warm and sunny days

Gentle rain pours down

We need the rain, but I am grateful it stopped

so many areas have flooded recently and so many are flooding now

or hailing

I praise for gentle rain

after a summer of drought

#1 things we should and can be doing

 in the face of all this climate disaster is to take care of each other.

A. Feed the Hungry

Feeding the hungry will keep our minds off our disasters and nourish others. These others are much more likely to grow up and not become terrorists. Terrorists occur when others feel they have been unjustly treated by another group or the system.

B. House the Homeless

These disasters are destroying many homes. Many of the people were average and middle class until their homes were swept away, now they are a refugee. If we can house them they can begin building a life and community again, which prevents terrorism. 

C. Medical Care/Emotional Care

#2 Rebuild/Build for Resiliency

Set up systems and make it easy for people to bounce back emotionally and physically. It also includes building in ways that can either handle nature's furry or can easily be rebuilt. 

#3 Stop Funding Disasters!

This means wars, and this means capitalism that makes a buck at the expense of the many. 

These things start with me and you- doing it for our neighbors, and reaching further as we can. It means getting to know our neighbors, and others we hang around. Extend help and friendship. 

We can also elect people with these attitudes and encourage them in the face of opposition to keep voting, creating laws to support reaching out with caring kindness. 

It is the only way through the challenges ahead. Groups that form for caring for each other are going to make it. Those that destroy each other for resources are going to get destroyed (while taking a lot of innocents along with them)

I hope

 I hope 

when asked for another story at bedtime,

that she was read 2

When asked to play another 5 minutes

I hope he was given 10 more minutes to play

I hope that they put extra bubbles in the bubble bath

that Mom deeply inhaled the scent from her child's hair

enjoyed the weight and warmth of his cuddle

Smiled at his delight of learning new things

Watched as she twirled around with song

Gave an extra last kiss at bedtime

I hope

No Promise of Tomorrows

 One of the challenges of mortality is balancing preparing for tomorrow and living life today because tomorrow is never promised.

If I absolutely knew I would have no tomorrow, I would be home playing with my babies, doggies, soaking up every ray of sunshine, taking one last sweet shot of sex with my hubby. I would drop all worries and go for comfort and experience, squeezing every golden drop I could from the last rays of light, and feel gratitude for the life I have had. I'd tell my children "Tomorrow, we go home to Christ."

Somedays, as the world tilts more into making tomorrow less likely, you begin to question the drive we have to carry on, as if nothing unusual is happening. Especially when that drive seems to eclipse both the actual preparation for tomorrow and the living life today.

Why go to work, go to school, when it reduces my current joy nor prepares me for what tomorrow will most likely bring? Why are we so good at pretending that tomorrow will just be another today?

This is a collective pretending. If enough of us pretend, it generally works, unless a disaster of man or nature actually befalls us, today will lead into tomorrow and be mostly normal. But as soon as enough of us stop pretending, it will fall apart. The lack of pretending tomorrow is normal will actually allow tomorrow not to be normal.

This is a two-edged sword. We do need tomorrow to be different if we want any hope of having enough resources to prepare for the future if we want to forge it into a liveable shape, but we also need tomorrow to be the same enough that we can use our current skill set to get things done as we prepare for the future.

Therefore, I submit the following advice (to myself)

1. Carrying on is important, but not in the "everything is normal" category, it has to be a carrying on that is designed to create a tomorrow we can/want to have.

2. This requires a focus shift. Stop pretending. Willingly acknowledge that tomorrow ought to be different. Figure out how you want it different and make plans how to get there. Ideally, our leaders should be doing this on a local, state, national, and worldwide scale. They are failing because big business requires our collective pretending. Without large-scale leadership, you will have to forge the best you can with whatever community you can join with. Find that community. Start plans and prepare.

3. Accept that you might have work to bring in the money you need to prepare for tomorrow ( and yes, paying your bills counts here). While you are working, you may have to pretend all is normal to do your job, or maybe your job is help prepare your work for this future we want to forge.