love's faces

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You are the source of all the love I’ve known.

And all the food in this world, I believe,

is your creative love displayed and shown 

in avenues of edibility.

Veluptuous and varied: sweet and sour,

strong and crisp, and crunchy, bubbly too.. ,

can all be lovely gifts at different hours

or contexts. For you know us through & through.

Responsive to initiatives from me,

You are: my senior, wiser, & more a-

-ble, seeking partnership as way to be.

The only thing unmoving, clearly sta-

-ble, is your HESED, strong and pure, deter-

mined, minded to grow me to be like you,

that your creative love be so inter-

preted,  on Earth in ev’rything I do.

And all the gifts you've poured this way I see

are gifts of fam’ly love to grow kids strong.

And given for the best to grow in me

and you, and help us too, to both “belong”..

be long in suffering - that good may come 

(not only when it brings pleasure to me)

but even when it breaks my heart, ..& some

things don’t feel good; I'll stay and over-see 

that all is good (again) for thriving of 

the whole she-bang, and which we will be long-

ing for its good to multiply: “tov tov”

as partnership is harmonized in song.

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Today’s lesson

(for me..)

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One lesson that appears to come is strange.

I need deep wisdom to decipher well

its meaning as pertains to me, arranged

by God himself to help me clearly tell..

So help me God to draw clear insights from

this evidence, as seen in Mark and Mike,

and Adam our progenitor Golem,

and what my wife has said to me tonight

about my making gen’ralizations

or proverbs from each story that I hear.

She said they sound like “morals” for nations

& makes me sound The Judge, so it appears.

It turns her off, she wants me quiet then.

I wondered if I said “I’m trying to 

here understand a principle for when

we’re put in charge, so we’ll know what to do.”

But now I see that doesn’t fit his word:

“Man, who made me a ruler or a judge

who’s over you?*”, was what one fellow heard; 

but John heard that the Father would not budge,

“he’s given judgement to his very Son*”.

It may be that he changed as people heard

it diff’rently, from diff’rent hopes begun

inside a person's head, expressed in word.

So I might need the Father’s wisdom fresh*

for ev’ryone I interact with here;

And that makes sense, for love will always mesh

in loving ways, with each one to appear.

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Footnotes

?* Luke 12: 

n* John 5:22-27

h* James 1:2-9

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Help!

---

Oh God I like the way you help, and that

you aren’t so very pushy; though you made

us up, and maybe just because we're flat

& hardly 3 dimensional, you bade

us to grow up to love with all our selves,

and pass that love along to others too,

you knew we’d need integrity and health

so we could multiply love, not just do

what comes into our heads, to tax it (as

we pass it on to others) for ourself;

for that’s against the nature that love has

- to trust the Universe, not fear with stealth.

You don’t try then, to make us do a thing;

you want us to discover and then choose,

and even ask for help to trust and sing

in presence of my enemies, all who’s

not for me and for honouring my life.

For Love’s an overcomer, it makes worlds,

and overcomes all nothingness and strife.

To trust it is to trust where you are hurled

so as Yeshua trusted in desert-

-ed places, when he needed food & drink,

that God, his Father would see (though he’s hurt)

that he would not be harmed (- as God would think).

So I will trust, and not give way to fears. 

And let my pains and troubles in this womb

not count for more than what seems, or appears,

and let you be the judge o’er death & tomb.

---

flow (take 2)

---

My heart, I see today, is like a cup,

and it can carry water from a well

to my lips, and to any who look up

for help, & then whom God rigs against hell.

A sip might be the whole of what’s their need.

But cells like ours need water to survive,

so often they need more, each word and deed

can cup the water to their hands alive.

But they need water (& I too, no less)

to well up in their beings - all un-clocked!

The cup must lose its bottom, and be stretched,

become a hose, or portal that’s unblocked.

Reflection is requir’d to lively learn. 

Here water helps (when steady, in its flow)

reflect a face, and see disgrace, & yearn

for better looks, and helps wash clean, I know

b’coz it's helped me many times: to drink,

to wash, to cool, to see back or reflect,

& then to help those others on the brink 

of lack, or failure, to change course, deflect.

And ev’ry win (in stages) helps resolve

to grow. The wind resistance helps to train

obedience, that’s out of loyal love.

That helps us to move forward, once again.

And then to top it off, God’s eyes (in pairs)

see worth of whom they worked hard to obey.

He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but softened theirs,

through doing will of God (in Christ), I'd say.

---

think of Jesus’ disciples feeding with (a flow of) food (‘bread’ could just mean food) [Mark 6]

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flow...

---

---

as in heaven, so on Earth... a "cup" of living (=flowing)  water?

---

My heart, I see today, is like a cup,

and it can carry water from a well

to my lips, and to any who look up

for help, & then whom God rigs against hell.

A sip might be the whole of what’s their need.

But cells like ours need water to survive,

so often they need more, each word and deed

can cup the water to their hands alive.

But they need water (& I too, no less)

to well up in their beings - all un-clocked!

The cup must lose its bottom, and be stretched,

become a hose, or portal that’s unblocked.

To live well as a human is to learn

and that needs time and focus to reflect.

And steady water flowing helps me yearn

and gives to drink, to cool, to see, deflect-

-ing/ softening the skin and nails (and heart?),

and washing clean as well (that is a lot!).

The opposite of still, can be an art-

form that will call out ev’ry thing we've got!

And washing out a hardness of the heart,

and stubbornness, and dullness, was a storm;

with wind that made it harder to impart

obedience from spirit clear though worn.

But then creative love itself stepped in-

to situation, onto water top,

and walked along as though he’d often been

for strolls like this, and would he ever stop?

---

Mark 6: (think the feeding with the flow of loaves…)

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ever heard Ed shearin'?

You ever heard Ed Shearin'? It's a pretty big do, they say.

All the light show and machinery (& sheep?)

Step up! Owe nothing

 - except love!

---

Before I met a mate for a coffee, I had time at home to have a cup of tea, and observe, hear, think, act out and understand good ways forward. We meet to share our thoughts and choices over the past week. How good has this simple habit been! (Alerting us to other, more basic, helpful habits too!)

---

---

Today I seemed to see how love can grow.

I know the case of how it can die back:

with kinds of hardness that a heart can know

when all of life is comfort, with no lack.

And somehow in the art’ries (where life flows)

the lack of lack, brings hard’ning, not much flex;

ta heart must pump the blood both fast and slow

sometimes, and yet be ready for what’s next.

And love’s the only thing that has these both:

the power & the will to cover up

(with band-aid-like capacity to know th-

- at healing’s from inside & then erupts.

And I, as just an animal, can not

learn love, except to copy what it does;

for love takes two to tango. One be God.

His partner is the flow’r, (where bee does buzz).

And living in a partnership is the

ground-breaking way of life, like jump from sing-

-gle celled amoeba… right up to multi-

to multi-cellular big living thing. 

And with this partnership as ground beneath

our feet, to walk upon - provide support,

to teach us how to love, & to bequeath,

contribute, not just take - us back to naught

we'll bring creative options into view.

Creative love invites, so I will too,

so learn to sit, and cover for all who

fall short. I’ll simply let them also choose.

---

Helping our children (& their parents), to grow to “Men” & “Women” (as is fit)!

---

The stories that we share each day, each hour

are programing the hardware of our hearts

to treasure things perceived, for story’s pow’r

can point, and help direct the stops and starts

of our attention. This is  currency

we pay with time of life, and focus too,

not just the focus of the eyes of me

and you, at front of head (where we have two -

to give us each experience of points

of view that differ, and can benefit

the whole, in ways that help us, this anoints

us crowningly, with depth perception’s bit

that helps us fit the lace in shoe eyelet,

(as well as similarities and diff’-

-rences they bring to views, that often get

forgotten, though they are to us a gift.

-  As are the stories we live in each day.

A store of stories let out hour by hour,

“..at least when we are conscious" you might say,

but stories still affect us by their pow'r 

with dreams that come at night when we go “out..

“out to it” - with the halo story leaves, 

and beckons us to further any doubt,

or take those fears for real, for story weaves

a web, to catch us in, for ill, or good

(directions we are heading in ourselves,

will then) affect our kids, as well they should

the pow’r of invitation grows deep health!

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less-ons

(& more offs)

---

So listen up and ask good questions now;

you’ve spent enough time spruiking in your life.

And you’re a bit like Peter who somehow

thought that he had to talk to process strife, 

but also good amazing things as well*.

It's good that he at least thought more of acts

than just of speaking out. More “show” than “tell”.

But both can stop the list’ning which impacts

our mode of being in this world. Our hope.

So this is what I hope can be a way

for me to keep on growing less a dope,

& more in line with wisdom, as that say-

-ing goes that James reminds his little bro’s

of, that his big bro. modelled in their house*.

“Be quick to listen!” which is I suppose

statistical in nature, more a douse

in waters cold, to my desired response

(to say what comes to mind, just as it does).

And learn to be more patient, less a “ponce”

(entitled, unrestrained, while still quite fuzz-

-y in my thinking. Not sure what will build

them up, but saying something anyway.

I think I need some “Selah*” times, that will

develop spaces. Even just to pray.

And be here as your mouthpiece, just as Pete-

-er said to those who speak out loud to folk:

to speak as though we speak God’s Word*, replete

with Moses's words on prophets*, not as joke.

---

l* Mark 9:1-15; Matt 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-36

e* seems to be a musical interlude mark within the Psalms; maybe a break in the lyrics for an instrumental? Or as the Amplified bible puts it “pause, and think calmly on that!”

d* “Whoever speaks, let it be with[b] God’s words.[c] [1Peter4:10; NET](see 1Peter 4:10-11; & especially the footnotes above in the NET, if you don’t read Greek)

s* “I wish that all God's people were prophets”. (Numbers 11:29)

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….given for you* - (4…

...sustaining….)

---

“You feed them” he had said before, to those

disciples when the “many” came, in need.

But he knew “other food*” as he’d disclosed

while talking with them after well-side lead.

That food was to obey, live in the will 

of whom God put above ourselves, recall 

that person.. which means  to remember, fill

my mind with what they said, but that’s not all..

it’s also to take on, live out, extend,

in choices that we make, on Earth, the spir-

it, attitude of faithful love, as friend

takes on some aspects of their friend. Hear here!

You are the source of all the love I’ve known.

And all the food in this world, I believe,

is your creative love displayed and shown 

in avenues of edibility.

Veluptuous and varied: sweet and sour,

strong and crisp, and crunchy, bubbly too.. ,

can all be lovely gifts at different hours

or contexts. For you know us through & through.

Responsive to initiatives from me,

you are: my senior, wiser, & more a-

-ble, seeking partnership as way to be*.

The only thing unmoving, clearly sta-

-ble, is your HESED*, strong and pure, deter-

mined, minded to grow me to be like you,

that your creative love be so inter-

preted,  on Earth in ev’rything I do.

And all the gifts you've poured this way I see

are gifts of fam’ly love to grow kids strong.

And given for the best to grow in me

and you, and help us too, to both “belong”.

---

u*  Mark 6; Mark 8; Mark 14; Luke 9; Luke 22; Matt 14; Matt 15; Matt 26; John 6; 1Cor 11.

d* Jesus the vituous Jewish Rabbi meets a Samaritan woman at the bottom of her  pecking order, and will not be sidetracked from his job of revealing YHWH God to her (John 3; especially noteworthy when compared to the main story in the previous chapter (John 2) where Jesus meets with a chief teacher of Israel, one of the Sanhedrin where Jesus clarifies the need to be born freshly - from above), and Jesus’s words to his disciples when they bring food for him, back from town: “I have food that you don’t know of”.  …&... “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, … to finish the work he gave me to do.”

e* John 5:19; 8:29,38,47

D* HESED is the Hebrew term, used throughout the Hebrew Bible to mean family love, covenant love, loyal love, loving-kindness, steadfast love

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….given for you* - (ThREE)…

...trees in garden paradise….)

---

“You feed them” he had said before, to his

disciples when the “many” came to find

out if he smelled of Yahweh’s ways, & biz-

nus, though his message spoke what’s on God’s mind.

And then he’d turned those words into a truth,

by breaking down the process into bits

bite-sized, and then by feeding them in cooth, though fam’ly ways (when they just “got the shits”).

Cash seems the bottom line, but it is not.

When things come to a point, don't look for it.

In this case, look for food. And count the lot.

And bring it back to me. I’ll do this bit.

Since you have not, just yet, grown up enough 

to mean it, when you’re tired, feel unfulfilled,

full of yourself (you don’t sustain, taste tough).

I’ll show it to the God, we’ll trust he willed

for us to not just die here, now, and thank

him for his own provisioning, as he

sees fit to make it work. He is our bank.

And river bank, to walk along as we

in cool of eve’ning, take time to rethink

on days we've seen, and what they’ll mean ahead,

Beside the waters stilled enough to drink.

He gives the bits to them to give. All fed!

And so they really do feed them themselves.

And still he takes the metaphore some more.

As God’s the Father who  wants strength & health…

so we as nursing mother have our chore!

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u*  Mark 6; Mark 8; Mark 14; Luke 9; Luke 22; Matt 14; Matt 15; Matt 26; John 6; 1Cor 11.

o* John 5:19; 8:29,38,47

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….given for you* - (2…

...redeem many….)

---

“You feed them” he had said before, to his

disciples when the “many” came to find

out if he smelled of Yahweh’s ways, & biz-

nus*, as his message spoke what’s on his mind.

And as he’d also warned them much about

Messiah being king in godly way -

not as the kings of this world use their pow’r

to “make” folk do their bidding, to display

the universe within their head that has 

the top dog getting all the best treatment;

but as a king of God’s musical jazz

get’s written notes as records - they’re not meant

to justify, or be the only play

we have with notes and tunes and riffs & song.

His melodies unbidden come to say

“Can I please help more goodness come along?”

And riffs are heard and played with, echoed on,

a band of good musicians learn to hear

potentialities for righting wrong,

or what’s been left behind, it loves to cheer!

And give their bit to make an offering

to all the people who might love to build

up humans, who are creatures who can sing.

Sometimes a chord is struck. No one is killed.

But sometimes in this world, as it is still,

there comes a one embodying the muse,

and antipathic forces as they will

must seem to win, before they really lose.

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u*  Mark 6; Mark 8; Mark 14; Luke 9; Luke 22; Matt 14; Matt 15; Matt 26; John 6; 1Cor 11.

s* John 5:19; 8:29,38,47

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….given for you* - (1…

...for the many….)

---

“You feed them” he had said before, to his

disciples when there’s “many” who had come

some distance looking hopeful of some biz-

nus indicating heavens’ presence. Some 

(or nearly all?), of these many then sat

at his insistence in rough groups where they

felt right at home with God’s green grass as mat

near lake-side, kids came back from swimming hey!

He takes the food available, they found,

and looking up to heaven, blesses God,

as Abraham’s descendants on the ground

would do each meal, for all the food they got.

He doesn't take for granted food and drink,

nor think that all exists to serve his needs;

but just as parents work & as they think,

he’s here to serve. It’s God’s word that he heeds.

The word of truth and love that thinks and serves,

and mother-like, whose body is the home

for unborn child, as bones,  muscles and nerves 

are growing to enable life to come,

and after birth her body is the source

of food & drink she offers to her child,

and helps it to imbibe and suck of course

because that way they bond in way that’s styled

as love and care. But in this case he lets

disciples (students/ children) be involved

and gives the food to them, to feed who gets

it, miracles of God* are then evolved. 

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u*  Mark 6; Mark 8; Mark 14; Luke 9; Luke 22; Matt 14; Matt 15; Matt 26; John 6; 1Cor 11.

d* John 5:19; 8:29,38,47

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….given for you*….

(life offered …)

---

“You feed them” he had said before, to them,

two times when there were “many” who had come,

a distance looking hopefully to when

they might be healed and wholely welcomed. Some 

(or nearly all?), of these who served him well

responded that their stash of cash could not

extend to feeding so many, (I smell

some competition) - but his heart’s been got..

at. 'gets them looking, more simply, for “food”

(their cup can be filled up from lake, a lot).

Their stash of cash ignored (not to be rude),

their first task is “find out how much you’ve got”.

And then he leads the way, in thanking God!

In blessing the creator who sustains

us ev’ry day through food and friends. This spot

in time and place he’s using as he trains

them into partnering with such a One,

and reminiscent of the wilderness..

their wanderings in tribal  stories come

to wondering what God just did to bless..

them with some food (and also cups of drink).

Sustaining them with “what was that?” - that stuff.

And how that worked, and formed, and fed? I think

he wanted trust and wonder, not just “tough”

word-definitions, mechanisms and

containing it within our model worlds.

He watched what God would do*, to understand

how life might be sustained where they’d been hurled.

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u*  Mark 6; Mark 8; Mark 14; Luke 9; Luke 22; Matt 14; Matt 15; Matt 26; John 6; 1Cor 11.

o* John 5:19; 8:29,38,47

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