Sue asked us to pray..

..Talitha and her,
3 places (?) each day
to speak out God's word.

Sue, we will now do

what you've asked us to

& all the day through

- as we're prompted to-

God please help these two

to listen & speak

with you all this week,

'n' so pass on your word,

your message ("absurd"

to this world's dead mind)

that more will enfind,

or more be enfound

in your wind-a-round-

be wound up & start,

or set sails (of heart),

to be empowered,

to grow en-flowered,

then losing them, fruit -

of God's paradise

(kingdom of) surprise,

where its last is our First,

& our Last will burst

the ribbon, & win!

Good God, bring 'em in!

Amen.

Annabelle Rose, do you suppose?

Annabelle turns 17

ANNABELLE ROSE THEN QUIETLY
slipped out of bed to listen to
the one who knows better than she,
and has shared his world with her too.

By "his world", I mean "in his mind"-
-all that he keeps there by thinking
of it, and by him it's defined;
as such it’s waking up blinking.

Annabelle blinks when she wants to,
and other times, right through the day.
Her sleep is one long blink and points to
a time when she'll be "tucked away".

The live story says: in the blink
of an eye, all who were asleep
will awake, and then the shin-dig
will begin; we’ll laugh and we’ll leap!

Sometimes she laughs and leaps now-days
in readiness for that great rhyme,
mostly she rises quietly, says
her prayers, and listens for a time.

She makes me recall that “Mary”,
the sister of Martha & Laz..
To Martha she seemed “contrary”;
but to Jesus, he said “She has..”

“..the one thing, that’s necessary;
- ‘n’ it will not be taken from her”.
So before she rose, that Mary,
she listened; and then did her work.

Jesus rose out of the water,
then Jesus rose out of the grave,
Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter,
and Jesus rose early to pray.

He came down once at his own birth,
God raised him forever since then.
Jesus rose up off this old earth,
and Jesus is Annabelle’s friend!

After a night at the Milestone again...looking at Matthew's version of this

Mark 11March

Tramp. Tramp.

He wa*lks into Jeru*salem

and looks ar*ound in the te*mple

then go*es away to hi*de

for the n*ight, tramp tramp!

*             *

In the mo*rning he, “on ro*ute”

to cle*ar the temple for a sh*am,

cu*rses a fig tree with no fr*uit!

(no fr*uit); tramp, tra*mp!

Clea*ns out the tem*ple, tea*ches the peo*ple,

ma*kes the lea*ders re*ally ri*led;

then go*es away to hi*de

for the n*ight,

tramp tramp!

* *

looks for free fo*od from a tr*ee

on the si*de of the ro*ad,

sleeps outsi*de of the cit*y

& ca*rries on (a heavy loa*d

on his ba*ck), like a soldie*r, wh*o long has mar*ched;

or a ho*meless bum: sto*mach empty, thro*at par*ched!

Next da*y his students see the tre*e

and mar*vel at the cha*nge.

He sa*ys “Have faith in God - (like m*e),

& forgi*ve, or be estra*nged,

estrang*ed fro*m your Go*d you'd b*e..”.

and those the*re surely sa*w

how estran*ged the leaders where from h*e

-who pu*shed them all the mo*re,

unti*l their motive:“fe*ar of man”, showed out- & fi*nally*

…..he pla*yed no mo*re their Que*stion Games of “La*w”.

Tramp. Tramp.

♪♫♪♫ This reminds me of a song we sang as kids: We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. ♪♫ ♪

We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. ♪♫♪♫ Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going home. Tr-

amp, Tramp. Tramp. ♪♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪♫ We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. We’re on the home-

ward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going home Tramp, Tramp.

Tramp. We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. We’re on thehomeward trail. Tramp

.

Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going home Tramp, Tramp. Tramp.

We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. We’re on the homeward trail.

Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going home Tramp, Tramp.

Tramp. ♪♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going home Tra-

mp, Tramp. Tramp. We’re on the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. We’re on

the homeward trail. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. Sins forgiven, bound for heaven, going ..

We're On The Homeward Trail | Action Songs For Boys And Girls, Vol. 2

We're On The Homeward Trail | Singspiration Gospel Songs And Choruses, Vol. 2

For a brother going through a hard time, & asking for prayer..

Oh, God you were there

in car (& on cross)

and we join this prayer

and we join this loss

as you have before

us, and still will do,

somehow to bring glor-

-y, though we eschew

humiliation,

and the pain too,

please give to Jason

your grace to be true.

Please keep him from harm

in adversity,

and from Evil's charm

to "pity poor me",

since you've made him rich

in what really counts.

Keep him in this "glitch",

doin' all of the rounds.

We know you're with him.

You were with Jesus,

as Romans whipped him.

And now he sees us!

Cassie, please help her,

and our Jason too,

take this adventure

as a cup, from you.

move on

Too slow I am, at what should
be quick, with responsive joy.
At times slow at 'being slow'
(to speak); been so since a boy.

My failings aren't THE problem
(unless I do make them so).
What keeps me a true goblin
not, is being willing to go!

..To move on, to go, from where
all my failings define me;
walk on THE WAY, up the stair -
anointed humanity!

And in THAT LIFE, I see much
that beckons & calls me on,
to turn back with thanks and such,
& break out into a song!

And THE LIFE of such an one
bears witness, like the rainbow's
colours, brought out from the sun-
-light's "white",  bringing "Ah" 's & "Oh" 's.

THE hidden TRUTH is shown real
and winsome at the same time,
by mist(teary-us)  congeal-
-ings, with an artistic rhyme.

If 'is name was Bob, or Ted
(instead of that which Joe named),
I wonder if they'd be said,
when folk failed, or felt ashamed?

Now, then! Christ! I need a wash!
Oh God! Jesus! Help! Do I
pray these as real prayers, or squash
them out as just empty cries.


Failing as "Water Walker"
is not, of all things, THE END;
it might be a very big foot-wash,
with good questions from a friend.

Maybe "wasting time" with God is WHAT GROWS FAITH..

FAITH

The images Jesus used for faith, faithful people, or faithful structures were varied, & included many peasant & homely analogies: salt, light, patches in clothing, & wine-skins.

Interestingly there seems to be a bias towards life in them. They are tending towards the organic, bodily or the relational. In the organic world, things are withering if they are not growing. “I tell you truly, if you have faith like a grain of....” and note what he says here, not “a grain of SAND” (though Abraham would have more descendants than “the grains of sand”), or “a spec of dust” (though Jesus warned about trying to take a “spec of dust” out of your brother’s eye, while maintaining a log in your own), he is talking about a “(living)seed” of faith.

Maybe faith is not so much a commodity, or utensil, as a growing living organic thing; like a cereal crop, or a mustard seed/bush, or a grape vine, or an olive tree, or a fig tree, a bride/groom (their relationship, & the celebration of it), or even yeast.

Have a look at these few renditions of Jesus’ prayer & faith, and his disciples’ prayer & faith at work… Mark 9:14-29

plus,  look at this other instance in Mark's Gospel where Jesus ties the concept of "effective authoritative commanding" together with "prayer" (Mark  :  ):

Now, here is Luke's rendition of that first event where the disciples tried to throw out an evil spirit "but they couldn't", and Jesus steps in and easily demon-strates God's power, (after some comments on having to put up with unbelief etc).



And have a look at Matthew's rendition... (especially look at what Jesus answers the disciples when they ask "Why weren't we able to get rid of it?"

And when the disciples listen to Jesus on pitfalls & problems & then ask him "Give us more faith" we hear from Luke:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: “Why weren’t we able to get rid of it?”

Is Jesus responding...

“YOU LET GO.
YOU LET YOUR FAITH STOP!
Instead of letting your faith grow deeper roots through this next level of difficulty, you let it be pulled out or chopped off!

God won’t do that, he can be trusted, & if you are trusting him, He will never let that happen to you - (without making an Exodus, a  “Way out”, a “Way of escape”)

though you may be tested even more severely than this  time when you had this bunch of faithless “Teachers of the Law” argue that you can’t do it & you don’t have the authority; don’t you remember me giving you authority, personally giving it to you. Take it & use it! You know what they are like with me, & what I am like with them. Don’t listen to their hypocritical lives! Though they claim to be teachers of the Law of Moses - the man of God, - they aren’t going to teach you to trust God, are they!

You listened to hypocrites instead of a tried & true, trusted friend.

You “planted” on the brake, instead of the accelerator!  

You started ok, but when the going got tough, instead of getting really going, you got out.

You found yourself losing faith in God, or in whether he’d really want to co-operate with you anyway, or in yourself as a co-operator with him, ..or something like that.

You found yourself giving up.

Now, don’t do it again! Start right now to make a change, to trust what I say...

& what I do,

& what I have done,

& what I will do,  

Trust God’s LIFE & love, trust my LIFE (& death too), my LIFE that can pass through death & out the other side, not as a mere shade of the previous life, but to conquer death & come out with a new kind of RESURRECTION LIFE (never to die again), & trust my love for you, to be enough for the impossible-est situation

and thus obey me -
that is how you will show that your faith is expressing itself in love.

You can still trust God. He brought me along in the nick of time (after I had wasted enough time with God & his servants in prayer, stood in God’s council, & strengthened my capacity to live by his vision of reality) to act decisively to save you from losing it completely, & to help pull you up out of the water (so to speak), so that you can have another go!

Be ready for it! Watch out, & be ready!

Comment: The story-let just prior to “The boy with epilepsy”, helps me understand a part of what Jesus meant by "this kind comes out only by prayer". In that story-let, Luke's rendition spells out what is probably clear to the Jewish mindset (when a leader & a few of his off-siders go up a hill all alone) that Matthew/Mark are assuming or "cultivating" by their not spelling it out.