Matt Whaley (55yrs)

 

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News through my daughters: Matt Whaley (55yrs) died yesterday. His wife heard him singing in the room next door, then heard a thump on the floor.. went in, and he was dead (from a heart attack). Kept up CPR for 40 min till paramedics arrived, but they said he was gone. Their son Patrick was due to marry Grace Skinner in a fortnight.

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God thanks for all the goodness of Matt's life,

the work and building, and his singing too.

Thanks for his making Patrick (with his wife),

and helping them to look up unto you..

And also we, would look up and just trust

a father like you are to that there boy -

Yeshua who is one leader I must,

I will, learn from, to share in his strong joy!

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re-set out…

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Oh God, I wanted not to go to bed

without renewing will to love you long

and be responsive to what your call said,

responding to your seeking, and your song..

..your song of love that seeks responders who

will really love (as you show us the way)..

not just pretending, but fair-dinkum. You

would be within your rights if you today

would wipe us out. For we have learned to fake

love, melting down the solid stuff to coat

the surface of our deeds. No need to make

love right throughout our lives. We start to gloat

and think that love is limited down here.

It is, of course, by stuff that fills the hose,

for we’re a conduit that lets love appear

on Earth; but soon forget facts such as those.

I know love to be precious, so assume

that it is very limited and must

be not used in its pure form. This gloom

is sadly rife in me. Please help me bust

this lie apart, and live as royalty,

using your pure gold here ev’ry day.

An emiss’ry of heaven’s life. To see

it gets more chance to influence the way

I make each choice, and why I do it such.

I’m setting this ol’ self to die, and then

allowing that fresh one you’re making much

of, to be who I am - each (this day’s) “when”.

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“GOD IS LOVE!”

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An alternative to the Deist’s mechanical model of “the Universe, & the God”*

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“Our Daddy..”, Father, source of Parent love, 

and suckling Mother to a newborn babe.

Provider in your very self, above

all other sources, conduits that disab-

-le death’s encroaches on the life you give.

Enabler of all good - as you at first

spoke into darkness, then more like a sieve

(at later times) dividing what had burst

into existence at your pow’rful word.

This seems to be a WAY you work a lot.

You order, and distinguish what’s absurd

from what inheres. You look, and then see what 

has come about, and what makes better still

acknowledging the good, curtailing bad.

You seem to do more of the first, and will

keep second things that way - ordereda a tad!

And seven times you “saw that it was good”

as overseer - helped them on a bit.

You aided and abetted (as love would).

You walked around and helped the good - to wit..

..the best and highest options were enhanced.

The good that had po-ten-ti-al-it-y

you helped to rise above what would be chanced

if left alone. The heavens and the earth are your “baby”.

Your focus and responsibility.

They’re never quite “left home”, while you’re “at work”.

You watch their ev’ry move, and aren’t just “free”

to “do what you would like”a. Love does not shirk.

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* (see, and hear, the narrative from Genesis to Revelation)

a  although there is the thought in the Psalms, that “God is in heaven, he does what he likes.” (Psalm 115:3) the narrative (which the Psalms are often commentary on) clearly has God curtailing himself with covenants (that he is not destined by any other force, or “bound to do” - until he binds himself by giving his word on the matter. [Even the other human parties are not bound to them - until they are bound to them, and then it is their word which GOD is (rightly, or wrongly) trusting himself to.] e.g. before the covenant with the nation of Israel, there is the covenant with Israel the man, and with his father Isaac, and his father Abraham, and his great great great … (etc) grand father Noah, where God says “for ever more I will not destroy all living/ breathing things by flooding” (Gen 8:20-9:17). It seems that God can do anything, even curtail his own options. But this is talking like a Greek, about abstractions. The Hebrew mind-set sees the “paradoxes” that this way of thinking leads to, and prefers to simply tell the story of a father who loves his children and will move heaven & earth (& even himself) to help them grow to maturity. This is his good will and pleasure - to live with tender covenant-love towards his creation, especially his “children”.

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After “laughter”...

 

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Well here I am, my god, and king of all.

And here you are with me in this same world.

I guess the question is why this small Paul

would be so lucky as to be here curled

within your favour, as I plainly am,

to be so loved (as I am led to be).

But I have seen it often when a man

and woman get together, giving free-

ly of the love they find can come about

within a tawdry life when they work with

its way of doing things. They might still shout,

but that’s to dig deep, to make well for kith

and make them kin, through covenantal ways

where love is a commitment that is shown

out any way they can, and soon displays

itself in offspring (of themselves, love known, 

and multiplied, affective, with effect).

It spreads and would infect some “an-im-als” 

and raise them up to higher planes, inject 

a virus-like small piece of RNA

that in a living cell makes more like it. (...)

But in the case of love, there is no way

that love will force someone to .. kiss, or spit.

But still it's true that if for help we ask,

love brings a force with it, to make things be

more loving for the people round the task.

I’ve found this to be true. That’s what I see.

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Night Sight

 

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Oh Lord of Heaven above & Earth below,

creator of all things in such a way

that they relate together, and some know

more than some others; even less can say.

And some, I start to see, have other ways

than “being”; with potentialities,

they have a thing called “choice” at least some days

(for they might not receive their gift, or please

their maker by their stepping out to rule

(in such a way that God means by that word).

And now I see that this is like that fool

who thinks they know before they learn - absurd!

But there are those (I’ve met some - so far here)

who though they might be foetal gods when I

met them down here on Earth, when I appeared

as such myself. These get to have a try

at doing some creative work themselves.

At first by choosing how they will progress,

and how all judgements with respect to health,

some other goods and bads of fruits and stress,

will be then taken in the whole she-bang,

of all relationships that are and were,

and maybe ever will be, as they hang

together as brain hemispheres do blurr

reactions, and they have their secret ways -

communing as they do, at times to slow

or wait upon the other side which pays

great dividends to all, to the whole show!

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Notes

“… in the manner in which you judge, you will be judged.”

[a wise sage, named “God is Saviour” (Yeshua), some call the "anointed to lead" (Christ)]

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Bright eyes...

 Conduits and sources of meaning..

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What makes you come alive and turns you on?

What helps you see your purpose in some task?

What are the threads of meaning in the song

you sing each day - especially when not asked?

But which arise within you heart, or mind; 

the pictures you imagine as you go

about the things you often do; you find

are often there within yourself - you know.

Our question only works as a strip tease.

It’s not like we’ve the perfect lives, and our

describing them will be a way with ease

to get the answers to our thirst for power.

For we are meaning makers, it is true.

It means something to our humanity

to speak, and mean a thing, from me to you,

and back again. Unseen though our words be.

Though some potentiality is there, 

a partnership exists, and we offspring,

must be involved ourselves/ be raised to where

we’ve learned to walk, the talk “matches” the thing!

So process is the thing, this stage is sound.

The learning, changing, growing is the core

for us who often need to turn around, 

to keep our eyes child-bright. We’re sponges for

the truth, reality, to be lived out,

expressed in love’s responsiveness to gift,

and presence of the lover who won’t pout,

but totally eclipse our visions. Lift.

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[16] Christ's message in all its richness must live in your hearts. Teach and instruct each other with all wisdom. Sing psalms, hymns, and sacred songs; sing to God with thanksgiving in your hearts. [17] Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father. ….

[23] Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for human beings. [24] Remember that the Lord will give you as a reward what he has kept for his people. For Christ is the real Master you serve. [25] And wrongdoers will be repaid for the wrong things they do, because God judges everyone by the same standard. (Colossians 3:16-17, 23-25 GNBUK)

Turn around (bright eyes)

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thanksgiving..

 (spiritual discipline of)

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Today we sat, with food at breakfast time,

and one of us proposed an exercise

of thinking of past days or weeks, to shine

the lamp of goodness on parts of our lives

& then give thanks to God who did provide

us with some goodness we are grateful for.

We know that these are only some, they hide 

around the corners, out of sight and more.

They’re ones that we could name this morning when

we sat down with each other, and our food…

The context often focusses minds, then

we’re more likely to see - what then ensued:

Dunc thanked the source of goodness for his wife -

(our daughter Milly) who has brought to life

their children Hamish & Tullia (whom

he said he’s also grateful for) - Boom, boom!

Hamish (who’s one, and turning two) concurred 

the cars (& ball) he often plays with are

what he could have some thanks for. He’d demurred

for lack of abstract words, but he likes “car”!

 

For Milly: Sunlight, (on) the leaves, as well

as Duncan, Kids, & Freddy (her friend's boy).

Tullia thought of “Food”, within the shell

of “Hamish’s bowl, that he’d shared with joy.”

And “Freddy’s birthday - he is one (today)!”

And then Katrina (with sore throat and hand)

said “Tablets - pain relief, hay-fever!” Hey,

she takes a while to surface. Understand?

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Paul added too, that he might say “The Sun 

(as source of energy for Life on Earth),

& Food: a way its energy’s begun

to seep into our bodies since our birth.

And we together, gathered up these thoughts,

and send them back to that creative love

which set us into being. We weren’t bought

some grocery shop, and just appeared above

all other beings (that we mostly see

because we are the bosses here below).

Our understanding grows as losses be

experienced: “The Boss’s here below!”

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Thanks for

Dunc: Milly who's given their family Hamish & Tullia (whom he is also grateful for).

H: the ball & the cars

Milly: Sunlight, the leaves, Duncan & Freddy

Tullia: food, That Hamish had shared his bowl with me. Freddy’s birthday… he’s one.

K: pain relief tablets, Hay-fever tablets, 

P: the sun: giving energy for all biological life on Earth.

Food: which makes the sun’s energy available to our bodies to live another day upon the Earth.

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