Ode to who woke me (& you)…

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You love me Lord! You've woken me to share

another day within this world of yours.

You keep it in existance, so it's there,

and give to me my being now because…

because of who you really are at heart,

because you make with wonder and delight,

because you choose creatively to start

a human from one cell, from loving night!

Consensual connecting… deeply held

and entered into by a lover who

knows deeper magic than what can be spelled,

a word that is unspoken can come to

one who is loved, reciprocating with

whatever love can come from little chest

of treasure stored in heart of kin or kith,

amounts don't matter if it's all, and best.

Well if it is the seed of GOD himself,

the preciousness and living life of love,

that grows in the seclusion of the wealth

of fam'ly-life that flows down from above.

And you are doing what I'd like to grow

somehow to think of more, then do, to bring

the joy of faithful friendship, where each knows

the other in true love, we start to sing!

So I will sing of, and I will sing to,

you who made all this wondrous world, & gives

it to us as a sandpit, till renewed

in immortality, each body LIVES!

(Audio recording - with piano)

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Friend Michelle (Mush) in car accident with many broken bones etc..

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God, thanks for your real presence spir-rich-ly

there with Michelle and that your spirit's joined

to her spirit, the love that so richly

does motivate & energize, & form,

provides your healing, being, and concern 

that stretches out including others too.

So natural, & super, and we yearn

to have it more in us as well, from you.

We know you love this girl so very Mush,

and smile at all her gentle thoughtful ways.

Mischievousness within her does seem such

that it's an image of you. As it says:

that humans are image innings of God.

And that's the way it's meant to be (from first

big innings) where we talk, & walk, have trod

upon his Earth, IN him. You'd think we'd burst

when he's IN us, but somehow, it can be.

And still we get to have and hold, and grow.

This Mush is evident, we clearly see,

this 'girl' is one you hang out with and know.

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RESURRECTION LIFE & its pre-curser* ..

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The way forward that I do now perceive 

for my neighbour, and his neighbour (that's me).

Oh God who is both love and creator

please waken in me now, and more, & more

responsive love to all that's shower'd on me

instead of vicious circles, viciously

en-gouging for the getting of revenge

while hurting all the innocents who wend

just near enough (their way) to me and mine

that cross-fire will wreak havoc all the time.

I see now that my way, apart from love,

would force my hand as though t'were in some glove

that wouldn't let me .. pick up things alone

(like cards, or tiny objects), use my phone.

I'd have to take it off, gauntleted glove,

if I'm to find the way that's from above

& let my skin again touch skin, with love

(which must itself fly in, like sky-borne dove),

for I'd have walled me in, and covered up,

for shame had gotten tentacles on me,

or else its fangs had pierced, injecting muck

along with deadly poise on track to be

the walking dead, in truth - who cannot die

unless a second, or third death can give

some way to undo all this work that I

a god (without your wisdom's care to live

and grow more life and love around me too)

would do. I'd like to learn that trick from you!

I know, within my bones, no 'trick' will do;

his resurrection life^, I will run to!

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*   the last word in the title [pre-curser] is meant to be spelled this way. To allow it to evoke 3 meanings: a) the concept of a necessary prerequisite [precursor], b) something has been spelled wrong! & then c) from the world of spells and curses, someone who cursed before, or was previously against (maybe wronged, and then wronging in return) [a previous curser]

^  resurrection life, is the kind of life that fits all the best hopes and dreams of humanity (can still use food and drink, but doesn't depend on them). It was understood to only come at the end of life, after death. Jesus is our first instance of it, and promises not to be the last! - he is determined to bring many little brothers and sisters, mothers etc. (family) into it too. The seed of this, which is the seed of God, is in me too. Yee har!

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Me & my brother

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God is there anything that I can do, along with you, to be of help to my brother?

Can I say.. Dear brother, let me take the speck…? Or let me take the log…?

If he's got a speck … Jesus warned me about attempting to help someone with a spec on their eye, if at the same time I have an electricity pole in my eye (it stops me getting close enough to see the spec)

If he's got a log  … it sounds like (from Jesus's teaching, that) it's his job to take out the log.

That leaves me with my own question:

Have I got my own spec…? Or log..?

So here goes…

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So, holy spirit, please do help me now. 

Please clean me up, & save me from my sin.

Please help me see my habits, which somehow

betray my Lord, like Judas who was in

the twelve new leaders Jesus picked back then

with your own insight, leading, whispered quips.

I see that he spoke straight to Judas when

he said "Beware of yeast of .. leaderships"+

And also when he said "Why call me  LORD? 

-  And not take words to heart said by myself?

That's hear, recall, and understand, afford

what action is appropriate for health

of this whole body, not just my desires.

We know this is the will of God for us,

as he commanded us, and brought his fire

so we would be cleaned up, and made a fuss

of here & now, & there & then as well.

I see it's not to do with "..my desire!"

If I say "I don't want that fuss, or smell…"

I can speak it, but not let it inspire

me, as impelling force, or motive pow'r.

My hopes and fears are very second'ry,

and yet must be admitted in this hour;

and then denied as my authority.

Oh God of hesed (loving kindness) where

you go, and here you are with me right now.

I need your help to show how much you care,

to get the hell out of me, as I bow

to your own will*, not mine. This is my prayer,

and holy worship, offered up somehow^.

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• +  Matt. 16:6, 11; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1 (yeast is the agent that puffs up dough, which makes it appear bigger than it was, not by one big hollow in the centre, but by thoughsands of little spread out hollows)

*  Matt 5:22-24

        ^     Rom 12:1-2, Hebrews 13:15-16

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the attitude of Christ° ..

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Oh God, please "teach me" love+ - that is not fake -

not just facade to cover over the

"maintain, protect, enhance" instincts I ache

to fill as hungers, thirsts inside of me.

There's kinds of 'love' that are self-serving use

of other folk as things to fill (to wit

they're not some human love, but an abuse

of others' giving me "the benefit

of doubt", attributing to me the myth*

of "love", that comes from gods/ immortals/ elves,

who have more than enough within, and give

of their resources, & give of  themselves).

That quality of life, and way to treat

the others whom I bump against down here

's proof that there's another motive. Sweet!

Another Way to Live-and-Move's appeared

upon this Earth, from heaven, "from above",

that's energized by mechanisms more

than can be quite accounted for, this love,

this kind of life, is what we were made for.

And thus the forward way for wards of GOD,

is to maintain connection or infect-

-ion, letting such responsive love (not odd-

-ly serving self, as somehow "the elect")

-expressing in this part of Earth, as in

the heavens high above us, attitudes,

which can't come "from below" (some  call that "sin")

and, as he loved these selves, to love> these dudes.

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°  "Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:1‭-‬8

+  "Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: you should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." 1 Thessalonians 4:9‭-‬12

*  myth in the sense of meaning laden stories to somehow model for us helpful skills, understandings, and approaches to life; though aware of the phenomenon that many such stories (like Jesus's parables) don't depend on the story's own historicity or facticity in order for them to communicate what their author hoped to communicate i.e. for stories like the Greek folk stories commonly called Pandora's Box, or Orpheus & Eurydice, or the story Jesus told of the father with two sons (one of which took his inheritance & squandered it - commonly called The Prodigal Son)…; or the story about the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves …(the story commonly called The Good Samaritan)…etc.

>  "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister." 1 John 4:7‭-‬21

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Reason for Being...

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The reason that we live and move and breathe 

and have our being here, has no reprieve 

for we ourselves are reason manifest

within ecology of Earth at best,

and also here as animals ourselves -

it's "as in heaven so on Earth" we delve

and reach up higher to uphold &  show

off truth and love which animals can't know -

unless it be we lift them up with us,

and "How good's that?" (though it may take some fuss).

We're meant to be the gods and goddesses 

within this world, though fetal in  guesses

& even hopes, and "best scenarios".

But even so; implicitly, "Here goes!"

._.

\/

Created by a scrub turkey

(of course)!

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What other beasts are so occupied with their reason for being?

un-settleing..

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Oh God, I know you're there; and here as well.

Though somehow I don't feel connected, but..

it's not that I'm an expert, or can tell

by some con-ect-o-me-ter in my gut.

And yet you have made me to have some sense..

(maybe by little bits of feedback tapped

from other folk within my life, or when

my inside thoughts t'ward those folk are apt)

..some sense, I say, of how a friendship goes.

But here with you, it's quite a different thing:

well in the sense that your smile never "shows"

yet as I write this, I know I can sing

with gladness (and I did this very day),

that morning has quite broken in our world:

for in the face of Jesus, I can say,

that I have seen your smile to me quite curled,

and spread. And in those words you said from cloud

about who he was, and his destiny,

and what you said to Pete, James, John - aloud,

about what their response to him should be,

gives me my job - in stance and attitude,

but also in the way thoughts percolate,

and then the way I act, to not be rude,

and what I do at all, is in your state-

ment to them - all of life is covered there.

And trully, that's enough for me. Thank you.

And thank you for your help with this, your care.

and "great & precious" giftings - graceous, true!

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Short Bibliography:

"May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord! I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence. Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith excellence, to excellence, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly affection; to brotherly affection, unselfish love. For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately. But concerning the one who lacks such things – he is blind. That is to say, he is nearsighted, since he has forgotten about the cleansing of his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to be sure of your calling and election. For by doing this you will never stumble into sin. For thus an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be richly provided for you." 2 Peter 1:2‭-‬11(NET)

"Six days later Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John and led them alone up a high mountain privately. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiantly white, more so than any launderer in the world could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared before them along with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. So Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three shelters – one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (For they were afraid, and he did not know what to say.) Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my one dear Son. Listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more except Jesus." Mark 9:2‭-‬8 (NET)

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