Stepping Into A Giant's Shoes

Dear Five Minute Friday People,

As you know, Kate won't be hosting FMF through November and December.

I offered to stand in, and she accepted. I can't begin to describe how honoured I am.

You won't be getting her emails announcing posts, but I will let you know on X (@BudekSchmeisser) and Facebook (Andrew Budek).

I don't spam these platforms. Just the blog, my Substack site, and an occasional uplifting quote.

The posts will go live on Thursday nights at 8pm Mountain Time.

I'll do things a little differently, since I'm not nearly the writer Kate is. I already have a list of words, and I'll give myself five minutes to find a good quote that fits the prompt.

And none of my poetry!

The dates will be:

November 7

November 14

November 21

November 28

December 5

December 12

December 19

December 26

January 2

I really hope you'll join me.

So does Sylvia. She's the brains behind all this.

 

Farm Report (Tell His Story)

Walk away, turn off the news

and let this act be your retort.

Sing your home, and not the blues 

as this is your Farm Report. 

When comes sun, and when comes hail?

The marching throng will summon hell

that they in anger hope world's fail,

but I think that time will tell,

and that the corn will grow in rows,

and the golden wheat will wave,

and as our boredom with hate grows

we'll find the Farm Report will save 

our great nation, keep it whole,

and thus save our collective soul.

Sylvia prefers cows to corn and wheat, as cows bring milk, and milk brings ice cream. 

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If Only

 The words If Only are at odds

with any kind of Divine Grace,

'cause fundamentally they throw God's

blessings for you in His Face.

If only means you aren't content 

with the love He has for you,

and they demonstrate intent

to leave His arms for something new,

so purge these words from heart and tongue,

let them not arise in thought,

and doing so, you'll stand among

those whose loyalty is not bought 

by the longing for Earth's bling,

the madding grasp for the brass ring.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is REAL.

When you wish upon a star

to ask for blessings that you feel 

must be made to how things are...

well, dude, that isn't real.

If wishes might be horses, well,

then beggars would ride,

but the wish is empty shell 

that holds nothing inside,

and distracts you from the truth

that God's will is not our own,

and we have to take as proof 

the Blood that He had sown

from His Son at Calvary,

the ransom paid for you and me.

Sylvia reaches for ice cream, and in this she is content.

A Prayer For The Babies (Tell His Story)

There is a child that's just been born,

arrived the other day.

He deserves a world untorn,

and to this end I pray

that bladed words might be made new

to comment on the love and grace

which may one day be coming true

to heal this sad and lonely place,

and so I will begin it here,

and let compassion fly

gently to where air is clear,

and maybe, by and by,

others might come to understand,

and walk in beauty, hand in hand.p

Sylvia loves children, and peace.

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Torn Between Earth And Heaven

 

I died last night.

I was led Home by Ofhi Tobi, the white dog who is the guide of Barb's people, the Chickasaw.

Heaven is a lot like where I am now. A double wide on a desert mesa. There were dogs, and a horse named Cinnamon, and neighbours shooting off guns for the sheer joy of it. Someone brought a Carl Gustav.

There were angels. I asked one, a black man with a shaved head, "What the hell is going on?"

He replied, "That's the best question anyone's ever asked, on coming here."

I said that it all seemed so real, unlike any dream.

"That's because it is real."

My body kept trying to come back to this life, and I was torn between here and Eternity.

I don't know how many times I came back to this place, and then bounced back to Heaven.

Finally all became still, and I was breathing Earthly air. Very shaky.

Since then I can't stop crying. I don't know why. It's neither sorrow nor joy, so far as I can tell.

I can't write a sonnet right now. This had been overwhelming.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is EXPLAIN.

I can't explain the tears, and I don't want to try.

I do want to explain to you that this is, not WAS, a reality. A place beyond dreams, more real than Earthly life itself.

But how do I describe the sounds and smells and touch that are never found in dreams, and are heightened far beyond what one experiences in this world?

Words fail, here.

I just want you to know that hope is affirmed, and I don't know how.

Sylvia is glad I'm back.

How Not To Treat A Spouse (Tell His Story)

 In Vietnamese culture, one is enjoined to treat one's spouse as an honoured guest.

Well, today I didn't do that.

Precious ChiWeenie, all eight pounds of him pictured above, got off the property, and I was horrified. I can't chase a runaway dog; I can barely walk.

I called Barb at work and was really dreadfully rude. I was angry with myself for inadequately supervising the little guy, and took it out on her.

That's inexcusable.

She came home to help look, and as she pulled up to the gate, guess who was waiting for her? Yes, Precious.

The bad feelings have, for Barb, passed. She wasn't pleased with my behaviour, but understood it.

I will eventually forgive myself, but I will be watchful of my thoughts and words, more so, for now on.

And Precious will be walking on a leash for awhile.

Sylvia says, c'mon, Dad! He knows where he lives, and he proved it.

And I bit you once, when the ice cream didn't come fast enough. I got over it.

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The Subtle Danger Of Fiction

I was never that much of a fan of fiction (though I do have two novels published on Kindle, with the kind help of Carol Ashby), but recently a friend prevailed upon me to give Tom Clancy a try.

And he's good. The stories are well-thought-out, interweaving plot lines leading to a climax that is satisfying, tying up each loose end, except for some that are meant for the next book in its sequence.

But...life isn't like that, at least from the perspective of we who live ours.

Things start and stop, and leave a wake that is a question-mark on our time here.

Ordinarily, that's fine, and the purpose of reading fiction, beyond entertainment, is to try to see a kind of order, God's purpose writ small by a human author, if you will.

But sometimes we're past that, and we're dealing with the tag-ends of a life that no longer seems to be capable of following a plan, and we may therefore feel that something's gone very wrong, something that can't be fixed.

The stories become more real than our own, and better than our own.

And we feel like driftwood on the stormy wave.

And here, though it's hard, we have to fall back on God's ways not being our ways, His thoughts not being our thoughts.

Antoine de St. Exupéry said it well in Polite de Guerre (published in English as Flight to Arras):

We are individual stones in a mighty edifice, whose completed design we shall need more time and more peace to see in its proper perspective.

Our stories seem to have no arc,

no plot-line with its steady flow.

We wander sometimes the dark

through a land we do not know,

ushered onward by a fate 

sightless as Mr. Magoo,

pushing hard on every gate

which we must pull, that we go through.

But we may, in the dark of night,

when pain and fear cut to the bone,

catch the bright and fleeting sight

of Purpose beyond our own

that in time we will stand among

the heirs to Our Lord's Kingdom Come.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is THRILL.

Tom Clancy's books can be a thrill

(they're techno-thrillers, after all!),

a ride down a Death Mountain hill

into what seems a solid wall

of danger and of dreadful fate,

with pain and loss along the way,

and just before it seems too late

the hero comes to save the day,

which, when it is given thought,

is like our Christianity.

Our putrid sins, they really ought

to damn us for eternity,

but in our place the Saviour stands,

His death to place us in God's hands.

Sylvia sometimes thinks she is fortunate that she can't read.