by George Bilgere
I remember as a child
watching my fader take out the trash
at the frozen crack of dawn, cursing
as he dragged the stinking cans to the curb,
and thinking, that's not something
I'm ever going to do.
In other ways I was a model son,
standing at the mirror as he shaved,
dabbing the warm cream on my cheek,
dreaming of a razor
and whiskers of my very own.
Watching him light up
as he read the Sunday paper,
one eye squinted against smoke
and bad news, had me reading the funnies
before I could even read, my eye
squinted against nothing.
And the deft, one-handed way
he straightened his fedora's brim,
while at the same time
adjusting the coordinates
of rake and tilt,
makes me regret that the hat,
like my father, has vanished,
along with the strop and razor,
and lathery bowl of curds.
Even smoking, and the Sunday paper
are on their way out.
These are the losses I'm mourning
this morning as I drag the stinking
trash cans to the curb.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Quote of the Day
Society at large cannot make up its mind about men. Having spent the last 30 years redefining masculinity into something more sensitive, safe, manageable and, well, feminine, it now berates men for not being men. . . . "Where are all the real men?" is regular fare for talk shows and new books. "You asked them to be women", I want to say.
- John Eldredge - Wild at Heart
- John Eldredge - Wild at Heart
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Quote of the Day
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering and you find that you have excluded life itself.
- CS Lewis
- CS Lewis
Friday, July 26, 2013
A Monorhyme for the Shower
by Dick Davis
Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond—and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear
Twenty-odd years have turned to air;
Now she's the girl I didn't dare
Approach, ask out, much less declare
My love to, mired in young despair.
Childbearing, rows, domestic care—
All the prosaic wear and tear
That constitute the life we share—
Slip from her beautiful and bare
Bright body as, made half aware
Of my quick surreptitious stare,
She wrings the water from her hair
And turning smiles to see me there.
Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond—and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear
Twenty-odd years have turned to air;
Now she's the girl I didn't dare
Approach, ask out, much less declare
My love to, mired in young despair.
Childbearing, rows, domestic care—
All the prosaic wear and tear
That constitute the life we share—
Slip from her beautiful and bare
Bright body as, made half aware
Of my quick surreptitious stare,
She wrings the water from her hair
And turning smiles to see me there.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Quote of the Day
Christ works on us through nature, books, our bodies, & sometimes experiences which seem (at the time) anti-Christian.
- CS Lewis
- CS Lewis
Quote of the Day
Human beings can't make one another really happy for long, you can't love someone fully until you love God.
- CS Lewis
- CS Lewis
Monday, July 22, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Quote of the Day
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Gil Bailie
- Gil Bailie
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Come On Home
http://youtu.be/7d4LQR7kawg
Dark clouds are comin' like an army
Soon the sky will open up and disarm me
You will go just like you've gone before
One sad soldier off to war, enemies that only you can see.
Dishes stacked, the table cleared
It's always like the scene of the last supper here
You speak so cryptically that's not news to me
The flood is here it will carry you
And I've got work to do.
Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
There is fire there is lust
Some will trade it all for someone they could trust
There's a bag of silver for a box of nails
It's so simple the betrayal
Though it's known to change the world and what's to come.
Just come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Don't you recognize them anymore
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
There's the given and the expected
I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected
Is this for better is this for worse
You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.
I hear the owl in the night
I realize that some things never are made right
By some will we string together here
Days to months and months to years
What if everything we have adds up to nothing.
Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
That Reminds Me
by Ogden Nash
Just imagine yourself seated on a shadowy terrace,
And beside you is a girl who stirs you more strangely than an
heiress,
It is a summer evening at its most superb,
And the moonlight reminds you that To Love is an active verb.
And your hand clasps hers, which rests there without shrinking,
And after a silence fraught with romance you ask her what she is
thinking,
And she starts and returns from the moon-washed distances to the
shadowy veranda,
And says, Oh I was wondering how many bamboo shoots a day it
takes to feed a baby Giant Panda.
Or you stand with her on a hilltop and gaze on a winter sunset,
And everything is as starkly beautiful as a page from Sigrid Undset,
And your arm goes round her waist and you make an avowal
which for masterfully marshaled emotional content might have
been a page of Ouida's or Thackeray's,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I forgot to or-
der the limes for the Daiquiris.
Or in a twilight drawing room you have just asked the most mo-
mentous of questions,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I think this
little table would look better where that little table is, but
then where would that little table go, have you any sugges-
tions?
And that's the way they go around hitting below our belts;
It isn't that nothing is sacred to them, it's just that at the Sacred
Moment they are always thinking of something else.
Just imagine yourself seated on a shadowy terrace,
And beside you is a girl who stirs you more strangely than an
heiress,
It is a summer evening at its most superb,
And the moonlight reminds you that To Love is an active verb.
And your hand clasps hers, which rests there without shrinking,
And after a silence fraught with romance you ask her what she is
thinking,
And she starts and returns from the moon-washed distances to the
shadowy veranda,
And says, Oh I was wondering how many bamboo shoots a day it
takes to feed a baby Giant Panda.
Or you stand with her on a hilltop and gaze on a winter sunset,
And everything is as starkly beautiful as a page from Sigrid Undset,
And your arm goes round her waist and you make an avowal
which for masterfully marshaled emotional content might have
been a page of Ouida's or Thackeray's,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I forgot to or-
der the limes for the Daiquiris.
Or in a twilight drawing room you have just asked the most mo-
mentous of questions,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I think this
little table would look better where that little table is, but
then where would that little table go, have you any sugges-
tions?
And that's the way they go around hitting below our belts;
It isn't that nothing is sacred to them, it's just that at the Sacred
Moment they are always thinking of something else.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
If I Were a Dog
by Richard Shelton
I would trot down this road sniffing
on one side and then the other
peeing a little here and there
wherever I felt the urge
having a good time what the hell
saving some because it's a long road
but since I'm not a dog
I walk straight down the road
trying to get home before dark
if I were a dog and I had a master
who beat me I would run away
and go hungry and sniff around
until I found a master who loved me
I could tell by his smell and I
would lick his face so he knew
or maybe it would be a woman
I would protect her we could go
everywhere together even down this
dark road and I wouldn't run from side
to side sniffing I would always
be protecting her and I would stop
to pee only once in awhile
sometimes in the afternoon we could
go to the park and she would throw
a stick I would bring it back to her
each time I put the stick at her feet
I would say this is my heart
and she would say I will make it fly
but you must bring it back to me
I would always bring it back to her
and to no other if I were a dog
I would trot down this road sniffing
on one side and then the other
peeing a little here and there
wherever I felt the urge
having a good time what the hell
saving some because it's a long road
but since I'm not a dog
I walk straight down the road
trying to get home before dark
if I were a dog and I had a master
who beat me I would run away
and go hungry and sniff around
until I found a master who loved me
I could tell by his smell and I
would lick his face so he knew
or maybe it would be a woman
I would protect her we could go
everywhere together even down this
dark road and I wouldn't run from side
to side sniffing I would always
be protecting her and I would stop
to pee only once in awhile
sometimes in the afternoon we could
go to the park and she would throw
a stick I would bring it back to her
each time I put the stick at her feet
I would say this is my heart
and she would say I will make it fly
but you must bring it back to me
I would always bring it back to her
and to no other if I were a dog
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Visions Become Reality
by Oswald Chambers
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . —Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . —Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
Quote of the Day
Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies
- Nelson Mandela
- Nelson Mandela
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Quote of the Day
"Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift, To that of life and an immortal soul!"
- James Thomson
- James Thomson
Happy 4th
The union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
- James Madison
- James Madison
Quote of the Day
"We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees"
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Quote Of the Day
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
- Oswald Chambers
- Oswald Chambers
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