faith

So I’ve had a pretty good week at work.  There’s been some drama between some of the staff. But work overall has been good.   I like that customers are getting to know me and often give me a friendly greeting as I give them one!  It’s a good job with some (usually) minor frustrations.  One of the things that drives me crazy at work is the sheer amount of the waste we produce. 

And so I took some steps to help deal with that.  Asking about taking things to the food bank or to our local community kitchen.  That worked well but didn’t really deal with the HUGE waste from departments I wasn’t part of.  But about five months or so ago a program started called Second Harvest. This is a program that helps community kitchens and foodbanks claim some of the waste from grocery stores.   So I’d have to say that 90% of our waste gets used now!  Isn’t that cool?

The Waste We Produce

The Waste we produce it’s clear to see
Dented cans, dropped goods,
items past due,
shipped without labels,
or short dated, or
damaged when received.

What do to so with all
these items? Toss them in
the garbage the only recourse?

Oh look, help arrives
a person despising waste
having to earn trust,
can bunnies be fed?j

Oh, they can!
and is it possible that
the foodbank can use?

Oh, this girl can deliver it?
No added expense?
oh… dry goods be saved!

Second Harvest, allows stores
to save money as weight of goods
feeds families.

Waste from customers returning
items that can’t again be sold.
Waste from customers putting unwanted
items in places not suited.
Jam in the freezer?
Cheese with the cereal?
Meat with green onions?
Oh dear, oh my!

It’s amazing sometimes the waste
that customers make, and it causes me to
wonder, why not just bring the unwanted
with you to cash? We’ll happily return it
for you, no questions asked!

But then I have to stop and think
about the waste in my own life, and
how I like to try to hide the mistake in
judgement made.

You know, like when I lose time
doom scrolling instead
of taking time to talk with the Lord.
Or when I eat mindlessly,
instead of engaging in something better,
or just going to bed! 🙂

So instead of bringing that failure
to the one who can help me change,
I pretend it didn’t happen,
or hide it away, as if once
hidden no one will notice. That
HE himself won’t notice.

I… fool no one.
Customers… fool no one.

Hiding bad decisions just is…
… part of the waste we produce
don’t you find?

Let’s stop being producers
of the waste!

So for some reason, when I saw the word prompt of Far this week, this song come sail away, come sail away with me popped into my head.  As I was writing the words down I thought hmm…. I should look them up to see if they are correct.  Well, let’s just say I was COMPLETELY wrong beyond the basic words and some of the overall ideas.  🙂  Nevertheless… Come sail away with me… Let’s see how far we can go! 

Come Sail Away

Come sail with me, come sail away with me.
How far away, how far away we could be.
Come sail away come sail away with me….
We’ll head out now, just o’er the deep blue sea.

The waters deep, and the birds are flying high,
The grass is green I think I aught’a fly
Up into the deep blue glistening sky
up where the elephants and zebras roam
perhaps that where I’ll call my home…

NOW I TOLD YOU I was SO VERY WRONG.

….

I wonder sometimes how far
an imagination can take a person.

When I was in my twenties I was
convinced that God had a book in me he
wanted to bring out. I thought it would
be a work of fiction, but….

Over the years I’ve learned that perhaps
a work of fiction is not quite in the
cards for me. Figuring out how to describe
human emotions and people interactions
is sometimes a bit of a struggle since
in real life people often confound me.

But poetry…
I am more and more trying to figure
out a way to use poetry as
a way to influence the world.

There I can just talk
and change syntax
or word phrasing or how the word
simply appears on the page,
or throw in a new word or three….
and occasionally point people to the
maker of words.

So what say though,
how far might you sail
if you could follow a dream?

God Speaks

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Matthew 19:23-26

²³ And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁶ But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

 

It took a bit of thinking while I was at work today to come up with a title for this five minute Friday word prompt.   The Pattern of Insanity, with pattern being the word prompt.   I suppose most of this poem will be in response to what feels to me the insanity of this current time we live in.  I’m feeling a bit tired of the over sensitivities of people and how often they just want things stopped as opposed to working harder to solve the issue. 

The Pattern of Insanity

Sometimes talking to people
is a bit of a challenge
the over-sensitivity means
that everyone gets so offended
over the smallest of things
and so sometimes it seems that
the world is going just a touch bit insane.

How can it be that
just because you can’t do something
that it means you need to be
disappointed that you can’t
participate in a voluntary challenge?
And you are so unhappy about
your perceived lack of inclusivity that
you call for it to be not allowed.

This without doing the work to
see if there is a way that you could
make the challenge work for you!
So in essence, giving up before giving yourself
a chance.
And then of course, there are those
that will defend their actions,
likening it to active discrimination
against another body of people.

And so I wonder,
where does the insanity end?

The pattern of insanity is seen

Yet, I have to admit,
as I gave this word Pattern
another thought, particularly since
I combined it with the word insanity.

It’s a bit of a pattern of insanity
I sometimes see in myself.
Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot
before I give myself a chance to
take a step forward.
I find someway to discourage
myself from even trying.

So I guess the insanity I see in
others, I can see in myself too.
The solution is recognizing it right?
And sometimes I can do that for
myself and other times it
takes a loved one, or occasionally
a disgruntled stranger to offer a
boot in the pants to get me out of my rut.

So how do we help this insanity stop
in the lives of the “but you can’t do this
because I can’t take part!” people?
The people who are just making it hard
for others to want to do anything that
would be a fun challenge
for a whole host of other people.

How do we support that challenge givers,
and challenge the “whiners/nay-sayers”
to work harder to find a good solution?
Or perhaps to ask better questions, such as,
how can I be supported in this challenge?
Can anyone help me problem solve instead of the
cry to shut it all down?
How we help people recognize that they
are shutting themselves down
before they even try?

I don’t really know,
but somehow we need to
keep trying yes?

God Speaks

Matthew 7:1-5

“Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Luke 6:36-37

³⁷ “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; ³⁸ give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Ephesians 4:11-16

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 

¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

So I’m sitting here very early on a Monday morning pondering the word store.  It’s our Five minute Friday word of the week and I’ve been too tired to consider it all weekend.   I missed it last week and may at some point right a post for the word turn.  But today, today let’s ponder the word Store.   I got to thinking about a sermon yesterday and how within the pages of the bible there is stored up treasure.  Sometimes we need help to find that treasure you know?

Why am I up so early?  I have work today and a lad who stayed up most of the night.  Studying, preparing, doing the whole school thing, and realizing too late that his mom is a light sleeper. The bag under my eyes have grown rather large.  I asked him this morning to do some problem solving into how he can stay up if he needs to, and yet allow me to get the rest I need because this situation isn’t tenable. 

Stored up treasure

Yesterday’s sermon in church was on
2 Corinthians 4:1-6. Pastor spoke on how
God is the light and the
‘god of this age’ is a master manipulator
and closes off the eyes of the mind.

When he does so, people can’t see truth,
they can’t see the glory of God that
is in everything surrounding them, hence
they truly live in darkness.
a darkness built on deception.

And yet God
God is the light
the very glory we see about us
in the smallest of things, and
in the biggest of things.

So Paul when he preached to the people
wasn’t worried about if his message
would reach people.
He knew that God could reach into
the darkest of souls (after all,
God completely changed Paul’s life)
so he did what he was supposed to do.
He preached Christ and him crucified.
He preached God and his gloriousness.

A heart comforted

And so I sat there in silence
munching on my mix I bring to help me
keep focused.
and my mother’s heart was comforted.
I so want my boy to see the truth of
who God is. To worry constantly for his
eternal future no longer.
But God took Paul.
And man who sincerely thought he was right
a brilliant man (by my reckoning at least)
and completely turned him around.

So like Paul, I need to worry less.
Fussing will get me no where but resentful
of God for not hurrying things along.
I just need to do my part.
Read books to help him think.
Postulate questions that even if he shuts
me down might sit in his brain a bit.
and pray, to pray fervently, through scripture,
through the prayers of the faithful, and through
a mom’s observations into the life of her young man.

And perhaps, just perhaps if I do that.
My internal fretting will ease, and
perhaps my son might have that light of God start
to seep back into his life, just a bit more.

So when they talk about the
stored up treasure in the bible,
sometimes you just need a person of God
to remind you of the light that God is.
and that light, always, always dispels darkness
and deception can’t hide forever.
Deception doesn’t win.

And God would speak

2 Corinthians 4:1-6

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. ² But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Oh, what can I do with the word left?   So many options of which way this simple four letter word can go.   As I’ve stopped to ponder the many definitions of left my heart sees hope, and possibility, while at the same time seeing loss.   It’s hard sometimes to see the hope we have as believers and yet grieve the loss of what that hope means.  Such a convoluted life sometimes…..  

Many definitions of Left

One left today, one of a group
of three available. He left to join
a young couple in their home in the big city.
I mentioned to my hubby how I find it
interesting that when Asian who truly speak
their home tongue, when pick up one of my
bunnies, they intensely examine the face of
the bunny. Whereas folks of other cultures
or backgrounds tend to look at colour, or type.

My dad was left-handed
and told me stories of how
that was treated when he was a child
and it bothered me greatly.
Why punish a boy for having a different
hand dominant from yours?
My hubby is left-handed as well which
creates little differences in being other
than seating issues at functions.
For a while I thought my boy might be left-handed
from how he handled himself as a child, but
he is not, yet he’s a thinker like his dad.
I know that I play chess better if I play
left-handed, though indeed I am a righty?
So what does that say?

Are you from the far left?
This question was raised by a person giving
a run down on why they won’t hire someone who
puts their pronouns on their resume. Her assumptions
are they they are from the far left, and
as such they will be problem makers and
cause too much strife within the workplace,
due to a poor work ethic and making everything
about them, ergo they are unhireable.

Any other definitions?

“Let’s go left today”, I said,
as hubby and I were returning home
from a service he preached at.
“Let’s see where this road takes us.
You think we’ll still get home okay?”
Hubby turned left and said “not like
we’re in any hurry are we? We can do
the scenic route.”
Sometimes it’s nice to randomly
take a left or a right and just spend
confined time with each other.

I was reminded the other day listening
to a sermon that we have a hope for the future,
that those who believe in God are part of
his glorious inheritance. We won’t be
left behind when the heaven and the earth
are made new again.
But then my heart grieves for those who have
been fooled by the wiles of the devil.
Those who think “I can call myself Christian,
while not fully believing in God”. Or those who
have bought the devil’s lies of evolution, bad things
happening to good people, and that the bible
itself isn’t honest.
They will be left behind, and my heart weeps
for their loss.

God speaks

Isaiah 66:22-23

“For as the new heavens and the new earth
    that I make
shall remain before me, says the Lord,
    so shall your offspring and your name remain.
²³ From new moon to new moon,
    and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares the Lord.

2 Peter 3:8-10

⁸ But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.