Jonathots Daily Blog
(3767)
1. STOP insisting America is better than other people of other nations
2. START promoting equality between the genders and among the races
3. CONTINUE growing in tenderness and appreciation for the application of freedom in the lives of all citizens
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3766)
by Jonathan Richard Cring
The world has tribulation
On this we can agree
A fretful habitation
Is thrust on you and me
So faith begins
To sprout some fear
And nagging sins
Rob us of cheer
“Love one another”
The Master’s request
Our sister and brother
We fail at our best
The sea is raging
The wind continues to blow
Hampered by aging
Not certain where to go
And “peace be still”
The Carpenter’s command
Has lost some will
With our feeble demand
Yet in the middle
Of the festering crazy
There is always a little
If I’m not too lazy
Just a piece
Of Jesus to be
A joyous release
Of him and me
A chance to remember
A promise of December
Unto us a child is given
The answer to Earth from heaven
So be not afraid
My precious friend
All things God has made
He’s with us ’til the end.
Today’s guest reader is Thomas, from Georgia. Thomas is a writer and blogger in his own right.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3765)
The Bushy Broom
(Sweepin’ those gals off their feet)
The Magic Marker
(Probably put on with a magic marker)
The Caterpillar
(Creepy, with no possibility of turning into a butterfly)
The Dictator
(Will all hairs please report to the middle of the lip?)
The Sparse Farce
(Time to face it. You can’t grow a mustache)
Jonathots Daily Blog
(3764)
There are matters that are too important to ignore or leave to chance. These are salient moments.
Grace is a pardon.
Mercy is a second chance.
Grace is considered “unconditional love.”
Mercy is love that helps us change our condition.
Grace covers a multitude of sins.
Mercy gives us a shot at being free of sin.
Grace is given to the humble.
Mercy tolerates us while we work on our humility.
Grace is a gift from God.
Mercy is a gift from our brothers and sisters.
Grace does not critique.
Mercy believes we can do better.
By grace we are saved through faith.
Mercy sustains us through our doubt.
So here’s your salient moment:
Be thankful for the grace of God, but live your life like it’s not there.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3762)
Grateful he was.
Matthew sat quietly in his overstuffed and overpriced first-class seat on the midnight flight from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas.
The plane was dark. It was quiet. Most of the passengers had taken their tiny element of a sleeping pill and disappeared into slumber.
That was also true of Leonora, who quickly explained that she was exhausted from the audition and needed to get some solid airplane z’s on the trip because she had a meeting the next morning with the symphony coalition, to discuss health benefits.
Her excuse, like every performance in her life, was well-rehearsed and inadequately presented.
As Matthew had gotten to know her, he liked her less and less, and so found himself burying his interest and passions into their sexual adventure.
She was opinionated. Matthew had always viewed himself as open-minded–easy to get along with–but in her presence felt defensive. He hated it when she insisted he start calling her “Leo,” because she viewed herself, in the realm of business, intellect and art, as a lioness.
“You are what you claim to be,” she mouthed.
Matthew nodded, quite certain that many claims were being made every day by mortals which made the heavens laugh.
What really troubled him was when she started calling him “M.”
Just the letter “M.”
When he asked her why she was doing that, she said, “I’m encouraging you to grow. You need to realize that you’re on a journey to fill out your name.”
Matthew didn’t know what the hell that meant, but was in no mood to have it explained further and end up with more dents in his body work. He was also afraid that if she started in trying to become his psychoanalyst, he would have to be more forthcoming and tell her that she was much less than she presumed.
Her oboe playing had never been great, but had become even less proficient as she started to complain about the fellow-members of her quintet and the unwillingness of the symphony conductor to listen to her suggestions on seating and tone.
She viewed Matthew as an ignoramus, even though he had spent many years enjoying classical music, and had a very good friend at the university who was an oboist. Matthew kept his mouth closed except when they were kissing.
It was especially difficult that day, when she met him at the airport, explaining that the audition was long, she had to wait, and then it turned out that she had some sort of microscopic, tiny split in her reed, which prohibited her from gaining the full height and depth of her range. She requested another time to audition but the committee refused. So she failed because they were inconsiderate.
Matthew listened to her rail for a solid hour–against the walls, the furniture, the paint and the chairs that surrounded her, blaming everything she possibly could for her setback–except for the fact that she was insufficient for the moment.
It was the strangest relationship of Matthew’s life. There was a deep-rooted part of him that loved her madly; an exotic jungle passion that nearly left him breathless. But as a human being, she had selected the portions of intelligence that she revered, while ignoring the virtues that make such knowledge applicable.
Matthew remained silent.
Sitting in the darkness of the airplane, glancing over at his sleeping lover, he began to cry. It actually turned into a tiny sob, which he hoped nobody else heard.
He was so embarrassed. He was ashamed–but also enraged, because here he was, with a defunct liver in his body, battling for his life, simultaneously apologizing for breathing.
How in the hell had it gotten so complicated? What was he going to do?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his own remedy for insomnia–a tiny flask of a brandy which included a shot or two fo sherry. He downed the remainder of the contents and put his head back. Sleep still refused to come–so he cried.
Matthew finally dozed off, with tears streaming down his face.
*****
The following morning, in Washington, D.C., Soos decided to get started on her project.
She thought she had the easiest assignment of all. Michael Hinston, who had been a Congressman, wining and dining lobbyists who were salivating for his vote, now had a humble one-room efficiency at the YMCA. His marriage to the Lutheran minister had been annulled when she discovered all the trials and tribulations chasing him, threatening to destroy his life. She loved him, but she still wanted out.
So he was alone with his twin bed.
Soos called Michael and he agreed to meet with her at ten o’clock A.M., at a little diner he claimed had the best waffles and scrapple on the East Coast. Soos explained she had never eaten scrapple–avoiding it because the ingredients seemed to be the rear-end of every barnyard creature. But Michael said she would probably enjoy this batch.
Arriving at the diner, they found a booth in the back. They embraced–the kind of embrace that merged “old college friends” with some tenderness of man and woman, and a huge immersion in fellow-travelers of faith.
As Michael pulled away he had tears in his eyes.
“Why are you crying?” asked Soos.
Michael chuckled. “Because I can–and I am the luckiest man in the world to be able to cry this morning.”
Soos took the next ten minutes to explain to Michael what had transpired with the abduction and the request made to her–to contact him, the goal being some secret discovery about his involvement, which was beyond her comprehension.
“Well, since neither one of us know what it means, or have any idea of the significance, I think it’s good that we came to eat waffles,” said Michael.
And eat they did. Soos ended up actually enjoying the scrapple, though she thought it was a little salty.
They just talked. It was a conversation that would be difficult to explain to a stranger, so filled with tenderness that it would always be remembered as priceless.
“There was a time in my life,” Michael said, “when if you had told me that some organization or guy had chosen me for special attention, I would have assumed it was just great foresight on their part. I wasn’t just arrogant–I was religious about my arrogance. I actually believed that God wanted me to be the best father in the world. The best husband. The best extra-marital lover. The best Congressman. And of course, the best cheater in Washington, D.C. Sometimes when you’re going for the best you forget that it has to begin with good. You know–good, better, best?”
Soos smiled. She had always loved Michael because he was clever. Unfortunately, cleverness could have dangerous blow-back.
Michael continued. “I almost lost everything. Let me edit my own statement. I did lose everything–but I never actually had it. I just pretended. I pretended so hard that, honest to God, I could not imagine what was happening when my first wife left me for a Lesbian and my second wife left me because I was a criminal. Everybody leaves me.”
He grinned. “And I really can’t argue with them. They’ve got really good reasons.”
“So I don’t know why anybody would want me to do anything. I did fix the radiator in my room, so when winter comes I’ll be warm. That was pretty nifty.”
Michael paused.
“Will you talk to me about Matthew?” he asked. “I don’t think I ever loved a man as much as I love Matthew. I don’t think I ever told him that. I was afraid he would make fun of me.”
Soos giggled and spit out a little bit of her coffee. “He would have.”
Michael chuckled. They sat for a moment. Soos reached over and took his hand.
“He’s dying,” she said.
Michael lifted his head, shocked.
“Not quickly,” she explained. “But his liver is shot to hell, and gradually, he’s just poisoning himself. “And he has a new girlfriend that has the personality of a prickly pear.”
Michael laughed. “What you’re saying is that she is difficult to sit down on and talk to.”
For some reason, Soos found that statement hilarious. She laughed and snorted, gaining the attention of half the diner. A dirty look from the proprietor finally made her sober up.
“I don’t want to get you kicked out of your favorite diner,” she said.
Michael waved her off. “Forget about it. I waffle on my favorite diner.”
He smiled with the innocence of a ten-year-old boy. “What can I do for Matthew?”
Soos considered and then injected, “Got a black market liver in your pocket?”
Michael crinkled his brow. “No,” he said, “but I have a liver in my body.”
“Don’t you need that?” mocked Soos.
“Yeah, but not all of it. I could give him a piece of mine.”
Soos shook her head. “That’s ridiculous, Michael. Anyway, you probably wouldn’t be a match.”
“But what if I was?” queried Michael. “What if I held the key to Matthew’s life the way Jesus held the key for mine?”
Soos groaned, a little disgusted. “So now you think you’re a savior?”
“No,” said Michael. “That job is filled. It just seems like if you could save someone, why not go ahead and do it?”
A lightbulb went off in Soos’s head.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Is it possible that your part in this, whatever…mission…is to help Matthew and bring him to Jesus?”
Michael teared up again. He took the final bite of waffle laying on his plate, seemingly deserted. He chewed, swallowed, and looked Soos in the eye.
“My dear sister,” he said slowly, “I can’t imagine a greater calling.”
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3761)
Astonished.
It is the word that Saint Matthew selected, in his Gospel, to describe the reaction of the audience which heard Jesus of Nazareth share the Sermon on the Mount.
Some synonyms for astonished:
Astonished is a word that combines impressed and alarmed.
It is the way Matthew perceived the mood of the hearers.
He added that they felt that Jesus had more “authority” than the scribes. As you probably know, the scribes were not the Pharisees. The scribes were the local ministers in charge of writing and reading the Law of Moses.
The style they imparted in sharing those ancient words was: read, said, dead. When the scribes read, they said what was exactly there–as dead as they possibly could, so as not to add too much flavor.
So as you can see, it was not a roaring accolade, to say that Jesus exceeded the knowledge or enthusiasm of the scribes.
The importance to the verse is that the people departing that day were “astonished.” What do people do when they’re astonished?
On the way home, as the afterglow disappears, they begin to pick at the corners of great ideas until they disassemble them, convincing themselves that these principles are implausible.
How do we know this is true?
Most of them do not follow Jesus down the hill, but instead, go to their homes, where they justify their disbelief.
Meanwhile, Jesus, who has just delivered the most radical, truthful and practical message ever heard on Earth, descends the hill, and is greeted by one leper, who asks for healing–who had probably missed the sermon.
After twenty-two years of traveling with my dear friend Janet Clazzy, to thousands of churches, I will tell you this:
It is very possible to stir up a congregation, and even their local shepherd, to the point of astonishment.
You can raise dead spirits that haven’t been alive since Grandma and Grandpa sat in the pews.
You can get people to clap, think, react, smile, and even do their best impersonation of loving one another. But you can’t go home with them.
And home is where they rationalize all their present actions–to avoid the horror of repentance.
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 | Anonymous on Cracked 5 … August 7th,… |
| Anonymous on G-Poppers … July 27th,… |
| Steve Kimbrell on PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stag… |
 | Maxine Mantooth on Cracked 5 … July 31st,… |
 | tlneely1 on PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stag… |
| Maxine Mantooth on PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stag… |
| Anonymous on PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stag… |
| Anonymous on PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stag… |
| Anonymous on Salient…July 9th, 2018 |
| Anonymous on Cracked 5 … July 3rd,… |
A voice writing in the wilderness
G-Poppers … August 10th, 2018
She had no basis for this conviction–just, shall we say, a hope.
But the difficulty with such thinking is that if blessings can be passed along through genetic code, then so can cursings–and G-Pop does not believe we’re all prepared to go back to a time when we insisted that certain people, families and whole cultures were condemned and alienated by the heavens.
G-Pop has noticed that even some of his own children are being swayed by the commercials for ancestry identification, somehow thinking that finding someone who lived centuries ago, who is linked by family, might grant credibility to them in this present hour.
There are only two things that affect us, and two things alone–and it is not our DNA. For after all, people overcome and work with their genes all the time.
We are actually guided by two forces:
1. What have I learned?
2. What do I fear?
And often when one is able to track down one’s fears, a path can be traced to something which was learned and is found to be errant–and can therefore be discarded, allowing for a new enlightening idea.
When a study is made on what we have learned, we can often see when and where our fears crept in, and we can highlight those things that might trigger anxiety and timidity.
All of G-Pop’s children want to be independent–until something goes wrong. Then they want to explain why their fears kept them from success, as they attempt to conjure the spirits of the past that might energize them through their “double helix.”
It is foolish–a sign of a generation that has lost sight of the joy of taking responsibility for one’s own life.
G-Pop does care what his ancestors did. They’re not here.
G-Pop looks at the world they left, ridiculous notions they tolerated, and warns his soul to function off the impetus of his own talents and faith.
G-Pop offers this piece of advice:
God gave you a life.
It is yours.
Do something with it.
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on August 10, 2018 at 2:52 pm Leave a CommentTags: advice, Africa, ancestors, ancestry.com, blessings, commercials, cultures, cursed, cursings, DNA, double helix, enlightening, errant, fears, heavens, Independence, learned, queen, talent