Hey everyone try this challenge. It was fun!
Monthly Archives: February 2015
In Other Words: Finishing The Island Lady
Here is a new challenge I am taking over at Patricia’s Place. You can participate by going to…
http://patriciasplace.me/2015/02/11/13074/
Patricia has given us a quote and has asked us to write a new piece between 250 and 500 words.
Here is the quote and my newest story
Where there is great love, there are always miracles.”
Willa Cather
Finishing the Island Lady
By JE Lillie
Andre was determined to make his mark on the world. His parents were even more determined that their son would succeed in his ambition. The family moved out of the tenements in lower Cleghorn when Andre was five and found a low rent apartment in a nearby suburb. It meant commuting in a beat up old truck for Andre’s father and working in the Dollar Store for his mother but they considered the sacrifice for their son worth it all.
Andre was no genius in the classroom but there was nothing the boy couldn’t create with a paintbrush. The word “prodigy” was tossed around throughout Andre’s high school career. That and a dozen blue ribbons from around the state and a full scholarship to the Boston School of the arts made him a shoe in as one of Massachusetts up and coming artists in gallery shows around the Commonwealth.
But Andre’s mark was bigger than a name on a canvas, bigger than money in the bank. When the boy started teaching art classes at the Boys and Girls club in Lower Cleghorn he knew he had come home. He trained a dozen young men and women in the art of painting.
For his Senior project he got permission from the City to begin painting murals over several of the graffitied walls in the center. Andre was warned of the danger of painting over gang tags. When he was interviewed he told the papers he was not challenging anyone’s authority, that his only goal was to revive a love for beauty in the downtrodden village called Cleghorn.
The gang’s did not see his work as beautiful. They shot and killed Andre on a Wednesday as he was finishing the outline of a mural he called, Island Lady.
Andre’s memorial service was held at the site of the outlined portrait. A hundred artists from around the state agreed to finish the Island Lady and to paint over every tag in the city as tribute to one of their own. The broken heart of love can breed anger. Used right that anger becomes resolve. When resolve meets hope and hope meets God that opens the way for many miracles.
Share this:
It’s All Work. It’s All Play
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “First Light.”
The Daily Post asked…Remember when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.
There is this struggle I have had for years as a minister. All the areas of my life overlap. The boundaries between work and play, professional and personal are muddied by the rivers of life. It is so hard to see where one thing ends and another begins. I suppose it doesn’t help that I like my job most of the time. I suppose it also doesn’t help that I define being a pastor as a calling (something I am) rather than as a job (something I do). Finally I guess it really doesn’t help that almost all my relationships are marked or affected in some way by the church.
Here are some examples of my conundrum
1. C.cada- Work or play? I enjoy creating. I enjoy being with creative people. C.cada is a work of the church I oversee.
2. Going to dinner with friends from the church- I am J but I am also Pastor at those dinners. They are fun. I enjoy them immensely. I am still Pastor. I am still on. I know that’s more me than them. Still I don’t seem to be able to shut this pastor thing off…ever.
3. Family Skate Day- I don’t go for the skating. I go for the food (which I really love by the way). I go because I am on staff at the church.
I write a lot about this in my journals and I wonder am I ever just a pastor or am I ever just J? It’s all work. It’s all play. And maybe just maybe that’s OK.
Share this:
A Word A Week: Play
Well here’s a challenge I haven’t taken in a while:
Sue gives us a word a week to photograph. This week her chosen word is: PLAY
See how others met the challenge at…
https://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-play/
Here is how I saw it.
And the graceful aires of the violin playing over the fields at Blarney Castle.
You can play dead.
You can be in a play
You can even play in a band.
Always remember… “When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity. “
Linda Naiman
As I said earlier today, it’s all work and it’s all play if you enjoy it!
Share this:
Training for Reigning
Will you agree to enter a season of training.
My pastor often says are you training for reigning? So are you in training? Are your spiritual ears and eyes open? You need to be on guard, for the enemy is always lurking around ready to pounce in a moment’s notice.
This is one of the scriptures the Lord keeps bringing to my mind;
Psalm 144 (NLT)
A psalm of David.
1 Praise the Lord, who is my rock.
He trains my hands for war
and gives my fingers skill for battle.
2 He is my loving ally and my fortress,
my tower of safety, my rescuer.
He is my shield, and I take refuge in him.
He makes the nations[a] submit to me.
I don’t know about you but for me the enemy seems to be around every corner I turn. No sooner do I come…
View original post 218 more words
Share this:
Longing For the Isle Of Hope
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev. 21:1-4
This song has been running through my mind for the last couple of days. Every time I play it I find myself almost collapsing in tears (which for those who know me is saying something). The song is but an echo. I don’t weep for the past or for the glory of a bygone America. I am weeping out of a longing for the real “Isle of Hope” Christians are heading towards. But the echo in the song is enough to get the tear ducts working.
Lately I have found my hunger for that place called Heaven increasing. Perhaps its the growing state of hunger and pain I see in the world around me. Perhaps its just the consuming desire I have to see the King of that far off land face to face. Whatever it is a chord has been struck and a certain sense of homesickness is resonating within me. I have only a desire to see Jesus and to bring many people with me to that meeting!
Even so Lord Jesus come quickly!
Is there a song that stirs deep feelings of longing for eternity inside of you?
Share this:
Share Your World 2015 Week 6
It’s that time of the week again!
See what others shared from their worlds at
Share Your World – 2015 Week #6
And the questions of the week from Cee are…
What was the last time you went to a new place?
The last time I went somewhere I had never been before was in October when I went to Ireland.
Me at the Rock of Cashel
If you were or are a writer do you prefer writing short stories, poems or novels, other? And what type of genre would you prefer?
I love writing all of the above. One of my favorite exercises here in the blogosphere is to write a complete story in a hundred words or so. I haven’t been able to practice in a bit but I love to take the Friday Fictioneers challenge at Rochelle’s blog here
https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/
I am not currently in a poetry phase but I do have books of the stuff. Right now I am working on a novel I hope to have published soon.
Out of your five senses (touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing) which is your favorite?
I think hearing is my favorite sense. I would be very sad if I could no longer hear the whisper of the winds through the trees or the rush of the waves along the shore. The world is full of music I would miss dearly if I could not hear it. There is something powerful and even life changing in the beat of the drum and the cry of the whistle.
If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you’d find leading a more satisfying life than yours?
Not many. I am growing more and more content everyday as I see the purposes of God coming to their fulfillment in my life.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am really glad I got up through chapter 19 sent off to the editors/publishers last week. Hopefully this week I will finish the book.
Share this:
Going Back
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”
The Daily Post has asked us to…Tell about a sensation — a taste, a smell, a piece of music — that transports you back to childhood.
As a child I spent nearly every Friday night at my grandmother’s house on Packard’s Pond in Orange MA. The house was a converted camp resting in the shadow of Tully Mountain. My grandparents had settled there as they neared retirement. It was all pine trees and mountain air.
On Friday nights my father would take me and my sister over to a ham dinner and then on Saturday my grandmother would wash clothes and do the grocery shopping around Saturday morning cartoons (my shows) and Saturday afternoon bowling (my grandfather’s shows). She often threw open all the windows on Saturday (except in the dead of winter) to air the camp out.
To this day the scent of a pine candle (the smell of the lake air), the smell of cilantro (the scent of clean laundry) or the fragrance of cloves (a cooking ham dinner) drive me back to the days of my boyhood.
Share this:
ANOTHER SETBACK! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Don’t give up. Rejoice!
Share this:
Ready or not, here I come!
Being ready is being alive. Refusing to get ready because life is to be lived is nothing but dying.
I remember as a youngster playing “hide and seek.” And whenever I was “it,” I would count to 100 as fast as I could and then shout, “Ready or not, here I come. When I was very young and doing the hiding, I wasn’t always “ready,” and was not yet hiding.
Way back in 1969, Larry Norman included “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” on his “Miscellaneous” album (Remember those vinyl discs?). HIs words then have been applicable since the beginning of the fall of man.
Life was filled with guns and war
And all of us got trampled on the floor
I wish we’d all been ready
The children died, the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we’d all been ready
There’s no time to change your mind
The son has come and you’ve been left behind
A man and…
View original post 530 more words
Lillie-Put 