The Daily Post has challenged us to show our audiences what is going on RIGHT NOW.
Click what is underlined above to see the world of nowishness around the globe.
It is a season of highs and lows. Christmas pagents. Christmas banquets. Christmas sermons. Christmas prayer circles. Tonight I have a Christmas funeral and then tomorrow I will preach Christmas Eve.
THE SECRET KEEPER has released our 16th writing prompt. This week our poetic forms are:
Haiku (5 – 7 – 5)
Tanka (5 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7)
Shadorma (3 – 5 – 3 – 3 – 7 – 5)
six lines – no rhymes – multiple stanzas [your choice] – just follow meter
Nonet (9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1) progression downward of syllables
Cinquain (2 – 4 – 6 – 8 – 2) five line poem on any theme with the earlier mentioned syllable pattern
Our buzz words are: | COMFORT | HEAD | SPACE | MELT | WICKED |
After you have read and made your comments on my Nonet please check out the other submissions at the underlined link above.
While They Slept
by JE Lillie
“Comfort! Comfort my people!” He said.
Space melted time and memory.
Spirits slumbered. Sleepy saints
Mistook the Living Head
For just another
Among wicked
Masses bent
To a
Cross.
This weekend was our Special Touch Disabilities Ministry Christmas Party. It was hosted by Bread Of Life Church in Westminster MA. Over a hundred folks from the disabled community came together to worship and fellowship . Here are some pics.
Preaching about love, joy, peace and hope.
Guests at the dinner table
Christmas greetings
Praying together.
This piece is written in response to Patricia’s IN OTHER WORDS CHALLENGE. You can check out the other posts in the challenge by clicking on the underlined link and following the little blue frog.
The quote of the week is…
“The Christmas tree is the dot on the “i”.”
Frank Taylor
Take It Out On the Tree
By JE Lillie
Things that send you over the deep end. Straws that break camels’ backs. Mole hills that become mountains. It’s the story of my life!
It is never life’s tragedies that break my spirit. I can handle the heart attacks, the sudden deaths and the out-of-nowhere divorces. Personal bankruptcy or the thought of national economic collapse don’t even make me bat an eye.
But let me burn the rolls for the turkey dinner or let the cat knock down the Christmas tree and break just one glass bulb, suddenly my world is coming to an end. I am ranting and screaming. I threaten the cat with a tennis racket future. I promise certain death to anyone at the table who might comment on the state of the dinner rolls.
Christmas is never ruined by the caskets or the court cases. It’s the slanted star and the broken bulbs that set me off. I spend more time grumbling at the Christmas tree than commiserating with the relatives who are screwing up their lives. Maybe that is the point! If I yell at the tree or threaten the cat, if I burn the rolls to a crisp they can’t yell back. The Christmas tree is a safe place to put my anger, my fury at how others are messing up the holiday. That means it’s not about the tree at all. The broken bulb is just a stand in for the brokenness around me, the brokenness I feel I cannot address because it’s Christmas after all. It’s supposed to be a season of peace on earth, good will to men.
I leave you with a thought this Christmas. If the people around you are just plain ruining the holiday for you, stay sweet. Smile when the family’s around and in your private times take it out on the tree!
Christmas at its heart is about coming home. It’s about coming in, out of the cold of the world, and finding our place around the hearth of God.
The message of Christmas is that there is a place in the kingdom of God for everyone. God has a purpose, a plan for all people. That plan involves our gifts, talents, abilities, opportunities AND our weaknesses, failings, disabilities and trials.
The Christmas message tells us that God sent His only Son to Earth to give everyone an opportunity to find a place in His kingdom, to give everyone the chance to fulfill the plan of God for their lives, to help everyone come back home to God where they belong. All we are asked to do is believe that God wants to help us. We are asked to start making room for Him in our lives so that He can work out His plan and purpose to bring us Home.
So what say you this Christmas? Will you make some room for Jesus in your heart. Will you let Him bring you home where you belong?
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever.
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Singing in a home
I thank God for Christmas. Would that it lasted all year. For on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, all the world is a better place, and men and women are more loveable. Love itself seeps into every heart, and miracles happen
Peter Marshall
The Christmas Holiday is upon us! My work for Christmas 2014 is almost done. I have sung my concerts. I have wrapped my gifts. I have bought our movie tickets for tomorrow. I have purchased the groceries for our Christmas meals. It is finished…well almost. Now all I have to do is walk through it. Here are some photos of our Christmas ministries this year.
I won’t be publishing tomorrow as it is Christmas Day. But please tune in on boxing Day to read my new flash fiction piece, The Steps of Laska.
“Christmas doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more….”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
“The angel said, ‘Do not be afraid.'” Matthew chapter 1
“Joseph was told not to be afraid, not because God was going to take away all the fearful things but because the Messiah was coming into the world…into his family.” JE Lillie
“At some point in the Christmas story everyone lifts up their head.” Barry Risto
“The real gifts of Christmas are love, joy and peace.” Barry Risto
Lillie-Put 