Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

Nothing For Everything

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

 

 

Today The Daily Post has asked this probing question:

Which do you find more dangerous: wanting nothing, or wanting everything?

You can discover how others have answered by going to:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/all-or-nothing/

If there is one thing I have learned in all my years of pastoring it is that most extremes of anything are unhealthy and sometimes dangerous.

Wanting nothing  is a mindset I am all too familiar with. In my own case it has expressed itself in the thought process, “If I want nothing then I will not be disappointed when I receive it.”

On the surface it can look like a deep-seated contentment and peaceful acceptance of the world but underneath it is fueled by my own spirit of self-protectionism, which crowds out healthy relationships, and a lack of faith which cuts me off from God.

On the other hand is the mindset of wanting everything. Now if  the proviso “I want everything…that God wants me to have” is included then what you have is a lifestyle of positive forward-pressing faith. But wanting it all generally precludes any thought of whether or not God wants us to have it.  God generally doesn’t want us to have everything because He knows we cannot handle it; So wanting everything often leads us into places of dangerous disobedience to the Divine.

So let’s sum up here: Wanting nothing breeds unbelief. Wanting everything breeds disobedience to God. Both sound pretty dangerous to me. I think I am with Solomon on this one.

give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God. Prov. 30:8,9

Pastor Wrinkles On Why,I Can Make It Anywhere!

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/make-it-anywhere/

Today the Daily Post has asked…“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the famous song about New York City. Is there a place — a city, a school, a company — about which you think (or thought) the same? Tell us why, and if you ever tried to prove that claim.

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I’ve never made it out of my hometown. Something of pain or shame exists in that admission and I am not really sure why. I suppose it means that somewhere in my younger self there was this dream that lived for a time in the understanding that I was made for “bigger” things… “bigger” places. Yet something held me at the borders of my own lands. What was it? A spell? A fear? A psychic wall? A dream? A Calling?

My mother wanted me to be a doctor. My father, I think, wanted me to be anything that got me away from this place that I never got away from. My sister has moved all over the world and my children (some of them) display the same signs of wanderlust that leads to adventure while I live like a Hobbit never wanting to stray too far from my own front door.

I think maybe the shame and guilt of only making it as far as my own garden might have more to do with the dreams of others than with my own dreams. For as long as I can remember I only ever aspired to a quiet life of pastoral bliss, walking the rocky New England Fields and listening to the bubbling of the stony fresh-water brooks that dot our landscape. I want to hear the twittering of the birds in the trees and feel the winds of these Massachusetts seasons as they pass over me in repose.

I want to see the world, truly see the world from my own vantage point, the place where I was planted by the Great Himself. I think it has been given to others to run the earth as they watch the sky. They must do that for themselves to succeed. If I can stand and occupy this little space for a time, my time, then that is “big” enough and I can make it “anywhere”, which after all is only ever really “here”.

 

Wicked Sorry! But I Know How Tough You Are

Posted on by under For Family & Fun

The Daily Post has asked, “If your furniture, appliances, and other inanimate objects at home had feelings and emotions, to which item would you owe the biggest apology?”

See who else has been offended at

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wronged-objects/

Now on to my written apology:

Dear Mr. Floor,

I wish to apologize for my behavior over these last several months. Please know what was done was not done with premeditation or malice  of forethought in any way shape or form.

Really I didn’t know that dog urine stripped varnish and he really is just a puppy and the other two were just following suit. And to be fair I did thoroughly clean up the mess using lots of that pet spray. What’s that you say? Oh that strips varnish too? Who knew?

Please know that I had only your best interests at heart when I sealed the hole the squirrels had gnawed through the shingling. I certainly didn’t want them chewing through your fine wooden outfits anywhere else in the house. I did try to make sure they were all out before I sealed the hole. How was I to know Mrs. Squirrel was stuck inside? I am sure you won’t smell like this forever, and really everyone blames me anyway. You are in the clear on this one even if you do stink.

As to the carpets I know they are old and perhaps I do not vacuum them enough but did you really have to cause my vacuum cleaner to burst into flames on Thanksgiving weekend?

I hope this letter will go the distance of restoring peace between us Mr. Floor. Let’s just say I won’t be putting together the new vacuum I bought until I have a satisfactory reply from you.

 

Sincerely,

JE Lillie

P.S. I know it has been my habit to walk all over you. In the future this will probably not change. I hope that does not offend too much.

Family Circle

Posted on by under Photography

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“There is no such thing as a “broken family.” Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.”
―     C. JoyBell

Today’s theme from the Daily Post is: Karma or Circle  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/daily-prompt-karma-chameleon/

I am not a big believer in karma but I do believe what the Bible says “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Prov. 18:20

I also think that the bold quote above by C.JoyBell is true. Families are simply complicated. At the end of the day when you sit down around the circle of the dinner table you may not see eye to eye but disagreement doesn’t trump love. Blood is thicker than water and love is thicker than both transcending all. It may not bring me good karma but I hope what I have spoken brings life to some heart out there.

Escape Into Air: A Triolet

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff

I conceived this piece out of Tuesday’s Daily Prompt, “Might as well jump”.  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/daily-prompt-jump/

 The question asked us  was,” What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to? What would have to happen to make you comfortable taking it?”

Escape Into Air by JE Lillie

Escape Into Air by JE Lillie

Escape Into Air

by JE Lillie

A leap of faith lies straight before me

An unfinished bridge, an escape into air.

Fear makes blind hopes from eternity.

A leap of faith lies straight before me.

Faith arise! At the edge rescue me!

Reveal the way frail flesh has made unaware.

A leap of faith lies straight before me

An unfinished bridge, an escape into air.