On Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs is a good one to read every day. So I have been told, at various times and by various people, especially my father while I was growing up. It seems to leave traces of wisdom where it goes, and layers of understanding that build, with bricks and mortar, houses and rooms of knowledge that you can take shelter in.

Today is Novemember 13. What jewels are there in Proverbs 13? I'm going to lay some of them out here.

"He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin."

AAhhhhh, how many times have I wished I had stopped and thought before the words came tumbling out! I am a verbal thinker. Which means, frankly, that I talk alot....blah blah blah... For example. This morning I go into Home Hardware to get a can of paint. I know what I need, and the color, but I talk it through with the lady at the paint desk anyway, asking questions I pretty much know the answer to already, because as I'm talking it out the color, the texture, the brand of paint, the amount - gallon or pint- all makes sense. I now feel reasonably sure I'm buying the right thing. Bless their hearts, these people who listen to me.

Rash speaking gets you in trouble. Nobody will comment on it, perhaps, but a reputation is built, and others may trust you less, or be wary of your anger spray can that shoots acid at random. A life can come to ruin. Picture a ruined house or castle on a hillside. Where no care is taken, things fall apart; acid eats through stone, rain erodes the foundation, wind and leaves blow in windows left open and make a rotten mess inside.

It's rather important, this guard over our lips. And some of us have to post a stronger guard than others. heh heh...

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

Ain't that the truth. Do we always get what we want (or think we want)? Sometimes. Sometimes we force it and take what we shouldn't have, and that hurts too. Longing, hope that is always out of reach, makes your heart ache. We've all felt it at some point. This verse makes me wonder though, is a longing fulfilled always a tree of life? I mean, at the moment, it can make you feel vibrant, buzzing with life, on top of the world!!!! But if it is a longing for something (or someone) that you are not meant to have, the tree is rotten through and through in a short time. A short life. Proverbs has a lot to say about the human condition, and how we operate, how we deviate, and our propensity to destroy without meaning to, sometimes, like a child in a grocery store. Piles of neatly ordered cans come crashing down.
Our hearts are often NOT in the right place, they are devious, and lead us down paths of pain. This I know from experience, and I'm sure you also, reader, have tasted this.

"He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm."

Self-explanatory! It's interesting all the mention of harm, or destruction, or ruin as the polar opposite of wisdom. Like a cake that falls flat without baking powder. Like an instrument that hasn't been tuned. Like a castle built on sand, everything falls apart without it!

The thing with wisdom though is if you've never seen it you don't know you need it.
The aspiring musician who has never heard a symphony might know that something is wrong, but never think to tune his poor squealing violin. Does this not apply to raising children, running a home, and having friends? Mentors are so important, those people who show us a straight line before we build, and play us a song before we sing. If we learn to recognize wisdom, we won't be able to play the instrument of our lives without it. We will recognize the sweet sounds of harmony.

Trust and Twisted Motives - Devotional

Morning Devotions

 

READ Acts 1:21-26

 

        Recently the topic of selfishness has been on my mind. The thing that is insidious about selfishness is it has a lot to do with motives. And motives are notoriously hard to pin down, like nailing jello to the wall.

 Have you ever had that phone call, the person on the other end telling you how amazing you are, or how generous, or perhaps they are listing the frustrations of their day and What A Great Listener You Are? And the result of this rather one-sided conversation is you feel that person is a wonderful and generous soul rightbackatcha, and you just want to give some love back. And then the one-two punch comes, as the wonderful person asks you to do something for them. Makes a request that is pretty hard for you to fulfill, but not impossible.

Suddenly the air all blows violently and noisily from the balloon of your inflated ego and you realize that the motivation behind all the love is simply that the person wants something. Simply a little selfishness. I want or need something, and I know how to get it from you. The anger you feel at that moment is generally mixed with a large dose of confusion and prevents you from saying anything but a stuttered, “Yes, yes…of course. No problem.”

The point of this scenario is that motives are difficult to see, and hard to understand. What looks good from the outside can be kinda rotten on the inside. But God can see it. He weighs hearts, and he knows exactly what is on the scale. At the end of Acts chapter 1 the disciples are faced with choosing a new disciple to replace Judas Iscariot.

“So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas… and Matthias. Then they prayed, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen…’”

Fascinating! There is so much here to unpack!
For a start, the disciples used their own wisdom and experience, to a point, in settling on these two men. God has given us understanding, and we can certainly use it to test the waters of our own or another’s motives and character. They were confident that these two men were a good choice.
But they were wise enough to realize that only God can see the heart, the inner motives. They pray, and ask God directly. “Lord…show us.”

How many times do we by-pass this “little” step? Maybe because we wish we had the answer all by our amazing selves? Probably!  

Next, they believe that God is going to come through, and trust Him completely. They cast lots (knowing God can work through our simple devices) and when the lot falls to Matthias, the sentence concludes,  “so he was added to the eleven apostles”.
Not, “and they sat around and discussed whether Matthias was indeed the best choice.”

No second-guessing, no man-centered discussion, just trust that God has seen, has heard, and has answered. This is a great lesson in faith. Simply relying on God to come through, and being satisfied with His answer.

          Are you afraid to trust your own motives because you’ve seen the ugly weeds of selfishness twisting around your good intentions? Or does someone else regularly blind-side you with manipulation, otherwise known as twisted motives? We can use the disciple’s example and first use our own discernment and experience, to a point. Next we ask God for help to see as He sees. Then, we can trust what He shows us, through his Word or by His Holy Spirit. Trust Him, no second-guessing. We know we are flawed creatures, prone to wander, but we have a loving and faithful God, a God who sees.


PRAY  Oh God, it is hard to be human, as You so well know. Thank-you that You see me for who I really am, and help me to trust that YOU know the answers and what is best for me. Help me to trust and obey. Guard me from the selfish motives in my own heart, and the hearts of others. Thank-you for your faithfulness to me, your protection, your love.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

Fragmented Memories

This morning I am supposed to be driving to a city for an appointment, but the weather is bad and snowy and the roads are too. I really want to get going but I'm trying to be wise...and I also should be shovelling the deck at the moment...but I just have something to say, Oh Vast Readership (I appreciate you!!)

It seems my long-term memory is quite terrible. Now this is ok, unless your husband is reminiscing about this crazy and wonderful date you were on, and you are nodding and smiling and trying desperately to access a thread of information back in your concrete brain. Or, if you are reading something and laughing and thinking Wow, this is great! And suddenly realize you read it before and even left a comment. But there is not even a tweak of recognition! I would imagine senility is setting in, except that this has been going on since my late or even mid-20's.

The more relaxed I am, the less stressful state I'm in, the more I seem to remember about my childhood. Or at night there will be a flash of memory about some event that was extremely significant but that I had long thought erased. Lately when I'm talking to friends a memory will suddenly surface and I'll remember in great detail once I start sharing the story.
Like the story of Greg, who lived above me in the house in a certain city across from a church. Was it 269th? 265? 239th street? That detail has escaped.
And so did I, eventually and miraculously from Greg who had just got out of maximum security, solitary confinement for 5 straight years after sexually assaulting and leaving for dead a 19 year old girl. I was 21. Thanks to God's intervention of a good friend who figured out who Greg was, his face wasn't my last memory.
And I'm thankful for that. 

Sigh....

Honestly a lot of the memories that come back are painful or scary :(   
Perhaps my concrete brain is wise, after all.

Hugs!

Metacognition on a Saturday

Thinking about the last post. Reading over the poem in progress about Selfishness ... it's DEPRESSING! Yeah!
Funny thing I've noticed about poetry, writing or reading. It means so much in a certain frame of mind. Writing it expunges whatever violent emotion is clamoring at the gates. Reading the right poem sometimes can help you FEEL, when you're numb. Or give some shape to a nebulous but powerful feeling or idea, like nostalgia or unrequited love.

But today, said selfishness poem means not a great deal, I can't even recover the feeling. I know I need to hack and slash and save the good parts, but not today.  So while I'm waiting to be inspired again, here is something else I wrote. This one is from a long time ago. It's a short one. Length is unnecessary when you've said what you have to say.  

Control

 

If I looked you straight in the eyes,

their golden light would ignite my insides.

That much electricity

cannot be good for me.

Nations, rockets, have been launched with less fire.

Desire has never cured desire.

 

Selfishness Poem and...New Version

So... seems I'm writing about sins this year, jealousy et al. A bit strange, and yet a person seizes upon any inspiration and wrings it out. This one is new, recent, like today October 25, 2012.

i've had a picture in my mind. This image of someone in an impressive gallery looking at a painting by a master, expecting perfection and wonder and being shocked by the ugliness and blackness of a noxious mold seeping through and destroying it. It's not clear whether the mold is real or imagined. Is it on the painting, or is it in the mind of the viewer?

Or the mind of the poet, or the reader...I thought it would be interesting to open up the process, as in explaining some of where the idea took root and watching where it branches off to, through a poem like this that is raw and unfinished.

I'm still evaluating everything.
Punctuation, or not. Title, or not.
Placement and selection of words...haven't spent enough time finding just the right word to give the level of suspense and shock I'm after.

And so if you have any thoughts or ideas or comments, please, speak your mind!
What image do you see when you encounter selfishness, in yourself or others?
It's a universal and inescapable problem. Anyone who says anything else is selling something. 

Selfishness

Oozes like creeping black mould on a masterpiece.

You take a step closer to an ancient Renaissance,

a small smile of wonder.

Hues, dabs, streaks, plays of light, all strokes of genius!

Priceless.

Up close and inspecting your smile fades,

Gradually…

a frown gives way to fright –

Grim and dreadful.

And the suspected pestilence grows

Noticeable to your wide and blameless eyes

The darkest spot just shadows

Wasn’t it, now spilling like ink through parchment

Stained through.

 

A speck of infection renders beauty undone

The love tainted, the honour wasted

Mother hated daughter jaded photos faded

 

We survive and pretend it doesn’t exist, the picture is perfect

And smile and smile and crumble inside

Our motives are true and our hearts are, too

I don’t see yours, and you don’t see mine

And using each other, all of the time.


                 (THAT was the original. This is the 
              current version. Which do you like better?)

 

Selfishness

Oozes

creeping black mould on a masterpiece.

Italian Renaissance,

Oh smile of wonder.

Hues, dabs, plays of light, strokes of genius!

 

Inspecting – coming closer.

Mouth corners fall,

frown gives way to fright

at the grim real.

A suspect pestilence grows darker

Before the wide and blameless eyes

The blackest spots were shadows,

Now—

 spilling like ink through parchment –

Stained through.

A speck of infection renders beauty undone

love tainted, valor wasted

daughter jaded, photos faded.

We survive, we pretend, the picture is perfect,

And smile and smile and crumble inside.

Our motives are true and our hearts are, too

I don’t see yours, and you don’t see mine

But using each other, all of the time.

 

Poem "Jealousy"

December 2011

 

Jealousy

 

Jealousy my evil friend, I hear you in the tone of voice, the twist of smile

the glint of anger smothered rapidly 

I think your poison potion distills in silence and regret

Becomes powerful in dark places around the corners of a mind

Snarling as a rabid beast on the end of his chain

A leviathan bursting out of placid waters

All deadly and horrible in its wake

You kill the one that holds you

And the one that stumbles upon you

in the dimness of a perfectly presentable conversation

Green and writhing in the undergrowth

And joy and hope, the mangled birds

 

Lie still beneath your cold, malevolent eye.

Poetry by Me (in progress)

hopeful  (August 28, 2011)

 

I have a tiny white flower

in a plastic glass on the windowsill.

It blinks at me when I walk away.

When it falls over,

the empty cup beside the drowned thing,

I don’t want to see it.

I would pick up the flower and

try to put it back in water,

to resurrect the wilted stalk,

a reedy thread between thumb and finger.

It was dead before it hit the floor.

But right now, it looks pretty and delicate -

reflecting soft rays of the sun and

feeling a breeze blow softly moving the curtains

September 30, 2011

 

A Walk in September

 

Yellow-brown leaves lie gently on the hardening ground

 

and wet grass

A mouldering fence reclines, at ease

amid the poplar stands

 

Tall white queens through sun-yellow crowns

filter cerulean sky

Regal and silent the owl swoops low

gray-black on a cinder snag

 

Berries in red translucent glory

glisten unbitten

Hidden in damp sprigs shedding the embroidered

early morning frost