Give the Boy the Ball

 If you’re paying attention, you may find something old, something new, everyday in the Kingdom of God.

Today as I sat in a 600-year-old church I heard a fresh, quite timely message about what is happening in the world right now.

Early on in this gathering of the Faithful, Reverend Symington began his message with an anecdote, which I will relate to you.

He said that he had recently taken a trip to the USA. While there, he attended an Atlanta Braves baseball game.  

Reminding his Scottish congregants of the basic procedures of that all-American game, he explained that the pitcher pitches the ball across a plate, to be swung at by a batter for the opposing team.

The batter, if successful in his swing, will hit the ball into the field, where it is retrieved (or not) by a fielder.

But sometimes, the reverend continued, the batter swings at the pitched ball and hits the ball only partly. If the ball glances off the upper edge of the bat, the ball will be hit foul while continuing its thrust, but glancing skyward. Sometimes it is thusly misdirected into the stands where fans are sitting.

On this particular day in Atlanta, the storyteller and his two daughters, or granddaughters, were sitting in those seats behind home plate. It just so happened that the ball came directly at them. And, lo and behold and I say unto thee, his daughter caught that foul ball! 

On the next pitch, the same thing happened. Except this time the ball went higher, over their heads and past them. Then it was caught by a boy; but he bobbled it and a man sitting near him grabbed the ball and managed to take it away.

The boy protested, but the man insisted on keeping the ball. 

While this was happening, another man nearby issued a command:

“Give the boy the ball!”

But the insensitive ball-robber refused to yield. 

The other man continued to protest, but louder now:

“Give the boy the ball!”

And again, more insistently: “Give the boy the ball!”

Other fans who were nearby began adding volume to his command:

“Give the boy the ball!”

After awhile, the commanding chorus rose louder and louder as more people joined in. After awhile it became an almost stadium-wide chorus: “Give the boy the ball!”

And guess what happened.

That ball-snatcher gave the boy his ball back!

Now the story-telling preacher, having spoken his parable, lifted the lesson up to a higher level. 

To whit: the cry of the Ukrainians ought to be taken up by all freedom-loving people everywhere and proclaimed loudly as an overwhelming chorus directed at  ball-robber Vladimir Putin:

“Give the Ukrainians their nation back!”

Perhaps, miracle of miracles, it could happen. A little faith proclaimed in a loud voice could go a long way. What say ye?

Glass half-Full

From Chernobyl to the Noble

There’s trouble in the world

for every boy and girl

in a melt-down techno garden

where despair doth daily harden.

Yeah, the ever-widening gyre

of trouble v. desire

spins a slue of evolutions

and then several revolutions

before casting off its payload power

dragging down our terror tower

of trouble by the hour

and pain by the pound

through waves of light and sound.

Just look around 

and you will discern it

as believing you do earn it:

a Faith that glides above it

past the Fate that conspides to shove it.

Yes, in believing you will earn it

as in believing you discern it:

from the Enabler who bestows it

as our enabled lives do show it

through the making and the breaking

the moving and the shaking

the ever widening gyre

of trouble v. desire 

spins a slue of evolutions

toward an ultimate solution

but you gotta believe it

in order to retrieve it.

Surprise surprise

there it was all along

hanging on a prayer and a song

the one who got nailed to a tree

rose above it all for you and me.

But you gotta believe it

to retrieve it. 

Selah.

Follow

King of Soul 

Kneejerk MAGAnians

 Now here come them MAGA trumpicians

with their blame-shifting knee-jerk renditions

not unlike their knee-jerk liberal nemeses

losing sight of who’s the real enemies.

 

Yeah, I say unto thee

even here in this land of the free

they cannot discern who’s the real enemy:

As putin assaults Ukraine unanimity!

Oh! but here come the knee-jerk trumpicians

with their pro-putin sympathetic renditions

blaming Biden for putin’s conflation

and American gas-price inflation,

‘cuz Joe put the brakes on Russian oil

while Ukrainians shed blood, sweat and toil

I mean who in the hell

is blitzing Ukrainian soil?

and murdering Ukrainian citizens

with satanic ruskie denizens!

Now just say it ain’t Joe!

Ye knee-jerk trumpians oughta say so.

Just take your gas-guzzling sass

and cram it up your MAGAnian ass

Glass half-full 

Travelin' Javelin

 Jumpin’ javelin Ukraine pride

Javelin travel on Kharkhiv ride

Travelin’ ravelin’ Kyiv reprieve

Hi-tek weapon up Kyiv sleeve.

Ukraine rainin’ on ruskie parade

Rainin’ javelins o’er putin tirade

Rainin’ javelins o’er putin shoot’n 

Trainin’ ‘Ukranians  javelin toot’n

Putin toot’n his own damn horn

Sittin’ in his dacha so damn forlorn

So damn proud bein’ ruskie born

Thinkin’ he sum kinda rus-bear born

Thinkin’ he sum kinda hi-holy orth’dox

Dreamin’ he sum kinda ruskie rus fox

But ain’t no ruskie gonna steal Ukie thunder

‘Cuz Ukraine Soul from land down under 

Undercut that ruskie bear belligerance

with Ukrainian cranium javelin resistance

Dat jumpin’ javelin Ukraine pride

Dat javelin travel on Kharkiv ride

Travelin’ javelin’ up putin  rusk-ass

Unravels putin rusk-ass sass.

Ask me no questions an’ I give you no sass

Just javelin travelin up putin’s rus ass.

Smoke

Help for Ukraine

At the end of World War II, our United States of America emerged as a worldwide standard-bearer for strength, peace and prosperity. Our soldiers came trekking back home by the thousands. When they got settled in, Stateside, it was time for most of those soldiers to resettle into civilian life.

On the heels of that war-torn 1940’s decade, the ’50’s came rolling in like a kindergardner on a Christmas tricycle. Within a few years there were babies popping out all over America.

I was one of them in 1951.

Along with the relief of no longer being bogged down in a world war, we Americans experienced a tidal wave of new technology, most notably that TV in the living room. Cars came rolling off Detroit assembly lines like gangbusters; the cotton was high and yo mama’s good lookin’.  Peace and prosperity were bustin’ out all over.  

Out in the midwest, the wheat crop was ripe for the harvest. 

Yet there was another harvest taking place, a spiritual gathering. A North Carolina preacher caught a vision of that coming revival. Billy Graham equipped a team of Christians to travel across the nation and the world presenting the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Ultimately, Billy and his team spent the rest of their lifetimes traveling our nation and the world on behalf of the only man in history who was tried and executed and then lived to tell about it. 

And then there came a day when Billy was called home.

But hey! No worries.

There were plenty of his disciples still here on earth to take up the mantle of spreading that good news of victory over death.

Franklin Graham, Billy’s son, spent some of his youth in struggling, like most young people, with his identity. It took him a few years to figure out what he was supposed to do in the wake of his father’s incredible accomplishments. He knew that the worldwide harvest of believers was a phenom that had manifested because of a special time and place—a unique appointment in an unprecedented age of expansion. He knew he could not duplicate it. That had been his dad’s mission. But what was his?

Franklin eventually figured it out, with a little help from the man upstairs. What he did was this: he “put shoe leather” on the gospel.

At least, that’s what my long-time friend/pastor, Ben, calls it. 

What that shoe leather phrase implies is this: he took his father’s life-work to the next level. Franklin did not just sit on his laurels. Nosiree.

He extended that evangelical platform from preaching to medical and disaster relief. Now it's gone worldwide antiviral. In fulfillment of Jesus' parable defining "who is my neighbor," Franklin began--and ultimately established-- Samaritan’s Purse, now a worldwide distributor of medical care, food, clothing and other essentials of human life.

Just this week, Samaritan’s Purse is sending emergency field hospitals, doctors, nurses and other helpers to Ukraine. I know this because my daughter is one member of that team. 

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/pray-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine/

Something for Everyone 

Alphabet Puzzle

 Can you solve the Alphabet puzzle phone call?

Attempted

Bribe

Crime

DonaldT

Extortion

Favor

Guiliani

Hold

Inducement

July 25 2019

Kyiv

Lawbreaking

Mulvaney

NSC

Oval office

PhoneCall

Question

Request

Sondland

Trump

Ukraine

VindmanA

VolodymyrZ

VladimirP

WestWing

XyzAffair

YuriyL

Zelensky

                  Smoke

Ukraine Breache

a poem recently written,

with appreciation and apology to Matthew Arnold, whose 1867 poem inspired this musing  . . .

The World is torn to blight.

The News is bad, Kyiv is torn

with bombs of Putin’s putsch and scorn.

Peace is pierced while Ukraine people stand

resolute and steadfast in their demand.

Turn your eyes online to witness

how missiles sling Vlad’s deathly business!

How quickly Euro peace is blasted

after so long a time it has lasted!

Hear the bombs blast on moon-blanched land.

Tragedy! you hear that Putinian death command

of missiles which the Russians load up and fling

on Lviv and Kyiv such death to sting.

The returning scourge of War they bring.

 

Matthew Arnold long ago

heard their rumblings on the Dover Beach; 

it broke upon his mind

as the turbid ebb and flow

of human misery, but now we discern

its mournful crash as Putin’s treachery.

 

The Net of Faith,

so long cast out from  the shores of Rus in Time;

now is torn upon a sickle of iniquity

As now I only hear

Vlad’s fiery vile destroying

the reverent strains of  Orthodoxy

as the Tyrant strives to

blast his way to hell

dragging Russia in his wake

while Ukraine quakes.

 

Ah, Friends, help us to be true

to our Faith, for the world, which seems

to flicker through us in a Web of dreams,

so fragile, mezmerizing, yet so new, 

has neither truth, nor love, nor light,

nor certitude, and now we have no peace.

Yeah, we are here on a Dnieper bank,

threatened by a Russian tank, 

while Putin's armies attack what’s right.

Glass half-Full