If among the thorns I sow,
And sit to watch the flowers grow,
Long the wait I have indeed
To see a petal from the seed.
Were not i the better off
To clear away the nasty crop?
Then, in time, to plant the seed
And watch and guard and prune and weed.
Time, you see, can trick the mind,
Mark black what is a blurry line
Between the seen and the unseen,
Make us think the two in fact distinct.
Happy Birthday Mike.
I don’t really care about the debates. To me, Michael Jordan will always be the greatest athlete ever, not to mention the best basketball player to lace ‘em up. My belief in that is based largely on what I think are quantifiable basketball and competitive traits as well as what I have seen with my own eyes. But at the end of the day, none of that matters. Sports are important to some, and they help shape those of us to whom they are important. Basketball is the sport that shaped me. And MJ is the man who shaped basketball.
So no matter what people say, I’ll be rooting for him above all other ball players. I’ll be rooting for him to find peace away from the game. I’ll be rooting for him to be successful at Life. Which is to say, I’ll be rooting for him to find that in that arena, the best way to win is to lose.
Cheers to you at 50, Mike.
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
_____________________
The above are stanzas four, five and six from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells.” To be honest, there are many times—today being an emphatic example—when the buildup to the sixth stanza, in all its helplessness and defeat, in its resignation to seemingly indiscriminate evil endings of peace and life, whether in the events of our day-to-day lives or the absolute horror of today’s killings—there are many times when I can read no more.
And perhaps the pause is necessary for us—we as followers of Jesus are not commanded to make light of Evil, but we are also not to shy away from realizing its power. Diluting our conversations with meaningless discussion of the “bad stuff” that “goes on” in the world is not only trivial, but displays a lack of understanding for the very deliberate nature with which Evil wages war on the world. Demeaning the power and presence of Evil is, furthermore, delusional, as we can all attest to today and just about any day that one reads the news.
Where we as Christ-followers ought to find ourselves is living in the reality that, while we could never hope to triumph over Evil on our own, we follow the God who made us “alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the demonic rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Jesus.”
I have no answers for Evil other than that. I am weak and unable in my own power to do anything about the war that it wages. I am sick to my stomach at what it does, what we as people do. But I know that Jesus rescued me from the death and bondage of Evil. How could I deny that? And how could I deny that He is the only source of rescue that we can place any hope in? He defeated Evil and death on the cross, and He is even now in the process of making you and me and the rest of His art new. Will we let Him do that? After all, the last stanza has already been written.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
More fantastic Guest submissions! The Jones family has caught the bug. It’s obvious that you should, too.
midnight musing - by Seth Jones
why can’t we all see
we create our own problems.
everyone slow down.
Southern style - by Seth Jones
it ain’t all that hard
tea, hot water, and sugar
it cures what ails you.
I have three submissions of my own, which are all untitled, and which are as follows:
The more that we get,
the less Thanksgiving we give,
the poorer we are.
______
The dog wants a walk,
and is delighted by it.
The man? A car. Bored.
______
Come, let us reason:
For what do we strive and yearn?
Life, or its crude sketch?
Obviously, the frequency of my posting has been negligible, but the following submissions by some of my faithful readers show that others have been busy. As you can tell by the content of some of these, they’ve been waiting very patiently to be posted while I failed to realize they were in my inbox. Sorry yall!
Inspired by tonight - by Marc Jones
Sun sets thru bare trees
stars shine in crystal clear sky
winter is beauty
untitled - by Marc Jones
College Basketball
A passage through winter months
that ends in spring time
What My Nephew (Braden, age 5) Told Me On The Phone Last Night About What He Didn’t Wear To Church. - by Sarah Werner
Aunt Sarah guess what
I am going commando
with no underwear.
you could tell miles from coltrane - by Allegra Korver
miles davis plays jazz
while the rain drips. Suddenly
to clean is divine.
good bye (to post after Roddick is done) - by Marc Jones
Kimmie and Andy
Your tennis play was superb
thank you for the joy
remembered - by Marc Jones
Colonel Wayland Jones
Memorial Day is for
men like you who served
alternate reality - by Marc Jones
twenty mile bike ride
sweat covered and leg weary
my mind? Tour De France!
I’ve made it through a busy season with all of my limbs intact and with at least 82% of my sanity. I chose the number 82, because that’s when this happened:
Can you tell I’m excited for college basketball to start?
Michael likes to swim
And swim and swim and swim again
and then he just quit
I’ve passed the CPA exam in its entirety and have started working for an accounting firm, putting to some use that which I have spent the last five years of my life learning in one context or another. In regards to the first clause of the previous sentence, I would strongly recommend not getting to a place where you can write it truthfully, unless you have already begun taking the Exam, in which case I would recommend getting to that place as quickly as you possibly can.
I am, as of this moment, listening to a song by Patrick Lee, called Hands In. Horse sent it to me, because he likes to send me music on Twitter. The songs he sends are always songs that I would never in a million years hear unless he sent them to me, so it’s more or less like opening a present whenever I open the links. Generally more.
Amy and I have moved to a very quaint house. If houses were poetry, I would call this house Haiku. Small, yet full of life.
In light of the recent developments in my life, I have some things to share:
