The first flowers of spring

Tucked away, deep in a hollow sheltered from the wind, these small white flowers, and the few beds within a hundred feet of them, are all that announces that spring is coming, that spring is here. Even though white patches of snow cover brown leaves, bark, and fallen trees further afield, these have blossomed and signaled to the world that spring is coming…spring is coming…an announcement by a few patches of wildflowers hidden in an obscure woodland.

But these flowers are more than that…they are signs of hope. In an age when it feels like so many are losing hope, and evil seems to reign like a drowning fog over the landscape of the world, these flowers dare to say “we are alive and thriving, bright and hopeful, in this world that prefers the dullness of brown and grey.”

Will you, like these flowers, stand for hope, for goodness, in an age when so many embrace wickedness?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misplaced vision

To my “brothers and sisters” in the churches who have embraced the Mosaic Law, putting people into bondage in tithes, Jewish feasts, and 600 other laws, while saying they are living in the New Covenant:

Stop swimming in a hole in the Old Testament, and start living in the New! If you have decided to follow Jesus, there is no turning back- Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant. So, why do you want to mix the two? Why do you want to blur the message of the gospel…because that is exactly what you are doing when you try to grocery shop from the covenants.

If you call yourself Christian, and desire to please God, then it is time to know and walk out what Jesus Christ said for you to do…as long as you are truly a disciple of Jesus.

 

the society for the prevention of hostility toward unabridged dictionaries

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

long time a passin

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

long time ago

where have all the unabridged dictionaries gone

gone to dumpsters every one

when will they ever learn?

when will they ever learn?

When I  was in school, the unabridged dictionary sat like an alien death weapon on a podium too small for the monstrosity. Most of the boys and girls in my class were afraid to even touch it. The librarian treated it like some kind of ancient relic from Remulac.

Then, one day, it disappeared. It was piled in a gargantuan book-pyramid with numerous other dishonored lonely books. The speckled-faced librarian gathered them in a wheelbarrow and positioned them behind a hideously wide red truck.

In the morning, as I walked to school, I saw the red truck parked haphazardly upon the mound beyond the northern end of the school building. I walked over, peered into the bed. Below the truck bed, a few pieces of browned paper lay scattered about,  I reached down and found they crumpled into dust when touched.

The unabridged dictionary- along with other notable books- met their death that day…before I found the remnants of ash-like fragments.

I confess today that I do not own an unabridged dictionary. Some day, I will buy one….in secret. But for now, it has become a problem.

It is because I get words stuck in my head and often have to search to find their meaning.  So many times I cannot find it in any of the mamby-pamby dictionaries online or any in the public library.

In fact, while I was writing my last post, I got a word stuck in my head. Not like a song stuck in my head, but an “unknown” (for best effects, please pronounce with a Scottish accent) word. I flung open my dictionaries, scavanged the online dictionary venues, to no avail. I nearly flailed myself upon a piece of plastic to buy a subscription to the unabridged dictionary…OK, I am exaggerating…but repented when I did some cost analysis.

The word was…

parsipitous

Yes, that’s right. Not precipitous. Not parsimony. It probably has something to do with “to parse” I imagine. But I do not know.

But surely I would know if I could just find an unabridged dictionary…somewhere.

How do I love thee? Let me count the glaze

We face a growing problem in The West. An increasingly disturbing range of bulging behemoths spend reckless days before computerized game devices, munching on the joys of high fructose corn syrup, powdered sugar, and genetically modified substances.

Even the United States Military is awash in an epidemic of mastodon-sized munchkins trying to get inside the lean, mean, fighting machine. If recruiters are having trouble finding fit individuals among the epidemic of rotundity, the nation that once thought of itself as “the leaders of the free world,” might just become the leaders of the largest obesity bloc in the world.

Recently, a publication insisted that recent data from reliable sources, claims that Mexico is now the mas grande gordo nation on earth. I’m a bit skeptical about that, but if true, it would prove that exports from the United States do have some effect on the wonderful people of Mexico. Alas, it must also mean that the donut invasion of Mexico is complete, with remarkable success.

I have personally experienced the wonders of overindulgence in the powdery realm (There is nothing like working in a donut factory and getting to take all-you-can-carry bags of day old donuts home for the freezer, and the rest of the growing clann). So, in remembrance of those days, and in honor of the mastodonian growth of our local populace, I have penned a most wonderfully bad bit of poetry for the occasion.

O, how do I love thee?

Let me count the glaze…

waft so gently, waft so softly

O, waft, stuffed filled

with creme,

through the air, through the store

with a grand passion supreme-

O Donut, Sweet Donut,

For thee, I do declare

I owe you my happiness

for the dark chocolate eclair.

In your wax paper bags

In your cardboard boxes galore

you tempt me so tenderly

like waves crashing on the shore

let me drown’d in your aroma

let me dance on floured floor

O Donut, Sweet Donut,

Tis only you I adore.

A Peaceful Place

After reading a recent post online, I thought of this place…one of the most peaceful places I can remember…well, with the caveat that it was also in bear country, near wild huckleberries, a treat for bears.

But I did not encounter bears, I encountered this. I can imagine a region in Heaven being like this- a place so magnificent, so relaxing, you have to sit down and drink it all in…which is what I did here.

Meeting my favorite artist

I didn’t have it on my “bucket list.” I had no idea he would be there. But when I walked into the art gallery this evening, my favorite living artist stood near my favorite painting in the whole wide world. What are the chances of that?

He wanted to talk baseball, I wanted to talk artistic process.

“Who are the Pirates playing? Are they playing tonight? What happened to them last night?”

And splattered out in all their glory, the most amazing paintings in the world stood before me. I longed to touch the mudding-like texture, the thick glaze of rhododendron and laurel leaf, layered pink petals smashed onto the canvas, the passion of the thin and the thick, the trowel-icing slashes.

Then he told me his story- how he experimented with the trowel and opened a door to a career as an innovative contemporary painter. His journey reminded me of the point when, after four years of not writing any fiction, I discovered my own particular experimental fiction style. But he is a professional making a living from it, while I  struggle to pay the bills, with most pay from “my other skills.”

Perhaps one day, this kindred spirit and I shall both look back and see where each discovery took us. For now, I will enjoy his paintings, and pray someday my own experimental works will see publication and an audience will be touched by the passion of that word imagery.

I am blessed to have been in the presence of greatness, and to remember that the spark within my own works of poetic fiction may touch the heart of someone someday. For as the faithful, we are all called. What gift we are given comes from God. I cannot, I will not, withhold the words or images of that gift any more.

Go to http://www.coopergallery.com/LynnBoggess/LynnBoggessPage.asp for more information, including some photos of the paintings at Cooper Gallery.

I’ll take 100 bayonets, a refrigerator, and an oscillating fan

What can you do with a 100,000 dollar helicopter missing a wing? Or, a Humvee with no engine block? How about 100 Reagan-era bayonets? Apparently, you can use them in a small town police force, even if the only dangerous criminal in town is a seasonal visitor. That’s the beauty of the US Department of Defense downsizing program, an operation that gives millions of dollars of equipment to police departments all across the USA.

Unfortunately, according to recent press investigations, there are very few inspections or audits of police departments getting the materials. Some states have inspectors/auditors in place, however, whole states have had no individual to track these giveaways.

As one who has done farm and forestry inspections to check for adherence to a state government program’s specifications, it is amazing to me that we physically inspected properties to determine the details of farm use per acre while this giveaway program has no reliable record of inspections, nor a posse of inspectors to verify that Sheriff Sam isn’t getting nuclear warheads, hundreds of refrigerators, or thousands of boxes of government-issued gym shorts.

I’m not saying I should be the one inspecting these police departments. That should be someone the government hires who understands the regulations and who has a working knowledge of what police departments actually need. It would also help departments receive valuable materials to fight crime rather than receive more oscillating fans than a WalMart in Texas.

Or, the US government could ship all non-weapons materials to towns  and cities where the government could do what everyone else (in the non-coastal areas) does- have a giant yard sale.

What do you think?

all the friends in the world…

I gotta admit, I don’t like some people. I love them. They’re the kind of people you want to make laugh- the kind of people who smile like when the sun comes out, the kind of people who just brighten up every day they live. I wish I could be like that, but my life has been too much of a saga for that every day Smile-A-Thon kind of thing.

I can’t forget some of those radiant smile-puppies. I’ve lost all of their whereabouts, every single one of them. Hopefully, the fire of their smiles has not dimmed over the ages, as the evil of the world has assailed them.

Perhaps somewhere they are hiding among  the smiling faces on a virtual friends list, blessing facebook with positive happy thoughts. If you see one of them, let them know you love their smile. After all, not everyone on facebook is smiling- some pictures were taken during constipation, bloating, and the menstrual cycle (not unlike a unicycle, which is also a pain).

But the best pictures are when happiness and joy exude from the face of the facebook photo. It is as if Mama Boucher (see The Waterboy) was right and the”magic rays of sunshine that come down when you’re feelin’ blue” have scattered across the screen, bringing a smile to even the grumpiest face.

And those folks become irresistible. Downright friend material. So what if you don’t actually know them? They know Billy, who happens to live in your town, and Billy knows your cousin’s boyfriend’s mother’s cousin, who happens to have a beautiful smile, and that’s good enough, isn’t it?

It seems like that must be one of the processes of “friend-finding” done by  thousand-plus friendophiles. I’m amazed that I’ve managed to gather thirty some friends on facebook, while Stewart Nobody boasts thousands. So, after some shallow thinking, I have reflected on some other possible friending processes employed by these friendophiles:

1. “Hey, I know that country, I’ll friend them.”

2. “That was my brother’s cat’s name, therefore, he has to be a great guy.”

3. “His profile says he lives in my town. I must know him. I think.”

4. “She is really hot, therefore, I will friend her. (or vice versa)”

5. “That photo reminds me of my dog Ralph, who died in a car accident when my dad backed up in the driveway…”

6. “I swear he looks like Jay Leno. I’ll friend him. He could be Jay Leno, even if he calls himself Hans Van Druschek.”

7. “Her name is Shelly. I think I’ve heard that name before…somewhere.”

8. “She’s wearing my favorite burka.”

9. “If I looked like that, I wouldn’t have any friends. I’ll just send this friend request to make him feel better.”

10. “I’ll friend anyone once.”

makes you wonder about these people…who do they really know?

When you can’t love yourself

When you can’t love yourself

and can’t seem to grasp

not the world at large

but the window before you-

find a safe little place

for some supernatural space

and wait for the appearance

of God.

In the dusk of a world sick with sin

I submit to you that that are many people out there who do not love anyone, not even themselves.

Recently, I read a short news article reporting about the multiple rape of a thirteen year old girl by a posse of illegal immigrants. It sickened me…however, I did not have the full story- not until a friend sent me a video of Glenn Beck.

I’m not a conservative, nor a liberal, I am a follower of Christ. My main concerns are not political, they are spiritual, and because of that, social. In fact, I don’t agree with Glenn Beck’s religious views either.

But what Beck revealed was, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.” And that left me even more perplexed, because when you reflect on such a horrific act- a thirteen year old raped by fourteen men, it is nauseating.

But what is more nauseating is when I ponder on what has happened in this sin-sick country. Great numbers of individuals are living like animals, so driven by sin that evil is glorified, and wrong celebrated.

And while innocents are raped and abused, egocentric women, vacuous in their thinking, arrange for the death of innocent babies God ordained to be created…a great proportion of wives leave their husbands, flaunting the sacred covenant of marriage in God’s face, because they are sexually depraved, narcissistic in their “beauty”- as Lucifer was before his fall (satan), and reject God…

…and then there are men, without wisdom, driven to act unnaturally because they reject the will of God and in rebellion rise up against the things of God…men who long to be wicked, violent, embracing death as a friend, and seeking to control and strangle life, not to love…

…and yet, there is a remnant. A small remnant. A chorus of people who seek the good, not what is evil. A group seeking to serve God and serve men, women, and all God’s children.

Today is the day of Salvation. Choose this day whom you shall serve…life or death.

For, as the great Bob Dylan sang, “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”