Tag: FMF writers

Hand writ prayers

I’ve never been a Collector of things, not even of my paintings which lounge wherever they find space; maybe the most passionate of my ‘collections’ were bus tickets for some reason; I was age 5 and remember hoarding them from the two families we lived around at Wilson Gardens. Then were feathers at pre-primary school, Christmas cards a little later, shells, pressed flowers and leaves. Now recently, I’m collecting something new…

…. thick note paper or hard edged sides of boxes, oh cake boxes, anything that can cut in neat squares and be written on in bold ink without being washed off by the sun on frig or table tops and walls where they will find places.

My Gran & Ma* had this habit of writing out Scripture verse in the back of Bibles, in new diaries and older ones;

I watched as I did my ABCs and grew into a bit of them*, writing down Scripture, as Prayers.

Words of the Psalmist, Moses… they all became my own as I moved in time and space. With every house -shift I’d find these boxes of Verse fading, curled, breaking and they were hard to throw away.

Now I realize what a part of my life they are, how they’ve bridged me over many waters: these borrowed prayers and promises from Genesis to Revelations: Epistles of Faith, Hope & Love from via the Throne Room where deserts turn to Eden with the knowing of the Giver Himself: a knowledge bigger than human request.

So here I am, in the 11th month of 2021, an avid collector of paper given on days I knelt to pray but no words arrived except a wilderness maybe. God never can resist a human heart that waits waits. So He gives me these little notes, on the stone tablets of my heart: writ with His voice, His peace.

Who can resist God when He speaks? What can separate us from Love that would send His son to a Cross to die for me that I might even look His way, at His Life –

Or even experience this extreme Friendship, no matter the insanity of the days we are in.

_{“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount on wings like an eagle. They shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint..."}

👆🏼New verse emerges as November rain fills sky and earth with that extra nip in the air typical of an Indian year end. My taste buds are definitely returning, and sense of smell. Today I smelt a little mint, but none of the soaps yet. Body aches and low grade fevers recede. Have we had Covid? Who knows.

There’s a new variant arriving tomorrow, call it:

“9j*1.6G1L℅HeH/vs” hehe.

It is good to feel laughter rising in my soles again, it always happens when Christ sends His Notes to read, re- read: they grow Joy and some other Words human may ignore for sounding ‘out dated’.

And still, it is what it is: ^{_{the undiluted power of PRAYER}}.

Do check this Beautiful read in Blogs: ”A Father’s Prayer”

Have a seriously blessed up November!🌾

And hey, I just got note from fellow bloggers that could not comment here, for not being on WP.

Do let me know if that’s you too @ idialects102#gmail.com

🕊🌾

For FMF Writers

Accountability

Holding hands together, palms warm with praying, the way children do- urgent, necessary quick, like they truly believe. Chocolates are needed now, or Pa needs his leg repaired, or a bicycle needs a new bell. Or it shouldn’t rain at noon today, or we need a puppy. Now. A child persists, he believes, he sees it happening and will not leave. He tugs sleeve, he makes a mess with tears and lip, he may even bruise his toe reaching for the answer. Holding hands with You the way….

**”

… a child prays, asking Love, Joy, Peace, asking that Humanity finds You;

asking that wounds become a healing place and death lose its proverbial sting, in the fact of Your Face my God my God.

Asking like children do, I hold Your Hand, the One nailed at the Cross. I ask if I may- healing for Peta’s daughter and job for Diran, for hospitals and govts to work well and for me to never stop holding Your Hand even after my shopping list is done, esp after that.

For FMF Writers.

Takeaways from a Cloud forest

I tried to pray out loud but there were no words, just clouds, walking loud into my eyes, like Tears of Heaven

Yes I love mountains, hills: but this trip was clouds. From where we were at Tipu Sultan’s Sunrise Point,

Dawn was faster than our fingers could capture…

We’d slept in late. The suite was a surprise, unlisted in Bookings; 22 hours at Nandi hills, nestling in rain clouds. Feeling blest was a miracle all by itself.

*All God’s creatures*. Thanks Vi for this one, wish you were in it though. The monkas made us run. Lil terrors grabbed my bag twice (monkeys)

Sunset, innerdialects.

For one who is scared of heights, maybe I’m cured? 4600 ft felt good

In the stillness, you hear His Still small voice.

Moth wouldn’t move much. Was either pregnant or lazy.😲 And we are all Co- habitants of the same planet.

Vi & I sat staring into dawn after everyone else bundled back to bed. “*Its not raining- like the forecast …?”*

She replied, “Ma, will it feel like rain inside a cloud?”

A Gandhi man, in metal paint, green bowl. Foothills, Nandidurg.

Stay warm, safe, blest! Pray.

FMF writers.

Eternity is for Real

The bird was there waiting, asking to be noticed. I stood staring at him against that blue sky and early moon all stark naked Reminders that Life went beyond gravity!

Ramona was buried yesterday;

her husband and two sons stood tall by her grave: on Zoom it was surreal. A Mumbai cemetery rich with songs we sang as kids, about the Risen Savior, & oh where was death’s sting?! Ramona’s warm brown eyes and soft skin seemed closer, her easy laughter, subtle jewellry and gentle lip gloss mouthing words of love for Christ. We hadn’t met in years: but her passing brings me closer to the Reality of what the Cross does for us, 24x7xn! I’m feeling many Seasons in one, but especially Summer: warm like the embrace of the Father in a Time of fear, His Gospel of Peace.

Death is demanding.

It is not silent. It is an open conversation with what opposes Peace. It breaks us, it seals us to the ‘Unknown’. And we can turn our faces to all our walls all we want, but nothing buries Life. Love. Joy. The invisible presence of That. Of turning away from sin. Of repenting, and letting us be re- created in Christ. That Peace with God in Christ, is Peace.

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One of the last times I met Ramona we were at a beach; it was dusk on a busy shore. I don’t remember that we spoke many words, but what she and I utterly had in common was Christ:

the Christ Who found us in different rooms, in different differences, bridging barriers, crashing statements, limits.

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How does one describe a place where Gravity does not exist, where Peace is no longer just a temporary Live-in partnership;

how do I bare my heart, except say it like it is:

^{The Cross doesn’t crucify me, it BARES MY SIN, THEN bears IT. The Cross shuts up satan: his War against our absolute eternal fulfillmenT}.

OUR PEACE! THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.

^{The mark of Christ is nothing like the beasts’}:

Christ freeing you & me from short term satisfactions: Quick Fixes, begging for more. Not just blank-eyed druggies’, but Humanity altered by self abuse, by others’.

I was once confronted by a Nun(school principal) on why I followed Christ. You did not mess with Mother Grace, and as she looked in my face for a reply I said what had happened. “No one else came here looking for me…. “

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Eternity pursues me, there’s a Name on It. Christ’s. There’s a Heaven even among us when we reflect True Love. And there’s a Hell horrific and more as the ones we rehearse on earth: of the worship of cravings. Every Dance, is arms reaching for the Invisible Partnership we know deep within, exists.

*Deep inside we hunger for the One Who speaks in us ceaselessly: the dialect of a waiting Father.*

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When I was carrying our first child, this horrific incident with the vegetable cart man happened:

one morning he was in the ground under the row of eucalyptus trees, writhing like a snake, a death rattle sound in his throat, it filled the entire noon; the man’s white shirt and pants, always spotless but not on that day. My mother asked me not to look. An expectant mother best not see such things, she said. But this was Ramu our friendly veggie man. They were getting someone to exorcise him, and it took till past 4 pm; a week later I met Ramu, now he was half his size.

Evil itself reveals the very presence of God, not one appeased by sacrifices. He is Light (we are all yet to be able to even look at Its lesser form: the sun):

He Who is Love, of Peace, Joy: three things satan cannot stand, leave alone claiming our Place by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son. Try it.

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But Ugh:

the incredible Power of Doubt: it can derail us totally.

Why consume the deadly whispers of satan when we have Christ’s Words that can do ALL for us? If we only knew the extent of This here.

Eternity is Real, and I am encouraged today to make it a huge part of my daily schedule. Yea Ramona, death has no sting, the grave no victory.

Christ took that.

*Every flower is an Unburdening to the Light: every shadow clings to It. Every Leaf drinks Its Dew. We breathe to His Breath. Where does our breath go when spirit leaves?*

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With Him it is Eternal DaySpring.

FMF Writers: this went beyond 15! (‘Summer‘ and what the Word stoked). Thank you my fabulous creative friends.

Permit to park

How long before Parks too will close down again? This Lil guy did not want to be seen, but few moments later he shimmied down that tree, his eyes brilliant with joy.

Cubbon Park rocks and few walkers. Notice boy hunched over on Centre rock,in front of boy with red sneakers? I should’ve asked him how he was, but unused to that kind of thing, we didn’t. What if he needed help? What if he was praying someone would help….?

Why didn’t I give myself permission to talk to him? Courtesy- protocol. Sigh. I’ll never be able to walk past that rock without wondering if he’s ok.

As our State looks to more Lock down and vaccines, know what? For sure we have never peered closer at God. We as nations and homes, haven’t gazed deeper into each others eyes, haven’t admired nature, faces, leaves, skies, rocks, people;

As a race, we’ve not lingered as much at each other, socially distanced and all,

today as I read my Bible, the words came out and wrapped themselves around my head. “Give thanks..” And I had to stop beating myself over that boy I walked past at the Park. Gave myself permission to pray that he’s alright. Yes we can pray, right? My atheist friend ‘ll wag his head. Thats ok. In the end we will know for sure what we stutter at now.

…

For FMF Writers

I respect you..

…your time here, your life; it maybe far different from mine, yet here for a breath we meet, brothers / sisters in a time like ne’er before…

I respect that your presence, your heart is the physical manifestation of God; we are so alike, we are different but alike in ways too many to not remember. I respect that we walked this year together, torn, mended, healing, broken, like dawns and dusks, we like oceans and shore lines .. crashing building castles; our prints settle in an earth in a time we will never forget. We may never meet but we have, here, now, this new day. And I stare at these lines that spill me to a person I might hear from, I might not. I stare at all this with respect.

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Don’t go..

Innocence, Joy, Laughter, Honesty, Gentleness, Strength, Peace,Love all these, stay. Don’t go. Please

More than one way to go forward

Little Anish, a tiny 9 year old autistic boy I met in the art room of his school…. well he’d walk backwards to go forward.

What the idea was I’ll never know but Anish did well to keep his eyes on us, and back into the sun. What lessons are in this one I can only try imagine; I remembered him today with this Story Prompt from FMF Writers. There was another thing Anish did: he never cried. When it hurt he sang, that was his crying- a high wordless tune that was rich and sweet.

I never got over him, his cherubic face and wide dark eyes that did not look worried. His world seemed locked in somewhere deep within, he was independent and did not talk much except in monosyllables to his mother.

My thoughts go to Anish now, wondering what he is doing these days: does he still back into the next step,

still sing in that unusual voice that makes me think of angels?

Ar-Rest-ed by Love

He pauses between keys… his fingers tender o’er the notes that write my life….they rest/ arrest me;

my black-white days, the touch that sustains…. I’m listening and every breath mine, every sigh is the song he sings as if he is the rhythm/ the beat of my rhyme

no he refrains from letting me go/ go to my own translations of words/ of lyrics and life

his chord unbreaks wakes pursues like a Linger, it repeats/repeats his lines…

He pauses between keys… his fingers tender o’er the notes that write my life….they rest/ arrest me, just in time.

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Perspective

The ones looking at the painting, they are the Work of Art.

PiCredits Unsplash
***
We are the Clay, our hands made by Hands that made the clay we do not originate.

***Who are we***? The little girl asks her mother in The New York Times: existential questions that needed to be asked long ago.

We are best when looking within, looking with some amount of discomfort. When Humans ever did something of value to the personal or global community, was when we bowed deep.
***

P.S.

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