Tag: India

Fantastically torn pages

We are each other’s story wrapped in tangles; edgeless momentoes of each other. We are fragments of stars and streams & oaks running ‘neath trees planted by torrents of living Waters...

pic : pickled stardust, unsplash

we are songs broken every day, as at dawn. We are wars. We are Seekers of Light, in the dark. Tossed by many storms, or the storm itself, we are lovers/ haters …

weavers of each other’s chapters: the fabric of skies and times,

we are choices, we choose: we write hues we may not know we know. We are fantastic/ fantastically torn. We are lovable, loved, bored, despised, cast out, downtrodden, we are more than we suspect: Stores, hoards …in the sands that mingle our beauty with the tidal currents that run our fingers. We know/ do not know the seabed of our blessings, we race eagles in the skies of our mind; we dive deep in the oceans of each day, we host the pearls we find, in each other’s eyes, or not; we are mysteries, we are

tribes of one blood, one breath, one chord pulsing us tight, one gravity: we leave the way we arrive, to territories we dare suspect, uh –

we know we are more than angels and the sun. We are the created: beyond visibility – blest to the toes of a soul / our soul, we may not have yet met: do we know we are blest, do we know…

the storey of a soul

🌿🌿🌿

Prompt FMF writers: Story

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Airpoet Sunset (love that typo:)

My pics don’t half capture what we saw two evenings ago at our Kempegowda sky. With zero city silhouettes, no trees, just this blaze of light we’ve all seen before, but this one ruled!

It had been a long day, we were hoping for a spot of coffee & chat. But time runs: you don’t get to ask an airline to wait. ( The last Noel &I did that we kept AirIndia waiting a good five+ minutes; am not telling that story right now😧, they were polite and furious).

But heaven knows.

Heaven knows when a woman is about to have a meltdown. They know. My Noel is Mr. Tenderheart but practical. I’m saying “lookat that sunset“, he’s looking at Time. Where park this. How get to point B.

I’m thinking, does the guy love me? He’s sighing and grabbing steering wheel with eyes like a scared reindeer. Scared I’ll go do my thing. And ‘thing’ is my poetic self wanting to lie in the road and look at the sky. What he’d do is first check if that space is clean/ safe/legally clear…all that. Ofcourse. Is what great husbands do;

im just saying heaven knows how to sort us. They filled the skies with gold painted words I am learning to read.

At home last night we talked of how the skies are our keepers, how they shock us into their Point of View. At our Contrasts.

Have you had a very hot day, and got in the rain? And how that fell in your face like kisses from heaven; haven’t you too been hugged by an old person; they looked like your parent did, and you felt a piece of the Eternal holding you? Haven’t you too at least once, been smiled at by a total stranger at a bus stop, and felt the urge to smile back and it was indescribable friendship, random yea, but an ode to the Visible Unseen?

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

— Albert Einstein

So I experienced renewed friendship with the sun : twas a glorious Stranger smiling at us, at a rushed Port, where there’s that thin fine line between here & eternity, between Time zones, latitudes, clouds, beneath / above. There are safety checks, safety measures. Waiting lounge. Departure, Arrival. Life in Transit. It is all of us, seen as with Bird’s eye. Everything suddenly miniscule. A paradigm shift of reference. One gets to congregate with all that blue. All that expanse. Acres of the heavens. Turbo speed is the closest we come to that kind of mileage. But deep within, we soar higher than we admit.

The nations are as a drop in the bucket, my Scriptures read. What is man …?the first Astronaut on moon quoted from the Psalms. I was a child, now am grown and the more I stare at life, the more am startled by beauty, by pain, by comfort and chaos, and by the rain that falls equally on us all, like the untouchable Light, the way It pulses at emotions, reaching in the iris of human fatigue, esp at dusk.

"Don't think about why you question, simply don't stop questioning. Don't worry about what you can't answer, and don't try to explain what you can't know. Curiosity is its own reason. Aren't you in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure behind reality? And this is the miracle of the human mind - to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what man sees, feels and touches. Try to comprehend a little more each day. Have holy curiosity." 
A.Einstein

Super Power (tears for Peace)

I’ve received hate, evil, disaster, discrimination, cruelty

but with Compassion … one is startled into a new order of things.

Call it Love, Grace, unmerited favor.… It breaks me out of old mental patterns into New.

It ruins Ruins, breathing Life into Carcasses of Joy.

Compassion weeps Fire in the ashes of our tears for Peace… Yea

we’ve eaten at Banquets of Hate but one tiny morsel of true Love, startles us forever

into a Dimension that can pull us out of traditional puppetry..

Can a tiny molecule of Care provoke Change ?

She was at least six months pregnant; her other child seen here, looked up at us with vacant eyes. The woman’s pale face brightened; in minutes every container of food we gave them was ripped open as they ate till their wrists were messy. I couldn’t sleep that night. The first time we saw this family living under a cart in a back lane at Shvaji nagar(busy market area locally), we gave them some food and money. It all seemed too little help for their cracked lips and skins shiny with too many hours in our Indian winter sun.

The next morning we contacted a renowned NGO that was willing to take them in, provided we got local police clearance, which we were willing to get for them. Five mins later, the NGO called to say, “We will get the family in our van ourselves.Legal clearance shouldn’t be a problem. There’s work, food, shelter, provided they are willing.”

Oh. Thoroughly happy with all this, we went back to family under cart in that back lane, with news of help. Their kid could get a life, the young mom could get maternity assistance, her husband – a job. All this with a legal nod. But uh uh. The man looked eager for what was being offered: he worked where he could – cleaning floors, sweeping the street early mornings, but the woman turned into steel. “We are fine.”

“Aren’t you scared of being in the open here, day and night? And in your condition? “

Her yellow eyes flattened. “No.” She said. Gone was the gaunt lost look. The woman looked formidable, a street creature with lower lip sass & arm on hip. We haggled over their safety and future;

their child crawled back under rusting cart which wasn’t theirs. The man gave me a sad smile, as his wife stuck her jaw out. “You don’t want help?” I asked, now embarrassed.

Another young man with them(you see his hand in the photograph), said, “Help.” Then he furthered that with asking for help for himself. Every time I spoke to this couple, the woman muttered at me, the husband looked sadder, and the neighbour asked help for himself.

He almost got to me, before a flower seller and another approached us with severe disapproval, (as the couple + kid disappeared).

“This boy is a local thief, he is mentally ill and will harass you all. “

The local “thief” was breaking my heart by now. Kitsy our daughter bought flowers from the vendor, beetroot for her dad’s salad (after Angioplasty, we are all eating better, every day is a beautiful reminder of miracles, all that…till we got here, to ShivajiMarket, for better veggies).

No, the NGO couldn’t place the boy- local authorities would need to clear him, they said in a quick text. How old was he, 20? His face was a mess of fear, desperation and aloneness. Grandma was all he had; he suffered from fits and was possibly a kleptomaniac. No, the NGO could not help him; this was a legal issue and I was advised to get home. We gave the boy some food and pocket money; his desperation seared thru me, as we got in an auto- rick back home.

Helpless-ness. What a word. What a world. All the need in me to help him didn’t seem to help. The flower & vegetable seller who knew this boy, kind of took care of him. They had even heard of the NGO that was willing to help the family (who disappeared as we spoke).

A strange kind of rejection this was turning into. Flower seller heard me out, and shook his head. “Who gets help like this?” He asked as he handed us a bouquet of lavender asters wrapped in newspaper. “….who refuses work these days? And who are you?”

Who was I ? With an unintelligible reply we had headed home after wading through street food and sellers of scarves, bright kurtas, junk jewelry, cane garden furniture and gaudy green guavas cut in with red chilly and salt.

The world is a strange place: the older I get the more I see it as a Union of Acceptance or Rejection – even from the most unlikely quarters. One sees the strangest Collabs of Innocence & Crime.

That young “thief” had the most innocent eyes I’ve seen in a bit. Local neighbors called him a chronic crook, oh not to be trusted anyplace. But – what if he had a base that could help him? “Help“, he’d said.

I don’t know.

Back home, we are not very strong ourselves, except deep within where I grow my vineyard of Prayer. Here one eats the salt of tears, of sensitivities sharpening by rejection, even from the most fragile sections of our society. Where have we gone wrong, so wrong that Independence is now settling in with lack of social security?

Oh the stories our lanes and lies tell. Some tell me there’s no use just praying. But every single time I meet my Maker, there’s a new face calling from yet another back lane. And they may run away from any kind of assistance; hmm, look it is scary to trust strangers,

and again,

can a tiny Molecule of Care provoke Change?

Maybe, yes. Even in our self.

I responded to a Skeptic not realizing this was going to be more than sweet poetry shares…

Poetry partnerships are responses to each other’s poem.

I hadn’t a clue that the articulate, kind eyed Skeptic’s Kaddish was agreeing to many extra miles just to be seen with my Yeshua verses.

In his Post David Bogomolny says,” Yes, I responded to Faith Poetry.”

“…I mean, really, one of the main reasons I avoid such poetry is because I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. What would be the point of responding to a true believer’s sincere God-loving poem with my skepticism? What would my cynical response accomplish? And- believe me, I have almost nothing left in me today but cynicism…” David Bogomolny, Skeptic’s Kaddish – ben Alexander David.

🌿

I’m a ‘Faith Poet’? Now I know, thank you David. Love the description.

‘He didn’t want to hurt me’ … ben A.D. Ah’m. You don’t see my cactus heart – I’d have been the original doubting Thomas’ daughter had it not been for What we been staring thru’ the dark at !

David writes with skilled ease and forms I never knew existed. Like it or not, this impatience at “faith”, coupled with careful toeing of thin line between here and the Shekinah, is fascinating; his Kaddish of grief, at loss of his father, the renowned Israeli American Mathematician +, Alexander Bogomolny is a Prayer Wall all by Itself. These are lyrics of beauty in ashes. It stirred me to look closer at scepticism. After months I was blogging again and two passages from his Skeptic’s Kaddish ran at me; both are necessary to Everything.

“Papa…in describing you …I have sometimes invoked an image of you as the “genius version of Forrest Gump” because you lived through so much momentous history but remained unruffled by it. You innocently savored life’s little details and exhibited a childlike fascination for moments that went unnoticed by most. It seems to me that your life experiences were filtered through your soul before ever reaching your mind.“

His other line : “… it feels to me as though nobody has any interest in listening to those with whom they disagree politically …..”

Two random readings from a professing skeptic, and neither felt hostile to a Bible hugging momma (me);

so. We did a couple of back and forth Poetry shares. One cannot presume to know another’s journey;

as for me, it wasn’t my Ma’s insistence nor Dad’s that provoked me to stare in the Unseen. Left to myself I’d’ve been the Skeptic of skeptics, you’ve no idea. I didn’t find heaven in the pews and baptism pool till a certain clearing of my mind began. The Unseen was right there beneath my own skin and the veins of leaves, of Life;

like a Poem in our mind that becomes a written word, I stared in the dark: this is how the Unseen world works for me, this is my definition of Faith. “ ..so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Hebrews 11.

I find God staring at my own narrow ways through other humans who can forgive one another too. Love like that hurts like little else can. And it wrecks me to pieces, in a Peace that defies defect. Nothing missing, nothing broken – Shalom. Peace.

🌿

Our local Sati, Dowry deaths to mention a few, had begun to build me into a museum of crime records. It is not impossible to go there. I could not forgive that everyday there’s a grisly rape, an honour killing, there’s war & sins of the powerful / ‘righteous’. One summer holiday between Anne Frank and Jungle Book, I came across Corrie Ten Boom’s Hiding Place:

the power of Forgiveness mingled with Love that asks nothing in return but a certain giving: this is an act of Soul. Without which we are….what? And if we do have Soul, we are miles more than meets the eye. Sigh. Yes!

Then we could not limit our self anymore nor stay indifferent to evidences of Life beneath surfaces. Maybe we would begin to listen to each other, know why we are what we are. We are more than a few dimensions. We are minefields and diamonds that surface from generations of bruises we carry like tattoos in our skin, and stars we seek.

Sheer relief : I didn’t have to play God anymore. I gave up my panel of Controls. One could swing a hammock in a desert if you could find two good trees! There would be dust storms, there would be songs. And there could be nothing missing, nothing broken inside-out if you dared. It would be tiring. Uneasy. No blame games. Only Grace.

🌿

I am grateful for people who believe what they believe with an honesty that is unafraid to look at the Unseen. People like David who is a true ….Tolerant?

May you be startled.

You deserve the best.

That moment you’re aware you’re being watched

…that He is aware of you.

Morrits Farm

He knows you by name. There is nothing that can shake away that moment. The Creator creates it, designer made for you. You look up to see Him gazing down at you.

Tables

There’s no need of the sun, there’s nothing under the earth. Everything you knew pales in the Presence of This Presence that overwhelms all else. You are aware that He is aware of you. You are loved, regarded with Eyes that know things we humans can only try imagine.

Petra rabbit who taught us a few hops😅

“What can separate us from love like that?”

adapted. Bible.
Plantain leaf (plate) waiting for breakfast, Coffee house, Bangalore

As June comes to an end, we are officially past mid 2022. May we know how deeply the Father loves us that He gave His son to take our stripes. We believe in everything else but the most beautiful story of Love. Why. Why not.

We cannot see Him, nor satan, yet both are incredibly palpable in our lives. We get to choose whom we serve, the Tormentor or our Beloved. I guess all of this will best come to light that moment we pass through the veil between life and death

Till then, what am I most aware of ; what grabs my heart and soul. In the secret place of the night mist or early dawn, who am I, whose am I.

World Music day, past week @Alliance Francaise🎶 “Amazed by Grace”🎶

SEAHORSE, my friend

He was real, I was young enough to love him for what he was, a real sea creature in the early waves, Bay of Bengal. Through the years, he has followed me, city after city, lane after lane, along with a certain “Harrison” Aussy Life Saver/priest who took me to the Shoulder of a wave. The two become one in a world of creative fiction, where the real story is one about Trusting the One Whose Shoulder we may lean on with the heart of a child. Do check preview attached👇🏼

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx34iC8LUFTwW5neG50OzJ-4jN7iSFBwvF

“No, blood does not matter anymore”

We have had tea together a thousand times in these cane chairs facing her curry leaf tree and windows hung with old silk curtains.

Pic Ayaneshu Bhardwaj

Sia is a good woman with friends and folks who love her; why wouldn’t they, she is not just strikingly entertaining, she is one of the loveliest persons I have ever met. Dark long classic almond eyes in a determined oval shaped face set in wheat gold skin you want to paint! ( I’ve tried painting Sia and will try again; she is a hundred stories and I must wait to capture all their colours, oh she’s generous with comment and has booked a canvas from my battered easel). I was saying though, beneath that nice surface is soft steel, easier to break than I suspected possible.

“I should not insist on being loved by my only sibling, but uhm, who said blood is thicker than anything else? It is a liquid and it can dry up like a forgotten river.”

Sia talks that way between better days, so I’m not all surprised, and yet today the moment simmers like her eyes: they brim with aloneness.

Pic Niranjan

“One should know they are not needed or loved anymore, but I still hang on, I follow my sister, I wait for her to come home, I remember our childhood too much, now…it changes? Because...?”

I have not one nice warm thing to say. Her gold lemon tea with mint leaf waits in white ceramic; I cannot breathe, her hurt has to ebb. It doesn’t.

“..is alright,” she continues as if she heard me. “Let’s have that mint from my herbal pot, hehe!”

Just when I was settling into her sorrow she turns into the rising sun.

“You know, Ray. I do not feel bitter anymore?! They do not want me, that is fine. We fight for those we need to keep. Once that is not there anymore, what is the fight? How is the painting coming up?“

“What painting?!” I ask without thinking and her face blows up in laughter. Without warning, Sia Mayben is a skyful of crackers!

“This is what I love best about you, girl. You are not picking problems, you do not care, you walk in a Light that is not the sun.”

I do?

“…and there’s a God and He loves you, loves me. My entire life I hate Him, but He never leaves. Never. Nah….Yem! ” She says that for ‘yes’ occasionally, it’s her unusual upbringing; I will never know where she totally grew up in. She sounds like ghettos sometimes- raw, dismembered, and then she is a fountain of healing.

Today for some reason I’m the cause of her healing? I said / did nothing, but the woman isn’t listening. At 80+ she’s earned that right. She talks about her dead sis like she’s there in the next room, then she turns into the Psalmist.

I promise to finish her painting as soons I get more time between comforting Kitsy our second daughter whose Crayfish ate up her beloved Molly– I didn’t dare tell her ‘I told you so’,

Oh but I did tell her,

that, and our youngest fantastic blind 21 year old declaring hatred for his walking cane-

Pic Umaong Mirip

yes, must paint Sia. She is the color of an earth poised to smile: the blood in her runs deep as a river that never forgets. Did her sister really not love her? I’ll never know – Alzheimer’s is a deadly treasure trove.

Though, it makes Sia all the more a mystery to peer through – at a world aching for rest.

“Blood doesn’t matter …” Is a sentence laced heavy with truth. I know at least 2 adopted human beings whose love is not enarmoured by genetics.

Weaving my way back home between Bipolar auto rickshaws and pre- monsoon showers pelting the sidewalk, I can’t help feeling Sia’s feelings. Yem. There’s more that matters, than just blood.

netpic.

The power of belief

It can turn you and me into ‘threshing machines’ (Is 41.15); thresh away doubt in the amazing love of God. I’ve seen hate and I’ve seen indifference, but

nothing shakes my core like the Presence of Him who can touch my heart of stone.

Insta post

..nothing moves me like the Fountain of His tender mercy new every morning. Oh nothing shakes me to the core like His still small voice insisting, pursuing my weakening breath, pleaing that I look away from stubborn doubt into His permanence.

Sacred Whisper

It called,

Photography Tom Barrett

like It had a thousand times but today It included me in Its Light. It wore my hands and feet, and ignored the shadows of death, the insanity of the night gone. Then It said my name. Like It says yours, this is none other than the Spirit of the Living Loving God. It calls…

Pieces of God

Her eyes sparkle then dim as he walks out and leaves her to pay their bill. I didn’t dare take a pic while they were there.

Next to us a couple (late 30s?)….her eager smile full of pink lipstick; his laughter, …careless? The Cafe reeks of a few worlds the names of which I try find, they’re there in my sensitivities.

Another couple exchange photographs in their mobiles, then he stares long at his phone; she beams at him, waiting, then looks at me. Her paper thin cheeks crease in a smile that reveals one broken tooth, was I imagining that? What do I know except that we are pieces of a Life too complex to understand just yet and yet, aren’t we each fantastically full of pieces with or without God.

I ask our eldest daughrer Vi, why Cafes draw me so hard and she grins back, “Oh its stories…ma?” Hmm,

this is real, raw; they unmask certain some unseen things?

One solitary diner talks into laptop, two humans across the long low roofed cafe huddle in peppered ponytails and bright colors, a couple with resting faces burrow into gaudy salads:

people with words, or none, via a miracle of timing: we have coffee together celebrating a victory, a sadness, Hope…

Outside, before our flyover:

👇🏼

images mutate, then sink like rats in the sewer. Old crinkled velvet chair seat: it will go to dust. There will be new furniture for someone…

pic: Manisha Raghunath

a flower seller insists we buy her 2Roses. Kitsy our second daughter returns one rose to the girl who flares with the indignity of that. The dignity of Humility, oh. She receives her Rs 50/-, not thinking she could’ve priced it a bit more; didn’t dare offer her another note, her jaw defies pity?! This is new in my country of a billion contrasts and every contrast falling in me like a psalm;

like pieces of God brewing our attention to detail: perhaps we have misunderstood a few events between here and heaven? Perhaps what we call pain and suffering are truly Bridges into God raw real, screaming for Peace with man….

pic Sneha Sivarajan

“Joy?”

I get a forward on “Feeling Joy no matter what” and I’m thinking “Nice!” but the weather is neat pools of red mud where they’re digging up new roads around our address. Yes, the rains give us poetry too, if you’re like me when we aren’t reading on bombings at Borders and what Price Gurus are saying in our Newspaper dropped off at shoe rack outside. Yes yes, an Indian- Must-have (shoe rack outside door) has come in handy after the Virus! All this, but Joy: not trending Reel – 30second replay of Insta-joy, but an “underground river” the forward implied.

Ummm.

So. I’m backing into every overload of goodness the Lord ceaselessly forwards our way:

am doing what I can to true and serious Follow Him so His Updates happen on my Homepage asap. Serious …

without those Notifications I’m stewing bad news bits or Reels of puppies falling asleep & local Funny people (even Jordindians, a few ‘Jalals’ – they’re not all courteous)😏

But Joy – that’s the real deal. Not pieces of this and that, but the Act of the Psalmist hisself, tripping via my Times, raking in spadesful* of Green Pastures with Him Who alone can Unblock the Light.

* spadesful, or spadefuls?

& this is a Draft I’m posting unedited. Is Joy optional? I think so. We never add it on as a Must-have, only because it is a commodity not available off the shelf, unless we Follow the One Who made us all,

He’d have it in loads. Anyone Who created our puppies and furry friends would. Oh I hear at least three of my friends hoot at that.

Whatever it is we follow, will follow us wherever we are headed.

I’m looking at the aspect of Joy.

🌿🕊⛓️🌿⛓️🕊

Re-generate!

Is it even a horse? Maybe not. Inspired by

New Creation. Oil. RN Unfinished

***

C.S.Lewis’ ‘Winged Horse‘, re-wiring the way I look at Renewals:

worn out earth route replaced by sky map – wings; brain fatigue, taken on by new oxygen!

Who said anything against that, Bro, take a walk in the direction of newnesses. “Racham” Love beyond Love. I found that in a Hebrew Translation of the Love of God, beyond parallel. Love like that speaks to worn out sinews of humanity; to its war-birthed monsters of chaos. Ay, Racham, a Love that breathes into my empty spaces that would other wise fill with death.

Have a blessed day, may Christ meet you totally.

‘Go to the ant thou sluggard,’ He said

At the Pet Sanctuary we met Hedgehog with soulful eyes (tattoos belong to Guide).

Hedge hogs are camera shy, did you know???
he curls into this 💜 with Alpha skills at enduring camera lens!
Silver peasant– the male is way more “Dude” than missus. She is”plain” for camouflage against predators as she tends their young. Male boy is cuter – so he can distract roving evil eye, often even giving his life for her & their babies.
Co- habitance.
…later we are told the handsome iguana has whiplash tail that can break bones.
Bearded dragon from Oceania!
Maya– rescued with her mate from local street. Someone let their horses go?

Sir Guinea Pig. (Global Pharma/Cosmetics and Psych Labs: why endanger these beauties?)
Noe,Kitsy, Wings & co.
..every chitter said the same thing, that we humans saw too little of the Creator in all our doings/ undoing;
“What can I say?” I asked Sir Guinea. “God is good,“he replied. “Eden to here, He’s good all the time. Wish you could see it from my centimeters. Y’all too tall.“
Outside Prani Pet Sanctuary, ‘long necked rushes’ we took home👇🏼
Everything reminds me of the Matrix of Things hidden from human reasoning;
of a Single Hand that meshes all Species in one stroke.

🌿

Every piece of Light and Thought, all War & Crime,

Evil itself reflects what it opposes. Violence turns our eye on Peace, Hate drives hard a case on Love, Disbelief singularily champions a running away from Belief 👉🏼in the very Thing all Creation points to.

When we go out into a universe full of Footprints of the Unknown,

It stares us in the face – this Oneness written into all Living Features:

patterns of Interaction, of Bonding or not, of Phonetic / other Exchanges between the bars of Cages and Pens

things we are not prepared for, things that happen when a rabbit and turkey, gosling or rescued pony meet your whisper, with a sound that can only be described as the Language of Creation~

in syllables that connect us all in one shared Room called Planet Earth;

each of us with unique fingerprints and more ‘unique’ we haven’t even begun to know,

🌷🦓🦗🍂

every eye and tongue of us flora, fauna and homo sapien: inimitable, no matter the sophistication of stem cell theories and other.

The older I get the more gawk-eyed I am, about how little we care about where we’re headed after we leave all this-

that world beyond what human iris can now see,

Divine Dad please lead me (pic with Noe& our visually challenged son)
Fish! Our home slowly turns into an aquarium. Since this pic, we have four more bowls and tails and snout gazing at us in speechless knowledge I envy.

“I lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of me...” Philippians 3:12.

bloganuary prompt

Hello 2022!

Life jackets on!

Gratitude

&

Peace❗

yeah and a memorable one, this speed boat driver was👇🏼 a sweet maniac just waiting for a bunch like us. He went in a bit, unsuspicious slow then revved in 8s and shape Ws!
Dizzy twirls were just about starting

Sure I’m holding onto our technically ‘blind’ son with +++ challenges from seizure meds, but grhhjhj, we thinks Mr.Boy particularly enjoyed this manic driver. The man had kind eyes, we trusted him. We told him our Dad had worked that Lighthouse decades ago. We were kin and kith with beach folk, right- but trust is a redefinition all by itself. Kind eyes loved the squeals of us Mice at his mercy, it was his friendly joy to trip our moment left right and centre.

Looking back…It was good. We did decibels we didn’t know were in us. Then we met God in a whole new way there at sea. This is how Storms felt, well – almost. This is what it looked like to be afraid, what it sounded like, felt like….yeah often with the devil himself apparently at the helm, but all the fear was in our heads. What could happen if we tipped over wee too much y’know…

with that horizon tipping 180 degrees this way and that. Um Life jackets. That was re – assuring – firm and braced around the heart. And now safe back home I can’t resist the Q:

What’s my Life Jacket as we go another Trip around the sun together?

🌾(Something we put together yesterday for tomorrow 👇🏼)

insta post

December 2021, God knew!

God knew. That the sea would rinse things I didn’t know were there: an aloneness that comes with a trial, He brought it all out and rebuked it, His sea salt burned it away, hehe!

Kaup, where Dad first met Mom- here my sisters were born. Such memoirs of yesterday, running like the tide.

How could we have known our blind son would so love that horse; he disliked the waves rushing at him, “How dare you!” Joh shouted at the Arabian sea
‘Puli Munchi’ Tulu fish curry you got to taste to know.
Malpe, off the Indian Konkan coast.
At Maidadi.

Mountain forest trail, thru Kudremukh mist & heavy close foliage. It was another world- heady, strong scents of wood moistened with dew; local springs in moss. Am still speechless. Utterly. Like God took my heart and laid fresh terms in there. The Light fell thick unsplintered and very very close, with His Presence. You couldn’t take it for granted. It had It’s own pulse, you needed to listen, to the song of that- to His Breath breathing deep. Something dead in me rose. Unsure what it was- something essential to human existence. His finger deep in my spirit, healing a bruise. Now I know why God called Moses to the mountain. He was afraid of it, like I was, shivering at its sheer cliff. It is a thing to overcome, a fear to face, even master. Here he met His true spirit Father. Here, a challenge was given, here a deal was made to live again against all odds.

Noe at Kudremukh. Today the place is a ghost town from a mining company that was laid off.

Prayer is that hanging bridge between us
and the Trinity! Nothing is too hard for the
Lord; in fact the moment we are suspended in new difficulty, we are closer to Advantage in Christ! Vihan took this pic as we went thru terrific mountain forest trails. Was scary beautiful, we were clinging to His arm. One wrong move, or Johann in a tizzy, (he was next to Noe driving) – could’ve sent us down a ravine no jokes. But God. We are still in the momentum of that mountain route. How deadly life can be, but how huge is His Presence.

Family wedding at Coorg.

I brought home some coastal flora! Bayhop and Pigface. And oh forest babies from 3 mountain ~ Fern/ Horsetail/ bamboo pigmies/ ….am now making up names, there’s more….
yes, feeling good.

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…

Thankyou Kelly Sikemma for Pic

…. 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

🕊🌾

R.

Found this on Instagram.

For FMF Writers

When healing comes it comes soft, or

sudden, like a miracle. Suspicious, I peer at It.

Ankesenamun

It seeps out like new petals, like the spread of new colour. Laughter tinges Its Stem. I sulk in the shadows, refusing to let go of the dark, it was my safe place but now Joy begins to bud! I believe that I cannot believe: whoa….the greatest war on the human spirit divides me right here : this firm insistence on the denial of the Touch of the Healer.

The room trembles with Peace, the mind of me reverts to memories of illness. God has never not walked right into my broken heart, He has never once left me alone. I have been touched over and over by the Hand of God and yet how deep is shallowness of the human, that I would resort to past sickrooms rather than remember the million miracles that are my itinerary.

As a new day begins I’ve never been as summoned by God as now. It doesn’t feel normal. It doesn’t feel safe. Hehe. My inner being revolts with the five senses. You know there are more than five. The sixth and seventh and nth sense are summed in Words we sniff at like wines tasters and net browsers: there’s Faith and Hope and Love. The greatest of these is Love:

not the transient self absorbed love that feeds need, but the Love of God that can walk right into a human room and lift the roof off with His Presence. The roof off our fire escapes and others. I’m grinning at the visual of that, as a new emotion unfurls. Faith is a substance. A fact. Not an invisibility. It bears root and stem and blossoms…

hey. Have a blessed day

Innerdialects.

(Also do check out Jon Bloom ‘s Article on Belief; found his website yesterday, am so grateful for the read).

Wrestling with an Angel

“Is there a fear staring you in the face right now? Are you finding your faith in God’s promise shaking? If so, you are likely praying desperately for God to be with you. God will answer you. But you might, like Jacob in Genesis 32, be surprised by his answer.” Jon Bloom in “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Today we faced a particularly difficult day with a young one who’s coping with medical challenges, we were worn out with love. Never used those words before, but there it was. As we huddled together in a quick call on the God Who made us all, these words went thru me, “…help us wrestle as we wrestle with our angel,” . This was in a way, our Lil Angel of Tough, teaching us lessons we didn’t know, but we were learning.

Sometimes we wrestle with an angel: the angel of pain, aloneness…look close.

Hulki OKan Tabak. Unsplash

Watch what happens.

Ach..Jacob wrestled with the Angel of God, He hurt his sinew, then pointed to a longer, tedious hazardous route in his journey, via southern Gilead, a den of thieves. What did the Angel whisper that Jacob obeyed, what did the hurt sinew do, but strengthen him to become Israel?

And when it was getting to dawn, Jake holds on to the Angel, “I will not let you go until you bless me…”

What secrets hide in such places that regular comforts fail to offer? Here we may falter, fail, recline in fear, doubt.

Worse. Often in our tangle with doubt, our greatest “Ally” will encounter us, even disable us till we realise the disabling process was enabling certain instincts we could never have guessed were within, just waiting its moment to be birthed. Now we are yelling, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” It is a miracle all by itself to be here where we now see what was needed the most.

The encounter breaks us, before taking us higher …like dawn. Oh like dawn.

There was Daniel, fatigued by an angelic visit he laydown exhausted, fevered. What more shall I say, we are ‘surrounded by a host of Witness more than we know’. Moses blanched white to the roots of his hair after a Tent meet with the God of Sinai.

Today if we’ve wrestled with a personal ‘Angel’, look in the mirror of the soul and soon oneday you will stop fighting the Challenge that was here in the first place to teach us to lean not on our own Fears, but on the One Who is above all human bondage.

Here, cherish Him, the Risen Savior Who lives that we too might stand ten feet tall, like standing grain,

It is not for nothing we wrestle.

Storm Song

“You cannot withstand the storm,” It whispers. The Warrior whispers back, “I am the Storm.” Jake Remington.

N.S’Bi. Unsplash Images. Uploaded one day ago, from a city ravaged by the storms of human calculations & evil. Yet in the nuclei of this Thing, whether we see it or not, there is a new kind of mettle being born:


a new strength in weakness. Desperation will despair of itself, & birth New life among the dying: a new resilience born in times as these. There will be a Remnant:

little children will grow with Wings in their feet, and new Voice in lips that were sealed. The dead will speak. They will rise as the stars. The deaf will hear, and the blind will see what they could never have, if not for the Storm.

They will walk water and write in the wind with fingers of fire. They will sing, and it will be such a song as has never been heard, among a resurrection of Freedom like we have not seen: Heaven comes down for those who wait for it. They will rise on wings like an eagle, they will run and not be weary, walk and not faint. Teach me, teach me Lord.

FMF WRITERS

Healing from one bullet

I just saw this piece by Malala. If you haven’t heard about her, read on.

The chaos being experienced right now is not a distant event: it is the scream of humans that will follow us in ways we can’t know yet. What can we do? I’m praying. There’s people praying that those who can make a difference will do so.

https://podium.bulletin.com/269177711419542

I have so little left to say, just ask

  • What are we to teach our children?
Kiddie ‘lions’ @ the ‘Valley of Resistance’; Panjshir(five lions) the last bastion against the Taliban has not been accessible to terror/ war these 20 years owing to the valley that secures it. Today though the Lines fall in unpleasant places: reports come in of weakening battle fronts. One can only hope and pray for humane negotiations.
Will they hold out? How long? These are not battle – worn hard liners, these are someone’s daughters,and moms, wives. They are angry, fearful and armed with courage, …..but a match for a Force known for brutality?!

“In the city I loved, suddenly nowhere was safe“

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-58071592

  • What is a woman’s worth/ a nation’s?
  • Is the equivalent of Peace~ War?
  • Is there a Global community of peace keepers ?
  • When will current conflicts end/how?
  • Do we realize its all more than earth life?
  • Do we think of our soul?
  • Are we totally de- sensitized to bloodshed/ to another’s war?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58329527

Panjshir Valley

What is the global community thinking after 20 years of a different take? I’m swallowing words. Its easy to spew things out in the ongoing aftermath of chaos, but this will impact generations to come like only hell can prescribe. Saigon and Hiroshima now live on within their maps. This here will bleed in every continent like ceaseless echoes in the mountains…

and that’s putting it sweet

and yet, the more we hurt, the more we keel, we look up at the sun, its stars and days of nights breaking into dawn, and don’t you too wonder how ceaseless the path of Light, like Love, true love

not a whim, a selfish need, but a Cross socially distanced from humans, who cannot believe there is One that died to speak Reconciliation, Oh God –

the more we die, the closer the sky falls in with Your Light. When will we all realize, we are fighting the thing we fear most- Your Presence oh God?

In the chaos, may we soften our heart, to hear You my Christ. May Your presence cast out all Fear, that the unseen enemy of the soul be eternally defeated.