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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

To Dance with the Fabulous Unseen

_{In response to the Five minute Friday’s “}Choose“

Light. Shining. Via our son’s blindness? This is not what we yelled for at altars. This is not what we asked …

the Almighty, and when He never answered we sulked hard at the unanswered prayer.

This dawn am staring at how I’ve misunderstood the Act of not getting what I asked, and how it morphs me into a person one would never prescribe for their self… cuz the basic human request (esp this parent’s) is pretty self focused.

Watching him in the Light of a growing sun or dusk, is staring at his Joy not dependant on external conditions, as I am. He doesn’t know how blindness separates the seen from the Unseen.

What’s it like for him to never see my face, but touch me and experience my love for him? To never see the sun but feel its warmth in his skin. Am humbled this morning at the hugeness of Light,and how it can spill out of even my own response…re-writing my own thoughts that spiral down, and oh into the Unseen Dayspring in the cellars of inner blindness;

often I Choose to pursue sadness. But on days as these, the Light hits the shutters of my mind, leaving me no Choice but to dance with the fabulous All Mighty Light.

🌿🌻🌱

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 prayed for a prayer

burn my lips with verbs that do nothing but peace Abba.

Fire dance

^{WordPress Daily Prompt: have you ever performed on stage or given a speech}

Yes, I have performed even my Tefillah* on stage & ones in streets & inside my teeth.

Ma would weep.

For me praying used to be racing sandslopes to where the sun was still in grey waters waiting to give me gold:

a gold that took everything,

It still seeps my tides of Will & Time: a refining Fire mill.

Later I saw grown ups pray / rocking at walls, then walk away; but do watch when a Prayerer sways: each sway is a flame that is given away, not necessarily warming only the Prayerer.

***

Yeah though shhhhlisten I have the deadliest condition : unanswered prayers. These mutate at Change;

I do not wait for You, God, for togetherness’ sake, my Asking only dictates!

Forgive me, Abba

I’m returning, racing to where You wait, like the silence of the sun, unchanged.

I’ve seen too much to dismiss the Dawn that brought me here: my best Tefillah is yet to be

where Abba burns the dark to dance with me,

in the firemill that changes the Asker.

***

*_{Tefillah : Hebrew. Outpour of heart, in Presence of the Almighty.}

That moment you’re aware you’re being watched

…that He is aware of you.

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.

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

Heal

when we do, we will be changed,

These days there are no words enough. We will heal when we heal;

we will die and birth either hate or more love:

the kind that is conceived in days like these when our children kill our children. What state is that?

Words fail. We sit in the grass that bears our babies – these are days of a state we never knew; days we blame God not hell; days we turn away from the Forgiver, to the Taunter of humans.

Father forgive us. Father, heal.

FMF

‘The Cokeville Miracle’

True life stories have a way of leaving you staring as movie credits scroll down your Living room:

after you get a glass of cool water, you re- live some of the scenes you just watched, then get back in current reality, a little re- arranged. This Movie had that effect on me/ us. I forgot to have a coffee;

👆🏼 90+ kids prayed, as terror unleashed around them, and then the 3rd dimension breaks loose, really?

Why isn’t this taught in our textbooks? Why are we systematically worried about stepping on anothers’ cultural toes, for tipping each other off on the greatest Essential ever – the presence of Heaven right in our personal hells?! Why is the God a ‘boring old man’ & better substituted by Red caped Santa, when the Real Deal is by far the very thing our wildest dreams scream for?

Strange things happen when we pray. “It doesn’t change things always, it changes us for things.” Famous Quote – they knew what they were saying. Yea strange things….

“miracles” : not just shopping lists ticked off by a celestial Arm, but soul details refurbished, “inners” thwacked back into breath.

If you’ve lived enough like I have, if you’ve watched your blind son dance in the rain (he’s got the whackiest moves😀), if you’ve watched him heal from seizures only to be impacted by Meds’ side effects in ways I’d rather not enlist here- zero assistance from more Meds, and dear Docs wondering whether we are training him alright or not, for now he manifests personality issues,

but then he is, steadily better, I’m saying “steadily”, cuz yesterday was a bad day. Pardon my short forms and zero editing skills. I blog best on the run, its a Mom- human hehe; a daughter of a Father Who hears my Prayers. I deliver them 9-5, a rant, a Psalm- a song on the hinges of Faith!

For there are days of zero strength, of numb disbelief, trauma, shock. Days I wonder why everyone is mad in the newspapers, why is life political…

and then there are the Miracles, they start like a small fire somewhere in the midriff, in the back of my tongue, a taste of a certain sweetness unimagined-

it is the start up of miracles. It beats what could happen if all were well with everyone, I mean factually, physically. In the presence of a not so cool moment, a sudden wellspring of joy, is not an imagined App, trust me, it is the Fact of the Act of Prayer. He does it every single time. Every single time.

Not the easiest job in the world, ‘momma hood’, but the perks!

_{^{Today, outside her old School, our lil girl and I}}

I had made an error! Wrote my own name wrong in an important document; let’s spare you the details.In the half hour, we seriously request School Admin to bear the burden of an errant momma’s mistake, oh no I couldn’t do the Legal route, I’ve never even seen a Judge, like in a court room, help. They finally look me in the eye with compassion, I could hug the lady but she’s wearing the steel armor of School Admins, though with a tender smile that says this document is a School leaving certificate and will need endorsement by the State, so. I can’t imagine anyone more powered than the young lady in powder blue sari and curled bun at neck nape. She could run for Prime Minister; I’d have melted by now at a momma’s misery, though she’s right y’know. Mercy & justice meet and kiss as I finally exhale: they are going to “see what they can do.”

Yessssss’m. Hadn’t I prayed just this morning, and hadn’t the God of Moses Himself told me this was a Red sea, but it could part at the power of prayer? Did I have the faith of even a mustard seed? Maybe. Maybe a hundredth of a mustard seed, a shrunk one!

As we leave school campus, there are teachers and bus driver who chat with Kitsy; School Principal is an angel, National Treasure I’m telling you. They didn’t want to send me away with a big No, they were kind.

When last had an Academic Institution spent that much time explaining a tangle?

Yea or nay, Judge, no Judge, whatever route this takes, I love these people who felt my heart pulse in my ears.

Hmm, things like this still make me turn into undiluted pulp. Like when their school socks, or shirt had a stain; when homework was not done, a lunch box missing, ugh, bus pass misplaced, a text book lost.

Old familiar feelings run through me, like lost sheep returning home. These were / are simpler troubles compared to the monsters staring us down this day and age: neighbor nukes, pandies( pandemics), bills in parliament… Ouch prices of this and that.

I’m resting, enjoying the panic of years that gently eased themselves out of our schedules: early morning frenzy between kitchen and front door, ribbons, badges, dog eared books and excited kids running back home with news they had to spill before properly getting off the bus…

Kitsy and I head back home as she exhales, “Oh Ma!”

Two words she uses on a whole variety of occasions; today it is wreathed in a peace I so admire in her. She’s a strong girl; where’d these kids learn to be so composed and calm while I’m swinging off the earth in great big arcs?!

we grin without words, at the way I am, then discuss how being a mom (and daughter) is being a mountain mid valley, a desert in an oasis and vice versa, a river, a drought, an ocean, an island, a forest, a volcano and a mighty rain fall all in one.

We have momos, a bowl of Thai soup.

“Ma, my treat,” she says. What can I say.

It is so early I can hear my heart

Pre-dawns do that. It wakes you up to beauty and quiet, rest and hope.

Have a day of peace and joy, yea we are that privileged.

Reflections

Thoughts on a new May day! No pun intended😅 have a blessed day. Did this for our online fellowship – church, and personally startled all over again by the massive arm of God’s Love that leaves none out.

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…

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….

“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

***

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.

Resurrection Theater!

20 mins, 7 moments at the Cross and 7 after;

14 voices from different continents & clocks, with the Single Theme of God’s heart for Humanity.

Listen closer to the Cross

D’you hear It’s Whisper ?

Prayer Ballad

Stoked by Prayer Requests from the Ukraine and our very own home fires. Dearest Lord is Your kindv Love impossible in these times?

The Greatest Love

Nothing stares me in the face like this Reading; today and always but esp today, wishing you the Greatest Love ever🌷It commits us to a whole different kind of strength (_{read below)}

“commit” (thank you FMWriters)

The strength to not strike back, hate. The strength to love in the face of indifference, “…hold on to that for which Christ laid hold of us…”

“Redemption”

Oil says it better than my fingers, Grace says it best: flowing like blood, in the vein of us- humanity. The Oil of Grace.

Not my favorite theme to paint, for Its demand on mood and line, but this time It called me, “…into participation & companionship with His Son Christ Jesus our Lord.”(1Cor1:9). Everyday it changes me, every day it teaches me to forgive, love back, hold on to what held me, holds me.

‘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.

…later we are told the handsome iguana has whiplash tail that can break bones.

*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?)

*..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!

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 👇🏼)

“No be afraid!”

Luke 2:10.

We bought this crib at a Home where they made tiny clay models depicting the lowly birth of Jesus among other things, but this 12 piece set caught our eye.

Sis Sarai* introduced us to inmates with disabilities: they wheeled in, limped, muttered and some smiled hard. There was Lila, with a withered hand and she beamed like a Lighthouse in the dark proudly displaying each shining member of the crib. She too had worked on these miniatures, the woman said in slow Hindi and some English.

Lila recounted the Bethlehem story, “No be afraid,” her voice shaky from an illness as she mimicked the Angel! One or two inmates yawned. Another looked away. Amazing how a picture can retell an old story and you understand a little more today than ever before.

The details blur then re-assemble.

After all these years I revisit the fearlessness in this round eyed woman with the one little arm, as they sang “Away in a manger” & Silent night, in unsteady candle light. We were at their Carol service; after a Bible-reading Lila prayed simple words of trust in the Lord Jesus who taught her to be unafraid.

Our eldest, Vihan was almost 4 years old that December: I, recovering from a chronic fever knew about Fear from Hospital waiting rooms and labs as my husband and I awaited more of my test results over and over,

here at the Home now, we received the Good News of our Savior’s undying Love as if for the first time, via a ‘destitute’ woman with one good hand and 1000 watt smile;

no special powers to these tiny clay folk still in our celebrations each year;

as we bring out ‘Christmas- decor’ 2021, go cherish the Good News of this Unstoppable Cradle King that no hell could prevail against, for you and me and all for Humanity: lest we forget.

My spirit fills with gratitude that over the years, Christ has not stayed in clay, but has gazed into my life with very real Presence. The reality of Christmas is fantastic: this Christ that grew to take on a Cross, a Resurrection Garden; He would walk through walls to get through to my heart of stone.

May the heart of you be warmed this season, with True Love from the Manger.

_________________________

* All names changed.

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.

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….

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

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.

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

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.

Pray for Afghanistan

What you will see here are Photographs I just found @Unsplash bytwo Afghan Adventure Photographers, unsure if safe to publish names.

Wherever you are, we pray for your safety. Thank you for these stilling Captures

_{^{Pic S.G}}.

_{As people and parliaments the world over work towards an almost impossible Peace, we pray for wings like an eagle, for every child, man & woman –}_{God that we would fly to You, our Rock of Soul Shelter}_,

^{Oh Father we ask that little boys and girls will run again in the streets, for the sound of guns going away, and the music of joy like hinds feet in high places… I pray that .}^..
**^{_{Pic S. G}}**.

.._{that we be healed by the wounds of the Cross; & that the Blood of Jesus shed for all, will quench human cravings;}

_{^{Pic S.G}}.

_{That raiders of body & soul, & you and I hear the Voice of God breathing Peace}

Above Paragraph written by N.D.

Thankyou both, you amazing humans. We wish you safety, joy, & peace but above all, we wish you Jesus.

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.