A Mantis Death

    In winter we forget about bugs, which is why I was doubly surprised to see such an exotic insect clinging to the window screen of the living room.
     Pale green and purple, the praying mantis was a larger than I had ever seen before. I thought he was dead until I blew on him and his antennae twitched.

An Absence

Grandma Lillian sat in the peeling white wicker chair. She had not wanted one that rocked.
"Every day," she repeated. "Everyday."
"What's everyday?" I asked her. I stopped laying the long pieces of grass in floor plans on the porch steps. I hoped to eventually build a house.
"Light is in every day, Kareem."
"Yeah, I guess Grandma. They call it daylight."
She chuckled at my youth. "Do you know what darkness is, dear?"
"You're going to tell me." In one motion I swept the grass off the step.
"Darkness is nothing. Darkness is an absence."
"Of day."
"Of light," she said.
"Oh," I said. I went back to my picking.
She sat for a while. I was too busy making improvements to see when she left.

Then It Rained

     There was a man. He planted a tree in his yard.
     The man watered the tree every day there was no rain. There had been no rain for four hundred years.

The Far Ocean

I dwell far from the ocean,
locked in by sprawling tracts
without the slightest motion
and only stagnant facts.

I dream of sea salt sprays
in acrid prairie lanes,
lifted by September haze
never bringing fragrant rains.

I hope to hear gulls shriek
as they tumble overhead
and search out when they leak-
it sinks as fast as lead.

I watch for other ships
where blue ends at the white
and day dips into night

Wrecked

Used to be a rising star.
Found I am a dinosaur.
About to get wrecked.

Used to be a rising star;
how am I a dinosaur
staring at the asteroid?

Used to be a rising star -
now I am a dinosaur
getting smashed by asteroids.

Used to be a rising star,
then I was a dinosaur
only good at getting wrecked.

Evenings Are My Jewelry Box

A salmon shredded by cosmic claws
fell to pieces along dry scales,
spilling carnelian clouds across the wasted sun.

Buoyant and lovely in alien purity,
a pearl quit the depths of the East
for the height of an inked purple mass.

Later,
Congealed rose-gold flakes of mutable fish
outshone the Luminosity
until the West plummeted –

And a velvet cover appeared,
lining the lid of the world,
hinged upon encroaching hours
in which I fixated upon a dream.

Writer (of the Multiverse)

Down inside my insect eyes
a thousand private worlds collide;

a million minute observations
nurture hungry new creations.

Clenching fingers write for ages,
vaulting thoughts from mind to pages.

Portals leaking from my hand
transport you to another land.

Never doubt these pools of ink
ripple further than you think.

Parables in War and Subtraction

          Two brothers had armies. They faced their army against the other brother across the river.
         One brother commanded his soldiers to fire. One ordered his soldiers to wade across and slit his brother’s throat.
         After the battle no one remained standing; they all laid down at the edge of the river, which turned red that year and killed the crops downriver.

We Could Not Steal Another Horse

Again we rode upon a horse
along the turbid river course.
Below the willows green and fair
we stopped awhile and loosed the mare.

She blinked at us as if to say:

Wallflower

       Glare from the windshields in the parking lot below bothered her eyes. Fiona drew away from the riot of color and rejoined the hallway, where drab buttercups dotted the wallpaper and pale lilies framed in tarnished gold metallic emphasized the antique nature of the geriatric population.

So Serious Saturday #31

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Perspective

A Word on Beauty and Roles

       People complain about how Hollywood treats women poorly, and how if you are female and you want to be a star you play a love interest or someone’s mother, or The Frustrated Nag if it’s comedy 

or deadly serious drama.

      When a slightly different role for a woman is created by a television show or movie experiment, people laud it as being inspirational, for a woman being placed in the role of a strong character. The new show about Supergirl was one of these excitements. Wonder Woman will probably be stronger, being a big-budget movie. 

Making of a Blouse

Origami sheets and fabric
fold into a form of magic;

stretched across a wooden frame,
a woven cloth becomes the same.

Tighten corners, crease the fold,
stretch and pull for time untold.

Make sure the sides are even cut
before the pattern's open, shut.

Now to add the final touch:
a stitch or two won't cost too much.

Pack the crates, and stuff the planes -
at port and shipyard unfold cranes.

So Serious Saturday #30

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Perspective

The Kid-Dult

     Comics, bright colors, and recreation are the latest trend in advertising and media. Is this just a fad, or will this preoccupation with eternal youth turn our culture into a worldwide playground for the rich?

     Only a hundred years ago, children were dressed in miniature adult costumes and told to be seen and not heard. 

     Aristocratic children, that is – the poor were peasants who changed clothes once a year before their rags fell apart in the snow.

Direct Support

     I had come to care for the way Miriam Sowsbury took great deliberations in shifting her weight from her left foot to her right instep, and the slow, trailing green eyes following each shoe as though by looking at her feet she could will them to keep her standing.
     She always looked a bit cautious – to the casual outsider even precarious – but after one year of witnessing how Miriam’s gentle spirit appreciated the hidden intricacies of her conscious existence, I smiled when I saw her attentiveness to the small details other people missed in the course of their harried schedules.

Isaac, Son of Encouragement

Son of Encouragement

     He met me close to a bus stop in uptown.
     Work in my folder with various data sheets distracted me from looking directly at him as I answered his question with caution. After all, a girl should be alert at all times.
     I let him believe without correction that my name was Kat and that I was graduated from high school. The latter was at least true. This stranger asked me about college, since he said I seemed “highly intellectual”, and here I said maybe I would go into teaching or get a master’s degree in a vague English field, that perhaps I would look into attending Fullerton. My grade point average was sought, and as usual I got the thrill of impressing a person with it.
    From there I stopped working and closed my books. The more I focused on the man talking to me in a quite open and honest way, the more I became intrigued by his conversation, his relating to me in a bold and fluent manner which was consistent with everything I could gather about him from ten minutes of acquaintance.
     He had gone to high school near uptown, and he told me about his encouragements to his friends throughout, his so-called “gift of gab”. His words rung true with his manner which, again, was so openly human as to be pure from deception.
    I saw that this random meeting was good. I had plans and agendas for the day, but this was human engagement so rare as to be irreplaceable if I were to excuse myself and walk away. I am glad I didn’t.
   There was something supernaturally good about Isaac. I have only met a dozen or so people in whom I saw this straight away. He spoke broadly, turning fluently from one facet of his life to the next. This man wove a tapestry of his popularity in high school, his friends with bad habits after, his orphaned childhood, having lost his mother to cancer at age ten and never really known his father; he spoke about his gift for inspiring in others that which they could not in themselves. In this way, he gave confidence and boldness to do what was difficult, to succeed.
     A belief in a God up above was acknowledged and reciprocated when I nodded. You feel me? he asked. He spoke, too, about track and field. I just began seeing his appearance, as I had only noticed before seeing a slightly defined musculature that he was a man and that his account was telling of life as it is, and one not to be missed.
     Things got more amazing when he told me he grew up n a rough neighborhood – the “ghetto”, he called it – and how he had been mistaken for a gang member. One day he was shot thirteen times.
      He acknowledged hidden marks, but showed me the appropriate scars: on his legs, through his forearm, one that the hospital said should have pierced his heart but went up through his skin instead. I found myself guided to the healed fracture behind his ear where a hollow-point bullet had not pierced his skull. God wanted me, this guy, for a purpose, he said. You feel me? he asked, not for the first time.
     Isaac is 32 years old. He still thinks I am 18, I am fairly certain. Our appearances make both of us look younger than we really are. I found myself putting away my buzzing messages and turning my full gaze on him, into the earnest perspective of his tale of encouragement, and as I was about to find out, humility.
     Humble: he defined the word as a living concept, unlike the stale, over-processed dictionary definition. Isaac has this idea that humility is actually putting down your own agenda, of setting aside pride for some greater purpose.
    Pride lurks in the everyday comparisons and obsessions preoccupying humanity: in cars, homes, jobs, money, spouses. Society wants us to look good on paper, he said. The enemy has twisted the notion of talent into personal gain and an envious struggle for status.
   Isaac said that he used to be defined by his status, his popularity, his gift of inspiring, but that now he knows God gave him and every person their own gifts and let them choose how to use those in this lifetime. Some use their talents for the purpose of obtaining Lamborghinis. He’s driven one in his youth.
   But set God first, he said, and everything else will follow. Then with a smile he said, Yeah, you’ll get to drive that Lamborghini.
    His friend walked over and interrupted for a bit. When the friend walked away, Isaac talked about how these friends are still stuck with the misconception that they know him from before. They talk buddy-smack with him and he is friendly and kind to them – but they don’t understand yet that he does not do the things they do. Sure, he has a couple of tattoos and he has a warm slang vernacular expertly peppered with intelligent and descriptive vocabulary of the university kind, although his only advanced learning is from books, his college the “ghetto” where he’s lived.
     Isaac comes around again to the gifts he is using rightly in this moment, the encouragement God has lit in him to be a positive feature in the lives of those around him. All the gifts people have been given originate with God, everyone from actors to athletes, geniuses to authorities. There was that athlete who got robbed at gunpoint in South America, he said, and I remember Ryan Lochte* is that athlete. It doesn’t matter how talented he is – his gifts could not protect him.
     Nor can ours. Talent and skill cannot save us, but a choice to use them to follow God, that will draw us into a purpose expanding beyond our lifetimes.
    I’m just waiting for Christ, man, Isaac says.
    My priorities and actions become illuminated in this moment. I am beginning to see the reaches of what he means, because I sense it, too.
    He talked to me for a while longer, a time when he relates teaching and listening skills as complimentary. To my surprise, yet true to his gift for encouragement, he said I might have a gift of gab, too, in my own way.
    And then he asked me what I was thinking through, and I said he should be called Barnabas, or son of encouragement, like the man who became Paul’s friend. He talked about how Paul was a great leader, but called the Lord an inferior title in the Greek language: lord in lowercase. That’s great, Isaac said, but Paul still had to learn who he was talking to, so Paul was without sight for a couple of days to see that this was not just any lord.
    We talked more, and then his friends and my friend called us. I apologized for having to go. He asked my name again, and I told him my nickname, which isn't Kat. We shook hands, and I thanked him for using the gift given to him.
     See you some other day, I said.
    You, too, definitely, he said. And we both meant it. 

     Lately during reading I had been directed to pay attention to the word “testimony.” My focus leaned into the understanding that testimony was a true story, a faithful rendition of what has happened.
    I could not be more specific than that: was it my own testimony that I should work on? What kind of testimony is effective? Was I supposed to pay attention to the biblical testimony of many men, or a certain one?
    Truly, purpose and direction found me through a sidewalk encourager’s testimony in little over an hour. I think Jesus did speak in a “ghetto” accent. If the man I met has been transformed by Christ’s presence in his life, then hell doesn’t stand a chance.




*Update as of 8/18/16: The news is that Lochte may or may not have been robbed, but we spoke about what we knew at the time.

Parking Lot Sake

     On a blistering Tuesday afternoon a man stood out in the parking lot as we were all leaving the office for taco specials down at Macha’s. He held a large white umbrella over a wooden table that came up to his chest.
     I went over with Bryce to see what the small sign hung over the box said. We got close enough to smell a strongly fermented aroma at the same moment the sign spelled down its length “Free Sake.”
     The man smiled as I accidentally met his eyes. He was shorter than even I was.
     He let go of the umbrella and it wiggled the table it was fixed onto. “Would you like some? Yes, please, it is good and free.”
     Normally I was the cautious one, but Bryce said, “Hey, is this legal?”

Powers Disclosed

Clamoring for heroes to save us
or wishing we had weapons against fear,
we forget that we are superhuman
with the power of a kind word,
a hug or kiss, encouragement in all its forms,
our weaknesses echoing, flares in the dark;
we are a variegated pattern of love
made in the image of a God who cares,
who lets us experience the joy and greatness
involved in bringing salvation
to a world in need of light.

So Serious Saturday #29

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Philosophical/Journal

We Are the Ant Men

          I took a broken end of a broom handle and jabbed it into the plumb black spider I had cornered in a stucco well.
          It died on initial impact. No one’s suffering had to linger.
          I wiped its crumpled body across the concrete and tried to see if I could still recognize any observable parts. The spider was not so plump as before, but still leggy.
          I returned to the flower beds for a moment to see if any other creature had decided to come out to view my weeding. When I sat back on my haunches again, the remains of the spider had attracted interest from the steady ant stream along the concrete alleys.

So Serious Saturday #28

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Philosophical/Inspiration

Self-Image, As Reflected By A Doll

          I was watching the local news when I saw a story about a girl receiving a doll with a prosthetic leg. The story could have stopped there, with the idea of how toy makers should create wider diversity in dolls, but what made the video go viral was how the little girl reacted.   

         Oh, and did I mention the little girl also has a prosthetic leg?

Campus Ruin

To UCLA:

Helpless,
I stare at the news broadcast,
unable to change events.
I have no powers of flight –
no shields, no blast rays
nor guns; no gift to
make it disappear.

All I have are words.

I Had a Pocketwatch Locket

I Had a Pocketwatch Locket

You tore the hinges from my heart,

held separate parts suspended

 for you and me, and you, and me

to close the beats leaves unsecure

the ends we neither hoped for nor foresaw –

when I let you

see the inner workings poured and set

without minding more those delicate gears

set for an acceptable time

when answers are

mistaken as false alarms

which wake the dormant passions

never allowing us to rest

when I cannot

reset my alarm to any other moment

knowing time has bolted

whenever you expect features

beyond my model years

when a pocketwatch

cannot survive a wave, a fall, and a rending

of the mechanisms allowing its existence

as a keeper without memory

Hugo Proved Correct

Hugo Proved Correct

A thousand touches all it takes
To light my heart aflame,
The blaze begun before that time;
A single glance to blame.

Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page Last

Page 3

          “Djedjuska?” the young woman asked. On the ground lay the figure of the old man. He was cold and wet and panting.

           The young woman searched for anything to help the man stand, but as much as she looked she could not find anything to help, not even the red ox.

          She took upon her own shoulders the shivering old man and stood quite carefully. Slowly, the young woman trudged home, carrying the old man who had been so kind to her.

          When evening fell, the humble light of the cottage guided the young woman to the threshold of her own door, where her mother and father were watching and waiting for her.

           Father helped his daughter and the old man into blankets by the fire the father had made from pelted beasts.

          Mother brought a handsome feast and helped the young woman and the djedjuska to chew the meat and swallow the soup she had prepared.

          The young woman became warm again quite quickly beside the familiar hearth, but the old man only became less damp. He managed to smile and thank the mother of the young woman for the feast, the father of the young woman for the hospitality of a warm cottage and hearth, and the young woman for the lovely flowers he always treasured. With his eyes still upon the bright cheeks of the young woman, the old man uttered her pet name, “Matryoshka,” and passed into the great white domain belonging to Death.

         The young woman mourned the old man for weeks, until one day the dread of winter began to leave the land. That same day the young woman heard a low rumble and looked up from picking wildflowers. The red ox stood before the edge of the forest.

          The ox stood perfectly still as the young woman ran toward it. The animal might have fled, except for the trap catching its hind leg. As the daughter of her father, the young woman knew how to release the trap, and so she did.

          The trap fell free, but the ox did no run. No trace of blood existed anywhere on the red ox. Instead, the unforgettable face of Death stared at the young woman as a white scar on the leg which had been trapped.

          From that day forward, the young woman sharply scolded the red ox whenever it wandered. She did not wander much anymore, but every so often the young woman would load the back of the red ox with dried wildflowers and make the two-day journey through the mountain pass.

          At the post marking the border of a village, and at the abandoned shack beyond, the young woman placed the wildflowers she had collected.

          She stayed to think, and then she hastened home.

 The End

Read Story From Beginning

Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page Two

Page Two

          The young woman shivered in the unbearable cold. She opened her eyes. Instead of the water she expected to see, she saw a great white forest spread out under mountains.

         A low rumble drew her attention to a red speck at the edge of the forest. Although she did not move, the forest slid at dizzying speed toward the young woman until the red ox and the tall trees halted before her, close enough that she could reach out her arm and touch them. The young woman tried to do so, but a nearby white pine turned around, showing itself to be not a tree at all.

         The cloak was of pure white. Pine needles clothed what appeared to be a dark, rigid trunk. The unforgettable face emerged from the shadows, along with arms like a man and the claws of some other beast entirely.

        “That’s my red ox,” the young woman said to the strange figure. “I must bring it home.”

         “I am Death,” the figure said. Its voice howled as the wind blew. “The ox has wandered too far. It now belongs to me, as it has come to my land.”

         The young woman shivered. “Please. Let me take the ox home. Mother and Father expect me to bring our ox to the feast we are to have when I return.”

         “Go back to them,” Death said. “You linger too long in my domain.”

         “Please, I need the ox,” she begged.

          Death studied the young woman. “What would you give me to spare your ox?”

         “I bring firewood, young switches, and dried flowers to the old man on the other side of the mountain,” the young woman recalled. “I could bring you more.”

         “I have no need of fire, nor of young twigs,” Death said, “but perhaps the flowers of your cheeks would be a fair trade for the red ox.”

         “I have no flowers in my satchel. I will have to pick you some,” the young woman said.

         “No, Matryoshka, the bright red of your cheeks are better than dried flowers.”

         “No,” the young woman said.  “Anything else!”

          Death and the ox slid away from the young woman until they were mere specks along a receding forest. The mountains, too, grew smaller with distance.

          The young woman gasped and opened her eyes again. Beside her roared the river, freed of its winter cloak, and behind her a pair of damp, fleshy arms tugged the young woman up the slight banks. A man’s breath labored close to her soaked hair.

         The tugging stopped, and the young woman fell as the man also collapsed.

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Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page One

          Matryoshka and the Red Ox

Page One

          Mother promised a true feast on fresh game that Father planned to trap in the forest near their humble cottage. A young woman, small but strong and the only child of her parents, was sent to fetch the red ox that liked to wander.

          The young woman liked to wander, too, and so it took her a five days’ walk through the mountain pass when the journey should have taken two days. She found the red ox at a frozen post on the outskirts of a village, where lived an old man. The old man, to whom belonged the post and the clean shack beyond, gave over the ox’s rope to the young woman. The young woman returned her thanks to the djedjuska by giving him dried wildflowers from her long hair, green birch switches from her satchel, and firewood she had gathered and carried in a bundle across her shoulders.

           The old man looked as he always did at the young woman and her bright cheeks which made her seem like a matryoshka doll come to life. “Matryoshka,” he said, for she had never told him if she had a name, “take care of this beast. It likes to wander more than it should. Take care that it does not cause you sorrow, for it is a beast and not a man.”

         “Thank you, Djedjuska,” the young woman returned, as always.

           She tried to follow the old man’s advice on the journey back home. The ox had a mind of its own. Soon the young woman and the ox were wandering away from the path.

          On one cold winter day in the Caucasus Mountains, the young woman pulled her ox’s ragged rope with all her might. The ox’s foot stuck fast in an ice hole beside a frozen creek, where both the animal and the woman had stopped to find water and rest before continuing another half a day’s journey home.

           The red ox’s leg broke through the ice as the ragged rope frayed and snapped. She tried to catch the broken end, but the young woman bent too far forward. Ice sheets trembled and plunged into the depths of the water, swallowing the ox, the young woman, and all she had with her.

Turn to Page Two

No Animals Allowed

In trees sparrows tweet:
Leave furred mongrels home
Safe from man's justice

New Meaning From Old Meaning

An Etymological Exploration*

Easter: 

First the name of a pagan festival celebrating spring

near the same day as the day now called Easter

Ancients derives a goddess of day

from the direction the light first shone

Dawn became an action of shining

a metaphor for gold

Gold: something precious

something new and shining

out of the earth

So Serious Saturday #27

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Inspiration

Chasing Perfect

          The world insists we can be perfect. It is natural to buy a certain product or find the perfect soulmate or find one’s dream home or job, preferably both. These are achievable goals we should have. The goal in life is to be perfect.

          What society at least implies and what we see are different. When we fail to reach the achievement level we are expected to complete we often feel run-down, tired, and hopeless. We labor under the label of “failure”.

Warbringer Starts the Vernal Changes

Your sign was in the sky last night or this morning.
They said that. I did not see outside.
Sleep brought the first dreamless rest in two days;
I needed protection from predictive shadows.

Others spoke of restlessness.
Light from the moon eclipsed part of the night.
Overbright beams poured into bedrooms.

Is this breaking our complacency?
How you stoke our bloodlust?
Fights break out over less.
Wars stay because no one has figured how to stop.

Hitting a Sandbar

            “This killer whale and a dolphin swim into a sandbar. You think you know where this is going.” The man pauses. His eyes furtively dart around the shadows at the corners of the room. He is looking for his time.

            He screams, “Extinction!”, which just about kills the audience. He lets a wry smile crack his lips so that just then he resembles a twelve-year-old boy.

            The look is gone as the laughter fades. “I know, I know. Way to kill a joke, Daniel.” Some titters prove the last minute addition was worth it, at least to him.

Craft Wednesday #28 Off the Top

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you. 

Off the Top

   A creative way to write is just by writing anything that comes into your head. Anything at all. I typed Constellations off the top of my head without writing it down.  It does not matter if it is spelled correctly, or if it sounds cheesy or dark or something else you are embarrassed about. Writing off the top of your head makes writing fun again, and editing pretty darn satisfying. A rough draft like this means that when you mine for what is salvageable you will probably chunk off portions or polish them up, whatever is needed. 

   But when you exercise your creativity, it is best to unleash it fully in a messy, hidden, and safe environment, like a crumpled notebook you stash under your winter blankets. Creativity, like any creature, becomes stronger with exercise, so daily practice will make your imagination as strong as an elephant.

Remember, have a space to let your imagination run wild.

Constellations.

Constellations

     In the mornings the light through the broken shade quivers on the ceiling above our bed. Beside me your breath is still and even. Your back has tossed the covers aside. I see every line.

     It hurts, how much she hurt you. All of it was years ago.

     I am not sure what to do, but I want to heal you. Sometimes I believe that if I could hold you close enough I could glue you back together.  I just see how weakly I adhere to you and know that it is not possible, for me to be the glue that holds you, and me, and us together.

So Serious Saturday #26

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Philosophical

Against

    Two people will disagree at some point somewhere. These different individuals may even argue aloud.

    Groups are similar, as they are composed of people, except that they will argue aloud. Who are they arguing with?

    In my experience I've seen that if there is someone fighting for, then there will be someone against, if there isn't a force already against it:

So Serious Saturday #25

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Observation

The New Pottermore

     Pottermore recently launched sorting quizzes in what I like to call its grand reopening. Each registered user can not only discover their Hogwarts House, but also their personalized wand.

Visiting

     I had never been on the site before. Of course, I'd looked at its front page in the old version, but that was as far as I got. I did not want to enter into another online game at that time, fearing that I would visit it more often than Dobby says "Harry Potter". After some time I decided I would give the game a chance to enter my routine, but - wouldn't you know it? - the site was undergoing a radical reconstruction.

So Serious Saturday #24

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Theological/Life Application

In Difficult Places

        "Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, "Give us water, that we may drink." So Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the LORD?"  And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, "Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"

                      Exodus 17:1-3

The Holy Bible, NKJV. Thomas Nelson, 1990.

      God commanded the children of Israel to go to a certain place, which turned out to be a desert without  water. God did not lead the people to a place of ease, where water or resources came easy. He led them to a natural place of death, where they and their families and economic livelihood would die without both food and drink.  So why did God lead them to a difficult place?