Tuesday, November 30, 2010

1973 Christmas Poem

It was quiet
Or almost quiet
The angel choir had left the skies
And the shepherds were yet
Some distance from the town
The earth for one moment was still
It was as if
Even the trees in the orchard
Were straining to hear him
And even the rocks in the street
That should have screamed with pain
From the travelers of the day
Held back their rumblings
For one tiny cry
The world had been touched
And was yet waiting
Waiting to know
That the vigil
Which the entire universe had kept
Ever since Adam
Was finally to be broken
And that once more
Man and God could talk
And that their conversation
Would never cease
For the Son was born

- 30 November 1973

Monday, November 29, 2010

1972 Christmas Poem

There was no rosy sunshine
At his birth
Only the old hoot owl
Would have serenaded his first crying hours
There was so much
That wasn't there
So many luxuries
Things we would have wanted and needed
But he had the night
And all of its tears
That would eventually give birth
To morning's light
He had the touch
Of a mother's hands
And her strong arms
To hold him close and warm
He had the praise of men
The approval of new life
And once more they thought
To erase despair with hope
He had that gift
To give life where there was death
And out of death
To bring forth life
He took the sadness and erased it
Loneliness and made it full
Sickness and made it well
Grief and caused it to be glory
And at his side
All men became brothers
And peace could indeed
Begin to reign in their hearts

- 9 December 1972/31 August 2010
(This poem was changed in one line because of a theological point I wasn't aware of at the time I wrote it which needed correcting, thus the two dates.)

Sunday, November 28, 2010

1971 Christmas Poem

Many send cards
Some send presents
But I think I'll just
Send my love
It's Christmas
And all around
They're celebrating
The child's birth
So many adore
So few really know him
As presents they strew
In all the wrong places
So I'm going to try
To gain a perspective
On what the true gifts
Are that should be given
They should be gifts
Of faith in a higher way
Hope for a greater day
And love which never tarnishes
For the only good gift
Is the one of yourself
Which you bestow
On someone else
He did, you know
And that's why
We remember to pass on
His gift of love

- 9 December 1971

Saturday, November 27, 2010

1970 Christmas Poem

Yesterday I posted my 41st Christmas poem. I have done a completely new one each year. This year, so you can see the progression of the poetry and messages, I will be posting one a day beginning with the first one from 1970. The date at the bottom is the date of composition. The earlier ones were written right during the Christmas season, but as I got to sending more and more of these I had to begin earlier in the year.

To all my friends at Christmas
Whether close or far away
I send my warmest greetings
To help brighten up your day
The world is one
In need of joy
For sadness holds it
And seeks to destroy
This is the season
For laughter and cheer
The time for happiness
And for love unbounded
Let us make it mean something
Throughout the year
So as to affect our lives
And make our paths clear
For if Christmas means nothing
But food and some gifts
Then we're all sadly mistaken
And not really rich
For the gifts we should give
Should last all our lives
We should give one another
Our peace and our smiles
Our love and our blessings
Thoughtfully and truly
As God did
In short - we should give ourselves

- 13 December 1970

Friday, November 26, 2010

Christmas Greetings 2010

Nothing
Is to be abandoned -

Creation
Made by God
Unmade
By sin
And ruled
By death
Will be given
It’s Maker

Nothing
Is to be left alone -

Man
Breathed with life
But lost
To it
And wandering
Far from it
Will be given
One hope

Nothing
Is to be beyond love -

God
Who is love
Who is light
Who is
Has life
Which
Will be given
On a cross

-Kevin

This is my 41st Christmas poem, all of which are different.
I will be running some of the past ones over the course of the season.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Hickory Hog in the library


Here I am with a copy of the book!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Hickory Hog And The Christmas Rascal


Christmas catalogues are out and about. "Hickory Hog and the Christmas Rascal" is not going to be in a catalogue coming to you in the mail, but you can get it for $12.00 through Lulu. Enter in the title at www.lulu.com and you can get all the particulars about it.

This book contains two complete Christmas serials as well as the original stories I told to our daughter 30 years ago.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

STILL MORE ANSWERS

Question: I don’t know if I’m hearing God, just myself or the adversary.

Answer: One way you can know is by the message being given. There are some things God would never ask or tell you. You can also look at the logical consequences of the message. God told people to go places where their lives would be endangered (or they thought they would) such as when He sent Ananias to find Saul in Damascus and when Paul was sent to Jerusalem. Satan usually doesn’t ask us to obviously endanger ourselves. His voice is more like that of those who said, “Peace, Peace,” when there was no peace (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11).

There are some things which are neutral in and of themselves. In such cases it’s better to obey if you know you are not sinning. God knows the heart and will take it for an attempt to please Him.

Samuel’s experience is a good place to go. We can say as he did, “Speak, Lord, your servant hears you.” One of the best messages I ever heard was a couple of years ago by Mike Adkins (of “A Man Called Norman” fame) who talked about the best prayer we could have. It was simply this: “Lord, teach me your ways.”

Don’t try to figure it out on your own if you’re in the middle of things, but ask for an answer. I can’t promise an automatic response such as you might like, but there will be guidance and wisdom given either through your own spirit or through the word or through another Christian.


Question: It seems to me that Judas died two different ways.

Answer: The contrast here is between Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:8. Matthew records what Judas did to himself. Luke in Acts records the result. This was what would happen to a person, not to be too gross, who had hung up there too long and the rope had finally decayed and broken or if the rope was strong enough to strangle, but not strong enough to bear the weight for very long. Because this was a holy time it is presumable, though not known by scripture, that no one would have touched him despite the need not to have a curse result from a hanging body (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23), at least not a scrupulous Jew, until the end of the feast of unleavened bread which would have come 8 days later. (The Passover was one day, the unleavened bread the next 7. See Exodus 12:14-19.) It could also be that he did it so privately, that no one discovered the body until long after the event.


Question: How can the grace of Paul’s epistles be reconciled with the works of James.

Answer: Paul is speaking of the process of being saved by grace. James is speaking of the works that should result from being saved. If you read James very carefully you will note that there is no mention of salvation on the basis of works, only of works as being a natural part of the Christian life. James is speaking to those who have already received the grace of God, although he doesn’t put it in those terms. The perfect place to look for the reconciliation of the two is in Ephesians 2:8-10. We are saved by grace, not by works, but we were then created for good works in connection with both Christ and God.


Question: Did God make Adam and Eve first and then other people, too, right away? A subsequent question is then, why would Cain be afraid of being killed.

Answer: There is no record of any other human being created in the same way as Adam and Eve. That would open up too many doctrinal variants, so I reject it, not only because of logic, but because it doesn’t seem to fit the patter of the rest of the scripture. Jesus said later that God could raise up sons of Abraham from the stones, but He had earlier refused to make bread out of stones. He gave testimony to the divine capability, but did not show it to be a realized effect.

Keeping in mind the tremendous amount of years involved, Cain’s wife (another questioned event) was an unnamed daughter of Adam and Eve. (There was much intermarrying in those days. Abraham, centuries later, married a half-sister. Presumably the gene pool wasn’t corrupted. Also, there was no command prohibiting it as there was later on in the law.) Cain well knew that the earth was going to be populated. We assume that Adam and Eve had communicated the early command of God to be fruitful and multiply to their children. So, Cain would have known that eventually others were coming. Daughters may have already been born to them, but unnamed. Those named, such as Seth, are particularly named because they are a part of the lineage of Jesus. Others are not named, not because they were non-existent or unimportant, but because they weren’t in that line.


That’s all for now. If more question come in either here or at Jeanette’s blog I’ll do my best to give an answer to them.