Not For Sale: Grapes, Figs, and Pomegranates

My father-in-law used to decry what he considered his loss of memory after a cardiac surgery, in that he noticed he could no longer do some kind of complex mathematical computations in his head.  Pity.  I still have use my fingers for some single-digit addition, so I’d better never have heart trouble.

Needless to say, memory is not one of my strong suits.  But compared to the Hebrews embarking on their

The demonstrative introvert…(huh?)

I’ve decided I’m a “demonstrative introvert”.  I have no problem being up in front of people, (unless it’s a firing squad, that could be a problem), but I re-fuel myself in solitude.  My daughter says that I’m too loud when I enter a room (I’ve gotten better with practice), but my favorite time of day is the cool quiet of the morning.  I tend toward, as Mark Twain quipped, “explosions of opinion”, I laugh out loud, and I raise my hands both at football games and church, but I’m revived in quiet contemplation here at the keyboard.

So I guess the sharing of myself is a bit ambiguous.  Yet God expects it, and has created me (and all of His children) to do exactly that.  And the best place to start is at the beginning, which is another reason why I like the account of the “man born blind”—

After Jesus heals him, this poor guy is confronted

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is the popular name of the famous Chinese poet, Hanshan whose history is a bit elusive, but lived long, long ago in a place far, far away…from me, anyway.  I’m interested in the thought that his poems were written on rocks, evidently pen and paper not be available, or perhaps not invented yet.  In any case, beauty must find a way to be expressed from within its creator.  I like this verse, as it speaks to the vanity, even selfishness, of too much solitude, of not allowing your voice to be heard.  (Yet another reason I