The story below is a sequel to Holy Pond. Its ending is like much of Scripture, pondering mercy in an unresolved space. Which is a unique mercy unto itself. I often forget this.
Holy Pond is well, I can tell. She was never mine from the start.
The scattered remnants of birthdays and barns will be hard to collect.
I will miss the pier. The sound of flips, trips and “I got a bite”.
This morning I sip Jack, not coffee, as the sun warms the dew. If that sounds like heresy then I suggest you watch the morning news.
This chair, with the arm torn off, has a stinging tattered edge. Its mine for now. If I sit shifted, I have elbow space to write about a mercy. But something about this edge reminds me of beauty.
I feel guilty for wondering what others lost.
So I will sit here a little longer, and wonder about these geese and how they managed the wind?
- B.Oaks
I challenge you to release your previous thoughts about Jonah. Instead contrast Jonah from just before chapter 1 verse 1 with the context immediately after chapter 4:11. The story of Jonah is a complex one with many applications. It ends with an unresolved strange look at Life, Grace and cattle. I put this here to give us all license to stop trying to put a bow on circumstances.
“7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?””