Change my heart, Lord
Change my heart oh Lord from self to thee.
I am so puffed up and full of me.
May see I am nothing without thee.
I am merely but a lump of clay and it's your breath that is within me.
So change my heart oh Lord to see your way.
Change my heart oh Lord.
What is man, without thee?
Change my heart and may I see I am only dust without thee.
A speck of clay You formed me, me to bring you glory every day but instead, I have chosen my own wayward way.
Stiff-necked and rebellious I was glorifying myself.
So change my heart so I may only reflect thee.
Life is but a fleeting moment, fragile, and soon will end.
But what would it profit me if I end it without thee?
Change my heart Lord and forgive me for my sinful ways.
Change my heart, Lord, so I will only reflect thee.
None of me but all of thee is all I pray.
January 28 Praises to God Bible Meditations Based on Exodus 31-32
Key Verse – Exodus 31:3 And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.
PRAISE BE TO GOD WHO FILLS US WITH HIS SPIRIT
Praise be to God for filling us with His Spirit so we can:
Acknowledge His ways according to His precepts
Abide by His wisdom along His purpose
Accomplish His will by His plan
Assert His Word amidst prayer
Achieve in His work through His power
Apply His winning principles
Appreciate His worth so precious
Exodus 31:13 Praise be to the Lord for sanctifying us
while granting us:
Heavenly wisdom
Holy understanding
Helpful knowledge
Healthy workmanship
Exodus 32:11 Praise be to the Saviour Whom we beseech with:
Humility in confessing our sins
as stiff-necked stubborn children
Honour in exalting His name
of greatness and omnipotence
Honesty in devoting ourselves
for His service. Amen!
January 28, 2024
In the low pasture
cowbirds are picking over humming cow pats.
In the high sheepfold
lambs are dropping small round blueberries
that are really not blueberries
and the whirring beetles know it.
Black fly are in the barn swarming
over the hissing horse hay.
A field mouse said to a stiff-necked tortoise:
"Reminds me of my vacation in the dry Tortugas,"
which all gathered there knew was bull crap
but it did raise a sort of fizzing laughter
from the ever feeding insects.
Over the busy farm
an arid painted rainbow buzzed on.
Above my head, foliage, and feathers clatter
as a hawk tangles with a squirrel.
Above my head, Russian tanks pop their tops
in boggling bubbles.
Just above a bald patch, shaggy clouds squat to piddle.
I am heads above those below,
the silver slick worms hardly notice as I thread through
the less grassy and bare.
Mind-hairs are a real thing, mine wave their thin tentacles
like fishing sea anemones, they snack upon
the overheard overhead; ripple gently
in the whisking winds.
A highbrow gets above itself, stutters as it utters.
I wear the headgear of long dead heroes, they ride
my scalp, baseball bats wave there whacks,
ultra-maga veterans of foreign wars
salute my stiff necked, heads-up pose.
There's a world of wonders down under,
but just above my head, that's where dandruff
ponders its flaky notions,
and all high-flown conundrums learn to fly.
Where’s the paid watcher of my Jerry can
And who the hell just bounded it off,
My face now a hotter frying pan,
Never to learn how to absorb a bluff?
Lame excuses I don’t fail a wheel chair
And their givers try to not spare:
These days’ lies changed like robes
By lips doubly sure no listener probes...
Because kerosene is involved
And its worries not easily solved...
Tales in powder soaked to veil their rashes,
No recalls of Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes…
Should I forget haven woken up at 4:00 AM
For a heart gladdening position in a snaky queue
And the pains taken to phone a Clem
For my Jerrycan to be preceded by just a few
Stiff-necked, refusing a morning bath
After picking the consequences from Simple Math?
Sometimes ya get the unction
To systematically function
In the footsteps where giants have been
Delegation, infiltration
Ruling a sovereign nation
Where time runs the gambit, again, and again
Deliberation, legislation, intonation
Singing the melody of the Shun
We will not bow, nor give allegiance
To the entity that causes us grievance
Stiff-necked, proud ridden thugs
Treading the roman way
Banners high, waving to the sky
We will squash your rule over us like a ladybug
Land, territory, nations, world
Not a clue that He has a girl
Rising from the south
With TRUTH in her mouth
.....silencing the SHUN
Written by Trudy Schrader on 11/16/2021
Why should the sun, like primrose, change its true color?
Why shouldn't each color have its own existence?
Why should the moon shrink holler for seasons smaller?
Why must Bluebells turn white on someone's insistence?
Can cranes compel crows to stand still straight stiff-necked?
Can cobras wish rhinos to crawl and get frogs served?
Can deer desire lions to have their skin soft spot-flecked?
Can creepers caution palm trees to keep their logs curved?
Nature had her reason when she crafted me: ME,
As black-hole or blue-hole has many a meaning;
A hole named ME might be, otherwise, stay empty,
There's none, on earth, like me with the same leaning...
Creepers, climbers, flowers, or flies I cannot be;
What creature on earth could fully resemble ME?
14 September 2021
Why am I me? Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Shreya LN
the inability to look up — the stiff-necked rally the godless
8/7/2019
The Human Wall
INTRANSIGENCE
the human wall
of the stiff- necked
obdurate, mulish
where want prevails
and choice fails
you can’t pass through it
you can’t move it out the way
it serves no purpose to go around it
you try compromise and reason
to breathlessness
it runs
governments
marriages
companies
relationships
and families
with selfish certainty
the question remains
does intransigence have a
heart
mind
and conscience
or should we say
it is the mother of
narcissism
7/19/19
Intransigence Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John Hamilton
Standing at the bow of the rugged ship,
Blistering tears cue up in the wrinkles
Of faces worn weary with anguish;
Uncertainty becoming a bleeding wound.
The raging storm swells with tormenting waves
Splashing on the shores of human dignity and honor;
Leaving the despotism of doubt and fettering fear
Frothing in the humidity of the politico-sands of time.
Yet, despite the toil and fatigue of the hour,
Hope remains on the horizon--rising with the sun;
And the searchlight of truth will dissipate the cloud of deceit
With its enlightening rays emancipating lost, stiff-necked souls
Seeking stillness of peace in the coming raging winds of change.
. for public domain
Perennial Psalms
Farming long a ruddy heart
to harvest His pleasing Psalms,
in return a strong kingdom,
to rule a rough, stiff necked people,
some treasuring gold calves to Alms,
the Highest of the Most High,
kept Covenant with His people,
nurturing the Blossoms drawn,
returning Fair Scents to all,
found his sweet Psalms unsung from steeples.
No Wrath came from burning skies,
for Divine Splendor condones
no want, no disappointment.
"I Am Who Am, and I shall
fresh, living Psalms raise from these stones."
Man rejects God,
God loves man.
Man is not worthy of God,
God is generous to man.
Man is stiff necked to God,
God is patient with man.
Man does not trust God,
God supplies the needs of man.
Man forgets God,
God remembers man.
Man blames God,
God forgives man.
Man sins before God,
God died for the sins of man.
Man searches for God,
God waits for man.
Man needs God,
God is here for man.
cold and indifferent
relentless autumn rain
garnet ruby topaz
brawny clingy leaves
dangling from lean branches
holding on for dear life
waving so gently one moment
then wild in a raging ballet
stiff-necked and trembling
amidst gale winds
determined to never give up
its feat of beauty over strength
mystifying cycle of nature
AP: 1st place 2020, 2nd place 2020
Submitted on November 9, 2017 for CONTEST NO.360 sponsored by BRIAN STRAND
Behind the parchment screen and eye to eye Punch chided.
Who are you? Who is she? He’d point it out. You’d see.
No marionette with strings was he. Their paths collided;
Judy stands and faces his animosity
The play is writ by man and maid and staged to teach,
the right and wrong of woman’s position, our place.
Standing on two legs, she meets his gaze without speech.
What shenanigan have brought on this crutched lambaste?
Let us ponder Mr. Punchinell’s stance, his missing leg
let his two-eyed profile tease, has Judy been upstaged?
Stumped by the shadow lore, the punch, the audience begs
for the stiff-necked tirade to end her pick engaged.
Speared by humour, we see two realities spar on
with no means to run, the missing third prong’s a pun.
First Published by The Ekphrastic Review
It’s been broken for so long;
Silently churning.
I forgot I was alive,
swimming through rotten joy.
Fatigued and Complacent.
You found me;
a torrid husk enraptured
by a sinning sun.
I spun under that liar’s star,
wishing on it’s peers for a new world.
A new way to breathe.
Hunting throughout eons
lost in-between the reckoning
of seconds; caught up in a disheveled
theater.
I thought they had forgotten me.
I had nearly lost sight of my favorite
constellations,
Looking up.
Stiff necked.
Hoping to find the light
that could remind me of
the thoughts that used to
come to me when I first
discovered the sky’s
patience for my reach.
-James Kelley 2013, All rights reserved.
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