Spilt Wine

As requested by Flatlander, here is the picture of the rainbow I took in my back yard last week.

This was the piece I submitted for the writing group I am apart of. The subject was human connection.

I sit across the dinner table, hardly knowing who she is. Who is
this stranger I share a bed with? Our dinner is eaten in silence, her
thoughts her own, and mine, well, they have gone running back to a time
when silence between us was comfortable.

We were on our way to Pismo Beach one late morning. We had been married
for about eight months. We drove in silence along Highway 41. We would check
in with one another every once in a while glancing at each other with a smile.
Her smile was as warm as the July air that surrounded our black little car which
snaked along the highway through the hills that had been scorched bronze
from the mid-summer sun.

"There's the Mission we thought about getting married at" she said.
I acknowledge her with a smile, leaving her to daydream of a wedding
in a little chapel on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere.
We were bonded at this moment by our vows, our
dreams, our love and passion for each other.

Tonight I am unable to look into her eyes because of our pride,
but I realize that we are still bonded and connected by everything that
bonded us in the beginning, but there is a new adhesive; history. Our history
is full of good and bad memories, triumphs and failures, building up and of knocking
down and its good; which makes swallowing pride a bit more palatable.

Like mother like daughter

The Cassini space probe has recently returned high definition pictures of Saturn’s moon Enceladus that indicate there are pools of liquid water under the moon’s surface, scientists announced on Thursday.

As expected, the news of water on a celestial object other than our own has raised grave concern about the possibility of space sharks.

“Holy crap, the space sharks will kill us all,” said local scaredy cat Sean Smith.

Space sharks are much like normal sharks, except they are from space. They are born in water like normal sharks but are capable of swimming through the air in low gravity environments like a moon’s surface or space. They have razor sharp teeth and jaws strong enough to bite through a Ford Pinto.

Water might be an indication that space shark life could exist on Enceladus. But Linda Spilker, Cassini Deputy Project Scientist, was not ready to suggest the threat of space sharks is real.

"That's a very tough question to answer, but certainly something that we'll be thinking about now that there appears to be a liquid water source on Enceladus," she said.

Most likely the space sharks were trapped under the surface of the moon by an ancient and mysterious race who knew the untold chaos that the space sharks would cause should they be allowed to roam free. The findings were published in this week's issue of "Space Shark Fancy."

"Thinking ahead, this might mean that some day we might want to plant a nuclear explosive near a crack on Enceladus or firebomb the entire moon," she said. “Should the space sharks ever escape their prison moon alive, there is no telling what sort of havoc they could cause to our delicate space program. No man would ever dare step foot in space with the threat of space sharks, that would be an instant death sentence.”

Cassini, which was funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, launched in 1997 and took seven years to make the 934 million-mile (1.5 billion-kilometer) trip to Saturn. Its primary goal has always been to determine whether or not space sharks are a plausible threat to mankind.

I have been reading Ephesians chapter 1 for the last three days. This chapter, the whole book for all that matters, is so rich. I love it. I am going to continue reading Chapter one over and over until I feel ready to move to chapter two and so on.


Ephesians 1

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints in Ephesus,[a] the faithful[b] in Christ Jesus:

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he[d] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
11In him we were also chosen,[e] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

"Those stories about Africa...About you...They're true aren't they?"

"Doesn't matter"

"It does too. Around my mom all I hear is lies. I don't know what to believe in."

"If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn't true, no reason you can't believe in it. All right. There's a long speech I give to young men. Sounds like you need to hear a piece of it. Just a piece."

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor...Courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. Remember that boy. Remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because...those are the things worth believing in. Got that?"

- Secondhand Lions

Later on in the movie, Jasmine, the old lion dies while saving the boy from his attacker.

"What happen to her?"

"It looks like her heart gave out in all of the excitement. She was plenty old, you know?"

"Look... I think she is smiling."

"Yeah, I guess she died happy."

" She died with her boots on, that's the main thing."

"Protecting her cub."

"She was a real lion, wasn't she? There in the end?"

"Sure."

"A real jungle lion...A real Africa lion."

We live in a world and culture that tells us what to believe in. Most of the which are lies and only meant to keep us enslaved. The lion, who lived most of her life in a zoo, never experiencing the wild as she was created for, was still able to find herself and become who she was meant to be in the end. Like the lion, who never lived in the jungle, we have never lived in our true enviornment, the garden. But, if we stand-up and live-out what I believe in, we can still go out with our boots on; fulfill our purposes, just as we are intended to.