Author: wordworkerrussell

I'm a homeschool mom of five, three girls and two boys. I'm a daughter of the King who works hard to keep her family living as close to God as we can. God created a world perfectly designed to provide everything we need, and designed us to reflect Him throughout it. Writing is my happy place. I have always loved stories and words because they express the human spirit so beautifully. A story can speak many messages, each received by the reader as needed or understood by individual experiences. I hope that my stories, both true and fantasy, speak to you in some way.

The Burden of the Blame Game

When Adam and Eve were faced with the exposure of their poor choice in the garden, they were overwhelmed with guilt. They suddenly knew the weight of disobedience, the loss of rebellion, and in a childish effort to rid themselves of those feelings they began pointing fingers. “It’s her fault.” “It’s his fault.” “It’s your fault for making us.” I’m surprised they didn’t say it was the fruit’s fault, as that seems to be one of the most common excuses for bad behavior these days.

Every day I hear it. “X thing is the reason for y behavior.” “The world would be a better place if X thing didn’t exist.” “I knew someone who used X thing and ended up struggling with Y problem, so never use X thing.” It all sounds like a child calling a toy stupid after breaking it. If it isn’t some object at the tip of our pointed finger, it’s an expression or a poor unfortunate soul.

In the garden, Satan knew the power of conscience and exploited it, twisting need and trust into desperation and despair. The choice Adam and Eve made to eat the fruit was made in innocence, the innocence of a child wanting the privileges of adulthood without the ability to meet the responsibilities. The choice they made to pass blame was made in full awareness and with intention, and it was that choice that cost them the garden.

The fruit that God forbade didn’t offer all knowledge as Satan claimed. It was simply an object, a symbol of trust that God had all knowledge and used it in love for the children He chose to create. It was a reminder that God wanted to love and be loved. It was proof that God carried all responsibility as Creator of all our characteristics. When eaten against His warning, the fruit simply brought pain into that reminder. All Adam and Eve gained was the weight of a responsibility they could never carry.

Ever since the horrible day that Adam and Eve had to experience the burden of their choices, God has presented demonstration after demonstration that guilt is not His goal. Time after time He showed His children pictures of redemption. His heartbroken words to Cain calling him back from sin into relationship fell on deaf ears. The sacrificial goat to symbolically carry the sin of an entire nation away from the center of worship failed to make an impression on a people drowning in denial. The Son of God speaking redemption from the cross itself only enraged a religious culture addicted to the power of guilt. The never-failing presence of God at the seat of Mercy, in the cloud that led them, in the angel army that stood between them and their enemies, in the impossible queen of a pagan oppressor, or in an unassuming son of a carpenter went unappreciated.

Today we carry guilt like a badge of honor. We drown in victimhood to Satan’s lies, blaming whatever item that has been misused or whatever platitude we have misapplied or anyone else available for the consequences of choices we have made. We claim we shouldn’t bear consequences because we were innocent, we were misled, we were confused, all because in our deepest soul we know that we can never make it right. We can never save ourselves. We can never eliminate the knowledge of our betrayal of trust. This is Satan’s victory.

No one and nothing in this world contains the power to either impose or remove guilt. No object or person can bear the responsibility for our choices. Any effort to place that burden on any earthly being or object leads only to more misery. Only the Source of power and knowledge is capable of not only bearing it, but eliminating it entirely. Our part is simply to preserve our innocence by trusting Him, not acknowledging or giving credence to Satan’s whispers, and choosing to use the very best of our little in gratitude for His responsibility without dwelling on our mistakes. There is no guilt, there is no burden, there is no blame game in God’s embrace.

Making Ourselves Comfortable

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The book of Micah, and indeed most of the prophetic books, were written to the Israelite nation, to the people claimed by God to be His physical representation on Earth. Unfortunately, what Micah had to say to them was not complimentary. The message he brought from God declared that they had made themselves comfortable on God’s shoulders and were about to be ripped apart.

This did not mean that the nation was prosperous, or that they found comfort in God’s presence and provision. It did not mean that, like a child with a parent, they ran to God with every need. The Israelites had taken the reigns of their own well-being, each person doing whatever brought him or her the most of what they wanted. Leaders had taken their God-given responsibilities and made themselves guns for hire to the highest bidder. Even the teaching of God’s principles was held hostage to their desire to please themselves. Priests refused to impart knowledge or perform sacrifice without payment. Prophets charged for their preaching and, in order to preserve their income stream, delivered whatever message would bind their customers to them.

That did not mean they told people what they wanted to hear. Contrary to what we’re often told, that’s not really what solidifies power over others. We can see this repeated in the behavior of the Jewish leaders in the first century of this age. Enforcement of legal minutae required micromanagement of people’s lives. Failure to perfectly comply meant expensive consequences. Effort to perfectly comply required constant consultation with and subservience to these micromanagers. Because there were disagreements between leaders, factions arose, each faction trying to enforce their own sets of rules and solidify their own position, leading to even more reliance upon leaders to alleviate confusion and simplify decision.

The apostle Paul called the early church to account on numerous occasions for slipping down that same path. Christians who were born from a Jewish background were so uncomfortable that they sought control over their new spiritual family through a dead legal system. Those who escaped that trap latched onto specific teachers and their opinions, fawning over and repeating those to the exclusion and oppression of any others. Some even clung to physical wealth and position as the ultimate success, and used God’s principles as excuses for their bullying.

In every single one of these examples, people had aimed at the wrong target. They confused their comfort zones with the peace that comes from surrender. Peace is not easy, and surrender is not comfortable. True reliance on God challenges every instinct and preconceived notion mankind shares. We have to look past the limits of our individual existence, our immediate satisfaction, and our physical senses. Forcing others unto our comfort zone is wrong; claiming God’s authority and blessing for it is the ultimate selfishness, the ultimate godlessness. It is making ourselves comfortable on the shoulders of God, placing ourselves over the head of our Creator to avoid having our self-service challenged.

The Watch

https://pixabay.com/photos/pirates-sailing-ship-frigate-ship-587988/?fbclid=IwAR08-VAraANP6PtUrRcss8D5uyFIsmu3AeirDIa_kmg2C4exS3IrzwVPhiM

The sound of the sailors’ feet shifting against the boards grated on the silence. A whispered prayer floated unintelligibly over the water, blending with the fog like something unearthly and dreadful. There should have been waves noisily licking below, the creak of rigging in the shift of the wind.

Edwin closed his eyes, his hands clenching on the railing. Why did the sun he could just make out blazing above not burn off the fog? Could it be the sea witches come to claim souls, as the old seaman claimed? He forced his eyes open and peered into the blanket of white. A good watchman might even see the witches in time to save the crew. Maybe.

A shadow flicked across the dull red glow that was the sun, then another. Whispers became mutters, and a hatch rattled farther up the deck. Edwin set his jaw. He would not abandon his post, no matter how cowardly his peers. He did wish for one of those fine pistols he’d seen while scrubbing down the captain’s cabin, though. He’d bet his shark tooth necklace that a bullet from one of those would even stop a spectre in the fog.

Were those shadows or just swirls in the fog? He swallowed. Maybe not his necklace, after all. He rubbed his thumb across the edges of the teeth, the sharp danger of it slowing his racing pulse. A deeper darkness spread like a great wing just beyond the grayness, and he opened his mouth to call the alert, unaware of the other wrapping soundless coils around his neck.

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: Decisions, Decisions

To be clear, I am the abnormal one in my family. No, not the “neurodivergent” one. That’s the other six people in the house. I’m the round peg. All my life decisions were something I took for granted. What will I eat for breakfast? Which TV show do I feel like watching? What job will I apply for? Which chore will I tackle first today? Even more stressful decisions merely took more time; I thought about them carefully, eventually made one, and life moved on.

For square pegs, decisions are something else entirely. The extra space in those corners reflects variables that simply do not exist for circle pegs. Some decisions careen off into empty space, out of the realm of conscious thought, rather like Dug’s attention in the movie _Up_ whenever he sees a squirrel. Some get jammed into the corners like the dust in the cranny where two walls meet that neither a broom or a vacuum cleaner can reach. Some jump from corner to corner and side to side like the old Windows screensaver, skating away in a new direction whenever almost within reach.

In a world requiring fast-paced decision making, square pegs stay in a state of agonized malfunction. Squirrels might become amazing adventures, but who can enjoy adventure with the decision posse riding around every corner? The posse is sure that square pegs can be reformed, that a decision can be forced with enough pressure, but all they accomplish is driving their prey into hiding, jamming that dust deeper and deeper into corners. No one gets anything, not decision or adventure.

As the circle peg, learning to appreciate the corners was a challenge. I was sure that love or responsibility or both would ensure efficient decisions in matters that affected all of us. That is, I was sure about that until I decided to go on the adventure too. When I did, I discovered a different kind of decision making, the decisions of imagination and possibility. A process independent of time or expectations, intuitively reacting to every new idea. A process that, rather than preventing functionality or progress as perceived, provided new solutions to problems, new paths to expected decisions.

My expectations about decisions were quite right for circle pegs, but entirely wrong for square ones. The pressure of rapid decisions polished my curves but scarred their corners. Their decisions weren’t “efficient” in a circle world, but when given time to sharpen the corners were often richer and more complex, adding variety, beauty, and excitement that as a circle I would never have otherwise experienced.

Checkers

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He sat down across from old Fred, legs dangling even in the spindly little chair, and watched the old man with owlish eyes. As if his gaze exerted some sort of force, Fred raised his hat brim enough to peer under it at the boy. “Well?”

“How ’bout a game?” The boy leaned back and hooked his fingers through his overalls the way he’d seen the grizzled hangers-on at the store do many times.

“Aren’t you a mite young, Squirt?” Fred surveyed him as if he were a used car on the lot next door. “Yore head barely tops the table sittin’ up straight.”

‘Squirt’ merely shrugged and crossed his legs, staring off into nothing. He picked up a checker and spun it between his thumb and finger, shifting the gum in his mouth from one cheek to the other with his tongue and mock spitting into the dust by the porch.

Fred chuckled and sat up, adjusting his hat. “Well, might as well see what you’re made of, at that.” He cleared the board. “Don’t you be thinkin’ I’ll go easy on you, though. Man acts like a player he’s gotta prove his worth.”

The boy sat up and propped both elbows on the table, slapping his checker against the squares with a loud clack. His face serious, he adjusted the ball cap on his own towhead. “Black or white?”

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: What is Normal?

Most of us played with shape sorters as children. As part of learning the different shapes and creating the proper connections, we tried fitting shapes into holes they didn’t match. Some of those mismatches didn’t fit at all; the shape simply would not pass through the hole. The corners of a square, for example, will never fit inside the curves of a circle. Others, however, would sometimes slide through, or could be forced through, certain incorrect holes. A circle could actually fit through the square hole, even though its curves did not fill out the square’s corners.

From the time we are very small, our society pushes patterns of behavior on us. “Be normal,” we’re told. If we don’t fit the shape expected, we are labeled, separated, and therapied to death until we meet expectations or break. But who decided which shape is normal? When we played with the shape sorters, we might have begun by trying to fit everything into the same shape because we liked something about that shape, but eventually we learned that each shape had its own place. Can you imagine someone saying, “The only shape allowed in the world anymore is the square? Circles, triangles, stars – they are all wrong and must be redesigned into squares.”

Two terms that have become popular in recent years are neurotypical and neurodivergent. I understand the intent behind the use of these words, and occasionally use them myself in order to frame concepts in a way people can understand them. Unfortunately, these terms also reinforce the idea that only one shape is normal. Labels are created, therapies are invented, medications are prescribed. All of these have the purpose of making people with different shapes appear to be the preferred one. The focus is always placed on what is “wrong,” what is “abnormal,” that makes a person different then eliminating it.

But again I ask, what is normal? Just as every shape is unique and has its own place on the shape sorter (and it’s own mathematical purpose), every human is unique and has place and purpose. What is normal for one is abnormal for another. What one is capable of doing another is not. What one cannot accomplish another can. Corners and curves are both necessary; elimination of one or the other creates a world that cannot function.

What if, instead of looking for “normal” we strove to celebrate individuality? What if, instead of trying to shave off corners or flatten curves, we recognized the needed functions of both? It’s true that circles can fit within the square, but they don’t belong. Circles will never be able to reach into the corners and fulfill the purpose of squares. If forced to pretend to be squares, circles will always feel inadequate, and will never experience or even know their full potential as circles. Squares, on the other hand, can never fit in the circles as they are. They will either try to shave off parts of themselves leaving raw, gaping wounds in order to squeeze in, or they will be smashed against edges again and again until they break. Either way they lose their identity and their purpose and, like the ill-fitting circle, will never experience or recognize their potential as squares.

Our society has become adept at forcing round pegs into square holes. We admire the work and contributions of those circles who managed to find their circle holes and give us great discoveries or achievements, as long as we don’t have to acknowledge that they were circles in the first place. Because we carefully avoid recognizing the ill-fitting circles, we also prevent ourselves from seeing the broken squares. We have decided to be the infant trying to smash all the shapes into the hole that pleases us best, but unlike the infant, we don’t learn from our failures. We just keep smashing and screaming in frustration until everything is broken.

What if, instead of breaking others to look like ourselves, or breaking ourselves to look like others, we all found our own purpose as who we are? God doesn’t make mistakes. He made each of us exactly the way we are. He has purpose, specific and absolute purpose, for each and every individual exactly the way He created us. Imagine what we could all be together if every single one of us found our own.

Gods of Pompeii

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“Tilda, I think we found another set!” Mario fiddled with a button on his shirt, waiting for his partner to dig herself out of her usual mound of paperwork. “I can’t imagine what they were doing way up here.”

“What strange poses!” Tilda observed, leaning over his shoulder to view the monitor. “I can barely tell which is which, but they seem like they’re upright.”

“Wait, did you see that?” Mario grabbed for the controls, trying to sharpen the image.

“See what?” Tilda’s eyebrows met in the middle, not that that was a stretch. “Hold up, you’re shaking the camera, you’ll destroy the site!”

“How many times do I have to tell you? There’s no camera and we’re not touching the site. We didn’t move anything. They moved!” He stared at the screen, twisting the button completely off his shirt.

“Well, if there’s no camera, how come we can hear sounds from down there? It’s shifting against the rock, I can hear it scraping.” Tilda reached for the controls herself, then froze. “Does – does that sound like – like words – to you?”

Mario’s tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth, the only sound coming out a whimpering moan. Voices like the whisper of falling sand and the cracking of gravel underfoot swelled and eddied within the lab. “Souls,” they said. “So long have we waited for sacrifice.”

Tilda opened her mouth, swallowed desperately, then tried again. “Sa- sacrifice?” She squeaked. The shapes on the monitor stretched in sinuous curves and began to glow a deep red. “I thought all our imaging was black and white.”

One of the stone bodies reached it’s cracked hands upward, impossibly locking eyes with Tilda. “We will wait no more.” The voices issued from Mario’s motionless lips, and the mountain beneath them rumbled. “We are so hungry!”

Blog Thursday Prompt: The Kettle

“It’s not my fault! The kettle began it!”

“Please, do go on. How exactly did the kettle begin it?”

“Weelll… it just sat there so… so… sitty!”

“I see. It was ‘sitty.’ And the problem with that is what, exactly?”

“Sitting is just so boring! How could it just not do anything?”

“So, you decided to make it do something.”

“Everything needs a little nudge now and then. All I did was fill it up with water.”

“Mm-hmm. And the kettle appreciated that, did it? Got up and danced a jig, I’m sure.”

“No! It just sat there drooling out its spout! Disgusting! I turned the stove on to dry it out.”

“- – -“

“What?! It started grumbling at me, and it just kept getting louder and louder. I told it to calm down but then it started screaming at me and smoke came out of the spout!”

“Imagine that. So you thought…”

“Obviously it needed some private time to adjust its attitude so I covered it with a towel.”

“Naturally it reacted well.”

“I guess it was dryer than I thought. You do always say where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“I wish I could deny that.”

“Well, obviously I couldn’t let the kettle burn the house down, so I blew on it as hard as I could. Candles have much better attitudes, by the way.”

“I see. And that’s when you finally called me?”

“Yeah! That kettle needs to go to jail for arson! That’ll teach it what happens when it’s boring and stubborn.”

“I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“Stay away from the kettle.”

Desire

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/palace-starry-sky-clouds-candles-4320416/

Marble is dark, silent, and cold. My roots tenuous anchor hold.

Sing the song of the stars with me. Can you not hear our harmony?

Come with me, in the shadows dance. Stardust and bud, a sweet romance.

How shall I venture there alone? I fear the lure of earth and stone.

I cannot fly to you, my dear. Let tenderness assuage your fear.

My brethren, through the portals wind. Our nebulae in lanterns bind.

My sisters, petals open wide. This night am I to be a bride.

Unveiled

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II Cor. 3:13-18; Ex. 34:34-35

When Moses descended from the presence of God for the second time, bringing the record of God on slabs of stone, the people of Israel avoided him in terror. Though Moses himself, having spent so much time bathed in the glory of God and having no desire for power for himself, was completely unaware that Glory beamed from his own face, the people could see it all too well. The selfish fear that drove them to cover their ears at the voice of God held them apart from His presence in Moses. From that time forward, Moses was only able to speak with God without covering his face, a shadowy reminder of exactly how great a separation existed between God and the people through whom He had chosen to work His will.

Like the veil shading Moses’s face from a people unwilling to approach God, the system of governance included in that stone record served as a curtain over their reluctant hearts. Every act prescribed within it emphasized the darkness human choices had allowed to stain the world, contrasting it starkly with the pure light of the perfect God. Every event in the future of the nation would prove the necessity of the rigid and often harsh methods required under that legal system in order to prove desire for connection with God. Even such unmistakable symbols of their need were twisted to be self-serving, and in the end they resorted to murderous destruction rather than expose themselves to His light.

When God Himself stepped from His grave in physical form and returned to Heaven in the cloud of glory that had filled the Tabernacle and shone through Moses’s face, the need for that separation to be emphasized ended. The hope and promise that underlay everything the nation of Israel experienced became present reality. Many, uneasy in the freedom and open communion found in the spirit of the resurrected Son, clung to the rigidity of the Israelite legal system. As God ripped the covering, the barrier, away they hung on for dear life and so barricaded themselves from true fellowship with Him.

Those who let longing for God outweigh their fear became like Moses, transformed into a vessel for the glory of God. The selfishness that held darkness between them and God was banished. The need for the rigid rules and rituals engraved on stone slabs was burned away by the fire of God’s presence.

Unlike Moses, who wore the veil himself as a reminder to others, our veil is only a reflection of ourselves. If we maintain a separation from God’s offered freedom by clinging to physical structures that keep control within our hands, we have a veil of our own choosing. Only by relinquishing all control, by exchanging fear for desperate longing, are we unveiled and able to stand in the Glory that is God.