frankly speaking: LENT WEEK lV

Dear All of Us,

Lent sure is a

sober, serious business -

necessary but not much fun.

Well, long ago

folks took a break

in the middle of Lent.

They lightened up Lent

just for a day.

They called it

Laetare Sunday.

The name came from

the opening words of

their Sunday worship:

"Laetare Jerusalem"

"Rejoice Oh Jerusalem"

Isaiah 66:10

Sunday, March 19th is

"Rejoice Sunday."

Let's follow

a good lead this Lent.

Hopefully our

focus and story

here this week will

brighten and lighten Lent

PURE AND SIMPLE

Here goes!

Little kids love stories.

So do big kids like us.

Stories take us everywhere -

sky high, ocean deep,

down the street,

across continents.

Stories aren't time trapped -

"Once upon a time"

embraces

long ago, right now,

fast forward.

Stories plunk us right

in the middle of

free range experiences

told factual to fanciful.

Stories mix us in

with all kinds of us,

humankind alive in

varied peoples and cultures.

Stories flow from

ear to mind and

keep on going to the heart -

ours and the heart of the matter.

Really good stories are

Pure and Simple

Those good stories open our

Soul Windows and Doors

wide in wonder.

We get to see and be

The Ever Larger

The sacred stories

in scripture

are like that -

Pure and Simple,

spoken in the idiom

of their time and place

to be heard in tones

true to both,

yet drawn from

the vocabulary of

our time and place,

our thought and word,

much and diverse media

speaking the core message.

Here is a simple sampler of that.

If I'm here and have

my wits about me

a year or so from now

I hope to have a try at

sharing a special story

with my then to be

three year old

Grand Son, Ollie

The Genesis Story

the story of our

Get Go

I've been practicing,

trying to keep it

Pure and Simple

I have been

"Praying it forward."

Here it is.

It would be helpful to first

reread Genesis 1.

Then may we listen in

with the freedom

and heart of a child,

hearing the message

in a child's medium.

May it remind us big kids

to do likewise

and like heartedly

as we hear and tell

scripture's stores,

true to the message

translated in

our words and ways.

******

Ollie, this is so good.

We get to sit here together

in grandpa's big,

cozy, comfy chair

and look at these beautiful,

happy pages in our

children's picture bible.

They are all about

a wonderful story,

a story about God

having a good time.

It goes like this.

Once upon a time,

long, long ago,

God went out to play.

God was really happy

and ready to have

a big time good time.

God got going right away.

It was kind of dark, though.

So God said,

"Hey, lets have

lots and lots of light.

Let's turn on all the lights."

It got beautifully bright.

God said,

"Wow, this is great.

I really like it.

Let's call the dark Night

and call the light Day"

There was water

all over the place.

So God put lots of

the water up high.

God called

the water up high Sky.

God wanted to keep going

and sure enough

God had another great idea.

"Let's put all this water

left down here

in a special places

so we can make room

for some dry ground."

God called the dry ground Earth

and the gathered together waters

God called The Seas.

God said, "This is really good!"

Checking out the Earth

God said it would be just great

to have all kinds of

flowers and food

grow up from it.

And that's just what happened

and is still happening.

See the daffodils, the tomatoes,

the apples and grapes there

in the picture bible.

O yeh Ollie,

they have your favorite,

blueberries, too!

God was on a roll.

God loves to make

good things.

God was happy about

how thigs were going,

about everything

God was making.

Pretty soon God got busy

doing something else.

It was about

Day and Night again.

This time God made

a super bright light

for the Day and

called it the Sun.

God make much softer lights

for the Night.

Gad called them the Moon

and the Stars.

This picture right here

in our Children's Bible

is one that Van Gogh painted

of a splendid Starry Night.

After we finish this story,

how about let's get

the colors out

and paint a sun

and the moon

and some stars.

That would be fun.

God sure was happy busy

making more and more

wonderful things.

Next came all kinds

of birds to fly in the sky

and all kinds of fish

to swim in the sea,

lots and lots of them,

minnows, whales,

hummingbirds, eagles,

more than we can count.

Then God decided that

it would be good to make

many different kinds of animals

to live all over the Earth.

And that's just what happened.

We got chipmunks and

elephants, cows and puppies,

horses and monkeys -

all sorts and sizes of animals.

Ollie, is the Panda Bear still

your favorite animal?

God was full of

happiness and love

and wanted to share it

wonderfully way, way more.

So God said,

"Let's make people and

let's make them a lot like I am."

So God made people

God told them

to help each other

and have babies.

That way there would be

lots of people who would

take good care of each other

and the Earth and Sky,

the Seas and the Land,

all the flowers and plants,

the fish and birds and animals.

God checked out all

that God had made and said

"This is so, so good."

It sure was and always will be

because to this story

there never will be

The End

After all this fun

God was pretty tired.

So, God went inside

and took a nap.

******

If I were to be around

when Ollie is in his teens

and then later

when he is a young man,

later yet middle aged

and then old,

I would seek

age and stage

appropriate ways

to tell the story.

Something like a

Beautiful Big Bang,

an unending burst of

Energy

The Energy

That Is

God Love Creative

Gone Cosmic

Always, though,

remembering that

the story was spoken

in the idiom of

its time and place

to be heard in tones

true to both yet drawn

from our time and place.

In other words,

in our words.

It is to be told as it is

and we are.

I pray others

will voice it such

for Ollie and that

in his days and ways

Ollie will grow to

so such for others,

always telling it

PURE AND SIMPLE

most of all

by living it just that way.

I've had a great time

with us all here

in this Laetare Break

but I'm pretty tired.

Now, I'm going

to go take a nap.

Thanks for this time

together.

******

We had many visitors

this past week from:

The United Emirates,

The United Kingdom,

Vietnam,

Germany,

and the USA.

Folks in America's South

have warm, delightful

ways of speaking.

Grateful

for all our visitors

every week

we borrow and join

the warm

South Smile Say:

"Ya all come back"

frankly speaking

spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

BEST DELIVERY

Every Friday

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

LENT WEEK lV