LISTEN FOR GOD'S VOICE!

In my noisy world today, with text dings, doc appointments' portal emails and loud music when on hold for a credit card company investigating a hack, it's difficult for me to hear anything without fear & confusion.

But God has a voice---I just need to listen. 

Then, I heard a train a-comin'---it was a subtle nudge to remind me of quieter times. Times past. My childhood home had a on S.  Virginia St. just past Dixon's grocery. Even trips to Mama Davenport's 2nd St. in Clarksville past Ft. Campbell, KY had a RR crossing down the hill to be heard from her front porch! Memphis college dorm and Central Avenue rental both provided train a'comin' toots and clackity-clacks to urge us to run across Southern for a class or wait patiently in car 

Even today's extra loud GSMR.... 

....took me back to those sweet Polar Express rides with my two youngest grands.

Those noises are so rich with memories I can still be surrounded by an inner quiet/stillness which allows ears to hear as I continue to listen for God's still small voice. Think internal prompt from the Holy Spirit.

Being still ---still listening. 

TIMES GONE BY---

Books, pictures, objects and chats with friends like Diane H., have a way of jogging my memory when I think I've lost it.

This morning I was reviewing some fave pages of Wilma Dykeman's book, The French Broad. Meeting her years ago at the Governor's Writers Academy in Appalacha influenced my continued intrigue of the area! Though she was the historian of the state of TN, she was a native of Asheville, NC.

A fave chapter (#10) involved a fervent old time preacher, speaking to a heat-oppressed crowd, with the real soul-splitting, happy-shouting kind of religion. ....not mamby-pamby, low voiced stuff. 

"Because, brother, I'm a-telling you straight, you've got to take the tonic of God and eat the whole word that will put some zip in your soul...." 

(p. 310) 

He reminded those listeners on the courthouse steps of a bone-deep thirst for God's word as similar to theirs for the little 6.5oz, green bottle of Coca-Cola. (a long-time fave of mine as well as Diane's)

The preacher's conclusion .....without God's word one can end up in the "muck and mire of hell" where there ain't  no relief.....

"There ain't no fans, nor no rest and, brother, there ain't no Cokes in hell." (p. 313)

Thx Diane for a fun, encouraging chat!

MURMURATIONS MONDAY!

Hubby and I sat by the open window listening to the birds this morning* ---woodpeckers, a tufted tit mouse and Carolina wrens. Yesterday in the Nantahala National Forest we saw signs and info on many birds. 

We also heard what we thought was a ruckus of blue jays.

Together we have been reading Considering Sparrows by Kevin Burrell which offers analogies of timeless truths from our feathered friends to the book of Philippians. 

Chapter 5 dealt with murmuration of starlings. What a unified group!(Burrell. p.46-47, 50-51) Burrell compares the importance of their collective consciousness to that of the body of Christ. 

Believers whose hearts are bound in Christian love!

"Blest be the tie that binds" (John Fawcett)......birds or believers....all a part of God's creation.

"The flock of God is a murmuration, dancing in the sky like grace." (Burrell. p.56)

*listening to the birds between the cacophony of Great Smoky Mountain Railroad clacking on the tracks or blaring horns down ridge from us.

POLAR EXPRESS 12/5/2023

Tripping to the North Pole can be done in no better place than on the "Polar Express" in Bryson City, North Carolina with a 5 year old.

Loading not 'til 8:30 pm but we have our PJs ready for the trip!