Monday, June 19, 2017

It takes a lot of scrubbing to get shed of poison ivy

Here is another hillbilly poem based on my real life as an Ozarker.
Despite our poor soil, we grow a lot of brush and that includes a lot of poison ivy. The only thing good I can say about it is that it is colorful when the leaves change in the fall.
In summer, though, it makes me miserable. Usually, when I get a case of it, I go to the doctor and get a shot or a series of pills to take. My wife says those medicines are hard on my insides, so she took over when I got a case of the ivy this summer.
The misery inspired me to versify up this gem, that I hope you enjoy.


IT TAKES A LOT OF SCRUBBING
TO GET SHED OF POISON IVY
Been clearing brush from fence rows over at my place
and now I’ve got poison ivy on my arms, legs and face.
And that stuff makes my skin crawl and itch,
and when I say itch, I mean like a son of, uh--which
brings up the treatment figured out by my wife,
an earth mother-type, who’s loved herbs all her life,
so much that she went to college, you see,
and worked hard enough to earn a master’s degree
in agriculture, with a horticulture focus.
Now she’s working some folk medicine hocus-pocus
on me. She prescribed scrubbing with soap,
yes, Dawn dish soap, and that will work, I hope,
to cut the acid of the ivy oil. Plus, she says, pine tar
soap will also work, so she gave me a bar
of that stuff and another one made from jewel weed,
and, in a bow to modern medicine, Benedryl, with my nightly feed.
She also found in her medicine bag jewel weed spray
that she claimed would soothe my skin night and day.
Well, it all seemed to work, it sure cut down the itching
so maybe there’s something to her herbal treatment witching.
Now the truth has dawned on me like turning on a lamp. It
is clear as day to me now: I married Granny Clampett!

Sunday, June 18, 2017

It is good to spend the morning in Psalms

I spent the morning in Psalms.
This quarter, my Sunday School class is going through that book, studying selected chapters, and today we were in Psalm 23, which may be the most familiar chapter because it is used in funerals frequently, maybe in every Christian funeral.
"The Lord is my Shepherd ..." is the way it starts, and one of the old guys in the class asked if any of us had raised sheep. One ole boy said he had, and the teacher asked him to tell about raising sheep and relate it to the text we were studying.
Marvin, that's his name, said that sheep are docile, gentle -- and stupid.
"They're just like people in a lot of ways," he said. Sheep will not let the shepherd lead them most of the time and they act like they know better. He told about how his barnyard was so muddy that he placed sheets of plywood outside the barn door, trying to cover up the mud. He had enough sheets except for one spot.
He managed to get all the sheep out the door and across the muddy barnyard on the plywood and out to the pasture.
"But there was one old ewe," he said, and that old ewe thought she knew better. She refused to follow Marvin; instead, she head right across the area that was uncovered and sloshed around in the mud.
Marvin said, "Sheep think they know it all. I do not miss sheep."
The guy who asked the original question said, "And it says here that the Lord is OUR shepherd. Think about that while thinking about what Marvin just told u about sheep."
We all got quiet, thinking about how stupid sheep are and how frustrating they are, then we thought about how our Shepherd, Jesus Christ, must see us. Yet, he still loves us and died for us to remove the stain of our sin so we could avoid His wrath toward sin. Pretty mind-boggling. The word awesome is way over-used, but it really describes Him.
In the worship service, the pastor used Psalm 1, which has six verses, to talk about relationships of children and parents. It was a Fathers Day sermon, titled "Love, Spelled T-I-M-E."
He said little children are Trusting, Imitators, Moldable and Energetic.
Pareents are supposed to Treasure, Instruct, Model a life of integrity for and Encourage their children.
This relationship takes time, and the pastor said parents must spend time reading and meditating on the written word of God, learning for themselves so they can instruct, mold and channel the kids' energy in righteous ways, not riotous ways, as described in the sermon text.
For our songs, we sang "The Family of God," which we do every Sunday while walking around the sanctuary/auditorium and shaking hands with folks; "This Is My Father's World" and "Faith of Our Fathres." The invitation hymn was "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus."
We had a responsive reading about love worked in there, too.
It was a good morning of Bible study, worship and praise.