I was talking to friends about AI scrubbing the internet for content and I figured I would test what it could do.

What emerged took one word-grief, one click, medium, and two defaults

The poem was generated in less than 3 seconds

Spooky.

https://aipoemgenerator.io/

Grief is a heavy coat,
That you can’t take off.
It clings to you all day,
And whispers in your sleep.

It’s a hollow in your chest,
Where laughter used to live.
A silent, empty space,
That echoes with a name.

The world keeps spinning on,
But you are standing still.
Watching colours fade to grey,
On a distant, lonely hill.

But sometimes, through the clouds,
A single ray will shine.
A memory, a gentle breeze,
A reminder of the love that’s thine.

And slowly, bit by bit,
The coat begins to fray.
The colours start to bloom again,
A little brighter every day.

https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/your-daily-prayer/a-prayer-of-wonder-at-the-manger.html

Twice, maybe three times, I have brought them inside, folded as they were, in sheets off the line

Catching them involves prayer and patience then you scoop them inside the soft of your palms

Hold them, safe and warm until they are

Back in the sunlight

This is the moment of Grace

When they should and can run free

But instead of this they turn and sit on my shoulder

As though they have found a true friend

I joke about the manure shoveled on the ark, was there a schedule? Did Noah share the load?

And less so about the cubit span

Measure the world in arm’s length units

Measure the horizontal aperture for light

One cubit for air, one cubit for sun and moon and stars

Naked for the first time

As the clothing of the sky

Rains down upon us

Haunted survivors

https://www.aol.com/entertainment/robert-redford-waited-vatican-wednesday-160521161.html

There is a history of pairs of famous people dying on the same day. Charlie Kirk did not die on the same day as Robert Redford, but the pairing in time still seems relevant.

Charlie trusted in Jesus for his eternity.

He died a violent, untimely death.

Redford trusted nature and Playboy and said that what we have in this life is all there is. He lived a long life and died of old age without any controversial epithets.

The contrast is notable and tragic.

I am with Charlie.

Give me Jesus.

2 Corinthians 2:12-17 NIV
[12] Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, [13] I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. [14] But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. [15] For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. [16] To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? [17] Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c707kx2nk7go

Well, let’s just say you are right and that there is a correlation between begetting

Children of flesh and children of

Stone

Then you should know the old tale about the dragon’s teeth, find the island

Disinter bone, tooth, talon

Perhaps even let your beard and hair grow wild and woolly

in the manner of prophets and insular husbandmen

Grow the children through the accretion of salt and animal protein

And at least one book on parenting

Obsidian offspring

Prone to cry out

When others fail to

Greet the King.

Matthew 3:9 KJV
[9] And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-zelenskyy-putin-ukraine-latest-live-updates-12541713

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62wj8yje2eo

When COVID was just starting to rake through Italy in the spring of 2020, I came up with an algorithm. The Italian government posted numbers for cases and deaths, and I multiplex those numbers by population data and time factors in order to visualize how long we had until COVID overwhelmed us and how many people we would lose when it was here.

Awful, and a strange form of time travel.

Now, every night, just before bed, I check news in Europe and Asia because, like Italy in the pandemic, they are ahead of us in time.

The version of the last 12-24 hours in Ukraine that I saw at 1 am CDT was 46 minutes old and it told a story that is and will define world history.

How can we not see what is coming? How can we navigate through a world governed by madmen?

The answer is always the same Jesus.

Any perceived punctuation omission is intentional.

Pray

Please pray.