Hey deacon! Hey preacher!
Hey sabbath school teacher!
Come closer and bend us your ear.

Should we raise our hands higher?
You preach to the choir!
We know the end's already near.

Observations On Christian Education

Christian Education costs, they say
And some contend it doesn't pay
Can we a price put on a soul
As we continue toward our goal? For what we like we don't think twice
For quality we pay the price.

We house and clothe and feed our youth
Care for their needs, teach them the truth
We tell them stories, entertain
We must not let their interest wane.
But do we do all that we could
For their salvation as we should?

The home, the school, the church all do
A vital part to help us too.
Like a triangle,each a side
We cannot leave one open wide
For Satan's crew in dead of night
To change the signs from wrong to right.

As parents we must use each tool
To demonstrate the 'Golden Rule'
And why we're here,for what great plan
Our Heavenly Father created man.

"We can't afford our schools", some say
And think they've found a 'better' way.
So to the Public Schools they Send
Their kids----"It's cheaper in the end".

We can't afford to lend our youth
To those who have no love for Truth
Who train them just for now and here
Ignoring all that WE hold dear
That Christ is coming, soon we know
And to His Kingdom WE will go.

And so, my friends, what will it be?
Invest in Youth for eternity
For us the Father gave His son
Will He accept what We have done?

SILLY POEM FOR COMPACT-CARRYING GENDERS

When the mind goes blank
in the mid-afternoon
and your hair is a hank -
just a floppy cartoon

of it's usual fluff
and your posh is all poof
take your powder and puff
and you'll feel less uncouth

when you've smoothed off the shine -
you will have peace of mind.

You need two more lines

when you've smoothed off the shine
you will glow like the moon -
you will have peace of mind -

(in its frowsy cocoon.)


How about that, don? The last line should be spoken quietly and slowly. would it be too much to write it:

(in its froooowsy .... cocoooooooon)

?

A bit of inspiration on chris's poem...appologies to Chris for the taking apart and rearranging it...

Hey deacon! Hey preacher!
Hey sabbath school teacher!
Come closer move together
and bend us your ear.

Should we raise our hands higher and higher
That will inspire men to an ecclesiastical desire
that will be, in the hearts of men, absolutely heard...
to say something profound and say something absurd?

As a minister and a grocer, you preach to the choir!
You hawk your wears, you search for a buyer.
"It's the end! It's the end!" We know the end's already near.
But you clothe the message as the best marketeer.
It's not the end, that we need, that will draw us closer.
It's the Christ and that's a whole different grocer...

The Christ is large enough for any congregation
and specializes in the most tiny mutation.
To grow many a variety of species, that may
Tell of His love in a varied way.

Whose primary purpose is surgical you see,
A new purpose, a new life, a new generousity.
Christ's love is as varied as any grower,
and it is in the heart, man what a sower!

It's springs to life and produces much fruit
and we find it is far more astute
than anything found in sabbath school classroom
whose academics are kinda in costume..

dress up stuff up,...man, I am repeating myself
and so, I must, this poem, place on the shelf.

Apologies not needed! Bravo, Neil! **Woot!!**

I actually had a couple more lines to add to it, myself. I wrote them down in haste on the airplane and seem to have misplaced them. If I perchance across them, I'll share.

I love that you've taken mine and gone where inspiration leads!

Apropos for the times,
From Babes in Arms, "Johnny One Note"

Johnny could only sing one note
And the note he sings was this
Ah!

Poor Johnny one-note
sang out with "gusto"
And just overlorded the place
Poor Johnny one-note
yelled willy nilly
Until he was bleu in the face
For holding one note was his ace

Couldn’t hear the brass
Couldn’t hear the drum
He was in a class
By himself, by gum!

Poor Johnny one-note
Got in Aida
Indeed a great chance to be brave
He took his one note
Howled like the North Wind
Brought forth wind that made critics rave,
While Verdi turned round in his grave!

Couldn’t hear the flute
Or the big trombone
Ev’ry one was mute
Johnny stood alone.

Cats and dogs stopped yapping
Lions in the zoo
All were jealous of Johnny's big trill
Thunder claps stopped clapping,
Traffic ceased its roar,
And they tell us Niag’ra stood still.
He stopped the train whistles,
Boat whistles,
steam whistles,
Cop whistles,
all whistles bowed to his skill

Sing Johnny One-Note,
Sing out with "gusto" and
Just overwhelm all the crowd
Ah!
So sing Johnny One-Note, out loud!!
Sing Johnny One-Note
Sing Johnny One-Note out loud!

In View of the Fact
by A. R. Ammons


The people of my time are passing away: my
wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who

died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it's
Ruth we care so much about in intensive care:

it was once weddings that came so thick and
fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo:

now, it's this that and the other and somebody
else gone or on the brink: well, we never

thought we would live forever (although we did)
and now it looks like we won't: some of us

are losing a leg to diabetes, some don't know
what they went downstairs for, some know that

a hired watchful person is around, some like
to touch the cane tip into something steady,

so nice: we have already lost so many,
brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our

address books for so long a slow scramble now
are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our

index cards for Christmases, birthdays,
Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies:

at the same time we are getting used to so
many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip

to the ones left: we are not giving up on the
congestive heart failure or brain tumors, on

the nice old men left in empty houses or on
the widows who decide to travel a lot: we

think the sun may shine someday when we'll
drink wine together and think of what used to

be: until we die we will remember every
single thing, recall every word, love every

loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to
others to love, love that can grow brighter

and deeper till the very end, gaining strength
and getting more precious all the way. . . .

from - http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16971

Absence makes the heart grow fonder
And now I have an urge to wonder.

But I'll return to you some day
Be good - don't fight too much. OK?