[drabble] "You Can't Eat Beads"

2 Timothy 4:3

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine

You Can't Eat Beads

When I worked at The Store, I once waited on Crazy Bead Lady, who came to the checkout counter with fifty dollars worth of beads and a rambling monologue, the central theme of which was, "You can't eat beads."

You can love beads, you can admire beads, you can worship beads (though it's not recommended). You can gaze at beads and collect beads. You can, with Marian devotees everywhere, pray with beads. You can incorporate beads into art of surpassing beauty, art that invites sudden, wordless insight into Divinity.

But you can't eat beads.

Nor can you eat sound doctrine.

[drabble] "And by Funny I Mean Grace"

A drabble is 100 words [Wikipedia, Fanlore].

John 3:47-28

And by Funny I Mean Grace

Isn't it funny that Jesus says, "You're so honest," and Nathaniel says, "Jesus, You know me so well."

And by "funny," I mean, "I do that too." A friend's lover says, "I think you must do well at everything you try," and I think, "I need to know you better.

"You see into the heart of things -- the heart of me"

And isn't it funny, too, that Christ does this still? Looks into the heart of things (of us) and sees a guileless Israelite, not a sanctimonious Pharisee, a talented young woman, not an overachieving little girl: the Kingdom versions of our selves.