MISTY, NASTY, GHASTLY MYSTERY

Today, the world is misty.
The world outside is nasty.
The ghosts inside are ghastly.
How to uncover the mystery?

I wish I could see more clearly.
I wish I understood what I heard.
I wish it didn’t give such a scare.
I wish I could dare.

Sheets of ice unfold upon a sordid sea.
Heavily smudged as a soiled quilt.
Having eyes yet failing to see.
Caught up in cold, wet-hot clutches.

Going down into secret madness.
Sinking unwillingly into such
Has the makings of much sadness.
No light, no will; no, not much.

Going down, there is a ray of light!
Gone down, it is a foolish thing.
Down in the abyss, try to take flight!
But deep within are atrophied wings.

Time is wasted in useless regret.
The heart is weakened by needless stress.
The mind withered by agonizing fret.
The whole of it is an unholy mess.

~~Mary Frances Handy (pre-1982)

(Mary Handy Moore)

THEY ALL DIED ON EASTER SUNDAY, JESUS ROSE ON THE SABBATH DAY.

Following April 19, 2026, after 31-year-old Shamar Elkins of Shreveport, Louisiana, took the lives of his seven children and a cousin, all young children, and then either killed himself or was shot by authorities, I found this poem pinned to a clipboard waiting to be added to my notebook again. It was written decades ago. The past week brought us together again. Over the years, when I’d come across this poem in my notebook, I’d wonder sometimes what incident or circumstances inspired it. I put it down to the knowledge of mental illness in my own family, which has brought much heartache to us in ways nobody shares or talks about, which means in some cases that “it didn’t happen,” but it did.

 Also, after reading every entry I can on his Facebook pages, attempting to get more clarity about this darkness that overtook a whole family and is causing torment to a whole community of mourners, I am understanding more about it. Origins. I’ll self-talk in writing about this more at another time.

 The children’s names and ages. Say their names:

SHAMAR ELKINS’ CHILDREN WITH WIFE Shaneiqua Pugh Elkins

• Jayla Elkins, 3
• Shayla Elkins, 5
• Kayla Pugh, 6
• Layla Pugh, 7
• Markaydon Pugh, 10

SHAMAR ELKINS’ THREE CHILDREN WITH CHRISTINA SNOW

• Sariahh Snow, 11
• Khedarrion Snow, 6
• and Braylon Snow, 5

 Say his name if you honestly can. (But by grace there go I):

 Shamar Elkins. Thank him for his service. He was hopeful and prayed to God about it to the end. But, like beloved Whitney Houston, he was not strong enough in faith and lost his battle, but not the war.

Without Light, Empty Shells Won’t Repent

HIM

He didn’t know them,

Therefore, he didn’t care

That he killed anonymous people.

He had no remorse, not being capable of it.

He loves the thrill of killing, being a killer.

He loves playing Russian Roulette,

Being the thrill-seeker that he is.

Thus, killing innocents does not upset him.

THEY

They have no character,

Not even a modicum of decency;

So how can they be moral?

Morality evolves in humans,

Else they fail to become that—

Beings unworthy of the name.

For what is a human shell

When the lumen, spurned, rejected,

Withholds the soul’s own light?

The human soul must have a spark

In the human body. Lumen, light.

As the heart, the mind, the emotive

Power evolves within the body,

These refine us when we’re led aright.

The seed, star, evolves every soul.

Yet a fire, light, un-nourished, flickers out.

And the lumen never becomes a flame or a sun.

~ Mary Handy Moore 

 

Spiritual Power

Spiritual power that

Humbleness keeps asunder

As that power can ride

Astride the thunder.

It's able to clasp a lightning

Bolt of purest blue,

Whose strike returns

The Kingliest Hue

Of red like that from holiest

Veins was bled.

Spiritual power that humbleness

Keeps asunder.

The unknowing ones misconstrue

That power some wield, calling it

Magic - mostly bad.

The spiritual ones know the Difference. 

The charlatans don't.

No power is greater than

The one who gave it.

 

~ Mary Handy Moore

 Stones of Darkness

I don’t have very much,

But I have all there is to have.

I don’t know many things,

But I found knowledge in

The uttermost of all

I need knowledge of.

I can’t see much

But I’m a seer,

I see all I need to see

In the raincloud of

Seeable things.

I have no knowledge

But I know, just as

I am also known.

I can hear all things:

Things in heaven

And things in hell.

I can feel all things,

My nerve trunk is

Connected to the Root

To which are joined

All the other roots.

So, daily I’m fearless

While I’m filled with fear.

I’m delightfully hopeful,

While swimming in a

Sea of hopelessness.

I command myself to be brave,

In my daily walk towards

The certainty of death.

I realized I’m Light

Encased in a

Stone of darkness. Live.

~Mary Handy Moore

11-22-24

Allusions and metaphors can be heard and seen throughout this poem; a lyrical one is “I Don’t Know Much,” recorded and released by Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt (1989). There are words found in 1 Corinthians 13:12. The first 22 Stanzas are personal subjective and objective experiences in "the raincloud of knowable things," a phrase used in Theosophy and Transpersonal Psychology. The last 11 Stanzas are ancient and recent experiences and meditation. Unthinkingly, this poem ends up being 11-22 or 33 verses. I never intended that, but it’s as it should be. The picture is not as first seen; I have not been able to prompt a generative AI response to fit the colors and other things exactly as I saw them. For example, I settled for green grass in the end. This vision or dream made me sad for many months. 

My philosophy of the banana peel

“Obviously, God has something to say about the relationship between sin and righteousness.  That is another discussion.  For now we need to realize that sin is a function of behavior.  It is not a quantity that must be removed or a substance that I am born with.  It is all about what I do – each and every day.  God says He will never alter His willingness to bring me into right relationship with Him.  He will always accept my decision to turn to Him.  But I have to choose what I am going to do about His invitation.  What I choose to do either encourages the relationship or frustrates it.  Even James assumes this dynamic when he says that sin is knowing what is the right thing to do and not doing it.”

https://www.skipmoen.com/2010/09/a-philosophy-of-sin/

I thought on the commercial about the banana peel and its status as a banana peel; it was still a banana peel when I thought it through. Imagine thousands and millions of people who are continually fed the lie that the banana peel is really not a banana peel ("people get hurt"). “Are you sure it is a peel? Is it possible that you do not have it right? Are you sure the information is valid? Can you be sure it is not a pomegranate instead of what you think you see?” These types of questions are legion.

Imagine if this scenario is continually fed into the psyche of certain types of personalities or souls if you will. Imagine how propaganda can defunct some people’s ability to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2Tim 2:15) if they ever had the ability in the first place. The latter would be very sad indeed. That would mean that the right way was known yet forsaken for the sake of mammon of some sort, mammon or love or admiration – these are also mammon if I, for example, see them as self-preservation or serving the personal self selfishly with no thought of the well-being of others. That is the pity. To know what is right and refuse to do it, is sinful. What is sin theologically or philosophically? I found a deep thought in the above quote about sin.

 I suggest this article by Skip Moen (September 2010) shows sin as what humans do for or against the better angel nature, which we are born with; the other side of this coin is that of being “altogether born in sin” and “iniquity.”  I suggest here that this appeals to knowing what the right thing to do is yet refusing to do it, is sin – as the verb; on the other hand, I fully understand what it means and its application as a noun. That is what inspired me about this commercial. In all things, life is a progression or regression – from light (right thought) to darkness (error, confusion, deceit, etc.). It is a choice to progress – or regress, but it is still a choice until we make the ultimate choice; then it is “Not my will…” when choice becomes internalized when we no longer struggle in the war between the right and wrong thing to do, sometimes called the “Will to Good.” By personal experience, I know this to be true in my continual progress toward the light.

Joy to the Spirit of Christos in the World in 2013

Amid the clamor 

And the clutter

Of noise and paper;

The smells of meats 

and other enticing vapors;

Amid the captures

By pictures & movies

Of the toils and capers

Of old and young and

In between alike: 

Remember the Centerpiece

Of every kind of

Christmas, festival, and holiday feast.

The Star of the Anointed One

Rose in the East;

It is the Christ Spirit born in 

A Babe, yonder in a manger; 

Greeted by parents and quite a few strangers.

Happy Holidays, then, 

In every dialect and language

Known and unknown to the human race

May you ever be nourished by

and bask in the healing of It's Grace.

Mary H. Moore (12-24-13)

.