Showing posts with label Spiritual Gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spiritual Gifts. Show all posts

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Chapter 3: Positioning


Later that night, Blackbird and Pyra decide to head out and try to piece together Madness’ riddle. It’s very dark in Gotham, and there is a brisk wind blowing out of the southwest. It’s not a cold wind, however. Pyra’s long, blonde hair is blowing in the wind as the two heroes hover in the sky.


“Figure anything out?” Pyra asks, looking up into the night sky, trying to find the constellation Cassiopeia.


“It’s not about the stars,” Blackbird says, matter of factly.


“What…?” Pyra says, confused.


“It’s not the stars,” Blackbird says, repeating himself. He turns to Pyra before explaining. “The riddle is alluding to two businesses: Cassiopeia’s Café and the Polaris pizzeria. Both are in Keystone City, which makes sense considering that’s where you found the body.”


“So, by heading to Keystone City, we should be able to find out where they’re hiding, right?”


“Correct,” Blackbird says. “Wanna head there now, give us some time to look around and triangulate their position?”


“Yeah, that’s fine,” she replies.


After the two heroes finish their conversation, they begin to fly towards Keystone City. Now that they know where they need to go, all that’s left is find the two businesses and find a building that sits between the two and they’ll find both Snuff and Madness. As they’re flying, Blackbird hops on his communicator to tell Cammy where they are headed.


“Cammy?,” he says


“Yeah? What’s up?” she replies on the other end.


“Pyra and I have figured out where Madness and Snuff are located. We’re headed to Keystone City to deal with them. I’ll see you in a couple days.”


“All right. Be careful, babe. I love you.”


“I’ll be fine, especially with Pyra with me,” he replies, turning his head to Pyra and smiling at her. “I love you too.”


He hangs up the communicator as they continue their trek towards Keystone. Since they’re not in that much of a rush, they decide to fly at a leisurely pace. They’ll arrive in Keystone in a couple hours, at which point they’ll begin their search for the two villains.

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Chapter 2: Riddles


Arriving at Blackbird's home, the two heroes head into Blackbird's secret lair, The Birdcage. Blackbird, just to gain access to the lair, has to enter a fingerprint and retinal scan. He uses these security measures because he knows that no one will ever be able to break into the lair since they don't have his fingerprints and retinal layout. Blackbird has also enabled the scans to detect and allow access to his wife and fellow superhero Cammy, aka Jolt. That way, in case she needs something from the lair, she doesn't need Blackbird present in order to get in.


Inside the lair, Blackbird and Pyra head over to a table and place the body upon it. Blackbird brings down a light and positions it over the body, so that there is ample light upon the lower part of the abdomen, where the dark spot was found. Blackbird grabs a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the spot. After looking at the body with the magnifying glass, he switches and grabs a blacklight that he scans the body with, looking for any hidden areas that isn’t visible to the naked eye.


"I don't see anything unusual about the spot," he says, turning to Pyra. "Although, there is this." 


Blackbird points to an area that appears to be getting lighter in color. Inside the black of the spot that he was focusing on is an area that is slowing turning into a yellow color. A couple seconds later, it turns green, then to a brown, before finally dissipating and the spot becomes all black once again.


"What was that?" Pyra asks, referring to the changes in color of the spot.


"Not sure," Blackbird replies. "Though, what just happened gives me an idea of what happened. This murder was completed by someone who is able to utilize magic. I think I know who did it."


"Who?"


"Remember about that magician that I ended up battling that one time? Went by the name of 'Snuff'?"


"Vaguely," Pyra responded, a look of confusion on her face. "What does he have to do with this?"


"You just saw that spot change colors and then went black again. All of it happening in a matter of seconds. That is the kind of work that Snuff would do when is unable to bend people to his will. He kills them and then places some kind of weird spell on them, making their body do weird things."


"Any idea where he may be?" Pyra asks.


"No clue."


As soon as they finish their conversation, Cammy arrives in the lair carrying a package.


"Honey, this just came for you," she says, handing the package to Blackbird.


"Who's it from?" he asks, looking at the package.


"No clue," she says. "Open it, I'm sure we'll find out."


Blackbird opens the package and inside is a piece of paper. On it is written a riddle.


'Look into the sky and you will find an area where the sun meets the moon. In between Cassiopeia and Polaris is where you will find us, many miles away.'


"Great," Blackbird mutters. "Not only do I have to deal with Snuff, but Madness as well. This isn't going to be pretty."


"Let me see that," Cammy says, reaching for the paper. She quickly skims over the note, trying to figure out its meaning. "Something tells me that they are somewhere here in Gotham," Cammy says.


"Then why was there a random body in Keystone?" Blackbird says.


"Not sure, but that's beside the point. I'm guessing that Snuff planned on you finding the body and wants you to track him down. Madness probably joined him in the fun because he saw a profitable opportunity."


"So, based off the riddle, we have to look for them at night," Pyra says. "We need to look at star position and where it relates to the moon. I'm guessing that an area between the two will point to where we need to go."


"I agree," Blackbird says. "We should take a look later tonight to see if we can track their location."

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Know Thyself

Today's Reading: Daniel 4-6


...Because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called and he will give the interpretation. Daniel 5: 12 NRSV


The queen remembers Daniel's powers of interpretation. In fact, she lists his Spiritual Gifts: an excellent spirit, knowledge and understanding. She also knows his strengths: dream interpretation, explaining riddles and solving problems. No one else seems to recall Daniel and his assets. When the writing appears on the wall, it is the queen who knows who to ask.


Do you know your strengths? Your Spiritual Gifts? Personality inventory?


In other words, how well do you know yourself? Can you clearly articulate to others your gifts and graces? Do you believe that there are at least one person out there (besides immediate family members) who know and would share your abilities with others?


Knowing ourselves and letting others know what we are capable of is very important if we want to serve God with all that we are and all that we have.


God, help us to use our gifts, strengths, and talents for your glory. If we don't know what these are, we ask that you provide the means for us to discover them. In Jesus' name. Amen.


Copyright 2010 Amelia G. Sims

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Friday, August 13, 2010

Life is confusing and movies are misleading

So....not sure where to begin, how to begin. Let me warn you I am going to complain today. But, life is confusing and people are confusing too! Or maybe I just get confused easily. I don't know. I am confused! For those who do not know it, life is very tiring for the confused because you are always trying to figure something out. You are trying to figure out what is it that you want for yourself, what is it that others want of you, what is right, what is necessary, and what is it that needs no justification. It is like solving small riddles each time and it gets exhausting. To top it all there are people who like placing complicated riddles before you. And that really exasperates me! I would not care two sticks about people I don't care about. But as it so happens there are a good number of people I do care about and I don't like it when my confusion pertains to these people. In these cases I go to great lengths to resolve it and it really drains me out. I wonder if I confuse people so much.... I hope not!


I think a large part of this confusion about understanding people stems from the fact that different people have different styles of communication. I find it really difficult to understand any style of communication besides my own though I am not sure what my style is either. But I will say this with some conviction. Very few people feel the need to communicate accurately and fewer are able to do so. Or maybe they think they are communicating perfectly and it is me who does not understand. Can't be sure about this! But, all in all communication is definitely a challenge if not a problem amongst us adults. I don't expect everyone to communicate perfectly but at least they should be aware that they do not communicate properly and realize the difficulties that can arise out of that. That is all I actually ask for. I realize it is impractical but that is what I feel anyhow. It would save people like me so much confusion.....


Slight change of topic now. I saw a movie today. It was about a woman in search of herself and what not. It was a highly misleading movie in general but it left me a message by not really giving any specific message.Through the whole movie no one's behaviour made any sense to me. It made sense to everyone in the movie though because all the characters understood each other really well. Now, I believe I am a pretty understanding person and understand unusual people and unusual emotions fairly well. But.....the characters in this movie made no sense to me. I mean I understood what the woman was going through and stuff like that. But the way she dealt with it and the way everyone communicated was not easy for me to understand. Problems were created where none existed and then people went to great lengths to solve them. Inexplicable situations made people happy or sad. At the end of the movie I realized that no one had any idea what they were feeling or doing! They had no idea in the beginning and neither did they towards the end! It was then that I realized that real people in real life are like that too! This was a ground-breaking insight for me. I could have been subconsciously or maybe even consciously aware of this. But, today I was convinced.


I mean I like to believe that I know what I want and I know how to ask for it. But, maybe I do not. Maybe people do not really want to confuse me. They just are being themselves. They do not know what it is all about either. Maybe some do not even care. They just do what they feel like doing. I must admit I am a tad jealous of these people. Sure I do what I want to but I have this inexplicable need to either justify whatever I am doing or put it in the box of things that "Need no Explanation". But, it all has to be labeled and boxed and classified. It takes a lot of energy and effort that I am beginning to see could be better utilized. So, all in all watching this movie was not such a bad idea.


Well, I am not sure how good a job of communicating I have done tonight. Not sure if I was able to establish a link between why confusion exists and why we have no clue what we are trying to do but just so I am clear...what I am trying to say is- No one has any frigging idea why they are doing what they are doing most of the time even if they think they do. They do not do this on purpose. It is beyond the realm of human ability to be absolutely clear about these things. Try not to take people too seriously and take yourself even less seriously. I believe it will make us less confused and more happy. I think I had decided in the past not to take myself seriously but I think I had forgotten about it. Today was a good reminder.


I hope I will remember this insight this time around (I have a tendency to forget my own realizations and sometimes I need to re-realize things for them to have sufficient impact). Since I have blogged about it hopefully I will remember it for a longer time at least. Its short term benefit is that I am going to be less confused for a while and I think it will bring be great joy and relief in the next few weeks to come.

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