Real Mathematics

 

 

One and one is two

And two and two is six,

If you were my teacher

I’d be getting “licks”,

 

But yet you can read

That is what you’d say

And particularly so

Especially in this day.

 

I was a teacher too

And still in my right mind

But now I’m getting old

This happens all the time.

 

I am assuming

You understand English

So that what is in verse one

Is not simply my wish.

 

Hence we’ll move on a little

In our Mathematics

And hopefully as you read

I’ll get you out this fix.

 

No doubt you are thinking

I am kind of mixed up,

I am old but not that old

So you are out of luck.

 

 

One and two is three

And three and three is nine,

If you add correctly

It will be right each time.

 

No I am not mad

And neither am I blind

And neither is new mathematics

Messing with my mind.

 

If verses one and seven

Were taken just as written

I assure you my friend

You’d see your problem.

 

Take lines one and two

Of verses one and seven,

Write them down in figures

And easily do the problem.

 

 

One from two leaves two

And five from six leaves six,

Depending on what you mean

This could be a fix.

 

If it were a case of eating

That might work out well

But in another case

It may be difficult to sell.

 

The items may be around

But in a different form,

Five dead sheep and one alive

Six is still that norm.

 

Remove the dead sheep

And the answer would be one

But if the opposite were true

Not a sheep would be gone.

 

 

I hope you are not confused

Or even experiencing strife,

This is real mathematics

And you have to factor in life.

 

They tell me I am mad

And my thing is so weird

But if you still don’t understand

Your thinking is impaired.

 

Stewart Russell © November 2018

 

This Is Who We Are

 

 

All have sinned

And come short of God’s glory,

Like sheep we’ve all gone astray

And therein is our story.

 

There is none righteous

No, not one

And outside of Jesus Christ

All hope is gone.

 

All our righteous deeds

Are as filthy rags

And there is no merit in us

About which we can brag.

 

“This is who we are”

According to God’s Holy Word,

Scarred by sin and wretched

And our thinking mostly absurd.

 

 

Not that pristine beauty

As is sung in the song

But a long fall from God’s grace

And still plunging down.

 

Trying to rearrange

The design of the Supreme

Thus, making the females male

And the male, beauty queens.

 

Looking in the mirror

And seeing the opposite

But believing however we feel

That is precisely it.

 

Mixed up and confused

But this is the in-thing

As expressed in our various art forms

Especially in what we sing.

 

 

“This is who we are”

Calling good evil and evil good

Knowing full well

We are not behaving as we should.

 

Dishonouring the Father

And mocking the Son

But still calling out to them

When we can’t get things done.

 

Praying that the Father

Would keep us in our sin

And believing it is only a matter

Of how long we pray to Him.

 

“This is who we are”

An unrepentant lot

Measuring the progress made

By the decay and rot.

 

Seeing God as a convenience

To call upon when we want more

But other than that,

“Shut Him out and close the door!”

 

“This is who we are”

An ungrateful, unrepentant lot

Whose hearts once flesh

Are now turned to rock.

 

“To God be the glory

Great things He has done”

Now a mere cliché

In a country that is rundown.

 

God is not judging us

He does not need to that,

We have done that only too well

And that is a fact.

 

 

“This is who we are”

Will be no better than the song

Unless we return to God

And let Him fix what is wrong.

 

“This is who we are”

The Government’s appraisal or God’s?

One of them is true

The other is the appraisal of a fraud.

 

Stewart Russell © February 11, 2021