before heading back down to where life is full of blissful madness–the calm before the storm

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds;
our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


(The Biltmore House / Asheville, NC/ Julie Cook / 2020)

Ok, I simply couldn’t go back to my self-imposed isolation, aka my never-ending
unpacking and sorting, without first offering my dismay at having caught a recent news popup
that showed up on my phone yesterday.
It seems that Madame Speaker never ceases to amaze me…and that is…
amaze me in a not so positive way.

The news tag read “The enemy is within
It seems the Speaker is afraid of her GOP colleagues—calling them ‘the enemy within’
Madame Speaker is afraid of those Republicans who have gun permits…
in particular those members who might be ‘packing heat’ while on the job—
And given the recent precarious events of insurrections and occupations by
“enemy combatants” I would think those with permits might feel as if they
need a bit of personal security.

But to call one’s colleagues ‘enemies of the state’ takes this whole undercurrent push
for a one party state a step further into the surreal Twilight Zone we now call reality.

Yesterday, always in timely wise fashion, our friend Kathy, over on atimetoshare, noted that
Mr. Kerry is back to his typical pompous bombastic self by calling middle Americans
“the little people”…

Reminds me a bit of a Marie Antoinette sort of personality…let those hungry
little people eat cake.
Ode to those “little people” and ode one’s supposed colleagues.

A one party state
Little people
enemy combatants
the enemy within
security vs paranoia
pomposity
arrogance
disregard
double standards
hypocrisy

The underground is looking pretty peaceful for the time being…
I imagine it is the calm before the storm.

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another,
for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

1 Peter 5:5

popping back up for air and holding onto the life buoy…seek while you can

Not all saints have the same sort of holiness.
There are those who could never have lived with others saints.
Not all have the same path. But all arrive at God.

St. John Vianney


(commercial recreation specialists)

During this somewhat self-imposed fasting from the world, I have been forced afforded the opportunity to step back from the world’s madness while sinking into my own moving madness.

Yet whereas I may be currently focused on the latest box to sort,
the latest immediate crisis repair screaming for attention,
or the simple task of navigating new and unfamiliar terrain…
I am not totally unaware of the continuing idiocy reigning supreme in this world of ours.

A pandemic remains.
Isolation is a reality for many.
Socialism and Marxism continue to be the current ideological darlings.
Civil unrest, Antifa, and protests just won’t go away.
Impeachment is a never ending taxpayer’s nightmare demanded by politicians who
don’t seem to care for said taxpayers.
Persecution of The Church is rampant.
The media is a rabid dog.
Zero tolerance for the unborn looms large as abortion is seen as some sort of unalienable
right.
All the while a cancel culture hopes to cancel out us middle Americans.

Yesterday marked the day of remembrance for the Holocaust.
It appears that it went largely ignored by our oh so pious news outlets.

Ode to the shifting tide.

And so I wonder…why have I even bothered coming up for air?
Is it any wonder that I opt to cling to a life buoy?

I suspect it would behoove all of us to cling to that life buoy…

That we must seek Him while we can.

That we pray while we still have the opportunity—
the only life line to He who is Holy.

Prayer is, as it were, being alone with God. A soul prays only when it is turned toward God,
and for so long as it remains so. As soon as it turns away,
it stops praying. The preparation for prayer is thus the movement of turning to God
and away from all that is not God.
That is why we are so right when we define prayer as this movement.
Prayer is essentially a ‘raising up’, an elevation.
We begin to pray when we detach ourselves from created objects and raise ourselves up to the Creator.”

Dom Augustin Guillerand, p. 91
An excerpt from
The Prayer of the Presence of God

not dead…

“Mark Twain was undecided whether to be more amused or annoyed when a
Journal representative informed him today of the report in New York that
he was dying in poverty in London …
The great humorist, while not perhaps very robust,
is in the best of health. He said:
‘I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about,
I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens,
a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London,
but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.’

the correct Twain quote concerning the rumors of his death / Metalfloss.com


(a growing mountain of boxes)

It’s been a long seven days…a week of exhaustion, confusion and frustration…
but not for reasons that many might be experiencing in this nation of ours…
I’m simply attempting to survive a major move.

And since I was coming up for a breath of air…I thought it would
be nice of me to let those of you who were interested, and those
of you who were merely curious, that I am still very much alive.

I may be on the other side of the state now, but I have managed
to get internet and even a television as of yesterday.
But life without a television this past week has been a blessing!
HA!

Lots to share, show and tell…but that will have to wait for now…
still very much busy with the tasks of unpacking, sorting and placing…

So stay tuned…
I’ll be back!

When I die, will they remember not
What I did, but what I haven’t done.
It’s not the end, that I fear with each breathe.
It’s life that scares me to death…

Lyrics Rise Against

give my your Light

“Everything becomes more and more itself.
Here is joy that cannot be shaken.
Our light can swallow up your darkness;
but your darkness cannot now infect our light.”

C.S. Lewis


(they take the bulbs and shades…so life is in the dark / Julie Cook / 2020)

Transition seems to bring about a variance of both light and dark.
I can have a lamp, but without a bulb or electricity, I have only darkness.

The same remains true for the soul.
If there is no light, there is only darkness.

We pray for light.
Give us you light oh Lord…

“In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;
I am restless, but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.”

“Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
When all men fail me;
You remember and seek me;
It is Your will that I should know You
And turn to You.
Lord, I hear Your call and follow;
Help me.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A tit for tat, a gerbil on a wheel or just life in middle school…

The cry against the idea of moral retribution reveals several deep-lying misconceptions.
These have to do with the holiness of God, the nature of man,
the gravity of sin and the awesome wonder of the love of God as expressed in redemption.
Whoever understands these even imperfectly will take God’s side forever,
and whatever He may do they will cry with the voice out of the altar,
“Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments”
(Revelation 16:7).
Perhaps Moody’s word about this is as wise as any that has ever been uttered.
He said, “No man should preach on hell until he can do it with tears in his eyes.”

A. W. Tozer


(a final look at my old den during the NFL playoffs / Julie Cook / 2020)

Our days are numbered in this house of ours—this is the week of the BIG move.

It’s funny, when your world is changing and turned upside down, for whatever reason,
we humans tend to want to cling desperately to anything and everything that generates
a sense of routine…a sense of that which we know, a sense of the familiar
a sense of normalcy.
A routine of sorts.

Life, in most of our collective arenas, is a far cry from “normal”

So for me I’m trying to find that balance–on a personal level, spiritual
level and even on an average citizen level.

This move has been long and drawn out for all sorts of reasons.
We’re leaving a house that is in better shape than to the house where we are going.
So there will be work.

Yet it has seemed that God has opened every door along this journey—and so there is a reason.

Yet while we’ve been packing, sorting, culling, tossing…
for me to still try and cook a decent meal— manning the kitchen,
albeit with just a remaining skillet, a cooktop and oven—
just give me a plastic fork and it’s all good.

It keeps me grounded, sane and from having a meltdown from overt change.
Because change has been on overdrive since March has it not???…
and if the truth be told, the change madness has running
rampant for the past four years—thank you politicians, news media and now China.

Being able to throw out a post or two, on some sort of regular regime, also helps me.
I told you a long time ago, I blog because I’m a retired educator.
This teacher still needs to “teach”, to share, to observe…

There is a calming peace found in regime and rhythms.

Yet this Nation of ours seems to be running on the opposite end of ‘peace’,
rhythm and rhyme.

I managed to play a bit of catch up in my WP reader yesterday and caught a post written by
our friend Pastor Jim, aka slimjim, from over on The Domain For Truth.

https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/wicked-is-the-doctrine-of-regeneration-through-chaos/

The title of his post reached out and grabbed me by the collar..

Wicked is the Doctrine of Regeneration through Chaos

Jim’s post began with these words,

In physics energy diminishes with resistance such as friction.
But it doesn’t always work that way with politics.
Instead one extreme act provoke an equal and possibly more extreme act.
Human sinful nature doesn’t want an eye for an eye; rather some is tempted to outdo the other side.
Wicked is the doctrine of regeneration by chaos and even more wicked is this doctrine put into practice.
No one side of the political and religious and socioeconomic spectrum has a monopoly of craziness.
Everyone has a “vote” of what they say and do. For example saying stolen election
lead to the opposite side saying stolen election or worst.
Saying burning the system down will lead some to burn things down.
But others might want to burn down what the other side think is important too.
One side over run police station and have occupy zone of areas that are not theirs.
So some from the other opposite side overrun the Capitol;
but what further extreme reaction will be done next by those who disagree and
are displeased with this?

I tend to have that sort of Rorschach test reaction.
You know, it’s that “quick what do you see??”
But in the case of reading a title to certain posts, I have that
‘quick, what comes to mind?’ sort of thought.

When reading Jim’s title to his post, I thought of the idiocy of a tit for tat.
You know…that childish back and forth business.
Adults might know it as the bravado of posturing.
As in an “I can do anything you can do better…I can do anything better than you…
yes I can, no you can’t…”
And on and on it goes.

Think of a gerbil on it’s spinning wheel—running around and around and going nowhere.
That is pretty much what we are witnessing.
A matter of we hate you, NO, we hate you more.

Sigh

And that’s when it dawned on me…we are living life in a perpetual state of middle school.

I will be without the internet within a day or two and not totally certain when I’ll be reconnected
in our new location…I’ll have my phone but won’t be posting from the phone as I don’t have
that much patience. I will be checking in however.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body,
whether good or bad.

2 Corinthians 5:10

The only truth to cling to, not our current reality

“How great you are, Sovereign LORD!
There is no one like you, and there is no God but you,
as we have heard with our own ears.

2 Samuel 7:22 NIV


(my current reality in what was once a kitchen / Julie Cook / 2020)

My current reality is obviously upside down.

Despite my angst and trepidation, let alone this world of mine being turned up on its head…
the one that I do know is that all of this mess is temporary.

And just like that…we all know that this Nation of ours is also obviously turned upside down.

And as to whether this mess in our Nation is temporary or rather a marker of an ending,
is yet to be seen…yet in the end, the one thing we do know is that all of this will mess
will eventually pass away…

Meaning this too is only temporary…but the thing is…we just don’t know how long it will last…
But that really doesn’t matter.

None of this mess really matters–

Because in the end, there is only One thing that truly matters…
Only One thing that truly matters and actually remains–as a constant.

Whew!

Thank goodness.

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.

Psalm 102:25-27

longing…

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive.
There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.”

George Eliot

“They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same,
but I don’t think it’s possible for you to miss me as much as I’m missing you right now”

Edna St. Vincent Millay


(The Andy Griffith Show / circa 1960)

Today just seems like a day when I dread turning on the television, dread the landline’s incessant ringing,
dread the cell phone’s constant alerts….

Today is a day to turn it off—- turn it all totally off!

Protests
Riots
Double standards
Elections
Division
Civil unrest

Is it any wonder I would opt to watch something simple.
Something that came from a seemingly more innocent time?

Did you know that on this latest runoff election in Georgia that, between all four candidates,
almost $1 billion dollars was spent on the collective campaigns?

Let that sink in…

The local Atlanta news outlets reported that the candidates spent well over $800 million between their campaigns
…closing in one 1 billion dollars.

Oh pray tell…. what could 1 billion dollars do for those in need in
this aching Nation of ours??

And the looming question that will never be answered, where might that near 1 billion
dollars have come from???
I wonder….

And so the landlines have rung constantly, the billboards have lit up the night sky,
people have knocked on doors, flyers have arrived daily in the mail,
alerts have popped up on phones, commercials have run at an olympic clip…

Waste, waste, waste…

And thus in this small microcosm of Georgia, it appears that we are swirling down the toilet.

And now fast forward to yesterday’s protest in Washington…
And thus my obersvations have been confirmed.

Conservative Trumpers protest and it’s declared a calamity.
Protests and riots continue, unending, in both Portland and Seattle.
George Floyd and Breanna Taylor protests were violent, riotous, destructive..
yet they are declared as attempts at expression.

I am sick and tired of the double standards.

I am sick and tired of all this mess.
But that won’t matter to the masses of the selfish.

I long for that which is not of this world.

And I somehow think I’m probably not alone in that longing…

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26

Child of Grace

You are a child of grace.
If God gave you grace, because he gave it freely, then you should love freely.
Do not love God for the sake of a reward; let God be your reward!

St. Augustine

“It is undoubtedly true that each of us, men and women,
irresponsible and thoughtless as we often are,
hold within our hands the happiness and sorrows of others.
We cannot help it or escape from it. The power is in us inalienably
almost from birth to death—in us, because we are persons—-
and we are responsible for the use we make of it.
Indeed, so mysterious is this power that the very presence of a person
who does not realize his responsibility is often the source of the keenest
pain of all…
The failure to exercise the power to give happiness to others is not
merely negative in its results; it is the source of the most positive
suffering of all.
Thus there is no escape from the responsibility involved in the possession
of this power.
Not to use it where it is due is to destroy all happiness.
Strange power, indeed, to be committed to such weak and unworthy hands;
yet there could be but one thing worse: that none could interfere with the
joys and sorrows of others.
We might envy their happiness and pity their sorrows, but we could not help them.
It would be a world of isolated individuals wrapped in inviolable selfishness;
each must take care of himself and the world must go its way.”

Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 149
An Excerpt From
Christian Self-Mastery

amen

There [in your kingdom] we hope to enjoy forever the fullness of your glory,
when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God,
as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end.

Eucharistic Prayer III

While up to my armpits in bubble wrap, I managed to catch a glimpse of a newsy sort
of headline.

Seems there was a story yesterday about a US Representatives wrapping up the opening
of the new year’s session of Congress with a prayer that he ended by using both
the words “amen” and “a woman”

What the heck???

Then it suddenly dawned on me…tis a new gender-neutral year.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, made a very poor attempt at a
gender-neutral wording that really had nothing to do with gender.

I actually had to laugh.

Here I am, a mere mortal, wrapping up my home in bubble wrap for a soon to be move
while a holier than thou democratic US Representative thinks he’s using a gender-neutral
ending for a prayer for Congress.

The word Amen has nothing to do with biology…nothing to do with gender.
Nothing to do with a men or a women…

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-cleaver-ends-opening-prayer-for-new-congress-amen-and-awoman

The use of the word Amen, a word that we of the Judeo /Christian tradition are familiar with,
the typical ending of a prayer, is derived from etymology rooted in Hebrew…

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, From everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”
Psalm 41:13

You have often heard the word “Amen” but what does it mean,
and where does it come from? It actually appears a lot more in the Bible than you think –
it’s just that is translated in most cases.
All of these Hebrew words actually derive from the same root as “Amen”:

Emunah – Faith, faithfulness, steadfastness
Amanah – Indeed, correct, for sure, contract
Oman – Artist
Omen – Foster parent
Ne’eman – Faithful
As we can see, the word “Amen” carries within it not only faith, but certainty and steadfastness.
It is often used in psalms, prayers, and blessings as a “yes this is true” or “yes I agree.”
In some cases, the Torah even commands people to say “Amen”
in legal procedures when committing to fulfill something.
We see that especially in Deuteronomy 27,
but also in Numbers 5:22.

In the New Testament, the word “Amen” transcribed from Hebrew into Greek,
is used the same way as in Psalms to end blessings and prayers.
But there is one more use – but only by Jesus himself.
Whenever Jesus says “truly I say to you,” the original Greek actually uses the Hebrew word Amen –
“Amen, I tell you.”
Why in the beginning of the sentence?
And why is it doubled to “Amen, amen I tell you” in the gospel of John?

As Santala points out, “Amen” was used in the times of Jesus in a binding legal way –
and he used that formula to convey spiritual truths about who he is.
He is binding himself under an oath that what he says is true –
also when he says “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
John 8:58

The origin and the meaning of – ‘Amen’

So oddly it seems that AMEN has nothing about gender.
Who knew…???
Eyes now rolling.

So it’s like a lifelong friend recently told me regarding this coming year…
“grab the popcorn, and enjoy the show..who knows what will happen…only God knows.”

2021 is going to quite the ride…
God help us all…AMEN!!!!!

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the
four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
saying,
“Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might,
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Revelation 7:11-12

king for a day or king for life—it’s a choice

“It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world!”
St. Aloysius Gonzaga

“It is necessary to have an absolutely sure intention in all our actions,
so that the generous fulfillment of our daily duties may be directed
toward the highest supernatural ideal. Thus, our life, apart from moments of prayer,
will be a prayerful life. It is clear that the habit of giving an upward glance
to God at the moment of action is a great assistance in aiding us to
behave always with a pure intention and in freeing us from our natural impulses
and fancies, so, that, retaining our self-mastery, or rather,
God becoming the sole Master, all our movements become dependent upon the Holy Spirit.
We see in the Gospel that whenever our Lord was about to undertake some important step,
He always paused for a moment to raise His eyes to Heaven,
and only after this moment of recollection did He take up the work He had to do.
‘He lifted up His eyes to Heaven’ is a phrase that recurs with significant frequency.
And doubtless, when there was no outward sign of this prayer,
there was the inward offering. The ideal is the same for us.
The constant subjection of self to the guidance of the Holy Spirit
is made easier from the fact of His presence in the soul,
where He is asked explicitly to preside over all our doings…
We shall not submit wholeheartedly to the invisible Guest unless
He is kept in close proximity to us.”

Raoul Plus, S.J., p. 37-8
An Excerpt From
How to Pray Always