God alone suffices

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you.
All things pass.
God does not change.
Patience achieves everything.
Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”
St. Teresa of Avila

(Eastern tiger swallowtail / Julie Cook / 2021)

“If you wish to explore the Holy Scripture,
and you overcome your laziness and apply yourself, thirsting for the knowledge,
then every good thing will be yours. You will fill your mind with the divine light.
Then, when you apply that light to the doctrines of the Church,
you will very easily recognize everything that is true and unadulterated,
and lay it up in the hidden treasures of your soul.”
St. Cyril of Alexandria, p. 167
An Excerpt From
A Year with the Church Fathers

extend love and forgiveness

God wants us to receive His mercy and, in turn,
be merciful to others through our actions, words, and prayers.
He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He extends
love and forgiveness to us.
Fr. Chris Alar, MIC
from his book Understanding Divine Mercy

(hidden creatures amongst the rosemary /Julie Cook / 2021)

Free me from evil passions and heal my heart of all disorderly affections,
that being healed and well purified in my interior,
I may become fit to love, courageous to suffer and constant to persevere.
Love is an excellent thing, a great good indeed,
which alone maketh light all that is burdened and makes all that which is bitter sweet and savory.
The love of Jesus is noble and generous;
it spurs us on to do great things and excites us to desire always that which is most perfect.”
Thomas á Kempis, p. 89
An Excerpt From
Imitation of Christ

“The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom…”

“The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned
upside down by the work of Jesus Christ”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

(Lady Banks roses / Julie Cook / 2021)

“[Saint] Paul understood that the suffering he was going through somehow allowed him
to share in Christ’s suffering for the world…
In his own life, there was a time when he asked the Lord three times to remove a
particular suffering from him (see 2 Corinthians 12:8).
The response he received from the Lord was not “Oh, my oversight.
That’s right, I took care of all that suffering.
You don’t have to do anything.”
No, God’s response was, “[Paul], my grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)…
It is completely opposite of the way the world thinks…
What looked like the worst thing that ever happened on earth—Christ hanging on a cross,
bleeding to death—became the source of salvation for the entire world.
The point of weakness became the point of strength;
it was transformed into the power over death and Hell.
We have to get it through our heads that the kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom
according to the world’s perspective.
Weakness confounds the wise.
The poor and obscure confound the rich and famous…
Whatever you are going through right now, remember that God has a plan for you.
He wants to be united to you so closely that it resembles a spousal relationship…
your suffering is not inconsequential; it is extremely valuable in the economy of God.”
Jeff Cavins, When You Suffer
An Excerpt From
When You Suffer

God does not judge as man judges…

“The school of Christ is the school of love.
In the last day, when the general examination takes place …
Love will be the whole syllabus.”
St. Robert Bellarmine

(after the rain/ Julie Cook / 2021)

(after the rain / Julie Cook / 2021)

“Set free from human judgment, we should count as true only what God sees
in us, what he knows, and what he judges.
God does not judge as man does.
Man sees only the countenance, only the exterior.
God penetrates to the depths of our hearts.
God does not change as man does.
His judgment is in no way inconstant.
He is the only one upon whom we should rely.
How happy we are then, and how peaceful!
We are no longer dazzled by appearances, or stirred up by opinions;
we are united to the truth and depend upon it alone.
I am praised, blamed, treated with indifference, disdained, ignored,
or forgotten; none of this can touch me.
I will be no less than I am.
Men and women want to play at being a creator.
They want to give me existence in their opinion,
but this existence that they want to give me is nothingness.
It is an illusion, a shadow, an appearance, that is, at bottom, nothingness.
What is this shadow, always following me, behind me, at my side?
Is it me, or something that belongs to me?
No.
Yet does not this shadow seem to move with me?
No matter: it is not me. So it is with the judgements of men:
they would follow me everywhere, paint me, sketch me,
make me move according to their whim, and, in the end, give me some sort of existence…
but I am disabused of this error.
I am content with a hidden life.
How peaceful it is!
Whether I truly live this Christian life of which St. Paul speaks,
I do not know, nor can I know with certainty. But I hope that I do,
and I trust in God’s goodness to help me.”
Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, p. 99-101
An Excerpt From
Meditations for Lent

think and seek the things of God…

“O man, when the world hates you and is faithless toward you, think of your God,
how he was struck and spat upon.
You should not accuse your neighbor of guilt,
but pray to God that he be merciful to you both.”
St. Nicholas of Flue

(I think it’s called an Autumn cherry…despite it’s prolific blooms during early Spring / Julie Cook / 2021)

“This world is filled with many vulgar and dishonorable things that will claw and tear at your
Christian purity if you allow them to.
Don’t let them!
Seek instead the things of God.
He will purify you and free you from your slavery to profane and inconsequential things.”
Patrick Madrid, p.1
An Excerpt From
A Year with the Bible

stairway to heaven

“Apart from the cross,
there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”
St. Rose of Lima

(Hotel Oud Huis de Peellaert stairway/ Bruges, Belgium/ Julie Cook 2011)

Remember back in the day, those heady days of the early 1970’s?
We had just crossed over the infamous Rubicon—a time of transition from the turbulent 60’s
crossing the threshold into a new decade—we did not want to look back.
Rather we crossed over, hoping the new decade would bring us
the gift of change….positive, war-free days change.

Musically it was a time just prior to the colorful days of spinning mirrored balls,
platform shoes, Night Fever and the world of all things Disco.
It was a quickly closing window of time…a time when rock bands still vied for the
waning spotlight.

It was a time when every sweaty-palmed young man and every young lady whose smile bore
the glint of silver braces, each felt a magical flutter when hearing the familiar and melodic
opening notes to the perfect slow dance song of all time—
the song that created an almost 10 full magical minutes of holding close slow dancing…

Should you dare rest your head on his shoulder??
Should you dare pull her closer to your chest??

Led Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven

And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all is one and one is all, that’s what it is
To be a rock and not to roll, oh yeah
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven
Robert Plant, Jimmy Page / Led Zeppelin

Granted, I for one loved dancing to the song…especially if I was dancing
with “the one”—that particular boy who had stolen my fancy at that particular time
in life.

But I must admit, I often pondered those lyrics as the visual image of a stairway to Heaven
was akin to St. John Climacus’ The Ladder of Divine Ascent, also known as the Ladder of Paradise.

(The 12th century Ladder of Divine Ascent icon /Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt/
showing monks, led by John Climacus, ascending the ladder to Jesus, at the top right.

There were 30 rungs to the ladder…each a nod to the thirty some odd years of Christ’s life.
“It is the Divine model of the religious,
it presents a picture of all the virtues and contains a great many parables and historical touches,
drawn principally from the monastic life, and exhibiting the practical application of the precepts.”

And all of these thoughts came flooding to the forefront of my thoughts when I read today’s quote
by St. Rose of Lima.
There is no avoiding the cross as we look to climb the ladder to Heaven.

Many of the faithful, more of our Protestant brethren, often don’t understand what is
most often perceived as a bizarre and often macabre view of the cross, or crucifix,
that our Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican brethren seem to fixate upon.

And I for one tend to be one of those who look toward that cross.

It is the dark shadow of our faith that so many prefer to ignore or simply look past
pretending it doesn’t exist…but I see it for what it is.
The only means by which I now have hope.

For it there was no cross, there would be no hope.
If there is no decent into Hell, there is no ascent to Heaven.

It is the ugly truth as some would say…but I say it is the only truth.

There would be no Easter, no resurrection, without the cross.

We are told that we must carry that cross if we wish to live.
We can not avoid it.

There is no Easter joy if there is no cross of Good Friday.

The sacrifice had to be made if any of us were to be saved.

So yes, the cross is indeed our stairway to Heaven…

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will rise upon you, and His glory will appear upon you.
And nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
Isaiah 60:1-3

A bond…some things blessedly stay the same…for now

“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize
that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
Eckhart Tolle

“Man can no longer live for himself alone.
We must realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all life.
From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe.”
Albert Schweitzer

(the Mayor and Peaches / Julie Cook / 2021)

Three years…
two cats…
one baby girl…
(and of course one baby boy…however the cats only gravitate to the Mayor…
the Sheriff is not known for his gentleness…something about being two fisted with
a ball bat and golf club all of which makes the cats very nervous)

The cats tend to avoid this one…

God has created me to do Him some definite service.
He has commited some work to me which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission.
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.
St. John Henry Newman

Does our anxiety separation grow exponentially with age?

“The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey.
The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage.
One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.”
Thomas Merton

(the unhappy traveling Mayor when a loved one leaves the car and she does not / Julie Cook/ 2021)

Recently it’s been hard to ignore, but both the Mayor and Sheriff have developed
a bit of separation anxiety when one of their loved ones gets out of the car
in order to run an errand.

I tend to be the lucky one left behind to sit with the unconsolable two
while their mom or dad runs in to a store.

What started out as a content and happy journey of riding in the car
has slowly morphed into the understanding that a loved one is leaving
while they are being left behind.

And so this latest toddler developmental drama has gotten me thinking.

Our past year, meaning both yours and mine, has been anything but pleasant.
To say it’s been trying is simply putting it mildly.

Anxiety ridden?
Yes.

We’ve been forced to mask up, sanitize until our skin cracks, be vigilant against
an unseen enemy, line up for a questionable shot, forced to become TP hoarders…

We’ve put education on the back burner, we’ve worked and lived in isolation,
we’ve balanced home and work all within the home, we’ve stayed put, stayed apart,
watched helplessly as our government has turned on us, wondered who we are as a nation,
struggled to find new ways to reinvent ourselves, labored to balance our physical
and mental health, locked down life as we knew it, missed out on our favorite activities…
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

I think the worst has been the separation.
Physically, mentally and emotionally.

It has been thrust upon us… and the jury is still out as to whether it
has been the right choice.
Chances are, when we look back, we will know it was indeed wrong.

Our seniors have been left alone in their Assisted Living facilities…
often falling ill and even dying alone…as family has not been allowed to visit.

Funerals have come and gone without the attendance of the typical respect of attending mourners.

Schools have shuttered their doors, leaving kids to “learn” remotely, alone.

The very nature of our beings, the social creatures that we are, has been stripped from us.

It has just over a year when this madness began.

This virus that has disrupted the globe, originated in Wuhan, China…

I don’t know a single person who has ever blamed the Asian community for any of this…
The CCP, the Communist Chinese Party is who is to blame…not the Asian people.

So for our news media, and even some governmental leadership, to spin that there is
a surge in crimes against Asian Americans carried out by white suprematists…
what we know as those majority of Trump voters who are simply white conservatives,
is blatantly egregious and a glaring lie.

A disturbed man in Atlanta went on a killing spree this past week, killing 8 people,
near and around Atlanta’s metro area.
His victims were all associated with Asian Spas as either customers or workers.
He claims a sexual addiction made him do such.
Shades of Flip Wilson claiming “the devil made him do it”

And that is what it is…the devil.
The Evil One who reigns supreme.

The young man is an unbalanced “nut job” and not a serial killer of Asian people.
He is not a minion of Donald Trump, contrary to what the news and certain leaders
would have us believe…
all because the former president told us that this current virus is from China.
Of which it is.

Our media and leaders are lying to us by creating ghost scapegoats where no
scapegoats are to be found.

Our journey this year has been hard enough.
If we begin being sucked into believing lies,
the year suddenly becomes heavier and even much more difficult.

Our separation from the Father of all creation is at the root of all our angst.

We have turned our vision from the greater to that of the lesser.
We have turned away from our Creator and turned rather to the mortal man.
Allowing man to become our greater god.
A small god who will always disappoint.

This journey has just become even more miserable…all because of our separation…
Separation from one another but more importantly, the separation from our God.

I think the Mayor and Sheriff are on their way to true knowledge.
When the very one who you put your entire life into their hands leaves you…
it is indeed dire.

Our opting to separate from our God our Father is becoming life ending.

In order to continue this difficult journey…we need God.
And if you find yourself laughing at such a thought or mocking this little proclamation of mine…
you just tell me how you want to keep moving forward if you don’t have Grace to
help you keep going…
Good luck with that.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:6-9

The conductor and his time

Christianity is not a system of ethics; it is a life.
It is not good advice; it is Divine adoption.
Ven. Fulton J. Sheen
from his book Remade for Happiness

(Conductor Harry Renshaw consults his pocket watch just prior to the departure of a
Boonton branch suburban commuter local on the Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the mid 1920s/ Pintrest)

I intended to continue our little thoughts about trains today but the Mayor and Sheriff
are set to come visit tomorrow so once again, time is pressing…
However, I’ve got time enough to throw out a quick thought.

My great-grandfather, a man I never knew, for reasons I’ve never learned,
brought his family all the way from New York to a rural area just north of Atlanta.
He went to work with the railroad and I still have his Hamilton pocket watch, a watch he
used as an integral part of his job of keeping trains on time.

Whenever I’ve traveled throughout Europe, I have always utilized the various train systems…
The trains are always clean, crowded yet punctual, as well as efficient, to a fault.

The one thing Italians will always credit Il Duce, aka the infamous Benito Mussolini, with is
his pre WWII promise that Italian trains will always run on time..and by gosh
they run on time to the minute to this very day.

If you a running late, say, due to a slow taxi, a traffic jam or a typical miscommunication
over a ticket, you can forget the train waiting…Italian trains wait for no man.

Thus I tend to think of God as this master sort of train conductor.
He’s sets both the date and the time.
He stands at the steps of our designated car with a watch in His hand.
He looks both left and right… yet doesn’t see us.
The second hand spins, the minute hand advances without hesitation.
He continues to look both left and right.
The engine begins to rumble…
The “All Abroad” is announced…time is of the essence…
yet we are absent from the platform.
God checks the clock one last time…
Time for the train to depart.

Did we think He’d wait on us?
Time, my friend, is fleeting.
Don’t be late.

“The saints flinch as instinctively as others when the cross comes along,
but they do not allow their flinching to upset their perspectives.
As soon as it becomes clear to them that this particular suffering is what God
evidently wants suffered, they stop flinching.
Their habitual state of surrender to God’s will has a steadying effect:
they do not get stampeded into panic or despair or rebellion or defeat.”
Dom Hubert van Zeller, The Mystery of Suffering
An Excerpt From
The Mystery of Suffering

Hear the midnight train

The midnight train is whining low
I’m so lonesome I could cry
Hank Williams Sr

For my entire life, it seems that I have always lived within earshot of a train.

As a little girl growing up in the South, long before folks had central air in their homes,
we’d sleep with our windows wide open…
and without fail, late on those steamy nights while the crickets continuously chirped,
despite dwelling in the burbs, there was always that sorrowful,
yet unmistakeable, whistle echoing through the air…winging its way to my youthful ears.

I listened to the whistles but I was also afforded to ride the rails.
Riding thankfully as a passenger rather than stowaway…think Boxcar Willy
or a vagrant hobo.

My grandparents always opted to take the train whenever possible verses driving.
They’d take me down to Atlanta’s Brookwood train station in order
to catch a train headed north in order to visit my cousins.
By the end of 7th grade, as a graduation trip of sorts before we all moved on to highschool,
my class took the train to Washington D.C

My dad also seemed to have a long love affair with trains as we had quite the
model train set up in our basement.

Later when I made my way to college, if I opted to walk to campus,
I use to have to crisscross a maze of train tracks.

And long before UGA had their fancy smancy football stadium, the stadium backed up to
what the students lovingly referred to as “the tracks”—free seats for the truly
brave or truly drunk at heart.
I always opted to sit inside the stadium but would longingly watch those
stalwart fans perched on that trestle that overlooked the field
wondering what they did should a whistle blow.
Blessedly, I never did hear of any train and fan incidents.

Once married and settled as a new bride in my husband’s house, a train cut right through
the middle of his small home town…we not only could hear the whistle echoing from town,
but we could actually feel the rumbling vibrations of every train passing through town.

There was many a morning that I would be on my way to work, getting caught
up in traffic by a freight town traversing through town—so frustrated,
sitting there stuck, I’d count the cars as the minutes ticked past making
me later than necessary.

The next city we moved to, along with the house we built, it also seemed prewired with the
sounds and feel of a nearby train running the tracks.
And now, this new house is no different.

And so the trains just keep on rolling…

And with this running theme of trains in yesterday’s post along with trains in today’s post
it seems that trains are a vehicle for much more than merely transportation
God is providing a metaphor and I will elaborate on that tomorrow…

So for now, let us enjoy a little throwback to a simpler time…