maybe we could at least make folks smile…under those masks

“Once plague had shut the gates of the town, they had settled down to a life of separation,
debarred from the living warmth that gives forgetfulness of all.”
“If there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love.”
Albert Camus, The Plague

No you’re not having a case of deja vu…I just had a thought that piggybacks
off of a recent post.
Plus I still love that little meme…
‘looks like plague’s back on the menu boys…”

Cracks me up it does…and I think I need some cracking up—
in fact I think a good many of us could benefit with a good crack up,
chucke, chortle, laugh, or at least a smile.

And so do you remember a couple of weeks back when I did a bit of a history lesson on the
plague doctors of the Medieval and Renaissance ages…those physicians tasked
with dealing with those suffering from the plague, otherwise known as The Black Death?

Remember they were the ones who donned those elaborate bird-like masks and cosutmes
that were intended to protect them from the deadly vapors thought to be carried on
the winds, especially the night air.

(Paul Fürst, engraving, c. 1721, of a plague doctor of Marseilles
(introduced as ‘Dr Beaky of Rome’).
His nose-case is filled with herbal material to keep off the plague.)

Here’s a link to that post:
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/miasma-once-again-we-are-afraid-to-breath/

I mused that maybe I should get such a mask and use it when I was venturing out into
contagionville, aka our everyday world.

(Venetian Plague doctor mask worn at Carnival / pintrest)

And pondering over this mask business, I had a new idea.

I really hate that we are now having to constantly wear masks.
I miss the smiles.
We are in isolation even when we venture out…
a sad reality.

I was on an elevator Friday with a family with a little girl…
she looked up at me and I told her how much I liked her cherry decorated mask.
She thanked me but I couldn’t discern a smile.

I follow the rules.
I do it.
I wear them.
Mine are not fashionable, just practical.

Doing as I am told and instructed…
I’ll admit that in the very beginning, before mandates, I confess to defiance…
but not now, as I’m not willing to die on this particular mountain,
as there will be other mountains soon that will require my allegiance…
I will adhere to the “mandate.”

So we know that I’m not being like those defiant ones who still venture into stores
where signs are all over the doors clealy stating that all who enter must wear a mask.

There are even those freindly little voices over the loudspeakers reminding all customers to wear
their masks and to follow the arrows as how to traverse the aisles…
‘follow the green arrows, don’t cross the red X’
And yet there are those who just can’t seem to follow directions.

I taught a lot of those kind of folks.
Directions, to some, just don’t come naturally–we simply say “bless their hearts.”

I have noticed that those who do wear their masks have issues with darting their eyes.
Quickly diverting their glance should another set of eyes make contact.
All other worldly really.

It makes shopping no longer very enjoyable.
The ‘mask fog’ on glasses makes seeing darn near impossible and yet maybe one plus is that
you can now tell you should do a better job brushing your teeth or yes, you do need mints.
Perhaps a blessing to those who use to be near you as you spoke.

And how about talking muffled?
Repeating over and over what you’re attempting to ask for until the
poor clerk finally can discern your words.

It seems that we all benefited from looking at faces for clues and discenment

I miss that.

So after looking over some old pictures, it dawned on me.
We’re about the start seeing those halloween festivities in stores.
What will costumes be like this year, what will trick or treating be this year?

So I found this picture when the Mayor was just a baby and we were strolling through
Target and I put on this halloween mask to give the baby Mayor a giggle.

And so now I have it.
Let us don the masks of the season to illict some most welcomed giggles and laughs!
Lord knows we need them.

By the way…the Mayor has been most puny. It seems she now has the Sherrif’s viral infection…
a high lingering fever.
Not Covid thank goodness…just a good ol childhood virus…so I’m off to go give care.

Be back soon.

A joyful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22

When God speaks

“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing.
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness,
that God can fill you with Himself.
Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
Mother Teresa

(a bluebird laying claim to the birdhouse / Julie Cook / 2017)

χάρισμα—xárisma–chrisma
a gift of great Spiritual proportion…
a favor Divinely given despite the lack of deserving merit…

During the course of one’s life, knowing one soul who seems to speak words that come
from a place that is beyond the confines of this world…words of Divine origin…
it is a gracious gift most precious and rare.

Most will pass through this world without ever hearing the words spoken by one who
has been gifted, or burdened, with listening, discerning and then sharing.
Many will claim such a knowledge…
and many will be wrong…
being caught up in the emotion of something greater than that which can be comprehended.

Divine Grace operating within a few, directed by the Holy Spirit.

I have known 3 such persons.

One of those three has spoken…
reminding me…
and I have listened…
as I am reminded that…

God has spoken…to me, again

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139

a humble heart

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
Saint Augustine

“It is no great thing to be humble when you are brought low; but to be humble when you are praised is a great and rare attainment.”
St.Bernard

(a humble snail near the Cliffs of Mohr / Country Kerry, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

It’s hard balancing a humble spirit when one is living in the land of the free and home of the brave…
Whose fighting force boasts “the few, the proud, the marines”…
We are accustomed to being a world power, a superpower, a leader among nations…
When others run away, we rush in….
We are stivers, fighters, winners.
If we’re ever knocked down, we get back up.
We love those come from behind stories of triumph.
We are like the cream, always rising to the top.
We prefer being accomplished, polished, knowledgeable as well as rough, tough and scrappy…

That’s just how we are and we like it that way.

Yet at times we forget that we are not the be all to end all.
We forget that we have come to and by this rather lofty position of ours by hard work, toil, suffering, bruising and bleeding by digging our way out from under plight, oppression, depression, aggression…doing battle——battles we have considered as necessary, right and just within our purist of freedom for all.

We speak of unalienable (or inalienable depending on what you’re reading) rights given to us by the Creator–meaning that such “rights” cannot be taken away as they have been pre and hard wired within our being as human beings, granted to us at time of “creation” by the Creator. A Creator we now no longer have much time to listen to let alone give any sort or credit or credence to…

Some of us see that from time to time it can be hard to remain humble of heart and spirit when we’re accustomed to being large and in charge. Sometimes arrogance slips in along with haughtiness.
As we grow proud over and by our accomplishments and endeavors, we tend to gloat and boast more than we should. We pride ourselves in our self-efficiency, our knowledge and in our very “freedoms.”

Yet I fear we lose sight of our humble beginnings.
We begin to take things both tangible and intrinsic for granted.
We puff up our chests while resting on the laurels of our predecessors–forgetting that it could all be taken away tomorrow, or today…leaving us where we started, with little to nothing to call our own.

We assume perhaps more than we should.
Many of us have forgotten what it is to “go without”
We place our actors, sports figures, entertainers, politicians, successful entrepreneurs, slick talking religious leaders and leading officials in the limelight and up on pedestals, touting them as heroes–forgetting what a hero actually is and that these individuals are merely fallible human beings as we seem to sickly marvel and oddly enjoy watching them fall. Funny how that is with human beings.

Yet we continue to yearn and covet what it would be to “be like them” for we too want to be in the limelight and one of the “beautiful people” as we want the glitz, the glitter, the money the success—as we rationalize that we would handle all of the “pressure” of being famous far better, not allowing it to go to our heads while giving “x amount” to charity…

How many of us rationalize that if God would just let us when the lottery, we’d be so good with the winnings by giving a designated share to charity, we’d remain just a plain and simple are we are…yet deep down, we feel as if it would be the money, the abundance of which, which would make our lives so much easier and better…and perhaps for a while it would as we would set off in the pursuit of paying off only to obtain and to have…new cars, new homes, new vacations, new clothes…

We must be mindful that there are those around this planet of ours who don’t rationalize about winning a lottery…rather they dream of escaping their lot in life and fleeing to America because that is the land of freedom and of choice and of abundance and of safety…

It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose…

(seagull rest on the head of a statue / Dublin, Ireland / Julie Cook /2015)

And yet it is those voices of ancient wisdom and those voices of the past— those who were able to see through the haze of brilliance, pride and self efficacy–who understand that it is the humble heart which is the true attainable goal.

Being able to yield to the one who is always Greater–as we are the ones who are finite and it is He who is the infinite.

I fear we have lost sight of our own humility of being as we have forgotten that it was the king of Kings whose birth was predestined to take place in a lowly stable, of lowly parents in a small and lowly village of insignificance. . .seems this humility business is not an underlying theme by random chance.

God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
1 Corinthians 28-29

Often all it takes in order to knock one down a notch or two is for a bird to rest over or simply fly over ones head, doing what birds do– reminding one of one’s place in life…as the birds neither discern or discriminate as to whom is better than another–

(a seagull surveys the city of Dublin, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)