this is the moment

Faith is a force, one so powerful that it cannot tolerate anything next to it.
How weak in faith we are: we are constantly letting things outside of God take up space in us!

Adrienne von Speyr
from Lumina and New Lumina


(a meme sent by a friend)

This meme pretty much sums up our collective year thus far…
as in 2020 probably won’t be the year you’ll want to invest in that special case of wine
to save for a momentous occasion on down the road.

The way things are going, there may be no more momentous occasions and
there may be no more roads…just saying.

So yeah, 2020…NOT, a very good year.

My husband and I basically quit watching the news almost two weeks ago.
It had gotten to such a depressing point.
Leaving us feeling helpless, frustrated, and downright mad.

Our leadership is abysmal—plain and simple.

They’ve not been able to handle a pandemic and Lord knows they
are not handling this cultural civil war worth a flip.

Arrogance, infighting, ignorance, hatred…you name it.

I do believe the President is truly trying to cull the madness but
the opposition, along with some of his own party, are making all things
impossible.

I feel like a person who’s been cut adrift in a raft,
drifting helplessly out to sea.

I imagine I am not alone.

I could write on and on about Antifa or Black Lives Matters, both
Marxist organizations bent on violence as an end means at any cost.

I could write about a society that wants handouts rather than hands up.

I could write about the never-ending demands for abortions and the deaths
of babies aborted who actually live– those so-called late-term abortions
that are gone awry.

I could write about a sexually confused swarth of society that
no longer believes in biology.

I could write about the lunacy over the “defund the police” movement…
as that is plain idiocy run amuck.

I could write about the destruction of monuments, statues, buildings,
churches, synagogues all because of a white European legacy…
all of which is simply stupid.

I could wirte about the capitulation by Church leadership
bending to the whims of a progressive culture that takes
no prisoners.
You either get on board or you get destroyed.

I could write about a culture that will strike you dead for
disagreeing with their rabid ideals.

I could write about being woke…or is that arrogantly ignorant?

I could write about violence, hatred, anger and zero civility.

I could write about the emotionalism found in a younger generation who
feels compelled to kneel against a flag and anthem of which is simply
misguided and historically ignorant.

I could write about a pandemic that has crippled a global economy
while leaving those in the know scratching their heads.

But I won’t.

I won’t belabor what the sane amongst us already know.

About 7 years ago, when our son was engaged to be married, I decided,
as the mother of the groom, I needed to get myself into some kind of
presentable shape.

My husband had bought me an elliptical machine for Valentines…a truly heart-healthy
gift…and so I decided I needed to get serious about using it.

I would spend between 30 to 60 minutes daily pushing, pulling and trucking
myself to nowhere all in the confines of our basement.
Sweating like a pig in the process.

After about two weeks I could actually feel a difference in my legs and ‘behind’.
A good difference.
My shorts fit better.
That was then…no so right now but I digress.

When I’d “workout”, I played music to help me push through the pain and strain.
One of the peppier songs was ‘Can’t Hold Us’ by Macklemore.

I didn’t really know all the lyrics…if I had, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it
but the beat was great when one was pumping one’s arms while practically running uphill
via a machine.

I still recall one part of the song that still resonates in my head…

Can we go back?
This is the moment
Tonight is the night, we’ll fight ’til it’s over
So we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us
Like the ceiling can’t hold us

And so yes—
“This is indeed the moment”

All week long I’ve waxed and waned about the notion of discovering one’s true calling.
I’ve written about the differences between a vocation versus a job.
I’ve written about the curse of the repetition of history.
I’ve written about a world gone simply mad.
I’ve written about being lost while longing to be found.

But the one thing I do know, and know most clearly, it that
this is the time for those who call themselves Christians to stand up and stand firm.

You have not been called to be timid.

Those who waffle will fall.
Those who prefer appeasment will be dismayed.
Those who yield to the world will be damned.

It is the one thing that I know more clearly than anything else.

God has called us to be resolute.
This is our Spiritual call to arms.

Accepting a rewritten version of God’s word is unacceptable for a follower of Christ.
Condoning death as a viable and convenient option rather than choosing life is a sin.
Marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman, end of sentence.
Denying Christ before the vile and violent mob, kneeling before the world might
spare your earthly life but it will not find you seated by Christ’s right hand.

Enough is now enough.
God has given us a voice.
It’s time we use it.

They can kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul.

Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.

Isaiah 58:1

“ya gotta know it folks”

“We are our choices.”
Jean-Paul Sartre


(buckeye enjoying the sedum / Julie Cook / 2017)

I had the privilege of spending a large part of my career working alongside
quite a remarkable woman.
I won’t spend time reiterating that relationship or that of her tremendous impact
on not only me, our fellow colleagues or of the hundreds of students who came and
went from the desks of her classroom better upon leaving than when entering…
for I did that three years ago with a post dedicated to her life and legacy…

Please click the link for that original tribute:
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/to-rome-and-jackie-with-love/

Yet during the past several months there has been one phrase my friend would
utter almost daily that continues to resonate within in my head…

“ya gotta know it folks,
“you just gotta know it”

This was a phrase my friend constantly reiterated to her students.
Over and over.
It was a mandate.

She taught geometry and would drill and drill the importance of simply having to
know the basics because without them, there was no going forward.
For there was no moving forward if you didn’t commit to memory
the various properties, postulates and theorems.

So with so much of the world now precariously perched atop an explosive powder keg…
I can’t help but hear those same words proclaimed by my friend as they are now
ringing within my head…
“ya gotta know it folks”
You’ve got to know that so much of what is happening to us and to those around us
is based on choices….
yours, mine, ours.

It is imperative to remember, nay we need to just know, that our choices,
be they good or be they poor,
effect more than ourselves at any particular given moment or time.

Our very lives today are the direct by-products of the result of choices
made by those who have gone before us…
as their,
those souls who forged through this life before us,
their choices continue effecting us to this day.

For we are living in a continuum of choice.

So the question posed to us this day…

Why do we wail and lament over the current circumstances of our times?

Why do we stand as if a deer in headlights over the repercussions from our
choices of violence that have only begotten further violence…

from the repercussions of our anger which has begotten further anger…

from our egos which have only begotten further arrogance…

from our selfish and self centered decisions which have only begotten
harm and pain for innocent bystanders…

from the thoughtless and rash proclamations which have only begotten
loss of life and mayhem for those we don’t even know…

Why do we blame everyone and everything other than ourselves for
we are all living in the throws of poor choices on a massive scale…

Choices…. ya gotta know it,
You’ve got to know that the choices you are making
are affecting not only you, but everyone else around you…
Ya just gotta know it….


Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you
to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ,
so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind
of criminal, or even as a meddler.
However, if you suffer as a Christian,
do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household;
and if it begins with us,
what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And,

“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves
to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

1 Peter 4:12-19

Be not dismayed

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous!
Do not be terrified or dismayed (intimidated),
for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

DSCN3370
(jellyfish on the beach / Santa Rosa, Fla / Julie Cook / 2016)

We are currently living in a boiling tempestuous sea.
A time of grave moral unrest.
A troubling time…

Some merely observe that it’s been bad before and it’ll be bad again…
Others note that it’s just a part of life…
an ebbing and flowing…
a swinging of the proverbial pendulum…

And it is true…
In my lifetime I have seen, as well as experienced first hand,
the upheaval of perilous unrest in this brave Nation of ours…

I have seen the continued growth and birthing pains of an ever evolving democracy.
I have seen the colliding of old verses new.
Young verses the elderly

I have lived under the dread and worry of nuclear annihilation for all my life…
beginning with the tuck and cover drills of elementary school…

I have sadly seen…
flags being burned
draft cards being burned
bras being burned
and politicians burned in effigy

I have seen protests…
sit ins
die ins
marches
hunger strikes
picket lines

I have seen clashes of ideologies, religions and beliefs…

Yet I cannot recall such a dangerously contemptuous time in my near 60 years.

We are perched on the precipice of what seems to be the death of life as we once knew it.
As a delusional group of “politicians” vie for control and power…of my life and of your life,
and of the life which we have known.

This Nation, united under the benevolent eye of the very God our pilgrim settlers and founding fathers each paid homage to,
is transforming and morphing under the cloak of a sinister shape shifting blanket,
that is barley detectable to the naked eye…

Some believe this is all for the good…
While other believe this is all for the bad.

Throwing the baby out with the bath water is never a good idea…
and yet that is what is slowing taking place.

Those of us of a certain age watch, as a deer in headlights, the daily news feeds…
wondering if there is anything left that is recognizable…
While others simply ignore the melee as they reach for another cocktail or numbing agent of choice.

The moral Judaeo/ Christian sector of this Nation has idly watched a slow yet deadly erosion…
an erosion of such catastrophic proportions, that shoring things up…is now nearly impossible…
As the very traditional family nucleus, the core center which has served as the lynchpin and underpinning of the history of humankind, is now ominously ready to cascade into a dark abyss.

So is it any wonder that so many of those who cleave to the belief in an Omnipotent God,
stand jumbled up and cast off to the side, in udder bewilderment and dismay….
as they are left wondering and shuddering at the strangeness now taking hold to all that they have known….

‘You are My servant,
I have chosen you and have not rejected you
[even though you are exiled].

‘Do not fear [anything],
for I am with you;
Do not be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, be assured I will help you;
I will certainly take hold of you with My righteous right hand
[a hand of justice, of power, of victory, of salvation].’
Isaiah 41:9-10