the journey of deconstruction

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.”
C.G. Jung

“There is a spiritual loneliness, an inner loneliness,
an inner place where God brings the seeker,
where he is as lonely as if there were not another member of the Church
anywhere in the world.
Ah, when you come there, there is a darkness of mind,
and emptiness of heart, a loneliness of soul,
but it is preliminary to the daybreak.
O God, Bring us, somehow to the daybreak!”
A.W. Tozer excerpts from various sermons…How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit

So it has been brought to my attention, over the last week or so,
that perhaps some of my recent posts…
posts that I’ve offered as reposts, along with those penned as recently as this week,
seem to be skirting around a central theme…
a theme of the forlorn or even that of the melancholy.
Some have even asked “are you ok?”

Well…I think I’m ok.
And I think the posts have been timely…as perhaps it is
the times in which we are finding ourselves which is rendering
that underlying sense of the forlorn and melancholy.

But I suppose I should confess that I have been spending a great deal
of time recently thinking about loving and being loved.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about breaking and being broken.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the implications of giving while receiving.

And I’ve fiercely been wrestling with the whole notion of Grace.

Do you know that giving Grace is one thing…while
feeling worthy of receiving such is something else entirely?
Or so I’m learning.

And so I’m faced with the nagging question of how can we freely offer others
such if we find our own selves feeling less-than when needing to
receive the same in like turn?

It is indeed a conundrum.
A conundrum of self.

And thus I have actually been finding myself looking backwards.

Not so much because I’m afraid of going forward, or that I wish to be morose…
rather I’m looking back in an attempt to better understand the now.
Or maybe I should say “my” now.

And no, I’m not talking about looking back through the lens of some sort of
historical context, a political context or a cultural context.
Heck, I’ve purposefully been distancing myself from my obsession
with all things news…avoiding the latest barrage of current events
all of which leaves me more depressed than hopeful.

I am finding that I need to declutter from the world for just a bit
in order to make some sense of the bare bones of this thing we call life…

I’m finding that an interior life issue is far greater than the Border Crisis,
a Pandemic, Dr.Fauci, President Biden, a broken chain of supply and demand,
inflation, vaccines…the list is endless….
and the list is a massive distraction and not the real issue at hand.

For the real issue is that which lies within.

And maybe that’s part of the point.
Avoid the real issue by being distracted by the world’s issues and madness.
And what good am I to myself or others if I am consumed by a world’s madness?

Introspection is a fine line when walking through one’s memories.
We must tiptoe through the effects that those memories have had on our lives
as well as the lives of those we’ve carried along the way.

We must balance such with both clarity and wisdom.
Depression, regret and sorrow are never far behind…dark specters who
nip at our heels while we embark on such a journey.

Such a journey that often becomes an endless void, much like a black hole
that pulls all energy and light into its darkness.

So we must be careful that we are not consumed.

One thing I know about God is that He is often a deconstructionist.
Meaning, He is one to break apart before rebuilding what was into
what needs to be.

I think I’m in the middle of some much needed deconstructing.
Deconstruction, like breaking, is an often hard fraught process.
It can be painful yet oh so necessary if one ever hopes to be whole.

Yet we must remember there is a difference between being broken
as in left in pieces vs being taken apart, dissembled, in order
to be rebuilt anew.

For what God opts to take apart, in order to piece back together
as only He sees best, is indeed to be made more perfect.

It is a journey…and not an easy journey…
but if you ever want to find peace and truth, it is
a journey that must be taken.

So here’s to the journey!
For the bad and then the good!

An excerpt from a post written March 4, 2016

When excavating the locked chambers of the soul…
that quest for the missing piece to wholeness…
The path is narrow, fraught with both emptiness and loneliness
And the darkness will be exacting.

It is a journey few care to traverse…
Isolation is a key requirement…
The striping away of all exterior noise and distractions…
leaves exposed the innermost secrets of one’s very being.

God is exacting.
He is a selfish God, who wants all and will not settle for any less.
He wants not that which is freely offered, willingly given…
He wants, nay demands, that which is desperately held back.

The re-union of created and Creator is inevitable.
There are those who eagerly seek the synthesis, the rejoining…
While others vehemently fear it…
The fragility will shatter…into a million fractured shards…

Out of the mire, the sucking and suffocating quicksand of death…
The spirit longs to reach upward, yearning for home…
Yet it is in the depth of death’s vast darkness that the fractured soul searches…
While the Creator waits…

Bring us home oh Lord
Strip us of that which prevents us from being with you..
Deliver us out of…
the brokenness,
the loneliness,
the emptiness,
the isolation…
of self
Bringing us to the daybreak of You…

a sorrowful truth

“We’re not interested in the truth.”
Ken Burns

(Julie Cook / 2021)

Doesn’t seem to matter whether I purposely keep the television off…off
from any sort of current events and news…it still seems to seep out of
those dark and odious cracks.

Two different stories caught my eye via an electronic news feed.

The first tale is distressing, disturbing and actually quite stomach turning—
as in I felt as if I was reading some surreal Frankenstein tale…

The reality, however, was that this tale is actually rooted in the research
facility of a major leading University.

Here are a few of the highlights in which to whet your curious whistle.

With tales of harvesting body parts…body parts from freshly aborted,
near term babies.

I felt sick to my stomach as well as broken hearted.

Sick to my stomach that aborted babies are teated like a “pull down menu”
of body parts.
Broken hearted that we humans have relegated our most vulnerable to
being literally harvested for research.

There is a cold callousness to such a business.

As well as emptiness which has lead to a true loss of humanity.

Harvesting is for fruits and vegetables, not body parts from
near term aborted babies.

Yep. Aborted. Near term. Babies.

And how odd Dr. Fauci’s name pops up in this stomach churning tale.

The link to the full tale is at the end….following

A few paragraphs I’ve chosen to highlight.

Millions in federal money flowing to tissue bank that collects fetal ‘heart, gonads, legs, brain’: report
University of Pittsburgh said it ‘complies with rigorous regulatory and ethical oversight’
By Sam Dorman

In a PureFlix interview last year, former university employee Lori Kelly
discussed a federally funded project with researchers seeking to collect
bladders and kidneys from babies as late as 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Kelly said that as project manager, she worked to develop
“a pull-down menu of baby body parts for researchers to choose
from to submit to the tissue bank, so that we could send the
body parts to them.”

Tuesday’s revelation adds mounting scrutiny to a program that has
already received attention for fetal experiments.

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania’s state legislature held a hearing
in which members discussed an experiment involving grafting
fetal scalps, containing “full-thickness human skin,”
onto rodents.

That particular project utilized tissue from the university’s
human tissue bank. It was also supported by grants from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
which is led by top coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
While it’s unclear exactly how much federal money was spent on that project,
it was funded through two large grants —
one $1,498,642 and one $430,270.

The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch also show Pitt discussing
its effort to minimize warm ischemic time, or the amount of time an
organ maintains its body temperature after blood flow has been severed.
It’s unclear how these procedures take place, but Daleiden
has raised concerns about the university’s stated use of labor
induction abortions.

“If the fetus’ heartbeat and blood circulation continue in a labor
induction abortion for harvesting organs,
it means the fetus is being delivered while still alive and the cause
of death is the removal of the organs,” reads a press release from his
Center for Medical Progress.
Typically, abortion procedures rely
on digoxin to kill a fetus. However,
both that and dismemberment tactics can ruin viable tissue intended
for donations.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pittsburgh-fetal-tissue-project

The next tale dealt with a story regarding filmmaker historian Ken Burns.

If you’ve ever watched a PBS special, no doubt you’ve seen and heard
Ken Burns with his melodious voice extol the paths of our collective US history.

And now it appears as if Ken Burns is taking FB mogul Mark Zuckerberg to task.

Ken Burns is no conservative Republican…he is a historian… an individual who looks back to just how we came to where we are today.
A historian who is keen to the truth of past…be it good or bad or both…
because he understands that history is indeed both, good and bad… as we today must learn from both that good and bad.

Yet, as Ken Burns is learning, there are many who no longer wish to learn but rather those who wish to forget…all the while preferring to rewrite what was…

“Filmmaker Ken Burns calls Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ‘an enemy of the state’
who belongs in jail
‘He doesn’t give a sh-t about us, the United States,’ Burns said”
story by Brian Flood

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ken-burns-facebook-mark-zuckerberg

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship
in spirit and truth.”
John 4:24

The art of how to or how not…

The God of all mercy teaches us that our vocation is to learn to love
and also to be able to love after the image and in imitation
of the Most Holy Trinity.
Christ, therefore, is situated at the heart of marital and family life,
in other words, at the heart of the gestures and the attitudes of
the husband toward his wife, and vice versa,
of the father and the mother of the family toward their children—
which you seek to put into practice in trust and in truth.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

(the Mayor struggling with the art of the fondue / Julie Cook / 2021)

In yesterday’s post, I noted that I had not kept up with the news during our
small family’s recent little getaway.
A smart and delightful choice I might add.

And thus, upon our return home, I foolishly thought that I needed to play
a bit of catch-up.

So of course there was the story about the plane full of smug, arrogant
and really stupid Democrats who thought they were running away from Texas,
setting their sights on being liberated in Washington D.C.

But what it really was…was a plane full of super-spreaders of Covid.
So why do we vote for such people…??
I digress.

And then there was and is the continuing migrant story…
but where do we start with that one???
Covid, welfare, gangs, sex trafficking, drugs…
Simply not enough time.

Then there was the typical story of hostility in The House between
Dems and Republicans.
A bipartisan panel to look into that House infiltration fiasco…
HA..bipartisan…that’s a good one!
But what’s new???

And of course there was the story about Dr. Fauci proclaiming that we
all need to mask up again…vaccine or not.
But maybe it’s more about the haves and the have nots.

Yet Dr. Fauci now wants us to mask our toddlers…
wee ones who will be heading to pre-school and or daycare.
So hear me now as I channel my best Charlton Heston voice…
NOT ON MY WATCH–NOT MY GRANDCHILDREN!
And no, NO SHOTS for toddlers.
We simply don’t know enough.
Perhaps that shall be one of my many mountains to perish upon.

And once again, there was the continuing story about CRT.
That idiotic ideology which I referenced yesterday.
How to teach about not being a racist…
Lets set people apart, teach them about shame, teach them about resentment,
teach them about angst and anger—those are some really powerful
kumbiya thoughts…right????
Eyes rolling.

And now there’s this latest story about the White House promoting the
Abolitionist Teaching Network whose desire is to “disrupt whiteness”…

What in the heck is that all about???

So let me backup to where we really need to be with this whole
education thing.

If you want to go backwards, which it seems the woke folks are bent on…
let’s go back to what actually worked back in the beginning…

God.
Prayer.
The Ten Commandments.
Faith.
Family.

That pretty much covers all of this lunacy in a nutshell!
Go back to those particular key components and all this fiasco will
finally be righted.

Righted only if those 5 things fall back into their original place…
then and only then will we ever have some sense of normalcy and peace….
otherwise it’s Katie bar the door—
all Hell is about to break loose and I mean hell with a big H…
as in literally.

Love, by its essence, involves a leap into the unknown, a death to oneself,
because genuine love is a love that loves to the end.
And to love to the end means to die for those whom you love.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

miasma…once again, we are afraid to breathe

“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

(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.)

Miasma–The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete
medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia,
or the Black Death—were caused by a miasma (μίασμα, ancient Greek: “pollution”),
a noxious form of “bad air”, also known as night air.

The theory held that epidemics were caused by miasma,
emanating from rotting organic matter.
Though miasma theory is typically associated
with the spread of disease, some academics in the early nineteenth century suggested
that the theory extended to other conditions as well,
e.g. one could become obese by inhaling the odor of food.

The miasma theory was accepted from ancient times in Europe and China.
The theory was eventually given up by scientists and physicians after 1880,
replaced by the germ theory of disease: specific germs, not miasma,
caused specific diseases. However, cultural beliefs about getting rid of odor made the clean-up
of waste a high priority for cities.
(Wikipedia)

If you have ever traveled to Italy, pre-pandemic of course, you might have noticed that
the Italians tend to be, what we Americans might call, overtly health-conscious…
almost to the point of extremes.

So I can only imagine that their pandemic quarantine and loss of life was a very heavy,
heavy burden,

And yes, they do indeed believe in the notion of “night air”—aka “bad air”.

I have Italian friends, so I know this.
And yes, this belief, phobia, or fear, whatever you might call it, was truly way pre-pandemic.

They don’t understand why we Americans don’t use bidets.
You know those extra toilet looking things in hotels that my son once thought was
a fancy foot washer.
They bundle up with full face scarves in the winter to fend off inhaling cold air
and in the summers, they fear air conditioning— they think it produces “bad” air.
That is why so many older hotels and apartments do not have AC.

And if the truth be told, they may be on to something…think Legionnaire’s disease.

But I digress.

So when I read Kathy’s post yesterday over on atimetoshare, about masks—
“To mask or not to mask”
TO MASK OR NOT TO MASK
it got me thinking…

Plague doctors…THAT’S IT!!!!
We need plague doctors…
Oh, wait… isn’t that what Dr. Fauci is….???

Digressing again…

So a plague doctor, according to Wikipedia:

The clothing worn by plague doctors was intended to protect them from airborne diseases.
The costume, used in France and Italy in the 17th century, consisted of an ankle-length overcoat
and a bird-like beak mask, often filled with sweet or strong smelling substances (commonly lavender),
along with gloves, boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and an outer over-clothing garment.

The mask had glass openings for the eyes and a curved beak shaped like a bird’s beak
with straps that held the beak in front of the doctor’s nose.
The mask had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator which contained aromatic items.
The beak could hold dried flowers (including roses and carnations),
herbs (including eucalyptus, peppermint), spices, camphor, or a vinegar sponge.
The purpose of the mask was to keep away bad smells, known as miasma,
which were thought to be the principal cause of the disease before it was disproved by germ theory.
Doctors believed the herbs would counter the “evil” smells of the plague
and prevent them from becoming infected.

The beak doctor costume worn by plague doctors had a wide-brimmed leather hat to
indicate their profession.
They used wooden canes in order to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients
without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away,
to remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them,
and to take a patient’s pulse.

So do you think this will be an okay type of mask for me to wear to the grocery store
while keeping me safe?
Just thinking…

(as seen on Pintrest)