the best kind of ‘extremes’

“If you wish to go to extremes, let it be in sweetness, patience,
humility and charity.”
St. Philip Neri

(one of my first Christmas ornaments, circa 1963 / Julie Cook / 2014)

“Augustine drew out the meaning of the manger using an idea that at first seems almost shocking,
but on closer examination contains a profound truth.
The manger is the place where animals find their food.
But now, lying in the manger, is he who called himself the true bread come down from heaven,
the true nourishment that we need in order to be fully ourselves.
This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life.
Thus the manger becomes a reference to the table of God,
to which we are invited so as to receive the bread of God.
From the poverty of Jesus’ birth emerges the miracle in which man’s redemption
is mysteriously accomplished.”
Pope Benedict XVI, p. 68
An Excerpt From
Jesus of Nazareth Infancy

Woe be unto those….

“Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me.
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”
Herman Melville

(Glendalough National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland, Julie Cook / 2015)

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about rebellions and revolutions.
About groups shutting down other groups….
About silencing and dismantling..
destroying and eradicating….

I’ve heard a lot about fascists and Nazis
About propaganda and lies
About those new Hitlers and Stalins…
the modern day monsters and dictators…

I’ve witnessed the edicts by those saying who may or may not speak…
Those new selective few who divvy out the rights for only their chosen…
To those who hit and scream…
And those who smash and destroy…

I see the polar opposites of left and right…
The corrects and the wrongs…
I see the guise of extremes that anger now takes…
The zealots from both sides of the same coin…

and quite frankly it all makes me quite very weary.

Oh little man…or perhaps…is it little woman,
whose agenda is merely your own…
Orchestrating and administrating the lives of your proletariat,
hiding behind the falsehoods of rights and freedoms…

Remember that you now stand at the crossroads of time
And your imaginary choices are yours and yours alone
The repercussions exist not only for the misinformed
but for you who have declared yourself your own god….

This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
I appointed watchmen over you and said,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But you said, ‘We will not listen.’
Therefore hear, you nations;
you who are witnesses,
observe what will happen to them.
Hear, you earth:
I am bringing disaster on this people,
the fruit of their schemes,
because they have not listened to my words
and have rejected my law.
Jeremiah 6:16-19