thankfulness intertwines with hopefulness

“In giving us this regular hunger for food,
we are also given opportunity to sacrifice for each other and for God
and to discipline our appetites.
Always cognizant of our nature, the liturgical year is rife
with periods of both fasting and feast.
In order to feast, we must also know sacrifice;
in fact, it’s only in sacrifice that we understand what a feast really is.
Our lives can contain an ever-repeating rhythm of each in its proper time.
In the same way that it would be profane to feast on Good Friday,
so would it be improper to fast on Easter.
This rhythm is a reminder of both a need to be filled as well
as a need to strengthen our resolve so that we might long first
and foremost for the feast that has no end.”
Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering, p. 88

(turkey season in Georgia 2017/ Julie Cook)

Ok, so just maybe the above image is not necessarily an image of what we might consider
to be one of thankfulness and gratitude—
well certainly not for this particular creature being photographed that is…

…but oh isn’t it such a beautiful and magnificent bird?

We know Ben Franklin thought as much as he wanted the wild turkey to be our
Nation’s national symbol.
However, I must admit, I suppose wiser heads prevailed allowing for
the eagle to take center stage…

So maybe beautiful, or even pretty, isn’t exactly the right word or words
to describe the turkey.

Let’s just go with, say…colorful, textural, unusual, sublime, prehistoric,
and yes, how about even mysterious.

Mysterious, much like this time of year…
a time of year when we find ourselves entering into that which
reminds us that there is something much bigger and truly greater than
ourselves—even greater than any black Friday sale.

And it is a time that begins with today’s kickoff of the
annual advent of thankfulness.

I’ve always been one to give Thanksgiving day its due…
as in I believe it is a day that should indeed have its own time
in the spotlight.

A set day to remind each of us of all things full of
both gratitude and thankfulness.

Yet far too many of us seem unable or even willing to keep our thoughts
on such notions as we find it difficult keeping our Christmas spirit
of childlike glee at bay.

Many of us have already decked the halls with our Christmas decorations…
having done so well before the final candle of the jack-o-lantern
was even extinguished.

That lingering pumpkin spice scented candle’s smoke still lingers
in the air as Christmas trees, what with their glistening baubles and balls,
now come racing past to take center stage.

Thanksgiving Day, for many, receives only a cursory nod as folks have set their
sights on all things such as sales and bargains laced with the taste of
peppermint and gingerbread.

For me, I think this year in particular reminds me that…no, wait…
I think “reminds me” is the wrong phrase…I think that my soul has
actually been pricked to remember, perhaps actually even prodded with
a red hot cattle iron….
that for me, particularly this year, it is a time to be thankful
and such thankfulness must be paramount…especially this year of all years.

In the midst of a year that has seen its full bait of both loss and heartache,
the sense, that palpable feeling of both gratitude and thankfulness,
must still exist. They must still be allowed to manifest themselves
despite a seemingly insurmountable wall of all things contrary.

Because if we cannot find, if I cannot find or if we cannot
find our ability to give thanks even in the midst of our pain and suffering…
if we cannot cling to a sense of gratefulness despite our heaviness…then
we have lost all ability to hope.

And it is in that hope…that deep down sense of hopefulness,
that we actually find our ability to move forward…
even if that forward motion is simply one step at a time or simply
one more minute in a lifetime full of minutes..
one more breath at a time…

Thanksgiving reminds us of hope.

The notion that things will get better…not simply that they must get better
but rather that they WILL get better—
no matter what that getting better might look like.

It might not be what we imagined, it might not be what we expected…
but it will be hope none the less.

So I wish each of you not merely a happy Thanksgiving day but rather I
wish you each a renewed sense of hope—
for in that hope rests our real sense of thankfulness and gratitude…

“Prayer is an aspiration of the heart.
It is a simple glance directed to Heaven.
It is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy.”
St. Therese Lisieux

“Remember the past with gratitude.
Live the present with enthusiasm.
Look forward to the future with confidence.”
St. John Paul II

finding peace…in and with the world

Be at peace with your own soul,
then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.
Saint Jerome

Who except God can give you peace?
Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?
St. Gerard Majella

(an apple gourd—who knew??? / Julie Cook / 2022)

Ten some odd years ago when I started this little blog…when I began taking up
a tiny bit of residence in this endless space known as the blogosphere,
my desire was to share my personal ramblings of that of both journey
and transition…I was a teacher for heaven’s sake…we share by the sheer
nature of our trade!

And at that time, it just so happened that my life was one big journey
of transition…

There was the new transition and journey into retirement.

While at the same time there was the sorrowful transition of walking
from that of life to that of death’s door with both my dad and my aunt.

There was the journey of handing a child’s hand, turned that of a
man, to that of another woman’s hand…the passing of a torch so to speak
from one to another.

There was the discovery of a real biological past…complete with names and faces.
Yet there was the renewed rejection of a birth mother to that of her adopted child.
Again.

There was the eventual addition of two new joyous lives into my own.
The filling up of one’s heart…a heart that had just shortly before felt so
sorrowfully full of loss.

There was a pandemic.

There was a new retirement.
There was moving.
There was divorce.
There was loss.
There was unfamiliar.

And so now, as I stop for a bit of introspection and reflection,
I think my thoughts have shifted just a tad.
As in my axis has tilted just a wee bit off from its normal rotation.

I’m finding the notion of Peace…be that peace within, as well as peace outward,
to be a more immediate focus.

I think that’s why the following observation by Thomas á Kempis
has resonated so deeply within this restless soul of mine this evening.

I don’t believe that our dear brethren Thomas is inferring, as so many observers
quickly and most falsely assume of our Christian faith….
that being that we must suffer in order to eventually acquire peace…
but rather I find it all to be quite to the contrary…

It is the notion that we should seek peace amidst the chaos of
this life…a feat short of the miraculous given our current day and times..

We mere mortals will all eventually endure some sort of suffering in this
life—some, more it may appear, than most.
Fair or unfair as it may be….yet suffering, be it just or unjust, there
it will be.

And so therefore, it should be our task to seek peace within such times
and within such circumstances as we may be currently finding ourselves.

For it will only be in that Peace…that we may find rest amidst the storm.
For if we do not seek we will never find nor know that there is indeed a
Peace far greater than any turmoil life can throw at us…

And so now we begin a new journey of transition…that of Peace…

Will you come walk this path with me?

“You must first have peace in your own soul before you can make
peace between other people.
Peaceable people accomplish more good than learned people do.
Those who are passionate often can turn good into evil and
readily believe the worst.
But those who are honest and peaceful turn all things to good
and are suspicious of no one….
It is no test of virtue to be on good terms with easy-going people,
for they are always well liked.
And, of course, all of us want to live in peace and prefer those
who agree with us.
But the real test of virtue and deserving of praise is to live
at peace with the perverse, or the aggressive and those who contradict us,
for this needs a great grace…
in this mortal life, our peace consists in the humble bearing
of suffering and contradictions,
not in being free of them, for we cannot live in this world without adversity.
Those who can best suffer will enjoy the most peace,
for such persons are masters of themselves,
lords of the world, with Christ for their friend,
and heaven as their reward.”
Thomas á Kempis, p.72-73

listening

“Listen with the ear of your heart.”
St. Benedict of Nursia

(a coyote listening for his prey / Cades Cove / Great Smokey Mt. National Park?
Julie Cook / 2015)

Be slow to anger, quick to learn, also slow to speak,
as St. James says, equally quick to listen.
St. Columban.J

voices

“Only after all the noise has spent itself do we begin to hear
in the silence of our hearts, the voice of God.”
A.W. Tozer

(Cades Cove / Julie Cook / 2021)

A man’s soul is as full of voices as a forest;
there are ten thousand tongues there like all the tongues of the trees:
fancies, follies, memories, madnesses, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes.
All sanity in life consists in coming to the conclusion that some of those
voices have authority and others do not.
G. K. Chesterton
quoted in Dale Ahlquist’s book The Complete Thinker

returning to you

“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You.
Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back.
Kindle and seize us.
Be our fire and our sweetness.
Let us love.
Let us run.”
St. Augustine

(fallen leaves of color /Julie Cook / 2021

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place
where you want to be.
And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward
does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn
and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back
soonest is the most progressive man.
There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed
and refusing to admit a mistake.
And I think if you look at the present state of the world it’s pretty plain
that humanity has been making some big mistake.
We’re on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back.
Going back is the quickest way on.”
C.S. Lewis

finding home

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs
and returns home to find it.”
George Augustus Moore

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave,
but not our hearts.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Maybe it’s just this time year…
You know the time…
The time of year when the shadows grow long as the sun dips below
the trees…
long before you’re ready for this uninvited guest known as darkness to come
calling.

All the while that sweet summer warmth is all but forgotten as the coming
winds have replaced such with an unforgiving chill.
A chill which finds its way through every tiny crevasse,
traveling fast and straight like an arrow piercing into bone.
Bones that now ache for any sort of comfort or relief from this
most unwelcomed guest.

Hot embers glow as spent ashes swirl while the movies
of a past, which now seems so long ago, play out like a silent film
rambling through one’s mind…
as everything now seems to simply take us back to when we were
who we use to be.

Time is all but replaced by an odd perspective…
a perspective that emerges rather surreally out the most melancholy of seasons.
That which was and that which has been, now comes to us like an old friend—
poignant, soothing, warming, embracing and oh so healing.

And thus we sit, watching the shadows lengthen as the sun fades–
afraid to face fears and battle past demons.
The universe seems to have silently collided into both past and present
sending us spiraling out of control.
All the while a most weary soul yearns and now aches…but what is that ache?
What is that—that which this soul so yearns for and most painfully seeks?

It is the yearning for home—

Home—the very place that no one ever told me you’d actually still be..
be there waiting…all these many many years.
Waiting for me.
Patiently waiting…waiting for me to come back…all in order that I
finally find my most restful rightful place…
Falling exhausted into arms that have longed to hold me…
falling back in that very space of love and peace and all that
this long awaited homecoming entails.

Thank you for welcoming me home…

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

proceeding from love

Since love completes all, makes all hard things soft,
and the difficult easy,
let us strive to make all our acts proceed from love.”
St. Arnold Janssen

(a small fallen maple leaf rests in the pickets / Julie Cook /2021

I absolutely love today’s opening quote…all because I like the very notion
that all things proceed from love.

As in…isn’t that what we are to be about…love?
And is that not because we, the created, were created out of Love…all because
The Creator loved us first…??

Love has been a recurring thought crossing my path as of late..
and to be quite honest, I am very grateful, thankful and most humbled.
I do not necessarily deserve the Love that continues to cross my
path…but what human does deserve such?
For were we not bought for a price?
A most costly price.

A price of unconditional Love.

I am grateful to be reminded that I am created because of love…
and that Love is not necessarily based on
human love, but more importantly it all spirals out from Spiritual love.

I’ve used this C.S. Lewis quote before…even most recently…
yet the quote keeps running across my path—
and as I don’t believe in coincidence but rather the urging of the Holy Spirit—
I feel compelled to repeat it:

Of love, C.S Lewis says it this way…

“There is no safe investment.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one,
not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change.

It will not be broken;
it will become
unbreakable,
impenetrable,
irredeemable.

The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers
and perturbations of love is…
Hell.”

I am more than willing to be vulnerable, wrung, exposed and yes broken
if it means that love will be a viable part of my existence.

All I know is that I never want to be outside of the confines of Love…
may all I do proceed from Love…

There is no fear in love.
But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18

Just around the bend—a pilgrimage

“And he began, “What chance or destiny
has brought you here before your final day?
And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?”
“Up there in life beneath the quiet stars
I lost my way,” I answered, “in a valley,
before I’d reached the fullness of my age.
I turned my shoulders on it yesterday:
this soul appeared as I was falling back,
and by the road through Hell he leads me home.”
“Follow your star and you will never fail
to find your glorious port,” he said to me”
Dante Alighieri

Of Course God does not consider you hopeless.
If He did, He would not be moving you to seek Him (and He obviously is)…
Continue seeking Him with seriousness.
Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.”
C.S. Lewis

“If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it – keep going, keep going come what may.”
Vincent van Gogh

(Tremont, TN , The Great Smokey Mountains National Park / Julie Cook / 2015)

(I thought this was a good post to pull out of the archives from 2015
please enjoy)

Along many a journey taken throughout our lives,
there often comes a point when every journeyman realizes that oddly there are
no clear-cut signs, no helpful mile markers,
no familiar landmarks pointing him or her in the proper direction.

The only thing for certain is that there is a path with the choice
of either continuing forward or the option of simply turning around—
heading back to whence one originally came.

How often does the journeyman continue onward?
Continuing onward yet all the while feeling as if he or she
is blinded by the loss of direction?

It is as if this journeyman, nay pilgrim, is feeling his or her way
along in the dark— thinking that after every curve,
after every bend along the path…
surely clarity shall be glimpsed as finally there has to be
something familiar or something offered as some sort of
informational directional compass…
that the chosen path is indeed the right and correct path for this
particular journey.

Such are the times in which we find ourselves living.

The journey is often arduous, steep and seemingly treacherous.
And yet there are days when the journey seems endlessly boring and benign.
We often tire, growing weary and overwhelmed physically, mentally
and emotionally.

It is as if we are wandering lost within some massive forest with no end in sight.
There is no welcoming safe haven…there is no one who is to act as guide…
only those who wait hidden in the shadows hoping to inflict some sort of harm
as we journey onward.

Yet as all who journey, those who opt to take such journeys in life,
realize and accept that there have never been any guarantees to any journey
ever taken.
Every journey and every path is left to the chance and the whims
of those forces which prevail against us.

How is one ever to prepare for such an odyssey?

How does one prepare when even the very path, the journey,
the pilgrimage, the sojourn is not clearly marked,
definitively set or offers any sort of guidance or clear directional choice
to the one setting out on the trek?

What of the perils, the dangers, the evil which lies-in wait..
those unseen snares and traps, each vying to catch the innocent
trekker who is perhaps ill prepared and off guard?

Is there hope?
Is there help?
Is there assistance?

Ah… but there is indeed One…
One alone who is fully prepared and ready.
One alone who knows the way.
And it is to Him we all must turn as He is the One who will offer comfort,
direction, defense and solace for the often long, lonely
and frightening journey…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13

hidden treasures in the middle of nowhere

“That’s the place to get to—nowhere.
One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.”
D.H. Lawrence

“Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride

(all pics from the middle of nowhere west Ga / Julie Cook / 2021)

Yesterday, I wrote a post, while offering a picture that I had labeled  “in the middle
of nowhere Georgia…
Karla over on Flannel in Faith (https://flannelwithfaith.com)
commented that she loved my “middle of nowhere” caption for the
photo used in the post…of which started me thinking…

Thinking that yes, I often need to go to ‘nowhere’ in order to find myself.
So here are a few of the hidden treasures I found while losing myself in the
middle of nowhere while looking for where I needed to be…

(****all pics from the middle of nowhere west GA , Julie Cook / 2021)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

I trust in you

“In this life our lot is not to enjoy God,
but to do his holy will.”
St. Teresa of Avila

(in the middle of the woods in nowhere west Georgia / Julie Cook / 2021)

“I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls,
and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion.
Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners;
I desire their salvation.
When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on
behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion.
This is the prayer: ‘O Blood and Water,
which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us,
I trust in You.’ “
St. Faustina Kowalska, p. 186-7
An Excerpt From
Diary of St. Faustina