the modern dilemma

Christopher Dawson has said that a society which does not know its own
history is like a man suffering from amnesia.
We cannot really know where we are,
if we do not know how we got here.
This applies to the Christian community.

Frank Sheed
From his book Knowing God


(a toy solider found buried in the sand / Julie Cook / 2021)

The modern dilemma is essentially a spiritual one,
and every one of its main aspects, moral,
political and scientific,
brings us back to the need of a religious solution.

Christopher Dawson

no refusal in God

If he can give us his Son with so total a giving, what can he refuse us?
There is no refusal in God.
The refusals are ours.

Frank Sheed
From his book Knowing God


(a tulip tree moth who has seen better day…like me 😉 /Julie Cook/ 2021)

“We trust ourselves to a doctor because we suppose he knows his business.
He orders an operation which involves cutting away part of our body and we accept it.
We are grateful to him and pay him a large fee because we judge he
would not act as he does unless the remedy were necessary,
and we must rely on his skill.
Yet we are unwilling to treat God in the same way!
It looks as if we do not trust His wisdom and are afraid He cannot
do His job properly.
We allow ourselves to be operated on by a man who may easily
make a mistake—a mistake which may cost us our life—and protest when
God sets to work on us.
If we could see all He sees we would unhesitatingly wish all He wishes.”
Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure, p. 90
An Excerpt From
Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence

Please pardon the interruption…

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things
as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life.
The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life —
the life God is sending one day by day.

C. S. Lewis


(the Mayor accessing the containers that house her satellite Woobooville office supplies…aka toys)

Please pardon the interruption in service, but The Mayor is currently in residence…

Her royal ruler (aka self-appointed official) has proclaimed that any and all technology
will be used sparingly during her audit of the satellite office of Woobooville.

She is emphatic that there are to be absolutely no leaks to the media as to what this audit may entail

Some staff members are very worried…


(Percy making himself comfortable in the Mayor’s teepee along with Polly Possum)

So while the Mayor settles in for a few days conducting her reign of terror,
I may be a bit scarce here in blogville as I tend to her every beck and call…


(the Mayor has taken over the offical chair of the stellite office’s boss, aka Da or Papa)

Our life will be a success if, at the moment of death,
we have in our soul the life above our nature, the Supernatural Life.
It will be a failure if, at death, we have not the Supernatural Life.
For if we have it, then we have in our soul the powers that would enable us to live the life of heaven;
if we have it not, we lack these powers and therefore will be totally unable to live the life of heaven.

Frank Sheed
from A Map of Life

shutdowns and reactions

Human life, then, we may see as the preparing for the life of Heaven.
It means, on the one hand, complete self-conquest.
The soul must conquer the body and bring it into full obedience to God’s law;
and the soul must itself come into full submission to God.
It has, from God’s Church, the truths it needs to know about God and man and its own destiny:
from the same source, it has the law that will govern it in the right use of itself and in the
right relation of love and duty to others.
But, as has been seen, given that man is to live a life above his nature,
he needs those gifts above his nature which we call the Supernatural Life.

Frank Sheed
from A Map of Life: A Simple Study of the Catholic Faith


(The Mayor is busy / Julie Cook / 2019)

You thought this post was going to be all political, didn’t you?

You thought I was going to throw my two cents into the ring, didn’t you?

Well, I will tell you that despite a government shut down, The Mayor is not slowing down.

We traveled over to spend the weekend with the Mayor.

She wasn’t worried about any shutdowns.
See that’s the glory of kids—they don’t much care what the adults are doing just
as long as their little worlds are flowing.

The minute “the flow” stops, that’s when children become slightly unhinged.

Little children are good like that…they stay oblivious to adults acting like
sophomoric idiots while allowing the lives of countless individuals to hang in the balance.

They don’t care who’s a Democrat or who’s a Republican…
they just know that they are center stage and that’s pretty much how life flows…
anything else is minutia.

So despite big announcements, Dreamers, Walls, and shutdowns or a stubborn President and an
idiot Speaker of the House, the Mayor was busy.

Busy learning to eventually walk on her own.
Busy learning how to make sounds become words.
Busy getting really tired after being so busy that she falls asleep mid play…


(The Mayor asleep on her chief aide’s lap in Woobville / Julie Cook / 2019)

So Thursday morning I went to have a yearly mammogram.
Following that, the endodontist called me explaining they’d had a cancellation and
could fit me 4 day’s prior to my regularly scheduled possible root canal evaluation.

Perfect I thought–knock out the physical traumas all in one day.

As much as I hate having such, I’ve had my fair share of root canals and just
went the suck it up option and to go with the flow.

The tooth had reared its ugly head right around Thanksgiving.
The dentist thought maybe just a crown would help as there was more filling than tooth.

We did the crown.

I went two weeks with a temporary just to see if the sensitivity and pain would ease off.
If they did, the crown would be cemented into place.
If not, off to the endodontist I would go.

Well–things seemed to get better.
So cementing the crown it would be.

Until two days later when the tooth revved up again like nothing had ever changed.

The dentist scheduled my trip to the endodontist.

Of which I went to on Thursday, early.

The root canal was a near 2-hour event.
I was leaned back so far I could have been standing on my head.
I thought my poor neck would give way.

When he was finally finished, he scheduled my coming back for a permanent patch.

Well after 5 hours when the novocaine finally wore off, my mouth and tooth hurt but I chocked that
up to shots and trauma.

I took a pain pill.

Well, the pain and throbbing got progressively worse…
so much so that I had to call the endodontist when I was up with The Mayor–
requesting an antibiotic or a pair of pliers….whichever he felt would be best.

He went with the antibiotic.
It should have been the pliers.

As I type this…I am yawning almost uncontrollably…
and spelling everything very wrong…even for me…maybe it’s the Benadryl.

I don’t normally take Benadryl but I thought it could help with the
overtly severe rash and itching…never mind the throbbing tooth.

What?

Rash?
Itching?
Throbbing??

Seems the endodontist called in clindamycin… seems as if I’m allergic to clindamycin.

My torso, back, face, ears, neck all look as if I have visited a nudist beach and fell asleep laying out.
Things look burned that have never seen the sun.
Sandpaper like skin…red and itchy.
Not a pretty mind’s eye picture I know no matter how you look at it…
But I’ve never seen anything like this.

I may have had clindamycin once before…years ago for a sinus infection and I might recall
my arm itching–calling the doctor and having to change up meds…
Looking at my red self, that seems to be coming to my memory now.

I wish I’d quit yawing and would quit typing gibberish.

I text back the endodontist this morning explaining that I did not sleep because my tooth
has not stopped throbbing and I am now a giant walking, red as a berry, rash.
Did I mention a throbbing tooth?

Good thing Don talked me into using Grammarly on my computer…
otherwise, you might think I have been drugged. Thank you Don.

Well, I have actually.

I thought a couple of Benedryl could stop the rash.

I told the doctor if he didn’t squeeze me in tomorrow, I was getting my pliers—I’m still
debating so I’ll let you know…

Now I better go make some tea to wake me up.

At least the Mayor took her aides out to supper last night, even if I couldn’t chew.


(The Mayor at dinner out / Julie Cook / 2019)

I’ll use the pliers on my tooth while using a hammer to knock in a little sense into our
elected children adult officals.