It’s a moment that I’m after, a fleeting moment,
but not a frozen moment.
Andrew Wyeth
(a store window seen in Savannah, Ga / Julie Cook / 2021)
Fleeting– the opposite of lasting or enduring.
That which is brief, momentary or transient.
Much like the still images taken from a strip of film.
Frame per frame-
Sequence by sequence-
Moment by moment-
As black and white images blend to a tonal pallet of grey…
each frame is its own static story of something or someone
that has preceded the current moment of time, thus becoming
nothing more than the past…a past that becomes now motionless.
These junctures in time, these single breaths of life, may each be
caught and thus captured… and in turn,
become a single entity of both space of time
as they are now ‘saved’ for a time to be.
They simply become moments frozen in an everlasting vacuum of
continuance…allowing that which was to become
a part of that which is as well as that which will be.
Thus these physical and tangible moments, which
each come and are quickly gone, now only add to our own
individual continuum of time.
And so we ponder…
Are not these someones or somethings…
these moments and persons which are each captured in
writings, recordings or even videos and photographs…
are they not more or less paralyzed…as in immobilized…
void of all movement and action… rendered lifeless
and thus resulting in the transcending of time…because time
has indeed thus stopped.
Or has it merely been paused…resulting in the ability to resume the
moment?
Oh how we yearn to resume such moments and individuals.
Images each recorded and saved…poignantly yet painfully reminding
us of that which was is now simply no more…
and is rather just traded to that of a memory.
And so we continue to wonder…
do these captured moments of both places and persons–
places and persons who may or may not be known to those who are
now viewing or reading or hearing them,
do they not give way to segments of a larger juncture or turning point?
All of which now afford anyone and everyone to read, hear,
see and even share in what was?
As in…do not these captured moments simply allow anyone and everyone
who comes across such, to be able to partake in each individual or thing…
while interpreting them uniquely from each individual’s vantage point?
Invoking shared emotions despite the images not necessarily being our own?
A single active event or person…all of that which once was…
now gives way to the actions of anyone’s and everyone’s life as the
past becomes the present and, if we are so fortunate, the future.
It is a collective sharing of both space and time of that which once was
for some, being that of memory, now becoming the active imagination of another.
and thus fleeting no more…
“Your poor heart, in which God put appreciation for everlastingness,
will not take electronic gadgets in lieu of eternal life.
Something inside of you is too big for that, too terrible, too wonderful.
God has set everlastingness in your heart.
All the things of this world are here for but a moment and then are gone.
None can satisfy the longing for that eternal ragging in the soul of every man.”
A.W. Tozer, And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John
He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
So we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero.
He’s a silent guardian.
A watchful protector.
Commissioner Gorden from The Dark Night
(steamcommunity.com)
My son is 31 years old and has been an avid Batman fan since a very very early age.
It may have been his 3rd or 4th Christmas that Santa brought him a battery operated
Batmobile that he could ride.
He was so blown away by what his young eyes beheld, that he ran to his room in order to
put on his Halloween costume..the one that still hung in his closet always at the ready…
Yes, it was a batman costume…one he would don whenever he believed Batman was
needed to save the day.
That Christmas morning, without uttering a word, our son, in full Batman regalia, proceeded to
stoically climb into that car in order to heed the call of help.
The problem came when he realized the car would not fly….the wee driver was to simply step
on a peddle propelling the car at a snail’s pace across the pavement.
Just as silent and just as stoic, he climbed out of the car and simply went inside.
Ode to a child’s imagination, thinking and yearning.
Needless to say, the prized and coveted Christmas gift was not so prized.
Our young son saw a batmobile and by gosh that thing was supposed to do what
Michael Keaton’s could do…race and fly.
Michael Keaton starred in the first real Batman movie our son ever saw…
Since that movie came out in 1989 and our son was born in 1988,
he saw the movie via a VHS tape shown at home.
The first actual movie that he saw in theaters, of which we regretted taking him to,
was Batman Returns with Danny DiVito playing the Penguin.
McDonald’s had really played up the movie for kids at all of their franchises and on television
because everything Happy Meal was all things Bat.
The movie, however, was, in our opinion, too dark and definitely not intended for young audiences.
But to this day, he says that is one of his favorites of the long-running series.
This little trip down memory lane came rushing forward while I was in Atlanta the past
several days taking care of a sickly Mayor.
We’d settled in one evening after supper and of course,
both the Mayor and Sheriff wanted to watch a cartoon…Frozen is the theme of the day.
Over and over we watch the Frozen movies…I can sing it all in my sleep…just let it go
for crying out loud…
But my son attempted putting on one of the older Batman movies—that is until I told him
his two young fans were just that, too young.
But before he turned it off, the opening scene of this particular movie showed a gathering of
city officials at some sort of banquet, where the speaker addressing those gathered spoke of the
demise of the city of Gotham.
He spoke of how the city was crime-ridden, dishonest, suffering…
And that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks.
We are living in Gotham.
Our major cities are now rife with disease.
Not so much from a pandemic disease but rather from the disease of human ill.
Not simply drugs, or from the typical crimes found in big cities, but ill with
the hate-filled rioting, looting, violence, agitation, and lawlessness found in hopelessness.
That which is found rotting in anarchy.
These are places where the bad guys now rule both the day and night.
And we are finding that we so desperately want to shine that floodlight into the night sky
with the insignia of “the bat.”
A signal that visibly states our dire need for help as well as a need for hope and
dare we say it, a savior from our current misery.
But here’s the thing…
we have no superheroes.
We have no long-suffering brooding vigilantes who feel the need to defend the defenseless.
They simply don’t exist.
We have police.
We have a military.
But both are currently loathed.
And so we feel lost.
We feel helpless.
We feel hopeless.
But there are those among us who do know…
we know that there is one who is more than just a watchful protecor…
one who has offered us both help and hope…
His name is Jesus Christ and all we have to do is to call out His name.
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11
“Hands down, this is the best day of my life.
And quite possibly the last.”
Olaf (Disney’s Frozen character)
Over the past near three months, keeping watch of the wee ones, I have become
totally and completely ingrained, as well as a downright expert on “selsa” and
the movies of Frozen.
Olaf the snowman seems to have spoken to me…day in and day out…
over and over…
And so during these odd times of which we now find ourselves living,
I think Olaf’s song, “This will all make sense when I am older”
is more than appropriate as well as applicable.
Ode to the wisdom of a made-up and utterly odd little snowman.
“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”
Samuel Johnson
American infantrymen of the 290th Regiment fight in fresh snowfall near Amonines, Belgium. January 4, 1945. Braun. (Army)
This time of year usually catches all of us living life in a whirlwind of extra busyness.
Throw into the regular regime of work, school, and fickle weather added by the demands
of a heavy dose of shopping, cooking, running all over town, traveling, wrapping, packing,
shipping yada, yada, yada…and we can very quickly forget what all of this is really about.
Or on the flip side, we could be watching those around us busy and merry while
our small world is quiet and lonely.
An extra blanket of suffocating heaviness has just covered an already aching heart.
Either way, this time of year can be extra taxing on us all.
We get so caught up in our own little holiday worlds while at the same time
we are currently living with a madness playing out before our eyes in our own government.
We find ourselves with a mixed sense of wonder, frustration, sorrow, joy, and confusion.
We want to be happy…but.
We want to be mad…but.
We want things to be right…but.
We want to be jolly and bright…but
So when I received my periodic email from Fold3, which is an arm of Ancestry.com
which is the military record archives that Ancestry pulls from,
I was reminded of another Christmas that was also a duality of both joy and anguish.
And here’s the thing…
If it was not for the duality of emotions during that Christmas time in 1944,
then you and I may not even find ourselves living out our own Christmas today in 2019.
We owe the people of that winter of 1944 more than we can ever repay.
For you see the infamous Battle of the Ardennes, better known as the Battle of the Bulge,
was a turning point for the allies during WWII.
Yet it came at a tremendous cost and sacrifice on both sides of the proverbial pond.
Soldiers doing their duty as families were home doing theirs.
Waiting, hoping, praying.
Yet sadly we have an entire swath of this nation that has never heard of such a battle
and frankly does not care.
All because that was then and this is now.
‘And so what does then have to do with now’ they smugly ask.
Everything my friend, absolutely everything.
And so this afternoon as I sat in a doctor’s waiting room reading this article on my phone,
a man was also sitting in the waiting room, began listening to Silent Night playing softly
over his phone.
I wasn’t upset that this man had allowed a song to play out in this small
quiet space as I found the song a very appropriate song for this particular story…
Here is one story from that Christmas of 1944:
from Fold3.com
Christmas During the Battle of the Bulge
December 1, 2019 by Jenny Ashcraft
On December 16, 1944, German forces surprised American soldiers in the densely forested
Ardennes region of Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, with a massive offensive also known
as the Battle of the Bulge, or the Ardennes Counteroffensive.
Germany pushed through an Allied line, creating a bulge in the Allied defensive lines.
The deadly battle, which lasted until January 25, 1945, was the largest on the European
western front during WWII and resulted in an estimated 1 in 10 American combat casualties
during the entire war. It also meant that thousands of soldiers spent Christmas 1944
in temperatures that hovered around zero, in knee-deep snow, and with limited rations
for Christmas dinner.
On the home front, their families spent a nervous holiday season,
waiting for word of their loved ones.
Cpl. Frank D. Vari spent Christmas Eve huddled in a foxhole as shells exploded
around him all night long.
“We could hear their guns going off and the shells landing at the same time.
They were close.
They almost surrounded the whole place.
I remember Christmas Day.
I got up, and we had a real bad night, with artillery and everything.
The first thing I saw was the steeple of a church down in the valley.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was just coming up over a little village at the bottom.”
The clear skies allowed US planes to reinforce soldiers along the front.
The break in the weather saved Vari’s unit.
Sgt. Metro Sikorsky woke up Christmas Day 1944 in a bombed-out building.
He was 25-years-old and serving in Company B, 17th Tank Battalion of the
7th Armored Division.
It was his first time away from home in Pennsylvania.
All around were the bodies of the frozen and his job included picking up the dead.
He said it was so cold that when a soldier died, in a short time the body
froze where it lay.
There were no presents and no Christmas dinner, but Sikorsky felt lucky to be alive.
It was so cold that soldiers cut blankets into strips and wound
them around their frozen feet.
Tech Sgt. Maurice Glenn Hughs remembered the terrible winter conditions during the battle.
“Hundreds of people lost their feet because they were frozen,” he said.
Hughs was hospitalized after the battle and doctors in Paris told him that his feet
would need to be amputated.
“My legs were painted up to my knees to be amputated.
And then the doctors checked and said they wouldn’t have to be,” said Hughs.
Mattie Dickenson of Georgetown, Louisiana, remembered Christmas 1944 as a difficult one.
She anxiously waited for news from her husband Benjamin F. Dickenson.
Benjamin was drafted when he was 38-years-old and found himself fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
“I do remember that was the saddest Christmas I ever spent.
For 21 days I didn’t know if he was dead or alive,” said Mattie.
Though Benjamin was wounded, he made it home alive.
Mattie kept a piece of the parachute that dropped supplies to her husband
at Bastogne.
Soldiers from the Third United States Army carried a printed copy of
Gen. George Patton’s Christmas Prayer of 1944.
Patton had a copy distributed to each soldier before the battle.
It petitioned the heavens for good weather and concluded with a Christmas greeting
from the General.
It read,
“To each officer and soldier in the Third United States Army, I wish a Merry Christmas.
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle.
We march in our might to complete the victory.
May God’s blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day.”
The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler’s last major offensive along the Western Front.
Within a month Allied forces pushed the Germans back and closed the bulge.
The battle was called “the greatest American battle of the war” by Winston Churchill
and it crushed Germany’s hopes for ultimate success in the war.
To learn more about the Battle of the Bulge and soldiers who fought in it,
search Fold3 today!
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach,
in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”
Rachel Carson
(the snowy adirondacks / Julie Cook / 2017)
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;
he does great things beyond our understanding.
He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’
and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
So that everyone he has made may know his work,
he stops all people from their labor.
The animals take cover;
they remain in their dens.
The tempest comes out from its chamber,
the cold from the driving winds.
The breath of God produces ice,
and the broad waters become frozen.
Job 37:5-10
“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness
in the proportion.”
Edgar Allan Poe
(a foot of snow blankets the yard / Julie Cook / 2017)
Whereas this unexpected early December Southern Snow has blanketed us with a
deep white blanket of mystical silence and stillness…it has not come without
a wealth of woe….
The school systems in and around the Atlanta metro area…north and westward…
school systems who usually err on the side of caution actually decided to listen
to our meteorologists who glibly reported that,
whereas it looked as if there would be some snow….,
we’d been so warm up to now that any snow would be fleeting.
A lite dusting that wouldn’t stick to roadways or driveways as it had just been
simply too warm for any real need for worry.
In other words, a short lived event.
This was to be taking place on Friday.
So on Friday, everyone opted to go about life as normal…
This is the deep South you know….we don’t really worry about winter weather
this time of year.
And so right on que the rains came, turning eventually over to snow.
And then it snowed and it snowed, and it kept on snowing…..
The schools scrambled and quickly decided that perhaps they should release the hounds students…
And so we had everyone in a myriad of counties all starting to unleash madness
upon the roadways all at the same staggering times.
Staggered releases seemed to be the best option…yet it was still snowing…hard.
Snow and ice were beating the release times.
Buses found it impossible to deliver their tender cargo as the snow and ice
were blanketing roadways…making traveling up and down hills impossible.
Our very pregnant daughter-n-law, who teaches here in our county but lives in Atlanta,
opted to come to our house verses trying to navigate the snowy icy interstates back
home to Atlanta as the News was painting a terrible traffic picture.
A typical 15 minute drive to our house from her school actually took her 2 hours…
as cars were now slip sliding away.
In fact my husband had to go meet her a mile from our house as cars had simply stopped
in their tracks on the roads as others had landed in the ditches and she was stuck in
the middle. It took him 30 minutes to get to her…a drive that should have taken two minutes.
Meanwhile, limbs were falling left and right in Atlanta.
It is a city known for her plethora of beautiful trees…yet snow and ice are not
kind to trees.
A snow laden limb fell on our son and daughter-n-laws house,
literally ripping out the power lines from the house….lines now laying dangerously
across the lawn.
GA Power has come to access the issue and now needs one of their certified
electricians to come out and reconnect the lines into the house before
they can re-run the lines from the pole to the house…
lest all things blow up.
Our son, dad’s cat and the grand dog are hunkering down in the dark, without heat
as the temperatures plunge down into the teens….
waiting for word of this elections.
This as I watched today those who really suffer through these sorts
of weather events…the animals…
as well as those who have no shelter to call their own…
As God watches over both animal and man who remain without….
(notice to the left of the two bulls, the wee head peering out from the crack
in the dilapidated barn)
(the poor cold bulls / Julie Cook / 2017)
But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Psalm 5:11
See me safe up: for in my coming down,
I can shift for myself.
Thomas More
(the frozen demise of the mint / Julie Cook / 2017)
Despite our having just journeyed through the season known for all things of anticipation…
that sacred time of observing Advent, which then culminates with the wondrous arrival
of the illuminating Nativity…
we actually, in this silent and slumberous time of deep winter,
continue finding ourselves waiting and watching.
Found in the Latin word adventus, which is the translation of the Greek word parousia,
we find a word and meaning that has traditionally been used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ.
Not so much denoting a single and initial birth, but rather embracing the anticipation of
a second birth…a sort of re-coming…
Yet, as William Stringfellow observes,
“we live now, in the Untied States, in a culture so profoundly pagan that Advent (or any other Christian “season”)*
is no longer really noticed, much less observed.
The commercial acceleration of seasons,
whereby the promotion of Christmas begins even before there is an opportunity to enjoy
Halloween, is superficially, a reason for the vanishment of Advent.
But a more significant cause is that the churches have become so utterly secularized
that they no longer remember the topic of Advent.
*(parentheses mine)
And so it seems that our secular and worldly selves have given way from our
continuation of waiting and watching to rather the glossing over of a key
observational time within our faith.
We have allowed, as it appears we have preferred, to move away from that which should
still be our focus, yielding rather, to the superficial luster of the fleeting.
For it seems that the notion of Advent, or any other of the “seasons” of the church,
has fallen way to the more glamorous secular association of what should actually be the truly
innate spiritual rhythms of our beings.
Yet as unrelenting and ever-faithful,
we now find ourselves transitioning from the anticipation found in Advent and the Nativity
to Epiphany, leading way to Ash Wednesday and the heaviness of the somber Lenten season…
as it too shall give way to the unending promise of Hope…
We enter, once again into a time of waiting and watching…
waiting not so much for the first birth with its earth shattering life that was cut
tragically short by a brutal yet necessary death…
but rather we, the dwindling yet tenacious faithful, both wait and watch
not for an ending associated with death but rather for the continuation of what is to come…
Life anew and everlasting…
As we find ourselves listening to once again, as well as claiming, those prophetic words of that
lone figure who cried out to the masses so long ago…
as his words continue to resonate in our hearts…
MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!'”
Matthew 3:3
“Surrender thyself to God and thou shalt find thyself again”
Alfred Delp and originally attributed to Thomas a Kempis
(frozen in time / Julie Cook / 2017)
Humans need freedom.
As slaves, fettered and confined, they are bound to deteriorate.
We have spent a great deal of thought and time on external freedom;
we have made serious efforts to secure our personal liberty and yet
we have lost it again and again.
The worst thing is that eventually humans come to accept the state of bondage—
it becomes habitual and they hardly notice it.
The most abject slaves can be made to believe that the condition in which
they are held is actually freedom.
During these long weeks of confinement I have learned by personal experience
that a person is truly lost, is the victim of circumstances and oppression
only when he is incapable of a great inner sense of depth and freedom.
Human freedom is born in the moment of our contact with God.
What really matters is the fact that we are called and we must
be sufficiently awake to hear the call.
Alfred Delp Prison Writings
“In my distress I called upon the LORD,
Yes, I cried to my God;
And from His temple He heard my voice,
And my cry for help came into His ears.
2 Samuel 22:7
“Look beneath the surface;
let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.”
― Marcus Aurelius
(new growth hiding beneath the brush / Troup Co, Georgia /Julie Cook / 2015)
Frozen
Wet
Lifeless
Barren
Muddling through colorless days
Bundled up, wrapped tight, hunkered down. . .
Sinking within self
Eyes fixed on nothing, as feet shuffle forward
Fighting wind, snow, rain. . .
Ode to Winter at its dulling best
Suddenly something tiny,
something small,
something possessing. . .
What?
What is this, dry forlorn minds query.
Shiny
Red
Tender
Green
Color
Life
Hope
Be ready
Be waiting
Be expectant
Be hopeful
Be watchful
Be willing
Because big new things lie just beneath the surface. . .
In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary – we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
Romans 5:5
The Message
“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”
― Masaru Emoto
My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.”
― Ravi Zacharias
(the premature blooms of the quince / Julie Cook / 2015
What is our life but to live?
To laugh
To love
To saveur
To relish
To thrive
What of the mistimed bloom?
Perhaps it is merely a single day, maybe even two or three–an amalgamation of unseasonable sun and warmth prompting certain unseen urges. . .nudging the sleeping Giant to stir from its required time of slumber.
It does not matter that the calendar tells us it is not yet time.
It does not matter that the weather predictions are for dire cold. . .
All it takes is a touch of warmth here, a brilliant day of sun there, the tiny gained increments of daylight, above freezing nights, which each in turn sends the GO signal to all that is dormant to “come out, come out, where ever you are. . .”
Buds begin to form, pregnant with new growth and anxious to deliver.
Yet suddenly and cruelly, just as Life dreamily stirs, wiping the sleep from her eyes, the harshness of a bitter northern wind delivers the wicked punch of reality.
Winter is just getting started.
Withering
Fading
Freezing
Tender buds and tiny green leaves turn a sickly black, oozing forth life juices which merely turn into dirty ice.
Yet this dismal picture is not as bad as it may appear, all is not lost as we mustn’t succumb to our frigid despair.
It is true, the newly stunned and stunted growth, now frozen in time, will quickly die away, but Life will indeed make certain that she has her way. . .as well as the last word.
Just as soon as a wee scuosh of warmth battles for an ounce of stronghold, Life will, once again, work her magic of emergence. Her rallying cry will be heard across the land banishing the monotone shades of Winter’s white, greys and browns back to the southern hemisphere from whence it came.
Yet be all of that as it may, for the time being however, it is simply time for the Giant, which was so rudely routed from her much needed beauty rest, to return to her scared place of stillness. . .hidden well away from prying eyes. . .resting, sleeping, waiting. . .all in order to eventually breathe life back into the now barren landscape of expectation.
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