going, going, gone….looking

Job was astonished at seeing Almighty God so intent on doing good to us
that He seems to have nothing more at heart than to love us and to induce
us to love Him in return.
Saint Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori

(they came, they ate, they’re gone, it’s gone…I’m gone / Julie Cook / 2020)

Well from our photograph you can see that the caterpillars have had their fill.
They ate all that was in sight and now, they are out of sight.

I feel that I want to be the same for a bit, or at least for a few days…
as in out of sight.

Our friend IB, also known as the Princess keeper of the 9th circuit of hell…
someone has to live out there and try to hold those folks’ feet to the fire…
offered a wonderful post the other day…it was a bit of an eye-opener or perhaps
just a good ol kick in the pants sort of reminder.

We are inundated with both the negative and bad are we not?
EVERYTHING these days is bad…matters not which side of whatever fence you’re sitting on…
We read it,
we see it,
we hear it,
we watch it…

Conservative vs liberal
Republican vs Democrat
Anarchist vs law-abiding
Pro police vs anti-police
Black lives vs All lives
Trump vs Biden
Christain vs atheist
Abortionist vs Right to lifer
Mask wearer vs mask hater
Football vs no football

On and on it goes…
So much so that I am weary.

IB offered what seems to be a novel notion—-
perhaps we ought to be out looking for that which is good, which is heroic—
that which is positive rather than focusing on the negative and the bad..

And I think I’ll give it a go…
I’ll get back with what I find…

But for now…enjoy IB’s post and may you too go in search of all that remains…
good…

When Good Men do Something:

https://insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2020/09/12/when-good-men-do-something/

In the meantime…I’m going to look for what I once knew about America…
there is still a whole lot of good going on…

the sound of silence…can break the heart

“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness,
your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers

(courtesy the web)

The school year has finally ended and thus our little extended family clan headed home
yesterday for good.

And I cried like nobody’s business.

There is now such a deafening silence that neither my husband nor I find comfortable.

No shrieks, no cries, no shouts, no laughter, no bumps nor bangs…

March 15th until May 22nd.
Holidays, birthdays, milestones, and seasons have all came and gone.

And now they are gone…

And there is still a Pandemic, a lockdown, a ‘new’ normal…
The silence isn’t helping…

(the attack of Da / Julie Cook / 2020)

(a warm spring day /Julie Cook/ 2020)

(snuggle bug siblings / Abby Cook/ 2020)

(a first hair cut / Julie Cook / 2020)

(the last morning with “mom” / Julie Cook / 2020)

ALMIGHTY God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children;
Give us light and strength so to train them,
that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report,
following the example of their Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
1928 Book of Common Prayer

it isn’t rocket science

“In keeping silent about evil,
in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface,
we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.
When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers,
we are not simply protecting their trivial old age,
we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Voices from the past…
voices not so long past…
continue reaching out…
Their words remain drifting along the currents of time.
Individuals from a different life are now born into the prophets of our day.

Their words…
now more urgent…
now more critical…
No longer merely mentioned in a speech or interview…
but rather crying out for our attention.
This now lost and stumbling generation…

Will the scales fall finally from our eyes,
Will we turn our hearing their way…
Opening our hearts and minds to the Truth

Or have we now all gone simply too far…
drifting further away from that offering of Salavation

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical
confrontation humanity has ever experienced.
I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society,
or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully.
We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church,
between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the Antichrist.”
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, 1976