Off with their heads!

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat.
“We’re all mad here.”
The Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland

(a toppled statue of St Francis / Julie Cook / 2020)

No, my little St. Francis statue is not the victim of our current hate-fueled madness but
rather it was the victim of a severe thunderstorm.
He toppled over onto the sidewalk and literally lost his head.

Yet, to be honest, seeing poor ol St. Francis having lost his head,
stung my senses a bit.

And so if an old worn garden statue I’ve had for years can prick my emotions, imagine how
I feel watching American monument after monument being defaced or destroyed?

Imagine my dismay over our suddenly removing the names of those more famous among us,
those who are now long gone, being removed from buildings or airports all because their only crime
was having lived generations ago.

What of those now screaming that all white European images of Christ be removed,
or better yet, destroyed?

What of those in the LGBTQ communities exclaiming they don’t wish to co-exist with Christians
but would rather prefer seeing Christianity as nonexistent.

But more about that nonsense later…

Have you ever found yourself pondering the notion of your existence?
As in a ‘why am I here’ sort of pondering?

I know that there have been those amongst us who have felt a keen sense
of purpose for their lives early on…a sense of destiny.
It is a sense of knowing, even as a child, that they were destined for something
so much bigger and so much greater than simply being themselves.

Karol Wojtyla, later the first Polish Pope and Saint, John Paul II felt such.
George Patton, later 4-star general, also felt such.
Winston Churchill, later the UK Prime Minister during WWII, again, felt the same.

As a young boy, Churchill is noted for telling a young schoolmate that he knew
that greatness was in his future.
This coming from a precocious young boy who struggled in his schooling.
A boy who was shipped off to boarding school and was often an embarrassment to his
famously prestigious father.
Greatness was not the initial thought that came to the mind of those who knew
the boy before there was to be the man.

There have been countless others who have also felt the very same sense of purpose.

A feeling that their life was a calling.
A calling to something greater than.

Such callings are often referred to as vocations.
With vocations being vastly different from mere jobs.

A vocation requires a deep sense of dedication—up to and not limited
to one’s very existence.

Those who become members of religious orders and even those who are lead to become teachers,
doctors, policemen, firefighters, nurses…they are but a few of those who we consider as
being called to vocations rather than 9 to 5 jobs.

Those who seek vocations rather than the average job have often felt such calls
early on in life.
An invisible pulling to something so much more than…

If you were ever a kid who attended any sort of Sunday School,
chances are you heard stories and tales about ‘the saints’ —
those brave men and women who dedicated their entire beings to serving God
and proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Those who were willing to face the dire consequences of doing so.

Gruesome tortures with eventual death being the inevitable.

Some of these men and women had been average folks but many had been roughnecks,
criminals and most often the worst amongst us…
yet God had tapped them early on for something so much greater.

And once the scales had fallen from their eyes and their hearts broken,
their true mission began.

And so, we know…
there is indeed a calling.
And there will be no denying this calling.

Some of us already know this very keenly.
Others of us come to this knowledge reluctantly…but come we do.
And when we do so, we do so resolutely.

So tell me, have you heard it?

Have you heard or felt the calling?

I have.

And so now I know…

This thought will be continued…tomorrow.

Call to me and I will answer you,
and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
Jeremiah 33:3

Whoever is of God hears the words of God.
The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
John 8:47

Death and taxes…

“I earnestly admonish you, therefore, my brothers,
to look after your spiritual well-being
with judicious concern.
Death is certain; life is short and vanishes like smoke.
Fix your minds, then, on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Inflamed with love for us, he came down from heaven to redeem us.
For our sake he endured every torment of body and soul and shrank from no bodily pain.
He himself gave us an example of perfect patience and love.
We, then, are to be patient in adversity.”
St. Francis of Paola

Death and taxes…
nothing is certain in life but those two unpleasantries.

April 15th—the dreaded day of taxes.
(or actually the 17th due to the 15th falling on a weekend)

A day that accountants have longed for while regular citizens have dreaded.
To pay or to be refunded, that is the question…

Yet taxes are nothing new.

We might recall that it was while traveling to Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral home,
Mary gave birth to Jesus.
It was a requirement of Roman law that all citizens take part in the counting for the census
in order to meet the tax requirements…
thus the reason why this young couple, with a very pregnant Mary,
was out and about traveling at a rather critical time.

And so history teaches us that taxes are nothing new…
nor is death…
for death is as old as life itself…
As they actually go hand in hand…

Death and taxes—the two givens in life.

St Francis of Paola—
the humble 15th-century monk who founded the equally humble order
of Minim Friars, reminds us, in this morning’s quote, that death is indeed certain.

Yet the notion of death being inevitable… is really nothing more than a given.
If you’ve been born, you will inevitably die.
That’s just how that works.

Yet most of us don’t like being reminded of such.
Just like we don’t like being reminded about taxes,
forms, payments and the deadline for submitting such.

Our humble monk also reminds us of something else equally as important…
that life, as fleeting as it is…. is simply like vanishing smoke.

And just like taxes and death, none of us like to think about fleeting…
those unpleasant things such as taxes, death coupled with our fleeting lives.

However, our friend reassures us that because our time is just that, vanishing as the smoke…
and death is, for better or worse, inevitable…
it is to be our task to fix our sights, our minds and even
our passions upon Jesus and on Jesus alone…
because it is only in Jesus that things such as death and taxes,
and that of pain, sorrow, and suffering…
those earthly fleeting instances which will vanish as the smoke,
are nothing compared to a life with Jesus—of which is truly everlasting…

They seldom reflect on the days of their life,
because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.
Ecclesiastes 5:20

the hope found in a train wreck

“I have noticed a strange paradox.
While we are often quite confident about our own circumstances,
and ourselves, we are easily made fearful about what is going on in the wider world.
John seems to do the reverse – he does indeed tell us that our circumstances may be dreadful,
and that the world is in a deep mess, but he causes us to look much higher and further.
This world is not doomed. It is destined for renewal.
The whole creation groans and waits for its liberation from bondage to decay and to be
brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God”
(Romans 8:21).
Pastor David Robertson

( a most colorful little beetle / Julie Cook / 2017)

I caught another sermon post by our friend the Scottish pastor David Robertson.

The sermon was based on Revelation 17…
(here is a link to the chapter as a means of saving the word count today…
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2017 )

The chapter has a rather matter of fact, mince no words sort of title…
The Great Whore and the Beast.

And if we know anything about the book of Revelations and John…
symbolism while mincing no words runs hand in hand as the title may be considered a bit
of a double entendre.

For the whore is not merely a local prostitute just as the beast is no wild animal
of the forest.

Here is the link if you would like to read the sermon.
( https://theweeflea.com/2017/06/10/revelation-17-the-prostitute-on-the-beast/ )

Have you ever been a bystander who witnesses something bad?

There you are…just standing there, minding your own business, when suddenly
you are aware of something massive which is just about to take place.
You’re actually able to survey the full landscape, the whole picture as it were…
You see these two forces and all that is around them
as they are on a one way course with destruction…..
and yet…..

You know in your head that what you are about to witness is not going to be good and
will not end well for either party.
That this cataclysmic event is actually going to be really really bad…
and yet you are totally helpless to intervene..unable to do your best to stop it.
It is going to happen whether you jump in or not.
It’s as if everything is now in slow motion.
It’s a surreal moment that seems almost out of body.

And that is exactly how I’m feeling about our current day and time.

I feel almost like a spectator on certain days who is watching a train wreck that is just
about to occur.
I’m standing there watching two opposing trains barreling directly at one another
and there isn’t a darn thing I can do to stop it because the trains are bigger,
faster and more powerful than my mere human frame.
I can’t even scream because the trains won’t hear me and there are no people who
will hear me who can stop the trains before it’s too late.
As in no one….

And yet at the same time there is an almost odd release of anxiety,
as there is an unexplainable peace, or perhaps better yet, a clam….
for I am resigned to the knowledge that there is indeed nothing I can do…
the inevitable is going to happen with or without me.

As a Christian, I feel obligated to be a defender of the faith as it were.
That it is my solemn duty to not only proclaim the Gospel to a darkened
world but it is my duty to defend the collective Christian Church..
a Church who the world yearns to destroy.

And there is frustration found in the inaction of simple standing by and watching…
watching the masses of those who profess to be Christians..
those who are either blinded or lost to the fact that the inevitable train wreck has
been set in motion…
and yet the majority remain silent to what is Truth.

And yes, I admit that we don’t know when or where the wreck will be…
but we know the wreck is coming…yet why in the heck won’t anyone step up and
speak out…alerting, reminding, sharing with the world???
Why the silence?

And then it dawns on me that maybe, just maybe the problem is that there are
just a handful of folks who really actually acknowledge that the inevitable collision
is going to happen.. one way or another, it’s going to happen…
and there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it….

So best we just be prepared ourselves for when that collision comes…
because no one else seems to want to listen….
For in the end, we who remain faithful are not to be doomed to the wreck…
because after the collision, Love has already won.

“Sometimes as Christians we need to lift our eyes from our own personal
circumstances, and from what is going on in our countries and indeed the whole world,
and get a grander vision.
We look up, as Stephen did as he was about to be stoned to death:
‘But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,
looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand
of God.
“Look,” he said,
“I see heaven upon and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God”
(Acts 7: 55-56).
This is the vision we need, individually and collectively –
the vision of Christ and his glory”
Then, and only then, will be able to rejoice in the midst of trouble.
Even though ‘the great prostitute is drunk with the blood of God’s holy people’,
they shall rise and she shall fall.
Once we grasp this, then, and only then,
will we be able to live lives that are full of faith not fear,
love not hate,
forgiveness not revenge.
David Robertson

a dichotomy of time

“There are two kinds of light –
the glow that illuminates,
and the glare that obscures.”
James Thurber

( melting clock, 1954, Salvador Dali)

It was almost 31 years ago and I was soon to turn 26.
I can remember it like it was yesterday.
It was around 9PM
I was just merging from the downtown connector onto I20—heading west,
It would be about an 80 minute or more drive home.
Mother had just recently turned 53.
She had been in the hospital now for about 4 weeks…
and they had finally just diagnosed her with an aggressive lung cancer
that had already metastasized throughout her body.

I was tired, weary and devastated but intent and focused on driving.
I spoke out loud in a wavering voice, flat and matter of fact…
“I know I’m probably going to mad at you before this is all over”
Because I knew none of this would go well and that when it was all over,
I would be left stripped bare of both heart and soul.
And I knew that in my eventual frustration, God would take the brunt.

I was correct.

I did get mad and also very lost…
for about the next 8 years, I was lost unto myself.
I was on a inward downward spiral turning my back away slowly
from a life sustaining relationship…
And at times I didn’t even realize what I was swirling down into….
Yet it took what seemed a lifetime of getting myself back together.
Seeking and needing both healing and Grace.

It came, slowly, painfully and almost devastatingly ending… but come it blessedly did.
Life like an onion–layer upon layer of stripping away self destruction.
Known to no one but myself.

Fast forward to last Saturday.

I’d spent the day with Dad.
Helping the caregiver clean him, bodily functions no longer self controlled,
as he withered with pain at each turn, touch and move.
Seeing more of poor ol’ Dad to last a life time…
I administered the morphine.
He had asked my son to bring him the movie Hacksaw Ridge because he wanted to see
it before he died.
We all sat together watching it.
I readied to head home as I was feeling sick.
Not the kind of sick from catching a bug but rather
a deep down inside sick.
I left them to their movie.

I felt the hot stinging tears fighting for release before I merged onto the interstate.

I made my way over to my far left lane when the flood started.
On and off it ebbed and flowed for my 75 minute drive home.
Sorrow mingled with the melancholy of recalled memories.

But the difference between Saturday and that lone night 30 years ago…
Time.

Time filled with a continuation of both healing and Grace.
Gone is that youthful resentment and anger.
Replaced rather by a solemn resignation and acceptance of the inevitable.
But not in a negative defeatist sense…
rather with a sense of determination while standing
in the face of the storm and knowing I won’t succumb to the maelstrom and tumult.

Feeling shored up by something greater than myself.

It is the now the reality of the ‘is what it is’ of living and dying.

Does it make any of this any easier?
No.
It’s just a hard time.
Hard in a myriad of ways as there are many more involved that
require my attention, my decisions, my time, my words…
and there’s just not enough of me for all of the this and thats….

…and there are still those nagging ruptured discs, slowing me down.

Yet through all the tears and the stretching beyond imagine of this single self…
driving with the flow of the breakneck speeds, focusing on the road ahead
through swimming eyes, I feel a presence…not in some sort of otherworldliness…
but rather a steeliness that is silently yet relentlessly there…
ready to catch me when I finally let go, and fall—
because before it’s all said and done, I will fall…
There is this knowledge of a force which is allowing the heartbreak and overwhelming drowning
to flow,
all the while, being ready to steady me when the time finally comes.

And in that car on that late Saturday afternoon, I suddenly hear my own trembling voice…
uttering ancient words…
words of acknowledgement of the One to whom it is I cling….

“for you are my refuge, my portion…”

I cry to you, Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”
Psalm 142:5