time keeps on slipping into the future…

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future

Lyrics by Steven Haworth Miller


(Fire in Rome by Hubert Robert, 1778 / MuMa – Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre, France)

In 64 AD, Rome burned.
And supposedly the Emporer Nero fiddled with abandoned glee.

Now whether or not there was any fiddling on a fiddle taking place, there was no doubt
some fiddling of the facts taking place.

Once the fire had been contained and finally extinguished,
over two-thirds of the city lay in ruins.

The Emperor blamed the Christians.
That subversive religious “cult.”

However, historians actually believe that Nero himself had the fires set because he wanted
to create a grandiose “golden house” that would be a massive endeavor, a tribute
to his reign, and cover an expansive portion of Rome…
so long story short, Nero needed the space.

As the ever gracious Emperor, he immediately began offering food and aid to the
masses of his people whose lives were now decimated.

How kind.

Fast forward to Berlin, 1933.

The German Chancellory, The Reichstag…the home to the German Parliament, burns.
Hitler blames a known Communist sympathizer, however historians are in agreement,
Hitler had the Reichstag burned.


(Burning of the Reichstag 1933, Berlin, Germany)

The burning was the excuse Hitler needed in order to round up all the Communists,
allowing his Nazi party to finally fill in the gap;
the party could take the majority of seats in parliament, and in turn,
take control of the Nation.

How convenient.

Fast forward to 2020.

There is a pandemic along with a quarentine lockdown.

The Speaker of the House brags, while standing in front of her expensive subzero
refidgerators / freezers, that she is ‘enduring’ the lockdown with top shelf ice cream…
all the while small businesses are told they must shutter their livlihood or else.
Houses of worship are closed.

Civil unrest breaks out.

Cities are burned.

Businesses are destroyed.

Lives and livihoods are left in shambles.

Throw in a contentious election with a deeply divided Nation.

The conservative republicans, in particular those “MAGA” supporters,
those who support the President, are the ones who the progressive left
blame for all the woe…

Is there some sort of pattern here, or am I just imagining things…

Ode to the power of the power hungry…

“Therefore their way will be like slippery paths to them,
They will be driven away into the gloom and fall down in it;
For I will bring calamity upon them,
The year of their punishment,” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:12

call me a rebel working with the saints

“I rebel; therefore I exist.”
Albert Camus

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel,
and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

George Orwell, 1984


(James Dean, from Rebel Without a Cause)

I read a great post yesterday over on Mel Wild’s site, In My Father’s House, and wanted to share.
It was posted on Halloween and Mel notes that since it was Halloween, ‘why not share our
favorite horror story of 2020—COVID 19 lockdowns.’

I want to share his words because, despite our current election diversion, we may have
missed the fact that most of Europe is currently going back under pandemic lockdowns.
And given the results of our election come Tuesday, we might be headed back down the same
dismal path.

But we are being told that it is all in the name of science you know.
But what is that science really?

So is it a bad thing to want to stop the spread of a pandemic?

Of course not… but the trouble that is found in this train of thinking, which is
supposedly based on “expert recommendations”, is that we must examine who
these experts are, we must determine who they work for and we must exhaust all
our options rather than jump straight to putting the final nail in the coffin.

Despite my rule-following, conservative, law-abiding demeanor, I have been known to harbor
a bit of a rebellious thread.

So when “the” government and the powers that ‘want to be’ are clamoring that we must
suppress the people in order to suppress a virus, I begin to wonder what is
the real angle…
what is the drive to this suppression?

So I find Mel’s post quite enlightening.
Mel bases this latest post on the words of Thomas Woods,
Senior Fellow at Mises Institute and New York Times bestselling author of 12 books.

Mel states that…as Woods put it recently,
the COVID shutdowns around the world have proven that the cure is actually worse than the problem
in more ways than one, which of course is a controversial thing to say,
but it’s hard to argue with the evidence.
I personally have been frustrated by the continued politicization of lockdowns in the name
of preventing the spread of the virus.
On that note, here’s a recent email Woods sent out about how these lockdowns
have failed to stop the virus around the world.
(Trigger warning: Woods’s views are quite libertarian and not politically correct!):

“With Massachusetts seeing a rise in “cases,”
I saw someone on Twitter lamenting that he and his fellow Massachusetts residents
had “dropped the ball.”

Notice that this person cannot admit that the voodoo doesn’t work.
It’s always because the peasants didn’t comply enough.

If you stupid people would just obey us, this thing would go away!

I understand why progressives might be attracted to this way of thinking:

(1) They hold a superstitious belief in the powers of the state —
so if the state says it can wipe out a virus, who’s to say it can’t?

(2) It involves “experts” dictating to the stupid rubes,
which is their preferred model of governance.

(3) It allows them to ridicule the working-class people they despise — why,
if only these backward hicks would “follow the science,” we’d be out of this thing already!

But let’s face facts:

Lockdowns only delay the inevitable, and they leave wreckage in their wake.
(And forget about masks: as I’ve shown before,
mask mandates have no discernible effect on the spread of the virus.
If they were as effective as people say — e.g.,
if we’d just wear masks for six weeks, we’d be out of this! —
there should be some obvious effect on the charts, but there just isn’t.
Believe me, I wish masks could solve the problem so I could get the rest of my life back.)

And what is the point of indefinitely depriving ourselves of what makes life worth living,
so we can live in an antisocial dystopia?
What are we staying alive for then?
So we can sit at home and stare at the wall?

There are other concerns in the world apart from COVID-19.
Incredible that this should have to be said.

Even some of the elderly are starting to say:
I’m at the end of my life, and you want me to spend my final months and years
like a vegetable?
What’s the point?

Meanwhile, vastly more deaths are being caused elsewhere by the policy.
Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta just published a column in the Daily Mail arguing that
the response to the virus has been worse than the virus itself.

Even the New York Times noted that excess deaths from TB, HIV, and malaria
caused as a direct result of the lockdowns will exceed two million.

I could go on and on about the collateral deaths,
but I’m probably sounding like a broken record by now.

As Professor Gupta puts it, “Lockdown is a luxury of the affluent;
something that can be afforded only in wealthy countries —
and even then, only by the better-off households in those countries.”

By the way, Prof. Gupta describes her politics as “left-wing,”
and is aghast that people think she’s part of a right-wing conspiracy
because she opposes barbaric lockdowns.

Mel finishes out his post with these words:
As we observe a day that celebrates fear,
let’s think about how we’ve been continually indoctrinated by the politically-motivated
fearmongers during this pandemic in an election year.
Let’s think for ourselves and do own research.
Again, let’s be safe and use common sense with regard to protecting our vulnerable,
but let’s also not give into fear and stop living our lives.
We need to safely open up our country and get back to living again.

Here is the link to the full post–Mel includes a video of Thomas Wood
addressing this concern

https://melwild.wordpress.com/2020/10/31/halloween-covid-dystopia/

And since today is All Saints Day, I am reminded of those souls who have
gone before us–those who we proclaim as saints—
They are saints because in actuality they were rebels.
They fought the status quo, tyrannical powers, and heresies
all in the name of God, fighting His good fight and giving their lives
by speaking Truth when Truth was unacceptable.
They lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew…
and may God help us to be one too…

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God
words by Lesbia Scott 1929

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

2 They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and God’s love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,
the whole of their good lives long.

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.

3 They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still;
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.

‘patches of Godlight’

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could
never get from reading books on astronomy.
These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’
in the woods of our experience.”

C.S. Lewis


(shelf fungus oddly existing on the dry red dirt of Georgia / Julie Cook / 2020)

I think we need to go to the woods.
Why?
Because we need a diversion from ourselves.

I am oh so weary from the vitriol and hatred that is eclipsing our senses.

We need to be reminded that we are truly small and that there is a world out there that is
actually much greater than ourselves.

We actually need to be put back in the food chain in order to grasp
the bigger picture—-
however sadly, we tend to run in the realm of human predation…so what can I say.

Let’s get out of our cities, our lockdowns, our narrowmindedness.
Let’s get out from under the bickering and hatred racing around our lives.
Let’s go to the woods…

But before we actually get into the woods, we’ve got to park the truck.
We’ve got to start walking…
and here’s what we see before we even get into the woods…

We see a lone downy turkey feather covered in the morning dew…


(turkey feather covered in dew / Julie Cook / 2020)


(detail of turkey feather covered in dew / Julie Cook / 2020)

Before we venture much further, before we leave the rutted red dusty path and diverge
into the thick stand of trees and vines, we see a carpet of dew-covered netted webs…


(a spider web covered in the dew / Julie Cook / 2020)


(detail of dew covering a spider web/ Julie Cook / 2020)

More tomorrow when we finally venture readily and willingly deep into another world…

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

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