The key to perseverance is keeping your eyes on the goal.
For every Christian, that goal lies just beyond the gates of death.
Our true citizenship is in the only place where we will truly feel at home:
Heaven.
Fr. J. Augustine Wetta, OSB
from his book Humility Rules
Thinking of the notion of home…I’ve thought back to a post I wrote back in 2013..
a post about a simple back door.
Here’s the link…
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Tell the world I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
Tell the world that I’m coming
I’m back where I belong, yeah I never felt so strong (yeah)
(I’m back baby)
I feel like there’s nothing that I can’t try
Skylar Grey
Veni, veni Emmanuel;
Captivum solve Israel,
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
Nascetur pro te, Israel!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that morns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel
(a woman worships in silence alone, in a small Florentine chapel in Florence, Italy /
Julie Cook / 2007)
(since this past Sunday marked the first Sunday in Advent,
and since we all know that time has not been on my side as of late…
I wanted to share a post regarding my most favorite of hymns—a hymn
that happens to be only sung during the season of Advent…)
Growing up in an Anglican, or more specifically an American Episcopal Church–
with my growing up happening to be taking place within a large
Gothic Cathedral to be more exact,
I was immersed at an early age with beautiful choral music and hymns.
Many of which boast of ancient roots and beginnings.
To hear and to feel the massive and beautiful organ deeply reverberating throughout
the massive stone cavernous church, as it engulfs one’s entire being–
accompanying the voices of the classically trained choir,
echoing and rising out from behind the chancel, was all short of magical.
It was the life and mystical wonder from a time when I was being formed as
a spiritual being.
I am very old fashioned when it comes to hymns and the music associated with
that of a Cathedral.
There is a solemnity and a reverence.
Just merely reading the lyrics of these hymns,
one is struck by the rich poetic history of the stories being told via
the use of ancient song.
There are a handful of hymns, to this day,
which tug upon my heart… bringing tears to my eyes each
opportunity I have to hear them.
Be that either as a member of a Sunday congregation or merely
gently singing to myself as I go about my day–
hymns that move my heart to a place of deep reflection–
an almost mystical reverence.
Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, the Latin version of O come O come, Emmanuel,
is one such hymn.
It is a hymn for the season of Advent, as that is the only time it is sung.
It’s roots are indeed ancient as some scholars date it (the Latin version)
to that of an 8th century Gregorian Chant.
Others date it to either the 12th or 15th century France as a
processional type of hymn.
Even others date it to as late as the 18th century as an antiphon or
type of sung liturgical response.
Sadly, I must confess that I don’t know a thing about music,
as I’ve never been trained or had an opportunity of singing in a choir.
I really can’t sing, but have always wished I could.
So as I explain the power of this particular hymn,
those of you who do understand music, please forgive me for I speak
from my heart about this music and not of classical study.
O come O come Emmanuel is sung slowly…
beginning quite low, being “sung” a cappella.
It can be accompanied by an organ or other single instrument.
Mannheim Steamroller, the wonderfully synthesizing modern music group,
who has produced marvelous holiday music based from many medieval songs,
has a beautiful rendition.
It is very reminiscent of the chants heard from various early Christian monasteries–
which is why I believe it does have it’s roots seeded in that of Gregorian Chants.
The cadence is steady and specific–there is power in the simplistic rhythm
of the 7 groups of stanzas which make up the full body of the text.
I understand the whole joyful noise business,
but I am of the serious school when it comes to worship.
The ancient hymns, that are more typical of a liturgical service,
speak of solemn serious worship–meditative and reflective,
which seems to rise up from one’s very core.
There is not that over the top emotionalism so often associated with
the prayer and praise musical services of today.
In this chant, as well as other similar types of hymns,
there is rather an acute awareness.
Tears will readily cascade down my cheeks even today when
I hear this most ancient of hymns.
Much of the early Church’s music, which has it’s roots in Medieval Europe,
speaks of wondrous mysteries of the world–words which spoke to those
who were apart of those “dark ages,”–as that was indeed a mysterious
time of both space and place.
Those people who were of such a different time than ours, did actually know
the things which we don’t seem to necessarily know today–just as we know things that they did not.
Much of our scientific world has solved many of their mysteries and problems.
While their musical worship was based deeply in a belief and faith that
was undefinable, full of questions, wonderment and awe…much of what we often lack today.
God and the understanding of Him, His Son and that of the Holy Spirit
was unfathomable–
That was something not easily or readily defined or put in a nice little
box of understanding.
Nor is it to this day.
Their music reflected such.
Mystery and awe.
This particular hymn / chant is serious, steady, determined, meaningful and lasting.
It strikes at something very deep.
It doesn’t get one worked up in a sweat induced, clap your hands and shout
to the heavens sort of deal, but rather it is almost spoken—
spoken as in a statement that is meant to make those who hear it contemplate
its very importance.
It is a hymn that is actually mournful and even heavy.
In part why it is one of the first hymns of Advent–a time of great expectation.
And with expectation comes questions.
It is a time of year that we, the faithful, approach with reverence and measure.
So why mournful and heavy you may ask…why now of all times should there be such
a heaviness as we enter the season of Advent only to followed by the joy of Christmas…
both of which, for the Church, marks a time of waiting and
expectant watching…and eventual joy.
For are we not anticipating a birth?
And is not the anticipation of a birth an event of great joy?
A time of joy, yes, and yet at the same moment, with this particular birth,
comes a deep heaviness as it is a birth marked with tremendous hardship–
only to be followed by the fleeing for safety and then again, a time of more waiting.
The very conception, waiting and birth stay constantly in the shadow of one thing
and that one thing is that of Death.
With this birth comes grave consequence for both me and you…
and yet, as with all births, there is tremendous Hope of what will be.
And as with the anticipation of any birth comes a sense of urgency.
The urgency here is of the coming of the one who is referred to as Emmanuel,
as it is He who is come to ransom the captive Israel,
which in turn refers to all of us today.
He is to come and is to set the captives free.
To free you and me from the prison of our sin and of our death.
As we mourn throughout our “exile” or separation from our Father.
The Immanuel, Hebrew עִמָּנוּאֵל, which has been Romanized to Emmanuel–
meaning God with Us, is invoked…rather meaning, He is to come,
coming to us all…but yet is acknowledged as already being here with us–
the Omnipotent one.
We sing to the God who is with us and yet who is to come,
and who is to come quickly.
We are then told to Rejoice,
Rejoice because He will come, as He has come and as He will come again.
On this first Tuesday in this new season of Advent,
may we all be mindful of our continual need for this Holy Coming–
of the One who will set free and make things right—
who will, in turn, free both you and me from the constant presence of
the shadow of Death—-
who will bridge the gap of separation, as this Emmanuel is the only one who
can and will and has done all of this!
So may we Rejoice and Rejoice continually as He shall come to us indeed—
Amen. Amen.
“Mark Twain was undecided whether to be more amused or annoyed when a
Journal representative informed him today of the report in New York that
he was dying in poverty in London …
The great humorist, while not perhaps very robust,
is in the best of health. He said:
‘I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about,
I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens,
a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London,
but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.’
the correct Twain quote concerning the rumors of his death / Metalfloss.com
(a growing mountain of boxes)
It’s been a long seven days…a week of exhaustion, confusion and frustration…
but not for reasons that many might be experiencing in this nation of ours…
I’m simply attempting to survive a major move.
And since I was coming up for a breath of air…I thought it would
be nice of me to let those of you who were interested, and those
of you who were merely curious, that I am still very much alive.
I may be on the other side of the state now, but I have managed
to get internet and even a television as of yesterday.
But life without a television this past week has been a blessing!
HA!
Lots to share, show and tell…but that will have to wait for now…
still very much busy with the tasks of unpacking, sorting and placing…
So stay tuned…
I’ll be back!
When I die, will they remember not
What I did, but what I haven’t done.
It’s not the end, that I fear with each breathe.
It’s life that scares me to death…
Lyrics Rise Against
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
Can’t you see (I’m gonna take a freight train) can’t you see
(I’m down at the station lord) what that woman (ain’t never gonna go back) been doin’ to me
Can’t you see oh can’t you see (gonna ride me the southbound)
(All the way to Georgia) what that woman (till the train run out of track) been doin’ to me
Marshal Tucker Band 1973
(from N-lightenment.com)
Ok, I’m diverging today entirely from any topic we’ve been riding lately.
Driving basically off the cliff and jumping the tracks of all subject matter.
No politics.
No debate observations.
No current civil unrest rants.
No religious tit for tat…
Something entirely off track.
That Marshal Tucker Band song up above, that I’ve allowed to open this post,
is from my youthful days of high school and it came racing to my mind
yesterday morning.
It came after I’d woken from the longest and oddest dream I think I can ever
remember having.
Now, remember I’ve been fighting the withdrawals from my HRT (hormone replacement therapy)
for almost 3 months.
There has been NO, I repeat, NO sleep worth mentioning in all that time—
only insomnia and rolling hot flashes on and on all night long.
I begged my doctor to do something.
Yes begged and pleaded actually…that’s how bad me not sleeping becomes.
Reluctantly she put me back on the HRT but it is a dose fit for a mere ant.
And an ant’s dose isn’t doing me any good.
So yes, me without any real consequential sleep is not pretty.
Just ask my long-suffering husband.
He now gets very little sleep as well because all I do is toss and turn and
kick off covers all night long.
So the night before last, I doubled the CBD oil dose (yes the doctor said she
hears it helps with hot flashes but I take it for IBS and no it is not
helping with the hot flashes) plus doubled my IBS meds.
And so I actually slept without fighting my hormonal self.
Maybe I had drugged myself…but I digress.
But in that sleep came that bizarre dream.
They say that dreams are actually quite brief but I swear this particular dream went
on all night.
Even when I’d groggily come to some sort of consciousness,
I’d quickly tell the dream part of my brain to let it keep playing out because
I wanted to see how it all ended.
I believe that dreams are a mixed bag.
I believe God can speak to us in our dreams.
I believe that the devil can speak to us in our dreams…which are more like nightmares
but again, I digress.
And I believe we can speak to ourselves in our dreams.
So this dream had a younger me and an old childhood friend galivanting about.
I’ve not seen this friend of mine in years so that was the first odd thing.
Plus we were more like our younger teenage selves.
Next, we ran into a former President and first lady.
Now that is really odd because I’ve not thought much of this presidential duo
in several years. A bit of a past president but not too long ago.
Think W and Laura…
And I usually don’t think that much about presidents, let alone first ladies.
There was a woman who I think was actually that first lady.
She was kind and soft-spoken.
In the dream, something bad had happened to her,
a terrible betrayal and I had known about it.
And I felt terrible for her.
Yet there was nothing I could have done to stop it as I realized the trauma when she had–
that being after the fact.
Yet I ached for her anyway.
I can remember looking at her and she looking at me—so I impulsively took her in my arms to
hug her and offer comfort.
Not that I’m a big hugger in real life, but I do hug those who I feel are in need.
People who hurt do need hugs, but overall I’m not touchy-feely.
However, it was the look on her face, the love in her eyes towards me,
and her embrace of me that was what got to me.
Now granted her face is not the face of the real first lady in question.
Dreams work that way…you think it’s a real person but the faces are
never quite what we actually know them to be.
I woke almost with tears in my eyes.
And then started ruminating.
And then the Marshal Tucker Band song just revved up, playing in my head.
And no, the CBD oil does not contain any THC!
This craziness is all me and me alone.
Now we all know that I’m adopted.
We all know how that crazy story played out as I’ve written at length about
being adopted and having learned the identity (sort of) of my birth parents
all these many years later— written just last year.
I know who my biological father was—and from everything I’ve heard, he was a
good and kind man.
My birth mother on the other hand, who is, yes, still living, has not been as kind.
She let her lawyer inform a social worker that I was in the past and that
was where I was to stay.
And I was like, ‘Ok, you’re what…84? and I’m almost 61??…so yeah,
I’ll just stay in that past.’
Paaaallleeeezzzze.
Anyway, I did come to a peace about all of that a while back…something I’d also written
about…so it’s good to have all this material to write about I suppose.
But what I knew from this dream was that something deep inside of me yearns for that
sort of love that I saw in that woman’s eye for me and felt in her embrace.
Something I’ve never seen or felt before.
Nope never.
A deep abiding, unconditional love of a mother to her child.
And all I know is that I wanted it…or shall we say, want it.
Yep, you read it— a 61-year-old sleep-deprived woman is pining for a mother’s love.
Go figure!?!
And yes, I’ve written about this before as well…my adopted mom and I,
before her premature death to cancer at 53, had had a fractious relationship while
I was growing up—especially when I was a teenager.
But I don’t know too many moms and daughters who delight in one another
during said teenage years…
We were much closer when she suddenly got sick and died prematurely.
As that angst-driven teen, I was headstrong, stubborn, and detached from both my mom and my family.
Our family was a dysfunctional hot mess and I resented every minute of it.
I’ve written about that too…
all about my brother’s mental illness and his inability to cope
with his having been adopted…and thankfully we were not biologically related.
So you would think I’d quit having these random, out of the blue, type dreams…
but nooooooo.
And no I don’t need therapy.
I have been prayed over long ago for healing and healing came.
But to still want that sort of love is not to simply be dismissed
or even purged.
There’s something there and it keeps knocking
at a deep door in my being.
It’s a good thing to want love and to be loved.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of that running around this country of ours these days.
So maybe that’s it.
God is bringing the idea of unconditional love to the forefront of my thoughts
because we are all living knee-deep in divisive hate.
And no, that is NOT the fault of the sitting president…it is
the fault of every human being who is ranting and raving these days.
So yes, I still yearn for that embrace.
Just as I still yearn to see that look of love in some unknown mother’s eye.
And I suspect, one day…I will both see and feel that look and that embrace…
So here’s to love.
Ture abiding love…
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
An odd thing happened two nights ago.
Now you need to remember that I was taken off my HRT (hormone replacement therapy)
about 7 weeks ago.
Hormones, I’d been on nearly 30 years.
Sleep has never been great, but take away the hormones and things immediately went
from bad to really really bad in literally a single night’s time.
However two nights ago, despite battling the need to breathe while living
with a sinus infection along with poison ivy, I was actually asleep.
How do I know?
I was flat on my back.
I’m usually a side to stomach sleeper yet at some point or other,
when I’m really asleep, asleep—
I’m always mysteriously flat on my back.
At 1:30 in the morning, I became aware that I was itching.
Groggily I started scratching at my poison ivy now spreading across my torso.
Suddenly in my head, I was hearing a song that I know I had not heard playing that day
as some sort of background music in a store.
Clear as day, playing lyrically in my head.
It was a song I’ve always liked..a 90’s sort of song…Why I’ve always liked it,
I don’t know, but it has always made me feel a bit heavy-hearted and melancholy.
Again, I’m not sure as to why.
Although it’s an older song, it seems to still be quite relevant.
Rousing my brain to full awake mode, I opted to get up and head into the bathroom
in order to slather on some more anti-itch medicine— all the
while that song kept ringing in my head…
“And the same black line that was drawn on you
Was drawn on me
And now it’s drawn me in…”
I crawled back into bed now restless as my thoughts were racing.
All the while still itching and listening to non-existent music playing.
Why was this song stuck in my head—especially when I was good and asleep??
The following morning, after grabbing my coffee, I googled the song.
According to Wikipedia , The lyrics are based on Dylan’s (Jakob Dylan)
own experiences while living in New York City, in particular, the story of a homeless man
who would sit outside Dylan’s window and play the same songs every day.
One day, the man was gone, but his things were still there,
until gradually people started taking them.
Well, that seemed to make it all feel even worse…doubly more sad than before.
So I kept digging a bit further.
What did the Bible have to say about a black line??
As I kept looking, I was constantly being redirected to the mark of Cain.
Hummmm.
Remember, being raised a poor illiterate Episcoplain kid, the breadth and depth
of Bible study was never my forte.
But I was now intrigued.
I knew Cain and Abel…really the very first tale of humankind’s lowest moments.
Or actually, that might have been their parents…but either way, we humans weren’t off
to the best of starts.
Choice…we never seem to have mastered choice…but I digress.
Why would God want me to think about all of this at 1:30 in the morning?
I know, I know…time to God is irrelevant but to a woman who hardly ever has deep
sleep, as in REM, I was just a tad frustrated.
There were (are) a lot of articles on the web about the mark of Cain
and many of them have some sort of racist connotation.
Naturally…it always goes back to race.
It seems race has been with us since the beginning of time and we still don’t know how to
deal with it—- gees…!
But again, I digress.
So after reading, I managed to find an interesting article on Bibleodyssey.com
written by Eva Mroxzek, an assistant professor of Jewish studies at Indiana University.
She hit on the whole good mark, bad mark thinking…
Cain killed his brother and God marked him for life.
The question…was or is…. was or is the mark a mark of shame or a mark of protection?
Was it leprosy?
A ‘keep your distance’ sort of mark?
Did God turn his skin a darker color?
Did God have a horn grow out of Cain’s head?
Did it have to do with circumcision?
Did God give Cain a dog?
Huh???
Did God have mercy on Cain and forgive him for having killed his brother…the first
recorded murder in human history only to followed by the greatest act of forgiveness??
But wait…was that the greatest act of forgiveness or was that actually
during Good Friday…
digressing again…
So, was the mark a mark of forgiveness…
On and on the so-called wise ones have debated this issue for eons.
And yet oddly here it comes visiting me at 1:30 in the morning by way of a 1996 song.
Ms, Mroczek notes at the end of her article… “But the most striking interpretations rely on a later meaning of the Hebrew word oth:
a letter of the alphabet.
A midrashic text suggests that God inscribed a letter on Cain’s arm as a mark of protection
(Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 21).
Thus, the mark of Cain becomes a sacred sign.
In another midrash (Tanhuma Genesis 10),
it is the word Sabbath that is inscribed on Cain’s face—after the personified Sabbath day
itself begged God to forgive Cain’s sin.
And a targum—an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures—
identifies the mark as the holiest sign of all: God inscribes on Cain
“the great and honorable name of the LORD,” namely the tetragrammaton,
the four-letter name of God (YHWH).
Why the song?
Why the direction toward Cain?
And is this a message of foreboding or passage of forgiveness.
I’ll let you know what happens when the next hot flash rouses me from
what little precious sleep there is…I’m sure God will have His say…
I just wish I was wise enough to figure out where He was taking me.
But if I knew that…there’d be so many answers to so many questions…
Heartbreak does seem to be happeing on all sorts of 6th Avenues across this Nation…
Sirens ring, the shots ring out
A stranger cries, screams out loud
I had my world strapped against my back
I held my hands, never knew how to act
And the same black line that was drawn on you
Was drawn on me
And now it’s drawn me in
6th Avenue heartache
Below me was a homeless man
I’m singin’ songs I knew complete
On the steps alone, his guitar in hand
It’s fifty years, stood where he stands
Now walkin’ home on those streets
The river winds move my feet
Subway steam, like silhouettes in dreams
They stood by me, just like moonbeams
Look out the window, down upon that street
And gone like a midnight was that man
But I see his six strings laid against that wall
And all his things, they all look so small
I got my fingers crossed on a shooting star
Just like me just moved on
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
Song Lyrics, Robin and Barry Gibbs (the Bee Gees)
(The Mayor itching to get in the rain / Julie Cook / 2020)
These are pictures of The Mayor itching to get out into the rain
What is it that draws kids to the water…itching to get out into the rain???
Well, we had to take the Mayor back home yesterday and naturally, it broke my heart.
It always breaks my heart to take her home.
She was adamant that she did not want to go home.
I suspect that it had a great deal to do with the fact that she did not
want to go home because she knew that the new daycare was in her future, once again.
Funny that a 2 and half-year-old knows what the cards have in store.
And naturally, it breaks my heart that I can’t just keep her 24/7.
I can’t tell you how much I love those kids–The Mayor and her brother, the Sheriff.
And so I think about how much we love our children and our grandchildren…
and yet I think about what just happened in Georgia–
The Georgia House bill—the Abortion Bill 481–aka the Georgia Heartbeat bill,
was unsurprisingly ruled unconstitutionally this week.
A heartbreaking ruling…
Children are our future, our hope, our love…not some sort of commodity that can
easily tossed aside on some sort of whim…
There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Proverbs 6:16-19
Faith is a force, one so powerful that it cannot tolerate anything next to it.
How weak in faith we are: we are constantly letting things outside of God take up space in us!
Adrienne von Speyr
from Lumina and New Lumina
(a meme sent by a friend)
This meme pretty much sums up our collective year thus far…
as in 2020 probably won’t be the year you’ll want to invest in that special case of wine
to save for a momentous occasion on down the road.
The way things are going, there may be no more momentous occasions and
there may be no more roads…just saying.
So yeah, 2020…NOT, a very good year.
My husband and I basically quit watching the news almost two weeks ago.
It had gotten to such a depressing point.
Leaving us feeling helpless, frustrated, and downright mad.
Our leadership is abysmal—plain and simple.
They’ve not been able to handle a pandemic and Lord knows they
are not handling this cultural civil war worth a flip.
Arrogance, infighting, ignorance, hatred…you name it.
I do believe the President is truly trying to cull the madness but
the opposition, along with some of his own party, are making all things
impossible.
I feel like a person who’s been cut adrift in a raft,
drifting helplessly out to sea.
I imagine I am not alone.
I could write on and on about Antifa or Black Lives Matters, both
Marxist organizations bent on violence as an end means at any cost.
I could write about a society that wants handouts rather than hands up.
I could write about the never-ending demands for abortions and the deaths
of babies aborted who actually live– those so-called late-term abortions
that are gone awry.
I could write about a sexually confused swarth of society that
no longer believes in biology.
I could write about the lunacy over the “defund the police” movement…
as that is plain idiocy run amuck.
I could write about the destruction of monuments, statues, buildings,
churches, synagogues all because of a white European legacy…
all of which is simply stupid.
I could wirte about the capitulation by Church leadership
bending to the whims of a progressive culture that takes
no prisoners.
You either get on board or you get destroyed.
I could write about a culture that will strike you dead for
disagreeing with their rabid ideals.
I could write about being woke…or is that arrogantly ignorant?
I could write about violence, hatred, anger and zero civility.
I could write about the emotionalism found in a younger generation who
feels compelled to kneel against a flag and anthem of which is simply
misguided and historically ignorant.
I could write about a pandemic that has crippled a global economy
while leaving those in the know scratching their heads.
But I won’t.
I won’t belabor what the sane amongst us already know.
About 7 years ago, when our son was engaged to be married, I decided,
as the mother of the groom, I needed to get myself into some kind of
presentable shape.
My husband had bought me an elliptical machine for Valentines…a truly heart-healthy
gift…and so I decided I needed to get serious about using it.
I would spend between 30 to 60 minutes daily pushing, pulling and trucking
myself to nowhere all in the confines of our basement.
Sweating like a pig in the process.
After about two weeks I could actually feel a difference in my legs and ‘behind’.
A good difference.
My shorts fit better.
That was then…no so right now but I digress.
When I’d “workout”, I played music to help me push through the pain and strain.
One of the peppier songs was ‘Can’t Hold Us’ by Macklemore.
I didn’t really know all the lyrics…if I had, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it
but the beat was great when one was pumping one’s arms while practically running uphill
via a machine.
I still recall one part of the song that still resonates in my head…
Can we go back?
This is the moment
Tonight is the night, we’ll fight ’til it’s over
So we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us
Like the ceiling can’t hold us
And so yes—
“This is indeed the moment”
All week long I’ve waxed and waned about the notion of discovering one’s true calling.
I’ve written about the differences between a vocation versus a job.
I’ve written about the curse of the repetition of history.
I’ve written about a world gone simply mad.
I’ve written about being lost while longing to be found.
But the one thing I do know, and know most clearly, it that
this is the time for those who call themselves Christians to stand up and stand firm.
You have not been called to be timid.
Those who waffle will fall.
Those who prefer appeasment will be dismayed.
Those who yield to the world will be damned.
It is the one thing that I know more clearly than anything else.
God has called us to be resolute.
This is our Spiritual call to arms.
Accepting a rewritten version of God’s word is unacceptable for a follower of Christ.
Condoning death as a viable and convenient option rather than choosing life is a sin.
Marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman, end of sentence.
Denying Christ before the vile and violent mob, kneeling before the world might
spare your earthly life but it will not find you seated by Christ’s right hand.
Enough is now enough.
God has given us a voice.
It’s time we use it.
They can kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul.
Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah 58:1
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
Lyrics by Paula Cole
I was in a bit of a daze, lost deep in my thoughts as I pushed my
shopping cart up and down the aisles of the grocery store.
A familiar song, that was playing over the store’s intercom system, pierced
my melancholy mood with a bolt of searing heat.
Suddenly I was very conscious of my attempting to blink back stinging tears.
“I don’t want to wait…for our lives to be over…”
And just as suddenly, I had to stop myself from shouting it out loud, lest everyone look at
me like some sort of nut was now loose on the cereal aisle.
NO!
No, I don’t want to wait.
I’ve already waited for 60 years.
And in many ways, it is too late.
Most of you probably recall my recent posts regarding my quest to find my birth mother
along with how that abruptly ended via the response of an attorney to a social worker.
“You are in the past, and the past is where you will remain…”
However, biology teaches us that there are two parents involved in the
making of a baby.
A mother ‘and’ a father.
Yes, yes, I know… we are living in odd times when the father may simply
come frozen via a sperm bank…but nonetheless—there is a female and a male involved.
And to me, that female remains the biological mother and that male, the biological father.
The door was obviously gut punched shut regarding my birth mother but the social worker
followed that slamming of a door with a question… “would you like for us to now search for your father?”
Now let’s back up this story a tad.
You may remember me telling you how, at the first of the year, I opted to
participate in the growing DNA puzzle quest…23 & Me
And thus searching for my past, I sent in a vile of spit.
But if the truth be told, that was in part because my doctor suggested that I do so
in order to learn some of my medical history.
Odd things continue creeping up and my doctor didn’t want my son and grandchildren to
have the same sort of out of the blue surprises.
Once the specific DNA company sends you your breakdown, as part of the information
you receive, DNA matches are automatically shared.
And it just so happened that there was a very strong DNA match with a person
who was marked as a first cousin.
Out of the tens of thousands of “relatives”, I had but one close relative match
and that was of a first cousin.
As more tests continue being processed, more matches come your way.
And nearly 6 months after the fact, I still have but one close match.
There is a messaging option on the DNA site so when I saw the numerical link,
knowing this might be my only opening for some sort of answers,
I immediately knee jerked and excitedly reached out to this man.
His smile in the provided thumbnail picture was warm and genuine.
I explained who I was and provided an abbreviated version of my story of adoption,
an adoption of which eventually lead me to look for answers in a DNA test.
I’m sure it is no doubt a surreal feeling to find sitting in one’s inbox
a new and unknown relative has, out of the blue, reached out.
But I was fortunate—he messaged me back.
We exchanged e-mails and began corresponding.
I shared the redacted information from my original adoption file
regarding my birth father and he shared his family’s history.
I told him my father was…
28 years old
A Lt. in a southern state’s State’s patrol
Romantically involved with a 23 yr old nurse in Georgia…
He later shared this story with his two brothers.
Following a few days, he emailed back that both his dad and his dad’s cousin were
28 in 1959 and were lieutenants in their state’s State Patrol…
but that it was the cousin who had dated a nurse in Georgia.
And given our DNA percentage as only cousins and not high enough to be siblings,
he was pretty certain, the cousin was my father.
Sadly both men are now deceased.
There is, however, a daughter, now grown and two years younger than myself.
This cousin of mine has now encouraged her to do the DNA testing.
So when the social worker had asked about searching for my biological father,
I had shared with her about the DNA testing and the connection with this cousin.
She asked if I had a last name.
I did.
Yet the surreal thing throughout all of this process has been the fact that my complete file,
a file full of all the answers to all my questions,
has been sitting right in front of this social worker all along— a person who knows
the names, the states and the dates to my entire life but due to the laws, she
can not share a word.
It’s as if I’m telling her everything she already knows…things I’ve labored and toiled
over discovering yet information that is readily sitting in a dusty old file on the desk
of the person I find myself spilling my guts to.
Well… she called yesterday.
“Julie, do you have a few minutes?”
She begins by telling me that since her office has determined that my birth father is deceased,
they could release his name…
of which she did…
and he is indeed the state patrol cousin.
This story is obviously fluid and on-going.
I have once again reached out to “my cousin” with
this latest information.
I now wait as both he and his family must process this information…
There is a half-sister who must decide whether or not she is ready for
a half-sister she never knew existed.
How they will respond is yet to be determined.
One half of my life’s puzzle is now known.
Yet, I wonder if this will be welcomed news to this unsuspecting family
or will it be just too much?
I went from feeling a euphoric sense of joy following the news the social worker shared
to that of a guarded sense of trepidation.
And in all of this, the irony came flooding over the intercom system of
a grocery store with its choice of song.
And I couldn’t help but notice…
So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the peace in every eye
She had two babies, one was six months, one was three
In the war of ’44
Every telephone ring, every heartbeat stinging
When she thought it was God calling her
Oh, would her son grow to know his father?
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
He showed up all wet on the rainy front step
Wearing shrapnel in his skin
And the war he saw lives inside him still
It’s so hard to be gentle and warm
The years pass by and now he has granddaughters
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
You look at me from across the room
You’re wearing your anguish again
Believe me I know the feeling
It sucks you into the jaws of anger
So breathe a little more deeply my love
All we have is this very moment
And I don’t want to do what his father
And his father, and his father did
I want to be here now
So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the love in every eye
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
Paula Cole
Listen to your heart when he’s calling for you
Listen to your heart there’s nothing else you can do
Lyrics to Listen to Your Heart by Roxette
The heartbeat…the rhythm of life…or….when it stops without restarting,
becomes an ending…an ending that results in death.
The stopping of the heart is the sole signal to all present that life has passed from
that of the brief to that of the unending.
And so why might it be important that doctors tell us that a baby in the womb,
a fetus’s heartbeat, can be detected by six weeks old?
Would that mean that life, life as we know it, begins at a mere six weeks following inception?
Just a month and two weeks old inside the womb, a baby’s heart beats on its own.
Making this being a separate entity from that of the mother.
Two as one and one as two…
For centuries prior to modern medical technology, those in the know, be it
physicians or priests would be the official determiners of the passing of a life—
They had the final say as to whether or not there was a detected heartbeat.
Much like the attending physician or the coroner today—
they are the ones who sign off on the official death certificates, they were and remain,
in essence, the harbingers of death.
The notion of a heartbeat determining life dates back for centuries…
going back to the ages long before the birth of Christ.
Gilgamesh, the hero-king in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh uttered the following lament on
the death of his best friend in 2600 BC:
“I touch his heart but it does not beat at all.”
Gilgamesh, c. 2600 BC
The passage is thought to be the earliest reference to pulse-taking indicating that,
as early as 2600 years BC, man understood that the heart beats and can be palpated.
The National Library of Medicine
Be it ancient Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt, man appears to have long understood the correlation
between the beating of a heart and that of life:
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the idea of a heartbeat is to be a deciding
factor in regards to a baby in the womb…a heartbeat determining whether or not the unborn
baby is truly a living entity vs that of a simple mishmash of cells and fluid.
Georgia’s House Bill 481, which would ban abortions once a doctor can detect a
heartbeat in the fetus, was put to a vote Thursday evening.
The bill passed… but not without issue.
WSB news reported that:
“In a remarkable show of defiance, House Democrats turned their backs on the Acworth lawmaker
sponsoring the so-called heartbeat bill before it was introduced.”
Acworth lawmaker Ed Setzler did continue,
explaining why he believes Georgia should ban abortion after six weeks, instead of 20 weeks,
as under current law.
“It seeks to recognize that the child in the womb that is living distinct from their mother
has a right of life that is worthy of protection,” Seltzer said.
But even as Setzler spoke, some Democrats walked off the floor.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the response of some Democratic members…
“This is what women will be relegated to,” said state Rep. Park Cannon
outside the House chamber.
The Atlanta Democrat held a hanger with the names of Republican supporters
of the bill, hinting at the tool some women used to end their pregnancies
before abortion was legal in the country.
AJC
Today there have been growing protests outside of the state capital with more defiance planned as
opponents and Democrats have pledged to rally in order to fight this bill before
the Governor signs it into law.
My question, because I honestly don’t understand, is why do a majority of Republicans
and Conservatives believe in life while a majority of Democrats and
Progressive Liberals believe in death?
A heartbeat is the telling sign of life.
Why then would anyone argue otherwise?
May we as a Nation choose life…
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my
portion forever.
Psalm 73:26
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