“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Mark Twain
“If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice,
forgive him—lest there be two bad men.”
St. Augustine
(a healing view in NC/ Julie Cook / 2022)
I know there are a great number of questions regarding the sudden and now
lengthy absence of this blogger.
Some of you know the answers, some of you do not.
However for the sake of all involved…for this particular day,
I’ll simply stick with Mark Twain…
I am not dead.
I will say however that it has often felt like a thousand deaths over these
past many months.
In a nutshell life, my life, has turned upside down and
I will simply leave it at that.
What I would like for us all to remember however is that being turned upside down
is truly not an uncommon occurrence in the fabric of our humanness.
Most all of us, at some point or other, will experience a life that
often flips and flops.
Yet what we all need to remember is that the flipping and flopping isn’t the true nor
real story found in the turmoil…
The actual true grit of the matter is found in how we manage
through all the flipping and flopping.
I’ll just say that my family’s dynamics have changed.
No details are necessary…just the knowledge of flux and change is sufficient.
There has been both sorrow and anger.
Upheaval and tumult.
Pain and suffering.
Frustration and maybe…just maybe I can feel a bit of resolve.
So within all of the flipping and flopping, I have moved to a new state.
I am mending as I pick up my scattered pieces.
When one is attempting to put one’s life back together…routine becomes important.
And so I look forward to resuming my time spent here…a once cherished routine.
I want to be here with you—my blogging family and friends.
So with all that being said, it’s time we get reacquainted.
Please know I have missed you all.
“My God, you know infinitely better than I how little I love you.
I would not love you at all except for your grace.
It is your grace that has opened the eyes of my mind and enabled them to see your glory.
It is your grace that has touched my heart and brought upon it the influence of what is so wonderfully beautiful and fair…
O my God, whatever is nearer to me than you, things of this earth,
and things more naturally pleasing to me,
will be sure to interrupt the sight of you, unless your grace interferes.
Keep my eyes, my ears, my heart from any such miserable tyranny.
Break my bonds—raise my heart. Keep my whole being fixed on you.
Let me never lose sight of you; and, while I gaze on you,
let my love of you grow more and more everyday.”
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, p. 44-45
“By beginning a diary, I was already conceding that life would be more bearable
if I looked at it as an adventure and a tale.
I was telling myself the story of a life,
and this transmutes into an adventure the things which can shatter you.”
Anaïs Nin
(the Mayor having afternoon snack on day 1 of isolation / Julie Cook / 2020)
Captain’s log:
It is now day two of the nationally imposed isolation of social distancing…
aka, stuck in the house with the ones you love…
Question: When stuck in the house with the ones you love for upwards of two weeks
or dare they say, even longer…
how long will they remain the ones you love?
“We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness
of other people, and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit
of compassion which is truly the spirit of God.”
St. Vincent de Paul
(The Sheriff slumbers / Julie Cook / 2019)
(The Mayor profiling / Julie Cok / 2019)
Firstly…The picture of the Sheriff above is when his parents bring him to me before they
leave for work.
This is a pre-sickness shot.
I will usually put him in my bed and let him wake on his own time since this week he
was free from the dreaded daycare while in recovery mode.
So after visiting the Pediatrician yesterday, it appears that the Sheriff has basically
the croupy crud—
of which she believes he got when he went to the hospital on Friday for surgery.
Don’t you love going to a hospital well, relatively, and coming out like Typhoid Mary?
There’s not much to do but wait it out.
And that’s hard when it comes to babies.
When they are miserable and we, those entrusted with their care and well being,
are helpless to make things all better, we grow anxious,
worried and agitated…and quite miserable ourselves.
Moments, such as feeling helpless while watching the innocent suffer,
most often envoke a bit of ire with our Creator—if not sheer anger.
In other words, we get mad at God.
We get mad over all sorts of things but when it comes to watching our little loved ones suffer,
things can get out of hand frighteningly fast.
I know I felt it when our son was a baby and was sick and had surgery at 3 months.
Just as I know my son and daughter-n-law feel much the same now with the Sheriff…
as well as with the Mayor.
Throw in exhaustion as you sit holding a baby who can’t breathe, and coughs nearly continuously,
upright all night…
and you, my friend, have a toxic breeding ground for damaging negative emotions…
Of which set up a hard barrier between our Heavenly Father and ourselves.
It is at such moments when we lose the blessings He wants to offer because we
have essentially turned our backs.
And so after reading the day’s two quotes, I found them rather appropriate for just those
very moments…the moments when we find ourselves questioning what we don’t know or
understand regarding our God…which mind you can be so very vast.
But it is at such times that we must cling to what we do know.
Questions are always fine…but questions mixed with anger and resentment are spiritually
debilitating.
May we continue, as children, to learn trust while reaching our hand out to a loving Father who
longs to hold that outstretched hand.
(silly faces before we both got sick / Julie Cook / 2019)
“When uncertain about God’s will, it is very important that we tell ourselves:
‘Even if there are aspects of God’s will that escape me, there are always others that
I know for sure and can invest in without any risk, knowing that this investment always pays dividends.’
These certainties include fulfilling the duties of our state in life and practicing the
essential points of every Christian vocation.
There is a defect here that needs to be recognized and avoided: finding ourselves in darkness
about God’s will on an important question…
we spend so much time searching and doubting or getting discouraged,
that we neglect things that are God’s will for us every day, like being faithful to prayer,
maintaining trust in God, loving the people around us here and now.
Lacking answers about the future, we should prepare to receive them by living today to the full.”
Fr. Jacques Philippe, p. 55
An Excerpt From
Interior Freedom
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
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
(DNA test kit from 23 and Me)
To spit or not to spit, that is the question…
Or actually, it was my question.
I initially had a different post I wanted to offer today, but I caught a story on the news the
other evening that preempted my plan.
About a week or so ago I wrote a couple of posts referencing the Governor of Virginia,
Ralph Northam’s notion that legislation should be created allowing third-term abortions.
I won’t rehash all of that with you but if you’re interested, you can find those links here:
And yet the irony in this is that the Governor’s potential questionable “racist” past has now
all but smothered his comments and views on third term abortion.
An observation that leaves me more than troubled with our culture’s priorities.
And whereas the Governor has since backed off from his initial wording used during
that fateful interview…it matters not…because more and more states are showing a keen
interest in such an “allowance.”
So lets back up a tad…
I am adopted.
Many of you already know this little fact.
I’ve written about it and shared tales about such since the inception of this little
blog of mine…
so this post is not so much about that…and yet partially…it actually is.
About two weeks back, a fellow blogger shared with me the fact that she had been adopted
as a baby.
She is a wife and mother as well as a wise Christian warrior here in blogville.
I shared with her the fact that I was adopted as well.
She continued her tale…
She shared the fact that she had found her birth mother.
It was somewhat by happenstance.
Her young sons were showing a deep interest in wanting to learn their family’s genealogy…
but my friend knew that her “tree” was rather incomplete.
She didn’t know her “true” heritage…
Her tree, like mine, was dormant.
So she really had nothing she could concretely share with her boys.
Let alone the importance of knowing their family’s true medical history.
And so my friend explained that she bought one of those DNA kits that are so popular
right now.
She decided it was high time to learn about her “real” roots.
Once receiving her results, alerts began coming her way.
The alerts were from folks “out there” who had some sort of genetic connection with her…
as in being related.
Alerts that one may opt to connect with or not.
My friend was now piecing her puzzle together slowly one piece at a time.
And one of those alerts, it turned out, was a person who my friend had the gut feeling
was actually her birth mom.
Through correspondence, her birth mother shared that she had always prayed for her
unknown daughter…praying that she would be raised up as a Christian…
of which she was.
A prayer answered and eventually Divinely revealed.
I told my friend that I’d email soon as I wanted to talk further about all of this…
I was curious because of my own questions.
But life, that being my current life, being what it is, we’ve not had the opportunity
to talk further.
But since our conversation, thoughts nagged and tugged at my brain.
I had never once considered my adopted parents anything other than my parents.
And yet, I’ve always had those nagging holes in my life’s story.
There has always been a feeling of disconnect with my “family”
Their heritage is truthfully not my heritage.
Their roots are not my original roots.
Their health history is by no means my health history.
Yet as long as my Dad was alive, I vowed I’d never search.
I feared, given our dysfunctional family mess with my brother who had
also been adopted, it would break my dad’s heart thinking he might lose me after having
lost my brother due to his angst, dysfunction, and inability to deal with his adoption…
all of which lead to family violence, my mother’s death, and his eventual suicide.
(I’ve written many a post regarding my troubled childhood in our
very dysfunctional family so now is not the time for all of that)
So along with the holes to my past, questions have always loomed large regarding
my health and that of my son’s and now that of my grandchildren…
I do know that my birth mother hid her pregnancy, moving to a city far removed
from family and friends.
She sought no prenatal care despite being a nurse.
She delivered her baby (me), a bit prematurely, and shortly following the delivery,
walked out of the hospital.
Later, the young adopted me struggled academically throughout school.
Those who read my posts often note my typos and mild dyslexia with certain words.
I was never diagnosed but I always knew something just wasn’t right.
Yet I persevered, I worked hard and yet I never felt any sort of peace of success
or accomplishment.
I imagine my son’s lifelong struggles with ADD, a Learning Disability, as well as Dyslexia,
are rooted somewhere in my own unknown genetic make-up.
He was diagnosed in both Kindergarten and 1st grade—early enough for us to seek help—
allowing him to work toward success.
He worked, struggled and persevered— doing more with his life now by age 30 than
many of his teachers ever imagined he would or could.
There have been medical struggles as well for both of us.
Discoveries that have come mostly by happenstance.
My thyroid disorder—Hashimoto’s Disease…which was discovered by routine bloodwork.
Migraines since I was 12.
IBS, as well, since I was 12, that was pegged as simply a “nervous” stomach.
Despite my realizing it, I even struggled with infertility.
We had our son 5 years into our marriage yet we never had another child…
it was something that just never happened.
Due to health issues, I had to have a hysterectomy at age 35—
doctors told me then that they didn’t know how we had actually ever conceived our son
let alone the likelihood that we never would have been able to conceive again.
It was after another routine blood test that I was recently diagnosed as a
hemochromatosis carrier—
a carrier of Hemochromatosis Metabolic Disorder who has bouts with Reynaud’s Syndrome.
Something passed on to my son and possibly
my grandchildren.
All of which points to some sort of autoimmune issues as the list of discoveries
continues to grow.
Knowledge is a powerful tool—especially when dealing with one’s medical history.
A tool I want for my son and his children…a tool I’ve never had.
So as my husband and I both worry about what we don’t know…
what we don’t know that could affect our son and his health and now the health of his
children, our grandchildren…I therefore finally made my decision.
Rather than reaching out to the Georgia Adoption Reunion Registry,
paying a fee for some sort of search with a potential meeting, or perhaps worse,
a denial of any sort of meeting…should anyone still be living…
I opted for a more broad source of information…albeit actually a bit detached…
A benign pie chart of heritage and a litany of genetic health information.
I ordered the tests from both 23 and Me as well as Ancestry.
I spit in the collection tubes, sealed everything up and shipped them off.
And so now we wait.
In the meantime, upon learning of my offering up a little spit, aka DNA,
my son was actually more reserved rather than excited.
“Mother you have just put the family’s DNA out there for every Governmental
agency to access…”
However, my word to him has been… stay on the up and up and it’s all good.
And I suspect once we learn our true course of both past and future…
he’ll be a bit more curious.
But what does my adoption issues have to do with my worries over third term abortions
and of those who are thinking that such actions would be a good choice to offer…
It is the very fact that I was not aborted.
It also runs counter to my Christian faith.
Despite my biological mother’s obvious angst and crushing strain that she was
to then live with…
she still opted to give me life…despite this heavy burden carried alone.
She afforded me the gift of life…the gift of loving and being loved…
The eventual gift of my precious granddaughter and soon-to-be grandson.
Relationships and connections that may never have been…
And for that, I am grateful.
So the other evening while I was doing the dishes I heard Fox New Host Martha McCallum
talking about the latest state who was showing interest over third term abortions.
I put down the dishes, turned off the water at the sink, grabbed a dishtowel while
drying my hands as I raced into the den to hear her story.
She was interviewing a young man named Daniel Ritchie.
Ritchie was born without arms and has become an outspoken opponent to the
idea of abortion, especially third-term abortions.
His was a birth of extreme alarm.
He was delivered without arms and without actual vital signs.
It appeared he would not probably survive and since there was such deformity,
the doctors began explaining to his parents that to just let him “go” would be best.
But his parents, to the surprise of doctors, did not think such a decision was wise nor right and
thus encouraged the doctors to do their best to revive their son—of which they did.
Man might think he knows what is best based on clinical observations and deductions…
however, none of us can tell the future with any real certainty.
Our hypotheses of life can be, more or less, whittled down to nothing more than a 50 50 crapshoot.
Ritchie shared with Martha his challenges growing up learning to do everything with
his feet rather than what others were doing with their hands and arms.
But Daniel told Martha that it was at age 15, that pivotal age in adolescents,
that the real turning point in his life arrived…he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
The choice to live with bitterness over a life of challenge, difficulty, stares, and rejection
or the choice to choose something bigger and greater than self…to seek a life even greater
then what he currently knew.
Daniel came to understand that God had a plan…
a bigger plan than he could have ever imagined.
A plan that would never have been had his parents opted to follow the doctor’s
suggestion in that delivery room that fateful day…
the medical suggestion to allow their newly born son,
a son without arms, to die.
Remember—God affords man choice…
A choice to allow a baby to live or a baby to die…
Despite our smug arrogance, man’s earthly vision is limited—
what we see as a burden, hardship or hindrance often has far-reaching and
unseen reverberations—
reverberations that have the potential to change the lives of those we have yet to meet.
Hear and read Daniel’s amazing story.
Meet his wife and children…and hear his testimony to God’s amazing Glory.
The choice to spit or not to spit pales in compariosn to the choice to live or not live…
“His mission was not his own”
Words shared by The Rev Russell J. Levenson Jr
during his eulogy of his friend and parishioner, President G.H.W.Bush
(18 year old Lt George H.W.Bush in naval uniform)
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you came out on the other side
wondering how in the world you made it through?
How you survived and made it out alive?
Or more likely that you fared better than those around you?
Have you ever found yourself wondering or even lamenting “why me?”
Why me Lord?
Why was I spared and they weren’t?
Why did I win when I shouldn’t have–
knowing that someone else should have won?
Why was I so fortunate, or so lucky, and why were “they” not?
These can be haunting questions for anyone.
They can be a life’s curse or a life’s blessing.
For there is a great responsibility to whom much is given.
(Luke 12:48)
And life, for those who have had near brushes with death, know all too well, that
life suddenly becomes a tremendous responsibility.
Yet such a question as ‘why me’ can be particularly haunting
for one so young. For one who actually stares at death and yet surprisingly,
is allowed to walk away when others were not.
We have seen this in wars and sadly in recent terror attacks and mass shootings.
And it just so happened that this very overwhelming life issue of ‘why me’ actually
happened for a newly turned 20-year-old boy who found
himself alone in a small rubber yellow life raft, bobbing up and down in the middle of
the Pacific Ocean after having baled out of a burning airplane…
coming to the stalk revelation that he’d been spared while his friends had not.
This same “why me” question came up three times Wednesday during the funeral of our
41st president, George H. W. Bush.
First, the question was raised by Jon Meacham, the famed author, and presidential historian.
He painted the scene vividly as only such a gifted writer could.
A young naval pilot and his crew taking off from a Navy aircraft carrier with a bombing mission
on the docket.
They were to take out a Japanese radio tower on a tiny Pacific island.
“Shortly after dawn on Saturday, September 2, 1944, Lieutenant Junior Grade
George Herbert Walker Bush, joined by two crew mates,
took off from the USS San Jacinto to attack a radio tower on Chichijima.
As they approached the target, the air was heavy with flack.
The plane was hit.
Smoke filled the cockpit; flames raced across the wings.
“My god,” Lieutenant Bush thought,
“this thing’s gonna go down.”
Yet he kept the plane in its 35-degree dive, dropped his bombs, and then roared off out to sea,
telling his crew mates to hit the silk.
Following protocol, Lieutenant Bush turned the plane so they could bail out.
Only then did Bush parachute from the cockpit.
The wind propelled him backward, and he gashed his head on the tail of the plane
as he flew through the sky.
He plunged deep into the ocean, bobbed to the surface,
and flopped onto a tiny raft.
His head bleeding, his eyes burning, his mouth and throat raw from salt water,
the future 41st President of the United States was alone.
Sensing that his men had not made it, he was overcome.
He felt the weight of responsibility as a nearly physical burden.
And he wept.
Then, at four minutes shy of noon, a submarine emerged to rescue the downed pilot.
George Herbert Walker Bush was safe.
The story, his story and ours, would go on by God’s grace.
Through the ensuing decades, President Bush would frequently ask,
nearly daily— “why me?
Why was I spared?”
Next in line during this service, this looming question was raised by the former
Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney who also eulogized his former world leader compatriot
and more importantly, his dear friend.
Mulroney opened his verbal tribute to his friend by asking those in attendance if they could
remember what they were doing just after their 20th birthday.
Most should remember the joy and gaiety found in the passing a milestone—
that being the leaving behind of the tumultuous teenage years as they were
now standing on the great periphery of adulthood.
And yet I wonder as to how many of us know that at 20, one is more child than adult?
Mulroney shared that as he had just turned 20, he was working as a laborer in the outskirts
of Quebec while still living at home and thankfully enjoying his mother’s cooking.
All the while his one-day dear friend was bleeding and clinging to life in a liferaft
out in the middle of the Pacific ocean weeping “why me??”
For a third time this somber day of a State funeral, another speaker addressed the question…
“Why me?”
This time the speaker was President Bush 41’s parish priest,
The Rev. Bruce Levenson who once again raised the question but who rather matter of factly
gave us the answer.
Father Levenson explained that “his mission was not his own.”
His mission was not his own.
It was other than and much more than that liferaft bobbing up and down in the
ocean…
Yet that is not to say that the lives of his comrades at arms on that fateful day
were any less important.
Any less than, as some might think with such a response to such a question.
That somehow, they were simply “allowed” to die while young George was allowed to live.
The issue of allowance is not to be the issue here nor are we to be recipients of such
deep knowledge.
For God uses our lives and our deaths to extend far beyond our simple understanding.
It is the ripples that reverberate outward from the dropped stone in the pond.
The ‘why me’ questions that have been asked by countless individuals who have lived to tell of
another day all live with a tremendous burden of guilt and a tremendous burden of responsibility.
Father Levenson, James Baker, Al Simpson, Brian Mulroney and even son George H. Bush
each reminded us that a day did not pass in George Herbert Walker Bush’s life that he did
not ask that question…nor not feel the heavy responsibility.
He either asked the question audibly or silently…but he asked none the less each and every day.
I am reminded of the 1946 Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life.
The entire premise of the movie, for Jimmy Stewart’s character George (so aptly named),
was what would life have been without him. How in turn would the lives of those who
were a part of his own life turn out without a George Bailey to interact with them?
One dark and lonely Christmas eve night so long ago, George was inches away from ending his
own life, by jumping into an icy cold river.
Yet God needed to give George a wake-up call.
He still needed George to do some important things.
Much like in the real-life story of a young George Bush…God still needed
for him to do some things.
Now I can’t say that all such stories have happy endings.
Nor can I say that all spared lives seem to turn out better than imagined.
So why George H. W. Bush?
That is the question remaining for all those lives that have been affected,
touched and even created because of him to ponder…as well as those of
us who have been directly or indirectly affected by his actions, choices,
legislation as well as leadership to ponder…
Yet the one thing that I do know…the same thing that President Bush knew…
is that God will have has His ways.
Ways that elude us.
Ways that often frustrate us, but they are His ways and His alone none the less.
What President Bush learned, one of life’s most important answers, was that his life,
his mission was indeed not his own…
it was God’s.
That we should all bend our ways to be His ways…
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!
You have been faithful with a few things;
I will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Matthew 25:23
“A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.”
St. Therese of Lisieux
(St Dominic at the base of the cross, with my reflection in the protective glass, also at
the foot of the cross / Freco by Fra Angelico / The Convent of San Marco / Florence, Italy
“The beatitude of the saints is immutable, like that of the Son of God. . .
Add ages to ages; multiply them equal to the sand of the ocean or the stars of heaven;
exhaust all numbers, if you can, beyond what the human intelligence can conceive,
and for the elect there will be still the same eternity of happiness.
They are immutable, and this immutability excludes weariness and disgust.
The life of an elect soul is one succession, without end,
of desires ever arising and ever satisfied, but desires without trouble, satiety or lassitude.
The elect will always see God, love God, possess God and always will wish to see Him,
love Him and possess Him still more.
This beatitude is the end destined for all;
God has given us time only in order to merit it, being and life only to possess it.
Reflect seriously on this great truth, and ask yourself these three questions
at the foot of the crucifix:
What have I done hitherto for heaven?
What ought I to do for heaven?
What shall I do henceforward for heaven?”
St. Ignatius of Loyola, p. 179
An Excerpt From
Spiritual Exercises
“Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And each will wrestle for the mastery there.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
“History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.”
Zbigniew Brezezinski
As people of faith we learn to be bi-focal.
We look through the eyes of secular newsflashes,
and we look through the eyes of spiritual and theological discernment.”
Bishop Gavin Ashenden
Anytime a Western coalition is mounted against “the bad guys”…whomever
those bad guys may currently be…more and more questions abound…
more questions than there may be answers.
Maybe it’s because I grew up during the Vietnam war.
A horrific conflict and war where thousands were killed, maimed, scarred and lost…
leaving no clear win or victor.
The bad guys were still bad and we were left limping back home…
home to a Nation now divided…and still dividing as we speak.
For Christians, the notion of war is a tough call.
The Koran makes no bones about the allowance for war and killing.
Our faith, on the other hand, admonishes those who opt not to turn the other cheek
or refuse to offer the shirt when the tunic is first taken.
For the Believer there is an inner turmoil…a conflict of both faith and righteous indignation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pacifist German theologian, lived this turmoil.
It also lead him to the gallows.
A walk he took decidedly confident because he knew his faith secure.
He looked to the words and teachings of St Thomas Aquinas when he agreed to be a part of
an assassination attempt against Adolph Hitler.
The moral issue here is that of tyrannicide…
the killing of a tyrant, and specifically, the killing of a tyrant by a private
person for the common good.
Technically, there are two classes of tyrants: a tyrant by usurpation
(tyrannus in titulo), a ruler who has illegitimately seized power;
and a tyrant by oppression (tyrannus in regimine),
a ruler who wields power unjustly, oppressively, and arbitrarily.
The key conditions for a justifiable act of tyrannicide in this case include
that the killing be necessary to end the usurpation and restore legitimate authority;
that there is no higher authority available that is able and willing to depose the usurper;
and that there is no probability that the tyrannicide will result in even greater evil
than allowing the usurper to remain in power.
However, if the tyrant by oppression attacks the citizen,
jeopardizes the welfare of the community with the intent leading
it to destruction or killing the citizens, or commits other evils,
then a private citizen can morally commit an act
of justifiable tyrannicide.
Moreover, if because of the tyrant’s rule, a nation cannot defend itself,
is on the course of destruction, and has no lawful means to depose or to condemn the tyrant,
then a citizen may commit an act of justifiable tyrannicide.
Interestingly, many modern political philosophers would posit that a leader who abuses
power and has become tyrannical ipso facto loses legitimacy and becomes a usurper.
(Catholic Resource Education Center / Fr William Saunders)
And so it is with interest that I’ve read a couple of the most recent posts by our friend
Bishop Gavin Ashenden regarding his feelings and thoughts about the coalition attack
on Syria.
The necessity, the truth, the need, the deception, the compassion, the empathy,
the indignation is each woven into the fabric of our confliction as human beings.
The conflict between right and wrong, defending the undefended, the truth versus
the deception…
that which is right versus that which is wrong,
the need for freedom versus the oppression of tyranny…
What are our roles, our responsibilities, our culpability…
The good Bishop offers one more perspective, one more layer to the fabric we
Christians continue to weave…
Do I agree with his doubts, his concerns, his pointed questions?
I think his questions lead us all to a place of asking even more questions.
Yet the real question found in the Bishop’s concern is simply leading us back to wondering
where the real true answers rest…
So Syria has been much in the news.
But to the community of faith, Syria is not just a place.
It is both a birthplace, and an end-place.
Theologically, for Christians it is the birth place of the Church.
It is the place where in Antioch, we first became known as Christians (Acts 11.26);
for Muslims the place at the end of time, the apocalypse.
This dual identity lies at the heart of the present secular conflict and how we understand it.
And yet, it is clear in geo-political terms that what is taking place in Syria
is a proxy war fought over future energy sources and types of Islamic hegemony
between Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other.
The opposition to Assad was not a plea for regime change by democratic Syrians,
but an attempt to remove a non-Muslim ruler and replace him with a Muslim regime by
Saudi backed terrorist groups.
Twice now chemical attacks have been attributed to the Assad regime with the
immediate effect of inducing in the West a moral indignation that led to a call
for bombing the Assad regime.
But though the video footage was provocatively emotive, the hard evidence that laid a trail
back to Assad was always just missing.
Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire;
he breaks out against all sound judgment.
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing his opinion.
When wickedness comes, contempt comes also, and with dishonor comes disgrace.
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice…
Proverbs 18:1-19:29
(a hidden Iris in the straw / Julie Cook / 2018)
The Cross had asked the questions;
the Resurrection had answered them…
The Cross had asked: why does God permit evil and sin to nail Justice to a tree?
The Resurrection answered:
That sin having done its worst might exhaust itself and thus be overcome by Love that
is stronger than either sin or death.
Thus there emerges the Easter lesson that the power of evil and the chaos of any one moment
can be defied and conquered for the basis of our hope is not in any construct
of human power but in the power of God who has given to the evil of this earth
its one mortal wound –
an open tomb,
a gaping sepulcher,
and empty grave.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen
“I the Lord do not change.
So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees
and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you,”
says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi 3:6-7
(a little toadstool deep in the woods / Julie Cook / 2017)
On my current path I have traveled to a place of impasse—
where the circumstances of life are changing while I am left at a loss….
I find myself now wrestling with the silence of God…
There are lies which are laced within a hot and ever-slight breeze,
whispering an ancient tale of abandon…
as the sweat upon my brow beads droplets of doubt.
Rage multiples upon itself.
Anger returns to the seemingly empty silence
while God’s word proclaims it will not return void…
and yet I wonder how do I know…..
Poignantly I am reminded, once again, that He is God and I am not.
His ways are not my ways…nor will they ever be…
and in that fact resides my assurance.
He does not and will not change, despite my life’s circumstance.
For He shall supply my needs despite my pleas and questions…
“The winds of change and circumstance
Blow in and all around us
So we find a foothold that’s familiar
And bless the moments
That we feel You nearer
When life had begun
I was woven and spun
You let the angels
Dance around the throne
And who can say when
But they’ll dance again
When I am free
And finally headed home
I will be weak
Unable to speak
Still I will call You by name
Creator, Maker, Life Sustainer
Comforter, Healer, my Redeemer
Lord and King, Beginning and the End
I Am
Yes, I Am”
Nichole Nordeman
Lyrics I AM
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11
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