I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end, he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh, I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:25-27
(home sky 2016 / Julie Cook / 2016)
“In order for the inner man to be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit,
the children of God must discharge their responsibility.
They need to yield specifically to the Lord, forsake every doubtful aspect in their life,
be willing to obey fully God’s will, and believe through prayer that
He will flood their spirit with His power.”
Watchman Nee
(Anchorage Daily News image of the latest damge from this past week’s earhtquake)
Remember yesterday how I shared that Twitter was attempting to ban both
The Anglican Bishop, Gavin Ashenden
(well, they already did try with Gavin but I believe he’s been “reinstated”)
as well as the Scottish pastor David Robertson…??
And remember how I offered not only the link to David’s open letter to Twitter but I
shared this quote…part of David’s ending response in his letter…??
“Meanwhile I will continue to use your platform to undermine your hateful
and irrational ideology.
And I will do it by using logic and love – the love of the Logos.
We don’t need Twitter (or Facebook, or government or the media) to be able to speak of Christ.
And you will never silence us.
Though you kill us the very rocks would cry out!
And it was that very last line that has stayed with me as I’ve ruminated over those words
since I read it…
“Though you kill us the very rocks would cry out.”
“the very rocks would cry out”…is a nod to the verse in Luke 19:40 when Jesus,
at what we now refer to as Holy Week, was entering into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey
while those around him laid palms at his feet, hailing him as a king…
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Well, the Pharisees rebuked these adulations…
they found such to be ill-fitting even sacrilegious telling Jesus to silence “his” people…
However, it was the response by Jesus that was so telling…
“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
I’ve thought a great deal about that line since having read it yesterday…
and of course, I’ve thought about it every time I’ve either read it or heard it.
Imagine that visual image.
Stones, rocks, boulders all crying out…crying out the greatness of the Lord.
Does not our earth already cry out with groanings that are so deep and beyond our understanding?
Cries which surpass our comprehension?
Such as the image above of the Highway in Alaska?
A road buckles, as the earth opens up with audible groans and physical cries.
Does the earth not open up…leaving us like frightened children,
looking for help which is beyond us?
Of course we call such opening up and such “crying out” merely plate tectonics.
Yet do we not, when those plates slide and collide, causing devastation to the surface,
do we not cry out in fear?
Do we not cry out to be delivered from that which we cannot control?
So who are we to say that the rocks are not currently crying out.
That the earth is not yielding to her Creator?
And so as we enter into this new year of the Chruch calendar, with the beginning of Advent,
we are reminded, once again, that all of creation slumbers in darkness awaiting
the light of Salvation…
Perhaps it would behoove us to listen to the earth and her cries…as the earth might be
more aware of the coming of the Redeemer than we are ourselves.
You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens,
and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it,
the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything,
and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
Nehemiah 9:6
“The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Søren Kierkegaard
(Julie Cook / 2018)
I was a high school art teacher for 31 years.
I loved my kids and I struggled with my kids.
The gifted,
the complicated,
the defiant,
the quiet,
the creative,
the difficult,
the angry,
the arrogant,
the athletic,
the popular,
the shy,
the academic,
the immature,
the kind,
the thoughtful,
the thoughtless,
the selfish,
the forgotten,
the struggler,
the spoiled,
the average,
the happy,
the sad,
the hard to crack…
My heart aches for Santa Fe High School and her entire community.
For those who have loved ones who will not be coming home at the end
of this school year.
Once again we are a nation wrapped in our shock, our sorrow, and our grief.
There are no clear-cut answers or explanations.
Anger, resentment, hate, indifference, intolerance, evil…
these are not simple issues.
Issues with no apparent clear-cut single solution …
Yet before we point our fingers, rile in our righteous indignation,
demand change or drown in our own emotionalism…
let us remember the families who are hurting…
families who are going through the unimaginable weight of unspeakable loss.
Let us mourn with them and for them.
As their arms ache to hold those they love just one more time.
May we ask a God, who is far greater than ourselves, to help us find our way.
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.
For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.
For if we live, we live unto the Lord.
and if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;
even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.
The Book of Common Prayer
Burial of the Dead, Rite I
Death is not an accident –
it is an appointment which only God can change or cancel.
It is because of death that life is so precious.
It is because life is so precious that death is such an evil
David Robertson
(cemetary at St Kevin’s Monastary / Glendalough National Park / Co Wicklow, Ireland /
Julie Cook/ 2015)
Maybe it’s because I’ve read and written a good bit recently concerning the life and death
of the young child Alfie.
Maybe it’s because the shadowed dark veil still occasionally longs to blow across my heart,
or maybe…
it’s just because I’m tired…
I saw a really sad story yesterday about an elderly Chinese man who is afraid of dying
alone…so he’s put himself up for adoption.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/05/04/lonely-chinese-old-man-puts-himself-up-for-adoption.html
Being adopted myself, this story caught my attention for all sorts of reasons.
Our Asian brothers and sisters have always done such a fine job with their elderly.
They don’t neglect them.
They don’t ship them off to homes as we do here in the West.
They don’t turn their backs on them when they become infirmed, sick or simply
too old.
And they don’t decide to simply kill them because they’ve apparently run their course of
contribution and no longer serve a viable purpose.
Nor have they ever been viewed as a burden to society.
Our Asian kin have always taken their elderly into their homes,
caring for them as these now old ones once cared for the
younger others.
Yet sadly, that might be changing.
It seems that this particular man was a widower and was estranged from his sons.
The story noted that there is a growing shift in Asian culture these days
that the idea of a family caring for the elderly is not the given as it once was.
So this gentleman, who posted he is a retired scientist and is still in good
physical condition, just wants a family to spend his final years with.
He wants to contribute to the family by helping to shop, cook, pay bills…
but when the time comes, he wants to be cared for then properly buried by those who
in turn care for him.
He is doing this as he is gravely opposed to having to go to “a home.”
So all this talk of death and dying, life and living…the juxtaposition of
the whole bloody lot just keeps falling flat and heavy in front of my feet.
There’s just no getting around either one.
Because you can’t have one without the other.
There must be life if there is to be death…
That’s just the way it is.
I am not a morse person.
Not obsessive.
Not negative.
Not a fatalist.
I do however believe I am very much realist mixed in with a hardy dose of pragmatism.
When reading David Robertson’s latest post, which was actually an article written
for Christian Today, there I was again meeting death, or actually the notion of death
was meeting me at my door….or actually in my kitchen on my computer screen.
David was writing about death and life and destiny all based on the writings of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes.
But it was really the one line that jumped off the page, or shall we say screen, that
hit me squarely between the eyes…
Death is not an accident –
it is an appointment which only God can change or cancel.
Like most folks, I don’t much care for the whole death and dying business.
I don’t like much to talk about it.
I don’t like to acknowledge it…because that way, maybe it will just go away and leave
me alone.
And I certainly don’t like to think about it.
Not many of us living do.
Because the whole death thing really just tears me out of the frame.
Yes I will say it…despite being a Christian and despite knowing my Redeemer lives and
despite the knowledge that there is life after death…death still bothers me.
Life is for the living is it not?
Not for the dying…
Yet I think it is really a fear of the unknown that is what troubles us most.
Or at least it is for me.
As a planner, a teacher…I kind of like things all neatly mapped out.
Whereas spontaneity sounds glamourous…I’m not one for throwing caution to the wind.
I’m pretty set on point A to point B with no deviations in between.
However, I think it is that big black hole in our lives..the hole of separation
that’s the real kicker.
We are not a separating lot.
It’s the being cut off from and away from those we love that makes death so hard.
Going on living… without…
That is the burden…the burden of the living without.
So maybe that’s why our society is so fixated on trying to control both…
We want to be the masters of our own destinies…our entrances and our exits.
We want to call the shots.
And so we wrap it up in a fancy word and call it euthanasia.
A fancy way for us to call the shots…not God.
Nothing random there..no loss of control.
We, in essence, become our own god.
But it was that line of David’s that’s kept nagging at me…
“it’s not an accident–it’s an appointment which only God can change or cancel.”
David notes in his reflection from King Solomon’s words that
“He is saying that death comes to all, indiscriminately, good or bad:
‘Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…
‘(Hebrews 9:27). Death is not an accident –
it is an appointment which only God can change or cancel.
He is not saying that we are to live passively or that we are not to prepare.
But he is saying that it is only God who knows the future.
So there is both power and assurance in that statement.
An appointment that only God and change or cancel.
Not me, not you, no man…only God.
A burden becomes lifted.
It’s not my call.
Not my responsibility to say yay or nay…it’s there when God says its there.
It’s no longer my worry, our worry…my call, our call or truly my schedule or our schedule.
It’s God’s schedule.
And I need to be reminded, I was with that one line that I am small and He is not…
God’s power over death…so much greater than anything man could ever attempt to counter.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-9 – Death, Life and Destiny
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57
We are citizens of our country, and our duty to society is to witness to the moral law,
which is the prerequisite for peace in our life together.
Raymond Cardinal Burke
Also Pope St John Paul II’s Redemptor Hominis is a sort of profession of faith,
calling to mind again that the Church is the Body of Christ,
the Church belongs to Christ and that we are all obedient in his service.
Raymond Cardinal Burke
(Raymond Cardinal Burke / Getty image)
I confess— I’m about so over all of the news…
the real, the fake, the angry, the salacious…
All the Trump this, Trump that…
Clinton, Obama, Comey, Putin, walls, immigration, lawyers, Twitter, swamps…
UGH!!!
I briefly caught one of yesterday’s headlines…
‘Comey says Trump not moral enough to be president….’
Really???
I don’t care if you like the guy or not…and by the way, my jury is still out on his reign,
but saying Trump is not moral enough made me laugh out loud…
This when I recalled the infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”
Was that morality????!!!!
Thanks to every news outlet during those heady days in the Oval office…every kid out there
got a quick lesson on infamous dresses and DNA evidence…
Morality and Washington go together…well, like oil and water…
No emulsion…no cohesion, not even a simple mixing there…plainly bipolar opposites…
So when I recently read a few quotes by Missouri’s Cardinal Burke, I had to delve a bit further
into who this prelate actually was.
And I must say that I conquer with much of what the good Cardinal has to say.
Moral Law—it’s what we in Western Civilization have always worked hard to separate from
our legal laws—
It’s like trying to separate eggs—they ooze and hold together as if they are one in the same…
Of which they are…
Very rarely do they want to separate cleanly.
And if the truth be told, our legal laws were built upon our moral laws.
Think Judeo / Christian Ten Commandments—
Very much one in the same.
Moral law is indeed a prerequisite for lasting peace and it is our duty as Christians to
do our darndest to live it.
Is it easy?
Nope.
Do we falter?
Yep.
And when we do, boy do we know it…because everyone and their brother reminds us of
our shortcomings…because everyone gets a pass but the Christians.
Not that getting a free pass is what we should ever receive.
It’s not.
The key, rather, is that we of the Christian fold know that we have a Redeemer who lives.
And we know that when we fall, we are offered a hand up…
It’s that whole notion of go and sin no more…
Not to go out and fall right back into our old habits—but rather it is that the old man
has now been defeated and the new man emerges…
And as the good Cardinal reminds us— it is our task to extend, as well as offer,
that same hand up which is steeped in a moral coded standard of compassion and forgiveness,
offered freely, with no stipulation, to the fallen as we stand as the moral compass
pointing the correct direction in this very troubling world.
With the arrival of abortion, society has experienced an increase in violence.
The murder of the smallest and most defenseless human beings is the root of social violence.
Now, some people say that people with serious illnesses or the elderly are useless.
That is truly horrible. You can see the profoundly selfish,
individualistic logic that is behind this view of a human being and his dignity.
Raymond Cardinal Burke
‘Copiosa apud Eum Redemptio’
With Him is plenteous redemption
(emerging peaches / Julie Cook / 2017)
Holiness is the source.
In Christ the absolute holiness of God is united hypostatically with the holiness of man.
God’s holiness (as the love of good and the hatred of evil), but first and foremost
as the love of good in everything, even the one who is evil (per accidens [contingently]).
All good (the entire sum of values) outside God has its prototype in God Himself.
God loves one in another – in this consists His Holiness.
This holiness is the basis for redemption –
also understood as the ‘re-evalutation’ of everything:
God restores the value of everything in man,
who is personally united with Him.
He is Christ – Redemptor [Redeemer]: the holiness of man consists
in receiving this good, which God loves –
in this manner Christ becomes the model of holiness.
In Him that holiness is in a way identical to redemption ( Redemptio).
In us it has to depend on, first, conversion to God, and second,
re-evaluation of everything in accordance with the value that everything has in God,
and which Christ the Lord has shown to us.
Novermber 2, 1962
excerpt from the private diaries of Bishop Karol Wojtyla
In God’s Hands / Pope John Paul II
And so it is, in Christ the Redeemer, that man has found his redemption.
Redemption so poignantly expressed each Spring as seen in the blooms, blossoms and
growth of the newness of life….
Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
Psalm 130:7-8
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