A tit for tat, a gerbil on a wheel or just life in middle school…

The cry against the idea of moral retribution reveals several deep-lying misconceptions.
These have to do with the holiness of God, the nature of man,
the gravity of sin and the awesome wonder of the love of God as expressed in redemption.
Whoever understands these even imperfectly will take God’s side forever,
and whatever He may do they will cry with the voice out of the altar,
“Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments”
(Revelation 16:7).
Perhaps Moody’s word about this is as wise as any that has ever been uttered.
He said, “No man should preach on hell until he can do it with tears in his eyes.”

A. W. Tozer


(a final look at my old den during the NFL playoffs / Julie Cook / 2020)

Our days are numbered in this house of ours—this is the week of the BIG move.

It’s funny, when your world is changing and turned upside down, for whatever reason,
we humans tend to want to cling desperately to anything and everything that generates
a sense of routine…a sense of that which we know, a sense of the familiar
a sense of normalcy.
A routine of sorts.

Life, in most of our collective arenas, is a far cry from “normal”

So for me I’m trying to find that balance–on a personal level, spiritual
level and even on an average citizen level.

This move has been long and drawn out for all sorts of reasons.
We’re leaving a house that is in better shape than to the house where we are going.
So there will be work.

Yet it has seemed that God has opened every door along this journey—and so there is a reason.

Yet while we’ve been packing, sorting, culling, tossing…
for me to still try and cook a decent meal— manning the kitchen,
albeit with just a remaining skillet, a cooktop and oven—
just give me a plastic fork and it’s all good.

It keeps me grounded, sane and from having a meltdown from overt change.
Because change has been on overdrive since March has it not???…
and if the truth be told, the change madness has running
rampant for the past four years—thank you politicians, news media and now China.

Being able to throw out a post or two, on some sort of regular regime, also helps me.
I told you a long time ago, I blog because I’m a retired educator.
This teacher still needs to “teach”, to share, to observe…

There is a calming peace found in regime and rhythms.

Yet this Nation of ours seems to be running on the opposite end of ‘peace’,
rhythm and rhyme.

I managed to play a bit of catch up in my WP reader yesterday and caught a post written by
our friend Pastor Jim, aka slimjim, from over on The Domain For Truth.

https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/wicked-is-the-doctrine-of-regeneration-through-chaos/

The title of his post reached out and grabbed me by the collar..

Wicked is the Doctrine of Regeneration through Chaos

Jim’s post began with these words,

In physics energy diminishes with resistance such as friction.
But it doesn’t always work that way with politics.
Instead one extreme act provoke an equal and possibly more extreme act.
Human sinful nature doesn’t want an eye for an eye; rather some is tempted to outdo the other side.
Wicked is the doctrine of regeneration by chaos and even more wicked is this doctrine put into practice.
No one side of the political and religious and socioeconomic spectrum has a monopoly of craziness.
Everyone has a “vote” of what they say and do. For example saying stolen election
lead to the opposite side saying stolen election or worst.
Saying burning the system down will lead some to burn things down.
But others might want to burn down what the other side think is important too.
One side over run police station and have occupy zone of areas that are not theirs.
So some from the other opposite side overrun the Capitol;
but what further extreme reaction will be done next by those who disagree and
are displeased with this?

I tend to have that sort of Rorschach test reaction.
You know, it’s that “quick what do you see??”
But in the case of reading a title to certain posts, I have that
‘quick, what comes to mind?’ sort of thought.

When reading Jim’s title to his post, I thought of the idiocy of a tit for tat.
You know…that childish back and forth business.
Adults might know it as the bravado of posturing.
As in an “I can do anything you can do better…I can do anything better than you…
yes I can, no you can’t…”
And on and on it goes.

Think of a gerbil on it’s spinning wheel—running around and around and going nowhere.
That is pretty much what we are witnessing.
A matter of we hate you, NO, we hate you more.

Sigh

And that’s when it dawned on me…we are living life in a perpetual state of middle school.

I will be without the internet within a day or two and not totally certain when I’ll be reconnected
in our new location…I’ll have my phone but won’t be posting from the phone as I don’t have
that much patience. I will be checking in however.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body,
whether good or bad.

2 Corinthians 5:10

Bears, wanting to be God, goodbye St Patrick, pandemic, mayhem, drinking the bitters and will the last one out please turn off the lights…

“Don’t Panic.”
Douglas Adams,
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Pan again!” said Dr. Bull irritably.
“You seem to think Pan is everything.”
“So he is,” said the Professor, “in Greek.
He means everything.”
“Don’t forget,” said the Secretary, looking down,
“that he also means Panic.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare


(ABC News)

Bears and Bulls.

If you’re not hiding under a rock, of which I suspect many of us just might be doing during
these precarious days…but if you’re not under a rock, then you have most certainly heard
the dire alarm bells sounding…

Our stock market, the global markets, has/have all taken a downward turn.

Make that more like a free for all free fall…

Thank you very much Covid-19.

Wall Street has heard of your unrelenting spreading nature and turned
itself into a bear market practically overnight.

A bear market is not what we want.
A bear market drops like a rock.

A bull market, on the other hand, is good for our investments, our 401K’s,
our retirement savings…

According to thebalance.com, the average length of a bear market is 367 days.
Conventional wisdom says it usually lasts 18 months.
Between 1900 and 2008, bear markets occurred 32 times with an average duration of 367 days.
They happened once every three years.

Yet as my dad would always say…the market has to always correct itself…
it’s an ebb and flow sort of rhythm.
Ups and downs will each come and go..having their own day in the sun.

Personally, I like rhythm…
on the other hand, I don’t like getting pushed off a cliff and falling with no parachute.

But this was coming from a man who survived Prohibition, the Depression, a World war,
a Police action as a reservist and that infamous Summer of Love…while trying to shield
my eyes.

He was stoic in the face of panic.
Hence that Greatest Generation…

But then he could also be quite the Eeyore.
So who’s to say…

Amid all the Henny penny, the sky is falling mayhem taking place, there is still
news taking place.

I caught a recent little hissy fit offered by our favorite congressional darling, AOC.
That favorite fab four member—

It seems as if AOC became riled up because people were being just oh so racist and bigoted
for not going to Chinese restaurants due to fears over Covid19, aka coronavirus.

Think Wuhan.

Yeah…
I don’t think we’re any more likely to “catch” the virus by eating Chinese food than we
are if we eat Italian food…
but try telling a panicked populace…try telling them that its ok to eat Chinese,
Italian, Korean, Iranian foods…
Panic does not “do” reason.

AOC doesn’t get the notion of a panicked populace.
She wants to control the populace.
The populace is to bow to her commnad.
That’s what socialists want to do.
They control.
She doesn’t get panic.
You can’t control panic.
A politician can’t be God.
Despite their desire.

And if you think a Saint can beat covid19, try telling all the St. Patrick revelers.
Savannah, Georgia—one of our Nation’s largest St. Patrick day celebrations,
has canceled it’s St.Patrick’s Day celebration over the Covid19 pandemic.

Yep, pandemic.

The globally scary word of Bubonic Plague…
Get ready to slap the bells around the necks of the infected.

When was a pandemic used a political weapon?
Today.
As in NOW.

What better way can a defeated party defeat a booming president that they hate?

So yes, the stock market will plummet, our economy will slow and the panic will rise.

Icelandic volcanoes have come and gone, hampering global travel.
Terrorists have hampered global travel.
Now Covid19 hampers global travel.

This too will pass.

Our sporting events are being canceled.
Our large gatherings and celebrations are being canceled.
Schools are shuttering their doors.
Our normally free and carefree lives are suddenly being impeded…
Americans don’t like being impeded.
We are a nation of coming and going as we please.

Yet reality is what it is…

The real question is…will Americans come together as one Nation or will
she remain as a divided dual nation?

In the meantime, I’m finding that the consuming of bitters is both medicinal as well
as most applicable…for these are indeed bitter days…
despite the fact these bitters come from Italy…


(the Drink Shop)

Oh, and will the last person to leave to wherever it is we are either leaving or going…be that
a mandated or self-imposed quarantine, please turn out the lights….

But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:1-2

Holy discontent

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury

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Spring has sprung a bit early…so it seems
Temperatures are running 15 to 20 degrees above the average for this time of year…
Early March is feeling a lot like late May…
It is an unexpected delight…yet troubling just the same.

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(shots of the blooming cherry trees complete with bees and ladybugs / Julie Cook / 2016)

We aren’t much for being the creatures of the unexpected…we humans…
we grow alarmed and anxious when things, especially in nature, step out of sync.
We prefer the expected…
The tried and true…
that of the habitual habit…
We know our times, our seasons, our rhythms of life,
and we like for them to be, well, predictable.

The same holds true for our spiritual nature…
Our need to have a relationship with that which is Greater than ourselves.
As created beings we long, most often subconsciously, for our Creator…
For it seems that the need to have a relationship with that God of all Creation is truly hardwired within.

There are those who would argue that point…
As they do not see the correlation between man’s constant discontent and to his quest, nay need, to be made whole…

Those who eschew God for God’s sake, those who defiantly say…
“there is no God”
or
“I have no need for a God” …
Try in vain to fill the void, the empty abyss, with any and all sorts of need filling balms and placebos…

Be it addictions…
Those maddening and seemingly uncontrollable urges which gobble up all manner of ill in a frantic, albeit vain, need to stave the endless hunger of the spiritual void…

Or it might be the endless, yet empty, quest of searching and seeking after any and all things to worship…the longing to put something, anything, at the center of validation and justification of simply… being…
From demons to fatted calves, from nature to man himself…
humankind yearns to put something at the center of its very existence…

As man seeks, yearns, needs to hold something, anything, at the heart of his existence…
his insatiable need goes back to that very moment when God first breathed life into the lungs of the dust created Adam…

And it is to this day…
That we, me, you, us, long to breathe, once again, in rhythm with our Creator…
Seeking, longing, aching to fill the discontent with the rhythmic beating as one…
Restored within the relationship to…
God the Almighty…
The Father…
And Maker of both Heaven and Earth…

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

Well seasoned

“Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”

― Kahlil Gibran

“What an abundant harvest has been collected in autumn! The earth has now fulfilled its design for this year, and is going to repose for a short time. Thus nature is continually employed during the greatest part of the year: even in her rest she is active: and in silence prepares a new creation.”
― Christoph Christian Sturm

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(bits of the remains of a farm in Teileann, County Donegal, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

There is a rhythm and certain cadence to life,
as well as to living that life.
Divided amongst the four seasons…
A time to reap and a time to sow
A time to make merry and a time to grow…

In December, the weather is to be cold.
The trees, both twiggy and dormant, are to stand as Winter’s lone sentinels.
Yet what an odd sight when those sleeping trees, which are to wake up and bud in March, are alarmingly budding now.
Odder still…a single remaining tomato plant continues to persevere offering up small ripening fruit.

Where are the freezing temps, the chilly days and colder nights?
Forthcoming they say…
Why do the crickets still sing at dusk,
when they should be fast asleep for the winter?
Ode to our seasons being out of sync and out of step.

For we are rhythmic beings.
Our bodies
Our seasons
Our time
Our earth
Our universe

We have been created to live a seasonal and rhythmic life.
Our very breath rises and falls as our heart beats rhythmically along—both in sync
Any glitch, such as an illness or accident, creates havoc to life’s ebb and flow.
And when one component of our being falls out of tempo with the rest, everything within and without, seems to follow suit.

Disruption
Distraction
Disjunction
Disconnection
Disorder…

We are also spiritual beings.
Who are inextricably linked to the One who set all that is into motion…
Linked endlessly to the One who has given us our being, our rhythm, our life.
Yet long ago, having chosen disobedience over obedience, chaos over order, darkness over light, we placed into jeopardy the very essence of that rhythmic relationship.
The harmony of Life’s seasons was turned upside down and despite our best efforts, remains hopelessly out of sync and out of balance to this day.

So as we find ourselves in the waning days of yet another year,
in the midst the final season of a time which was…
A time of transition…
from cool to cold,
from colorful to bland,
from bright to bleak,
from life to death,
from light to dark….
a time and a season of longing and expectation…
A time that has us wondering, watching, waiting…

A time that is to offer renewing Light…
As in a living Light.
A Light which will bring life giving warmth as it banishes the darkness of colorless death…

There will be those who we will long for this light…
as there will be others who will remain unaware, dismissive and stubbornly unaccepting.
Yet this living Light thankfully comes regardless of the wants and whims of man…
It comes despite the poor choices and refusals…
It comes to offer both Hope and Redemption for any and all…as it will finally set the captives free, as the blind will finally see and those who have been silenced will find their long awaited song.
The Light which will restore the very cadence and rhythm…
to our relationship of One…

it’s just one of those days to wonder

There are good days and there are bad days,
and this is one of them.

Lawrence Welk

“Promise me you’ll always remember:
You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think.”

Christopher Robin to Pooh, A.A. Milne

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(a lone gull looks out to sea / Henderson St Park, FL / Julie Cook / 2015)

Ever wonder what the gulls wonder?
What are their thoughts as they stare forlornly out to sea?
Do they watch the waves rolling in, one on top of another,
wondering where they have been and to where it is they now come?

Are they lost in wonderment and awe, mesmerized by the rhythmic breathing of the sea?
Do they feel loneliness, separation, isolation?
Wondering, as they stare outward, as to what once was and to what could have been?
Do they have hopes and dreams that tomorrow will be different, better, happier?

Perhaps they are merely watching, as they scan ever outward,
wondering where the next elusive small tasty fish may be?
Perhaps they merely watch, looking for what may come their way. . .
As in an opportunity, a new start, a fresh beginning. . .

Does their wondering lead to questions, those without answers?
Do they wonder about that which is definitive verses that which is uncertain?
Do they wonder if they will ever have the right answers?
Are they listening for the cries of the other gulls, only to be lost in the sound of the crashing waves?

Are they lost in their wondering, as their thoughts wander across time?
Do regrets lie in the heart of a gull?
Do their hearts break?
Do they yearn for that which seems impossible?
Do they stand at the ocean’s edge longing to hear the voice of the Creator?
Wondering if they will ever feel His embrace. . .

Many, Lord my God,
are the wonders you have done,
the things you planned for us.
None can compare with you;
were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
they would be too many to declare.

Psalm 40:5

Texture: an element of art as seen in Nature

Texture: An Element of Art, as well an Element of Design–is a principle which refers to the way things look or feel–either to the touch (tactile) or the visual impression something portrays as it might feel when touched.
(Elements of Art and Design include: Line, Shape, Form, Value, Color, Texture, Space, Form, Emphasis, Balance, Movement)

Nature is the art of God.
Dante Alighieri

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(spruce cones / Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

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(spanish moss / Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

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(knotted tree / Colonial Park Cemetery / Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

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(wildflowers / Troup County, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

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(broken shells in the surf, Destin, Florida / Julie Cook / 2014)

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(reflections in the surf / Destin, Florida / Julie Cook / 2014)

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
― Anne Frank