sharing the right things???

“It is a lesson we all need—to let alone the things that do not concern us.
He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path.
It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him,
and to follow Him in that path.”
St. Katharine Drexel

(the sun, clouds and sky / Julie Cook / 2021)

Time may one day be back on my side…
and so with no further ado, while I try my best to
jump back on this blog train….
let’s get on with the meat and potatoes…the substance and sustenance
of what really matters.

Picture the hobo train jumper running alongside a moving train full
of open boxcars…
He’s running as fast as he can in order to keep up with the
rapidly accelerating train…his outstretched arm straining to grab hold of a
hand rail that is just out of reach.
Does he dare leap, hoping to grab hold while pulling himself up into the open car
or does he slow his pace and let the train move on without him??

The risk?

Getting crushed and run over or missing the train???
Which is the greater loss??

I’m the train hopper, straining to grab hold—still running to
stay up with the moving train….that moving train is life itself!
And it will not be slowing down and it will not wait on us.

So I’m taking the chance, I’m leaping.
The hour is dire.
We need to speak up and out during these scary and very dark days.

As I was getting all my little computer ‘windows’ open, ready to start a post,
I was pulling up my email…and while doing so, I was quickly scanning the Yahoo
cover page of “news” snippets…a wealth of the headlines and the ‘dead’lines.

And suddenly one word came into clear focus in my brain…SHARING

The entire notion of sharing…

Sharing is caring right???
Isn’t that what we tell kids??

But is it???
Is it caring or is it careless??

One look at any electronic outlet (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, etc)
and it’s clear as rain, sharing is the name of the game.
That whole notion of TMI (too much information) has gone out the window.
Folks now want to air all sorts of laundry…the good, the bad and the ugly.
Boasting and Bragging
Shaming and degrading.

And so what is the benefit of such mindless, idol sharing?

The majority of what is being shared is more sordid, vile, foul, gossipy
false and inflammatory rather than it could ever be edifying, gracious and glorious.

There is so much we, the followers of Christ, need to be sharing throughout these most
precarious days as time is of the essence.

So let’s ask ourselves…are we sharing that which is truly worth chasing
a moving train over or is is more dribble than substance??

“Now there’s no one who approaches God with a true and upright heart who isn’t
tested by hardships and temptations.
So in all these temptations see to it that even if you feel them,
you don’t consent to them.
Instead, bear them patiently and calmly with humility and long-suffering.”
St. Albert the Great, p. 164
An Excerpt From
Manual for Spiritual Warfare

the sharing season is here…

“Wisdom cannot be imparted.
Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else…
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.
One can find it, live it, do wonders through it,
but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

(black swallowtail caterpillar / Julie Cook / 2020)

Well, I knew it was just a matter of time.

The caterpillars have found the parsley.

There must be at least 15 caterpillars now making the most of my nice pot of parsley.

And so you should know that this lowly creature will…

Become this lovely creature:

And this one…

And this one…

And this one…

Will all become one of these…

(Black swallowtail / Julie Cook / 2020)

These guys, well, I moved one of their caterpillars out from the garage yesterday,
so there are no before images…only the after shots

(Eastern tiger swallowtail / Julie Cook / 2020)

(Eastern tiger swallowtail / Julie Cook / 2020)

And so now, I share…my parsley.

Yet I must confess that sometimes I’m not too keen to share certain things.
I think we all have a bit of the selfish child that remains buried within.

As adults, we know that sharing is a good thing.
And so we can bend our will in order to do what is kind, considerate and decent.
We strive to teach children to do the same.

We must teach them to share as they/we seem to come into this world
hardwired with a distinct “mine” mentality.

When I first started to keep a garden…I would get so mad at the rabbits, the crows,
the other birds, the squirrels, the deer, and yes the caterpillars, who would
all invade, dig up or purge my labors by eating seeds, the tender new shoots
or the actual fruits of said labor, my fruits and vegetables.

And then I figured out that if I planted a little extra or a few distractors, things
that would appease my thieves, I could then strike a delicate balance between
what I knew would be stolen versus what I wanted to be harvested.

And sometimes, despite my best-laid plans, it just came down to who was the fastest
on the scene.

Now granted this was not always the perfect relationship as the deer would seem to
poke their feet in the melons simply to be spiteful…or the birds would jab
each blueberry, leaving the berry on the bush, full of holes.
But if I was going to be successful with a garden…there had to be give,
take and yes, share.

And so speaking of sharing, last week when I had to go to Atlanta to keep the Mayor,
who had contracted the Sheriff’s viral infection from the previous week, the
very notion of sharing took place in the form of “rain.”

And no, I do not refer to the sort of rain that falls from the sky.

If you’ve ever been around a young child who coughs or sneezes or
God forbid, suddenly needs to throw up…well, you know that kids
don’t cover their mouths, turn away, cough into the crook of an arm, or
race to the bathroom when an emergency calls.

To a child, if it comes, whatever it might be, it comes for good or bad…
matters not who might be in its path.

So there was a puny Mayor, who was sitting on my lap last week while we were watching cartoons.
Suddenly she started sneezing…and a spray of mist subsequently blanketed my lap and legs.
Gleeful the Mayor happily announces “RAIN”!!!!

“Yes”, I sardonically noted, “it has rained…”
…as I grabbed a sacred Clorox wipe in order to wipe down my legs and arms.

So should I be surprised that I now have felt like crap for the past two days and find
myself unable to breathe due to such a cloggy nose?

No.
No, I am not surprised.

For a sick child shared her “rain” with me.

And well, despite the shelves being long bare of Clorox wipes…
the sacred canister we had on hand was simply no match for the Mayor.

And so why do we seem so mystified when folks continue getting that
Wuhan flu??? That COVID mess?
Why do we ponder as to how it keeps making the rounds?

Sharing just seems to happen…even when we try being selfish.
No matter the best precautions, the best-laid plans…sharing is going to happen
whether we want it to or not.

Oh and for the record…that poison ivy…well, it keeps sharing too.

Everything seems to want to share…all the wrong sort of things!!!

So regarding the following verse, just know that God did not mean that we should share
our germs…but other more treasured items and deeds….
the germ part is just part and parcel of being alive.

The good and bad.

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Hebrews 13:16

blame it on the rain

Go on and blame it on the rain…
‘Cause the rain don’t mind
And the rain don’t care
You got to blame it on something
Lyrics from the infamous Milli Vanilli

(a single raindrop /Julie Cook / 2015)

Well, last week there was a brief impromptu road trip.
It was a last-minute, throw some stuff in a bag, head out the door sort of road trip.

I simply blame it on the rain.

I gleaned some important life lessons during this little adventure of which I planned on sharing…
lessons that came about, in part, to my blaming it on the snow rather than the rain…

However, before I could properly put a suitcase of dirty clothes into the wash,
and write a reflective post, I was called into quick duty.

The poor Mayor and Sheriff were both stricken by an unrelenting stomach bug…

Let’s just say that both mouths and bottoms were working overtime, simultaneously…
It wasn’t a pretty picture.

Pedialyte popsicles were about the only means of sustenance which remained where they were supposed
to remain, inside the tummies vs outside of said tummies.

(The Sheriff enoyed a pedialyte popsicle until experiencing his first brain freeze / Julie Cook / 2020)

(The Mayor holding onto to only thing that stayed on her stomach all day / Julie Cook / 2020)

And thankfully there have been a few moments of peace and calm…

(still sleeping before I had to race soiled babies to the bath / Julie Cook / 2020)

(a new roost ruler in Woobooville/ Julie Cook / 2020)

(just before the morning’s cranberry juice reared it’s ugly head/ Julie Cook / 2020)

(the Mayor looking wise beyond her years / Julie Cook / 2020)

So barring my chances of catching this vicious bug plaguing these children,
I plan on getting back to the story at hand hopefully tomorrow…

However, for now, I’ll just blame all of this on the rain…as well as a nasty stomach bug…

“I will attempt day by day to break my will into pieces.
I want to do God’s Holy Will, not my own.”
St. Gabriel Possenti

A time for yearning…

“If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing.
If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything.”
St. Bonaventure

(Independant Presbyterian Church steeple / Savannah, GA / Julie Cook / 2019)

I must say that I have a small regret…

My regret is that of time…but who doesn’t regret time right?

Sometimes we might think we have enough or even too much, but if the truth be told,
we never have nearly enough.

I use to be able to catch a youtube or video blog post of Anglican Unscripted.
I use to listen to the podcasts of our friend the Wee Flea, Pastor David Roberston…
as well as our favorite across the pond rogue bishop, Bishop Gavin Ashenden.

But first, the Mayor came on the scene.
Next, my better half retired.
And then, the Sherrif came on board.
Suddenly there was no more time….well, no more time for me to do those
things I use to do with time before my new time needers all arrived.

Now I am certainly not complaining mind you…as this use of time
is a good use…exhausting, but good.

It’s just that when I had time to do so, I would
listen/watch and take copious notes of the teachings by our two Christian Scholarly friends.
I would craft posts featuring the teachings of these most knowledgable individuals.
I learned and, in turn, wanted to share the learning…that’s a teacher thing and it matters
not if we retire…sharing knowledge is what we do.

So I was very excited the other day when I actually carved out some unexpected quiet
and surprisingly alone time in order to listen to a podcast offered by one of my
favorite publications, the UK publication The Spectator.

Happily, I got to listen, almost uninterrupted,
to an interview by Damian Thompson with Bishop Gavin Ashenden—
who by the way is a recent convert to Catholicism.
The interview focused on the Chruch of England and its current dangerous walk toward socialism.

Now for those of you who think you don’t have a dog in the fight over anything Catholic,
Anglican, Chruch of England or Episcopalian…or even Socialism…
may I quickly remind you that many of our Nation’s current politicians are touting
all things Socialism while Socialism currently creeps its ugly way into our
Nation’s political narrative.

Think Bernie, AOC and the Progressive left…

I think the good Bishop gives a sound foundation as to why all Christians
must be very wary of this most troubling dalliance of the Chruch of England.

The podcast is about 20 minutes and is well worth the time, if you are fortunate to
find some…time.

“Just before Christmas, Dr. Gavin Ashenden, a former Chaplain to the Queen,
converted to Catholicism. But that’s not the main subject of my interview with him in
the first Holy Smoke episode of 2020. In it,
he deplores the Church of England’s surrender to secularism under Archbishop Justin Welby,
who won’t enjoy his former colleague’s assessment of his talents.

Dr. Ashenden may not be Anglican any more,
but he does think that the Established Church has a historic mission –
and that its ‘middle managers’ have betrayed it in favour of ‘soft socialism’.
To which I reply that Pope Francis is busy hoisting the white flag,
or perhaps a red one, on the other side of the Tiber.
At which point our conversation takes an unexpected turn. Don’t miss it!”

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/holy-smoke-podcast-has-the-church-of-england-surrendered-to-soft-socialism/

loss in blogging

“Why, then, do I set before You an ordered account of so many things?
it’s certainly not through me that You know them.
But I’m stirring up love for You in myself and in those who read this so that we may all say,
great is the Lord and highly worthy to be praised.
I tell my story for love of Your love.”
St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

(Robert Cottrill)

I often find myself wondering why it is people feel compelled to “blog.”

Why is it that ordinary people create a personal space,
out there someplace on the interweb, and then proceed to spend precious time writing
about whatever it is they opt to write about?

It really is a rather odd phenomenon.

My own personal story started with retirement.

I started my blog a little over 6 years ago, almost 9 months after I retired from a
lifetime of teaching high school.
I thought a blog made sense because I still had things I wanted to share, or more aptly,
things I wanted to teach.

And so that’s what I’ve decided… there is a wealth of people out there who want to share
and in essence, teach.
They want to teach about travel, food, cooking, health, books, music, art, politics, faith, religion,
or the lack thereof, photography, sports… you name it.

People feel compelled to share and “teach”

When I first started this blog, I touched on a bit of all of that.
I loved to travel.
I was a teacher.
I was an art teacher.
I was adopted.
I loved to cook.
I was a wife, a mother, a Christian…on and on it went.
Obviously a wealth of topics to share and teach about.

On one of my early posts, I wrote something about one of my most favorite hymns,
Veni Veni Emmanuel—or—Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel.
It is a typical hymn sung during the season of Advent.
I always preferred its original Latin context.

After that posting, out of the blue, I had a gentleman from Saskatchewan, Canada
comment about my post regarding the hymn.
It seems he was a retired minister who was in the process of building a blog about hymns
and their history.

He was a living wealth of knowledge.

His name was Robert Cottrill.

I thanked Robert for his comment and from that, a lovely friendship developed.

Robert would touch base, ever so often, via email—informing me about what he and
his wife were up to.
He shared about his son and his son’s family living in Mexico as missionaries and of
his pride in his young granddaughter being a budding artist. And he always included
photographs from around his home.
Snow when we were settling into heat, blooms when we were beginning our decline.

Robert usually posted a new hymn, along with its history, each Monday and I, in turn,
would read and click like to his post.

There wasn’t a great deal of generated likes on the history of hymns so Robert
was always thankful for my interest.

He emailed a few months back that he and his wife had moved from their home to
an assisted living community there in Saskatchewan.
He was upbeat and positive as he shared pictures of their new digs.

I noticed that for the past couple of Mondays, Robert hadn’t posted anything.
And then this morning, out of the blue, his site popped up on my reader with a disclaimer.

Robert’s son reported that after a short illness, his dad had gone home to be with the Lord.

Just like that, Robert was gone.

There has been what seems to be a great deal of loss in the blogging family as of late, and
Robert’s death is just one more peg in the loss column.

His son notes that the blog will be maintained as it offers a wealth of history for
any and all who have an interest in the development and history of Christian hymns.

The blogging world will miss Robert.
May his light, the light he reflected from his love of Jesus,
continue to shine on generations to come

https://wordwisehymns.com

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

Veni, veni, Emmanuel
captivum solve Israel,
qui gemit in exsilio,
privatus Dei Filio.
R: Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
nascetur pro te Israel!

Veni, O Sapientia,
quae hic disponis omnia,
veni, viam prudentiae
ut doceas et gloriae.

Veni, veni, Adonai,
qui populo in Sinai
legem dedisti vertice
in maiestate gloriae.

Veni, O Iesse virgula,
ex hostis tuos ungula,
de specu tuos tartari
educ et antro barathri.

Veni, Clavis Davidica,
regna reclude caelica,
fac iter tutum superum,
et claude vias inferum.

Veni, veni O Oriens,
solare nos adveniens,
noctis depelle nebulas,
dirasque mortis tenebras.

Veni, veni, Rex Gentium,
veni, Redemptor omnium,
ut salvas tuos famulos
peccati sibi conscios.

our neighbors, the warren(s)

“Be cunning, and full of tricks,
and your people will never be destroyed.”
Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Love the animals.
God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Don’t trouble it, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness,
don’t work against God’s intent.
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov”
Richard Adams, Watership Down

We have some neighbors…its a family of 5 and they live outback
someplace behind the house.

We believe there were perhaps 6 or even more, but one of their smallest family
members met a tragic demise…
Our older cat, Peaches, might know something about all of this but we won’t talk
about that today…

Rather we’ll just enjoy those who call our yard their own…

The other day, I went to open the front door and this is who greeted me on the walkway
directly at the bottom of the front porch steps.

(julie cook / 2019)

Next, I went out on the back deck to check on what was cooking on the grill when
something down below caught my eye…
That’s when I spotted him, or is it a her, under my blueberry bushes

(julie Cook / 2019)

Definitely munching on the blueberries…

(julie cook / 2019)

This afternoon I went out front to water my plants when suddenly someone darted
out, right in front of me…

(julie cook / 2019)

That’s when I turned around only to see these two youngsters chasing each other around the yard.

(julie cook / 2019)

Without a vegetable garden these days, I certainly don’t mind our neighbors sharing my yard.

(julie cook / 2019)

Do not plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you.
Proverbs 3:29

finding equality in our atrocities

The way we respond to ideas has morphed.
They work differently now.
We experience them more like a virus spreading a plague than they do building blocks
one can take and reshape and build concepts and patterns out of.
Gavin Ashenden

(a chilly January night in Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2019)

I must admit my head has been a bit in the sand as of late—not due to hiding, but just due to life.
Be it the pollen or the crud I’ve been battling on and off for the past several weeks, or
a few personal diversions, or simply be it from the clanging din from all things media
of “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming….”

All of whom were never coming…
So we can all pull the vodka back out because I think we’re safe…

And so I say all of this because I have had precious little time to
read…. much…of anything…

Needless to say anything from our favorite across the ponds clerics.

It’s been months, sadly I must confess, that I’ve had the chance to watch an episode of
Anglican Unscripted…and rarely can I take in a full post by the Wee Flea, David Roberston.

And that’s really how Satan likes it—divert their eyes lest they see what’s truth
and what is actually coming…

So when you’re running at full tilt like I have been, you try to stop long enough just to
snag a bit of news….just to see if the planet is still spinning or whether we’ve simply
gone off tilt and are wildly spinning out of control…
of which it so often seems.

Yet I am reminded that…
today, trust in the media is at an all-time low,
and it is easy to understand why so many Americans are absolutely sick and tired of being
lied to by the big media companies.
Tyler Durden

And so like so many others who want to know the truth,
I work hard to sift out the truth from the spoils…

It is such a difficult task to find that truth…so much so that that is why I seek out those
who use Christian filters in order to sift through those spoils —
hence why I find the offerings of David Robertson and Gavin Ashenden
so keenly important…

They sift through the muck and find God’s light.

So I did stop long enough this morning to squeeze in the latest posting by our favorite rouge Anglican,
Bishop Gavin Ashenden.

Is it just me or did you hear, see or read anything about the mass murders of the Nigeran Christians???
Because I know I didn’t.

I did hear a great deal about the Christchurch mosque murders in
New Zealand which came by the hands of a madman.

But what of the madmen who massacred the Nigerian Christians??
I didn’t hear about that at all.

In fact, I’m really upset I didn’t read, see or hear about it.

I may not get to always catch a lot of television but I do get breaking news alerts on
my phone, I read the headlines from local and national news sites and I do even
receive alerts from the BBC…

But nothing about 140 murdered Nigerian Christians.

Is it because it was in Nigeria?
Is it because they were Christians?

Bishop Ashenden wonders the same…

The Media lamented profoundly with the victims (those of the Christchurch mosque killing); rightly.
But so deep did its sympathies run, that it told only one side of a wider story.
49 people were killed by a callous white secular Australian murderer in the Christchurch Mosque.
But in the same week, 140 Nigerian Christians were butchered by their Muslim neighbours;
and the media were silent. Sometimes what you don’t say is as powerful
a way of distorting the truth as telling a lie.

https://ashenden.org/2019/03/28/we-need-new-universities-to-help-people-love-ideas-without-hating-people-jordan-peterson-islam-and-freedom-of-speech/

And so it is in the same vein of thinking that my cousin sent me a link to a story
that she recently read regarding the Nigerian massacres.

Knowing that I often write about those under the radar reported stories regarding the global attacks
on Christians, she thought I would find the article interesting if not actually telling.

And I did…

Now I don’t read Breitbart nor am I familiar with the Zero Hedge site of which she shares,
but I still found the reported story very telling.

Why didn’t I hear about this on a mainstream news site?
Have we been so consumed with all things “collusion” that we fail to hear or see the atrocities
that continue happening to the faithful worldwide?

I wonder if we have not become so utterly divided that we are now mindlessly
defining our collective human atrocities separately.

In Nigeria, more than 120 Christians have been gunned down or killed with machetes over the past
three weeks, but Breitbart was the only big media outlet to report on it…

As Breitbart News alone reported among major news outlets,
Fulani jihadists racked up a death toll of over 120 Christians over the past three weeks
in central Nigeria, employing machetes and gunfire to slaughter men, women, and children,
burning down over 140 houses, destroying property, and spreading terror.

The New York Times did not place this story on the front page;
in fact, they did not cover it at all.
Apparently, when assessing “all the news that’s fit to print,”
the massacre of African Christians did not measure up.
The same can be said for the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune,
the Detroit Free Press, the LA Times, and every other major paper in the United States.

And of course, Breitbart is not exactly “mainstream” media.

So why won’t anyone else report on this?

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. Last June,
twelve entire Christian villages in central Nigeria were completely wiped out…

In only days, a dozen villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state were wiped out.
The affected communities surround the city of Jos—known as the epicenter
of Christianity in northern Nigeria’s Middle Belt.

As many as 200 Christians had been killed, however,
some residents fear the death toll may be even higher, as more bodies are yet to be recovered,
while others were burned beyond recognition. On Sunday,
75 of the victims were buried in a mass grave.

I’ll bet that most of you had not heard about that until now.

On the other side of the world, 20 innocent people were slaughtered
when Muslim radicals bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral in January…

On January 27, Muslim extremists bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral on the
Philippine island of Jolo, killing some 20 people and injuring dozens of others.

Once again, this is yet another mass killing that was almost
entirely ignored by the mainstream media.

Is the anti-Christian bias among the mainstream media so strong that
they can’t even bring themselves to report the basic facts to us?

People deserve to know what is happening.
Christian persecution is rising in almost every nation on the planet,
and this huge ongoing crisis should be on our front pages on a continual basis.

But instead, we never get to hear any of these stories unless
we seek out alternative sources of information.

Over in China, the persecution of Christians has reached a frightening crescendo.
Recently, officials have been going house to house and replacing pictures
of Jesus Christ “with pictures of dictator Mao Zedong and/or
China’s current authoritarian president, Xi Jinping”…

If you were to replace “Christians” with some other favored group in any of the examples
that I have just shared, you would instantly have front page news all over the planet.

The mainstream media is definitely not “independent”,
and they are not looking out for you.

They have their own agenda and anything that does not fit that
agenda does not get to be part of “the news”.

So far in 2019, there have been 453 Islamic terror attacks in which 1,956 people have been murdered.
But you will never hear those numbers from the mainstream media.

Instead, when the mainstream media talks about Bible-believing
Christians it is almost always an attack story.
As a recent Breitbart article aptly observed,
having “an anti-Christian bias” has become “the last acceptable prejudice”…

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-18/why-does-mainstream-media-purposely-ignore-mass-killings-christians-across-globe

Our news, our politicians, our very nation is so utterly divided and skewed that sifting
through the spoils has now become vastly important…
because if not—the truth will be hidden from plain sight.

Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation; for you, I wait all the day long.
Psalm 25:5

Something about that date…

“But no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”
James 3:8-10

one of the side chapels in Santa Maria sopra Minerva / Rome, Italy / Julie Cook / 2018

I don’t know about your phone, but my phone displays, on the home screen, a banner
notification alert to emails, breaking news, missed calls, texts…etc…
One notification kept reoccurring, despite my having already opened and read the email—
weeks ago.

Day after day, the same notification kept showing up.
Despite my having opened it, read it, and closed it.

Glitch?
Power the phone off.
Power on.

The problem was that it kept happening, again and again.

But first, let’s back up a tad…

I subscribe to The Catholic Company’s Morning Offering.
Each morning, bright and early, I receive an email with the day’s quotes, daily office readings,
the saint of the day meditation of the day…etc.

It’s where I find many of the quotes and meditation (observations and writings) excerpts that I use.

I usually save them, only sending them to the trash once I’ve accumulated about a month’s allotment–
making certain I’ve read, savored and pulled out what is needed in my sharing.

Well, I did such for December 18th’s offering…
I didn’t use it that exact day but the following day…I used it when I felt “called” to do so.
I had used the morning of the 18th’s quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen,
as well as the meditation excerpt from Fr. Basil Maturin.

“There are two ways of knowing how good God is:
one is never to lose Him, and the other is to lose Him and then to find Him.”
— Archbishop Fulton Sheen

“It is, then, in following the will of God,
in spite of all the difficulties that may arise both from within and from without,
in the constant offering of ourselves to God as the creatures of His hand to do and to be what
He would have us,
in the surrender of one thing after another that comes between us and Him and holds us back—–
it is in such acts that we unite ourselves with those glorious beings who cast their crowns
before the throne and with those unfallen creatures who have never known what it is to have
a wish or thought apart from the will of God.
Amongst those glorified saints there are, indeed,
many whose wills were for a long time in revolt against God’s will and who brought themselves
at last into subjection, many to whom the will of God here on earth meant the sacrifice of
everything the heart most loved, many to whom it meant the sacrifice of life itself.
But all that is past and over, and its fruits remain—the eternal life of oblation and union
with God, where one will rules those countless multitudes and binds them together and to God,
where each one of those countless millions lives his own complete and perfect life yet never
jars on any other, where each is perfect in itself and all together compose one perfect whole—
the Body of Christ.”
Fr. Basil Maturin, p. 47
An Excerpt From
Spiritual Guidelines for Souls Seeking God

My godfather, who passed away 3 years ago December 29, 2016, was the Episcopal priest
who I often reference in many of my posts.
He was instrumental in my life…
especially during my youthful Christian journey…
as he watched and silently prayed as I ebbed and flowed when beginning a life of my own.
He was the Dean of the Cathedral of St Philip in Atlanta from 1966-1984…
His birthday was December 18th.

And so ironically, oddly or divinely I kept having that errant notification on my phone from the
Catholic Morning Offering for the day of December 18th.

(and you know I don’t believe in coincidence…only prompting by The Spirit)

Day after day the notification was showing up on my phone despite my having read the email.

After powering down the phone multiple times, closing all apps, yada yada, yada…
it would keep popping up.
So I went back to the original email and moved it to the trash…
of which removed it from all of my devices…
I was suspecting my migrating of old to new computers might be to blame but doubted it.

So that was that.
The email was trashed and I hoped the popup notification would leave me alone.

So then out of the blue on December 17th, I received an errant text message from a dear old friend
from out in Billings, Montana.

He was a former priest at the Cathedral when I was in high school and was our priest for youth.
He and I were always very close friends even following our taking separate paths in life.
He moved back home to a small Montana town in order to pastor a small Episcopal Church
while I went off to college.

We’ve stayed in touch sporadically throughout the years…my husband and I even stopped in Billings
a few years back when we were on a driving adventure to Glacier National Park and met up for a bit of
face to face catch up.

But our contact is usually relegated to the yearly Christmas card…

And so I was really surprised when his text popped up out of the blue.

My friend wrote that He and David (Dean Collins) had had a good conversation the evening prior while
my friend was driving back home from church.

I wrote back a tongue and cheek response that their conversation must have been of the divine…
I then asked how he was besides being delusional…

He told me that sometimes he finds that he still needs to run a few things past the Dean, his former
boss, and mentor, as only the Dean would understand.

I get that…as I wholeheartedly agree.

I can’t count how many conversations I still have with my godpoppa…
I deeply miss that twinkling eye and sly smile and rich melodic soothing voice of his
as he’d take me in his arms offering my angst-filled heart comfort or lovingly place those
gentle hands upon my head calling for prayers of healing.

My friend in Montana has since retired as the rector of the Episcopal Chruch there in Billings
and now enjoys fishing as well as keeping up with the families of all of his now grown foster boys.

I told him that it was funny that he text me out of the blue regarding Dean Collins the day before the
Dean’s birthday which would have fallen on the 18th.

So fast forward to earlier this week.

I’ve written about my crazy dreams before.

I don’t always sleep well due to the vivid dreams I often have.

Some are slap crazy.
Some are weird as hell.
Some are troubling.
Some have me walking up my husband as I’m mumbling loudly while thrashing about as I seem to be
struggling in my sleep.
Some are so vivid that I can actually wake with tears rolling down my cheeks.

Well, the other night I had a dream that seemed to last most of the night…going on and on.
And of course, it made absolutely no sense and it was crazy… but…
the Dean was in the dream.

He was as he was when I was in college, but I was as I am now.
We were seated at a large table or maybe it was a long bench but we were seated side by side.

He was right by my side.
And despite the dream making no sense, there was however a sense of peace having him right by my side.

So when I woke up… I figured I needed to go back in and pull up that Morning Offering from Dec. 18th
that kept nagging me.
I wanted–needed–to see if I was missing something.

Or was I simply suppose to repost the quote and excerpts again…maybe someone esle needed to read
them…maybe again.

The bible verse is listed above—James 3:8-10

The quote was by Archbishop Sheen which is listed above along with the same
meditation by Fr. Basil Maturin.

And the saint for the day was–
ST. WINEBALD
St. Winebald (701-761 A.D.) was a Saxon prince born into a holy and royal family in England.
His father, St. Richard the King, and his mother, St. Wunna of Wessex, are both saints, as well as his brother,
St. Willibald, his sister, St. Walburga, and his uncle, St. Boniface.
After making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his father and brother,
and then spending many years in Rome, Winebald was recruited by his uncle, Boniface,
to join him in evangelizing Germany.
Winebald was ordained a priest and worked as a missionary across Germany, Holland, France, Austria,
Belgium, and Luxembourg, leaving behind many flourishing churches and monasteries
under the Rule of St. Benedict. St. Winebald was an important figure in laying the
foundations of Christianity across much of Europe.
After his death, his tomb became a pilgrimage shrine. His feast day is December 18.

So now let’s look back at today’s picture I posted up above.

Back in October when I was spending a reflective afternoon exploring the beautiful church of
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the Chruch of Sanit Mary over Minerva,
I was slowly walking from side chapel to chapel taking in the paintings, and the statuary—
all of the man-created beauty complimenting the Divine offering of peace.
When I found myself stopping, noting an odd little sight.

Something that I don’t think many of the passing tourists even noticed let alone understood the significance.

Someone had tied a scallop shell to the gate in front of the chapel.

Some of the chapels have gates and are locked most days as many of them contain priceless works of art.
These churches are open to the public with little to no security, so given our day and time,
some areas are simply locked off to a wandering public.

The shell is a symbol of St. James and is associated with Christian pilgrims…
Of which you may read here:
https://followthecamino.com/blog/scallop-shell-camino-de-santiago/
(Lynda I hope you have your shell)

And so I knew that a pilgrim had been here before I had been.

Our paths had crossed…unbeknownst to either of us…all but for the breadcrumb of a simple shell left behind.

And so since I feel as if my blog is often a pilgrimage of sorts, I also believe that my blog is
in turn a place for pilgrims to visit.

And thus since there was obviously something about the day’s devotion from Dec. 18th that
needed for, or rather longed for, me to revisit and reshare. I have done so.
It is for whoever may find themselves stopping by for a bit of a respite during their pilgrimage.

“And he began, “What chance or destiny
has brought you here before your final day?
And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?”
“Up there in life beneath the quiet stars
I lost my way,” I answered, “in a valley,
before I’d reached the fullness of my age.
I turned my shoulders on it yesterday:
this soul appeared as I was falling back,
and by the road through Hell he leads me home.”
“Follow your star and you will never fail
to find your glorious port,” he said to me”
Dante Alighieri

May love and joy come to you…

Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you, and to you our wassail, too.
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
1st stanza to a traditional English carol

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
Even though the Disciples suffered persecution, they were filled with joy.
One would have expected them to be depressed or angry or resentful.
The very fact that they responded to persecution with joy is a sign that
the Spirit was guiding their actions.
We can use that same test with our own words and actions.”
Rev. Jude Winkler, O.F.M., p. 11
An Excerpt From
Daily Meditations Holy Spirit

Love and joy…
two sentiments found in an old English carol which are, if the truth be told,
actually so much more than mere holiday fodder sung during just a particular time of year
but rather they are two paramount fruits of the Spirit.

We sing about them.
We think about them.
We might even find ourselves with wistful thoughts yearning over
along with hoping over…
Yet sadly I fear that we have become so jaded as a culture that we have
allowed the caustic wave that is blanketing our society to corrode our yearnings
leaving us more than simply longing but rather coming up woefully short.

Love and Joy, for and with our fellow man, woman, and child, are not only difficult
to find but are more and more difficult for us to actually feel.

It’s certainly easy enough to say all of this after turning on a television and
catching any news program, talk show, or late night comedy show…
as they are rife with everything that has nothing to do
with Love or Joy or any gift having anything to do with the Spirit…
but I say this more from a little incident Sunday morning that left me
scratching my head while questioning the notion of both Love and Joy.

Yesterday was the third Sunday of Advent.
It is known as Gaudete Sunday or Gaudete Domino Semper” (“Rejoice in the Lord always”).

The word ‘rejoice’ is found in the Latin lyrics of the traditional and ancient Advent Hymn–
Veni Veni Emmanuel

Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel!
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio,
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

O COME, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,
to thee shall come Emmanuel!

We are to rejoice with a spirit of Love and Joy…
over the Spirit of Love and Joy

My little tale began this weekend.

We had spent the night Saturday evening babysitting the Mayor as her dad had taken her mom
to see the Nutcracker—both of them will be celebrating their 30th birthdays this week
so our son surprised our daughter-n-law with tickets to the play at the historic
Atlanta Fox Theater.

And because we wouldn’t be able to celebrate with them during the week due to
work schedules, we thought we could go enjoy a late Sunday morning brunch
for a little low key family celebration before we were to head back home.

We opted to go to a lovely little French restaurant that we have loved and enjoyed
throughout the years which happens to be located in what was once a quaint
old neighborhood home.

These particular neighborhood homes, in this particular area of town,
came into existence beginning in the early 1920s and were lived in
until about late 1960’s—right when the city was hitting a stride of a boom,
turning the entire area into the trendy shopping and dining mecca it’s known for today
that being Buckhead.

In fact, the high school my parents attended is just around the corner…which is now
some sort of new learning center.
Many of the homes in this neighborhood were once the homes of their friends yet have
since been turned into haute couture boutiques or trendy restaurants.

The street where this restaurant is located is as it was decades ago…
shaded by old oaks with cars parked on either side of
the street making it a tight squeeze when two cars meet that are driving either
up and down the street simultaneously, narrowly missing one another let alone those
parked along the curb.

Our reservations were for 11:30.

We arrived about 10 minutes early and the valet fellow
was setting out his sign but there was a large truck delivering fresh fruit currently
blocking the driveway.
I had my blinker on to turn as we were waiting for the delivery guy to move his truck.

At this point, my daughter-n-law hopped out of the front seat to help me maneuver my car
into the driveway between the truck and a parked car as the valet told us to try and
squeeze in if we could.
She was going to check the distance between the car parked on the curb right by the
driveway and the truck.

Thankfully the delivery guy came out at this crucial moment to get in his truck and move.
Leaving us without having to hold our breath squeezing in between unmovable objects.

However, it was also at the same moment that suddenly a jeep drove up right up behind me
and proceeded to blow their horn.

My daughter-n-law motioned to the jeep to please wait for just a minute.
Because obvioulsy they could see that we were waiting on a delivery truck
to pull out of the driveway we were waiting to turn into.

However, the horn blowing proceeded.

My husband and son, sitting in the back seat with the baby, both reached for the door
so fast, practically falling out of the car over one another, to see what was up with
the jeep.

At this point, my daughter-n-law tells the lady in the jeep that we’re just about
to pull in if she could just hold on a minute, we’d be out of her way,
since obviously, we were having to wait on the delivery truck to move.

The lady in the jeep tells my daughter-n-law that we are being rude sitting in the
road and that she needed to hurry to take her daughter to her riding lessons.

Late for a horse riding lesson in the middle of the urban city??…hummm

She obviously wanted me out of her way come hell or high water or both.

We had only been waiting maybe 3 minutes max when she had pulled up
and we were just about to turn in.

And so with the continued honking horn and the selfish escalating words from the
lady in the jeep fussing about me not moving out of her way,
my oh so pregnant and out of patience daughter-n-law had had her fill…
she proceeded to tell this woman that she could kindly wait just one minute or take those
riding lessons and shove them into a dark, tight and painful place.

At this point the truck moved, the valet motioned me in while the jeep zoomed
past me, narrowly missing my car’s back end.

The valet guy, who had felt helpless, was beside himself telling us that that lady in
the jeep was “a rude looser” and that “this is the season for love and joy”,
as well as a time for little bit of patience. Where was her giving spirit??!!

Did I mention it was a chilly, grey, misty, foggy yucky kind of day…
of which cast a somber veil over the day?
Did I mention that this is a section of town known for being a bit upper crust?
Something my aunt use to laugh over whenever she came back to Atlanta
to visit as she remembered this neighborhood when…

All of us adults in the car, with the Mayor oblivious, were now frazzled with raw nerves.
The Mayor was just ready to be set free from the restraints of a car seat…
restraint is not something the Mayor is fond of as of late.

Grousing as we made our way inside, I had to remind everyone, myself included,
not to let this ruin our day or our time together.

But those sorts of occurrences tend to linger in one’s craw.

Especially when considering yourself to be a mild-mannered, patient
law-abiding citizen of the world whose thought process is live and let live.

I was glad my husband and son could not maneuver seatbelts and a car door both fast
enough to get out of the car, having to leave the dirty work to a pregnant lady who
teaches jr high school right here before a major holiday and was well past putting
up with anyone’s selfish nonsense.

And so now I am pulled back to the notion of Love and Joy.

As in where is the Love and Joy?
Where is the patience, the kindness, the peace?
The fruits?

Finally seated at the table, with the Mayor now opting to go wild,
my husband reminded us that 99% of folks are nice and kind and of whom want to
do the right thing…but it’s always that one person out there who can simply ruin
it all in one fell swoop and think nothing of it.
Leaving us to forget all the good while the bad glaringly taunts our thoughts
and emotions.

And so I was quickly reminded of the one who rejoices in the negative, the bad and
the wrong all found in the tiny percentage versus the good found in the
large percent. Much the opposite of the One who leaves the whole in order to seek
out the one who is lost.

From all of this, the one thing I do know is that Satan, who much like Santa
(note, Satan is real…Santa is, well, in the North Pole)
goes into to overdrive, particularly this time of year, working very hard to rob us all
of any sentiment of a Holy season while he joyously strives
to rob us of those life-giving fruits of the Spirit.

Because if we lose those Fruits we lose ourselves and in turn, a wedge is driven between us
and the very Spirit of God and in turn, Satan claims a tiny victory.

And so yes–whereas we, those of us in my car, needed to be mindful of that very
thought when confronted with a sudden difficult situation, we, as in humankind,
all need to be mindful of how we treat one another—
as holidays seem to bring out both the very best and the very worst in humanity.

So as this is the season of gift giving…
We must remember that we have each been given Spirit-filled gifts.
Life-giving gifts.
We have also been given the gift of Salvation.

Life-giving gifts which are meant to be lived and shared.

The remembrance of this particular holiday season blessedly remains as not merely a reminder
but rather as a wake-up call…
A call not so much of nostalgia or of the fact that we struggle with consumerism…
but rather the call that we are to strive to be gracious gift givers…
gracious in giving gifts that are neither bought nor wrapped…
but rather gifts that we as Believers have each been endowed with…giving
way to the best gift given to all mankind.

May we then be quick to share our Fruitful gifts while at the same time rejoicing
in the most precious gift of all…our very Salvation.

May love and joy come to you…

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High,
because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Luke 6:35

Adventus, Chronos, Kairos

“God travels wonderful ways with human beings,
but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people.
God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him;
rather, his way is beyond all comprehension,
free and self-determined beyond all proof…”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

(The Southern Cross / Southern Africa’s Catholic Weekly)

About a week or so ago, I happened upon a lovely blog.
And of course, I wanted to share the posting.
It was Advent and it was an Advent post written by a Franciscan friar.

Then a president died and The Mayor came to visit…sooooo…..
my sharing of such a lovely message got put on a back burner.

Here, finally, is my sharing…

A blog by a Franciscan friar:
friarmusings…the musing of a Franciscan friar…

Since my blog is one that is based upon the musings of a retired educator…
I thought it a most fitting meeting…
How fitting that there should be a chance meeting.
More aptly a bit of a Spiritual arranging.
Remember…there is no such thing as coincidence.

And so I offer you a delightful teaching on Advent by a friar…

Did you know that a “new year” begins with Advent? We begin a new liturgical year,
a year when most of the gospels will be from the Gospel of Luke (referred to as “Year C”).
While the years and readings change, there are constants with the arrival of Advent.

Advent is a time when we commemorate the adventus of Jesus —
his coming, arrival, or birth into the days and nights of our world.
Christians live in normal time just like everyone else —
our normal chronos as time ticks off the days, weeks, months, and years.
The early Christian thinkers held that God lives in kairos, a “time” when past, present,
and future are but a single moment.
The awesome moments of salvation history are when chronos and kairos meet.

The birth of Jesus was just such a moment.
The Son of God, the Word made flesh, who existed before all.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race” (John 1:1-4).

It is a moment when the Divine broke into chronos from Kairos,
when God came to be with us and experience everything about our lives except sin.
Mary gave birth not just to any baby boy, but to the Lord of all time and history.
A baby boy that matured,
“And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man” (Luke 2:52).

After living in total obscurity for about 30 years,
Jesus burst onto the public scene and proclaimed that in his own person:
“This is the kairos [time] of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
St. Paul writes that in “the fullness of kairos [time], God sent forth his son”
to redeem humanity (Galatians 4:4).
Jesus, creation, and the beginning of time met redemption and the fulfillment
of time at Bethlehem’s midpoint of human history…

At Advent, Christians also look forward in expectation of Christ’s future coming,
to that time when God will culminate what he has now only inaugurated,
when he will finish what he has started, and will fulfill what he has promised.
For believers, history is going somewhere and not nowhere.
Chronos is proceeding in a distinctly “ahead” fashion, rather than in a
cyclical or meaningless manner.
It is engaged and fueled by the gravity of karios pulling us into a promised future.

At Advent we connect these two horizons —
celebrating Jesus’s past birth and expectation of his future coming.
We live our present days in light of that future day.
In between, we are called to live at the intersection of kairos and chronos.
What the Celts called the “thin places,” places where the boundary between the earthly
and the eternal becomes permeable.
A place and time when we catch glimpses of God’s love,
majesty, and power as it pours into the world.

(full post here … https://friarmusings.com/2018/12/02/thinnest-of-places/ )

I love that…”A place and time when we catch glimpses of God’s love, majesty and power
as it pours into the world…