“Even when God’s will does not correspond to your own desires,
it is always beneficial for you.”
St. Arnold Janssen
(algae along a fountian / Julie Cook / 2021)
(the bubbling waters of a fountain / Julie Cook / 2021)
“I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring
to know God, for,
beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness,
His purity shows our foulness, and by meditating on His humility
we find how very far we are from being humble.
Two advantages are gained by this practice.
First, it is clear that white looks far whiter when placed near something black,
and on the contrary, black never looks so dark as when seen beside
something white.
Secondly, our understanding and will become more noble and capable
of good in every way when we turn from ourselves to God:
it is very injurious never to raise our minds above the mire of
our own faults.”
St. Teresa of Avila, p. 17
An Excerpt From
Interior Castle
***Off to keep the Sheriff for a few days as he recovers from the latest
virus coming down the pike
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato
(courtesy the web)
Fear seems to have been a running thread throughout most of our lives
these past oh so many months.
We have fretted, been filled with dread, fear and anxiety over politics,
over anarchists, over Marxism, over wokeism (yes, I just made that a word),
over Covid and over the darkness that just seems to be enveloping all of us
both figuratively as well as literally.
There is fear felt by parents whose children are sick…
Fear felt by families whose loved ones serve in our military,
Fear felt for our first responders and law enforcement…
The list is lengthy and our fear has been palpable.
Yet Believers know from whence fear comes…it comes from the father of Lies.
And so because of this, we know that fear is indeed a liar.
I bring this all up because my friend Stephanie, whose police officer husband
is still in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the head and subsequent
wreck of his patrol car, spoke very candidly today
(yesterday when you read this) regarding her being fearful.
Stephanie has had a roller coaster of fear since she first received
that initial call that Rob had been shot in the line of duty.
The initial fear was losing Rob—would he survive.
So just to recap the tale before I proceed, Sgt. Rob Holloway was
responding to an all call for backup in the wee hours of Monday morning
April 12th.
The car that the Georgia State Patrol, The Carroll County Sheriff’s Dept.
and the Carrollton City Police force were responding to, was traveling in
speeds exceeding 100 mph and the young men in the car were firing on
the officers.
Sgt. Holloway was shot in the head, lost control of his vehicle, and crashed.
He was life flighted to Atlanta’s Grady trauma Hospital, underwent surgery
to remove part of his right frontal lobe while parts of the bullet
remain embedded in his brain.
Rob has made tremendous strides and has since been transferred to Atlanta’s
Shepherd Clinic.
However…
Rob has been running a fever now for several days…a fever that does not
seem to be subsiding despite treatments.
He has been placed on potent antibiotics as meningitis is now suspected.
He has been transferred back to the ICU.
Stephanie, my former colleague, has been dutiful to keep a journal
on CaringBridge. A wonderful platform for those who want to share
the updates of loved ones who are struggling with a battle of health.
From the CaringBridge site:
From the launch of the very first CaringBridge site,
we’ve been working toward a single vision:
a world where no one goes through a health journey alone.
In order to turn this vision into reality,
we’ve made it our mission to build bridges of
care and communication providing love and support
on a health journey.
I think it is cathartic for Stephanie to write and reach out to the folks
in her and Rob’s world.
However, I suspect that world is growing wider with each post.
I also think it is cathartic for those of us who read her posts.
Stephanie is probably not aware that she is currently being a strong
witness for what faith in Jesus Christ is all about.
She is honest with her feelings yet so steadfast in her conviction.
She is humorous as well as insightful.
I have been richly blessed by simply reading her daily posts.
Even when she is fearful, she knows from whence her help, her calm,
her peace, comes…
Here is Stephanie’s latest post:
Hello friends,
Today has been an eventful day at the Shepherd All-Inclusive Resort.
Rob ran a fever all last night.
Neither his medications to reduce the fever nor the cooling blanket
helped the fever decrease.
So, we started the day with a fresh round of bloodwork and another CT scan –
all before breakfast.
They changed medications and after the CT scan,
his fever dropped below 100 for the first time since 1:00 a.m.
Thank you, Lord!
Robbie stayed pretty groggy all day and slept a lot,
but the fever never returned.
This afternoon, his neurologist, his doctor at Shepherd,
and an infectious disease doctor came to visit our room.
Even though it is too soon to tell if bacteria grew in his spinal fluid
from his lumbar puncture yesterday,
his white blood cell count was elevated indicating he may have meningitis
(an infection of the brain or spinal cord).
Because there are still bullet fragments in his brain,
he has been at high risk for infection since his injury.
The good news is that the CT scan and blood work are all still normal.
There were also no brain abscesses found near the bullet or
bone fragments in his brain.
This is great news because meningitis can be treated with antibiotics,
and a brain abscess would require surgery and antibiotics.
Another positive behind all of this is that his medical team
started him on the right antibiotics on Sunday
since they suspected infection over the weekend.
The infectious disease doctor increased his dosage and said
that he would probably be on them for 7-14 days.
He said it usually takes longer to notice a difference and requires
a longer medication duration because the infection is in his
spinal fluid.
But wait, there’s more.
As a precautionary measure,
we have moved back to ICU at Shepherd until the antibiotics start
positively impacting Rob’s symptoms.
Robbie was thrilled to have a “new hotel room,” and really quite
pleased with the move.
He is resting peacefully now, and I probably will be soon, too.
I think moving to ICU is a good thing as well for now.
At Shepherd, the ICU nurse to patient ratio is 1:2,
and his vitals will be monitored continuously all night long.
Also, migraines, fever, and confusion are all symptoms of
this type of infection, and so hopefully these antibiotics will
greatly change all of the issues Robbie has been experiencing
so we can get back to training and visiting people in the garden.
I’ll admit that this morning I was a little afraid,
but the Spirit quickly reminded me that fear is a liar
(2 Timothy 1:7),
and verses about fear kept running through my mind.
I was quickly renewed to what I know to be true –
God has us in the palm of his hands (Isaiah 41:10, 13).
No weapon formed against us will prosper (Isaiah 54:17).
So, I started praying and had peace (Psalm 34:4).
My prayer now that meningitis and all forms of infection
have to leave his body and his entire demeanor, vitals,
and physical state are all so greatly improved in the morning
that we can move back to our normal room tomorrow.
We love you and greatly appreciate all your prayers and support.
Have an amazing night.
Love,
🙂 Steph
Psalm 31:14-15
Philippians 4:6-7
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
You remember Barney right?
Barney Fife?
From back in the early 1960s?
The hapless deputy helping to protect the imaginary town of Mayberry, NC?
Thank goodness for his even-keeled, laid back boss, Sheriff Andy Taylor.
When Barney wanted to make a point of how certain things needed to go, in what direction
his long-suffering boss should proceed…all the while emphasizing the need for
no further discussion on his part, he was famous for using the quip,
“Nip it…Nip it in the bud.”
“Ya got to nip it, Andy, nip it in the bud now!”
According to the dictionary, the expression means: suppress or destroy something at an early stage
Meaning cut it off at the source before it, whatever it might be, spreads and thus
creates a deeper tangled mess.
Such an expression could be used, say, toward gossip…stopping idol hearsay before
it becomes so distorted that folks get unnecessarily hurt or unfairly maligned.
And so now we have it…we know our troubles…
Our trouble is that we are currently living in a sea of irony…
a sea of nipping things in the bud.
I hate to say it but we are living in a culture lead by those who are nipping anything
everything, anyone, and everyone in the bud.
As in, get rid of it, get rid of them… now!
In other words, cancel it out.
I’ve never really been a big fan of comedians, I think I’ve mentioned that before.
I’ve never been one to enjoy amusement derived at the expense of others.
Now I can be self-deprecating as the day is long…but I just find
many of today’s comedians and their schticks to be either laced with foul words
and or imagery and simply tasteless, offensive and irreverent dribble.
Of course, those like Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr.
Dean Martin and even Flip Wilson were of a different generation of comedians.
They could make me laugh.
They often laughed at themselves or laughed at things we could all relate to…
But I must say, that whereas he’s never been high on my list, I am finding
that I can actually readily appreciate the British comedian Ricky Gervais.
He has not shied away from going after those whose circles he has run in
or at least run around.
Recently, he let loose on the Hollywood elites when he hosted the last Golden
Globe awards. Yes he can be foul and irreverent, which is why
I don’t much care to watch him, but he has, however, been candidly truthful.
And it is his truthfulness that I can certainly appreciate.
I caught a news story yesterday about Gervais speaking out
against today’s cancel culture.
I found his observation to be most telling…
“Everyone’s got a different definition of cancel culture,” the 59-year-old explained.
“If it is choosing not to watch a comedian because you don’t like them, that’s everyone’s right.
But when people are trying to get someone fired because they don’t like their opinion
about something that’s nothing to do with their job,
that’s what I call cancel culture and that’s not cool.”
He added: “You turning off your own TV isn’t censorship.
You trying to get other people to turn off their TV because you don’t like something
they’re watching, that’s different.”
“I did a tweet a month ago about freedom of speech, quoting Winston Churchill.
Someone came back with, ‘You know he was a white supremacist?’
And I wrote back, ‘Not in that tweet he isn’t.’
It’s like if someone did something once that’s wrong, everything they did was wrong,” he said.
“You are allowed to have things in common with bad people as long it’s not the bad things.
I’m a vegetarian and I love dogs, like Hitler.
But the only thing I have in common with Hitler are the good bits!”
So it seems our culture has lost the notion of the good bits
while they mindlessly race to nipping both you and me in the bud!
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,
but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion,
that it may give grace to those who hear.
Ephesians 4:29
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(driving into Atlanta from the west / Julie Cook / 2020)
Nearly 40 years ago when I first moved away from home, having taken my first teaching position
in a small city about an hour’s drive west of Atlanta, this was the view that would
herald my return to the city.
This was the view I would see, as I crested the last hill on the interstate before I was near my
home stretch.
It is the view of the city as seen coming in from the west on 285, just before Six Flags.
It is also a view of a city that has only grown in its vista’s expanse over these
past 40 years.
And yet what a deceiving view it is currently.
This particular Sunday morning there were a few popcorn clouds dotting a sweeping blue
summer’s sky coupled with a lighter than average load of traffic—
all of which just might deceive one into thinking that everything was peachy perfect and
right with the world.
But I knew differently.
I was heading over to stay with the Mayor and Sheriff as their mom had some
appointments Monday morning–but I knew that life in Atlanta was not what it seemed
to be from this bucolic meets urban vista as seen from afar on this Sunday morning.
There had been an arrest gone bad over the weekend and once again,
there was someone resisting arrest.
This person made the decision to wrest a taser from an officer then opted to
run away while pointing the taser back at the officers, and thus…
he was shot and killed.
The choices we make can be life-altering, and even life-ending,
yet we don’t seem to grasp the severity of such choices.
Crowds once again gathered overnight, not to simply protest, but opting rather to riot–
shutting down the major downtown interstate and burning a Wendy’s to the ground.
The same Wendy’s that had been the scene of the altercation.
Police were again immediately fired—and thus so much for due process at the workplace.
And the Atlanta police chief, who had just been praised a mere week prior for her
steely approach to Atlanta’s chaos, averting catastrophe, sadly abruptly resigned.
Groups such as the NAACP cried for the white sheriff’s head on a platter.
And so I was driving and the city grew closer with each passing mile,
I wondered what sort of mayhem was now simmering in the city of my birth.
According to news outlets both local and national…Atlanta is a city on edge.
I did not see that during my stay…but then again I was watching during the day
and was not visiting downtown.
It would behoove us to always remember that looks may indeed be decieving…
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption,
but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8
The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there’s no place left to hide…
Come on with me, tramps like us
Baby we were born to run…
Bruce Springsteen, lyrics Born to Run
(image of a high speed chase that ends in Houston)
We seem to be a people born to run.
Not physically mind you…as in the quickening of walking then breaking out into a full sprint…
Not running as in a physical form of fitness or sport… but rather the notion of
running AWAY from…as in avoiding.
Yeasterday, my husband and I got on Interstate 85, about 30 miles south of downtown Atlanta….
we were heading south a short ways, due to his wanting to go scope out some
recreational property..aka deer land.
We were driving in the right lane, only having to be on the interstate for a couple of exits when
my husband, looking in his rear-view mirror, nervously announces that
“I think a high speed chase it coming up behind us….”
Huh???
Sure enough, I turned around only to see a sea of blue lights as a small older, beat-up silver
Camary type of car comes flying past us on our left, in a blur… clocking in well over 100 MPH
as both GA State Patrol and local sheriff vehicles followed in a hot pursuit.
The interstate was crowded, but luckily the crowdedness was somewhat spaced out enough
for Mr.”Camary” to weave in and out while his pursuers were equally weaving.
Our exit was next and luckily we got off the interstate in one piece.
But I fretted…what of those further down the road…
did everyone avoid this selfish person who was putting all at grave risk
while running from the law for whatever reason???
This little incident got me thinking…
thinking about us…
us as in humankind…
and that of our running…
running away and running from…
as in…running to avoid, running to hide…
I was reminded of this from Genesis…
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden,
and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:9-13
We run and we hide…We run while hiding from others while we run from the law,
we run from ourselves and more importantly, we run from the ultimate…we run from God…
We run from everyone around us while selfishly putting everyone else at risk
with our running…
Yet what are we running from?
Why are we running?
Do we not realize that no matter time nor space, we will eventually be found,
caught, discovered?
Why do we feel compelled to run…running from not only everyone,
but most importantly from our God while hiding from His presence?
Is it shame?
Defiance?
Arrogance?
Because is not this ultimate running, running from not just
those who are immediately around us, but rather running from our Creator…
while desperately trying to hide from Him…is that not our true impetus for running?
This thought as we enter Lent.
Running to or running from..that will be the question over the next 40 days…
“The cross is not the suffering tied to natural existence,
but the suffering tied to being Christians.
The cross is never simply a matter of suffering,
but a matter of suffering and rejection for the sake of Jesus Christ,
not for the sake of some other arbitrary behavior or confession.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
Joel 2:12-13
“Courage is being scared to death,
but saddling up anyway.”
John Wayne
(image of a rider using a bull rope to tie his hand to a bull in order to stay on as long
as possible without being bucked off—from an Ebay image of all things)
I’ve written about this before but there is a pasture across the road from our house that
is home to a bunch of rodeo bulls.
Ours was not the luck to have horses across the street, although
two do live next door, nor could we even have a peaceful herd of dairy cows, sheep or goats…
Nope—we had to have rodeo bulls.
Loud, very vocal, very smelly, rodeo bulls.
Maybe 50 plus bulls.
Summer garden parties, when the wind is out of the northwest, are not for the faint
of heart at our house…so needless to say, we don’t host any.
(one neighbor / Julie Cook / 2013)
We don’t know the folks who keep up the bulls, as they don’t live in close proximity
to the field, but we’re told that they raise them,
or actually pasture them, for local rodeos.
I, for one, think the field looks atrocious and really question the “care” being offered
these animals but like I say, we hear the owners of the field are a curious lot.
Once, a few years back, the fence was so bad that the bulls kept pushing their way through
and would actually wander down the road or into a neighboring subdivision…
and even into our fenced property…
Go figure!
So you should know that an out-of-place bull is a force to be reckoned with…
Not much makes them want to move.
The local sheriffs would have a time trying to find the owners while attempting to herd the
animals back to the pasture.
The owners have since put up a new fence,
as word is the county made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,
so the bulls now thankfully remain in their pasture.
I’ve never been to a rodeo but I have caught them ever once and a while when televised on TV…
and I must admit that there is just something a bit intriguing about what it is that
makes a man want to climb on the back of a 1500 pound angry muscle machine,
tying himself to said angry beast, in an attempt to see how long he can stay on the back of
the animal before he is thrown off.
Not to mention the fact that the animal could then easily crush him under hoof or even
gore him with his horns…
Hence the life of a rodeo clown.
The cowboy will tie his hand to the bull using a leather rope known as a bull rope.
This is a means of holding on to the animal while the other hand
waves precariously in the air.
And I suppose if you want to stay up and on, tying a hand to the adversary is the
way to go.
But the hope is, that when the cowboy is thrown, his hand will come lose lest he dangles
haphazardly swinging randomly about attached to the wild flailing animal…
being drug around the arena while the bones in his hand, wrist, and arm snap
like little twigs.
All of this imagery of being tied to a bull came to mind today when I was thinking
about the current plight of most Christians worldwide.
An odd thought perhaps but stay with me a minute.
We are living in a very precarious time.
I write often about the current plight of Christianity worldwide.
Persecution is at a level not seen since the days of the Emperors of Rome.
Even here in our cozy little Western Society, Christianity is under heavy
attack.
It may not be physically brutal but the persecution is very much real, alive,
present and very much active—in a very insidious fashion.
Here is a one-minute snippet of an interview with Jim Caviezel, while on the set
of the filming of The Apostle Paul, when he was asked about Christian persecution:
The other day in the post I’d written about our friend the Wee Flea,
the Scottish pastor David Robertson, and his frustrated lament of being fed up with
measured responses, Mark over on’Thoughts From Mark “Hat” Rackley’ Origins
offered an interesting response to my post…
Mark offered a powerful observation found in scripture regarding the lost generations
and the silencing of the faithful…
“If an entire generation is lost, God will raise rocks to shout praises to Him.”
(When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives,
the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all
the miracles they had seen:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
(Luke 19:37-40)
I was tremendously struck by that passage.
It is a very powerful passage—
Imagine… God easily and readily raising rocks to shout His praise??!!!
For if He wanted such, it would therefore be.
It’s hard enough to herd a 1500 pound bull where it needs to go,
imagine getting a rock to sing.
And so I feel as if it’s time that the faithful tie their hands to the back
of the raging bull….as we fight to hold on…
The ride is not going to be easy nor for the faint of heart.
We will be tested and tried as we narrow our focus to the task at hand.
There will be the occasional distractions, much like the rodeo clowns, but
even the clowns won’t be able to distract Satan from letting loose upon the faithful
in those / these final days…
Tie the rope tight, because the ride is about the begin…
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-3
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. . .”
Lyrics by Hal David with music by Burt Bacharach
(a wild weed volunteer under the bird feeder / Julie Cook / 2015)
In 1965 Jackie DeShannon’s rendition of What the World Needs Now hit number 7 on the top 100 play charts.
This was two years before the famous, or infamous depending on who you ask, Summer of Love.
It was a precipitous time in our Nation. . .
For little did any of us fully grasp that at this particular tender time, we were on a oneway collision course with what looked to be a National implosion of epic proportions.
It was a time that was pre Woodstock, pre pill, pre woman’s lib, yet post Cuban Missile Crisis, and post JFK assassination. . .
Growing ominously in the distance were the beating drums of war as this was the same year the first US troops found their way to shores of the Sea of China, just north of Da Nang, Vietnam. . .
Fast forward to September 1st 2015. . .Breaking News. . .a Fox Lake, Illinois police officer is shot by 3 assailants and dies from his wounds. He’s a 32 year law enforcement veteran who leaves behind a wife and four children. The suspects are still at large as the entire community is put on lock down.
This incident comes on the heels of a coldblooded assassination, which took place over the weekend of a Texas Sheriff’s deputy who was shot while simply pumping gas, filling up his police car. A man approached him from behind, shooting him executioner style.
When he fell to the pavement, the gunman stood over the body, emptying his gun into an obviously dead body—an exclamation point of murder.
This incident comes on the heels of a coldblooded assassination, wait, didn’t I just said that. . . of two television journalist in Virginia. . .etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum
There’s been a lot of banter recently about “Black Lives Matter”. . .
However I heard a response from the Sheriff of the deputy who was shot that I think sums up all of this craziness best. . .his response to the press just following the murder of his deputy was, and I’m paraphrasing, . . .’that there has been lots of talk surrounding the Black lives matter conversation but we all need to drop the qualifiers and understand one thing. . .that ALL lives matter—doesn’t matter black, white, brown, yellow. . .ALL lives matter. . .’
For you see, in this one man’s grief over the wasteful loss of life, he gets it–he can actually see to the core of what is yet just one more divisional line to so many divisional lines in this Nation of ours. . .
. . .for in the heart of God, there are no distinctions. . .
there is no line of separation, no color, no status, no sides, no qualifiers. . .all that exists is a Love that is as wide and tall as it is deep. . .as in never ending.
It does not discriminate, nor does it look twice. . . it does not set limits nor does it demand anything in return. . .It is equal, all inclusive, welcoming and offered to each and everyone. . .who so chooses to accept it—and that’s the kicker. . .choosing to accept it–choosing love, forgiveness, surrendering of self, of pride, of ego, of hate, of suspicion in exchange for Love. . .a Love that has been offered from a Father and bought with the ultimate price by a son, so that you and I could stop the madness and live a life that finally lets go of the hate—
Which brings me to what exactly this world of our seems to need. . . NOW. . .
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:26-29
cookiecrumbstoliveby 