why we should cry for Argentina…

“They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me

Don’t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
(lyrics, Don’t cry for me Argentina)

(flag of Argentina)

“Abortion happens, it’s a fact,” Fernández said in his first annual address to Congress.

“The state must protect its citizens in general and women in particular,” he added.
“Society in the 21st century needs to respect the individual choice of its members
to freely decide about their bodies.”

So read the opening to an article I caught yesterday morning.
An article that focused on a speech given by the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández.

There was a flippant remark, “abortion happens” followed by
“it’s the state’s responsibility to protect”…

So my question is…

Who protects an unborn baby?

Obviously not the state.

The article continued…

If the bill passes, the country with a population of 45 million will become the largest nation
in Latin America to do so, joining Cuba, Uruguay, and Guyana.

The culture of death advances,” Monsenor Jorge Eduardo Scheinig, an archbishop,
said in a recorded message.
“We need to pray so that in Argentina, the yes to life is stronger than death.”

Might I add this is the nation from which Pope Francis hails…

Click on the link in order to read the full article…
If you care about the unborn child…we must continue to pray— speaking both up and out!

(**and what of the irony of Madonna, Madonna Louise Cicconea, a cradle Catholic,
channeling her best Eva (Evita) Perón)

https://www.foxnews.com/world/argentina-abortion-president-bill

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Proverbs 6:16-19

channeling one’s inner Ester Williams while thanking the founding Fathers

(Ester Williams)

Well, my fourth of July post suffered a major glitch for some odd reason.

Foreign or local nationals is yet to be decided.

On the morning of the 4th, I went to hit the publish button and to my surprise, nothing posted.

Quickly, with a rising sense of panic, I went in twice to cut and paste the post,
creating a “new” post in order to attempt a “re”- publish.

Twice again, nothing…only the day prior’s post.

Hummm… or more like Agggghhhhhh…

Finally, the third, or perhaps was it the fourth or fifth time??, was the charm…
it posted…

However, later, several folks told me that the post never showed up in their Reader
but that they had to go to my regular WP site of cookiecrumbstoliveby to find it.

Odd…to say the very least.

In the meantime, spending the 4th with the Mayor and her new Sheriff, it was
apparent that the spirit of the famous 1940’s great competitive swimmer and actress
Ester Williams was alive in well in the Mayor as she donned her swimming cap for a
celebratory dip in the watermelon pool.

While the Mayor was busy with her photo ops, the Sheriff was busy showing off his red, white and blue
Patriotism while enjoying a refreshing bottle of formula…

Thank you dear Founding Fathers, along with all the countless men and women, throughout the
decades, who freely gave their all in order that one day a little girl would have the joyous freedom
to play in a watermelon wadding pool while her little brother enjoyed a bottle of formula,
all the while a loving grandmother cherished the moment of a family’s 4th of July and has the
freedom to have a tiny platform to speak her mind…

“I must study Politics and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematics and Philosophy.”
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780.

Sin and Confession

“No conflict is more pivotal to the heart and soul of America than the sin battle.”
David Fiorazo

“If forces of sexual deviancy prevail, every part of our culture will be corrupted
and contaminated beyond repair…
Religious principle, tolerance, and rights of conscience mean nothing to pro-sodomy advocates.
They will remorselessly crush anyone and anything that gets in their path…
In their quest for cultural domination,
they will relentlessly extinguish the light of sexual normalcy and morality,
as well as the light of Christianity.”
Bryan Fischer
former Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association

(fungus growing on a fallen tree / Cades Cove, TN / Julie Cook / 2018)

Sin.

It’s a word that we take for granted yet it is a word whose actions are destroying us.
For we are its actions and we seem not to even care.

Our culture has opted to expunge the word from our vocabulary while blindly
embracing its very nuances.

And what of the Chruch?

She is either impotently silent or either she busies herself by embracing those
very nuances in order to appear more viable, more likable, more cultural.

And yet sadly, once again, we hear of the scandal and predation from those very
souls who are entrusted to represent this bride of Christ, the Church.

We are betrayed.
We are complicit.
We are quiet.
We are culpable.

The following quote by the martyred Confessing Church pastor Deitrich Bonhoeffer could have
easily been stated today rather than 78 years ago.

Bonhoeffer was speaking of Nazi Germany and of the German Lutheran Chruch’s blood
it bore upon it hands… but his words could readily speak to us today…
speaking to the Catholic Chruch, the Anglican and Episcopal Church, the Methodist Chruch,
the Presbyterian Church…
his words could be directed to most of us who claim to be Christians of the 21st century.

We the church must confess that we have not proclaimed often or clearly enough
the message of the One God who has revealed Himself for all time in Christ Jesus,
and who will tolerate no other gods beside Himself.

She must confess her timidity, her cowardice, her evasiveness and her dangerous concessions.

She was silent when she should have cried out because the blood of the innocent was
crying aloud to heaven.
The church must confess that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force,
the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people,
oppression, hatred, and murder.

And that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the victims.
And has not found a way to hasten to their aid.
The church is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers
of Jesus Christ.
The church must confess that she has desired security and peace, quiet,
possession, and honor to which she has desired security and peace, quiet, possession,
and honor to which she has no right.
She has not born witness to the truth of God and by her silence,
she has rendered herself guilty,
because of her unwillingness to suffer for what she knows to be right.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1940

Bishop Gavin Ashenden has recently addressed the tragic issue of predation in the church
and of the current need for the Chruch to speak up while she owns up to her responsibility–
finally speaking the Truth while she gets busy with a much-needed Spring cleaning…

Gay predators, telling the truth and spring-cleaning the Church.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sine that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…
Hebrews 12:1

When God speaks

“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing.
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness,
that God can fill you with Himself.
Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
Mother Teresa

(a bluebird laying claim to the birdhouse / Julie Cook / 2017)

χάρισμα—xárisma–chrisma
a gift of great Spiritual proportion…
a favor Divinely given despite the lack of deserving merit…

During the course of one’s life, knowing one soul who seems to speak words that come
from a place that is beyond the confines of this world…words of Divine origin…
it is a gracious gift most precious and rare.

Most will pass through this world without ever hearing the words spoken by one who
has been gifted, or burdened, with listening, discerning and then sharing.
Many will claim such a knowledge…
and many will be wrong…
being caught up in the emotion of something greater than that which can be comprehended.

Divine Grace operating within a few, directed by the Holy Spirit.

I have known 3 such persons.

One of those three has spoken…
reminding me…
and I have listened…
as I am reminded that…

God has spoken…to me, again

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139