“I will glory not because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed;
I will glory not because I am free from sins,
but because my sins are forgiven me.
I will not glory because I have done good nor because someone has done
good to me, but because Christ is my advocate with the Father and
because the blood of Christ has been shed for me.”
St. Ambrose
(sunset at Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2021)
(morning surprise at Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2021)
“Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.”
St. Catherine of Siena
(a pre pandemic January sunrise at Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2020)
There is an excuse for some anxiety today, but no one has a right to be without hope.
Yet the prophets of gloom abound, and the disciples of hope are few.
Ven. Fulton J. Sheen
From The World’s First Love
Yep, I’ll be the first to admit that these have been some trying times.
And yes, much like everyone else throughout this global ordeal, I have found myself fretful,
fearful and even angry.
We, humans, strive to control our destinies no matter what.
We like to believe that we are the captains of our own ship.
And we want to steer those ships upon the seas of life while
sailing into only calm waters.
But life, much like a wild horse, will not yield to being tamed.
The seas will pitch and roll at will.
We find ourselves tossed about in a maelstrom,
growing anxious as both frustration and depression set in.
If we throw in an already deeply divided and often hate-filled nation, we have the makings of
a most toxic mishmash of fear, bitterness, and resentment all sprinkled with a heavy dose
of a pandemic…it doesn’t get much worse.
The prophets have been touted and proclaimed… the prophets of falsehoods, ill-will,
and doom.
Prophets with a little p, prophets who profess conspiracy, animosity, divisiveness
and even hate.
But that need not be our fate.
We can make a conscious decision.
We can choose to set ourselves a part.
We can step aside from the small prophets
opting to be a disciple, a follower of Hope…
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:2-5
(sun coming up /Rosemary Beach, FL / Julie Cook / 2019)
I’ve been chatting a great deal, as of late, about the current state of events
taking place around this Nation of ours.
Not a great deal of positives to report–or so say the news outlets…
or so say many of us average observers.
Because according to anything newsy, the sky is falling, the Russians are coming,
the White Supremacists are already here, everyone is a racist and if you support the
President of the United States of America, you are to be immediately outed via all things social media,
shamed, tarred, feathered and branded a deplorable, annihilated and readily destroyed…
plain and simple.
Heck, they wanted to make a movie about that very thing.
100 years ago such news would have been met with shrieks of laughter or the
hushed tones of berating to never say such heresy.
Sigh.
The other thing I’ve been chatting on and off about is the state of the Chruch
(be it the Chruch on either side of the pond)—
As in there’s been a big sell-out by denominations and clergy…all opting to follow the culture
gods and not the God of all Creation.
Happy happy is the key.
Abortions are okayed.
Same-sex marriages are approved, as well as happily conducted in sanctuary after sanctuary.
Gay clergy are a-okay.
Transgenderism is embraced.
The biological concept of male and female is now passe as gender is a fluid notion.
The traditional family is a cumbersome dinosaur and considered obsolete.
Males are to be neutered all because we no longer like strong male figures in the world.
Intolerance is the new tolerance.
Violence is the end to whatever means…
all the while the Chruch turns a blind eye or jumps in willing, into the thick of it all.
Yep, things seem all topsy turvy if you ask me.
And so I think I’ve finally figured out the problem.
At first, I thought the problem was simply that we had become an angry people.
Think Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Neo-Nazis…or even the angry progressive liberal news…
However, I think I’ve actually narrowed things down beyond the mere angry component.
Yes, we are indeed an angry people but that is just a result of our real problem.
The real problem is that we have lost The Sacred.
We have lost our understanding of The Sacred.
We have lost our longing for The Sacred.
We have lost the reality of our very need for The Sacred.
But here’s the thing, The Sacred has not lost us.
Never has.
Never will.
But for us, on the other hand…well…we lost The Sacred like we lose our keys.
We put Him down and can’t seem to remember where we put Him.
And if the truth be told, we don’t care if we find Him or not.
We’ve become so consumed by ourselves that we’ve squeezed the space The Sacred occupied
till there is no space left.
We are smug and arrogant, powered by tremendous appetites and egos…and yes, anger.
And yet I dare must ask… exactly how happy are you?
How content?
How at peace?
And so here’s the thing…it’s not too late to make room in that overly crowded
discontented space.
It will take, however, a little humbling,
a little letting go of that ego and of course that anger…and a simple,
“Dear Father, please hear me…”
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy,
and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
Mother Teresa
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
― C.S. Lewis
“The harder the conflict,
the more glorious the triumph.”
Thomas Paine
(remnants of Cong Abbey , County Mayo, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)
It whispers across a cool morning breeze…
Do you hear it?
It’s the sound of a thousand and one voices drifting endlessly across the ages.
It’s the mournful cry of a dove at dawn.
It’s the melodic symphony of an unseen orchestra of crickets on a warm summer’s night.
It rides along the ocean’s waves…
Do you see it?
It’s the wonderment you feel as you gaze upon the night sky awash in a million twinkling lights.
It’s the brilliance of color bathed endlessly across a skylit canvas as the sun offers a joyful good morning.
It’s the overwhelming eruption and dazzling display of a myriad of blooming wildflowers in a quiet hidden meadow…
It’s a familiar scent wafting upwards from somewhere unexpectedly…
Do you smell it?
It’s the fresh scent of grass from a newly mowed lawn
It’s the heavy smell of rain riding in on the winds before a storm.
It’s a long lost memory catching you off guard as you suddenly capture a whiff of your grandmother’s home
It races from touch to touch…
Do you feel it?
It’s caught up in the soothing memories from a now distant childhood.
It’s the sudden chill you feel as the sun dips out of sight on a cool fall’s night.
It’s the welcoming comfort found in an offered smile.
It’s much more than ancient history or the crumbling bits of mortar and stone now abandoned and long forgotten…
(crumbling remains hidden away deep within Kevin’s Monastery, Glendalough National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)
It’s really more like the bits of sand found in your shoe after a walk along the beach…small and tiny, yet largely distracting,
rather uncomfortable and most difficult to ignore
The curious and the tourist alike each pick their way through the labyrinth of time long past, as they wander about pondering and musing what it all meant and wondering where it all went.
Yet you know don’t you….?
You know it never went anywhere.
It’s been here all along.
Buried deep within your heart.
But it was never meant to stay buried or forgotten.
Never meant to be for tourists or the curious to gawk and pick.
It was never meant to crumble nor decay
For it is living and breathing and yearns to be shared
It’s the gnawing ache felt in each beating heart.
It’s that nagging feeling of being out of sorts as your spirit seems lost in the fray.
It’s in the melancholy and sorrow that shadows a seemingly empty day
It’s the longing for home when you’re already there.
A Spirit most holy yet hidden, longs to hide no more.
A Spirit Loving yet concealed, longs to be revealed.
A Spirit Mighty and Great, longs to be proclaimed
You know It don’t you….?
Because It knows you….
DAWN! thou hast every possibility of life! What canst thou not reveal to man in thy flaming sky? Enough thou sayest, to recreate a world of men. Blind are we. How many of us read thy words aright? We pass them by, cold letters, divining not the fire of eternal life behind them burning. Dawn, thy opportunity is full! We, alas, know not the meaning of thy gorgeous page. Dazed we watch thy letters pale; cold embers, left upon the sky; Life’s opportunity flickering into naught.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT, “Arizona”
(both images taken from the back deck / Julie Cook / 2013)
A beautiful early morning opportunity is given for the observation of a brilliant sunrise.
Life is busy.
Busier than I prefer. . .
Alas–it is merely the fate of this holiday season.
Time will simply not permit the leisure of reflection nor the joy of the recording of such.
Yet in the advent of time, the gift of a glorious morning sky, full of the expectation and anticipation of the birth of a new day, simply may not overlooked nor ignored.
This is my small gift to you.
“This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.”
― Hermann Hesse, Klingsors letzter Sommer
(Photograph of the golden rod running amuck in the back pasture of our neighbor’s field/ Julie Cook / 2013)
What a wonderful thought for this new day to this new week…the Swiss citizen / German national —poetic, philosopher, author Hermann Hesse reminds us all that each brand new day is something truly unique and one of a kind. There are no guarantees of anything other than this moment to this new day.
Therefore we are to taste and then to drink it all in— with complete gusto—savoring each and every moment…the unique sunrise, the clouds, the breeze, the rain, the snow, the coolness, the heat—whatever it is that we are offered, it is ours but for the moment as no one is ever promised a tomorrow, only the here and the now.
So on this day to this new week, do your part—live life today as if there is no tomorrow…enjoy this day, this moment, this now—and let all those who you encounter be the better for you and for this day!!
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