Saturday, November 26, 2011
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: prayer
We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
—Thomas Cramner, Book of Common Prayer
We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
—Thomas Cramner, Book of Common Prayer
Friday, November 25, 2011
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings
A real Christian is an odd number anyway.
He feels supreme love for one whom he has never seen;
talks familiarly every day to someone he cannot see;
expects to go to heaven on the virtue of another;
empties himself in order to be full;
admits he is wrong so he can be declared right;
goes down in order to get up;
is strongest when he is weakest;
richest when he is poorest;
and happiest when he feels the worst.
He dies so he can live;
forsakes in order to have;
gives away so he can keep;
sees the invisible,
hears the inaudible,
and knows that which passes knowledge.
The man who has met God is not looking for anything; he has found it. He is not searching for light, for upon him the light has already shined. His certainty may seem bigoted, but his assurance is that of one who knows by experience his religion is not hearsay. He is not a copy, not a facsimile. He is an original from the hand of the Holy Spirit.
—A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)
A real Christian is an odd number anyway.
He feels supreme love for one whom he has never seen;
talks familiarly every day to someone he cannot see;
expects to go to heaven on the virtue of another;
empties himself in order to be full;
admits he is wrong so he can be declared right;
goes down in order to get up;
is strongest when he is weakest;
richest when he is poorest;
and happiest when he feels the worst.
He dies so he can live;
forsakes in order to have;
gives away so he can keep;
sees the invisible,
hears the inaudible,
and knows that which passes knowledge.
The man who has met God is not looking for anything; he has found it. He is not searching for light, for upon him the light has already shined. His certainty may seem bigoted, but his assurance is that of one who knows by experience his religion is not hearsay. He is not a copy, not a facsimile. He is an original from the hand of the Holy Spirit.
—A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: May I be poor, afflicted, despised and have thy blessing, rather than be successful in enterprise, or have more than my heart can wish, or be admired by my fellow-men, if thereby these things make me forget thee.
May I regard the world as dreams, lies, vanities, vexation of spirit, and desires to depart from it. And may I seek my happiness in thy favour, image, presence, service.
—The Valley of Vision
(Source: cierabgardner)
Via Prone to Wander
May I regard the world as dreams, lies, vanities, vexation of spirit, and desires to depart from it. And may I seek my happiness in thy favour, image, presence, service.
—The Valley of Vision
(Source: cierabgardner)
Via Prone to Wander
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo: We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo: We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
words are my euphoria
words are my euphoria:
"If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together.. there is something you must always remember, you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart.. I’ll always be with you."
— Winnie the Pooh
(Source: silenceismyeuphoria)
"If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together.. there is something you must always remember, you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart.. I’ll always be with you."
— Winnie the Pooh
(Source: silenceismyeuphoria)
Saturday, November 19, 2011
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Notes on Love and Death
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Notes on Love and Death:
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Notes on Love and Death @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Notes on Love and Death @ AMERICAN DIGEST
"The Politics of life are easy. It's the Poetics that are tough."
I'm still working out what I meant when I wrote that. It'll take me life plus 99 years.
The Poetics of life are much more persistent in their knocking at the door of your inner self than the Politics. Politics have their seasons, but the Poetics are our constant companions, waking and sleeping, thinking and dreaming. In a very real sense, since they run deeper than the Politics, the Poetics are the Politics' power source. But what are the Poetics about? Simply put, they are "like all Greek songs, about love and death."
I've done a dance or two with death over the years. I've found that he's not very graceful and he always wants to lead.
Once, during a long-lost summer, I was the night driver for a hearse at a mortuary. In the wee small hours of the morning, I'd drive the on-duty mortician to pick up a man or a woman's or a child's body from wherever it had become just a body. In the hot California delta night I'd drive the mortician, both of us in Blues Brothers suits, to a hospital basement, a home bedroom, a city morgue, or, one time, to a shabby skid row hotel where the leaking wicker basket holding the suicide had to be held vertically in the creaking ancient elevator for all eight slow floors.
I've been alone in the waiting room with my mother when the surgeon, still drying his hands on a towel, walked through the door and said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Van der Leun, but we just couldn't stop the bleeding."
I've stood in a room high above Central Park West where the only sound was a death rattle in an old man's throat, and told the doctor on the telephone that there was really no reason to send the emergency resuscitation crew for the twelfth time in half as many months. I sat quietly holding the old man's hand for around thirty minutes until his breathing stopped. Then I left that room, told my in-laws he was dead, and watched them mask their expressions of relief.
I've found my name carved into the stone monument at Battery Park that lists those that died at sea during the Second World War. I've found the names of two men I went to high school with carved on the Vietnam wall in Washington.
If I'd managed to keep one address book for my contemporaries since graduating from high school, it would, as they say, be beginning to fill up with dead people and that rate would increase.
I've stood on the Promenade on the Heights and seen two towers fall and reduce thousands of people to ash and dust in what seemed like less time than it has taken you to read to this period.
I have sometimes, I confess, "been half in love with easeful death," but no one living escapes that siren call. The trick there is to lash yourself to the mast of the day, pray, and somehow, through the grace of God, just sail on by.
By now, like many others of my age, I've seen death personally and professionally, retail and wholesale. There really is, when you move with it, nothing to love about the dance of death. The only response is, as Prufrock knew, to see "the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short, I was afraid."
So I know something -- not a lot, but something -- about that old Greek theme of death and it scares me about as much as it should scare, I imagine, any man. And, having now briefly been dead, the fear is perhaps less shrill but more persistent; a tempo of a fading drum heard far off, cast back over the horizon but still approaching.
What I know increasingly little about, and what really frightens me, is the other theme of the Greek songs, love. These days it seems that it will take more than a lifetime to figure love out.
Love frightens me because, unlike death, love cannot be understood. Love can only be given, gotten, taken or dropped. Like death, it would seem that, once discovered, there's no end to it -- or, to take Hemingway's point of view, no good end to it since one way or another death will trump love -- in this world at least.
Love is where the Poetics of life collide with the Politics. It's a collision where the possibility having to call in the MedEvac helicopter and the coroner is always present; where wreckage is assured and survival never promised. Falling in love is, as a comedian noted, like buying a puppy. You are purchasing a tragedy.
No, that's not quite right. Say rather you are purchasing a hybrid; a tragicomedy or a comic tragedy, since love always has, for those of us removed from its immediate drama, elements of the ridiculous, slices of the sublime, and not a few moments of boffo laughter at the shambling human animal.
Still, it would be nice if I could understand the nature of love and my absurd role in the love dramas of my life. If the joke, in the end, is on me it would be nice to be able to say that I "get it."
Nice but not, I think, necessary. Even if I never get it, I do know one thing for certain about love, "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
"The Politics of life are easy. It's the Poetics that are tough."
I'm still working out what I meant when I wrote that. It'll take me life plus 99 years.
The Poetics of life are much more persistent in their knocking at the door of your inner self than the Politics. Politics have their seasons, but the Poetics are our constant companions, waking and sleeping, thinking and dreaming. In a very real sense, since they run deeper than the Politics, the Poetics are the Politics' power source. But what are the Poetics about? Simply put, they are "like all Greek songs, about love and death."
I've done a dance or two with death over the years. I've found that he's not very graceful and he always wants to lead.
Once, during a long-lost summer, I was the night driver for a hearse at a mortuary. In the wee small hours of the morning, I'd drive the on-duty mortician to pick up a man or a woman's or a child's body from wherever it had become just a body. In the hot California delta night I'd drive the mortician, both of us in Blues Brothers suits, to a hospital basement, a home bedroom, a city morgue, or, one time, to a shabby skid row hotel where the leaking wicker basket holding the suicide had to be held vertically in the creaking ancient elevator for all eight slow floors.
I've been alone in the waiting room with my mother when the surgeon, still drying his hands on a towel, walked through the door and said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Van der Leun, but we just couldn't stop the bleeding."
I've stood in a room high above Central Park West where the only sound was a death rattle in an old man's throat, and told the doctor on the telephone that there was really no reason to send the emergency resuscitation crew for the twelfth time in half as many months. I sat quietly holding the old man's hand for around thirty minutes until his breathing stopped. Then I left that room, told my in-laws he was dead, and watched them mask their expressions of relief.
I've found my name carved into the stone monument at Battery Park that lists those that died at sea during the Second World War. I've found the names of two men I went to high school with carved on the Vietnam wall in Washington.
If I'd managed to keep one address book for my contemporaries since graduating from high school, it would, as they say, be beginning to fill up with dead people and that rate would increase.
I've stood on the Promenade on the Heights and seen two towers fall and reduce thousands of people to ash and dust in what seemed like less time than it has taken you to read to this period.
I have sometimes, I confess, "been half in love with easeful death," but no one living escapes that siren call. The trick there is to lash yourself to the mast of the day, pray, and somehow, through the grace of God, just sail on by.
By now, like many others of my age, I've seen death personally and professionally, retail and wholesale. There really is, when you move with it, nothing to love about the dance of death. The only response is, as Prufrock knew, to see "the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short, I was afraid."
So I know something -- not a lot, but something -- about that old Greek theme of death and it scares me about as much as it should scare, I imagine, any man. And, having now briefly been dead, the fear is perhaps less shrill but more persistent; a tempo of a fading drum heard far off, cast back over the horizon but still approaching.
What I know increasingly little about, and what really frightens me, is the other theme of the Greek songs, love. These days it seems that it will take more than a lifetime to figure love out.
Love frightens me because, unlike death, love cannot be understood. Love can only be given, gotten, taken or dropped. Like death, it would seem that, once discovered, there's no end to it -- or, to take Hemingway's point of view, no good end to it since one way or another death will trump love -- in this world at least.
Love is where the Poetics of life collide with the Politics. It's a collision where the possibility having to call in the MedEvac helicopter and the coroner is always present; where wreckage is assured and survival never promised. Falling in love is, as a comedian noted, like buying a puppy. You are purchasing a tragedy.
No, that's not quite right. Say rather you are purchasing a hybrid; a tragicomedy or a comic tragedy, since love always has, for those of us removed from its immediate drama, elements of the ridiculous, slices of the sublime, and not a few moments of boffo laughter at the shambling human animal.
Still, it would be nice if I could understand the nature of love and my absurd role in the love dramas of my life. If the joke, in the end, is on me it would be nice to be able to say that I "get it."
Nice but not, I think, necessary. Even if I never get it, I do know one thing for certain about love, "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Mme Scherzo - ON SANDUSKY AND THIS NATION OF COWARDS
Mme Scherzo - ON SANDUSKY AND THIS NATION OF COWARDS
ON SANDUSKY AND THIS NATION OF COWARDS
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT -
NOVEMBER 8, AD 2011 8:09 PM MST
I read the grand jury report on Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I’m not going to link to it because it is awful. If you want to read it you can find it yourself. It wasn’t the fact that Sandusky was a pedophile that was so shocking. We all know about the horror of pedophilia and that it exists in the world. No, what really shook me were the actions of the people around Sandusky - and two of those people in particular.
One was a 28 year old (at the time) graduate assistant in the Penn State football program. He testified before the grand jury, and the grand jury found him to be “extremely credible”. This grad assistant testified that he literally walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten year old boy in the Penn State football locker room showers. Right in the middle of the act itself. He even testified that both Sandusky and the child turned and looked at him - in the middle of the rape act.
What did this grad assistant do? He ran away. He ran away from a child in the midst of being raped. The next day he went to Joe Paterno’s house and told Joe Paterno what he saw. In this we have the proof that Joe Paterno KNEW what Sandusky was, and he basically let it slide. For this, Joe Paterno deserves not only to lose his job, but he also deserves to spend some time in prison. Aw, but he’s a kind old man. That may be. But that “kind old man” let a man whom he KNEW to be a child rapist to have the run of his football facility.
What should Joe Paterno have done, you may ask. Well, let’s look to history. Have you ever noticed, or thought it strange, that there is no significant mention of child rapists in the courts or prisons in Western Civilization up until about 100 years ago? Why do you think this is? Is it because sex crimes against children are a recent invention? No. The difference is that up until recently, society was healthy enough that it was able to police itself when necessary. When men were caught, and I mean CAUGHT IN THE ACT, like Sandusky, of raping a child, justice was carried out almost instantaneously. There was no need to involve the courts and humiliate and further traumatize the poor child. The crime was eyewitnessed, and the penalty was an absolute given. And so, the men of the community would discreetly either shoot or hang the pedophile. And it was over. The child could move on, and the men in the community moved on secure in the knowledge that the pedophile would never harm another child, with most of the community remaining unscandalized having known nothing about it, and the pedophile, knowing that he was about to die, was also afforded the mercy of the knowledge and understanding of the urgent need for his repentance and to earnestly beg God’s forgiveness before he died. This was, by far, the best possible outcome for all concerned.
But what do we do today? Apparently, most people do nothing. They are too narcissistic, too greedy, and too cowardly to act, even if it means to save a child who is being raped. Joe Paterno was more concerned with his reputation and Penn State’s reputation, and so he watered down Sandusky’s crime to mere “horseplay” and let it slide. Joe Paterno spent YEARS sitting in meetings, palling around, back-slapping, glad-handing and socializing with a man he KNEW to be a child rapist. The mind reels. And I’ll say it again: Paterno should spend some time in prison, as should anyone who aids and abets a pedophile.
Now back to the grad assistant. He wasn’t alone. There was another instance in exactly the same showers when a janitor walked in on Sandusky orally raping another young boy of about 11 years of age. This janitor was so shaken by the grotesquery of what he had seen, even remarking to his co-workers that it was far worse than the intense combat carnage he saw in Vietnam, that his co-workers thought the man was going to have a heart attack. But again, what did the janitor do upon catching Sandusky? He RAN AWAY. He didn’t try to stop any of it. He just ran.
And this is a microcosm of the problem with our culture and why it is collapsing. There is evil in the world, and up until recently, we Christians had the strength and moral authority to not just confront evil, but to literally run at it in a full battle charge when we came across it. That is what we are supposed to do. Those men should have each rushed Sandusky and then either beat him into unconsciousness or broken his arms and legs, thus immobilizing him. They should have then covered and secured the child, and then called 911. But these men were so cowed by their own self-absorption, with both admitting to have feared for their respective positions at the time, that they literally ran away from a child in the midst of being brutally raped.
This is a sick and yet pristine allegory for what is happening to this culture on a macro scale today. We SEE what those “in power”, like Sandusky, are doing. We keep catching them in flagrante dilecto and are so overcome with fear, so far removed from Christ and His strength, that we do NOTHING. We slink away into the shadows of self-preservation. And more children are slaughtered. And more Mexican civilians are killed. And more money is stolen. And more mosques are built.
And so, to finish out the allegory, I am the person who came around that corner and saw the child being raped, and instead of running away and keeping my job, I bayonet-charged the rapist like a mercenary honey badger. There is no guarantee that I will be successful. My enemies are now simultaneously the Obama regime and the entire muslim death cult.
BUT, can you IMAGINE how those two boys felt when they saw a man there who could save them, and then seeing that man run away? The wound from that might have been worse than the wound from Sandusky himself. Those boys knew Sandusky was a pervert. What must have been hell for them was trying to figure out why the men who COULD have saved them, didn’t. Being abandoned is far, far worse than being violently attacked. You can get your head around being violently attacked - the violent attacker wants something from you. Abandonment simply says, “You’re not worth it.” Even if those men had just stood there and screamed at Sandusky, at least those boys would have known that someone gave a crap about them.
I guess you could say that what I’m doing between my private war against islam and my tax strike is trying to leave a record that someone actually gave a crap.
Sorry to have conceitedly worked myself into the allegory, but the “put yourself in those shoes” lesson about cowardice jumped out at me as being very instructive. Pray for Sandusky’s victims, which as of this writing are now numbered at over twenty boys. There will likely be more, as Sandusky was a stone-cold predator who had plenty of people “throwing blocks” for him.
I’ve no words.
ON SANDUSKY AND THIS NATION OF COWARDS
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT -
NOVEMBER 8, AD 2011 8:09 PM MST
I read the grand jury report on Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I’m not going to link to it because it is awful. If you want to read it you can find it yourself. It wasn’t the fact that Sandusky was a pedophile that was so shocking. We all know about the horror of pedophilia and that it exists in the world. No, what really shook me were the actions of the people around Sandusky - and two of those people in particular.
One was a 28 year old (at the time) graduate assistant in the Penn State football program. He testified before the grand jury, and the grand jury found him to be “extremely credible”. This grad assistant testified that he literally walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten year old boy in the Penn State football locker room showers. Right in the middle of the act itself. He even testified that both Sandusky and the child turned and looked at him - in the middle of the rape act.
What did this grad assistant do? He ran away. He ran away from a child in the midst of being raped. The next day he went to Joe Paterno’s house and told Joe Paterno what he saw. In this we have the proof that Joe Paterno KNEW what Sandusky was, and he basically let it slide. For this, Joe Paterno deserves not only to lose his job, but he also deserves to spend some time in prison. Aw, but he’s a kind old man. That may be. But that “kind old man” let a man whom he KNEW to be a child rapist to have the run of his football facility.
What should Joe Paterno have done, you may ask. Well, let’s look to history. Have you ever noticed, or thought it strange, that there is no significant mention of child rapists in the courts or prisons in Western Civilization up until about 100 years ago? Why do you think this is? Is it because sex crimes against children are a recent invention? No. The difference is that up until recently, society was healthy enough that it was able to police itself when necessary. When men were caught, and I mean CAUGHT IN THE ACT, like Sandusky, of raping a child, justice was carried out almost instantaneously. There was no need to involve the courts and humiliate and further traumatize the poor child. The crime was eyewitnessed, and the penalty was an absolute given. And so, the men of the community would discreetly either shoot or hang the pedophile. And it was over. The child could move on, and the men in the community moved on secure in the knowledge that the pedophile would never harm another child, with most of the community remaining unscandalized having known nothing about it, and the pedophile, knowing that he was about to die, was also afforded the mercy of the knowledge and understanding of the urgent need for his repentance and to earnestly beg God’s forgiveness before he died. This was, by far, the best possible outcome for all concerned.
But what do we do today? Apparently, most people do nothing. They are too narcissistic, too greedy, and too cowardly to act, even if it means to save a child who is being raped. Joe Paterno was more concerned with his reputation and Penn State’s reputation, and so he watered down Sandusky’s crime to mere “horseplay” and let it slide. Joe Paterno spent YEARS sitting in meetings, palling around, back-slapping, glad-handing and socializing with a man he KNEW to be a child rapist. The mind reels. And I’ll say it again: Paterno should spend some time in prison, as should anyone who aids and abets a pedophile.
Now back to the grad assistant. He wasn’t alone. There was another instance in exactly the same showers when a janitor walked in on Sandusky orally raping another young boy of about 11 years of age. This janitor was so shaken by the grotesquery of what he had seen, even remarking to his co-workers that it was far worse than the intense combat carnage he saw in Vietnam, that his co-workers thought the man was going to have a heart attack. But again, what did the janitor do upon catching Sandusky? He RAN AWAY. He didn’t try to stop any of it. He just ran.
And this is a microcosm of the problem with our culture and why it is collapsing. There is evil in the world, and up until recently, we Christians had the strength and moral authority to not just confront evil, but to literally run at it in a full battle charge when we came across it. That is what we are supposed to do. Those men should have each rushed Sandusky and then either beat him into unconsciousness or broken his arms and legs, thus immobilizing him. They should have then covered and secured the child, and then called 911. But these men were so cowed by their own self-absorption, with both admitting to have feared for their respective positions at the time, that they literally ran away from a child in the midst of being brutally raped.
This is a sick and yet pristine allegory for what is happening to this culture on a macro scale today. We SEE what those “in power”, like Sandusky, are doing. We keep catching them in flagrante dilecto and are so overcome with fear, so far removed from Christ and His strength, that we do NOTHING. We slink away into the shadows of self-preservation. And more children are slaughtered. And more Mexican civilians are killed. And more money is stolen. And more mosques are built.
And so, to finish out the allegory, I am the person who came around that corner and saw the child being raped, and instead of running away and keeping my job, I bayonet-charged the rapist like a mercenary honey badger. There is no guarantee that I will be successful. My enemies are now simultaneously the Obama regime and the entire muslim death cult.
BUT, can you IMAGINE how those two boys felt when they saw a man there who could save them, and then seeing that man run away? The wound from that might have been worse than the wound from Sandusky himself. Those boys knew Sandusky was a pervert. What must have been hell for them was trying to figure out why the men who COULD have saved them, didn’t. Being abandoned is far, far worse than being violently attacked. You can get your head around being violently attacked - the violent attacker wants something from you. Abandonment simply says, “You’re not worth it.” Even if those men had just stood there and screamed at Sandusky, at least those boys would have known that someone gave a crap about them.
I guess you could say that what I’m doing between my private war against islam and my tax strike is trying to leave a record that someone actually gave a crap.
Sorry to have conceitedly worked myself into the allegory, but the “put yourself in those shoes” lesson about cowardice jumped out at me as being very instructive. Pray for Sandusky’s victims, which as of this writing are now numbered at over twenty boys. There will likely be more, as Sandusky was a stone-cold predator who had plenty of people “throwing blocks” for him.
I’ve no words.
Reflejos
Reflejos: We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.
Paul Elmer More, Pages from an Oxford Diary
Paul Elmer More, Pages from an Oxford Diary
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