Painting

Title: Derelict Row

Medium: Oil on canvas board

Size: 11 in. x 14 in.

Prairie Sunset

Prairie Sunset
By Arthur Stilwell


The sky which had circumference,
And the earth which had horizons,
                Now have none.
The sun, simmering on the world's edge,
Erases rims and boundaries
Into an enchantment of unfringed space,
Like a glimpse of Creation's deeps.

Its fond rays reach with unlimited reach,
As it looks back on the mirroring heavens,
Discovering opals in the farthest clouds;
Or as it slopes crimson across the fields,
Picking out freckling sparks of scarce-seen sloughs,
And furnaces on far, unknown windows.

Of more than momentary splendour,
Lingering long in limpid afterglow;
Then, like man, after his times of pageantry,
Moving on into the eternal stars.



Published Onward Magazine, Toronto

Confounded by Mercy

Truth is a person and faith can be abused. You cannot say you will remain faithful to the truth while speaking in contradiction to the body of the person who is Truth, reducing the See of Peter to a sort of one-man quota, filled or not filled, of no demand or consequence to one's faithfulness to truth (by which one has already changed what is meant by "faithfulness to truth"). That is, of no demand or consequence aside from being most useful for knocking about in the de rigueur pursuit of blogging for the faithful remnant. He is the head of the body, which presupposes unity, which presupposes co-dependency, which works conversely: the Pope depends in large measure upon the prayers of the flock and their good faith (public and private). This is the economy of mercy.

Intellectual punditry as the New Theology (we're the most perennialist and ancientest of the ancient church!) only ends up being really, really cheap punditry; more vicious and vulgar than supermarket tabloids, and more removed from reality. Even the most secularized victims of the MSM recognize the legitimacy of the Papal rule of Pope Francis. It's the rakish trad subculture of the know-it-all Catholic bloggers that can't even get out of the utterly weak-minded fantasy that we have a dual papacy, or leaves open the question of the legitimacy of Benedict's resignation. What a bunch of petty laggards and layabouts and bloodsuckers. The supposed vigour of their convictions is fueled by the most insipid self-loving pablum. They are completely confounded by mercy.

That is what people mean when they say that you cannot be holier than the Church. The statement is consciously redundant for a reason. It is not suggesting that that is what one may be seeking - to be holier than the Church. It is saying, in a manner that leaves it to the hearer to understand, were the hearer not confounded by the stupidity of his own intellectual pride, that one is, in fact, using a chain with hooks to tear apart the flesh of Jesus Christ.

Moreover, and more painfully, one is (in making one's intellectual ascendency) ignoring the place of derision and mockery that Christ took as King, as Bridegroom to his bride, when his holy head was pierced with thorns for a crown.

Not one prick of those thorns would one of these religiose handicraft bloggers sustain for more than a fraction of a second in the movements of their intellects, and yet they're convinced the entire cosmos has its operations and orientation within their minds - these faithful sons and daughters of the church, these good, solid, orthodox Catholics.

Walk

Mahonia blossom. Good eating. Very good eating. They're at their best when dripping with nectar.

Chickadee. Good eating. Very good eating. If you catch them quickly enough. Though you needs lots of them to make a meal...KIDDING, I'm kidding!

Red squirrel. On the verdant way.

Little guy.

Chichikov

The Hunting
By Pavel Chichikov


We came out of darkness into the light,
Animals hide in a crevice within,
Anger and malice, beasts that can bite,
Fangs in the shadows, to shadow they blend

This is the hunting that Christ carries on,
In caverns of darkness He shines and pursues,
Vermin are taken and slain one by one,
And this is the dying that we undergo

Little by little a part of us dies,
Inhuman, instinctive, impetuous, vain,
Cowardly, treacherous, greedy and sly,
Till only the human inside us remains

The hunting, the hunting, but we must admit
The hunting of Christ to the darkness below,
And even go with Him to guide and permit
The riving of darkness, to go where He goes


The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov

Aloha!

Knowers

“I forget what color eyes he’s got,” the old man would say, irked. “What difference does the color make when I know the look? I know what’s behind it.”

“What’s behind it?”

“Nothing. He’s full of nothing.”

“He knows a heap,” the boy said. “I don’t reckon it’s anything he don’t know.”

“He don’t know it’s anything he can’t know,” the old man said. “That’s his trouble. He thinks if it’s something he can’t know then somebody smarter than him can tell him about it and he can know it just the same. And if you were to go there, the first thing he would do would be to test your head and tell you what you were thinking and how come you were thinking it and what you ought to be thinking instead. And before long you wouldn’t belong to yourself no more, you would belong to him.” --Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away

The mantle of the scientistic humanist positivist progressivist has been taken up by the Gnosis-cum-Überfaith internet Traditionalists?

"The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity." --Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (my bold)

"James Joyce? Never met him."

Nightfall Song

Nightfall Song
By Arthur Stilwell


Night chases home the last rapscallions
Of light, that lagged behind for one stolen game
Of hide and seek peeped athwart distant hills,
Until door slams on last reluctant imp,
And mother darkness cradles earth and sky
In her soft-flung embrace of downy gloom;
Then the firmament parasols its stars,
Such crowds of pure, benedictory sparks,
Who dare doubt prayers become sky emeralds;
Next all-caressing moon melts lustrous ore
Upon sweet-silvered realms of fields and trees.
And I, fleeting perishable atomy,
Gazing at these shows imperishable,
(Earth's co-passengers since its darkling birth),
Feel connected with the first tottering man,
Who beheld with awe this same happening,
And the uncertain creature eons hence,
Who'll stare amazement at its replica;
For a moment we three unknowns have dwelt
Together, blessed each other's softened heart.



Published Western People

Sonnet: Look!

Sonnet: Look!
By Arthur Stilwell


The reluctant east graduals into light,
Morning's cheeks blush gently, high tops of trees
Receive the sun's first kiss, and stand at ease
While that soft embrace slides down warm and bright,
Nothing now remains of dimness or night,
All things are moving, leaves and grain, new breeze
Whose scents the early-morning people please,
Paint-box butterflies glint uncertain flight;
Such shows befriend us. But much intervenes:
We live inwardness, seek busy self-ends,
Scrabble like rats in mazes and routines,
Till on such things our main life depends.
Let not winter make you cry, What've I seen?
What have I felt?   In what world have I been?



Published in Western People, Saskatoon

R.I.P. John Pinette

 



 



 



He was so funny, was on Broadway, had amazing vocal talents.

He never did  the urbane, ideological, pornified nastiness and vulgarity so common among comedians who believe themselves to be subversive geniuses.

He kept it light. And from that particular center he could be so damn funny.

Monkey Puzzle IV!

Those three different sprouts between the monkey puzzle seeds in the last two pictures are apple seeds.

Oh, and Urban Huntress has a great post on monkey puzzle nuts/seeds, replete with an interesting recipe.

Painting oil

Title: Willow Wood

Medium: Oil on canvas paper

Hoe Down