Wisdom is the first and highest gift of the Holy Spirit

Fr. Angelo M. Geiger writes in his first of a series of essays on Tolkien on Modernity:

Even religious men have lost wisdom and have failed to see that some things are greater than the sum of their parts, such as sacred scripture, the deposit of faith, the sacraments and even the liturgy. To know these things, they break them. Theirs is not the path of wisdom because the fruit of their knowledge is not freedom but control, which brings death, destruction and damnation. Tolkien called those who produced the atomic bomb “babel builders,” who hoped in vain that their creation would bring peace (Letter 102). So too, the architects of the “Church as Machine,” constructed in the service of Revolution or Counter-revolution, break the very thing they wish to reform or restore. For Tolkien the real danger was not open malice, but the self-deception of overcoming power by power. The real danger even today is the mirage of the benevolent Machine.

Saruman summarizes the argument for Gandalf thus:

“As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order, all things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak and idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.”

This seems to be an accurate description of modernity, as well as the revolution against modernity, which by definition is “modern.” It is the spirit of the activist, the community organizer, the social engineer, the technocrat and the theocrat. All is permitted in the service of the good. This is not wisdom, but the logic of power.

Sonnet of Difference

The difference told from tares is that the wheat
wears clustered peaks of grain, apart from looks,
grow not to themselves, as those that crook
appearances - since cunning wolves can bleat -
from those they would deceive with mirror look.
Ready rather to have chaff shaken, wheat brooks
the one eternal word through summer heat
until the up-filled harvest's kingdom come.
Distinguishing is made by those who wait.
For traits that hook the eye attempt a sum
of heaven cinched, attained, to satiate.
The difference lies in what is borne and thrummed
from stalk: a falling groundward, gravid weight.

Time-Stamped

Oil Painting

 Title: Boulders in Dusk

Medium: Oil on canvas paper

Size: 12 in. x 16 in.

I'm your huckleberry

 From Urban Dictionary:

1. 

19th century slang which was popularized more recently by the movie Tombstone. Means "I'm the man you're looking for". Nowdays it's usually used as a response to a threat or challenge, as in the movie. 

"Who thinks they can beat me?"

"I'm your huckleberry." 

 2.

The etymology of the phrase is traced back to Aurthurian Lore. Huckleberry Garlands were said to be given to Knights of the Kingdom for coming to the service of a damsel. They would approach the lady, lower their lance, and receive the small branch as a symbol of gratitude; much like a medal.

Therefore, "I'm Your Huckleberry" literally means "I'm your Hero."

In current adaptations, in reference to the movie Tombstone, it means "I'm your man." as an affirmative response to a challenge.

3.

All these responses are silly assumptions!

In the movie he didn't say "I'm your huckleberry", he said "I'm your HUCKLEBEARER". His accent in the movie makes it hard to hear. In the 1800's little handles on a coffin were called "huckles", an English term. Instead of pallbearers the people who carried the coffin were called "hucklebearers" at the funeral.

This is why the other guy got so bent outta shape when Doc said "I'm your hucklebearer". He was telling the other guy "I'm your pallbearer" or literally I'm causing your funeral. This is why it was so offensive and the shooting started.

4.

I'm your huckleberry comes from a very classic and hot western movie called tombstone. this phrase means I'm the perfect man for the job. 

Jimmy: Who here wants to fight?

Holliday: I'm your huckleberry

Jimmy: Well come on then pus.

Holliday: Pulls out 12 gauge shottie

-Boooooom- Jimmy dies 

5.

You play 'Tom Sawyer' and I will be your 'daddy' in this game as Tom 'kinda' looked up to Huck (in my humble opinion). Ala Mark Twain.

And I will jump into your game Like 'Huck Finn', and give you a "shel·lack·ing" (As the most Hon. Sir Sean Connery could only say properly). And we will "tear-this moTHa-out". +))

Your boss comes by and asks you to justify your 'ExisTenz' by telling him how you deserve to get a paycheck this week.
And you reply: "...I'm your huckleberry..."

From Wikipedia:

Huckleberries hold a place in archaic American English slang. The tiny size of the berries led to their use as a way of referring to something small, often affectionately as in the lyrics of Moon River. The phrase "a huckleberry over my persimmon" was used to mean "a bit beyond my abilities". "I'm your huckleberry" is a way of saying that one is just the right person for a given job. The range of slang meanings of huckleberry in the 19th century was fairly large, also referring to significant persons or nice persons.

So...is it "I'm your huckleberry" or "I'm your hucklebearer" that Doc Holliday says in Tombstone?

You decide.

"Fight's not with you, Holliday."

"I beg to differ, sir. We started a game we never got to finish. Play for blood - remember?"

"I was just foolin about."

LOL! Because boy you can bet that Ringo knows what he's up against with Doc Holliday. The Doc can jerk that pistol like nobody's bisness - and at that, while being consumed by tuberculosis! One of the things the movie gets correct about the real Doc Holliday. A posthumous gunslinger who could out-sling anyone! I do believe he also died a Catholic convert!






ROFL!








I love Bill Paxton's look when they start speaking Latin. LOL!

Borage!

As happens with borage, the ones from last year sowed themselves and came up sure as anything this year. You just pull up the ones you don't want and let whatever masses you want do their thing. I like them because of all the insects the flowers attract - especially honey bees. The flowers taste good too. I like to nibble on them. They're sweet.

I was concerned because while I saw different insects on the flowers, I didn't see any honey bees, or bumble bees. Usually they are swarming borage like gangbusters.

But I saw them out today, in spite of rainy cloudy weather.

It was a relief to see the honey bees.

I let the overwintered kale from last year go to seed in the hopes of collecting the seed. But I noticed as the pods dried (the immature pods are quite tasty if somewhat chewy, by the way) something was splitting them and taking the seeds.

Then one day I saw a pair of birds in the patch. One of them has a bright red head. I don't know what kind of birds they are, but they are nice. They look somewhat rare. And they really love the kale seeds.

Misc.

Summer! South west coast also means cool nights, generally. Hi southern Ontario! And no mosquitoes as one gets them in those other places. Hi prairies!

I particularly hate mosquitoes because mosquitoes particularly love me. I've been in provinces where mosquitoes proliferate, around the campfire, and literally, everyone else would be left alone while I would get eaten alive, in spite of repellant.

I thought it was pretty random of the mosquitoes.

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I listen to Beethoven sporadically when painting. I listen to his piano stuff mostly when I do listen to him. Do you ever find...now, how does one put it? Do ever find the sheer - and I mean in a very physical sense - do you ever find...sometimes...the sheer tonal vibrations...to be...threatening to drive you insane?

That's when I say, "Alright! Time for Rachmaninoff!"

Is there any modern composer greater than that Russian genius? To people who say he's "overblown" I say: maybe it's time you should put away the Mozart and the Raffi and start listening to real music, yes?

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Anyhow, LOL. Mozart was a genius. I'm JOKING. And I listen to Mozart. Not Raffi.

But as it turns out, two long years before Duck Dynasty was a glint in A&E's eye, that show called Swamp People was letting us see those Cajuns - whose ancestors were exiled from Canada - giving alligators' heads hefty doses of Cajun spice. By which they mean putting bullets into the heads of alligators. Ten times more real than Duck Dynasty, Swamp People, which documents the 300 years' tradition handed down from father to son, is still going strong, though I haven't watched any of the later seasons.

I hate to say it, but Duck Dynasty is sooooooooo fake. And that's saying it after all the expected fakeness of reality television is taken into consideration and accepted. Fakeness is inevitable with reality television, where unscripted life scripts itself. Or rather, where scripts are drawn from life as it is becoming aware of itself as a television show. But Duck Dynasty...holy crap - it's almost as lame as this blog.

That being said, a lot of Americans really like it. That's fine. I don't care to try to know why - just like with Croustillant Crème and Christopher West and "Save the Liturgy, Save the World" bumper stickers and Imperialism in general.

Though really, I do know. It's because of the characters. You gotta love them. I totally love Uncle Si and Godwin! They do crack me up.

Man, I love that show.

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What's up with the white man's fear of immigration anyways? It's clearly nothing but the inevitable fruit of sterility - of deciding to not have children, but to have sex - and then if a child does come, then killing the child.

The fear of immigration is nothing but the fruition of this mindset, of this way of sterility. It doesn't mean you have to be the one using birth control either. You wonder if there are Catholics who don't use birth control and who speak against it but are secretly thankful for those sinners who do use birth control, even if they don't articulate it to themselves, amplified by the fact that they don't adopt. Self-satisfied and complacent, they enjoy thinking of themselves as the Remnant. Contracepted. Producing no life. The Remnant.

You notice how some Americans are all gung-ho about having their troops in other countries but no sir, no immigrants in their own country? Without the immigrants all your parishes would be getting shut down more than they already are. The white man is sterilizing himself out of existence. The white man thinks he can tame sex like the way he plans everything else. So many Catholics have bought into the world's commodifying commoditifying of sex. It's just another thing with a bar code.

Our only life is the body of Christ. And you cannot take the body of Christ into yourself while you contracept. You are, in essence, contracepting Christ. Just like you want the sex without the life that follows, so you take Christ - on your own grounds. You drink judgment upon yourself. You have contracepted your own parishes - drunk judgement upon your parishes. They are now getting shut down.

People do not believe in the world to come. So likewise, they don't believe in any generations to come - including immigrants.

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The crisis in liturgy was already going on prior to Vatican II. Just read Ratzinger to find that out. Crisis of liturgy includes "pre-reform" times.

If that weren't obvious enough.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: life goes by like a bird flying past a window.

That's what a dying woman said on her deathbed. An old Italian priest I know repeated her words in his homily once.

"My life has gone by like a bird flying past the window." Those were her words.

If you think about it, if you live to be 130 years old, all what it takes is for you to be on your deathbed, and suddenly those 130 years are like a bird having flown past your window.

LOL. Death: that thing which only the Catholic Church can give you before it comes for you.

In dying before death comes for you: that is the only place you will find peace.

And it is dying to your entire old self.

It's scary.

We find new life scary.

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One of the things I love so much about Pope Francis is the hysterical, banal hand-wringing from conservative reactionaries, sickened unto death with their own afflictions - to the point that they will actually say he is espousing Statism. LOL. It makes you think. It makes you say: well, what IS it that has got up their noses so bad? It's interesting. Holiness has that effect upon a man: it will reflect back to him his own faults with nary any effort.

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Fukishima happened in what, 2011? And here we are in 2014...and...

this cannot be good

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Blogs are so passé?

Time-Stamped