There is no circle of life. Sanity dictates everything has a beginning and an end, including history. It requires a journey unto itself to even begin to realize that everything has a beginning and an end. Everything is in the adventure of culminating in eternity, which is not recurring.
***
Nothing is removed that is not replaced with something else. Men who speak of the removal of something, as a means of acquiring some benign, multi-cultural neutral ground, are liars. They are liars twice over. Once, for saying the removal of something will settle some "issue"; twice, for being the ones who provoke the "issue" in the first place. For instance, a school principal's removal of the national anthem on the grounds that he is "attending to the needs of all his students". As such, there is no removal alone that gives way to some wonderful green horizon; but there is replacement. The fruit of what takes something's place tells you what the nature and intent of the removal were. And the fruit shows without delay.
***
Two young pigs are enough to till over a good sized backyard. They are remarkable diggers with their snouts alone. They are little bulldozers. At the right time of year you would hardly need to lift a hoe to plant a garden.
***
Cold is bracing, fine, bearable, or barely passable, if it goes hand in hand with dry. Cold and wet simply kill.
***
Notice how idealogues in various positions of authority talk about something else while they clearly do what they say they are not doing. Or they say that to look full-square at the objective quality of what they've done is to be short-sighted and miss the real issue. They turn the objective into the subjective, and the subjective into the objective.
***
Socialists like this (I'm sure there's other newer names for them) cannot see their country beyond its passing political configuration; and even that much they get wrong; these green "internationalists" that pose as figures whose ideas "transcend borders". These wretched geeks who speak about transcending national borders are the very ones who have nothing but a pathetic, empty, purely politicized vision of their own country. Hence every subverting, backbiting action they make is likewise political in nature. Time and again, butting against any resistance of the real world, they will narcissistically refer the actions they have taken, or want to take, to their pet political ideas while at the same time pronouncing how we must go beyond our partisan bigotries.
***
The wonderful Magical Stimulus Tree
is that other great money tree
whose money apparently
doesn't mean debt.
This Stimulus Tree comes from the warm snowy land
of candycane lamps and gumdrops.
The bills from this tree mean Change and Hope.
You know the kind that is meant: hope
for the continuation of bloodless comfort
and the continuation of babies' spilled blood.
So, let us hope the bills from this Stimulus Tree
are not the same moneys of late
which they are hoping to stimulate.
Let us hope indeed, that this money tree
does really come (if you will only believe it enough)
from the warm snowy land of candycane lamps
and gumdrops.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Exiting Soul
The woods slant down and hold the sunset's last.
The falling trails darken; the boundary's boles
to the west hold up immaculate stained glass.
Black stumps, standing off paths, seem to grow
eyes and watch the waif, the exiting soul.
The falling trails darken; the boundary's boles
to the west hold up immaculate stained glass.
Black stumps, standing off paths, seem to grow
eyes and watch the waif, the exiting soul.
Good Words
It is folly to leave your goods where you can never return, and to send nothing to that place where you must remain for ever. --VEN. LOUIS OF GRANADA.
Be assured that one great means to find favor when we appear before God is to have pardoned the injuries we have received here below. --VEN. LOUIS OF GRANADA.
The dross is consumed by the fire, but the pure gold remains and its value increases. It is in this manner that God acts with his good servant, who puts his hope in him and remain unshaken in times of distress. God raise him up and, in return for the things he has left out of love for God, he repays him a hundredfold in this life and with eternal life hereafter. --ST. JEROME EMILIANI.
And here's one that could have come from the tongue of G.K.C.:
Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know him and to pay him homage. --ST. JOSEPHINE BAKHITA.
Quotes from: Father Anthony Ho
Be assured that one great means to find favor when we appear before God is to have pardoned the injuries we have received here below. --VEN. LOUIS OF GRANADA.
The dross is consumed by the fire, but the pure gold remains and its value increases. It is in this manner that God acts with his good servant, who puts his hope in him and remain unshaken in times of distress. God raise him up and, in return for the things he has left out of love for God, he repays him a hundredfold in this life and with eternal life hereafter. --ST. JEROME EMILIANI.
And here's one that could have come from the tongue of G.K.C.:
Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know him and to pay him homage. --ST. JOSEPHINE BAKHITA.
Quotes from: Father Anthony Ho
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Assorted
A friend sends an e-mail with the subject line: Hundreds Attend Global Warming Protest.
Enclosed is this picture:
Enclosed is this picture:
The Owl of the Remove ponders whether Chesterton and Belloc would have blogged if they had the opportunity. He thinks Chesterton would have blogged, but Belloc would not have, giving this Bellocian quasi-limerick:
I wonder if Belloc would blog?
I suppose that the question is odd.
He would say: "not today, because there's no pay,
Can you pay for a pint at the pub?"
Speaking of which, Timothy Jones talks about a couple of brews, and I consequently find it strange that I am both lean and stocky - sometimes in the same single evening.
Father Dwight Longenecker writes about looking out of windows, a favourite past-time of mine.
Tentative Equinox writes about why one should be Anti-Anti-Bullying Day.
After the ice storms in Arkansas Paul Nielsen contemplates the insufficiency of modern housing.
StAR
StAR (Saint Austin Review) has a new, rather pleasant looking site up: http://staustinreview.com/ I should probably say, "finally". The old one didn't have much, uhm, dynamics.
They have a blog on the site too, written by their contributors: The Ink Desk.
They also have The Reference Room.
They also have a Discussion Table, soon to come.
Excellent stuff.
H/T: Jef Murray, through his newsletter.
They have a blog on the site too, written by their contributors: The Ink Desk.
They also have The Reference Room.
They also have a Discussion Table, soon to come.
Excellent stuff.
H/T: Jef Murray, through his newsletter.
Monday, February 9, 2009
From the Heights
This happened almost two years ago. It happened the day after the massacre at Virginia Technical Institute. I had been strolling through Redwood Park in the late afternoon and had decided spontaneously to go to Adoration at a parish not too far away.
After coming out of Adoration I was hit with an irresistible tranquility, and I got in my car and drove off. Little did I know this peace was preparing me to see something.
I was driving to my parents' home down a highway into town, heading directly east. It was early evening when the light has not yet started going dim but the down-swing has happened in the sun's trajectory that enriches everything in deep hues. Fields were on either side and in the east in front of me white clouds billowed up and up, such that if they were bruised with blue and violet you would have said a storm was coming.
But these were cast with rose light that was forming from the west and with the usual grey of white clouds. They were wonderfully lit up from the westward sun. Driving along, my eyes went sort of south east in the sky, and it was as if I said to myself, "I wonder what you can make of those clouds there". This was a very faint thought in the midst of other thoughts; and I didn't make out anything there.
With that, my eyes went back to their regular position, looking directly ahead. And suddenly they were awestruck: practically all of the wide, towering cloud formation in the east was in the bold shape and appearance of an angel blowing furiously on a trumpet.
To state it as that alone would be insufficient. No moving picture could get at the force and movement inherent in this "still picture". This was no singular cloud that a fanciful child looks at and says, "Mommy, mommy, it looks just like an angel." This was a huge mass of stacked clouds set in relief against other massive clouds. The shadows, lights and forms conspired in such a way as to bring out quite scary subtleties; like the forms of the legs discerned as they would appear beneath cloth, puffing cheeks where the trumpet met the lips, the arm palm-side up, holding out the trumpet, the up-caught wing; the whole horizontal sweeping gesture of the body, flying with its face toward the south, one leg outstretched behind it at full length; the other bent at the knee like a 'V'.
You know those "3-D" pictures that were all the rave a while back? The ones you gaze at without focusing, and then suddenly the picture comes sharply out. This was sort of like that but without the cleverness; it was far, far simpler.
This was no accident of the elements. Unmistakable, it was like something there absolutely in the open for anyone to see, and because of it, somehow hidden. Too large for the "public eye", the sight yet was as though it were something merely caused by the heavenly fingertips lightly stirring the surface of the world's water.
The "angel" remained in the sky practically the rest of the drive to my parents, though started dispersing when I got there. Nonetheless, I went onto the lower roof to take some pictures even though the sight was no longer there. The pictures would not take. I pointed the camera elsewhere on random things and it would take pictures. So again, pointing toward the east, I snapped and snapped and the pictures would not take.
Take this all for what you will.
After coming out of Adoration I was hit with an irresistible tranquility, and I got in my car and drove off. Little did I know this peace was preparing me to see something.
I was driving to my parents' home down a highway into town, heading directly east. It was early evening when the light has not yet started going dim but the down-swing has happened in the sun's trajectory that enriches everything in deep hues. Fields were on either side and in the east in front of me white clouds billowed up and up, such that if they were bruised with blue and violet you would have said a storm was coming.
But these were cast with rose light that was forming from the west and with the usual grey of white clouds. They were wonderfully lit up from the westward sun. Driving along, my eyes went sort of south east in the sky, and it was as if I said to myself, "I wonder what you can make of those clouds there". This was a very faint thought in the midst of other thoughts; and I didn't make out anything there.
With that, my eyes went back to their regular position, looking directly ahead. And suddenly they were awestruck: practically all of the wide, towering cloud formation in the east was in the bold shape and appearance of an angel blowing furiously on a trumpet.
To state it as that alone would be insufficient. No moving picture could get at the force and movement inherent in this "still picture". This was no singular cloud that a fanciful child looks at and says, "Mommy, mommy, it looks just like an angel." This was a huge mass of stacked clouds set in relief against other massive clouds. The shadows, lights and forms conspired in such a way as to bring out quite scary subtleties; like the forms of the legs discerned as they would appear beneath cloth, puffing cheeks where the trumpet met the lips, the arm palm-side up, holding out the trumpet, the up-caught wing; the whole horizontal sweeping gesture of the body, flying with its face toward the south, one leg outstretched behind it at full length; the other bent at the knee like a 'V'.
You know those "3-D" pictures that were all the rave a while back? The ones you gaze at without focusing, and then suddenly the picture comes sharply out. This was sort of like that but without the cleverness; it was far, far simpler.
This was no accident of the elements. Unmistakable, it was like something there absolutely in the open for anyone to see, and because of it, somehow hidden. Too large for the "public eye", the sight yet was as though it were something merely caused by the heavenly fingertips lightly stirring the surface of the world's water.
The "angel" remained in the sky practically the rest of the drive to my parents, though started dispersing when I got there. Nonetheless, I went onto the lower roof to take some pictures even though the sight was no longer there. The pictures would not take. I pointed the camera elsewhere on random things and it would take pictures. So again, pointing toward the east, I snapped and snapped and the pictures would not take.
Take this all for what you will.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Clearest Thing
There's no end to those that are taken away,
against which one's own passing is participated,
arrow-goaled, specified, before one even dies.
Our one lease's recall, clearest thing in all our life,
into each one's life is always infiltrating new.
To it we build a common mask and name. But those
pass away; and they that we knew, once among
the dead, reveal; are newly enamoured
to us, in ways that make our lives no longer ours.
against which one's own passing is participated,
arrow-goaled, specified, before one even dies.
Our one lease's recall, clearest thing in all our life,
into each one's life is always infiltrating new.
To it we build a common mask and name. But those
pass away; and they that we knew, once among
the dead, reveal; are newly enamoured
to us, in ways that make our lives no longer ours.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Desert Fathers
LXXVII. One of the brethren, that had been insulted by another, came to abbot Sisois and told him the scorn that had been put upon him, and said, "I am set to revenge myself, Father." And the old man began to entreat him to leave vengeance to God. But he said, "I shall not stay till I have stoutly avenged myself." So the old man said, "Since thou hast made up thy mind once for all, now let us pray," and rising, he began to pray in these words, "God, Thou art no longer necessary to us, that Thou needst be anxious for us: for we ourselves, as this brother hath said, are both willing and able to avenge ourselves." But when the brother heard it, he fell at the old man's feet seeking his pardon, and promised that he would contend no more with the man against whom he was angered.
Takes more than rabbits to feed this snake
Fossil discovery in northeast Columbia of mega huge prehistoric boa snake that reached the size of 42 feet and weighed one ton and ate prehistoric alligators for breakfast sparks the deep imaginations of scientists who in their multiferous stores of knowledge and data bring the fantasy-fiction-exceeding discovery back to bear on the far greater and mind-boggling discovery of Global Warming, the more exciting thing that reaches through the deeps of time and is the One in All.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Desert Fathers
BOOK XXI
DIVERS SAYINGS
XVI. A certain philosopher questioned the holy Antony. "How," said he, "dost thou content thyself, Father, who art denied the comfort of books?" He answered, "My book, philosopher, is the nature of created things, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, it is at my hand."
By the by, I came randomly on this passage in The Desert Fathers book, just after posting the question below in the post "Dilemma".
DIVERS SAYINGS
XVI. A certain philosopher questioned the holy Antony. "How," said he, "dost thou content thyself, Father, who art denied the comfort of books?" He answered, "My book, philosopher, is the nature of created things, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, it is at my hand."
By the by, I came randomly on this passage in The Desert Fathers book, just after posting the question below in the post "Dilemma".
Monday, February 2, 2009
Dilemma
A question: what does one do when one has a lengthy list of books one has not yet read that one wants to read, and which are ready at hand - from encyclicals to novels to works of the Doctors of the Church (Aquinas) to classical epics to short stories and dramas - but every ounce of one's desire simply yearns to pick up The Lord of the Rings and read it, for the fourth time?
What does one do? Make a compromise and read The Silmarillion?
What does one do? Make a compromise and read The Silmarillion?
Apology
To the Philipino person who out of curiosity went to my peach pit carving post after google-searching the words:
what are the places st.paul peach the word of god?
I am sorry for causing a distraction in your noble search for the geography of St. Paul's travels.
what are the places st.paul peach the word of god?
I am sorry for causing a distraction in your noble search for the geography of St. Paul's travels.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Desert Fathers
OF HUMILITY
XLVII. A brother asked abbot Sisois, saying, "I know this of myself, that my mind is intent upon God." And the old man said to him, "It is no great matter that thy mind should be with God: but if thou didst see thyself less than any of His creatures, that were something."
LXV. There came certain folk to an old man in the Thebaid, bringing with them one vexed by a devil, that the old man might heal him. And after much pleading, the old man said to the devil, "Go out from this that God made." And the devil made answer: "I go, but I ask thee one question, and do thou answer me: who be the goats, and who the lambs?" And the old man said, "The goats indeed be such as I: but who the lambs may be, God knows." And hearing it, the devil cried out with a great voice, "Behold, because of this humbleness of thine, I go." And he went out that same hour.
XLVII. A brother asked abbot Sisois, saying, "I know this of myself, that my mind is intent upon God." And the old man said to him, "It is no great matter that thy mind should be with God: but if thou didst see thyself less than any of His creatures, that were something."
LXV. There came certain folk to an old man in the Thebaid, bringing with them one vexed by a devil, that the old man might heal him. And after much pleading, the old man said to the devil, "Go out from this that God made." And the devil made answer: "I go, but I ask thee one question, and do thou answer me: who be the goats, and who the lambs?" And the old man said, "The goats indeed be such as I: but who the lambs may be, God knows." And hearing it, the devil cried out with a great voice, "Behold, because of this humbleness of thine, I go." And he went out that same hour.
Chichikov
INVASION
By Pavel Chichikov
Supposing there should be astonishment,
All our fondest suppositions stripped,
The face revealed behind the firmament,
The universe become a small cockpit
A theater round us rising in its rows,
Ranks of powers, principalities,
Great guardians and elemental foes,
Angel armies, demon ministries
Cosmic war, advances and retreats
To which we go as ignorant as bees
To anything but nectar and the hive;
A breaking in, a luminous assault,
Incursions of the sun to make us see
What mystery it is to be alive
---
The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov
By Pavel Chichikov
Supposing there should be astonishment,
All our fondest suppositions stripped,
The face revealed behind the firmament,
The universe become a small cockpit
A theater round us rising in its rows,
Ranks of powers, principalities,
Great guardians and elemental foes,
Angel armies, demon ministries
Cosmic war, advances and retreats
To which we go as ignorant as bees
To anything but nectar and the hive;
A breaking in, a luminous assault,
Incursions of the sun to make us see
What mystery it is to be alive
---
The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov
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