Dead eyes

Do you know what is one thing that is scary to me? A dead person’s eyes...especially when they are open...and moving around and blinking and seem like they should be alive...but they aren’t. That gives me a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and, sometimes, I have to turn away. The worst is when the person doesn’t know that they are dead. They don’t know any better and so they walk around pretending like they are alive. Maybe, it’s all a grand scheme to make sure people don’t bury them.

Perhaps "dead" isn’t quite the right word. Maybe it is more like "undead." I’m sure that calls to mind zombies and such, but these are real. I see them walking around every day.

Maybe, if they knew they were dead they would go find their rest and find the life that is waiting for them there. But they don’t and no one has the courage to tell them that they aren’t alive.

“But I go to church...I have a life...I have my friends...I tweet nine times a day. A dead person can’t do that.”

But can’t they?

Can’t even a robot with no life in it at all tweet nine times a day and sit in a building and keep a log of what is happening around it? It still has no life in it. A robot can’t have passions, joys, pain, love. A robot can’t have moral integrity. It can have a program that tells it to accept and reject certain things based on a list of criteria, but then it can just be programmed to do whatever whoever is skilled enough to program it wants it to. It has no choice.

Some of these undead people seem to do just that. If something is viral on social media, it must be worth attention. If five people they know like something, it must be good. If it lines up with the thoughts they were taught in school, then surely it is right. Their foundation is only as solid as those external parameters that they have been taught. Those are not lasting - and even if it were, if that undead person’s external circumstances change, that person’s identity changes, their principles change.

Sometimes, despite my squeamishness at dead eyes, I want to get in one of their faces and yell, just to see if it elicits any response other than an eye roll and filing me away in their brain as an odd creature. Perhaps I am one, but at least I am alive.

Homesick

I could call it boredom. After all, I'm just sitting here, lethargically stirring my oatmeal that isn't really appetizing.
I could call it apathy. After all, there are so many things I should do, but I just don't have the motivation.
I could call it lack of stimulation. After all, if my expectations of life here should be based on this week, I should always have something going on, something to entertain me.
I could call it being very tired. After all, this week has been so busy and I haven't gotten enough sleep.
I could call it waking up too early on a Saturday morning. After all, who wakes up before eleven o'clock on a Saturday around here - except, of course, for those baseball players.
I could call it slight illness. After all, I had a headache last night and a slight sore throat this morning.
Or...I could call it homesickness, because that's what it is.

Immigrants

The Great Hunger lasted from 1845 to 1852.  It is also known as the Irish famine.  The grandparents of my paternal grandfather came over then.  Over three hundred fifty Mahoneys came through New York in 1850 and 1851, the years my kinfolk came through.

I was sorting through the records for Daniel in 1850 and Katherine and Ellen in 1851.  So many records, so ...flexible the sense of names and dates.  I have not been able to identify their entry dates with any degree of certitude, yet seeing all of those names had its effect.

At that time, in our republic, Catholics were suspect of loyalty to the Pope more than to the country, especially the rebellious Irish.  Catholics were a problem for this country even in Maryland.  Yet, they came.  They answered the open invitation of liberty.  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free...."

It was not an easy assimilation.  "No Irish Need Apply" was not an uncommon sign.  Yet this idealistic country opened the borders to these refugees with all the risks of disease and insurrection.  

***

Today we see the flood of immigrants from the middle east.  Peoples whose countries are ravaged by an Islamic analog to the Reformation in western Europe and the destruction of many of the functioning governments.  These people, Muslim and Maronite, pose potential harms to the west, to these United States.  ...And yet...

Though they are despised even as my ancestors were despised on their entry to this land, even so, the call of Liberty still rings true.  

The Necessity for Spiritual Food

I have lots of calorie-driven family and friends. I have learned that once they reach their "I need food to remain a nice person" point, they really need to eat some food. Otherwise, life will be unpleasant for everyone around them until they do get food. This can be applied to spiritual matters, as I realized this evening.
I was spending a bit of time reading the Bible and thinking about what I read. A while after I had finished reading and had taken my crocheting up again, I observed that in the short time between reading and thinking on the Bible and that moment, my outlook had altered for the better. I was a bit more energized and felt a bit more able to function in a decent and motivated manner. I seemed more able to focus on things. I began to think about what made the difference.
Why did I seem spiritually and emotionally energized after reading the Bible? I discerned that it was because I had just taken in spiritual food. Before I had read the Bible, I had been unknowingly starving for spiritual food and consequently very spiritually weak. When I took in some healthy, nourishing spiritual food, my spirit received energy and was able to function better. It was like the moment when a very hungry person has gotten some food. They savour it and then are able to get up from the table with renewed vigour to go about the tasks of the day.
If a Christian does not take in spiritual food on a regular basis, he will not be able to function spiritually. He will be spiritually starving himself. This is the reason it is so important that a Christian must be consistent about reading the Bible and communing with God. If he isn't, he will not be able to stand in a spiritual fight. He will be knocked over, easily overcome, and it will be difficult or nearly impossible to get up again. It would be easier for him to give up and die.
Tonight, the importance of reading the Bible frequently has been impressed on my mind. I knew before that reading the Bible was important and that it was spiritual food, but the implications of that have been made clear to me. Without consistent spiritual food intake, one will grow weak and unable to fight, causing him to lose and eventually die if not properly nursed back to health on nourishing, sustaining spiritual food, just as it is with physical food.