Future

 We are all oarsmen: pulling toward the future, facing the past.

Afternoon Concerts

 Today I time travelled via Youtube.  Here are three concerts from three different delightful groups:

First up is Steeleye Span.

Next, Pentangle

Close with Oregon

Comment below. Thanks.

Hello Again

 It has been too long since I have posted, perhaps.

This year is an odd year--I had the joy of going on a walking pilgrimage, the first pilgrimage I have been on.

The Pilgrimage for Restoration is an annual event that I learned of September of the previous year when visiting St. Peter and Paul Basilica down in Chattanooga.  I went to the website, read stuff, and ultimately decided to go.  A sister of mine came too, which made the going easier.  

I practiced setting up the tent, did not pray enough, neglected my Night Before setting off arrangements until  *too late*, and did not walk enough in preparation.  We did pack well, though, and had more than enough food.  When we arrived at Auriesville we got to meet the Brigadier for the Company of St. Joan of Arc, which was the company we would be marching/walking with.  We also met some of the Company of St Stephen of Hungary.  Delightful people all, and you know you are likely in good company when someone invites the group to pray the Rosary as we go along.

It was a good start to an amazing weekend of pilgrimage.  Quickly when we reached the camp at the Lake George Battlegrounds, we were meeting more of the Company of St. Joan and we were found a place to set up tent.  So many people have gone year after year, and so many people were new to the pilgrimage.  

Our tent was set up shortly before sunset, right behind a great statue of St. Isaac Jogues.  Now he was a worthy Jesuit.  Mass would be said in the morning on the other side of that statue.

After setting up the tent, with a little mishap along the way that was rectified by an unusual use of a seam-ripper, Elizabeth and I walked (and ran) down to the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament.  This was where St. Isaac Jogues landed.  It was kind of awe inspiring to think that here we were and within a few days, we would be were he and other Christian martyrs met their earthly ends.

In the morning, we got up before the dawn, dressed for the day and packed up the tent.  It was still dark when we formed up with our battalion to go to Mass.  We had been asked if we wanted to bear the standard.  A new old one had just been gotten, it had been retired by a parish in France, if I remember the story correctly.  On it was a representation of St. Joan of Arc bearing the banner.  Now, the problem with a novice bearing the standard is that we did not know where we were going.  We were pointed in a direction, moved confidently, and had to be redirected.  We made it to mass in any case, and still the sun was not yet risen.  

It was quiet.  A canopy was over the area of the Altar at the feet of the gigantic statue of St. Isaac Jogues.  A bishop was seated off to the side as mass was being offered.  We all faced God together.  As mass was being prayed, almost insensibly the morning dawned.  It was grey and then golden.  St. Isaac was more discernible, and with his mutilated hand raised in blessing, he was also a powerful reminder of the Faith.  The homily given also pointed to the example set for us by those martyrs of old.  We would be roughly following their path.  I hope, that when I die, however it may be, I die in the Faith, in the Love of God and get to be welcomed like them into heaven.

Inversions in June

Years ago, while I was rejecting God, I was much more provocative. I would sometimes dress or behave in ambiguous modes.  Back in the days before HIV I was amused by a tee-shirt that said "How dare you assume that I am heterosexual."  I wasn't gay - just provocative.  I was wearing my brokenness on the outside regardless of how many other broken people I might damage more.  There were some, may God forgive me, that I damaged.

***

 From Wikipedia:

Pride is emotional response or attitude to something with an intimate connection to oneself, due to its perceived value.^{[citation needed]} Oxford defines it amongst other things as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance"^[1]

If I recall correctly pride was the cause of the fall of Lucifer.  I have at times expressed perhaps too much self admiration.  I am competent in some fields and I have a moderately broad band of playful learning.  I have been guilty of pride in this older sense.

The modern version of "pride" seems rooted rather in a lack of  security, a lack of self-acceptance, of self-esteem.  Some act out of pain, in denial of the difficult memories and realities.  Some fuzz their public persona by expanding, absorbing environmentally, without pause for integration.  

Perhaps I was also "proud" in my unacknowledged brokenness.

Why does it matter?

I have spent time with too high an opinion of myself.  I have also tried to evade myself out of shame.  There might be a certain amount of morbid amusement for someone observing me, but the acts and the observation are precisely that: morbid.  

And so Weimar America celebrates morbidity this month rather than health, termination of the young and old rather than life.  Perhaps it is Nero or Caligula's America.

It would be better to focus on health and life while acknowledging imperfection, aspiring to better, rather than setting the imperfection as the standard, aiming ever lower

Chesterton Saturday

 

“We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals.

They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word “love.”

They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language as they are immoral in their conclusions.”

 

“Obstinate Orthodoxy” – G. K. Chesterton

 

Prudence

As has been said elsewhere:

    When seconds count, the law enforcement is only minutes away.

Plan accordingly.

Kipling for Breakfast

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. 

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. 

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn 

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: 

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, 

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. 

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, 

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, 

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come 

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. 

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, 

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; 

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; 

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. 

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. 

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. 

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." 

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life 

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) 

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." 

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew 

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true 

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. 

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man 

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

-Rudyard Kipling, 1919