Stay In Touch -Have I not proven to you that I Am in the saving sinners business? -Jesus
Monday, December 31, 2012
We Are One: Getting emotional
We Are One: Getting emotional
Excerpt: ...telling me how I should feel in every situation...
Excerpt: ...telling me how I should feel in every situation...
Emotional abuse is like brain washing i........................What is Emotional Abuse?
Abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults. Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotional rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics, such as intimidation, manipulation, and refusal to ever be pleased.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Intrinsic Worth
Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at your neighbor. Now look at them without their ‘star power’.
You can’t earn anyone’s love. You might think you can ‘temporarily’ but it
never lasts. The narcissistic ‘star’
syndrome has been soaring to thousands of rpms these past few years. I noticed it reaching new peaks in the ‘90’s
with drama classes and drama club added to the ‘star’ funding packages. So,
what’s it all about?
For at least three generations the insidious false belief is
perpetrated that unless you are a societal ‘star’ even in a family you
have no worth. Personally I call it
prestige power inherited from the feudal (futile) king-queen/royalty syndrome—a
ridiculous idea that wealth, whoredom power, talents, intelligence, genealogy
or seer-ship somehow makes a person ‘worthier’—which of course is bullshit.
Only God is worthy of Love.
And it is only God who loves each one of us ‘as is’.
I love Lundy my backyard squirrel. He brings great joy to me and others. We are
created to love each other that way.
Just ‘as is’—nakedly—no crowns, stars, badges, stripes...etc.
The people who ‘get that’ are the really content, happy ones
and they are truly grateful for the least cup of coffee.
I don’t care if you don’t have money, are ‘attractive’ (it
will go away quickly), have Einstein’s IQ, are popular, are in dance with the
stars. I am called to loved each one as
God loves me—unconditionally. In others
words, I must dispense with the egoistic, selfish trait of “I will love you
forever [IF].... The ‘if’ for a
Christian has to go.
Used to be that is what ‘family’ was for...to provide a
nurturing, safe, loving unconditional place for each member.
Envision the reality that is meant to be...family...not the
one touted today.
If it really existed today we would not have mass murderers,
mental illness, etc.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
SHIRT OF FLAME: IT'S EASY TO REMEMBER
SHIRT OF FLAME: IT'S EASY TO REMEMBER
My note: It would be futile for me to explain how this article really brought me a strange 'hope'.
My note: It would be futile for me to explain how this article really brought me a strange 'hope'.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Normal at Christmas
Christmas is not about presents and "have to", it's about spending 'real' time with family and friends who accept, love, support and respect us.
===========
==========
===========
Can't you just be 'normal' for just one day?
Now the answer is . . . “Yes.”
“That’s just the way it is. We are different.’
Trauma survivors pay a price for
what they have suffered. This price is not
rescinded just because it is a
holiday.
Now the answer is... "No."
The answer is “I went through hell,
and holidays bring up a lot of pain. No. I cannot
be normal, as you call it. I am
normal for what I have been through.”
Part of the pain induced by the
request to be normal is the unspoken assumption
that you could be normal for a day if you just tried hard enough. Suzette Hadin
Elgin in her book, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (Dorsett, 1980)
h/t Patience H. C. Mason, www.patiencepress.com==========
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Miklos Radnoti: The Poetry of Witness and Prophesy | Pony Express(ions)
Miklos Radnoti: The Poetry of Witness and Prophesy | Pony Express(ions)
Excerpt:
The Third Partner, The Translators
Scores of translators have introduced Radnoti’s poetry to audiences around the world who are unable to read his poetry in the original Hungarian. There have been a dozen or more translations of significant collections of Radnoti’s poetry published in English, on both sides of the Atlantic. One reviewer of a collection of Radnoti’s poetry published in England correctly observed: “The question [with respect to any new publication of Radnoti's poetry] is how does this volume compare with other published translations of Radnoti?” [viii] Hungarian is like no other language spoken in the modern world except, in some respects, Finnish; it belongs to no known language family like Romance or Germanic or Indo-European. [ix] In addition to this singularity, Hungary has a unique and centuries old poetic tradition, mostly unknown in the West. The use of both melody and rhyme schemes is central to that tradition. In Hungarian grammar, prepositions having numerous vowel sounds occur at the end of sentences, facilitating the use of end and internal rhyming schemes for poets writing in that language. Furthermore, there is a strong tradition of singing centuries old folk ballads, the melodies of which are known to most Hungarians, thus creating what Dr. Ozvath calls “incredible musicality” in the Hungarian poetic tradition. Radnoti’s poetry, regardless of subject matter, is strongly centered in that Hungarian poetic tradition, and accordingly strongly based on meter, melody and rhyme scheme.
...
Although Radnoti did write free verse early in his career as a poet, he was a master of the many classic forms of poetry. Turner refers to Radnoti’s “virtuosity with meter,” comparing him as a poet to Mozart as a composer. (Foamy Sky, xliii) Turner confesses that to translate metrically “one must be prepared to give up everything, to sacrifice everything to the meter.” He freely admits that his translations omit and rearrange phrases within each poem, create ambiguity in metaphor, and in some cases strain the use of the English language in order to be faithful to the meter of the original. (Foamy Sky, xliv-xlv) “The chief superstition that we found we must give up was the superstition that ‘free verse’ is an adequate or acceptable way of translating a metered original. And our experience with translation confirmed our growing suspicion that by abandoning metered verse the modernists were abandoning the very heart of poetry itself.” (Foamy Sky, xlvii)
Each approach to translation has its champions...
...
Excerpt:
The Third Partner, The Translators
Scores of translators have introduced Radnoti’s poetry to audiences around the world who are unable to read his poetry in the original Hungarian. There have been a dozen or more translations of significant collections of Radnoti’s poetry published in English, on both sides of the Atlantic. One reviewer of a collection of Radnoti’s poetry published in England correctly observed: “The question [with respect to any new publication of Radnoti's poetry] is how does this volume compare with other published translations of Radnoti?” [viii] Hungarian is like no other language spoken in the modern world except, in some respects, Finnish; it belongs to no known language family like Romance or Germanic or Indo-European. [ix] In addition to this singularity, Hungary has a unique and centuries old poetic tradition, mostly unknown in the West. The use of both melody and rhyme schemes is central to that tradition. In Hungarian grammar, prepositions having numerous vowel sounds occur at the end of sentences, facilitating the use of end and internal rhyming schemes for poets writing in that language. Furthermore, there is a strong tradition of singing centuries old folk ballads, the melodies of which are known to most Hungarians, thus creating what Dr. Ozvath calls “incredible musicality” in the Hungarian poetic tradition. Radnoti’s poetry, regardless of subject matter, is strongly centered in that Hungarian poetic tradition, and accordingly strongly based on meter, melody and rhyme scheme.
...
Although Radnoti did write free verse early in his career as a poet, he was a master of the many classic forms of poetry. Turner refers to Radnoti’s “virtuosity with meter,” comparing him as a poet to Mozart as a composer. (Foamy Sky, xliii) Turner confesses that to translate metrically “one must be prepared to give up everything, to sacrifice everything to the meter.” He freely admits that his translations omit and rearrange phrases within each poem, create ambiguity in metaphor, and in some cases strain the use of the English language in order to be faithful to the meter of the original. (Foamy Sky, xliv-xlv) “The chief superstition that we found we must give up was the superstition that ‘free verse’ is an adequate or acceptable way of translating a metered original. And our experience with translation confirmed our growing suspicion that by abandoning metered verse the modernists were abandoning the very heart of poetry itself.” (Foamy Sky, xlvii)
Each approach to translation has its champions...
...
“...that measured breath...”
Throughout these poems one encounters a cultured sensibility increasingly forced into what the translators define as the position of a “Christian Stoic,” seeing “his own survival as of secondary importance: he had been called ‘As witness to the truth’.” “I’ve grown so used to this terrible world / That sometimes I am not hurt by it – merely disgusted,” comments the Poet in ‘First Eclogue.’
... Radnoti’s poetry by the anti-traditional bias of one reviewer.
The “measured breath” of formal meter by which the poet teaches us how to know cannot be extirpated. . .by the hostility of a modernist cultural establishment. The lessons we can draw from Radnoti’s life and work suggest a radical transformation in the ways in which poetry is taught today.
We need to abandon the modernist picture of progress as the replacement of outmoded forms by more up-to-date ones better fitted to the spirit of the age.
It was Radnoti’s faithfulness to the old quixotic poetic standards that brought his writings to us out of the grave. [xiv]
......
"There's is a good deal to live for, but a man has to go through hell really to find it out." ~Edwin Arlington Robinson
Friday, December 21, 2012
Poetry 180 - The End and the Beginning
Poetry 180 - The End and the Beginning
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.
From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.
The End and the Beginning
Wislawa Szymborska
After every warsomeone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.
From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.
from Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska, 2001
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY
Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY
Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak
Copyright 2001 by Wislawa Szymborska.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission (click for permissions information).
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission (click for permissions information).
Wuthering Expectations: A little spare the night I loved, \ And hold it solemn to the past. - Christmas and context
Wuthering Expectations: A little spare the night I loved, \ And hold it solemn to the past. - Christmas and context
Excerpt:
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones (47-52)
Pretty good, but not really very Christmasy, is it? And most of the poem is not descriptive but argumentative.
I was surprised to find so much about Christmas in Tennyson's In Memoram (also 1850). Three Christmas scenes provide one of the few concrete structural devices in a mostly abstractly structured poem. From the third Christmas:
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;
A single church below the hill
Is pealing, folded in the mist (Stanza 104).
Which is nice enough, I guess, but treating a chunk of this poem about grief and loss as Christmas decoration seems misguided. This particular Christmas is the third since the loss of Tennyson's best friend, so the theme is acceptance:
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past. (105)
Excerpt:
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones (47-52)
Pretty good, but not really very Christmasy, is it? And most of the poem is not descriptive but argumentative.
I was surprised to find so much about Christmas in Tennyson's In Memoram (also 1850). Three Christmas scenes provide one of the few concrete structural devices in a mostly abstractly structured poem. From the third Christmas:
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;
A single church below the hill
Is pealing, folded in the mist (Stanza 104).
Which is nice enough, I guess, but treating a chunk of this poem about grief and loss as Christmas decoration seems misguided. This particular Christmas is the third since the loss of Tennyson's best friend, so the theme is acceptance:
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past. (105)
What’s up, Doc, or should I ask Shakespeare? - Telegraph
What’s up, Doc, or should I ask Shakespeare? - Telegraph
“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?—
O sweet my mother .. ~Romeo and Juliet
“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?—
O sweet my mother .. ~Romeo and Juliet
Obituary: Dr Murray Cox - People - News - The Independent
Obituary: Dr Murray Cox - People - News - The Independent
Excerpt:
Murray Newell Cox, psychotherapist: born Birmingham 22 July 1931; married 1959 Caroline McNeill Love (two sons, one daughter); died 28 June 1997.
.....I have met people who walk off the edge of language - and then they DO THINGS."
They point to the astonishing simplicity at the heart of Cox's practice: he listened, took patients at their word, and really noticed what they said - not just in words, but in emphasis, expression and gesture. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about him was his respect for the dignity of patients who had been doubly written off as "mad and bad". He risked disappointment again and again and had said once about his Broadmoor work: "There is nobody I can't have hope about".
Excerpt:
Murray Newell Cox, psychotherapist: born Birmingham 22 July 1931; married 1959 Caroline McNeill Love (two sons, one daughter); died 28 June 1997.
.....I have met people who walk off the edge of language - and then they DO THINGS."
They point to the astonishing simplicity at the heart of Cox's practice: he listened, took patients at their word, and really noticed what they said - not just in words, but in emphasis, expression and gesture. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about him was his respect for the dignity of patients who had been doubly written off as "mad and bad". He risked disappointment again and again and had said once about his Broadmoor work: "There is nobody I can't have hope about".
Among the last things he wrote was an article called "A Good Enough God? Some Psychology-Theology Crossing Places", and when he died he was working on a collaborative book on "the secret self" in theology, psychology and psychotherapy.
"What seest thou else?" was a favourite quotation, and he excelled at seeing more, deeper, wider, from new angles...co-author of two books on therapy, Mutative Metaphors in Psychotherapy (1987) and Shakespeare as Prompter (1994)...
Living with postnatal depression: ‘I felt terrified of motherhood and had no love for my baby’ | Liz Wise | Independent Editor's choice Blogs
Living with postnatal depression: ‘I felt terrified of motherhood and had no love for my baby’ | Liz Wise | Independent Editor's choice Blogs
Excerpt:
....was terrified of telling her how I was really feeling as I thought not only would she tell me that I had something far worse than PND but that she would also want to put me in hospital, which was my worst fear.
Instead she became my lifeline, she changed my medication and every time I saw her she would constantly reassure me that I would recover although I never believed her. She explained to me that the reasons I couldn’t feel my love for Emma was due the severity of my depression, my feelings were suppressed and as I started to get better and the depression started to lift, my feelings would come through.
Excerpt:
....was terrified of telling her how I was really feeling as I thought not only would she tell me that I had something far worse than PND but that she would also want to put me in hospital, which was my worst fear.
Instead she became my lifeline, she changed my medication and every time I saw her she would constantly reassure me that I would recover although I never believed her. She explained to me that the reasons I couldn’t feel my love for Emma was due the severity of my depression, my feelings were suppressed and as I started to get better and the depression started to lift, my feelings would come through.
Cain Strategy and ‘Fast and Furious’
Cain Strategy and ‘Fast and Furious’
“We’ll never waste a good crisis...” Rahm Emmanuel
Alinsky Rule: Polarization...left vs right, Republicans vs
Democrats, guns vs no guns, conservative vs liberal, union vs non-union,
straight vs gay...etc...God vs...?
or..The ‘Cain’ Strategy from the Biblical ‘Cain and Abel’
So, while the ‘poles’ are fighting, destroying each
other...who is it that moves in and takes over?
In the meantime nothing...except ‘power grabbing’...
For the record: I hate guns.
Twice a bullet from an ‘unloaded’ gun narrowly missed
my head.
What I hate more than guns: predatory, selective memory and hypocrisy
I guess everyone has forgotten the ‘Fast and Furious’ gun
sales debacle?
But, as Chesterton warns us, those ‘shadows’ we so
carelessly discard stare ‘hard’ at us without smiling.
from After Every War
I
remember that when my parents left the room, and
there was no need to learn or be polite, they spoke to each
other in...
Even
their voices began to return. What was it I had heard? Gossip
and anecdote?
Or was I hearing distant towns, in their harsh
moment
of reckoning—and wider tragedies of nationhood and
inhumanity—creeping
through their words like fog under a
windowsill?
The truth is I couldn’t know: not then, not now... ~ Eavan
Bolan
Offering a Handful of
Birdsong
Antigone takes place in the
aftermath of a great war, when the dead are piled upon each other just outside the gates of the city-state.
Hasenclever's Antigone (1917) shows that it was impossible to bury the
dead to commemorate Germany's
mass casualties in a therapeutic fashion. The commemoration that takes place on
stage is in implicit dialogue with discourses of
memorialization during and after World War I, converting the stage into a space of memory.
Gertrud Kolmar (1894-1943) Wir
Juden ... called to me, Yearning:
Redeem me, destined one— — —Who are you, that your command should be heard?
Yearning
I think of you,
I think of you always.
People spoke to me, but I didn’t take heed.
I looked into the deep Chinese blue of the evening sky
from which
the moon hung as a round yellow lantern,
And mused upon another moon, yours...
The Street Sweeper: As the novel
progresses, and more characters – from the past and present – are introduced,
the connections and links between people multiply, rather like a Dickensian
novel. There is, though, a point to these connections. Early in the novel,
Perlman writes that
you
never know the connections between things, people, places, ideas. But there are
connections.
And these connections, whether we know it or not, can direct
the trajectory of our lives – as they do for the characters in The street
sweeper. There is also a central ideological connection in the book, and
this is that there are “parallels
between...
==========
Us. Gertrud Kolmar reminds me again of the great
danger in ‘deleting’ people, erasing them nonchalantly from my inside list as
of no connection or interest to me.
I call then with a thin, ethereal cry.
You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel? - Gertrud Kolmar
She died in
Auschwitz.
Da ich zittrig
noch hingestellt
Was ich war: ein
wächsernes Licht
Für das Wachen
zur zweiten Welt.
(Because I tremblingly still set down
What I was: a waxen light
For the awakening to the second world.)
The Woman Poet
You hold me now completely in your hands.
My heart beats like a frightened little bird's
Against your palm. Take heed! You do not think
A person lives within the page you thumb.
To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink,
Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb,
And cannot touch you (though the gaze be great
That seeks you from the printed marks inside),
And is an object with an object's fate.
And yet it has been veiled like a bride,
Adorned with gems, made ready to be loved,
Who asks you bashfully to change your mind,
To wake yourself, and feel, and to be moved.
But still she trembles, whispering to the wind:
"This shall not be." And smiles as if she knew.
Yet she must hope. A woman always tries,
Her very life is but a single "You . . ."
[...]
So then, to tell my story, here I stand.
The dress's tint, though bleached in bitter lye,
Has not all washed away. It still is real.
I call then with a thin, ethereal cry.
You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel? - Gertrud Kolmar
(trans. Henry A. Smith)
I'm always amazed about these stories about children being
abused in the proximity of so many "good citizens". We have the
usual reports
from neighbors, who interacted with the family on a daily basis:
Wien - Als
"freundlich und ganz nett", als "sympathisch und
unauffällig" beschreiben die Anwohner in der Ybbsstraße von Amstetten
ihren Nachbarn Josef F. (Residents of the Ybbstrasse in Amstetten described
their neighbor Josef F. as "friendly and really nice" "there was
nothing unusual at all")
And more:
Wie in solchen Fällen üblich sagen die Nachbarn, dass sie sich „das nicht vorstellen konnten“. Die Familie F. war „sehr nett “, Josef F., der bis zu seiner Pensionierung Elektriker war, „hat immer gerne geholfen, wenn es wo Probleme gab“, und er ist „sehr lieb mit Kindern umgegangen“. Dass er zu so einem Verbrechen fähig ist, nein, das will in Amstetten niemand glauben. (As is customary in such cases the neighbors claim "they could never imagine such a thing". The family was "very nice", Josef F., a retired electrician, "was always there to help out when there were problems" and was "always very sweet to the children.")
Wie in solchen Fällen üblich sagen die Nachbarn, dass sie sich „das nicht vorstellen konnten“. Die Familie F. war „sehr nett “, Josef F., der bis zu seiner Pensionierung Elektriker war, „hat immer gerne geholfen, wenn es wo Probleme gab“, und er ist „sehr lieb mit Kindern umgegangen“. Dass er zu so einem Verbrechen fähig ist, nein, das will in Amstetten niemand glauben. (As is customary in such cases the neighbors claim "they could never imagine such a thing". The family was "very nice", Josef F., a retired electrician, "was always there to help out when there were problems" and was "always very sweet to the children.")
A few days ago I
wrote about the the lyric poet Gertrud Kolmar who was virtually unknown in her short life, and even today does not receive
the recognition she deserves for her powerful poems. But she did have some
influential fans early in her writing career. One was the bestselling
author Ina Seidel, who
achieved celebrity status in Germany
with the publication of her novel Das Wunschkind (The
Wanted Child) in 1930. Ina Seidel became acquainted with Gertrud in Berlin
and wanted to use her considerable influence to promote her poetry.
Together with Elisabeth Langgässer she published an anthology of poetry by
women - Herz zum Hafen. Frauengedichte der Gegenwart - which included
four key poems by Gertrud Kolmar and brought her to the attention of the broad
reading public. Unfortunately Herz zum Hafen was released in 1933,
just after the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin.
Ina Seidel threw her lot in with Hitler, and broke off all contact with Kolmar
(as well as with the half-Jewish Langgässer). [As did Heidegger and Wittgenstein, by the way...] Gertrud Kolmar was
devastated by the turn of events and the attitude of her erstwhile
"friend". She complained bitterly to her friend Karl Josef
Keller, who recalled in his recollections of Gertrud Kolmar:
"G.K.beklagte
sich auch bei mir über den plötzlichen Gesinnungswechsel ihrer 'arischen'
Bekannten, die zuvor für ihre Arbeiten eingetreten waren. In diesem
Zusammenhang nannte sie u.a. eine der bekanntesten deutschen
Schriftstellerinnen, die m.E.in Berlin wohnhaft war."
(Gertrud Kolmar complained to me about the sudden change of heart of her "Aryan" friends who had championed her work. In this connection she mentioned a very famous German woman author who was living in Berlin (Ina Seidel)).
(Gertrud Kolmar complained to me about the sudden change of heart of her "Aryan" friends who had championed her work. In this connection she mentioned a very famous German woman author who was living in Berlin (Ina Seidel)).
Seidel became the most popular woman author in the Third
Reich. In her works she depicted the Nazi ideal of the feminine: the
stoic mother of the German front soldier. But she also wrote ecstatic
poems and hymns to fuel the Nazi Führerkult...
A short time after this celebration, Ina Seidel's friend
Gertrud Kolmar was sent to work as a slave laborer in a Nazi munitions
plant. Two years later she and the other Jewish workers were rounded up
at the plant and sent to Auschwitz where they were
murdered. There is no record that Ina Seidel ever inquired about her
friend or tried to intervene on her behalf.
After the war, Seidel's fame only grew. Streets,
Gymnasiums, elementary schools were named after her in West
Germany. Many bear her name still
today. And, in recognition of the new postwar order, Ina Seidel
reminisced often about her "Jewish friend, Gertrud Kolmar" up
until her death in 1974. Posted by David Vickrey on’Dialog
International...’
Forche, Carolyn [Forché];
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century Poetry of Witness,
W.W. Norton, 1993, 812 pages ISBN 0393033724, 9780393033724
The resulting situation for Jews who had gone through the
process of
assimilation was a perpetual state of ‘inbetweenness’.
Perceived as inalienably other,
yet in many ways representative of gentile society that
projects this otherness, Jews
were subject to contradictory and conflicting societal
expectations so that it was
impossible to fit in with established constructs. In Gertrud
Kolmar’s prose and
dramatic works, textual devices denote the continuous
inbetween status of the
characters...
I
...Proficient
in English and German, Kolmar worked as a teacher and an
interpreter for a brief period in 1918... When Kolmar’s
mother became ill, she returned to the family home to care for her, leading a
life withdrawn from social activities and the literary circles of Berlin.
Following the death of her mother in 1930, Kolmar
remained at the family home to care for her father, whose health was
deteriorating. Kolmar was to remain by her father’s side
until his deportation to Theresienstadt in 1942, which was followed by Kolmar’s
deportation to Ausschwitz in February 1943. Kolmar’s
writing career dates from 1917, when her first cycle of poetry, Gedichte, was
published. The prose and dramatic works were written in the years immediately
preceding and during the Nazi regime in Germany.
These works are available today because Kolmar sent them
to her sister in Switzerland
for safekeeping.
A
number of works, including a collection of poetry written in Hebrew, remained
with the author and were consequently destroyed.
Kolmar
has been appreciated mainly as a gifted poet... the epistolary autobiography
presents women writers with the opportunity to “emphasize the inner realm, the
private sanctuary of emotions that is often shared with the partner in the
epistolary dialogue” (Shafi 2000: 106). Shafi’s analysis explores the
representation of this ‘inner realm’ in Kolmar’s
letters, seeing in the letters the forging of a “self that would be
able
to resist the onslaught on her subjectivity” (Shafi 2000: 105).
...
the struggles of the protagonists, as the aporetic nature of asserting a sense
of self in a hostile environment that oppresses the individual was the
marker...
Silence, Self and Sacrifice in Gertrud Kolmar’s
Prose and Dramatic Works Suzanne
O’Connor, Dept. of German, The National University of Ireland Maynooth. June 2010
But
tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). Tuesday, June 4, 1991
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). Tuesday, June 4, 1991
‘Sin is nothing but the refusal to recognize human misery.’ -Simone Weil
Memory, what does it mean to be clear? To be ice? To be twice? To be more? We are gasping with asking since infancy, answerless— What is the name of the cure? ~ Blaga Dimitrova, a Bulgarian anti-communist writer
who served as her country’s vice president...
"Silence prevails; it is an awful
silence. The voice of Mary is heard no
longer in the valley..”
Few memorials to forgotten victim: Gunman's mother - Yahoo! News
Few memorials to forgotten victim: Gunman's mother - Yahoo! News
"Others now share pain for choices you faced alone; May the blameless among us throw the first stone," it reads in part.
"Others now share pain for choices you faced alone; May the blameless among us throw the first stone," it reads in part.
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — When people here speak of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, they use the number 26: the ones killed after Adam Lanza stormed his way into the school.
When the bells of Newtown toll mournfully Friday morning to honor the victims of last week's shooting rampage, they'll do so 26 times, for each child and staff member killed.
Rarely do residents mention the first person police said Lanza killed that morning: his mother, Nancy, who was shot in the head four times while she lay in bed.
That makes 27.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Toronto police identify mystery woman 'Linda' | CTV Toronto News
Toronto police identify mystery woman 'Linda' | CTV Toronto News
Excerpt:
he mystery surrounding a woman going by the name of “Linda” who showed up at a Toronto homeless shelter in September with no memory of who she was appears to be over.
After an intensive three-month investigation, Toronto police confirmed Tuesday that the woman is in fact Linda Hegg, a 56-year-old from Newark, Delaware, who was reported missing in early November.
Excerpt:
he mystery surrounding a woman going by the name of “Linda” who showed up at a Toronto homeless shelter in September with no memory of who she was appears to be over.
After an intensive three-month investigation, Toronto police confirmed Tuesday that the woman is in fact Linda Hegg, a 56-year-old from Newark, Delaware, who was reported missing in early November.
First Known When Lost: Christmas, Part Five: "I Should Go With Him In The Gloom, Hoping It Might Be So"
First Known When Lost: Christmas, Part Five: "I Should Go With Him In The Gloom, Hoping It Might Be So"
Excerpt:
'Now they are all on their knees,'
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
'Come; see the oxen kneel
'In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,'
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so. 1915 Thomas Hardy, Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917)
Excerpt:
'Now they are all on their knees,'
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
'Come; see the oxen kneel
'In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,'
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so. 1915 Thomas Hardy, Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917)
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Martyr of Charity
Jesus heals the lepers in the following verses:
Luke 17:11-19 says, "Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, 'Jesus, Master, have pity on us!' When he saw them, he said, 'Go, show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him - and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?' Then he said to him, 'Rise and go; your faith has made you well.'"
One man was very obviously showing his appreciation to Jesus for healing him, while the others left. I believe they were so excited by their new found healing that they simply got caught up in the moment and forgot to thank Jesus. That seems to be human nature sometimes when we receive a supreme blessing. It is so easy to get caught up in what has just happened that we may forget at first to thank the One who gave us that blessing.
Psalm 107:8-9 says, "Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things."
===
Saint Damien de Veuster [pictured above on his deathbed] was a Roman Catholic missionary who ministered to lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai...Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,[2] a missionary religious institute...After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of those in the leper colony, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is considered a "martyr of charity".
Like Ezekiel he went and 'sat with the captives by the river even though he was not a captive'... Six months after his arrival at Kalawao he wrote his brother, Pamphile, in Europe:
...I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi Answers the Challenge of Leprosy, as saying,
The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr. Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism.
Our Lady of the Forsaken:
In 1409, a Valencian priest confronted a mob who were preparing to lynch a mentally-ill homeless man near Santa Catalina. Father Jofre exhorted the mob to take pity on the poor soul, instead of stoning him to death. He would later base an important sermon on this and, as a result, Valencia would become the first city in the world to open an asylum for the mentally ill.
he asylum was run by a group of nuns, whose symbol was Our Lady of the Forsaken (Mare de Déu dels Desamparats). Over time, this symbol grew in importance and today Our Lady Valencia’s most well-loved and famous icon. It’s important to remember that she embodies Valencia’s historically unique role in caring for society’s most down-trodden members.
Luke 17:11-19 says, "Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, 'Jesus, Master, have pity on us!' When he saw them, he said, 'Go, show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him - and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?' Then he said to him, 'Rise and go; your faith has made you well.'"
One man was very obviously showing his appreciation to Jesus for healing him, while the others left. I believe they were so excited by their new found healing that they simply got caught up in the moment and forgot to thank Jesus. That seems to be human nature sometimes when we receive a supreme blessing. It is so easy to get caught up in what has just happened that we may forget at first to thank the One who gave us that blessing.
Psalm 107:8-9 says, "Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things."
===
Saint Damien de Veuster [pictured above on his deathbed] was a Roman Catholic missionary who ministered to lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai...Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,[2] a missionary religious institute...After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of those in the leper colony, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is considered a "martyr of charity".
Like Ezekiel he went and 'sat with the captives by the river even though he was not a captive'... Six months after his arrival at Kalawao he wrote his brother, Pamphile, in Europe:
...I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi Answers the Challenge of Leprosy, as saying,
The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr. Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism.
Our Lady of the Forsaken:
In 1409, a Valencian priest confronted a mob who were preparing to lynch a mentally-ill homeless man near Santa Catalina. Father Jofre exhorted the mob to take pity on the poor soul, instead of stoning him to death. He would later base an important sermon on this and, as a result, Valencia would become the first city in the world to open an asylum for the mentally ill.
he asylum was run by a group of nuns, whose symbol was Our Lady of the Forsaken (Mare de Déu dels Desamparats). Over time, this symbol grew in importance and today Our Lady Valencia’s most well-loved and famous icon. It’s important to remember that she embodies Valencia’s historically unique role in caring for society’s most down-trodden members.
Monday, December 17, 2012
I am Adam Lanza's Mother - The Blue Review | The Blue Review
I am Adam Lanza's Mother - The Blue Review | The Blue Review
Excerpt:
No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”
I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.
God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
~Liza Long is an author, musician, and erstwhile classicist. She is also a single mother of four bright, loved children, one of whom has special needs.
================
My Response: Thank God! A woman with guts. As anyone who reads my blog knows I am all for ending the ignorant stigmatization [which is just LAZINESS and INDIFFERENCE---until something bad happens...then out of every hole comes the big mouth rats who know everything...]
In the meantime, while the rats play mothers and other family members weep and plead for help. The problem?
'It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health.' [Not gun control!!!!]
It's time to really provide meaningful help for parents and sufferers of mental illness.
How there is no meaningful place for families to get help. There is no major push to end the crappy ignorance by the public and the way ill people are portrayed in the media, treated in schools, churches and businesses.
Every text book, every school, every professor....ad nauseum...has a different 'definition' and 'technique'...and most don't even come close to being an answer to the suffering of those who have been stricken by the disease of mental illness. Because you can't SEE it or TOUCH it then most people who just don't want to be bothered just want you to 'get over it'. Fortunately there is growing evidence of many of the types of mental illness have biological bases...there is still much unknown about the chemistry of the brain, the endocrine system, and even the chemistry of nerves themselves. Long standing abuse reaps psychological, emotional and physical problems--ALWAYS.
Until realistic means of treatment come around the responsibility for helping our neighbors, shouldering their burdens, rests with every individual.
It is tragic and exasperating that Nancy Lanza was terrified, worried but couldn't even find someone to talk to about her concerns. This scenario plays over and over but then everyone acts S-O-O-O shocked. Oh, how could this happen? Ad nauseum--again. And mothers are getting tired of being blamed for everything by husbands and children. Get with the program--men. Take care of your families. At this moment I can count over a hundred men that I know who have chickened out because they didn't want to help care for their own children who were sick, disabled, etc.Often there was no other reason than just sheer cold selfishness. It might get in the way of 'play time'...games, golf, TV, football, fishing...etc.
If one is lucky in the big cities there might be a bona fide place to go 24-7[sic] when things really go down. Good luck. Most mentally ill people are presently put in prison. [Over 1/3 of the entire prison population!]
Shame on any society of which that is true. There is no city of the well and city of the sick. We all live in the same city of man. It's just too damn bad that one doesn't want to be bothered because when things like this go down each person who has refused to take responsibility for family, friends or neighbor helped pull that trigger.
What is the worst part of this negligence? The deadly sin of prestige. What would people think? Who cares--big deal. It's time we got over our false selves and became real. Try it. Love your family, friends, neighbors...Help take care of each other...now...at this moment.
=================
Liza Long, God bless you.
=================
Update: Since there is ice on my roads I turned on the TV this morning to check the conditions. On turning the channel I glossed past HLN...just as...the announcer stated: ...critics say she is just doing it for attention...again the 'usual' ignorant bias and re-focus to what the political stompers want us to focus on and believe...We see how that is working out...
Well, DUH!...the whole point is to FOCUS THE ATTENTION on what is real...what is desperately needed....If Nancy Lanza and Adam had really found support and help...like a million others out there...we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Excerpt:
No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”
I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.
God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
~Liza Long is an author, musician, and erstwhile classicist. She is also a single mother of four bright, loved children, one of whom has special needs.
================
My Response: Thank God! A woman with guts. As anyone who reads my blog knows I am all for ending the ignorant stigmatization [which is just LAZINESS and INDIFFERENCE---until something bad happens...then out of every hole comes the big mouth rats who know everything...]
In the meantime, while the rats play mothers and other family members weep and plead for help. The problem?
'It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health.' [Not gun control!!!!]
It's time to really provide meaningful help for parents and sufferers of mental illness.
How there is no meaningful place for families to get help. There is no major push to end the crappy ignorance by the public and the way ill people are portrayed in the media, treated in schools, churches and businesses.
Every text book, every school, every professor....ad nauseum...has a different 'definition' and 'technique'...and most don't even come close to being an answer to the suffering of those who have been stricken by the disease of mental illness. Because you can't SEE it or TOUCH it then most people who just don't want to be bothered just want you to 'get over it'. Fortunately there is growing evidence of many of the types of mental illness have biological bases...there is still much unknown about the chemistry of the brain, the endocrine system, and even the chemistry of nerves themselves. Long standing abuse reaps psychological, emotional and physical problems--ALWAYS.
Until realistic means of treatment come around the responsibility for helping our neighbors, shouldering their burdens, rests with every individual.
It is tragic and exasperating that Nancy Lanza was terrified, worried but couldn't even find someone to talk to about her concerns. This scenario plays over and over but then everyone acts S-O-O-O shocked. Oh, how could this happen? Ad nauseum--again. And mothers are getting tired of being blamed for everything by husbands and children. Get with the program--men. Take care of your families. At this moment I can count over a hundred men that I know who have chickened out because they didn't want to help care for their own children who were sick, disabled, etc.Often there was no other reason than just sheer cold selfishness. It might get in the way of 'play time'...games, golf, TV, football, fishing...etc.
If one is lucky in the big cities there might be a bona fide place to go 24-7[sic] when things really go down. Good luck. Most mentally ill people are presently put in prison. [Over 1/3 of the entire prison population!]
Shame on any society of which that is true. There is no city of the well and city of the sick. We all live in the same city of man. It's just too damn bad that one doesn't want to be bothered because when things like this go down each person who has refused to take responsibility for family, friends or neighbor helped pull that trigger.
What is the worst part of this negligence? The deadly sin of prestige. What would people think? Who cares--big deal. It's time we got over our false selves and became real. Try it. Love your family, friends, neighbors...Help take care of each other...now...at this moment.
=================
Liza Long, God bless you.
=================
Update: Since there is ice on my roads I turned on the TV this morning to check the conditions. On turning the channel I glossed past HLN...just as...the announcer stated: ...critics say she is just doing it for attention...again the 'usual' ignorant bias and re-focus to what the political stompers want us to focus on and believe...We see how that is working out...
Well, DUH!...the whole point is to FOCUS THE ATTENTION on what is real...what is desperately needed....If Nancy Lanza and Adam had really found support and help...like a million others out there...we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
St. Juan Diego - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online
St. Juan Diego - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online
Pope John Paul II praised Juan Diego for his simple faith nourished by catechesis and pictured him (who said to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf”) as a model of humility for all of us.
Excerpt:
Why did God look upon him? The Book of Sirach, as we have heard, teaches us that God alone "is mighty; he is glorified by the humble" (cf. Sir 3:20). Saint Paul's words, also proclaimed at this celebration, shed light on the divine way of bringing about salvation: "God chose what is low and despised in the world ... so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor 1:28,29).
It is moving to read the accounts of Guadalupe, sensitively written and steeped in tenderness. In them the Virgin Mary, the handmaid "who glorified the Lord" (Lk 1:46), reveals herself to Juan Diego as the Mother of the true God.
Pope John Paul II praised Juan Diego for his simple faith nourished by catechesis and pictured him (who said to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf”) as a model of humility for all of us.
Excerpt:
Why did God look upon him? The Book of Sirach, as we have heard, teaches us that God alone "is mighty; he is glorified by the humble" (cf. Sir 3:20). Saint Paul's words, also proclaimed at this celebration, shed light on the divine way of bringing about salvation: "God chose what is low and despised in the world ... so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor 1:28,29).
It is moving to read the accounts of Guadalupe, sensitively written and steeped in tenderness. In them the Virgin Mary, the handmaid "who glorified the Lord" (Lk 1:46), reveals herself to Juan Diego as the Mother of the true God.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Peregrina: Caryll Houselander
Peregrina: Caryll Houselander
Excerpt:
In the 1940s and 50s Caryll Houselander enjoyed enormous success in the English-speaking world. Her books of that period include The Reed of God, The Flowering Tree, The Passion of the Infant Christ, A Rocking Horse Catholic, The Risen Christ, and many others, all published by Sheed and Ward. Frank Sheed had discovered her in the early 1940s on one of his numerous trips to England and the publication in 1941 of This War is the Passion established her reputation as a Christian writer of great profundity and sensitivity.
On the face of it, Caryll Houselander would seem an unlikely candidate for worldly success. She was neither a scholar nor even particularly well-educated. Her chosen profession was that of an artist and she thought of herself, above all, as a wood-carver. Had it not been for the mysterious workings of providence in her early childhood, she would probably have blended imperceptibly with those who inhabit the fringes of the artistic world. She was certainly talented and loved the artist’s craft, but it was Yvonne Bosch van Drakestein, the Dutch founder of the Grail Society in England, who first recognized her unique gifts and who encouraged her to pursue her vocation in the field of writing after Caryll had appeared at her door and offered to help in any way she could to further their apostolate...
Excerpt:
In the 1940s and 50s Caryll Houselander enjoyed enormous success in the English-speaking world. Her books of that period include The Reed of God, The Flowering Tree, The Passion of the Infant Christ, A Rocking Horse Catholic, The Risen Christ, and many others, all published by Sheed and Ward. Frank Sheed had discovered her in the early 1940s on one of his numerous trips to England and the publication in 1941 of This War is the Passion established her reputation as a Christian writer of great profundity and sensitivity.
On the face of it, Caryll Houselander would seem an unlikely candidate for worldly success. She was neither a scholar nor even particularly well-educated. Her chosen profession was that of an artist and she thought of herself, above all, as a wood-carver. Had it not been for the mysterious workings of providence in her early childhood, she would probably have blended imperceptibly with those who inhabit the fringes of the artistic world. She was certainly talented and loved the artist’s craft, but it was Yvonne Bosch van Drakestein, the Dutch founder of the Grail Society in England, who first recognized her unique gifts and who encouraged her to pursue her vocation in the field of writing after Caryll had appeared at her door and offered to help in any way she could to further their apostolate...
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Dystopia: Introduction
Dystopia: Introduction
Excerpt:
A biography of Blessed Titus Brandsma tells us that, 'in 1935, Blessed Titus Brandsma wrote against anti-Jewish marriage laws, which brought him to the attention of the Nazis. Titus later wrote that no Catholic publication could publish Nazi propaganda and still call itself Catholic; this led to more attention. Continually followed by the Gestapo, the Nazi attention led to his arrest on 19 January 1942. For several weeks he was shuttled from jail to jail, abused, and punished for ministering to other prisoners.
Titus Brandsma was deported to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1942. There he was overworked, underfed, and beaten daily; he asked fellow prisoners to pray for the salvation of the guards. When he could no longer work, he was used for medical experiments. When he was no longer any use for experimentation, he was murdered. He died July, 26, 1942 by injection with a deadly drug that, ten minutes later, took his life at Dachau concentration camp; his executioner was a nurse who had been raised Catholic, but left the Church.'
It struck me recently that The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, of which I am a member, has in its patron, the perfect intercessor and model for those using their talent for writing and, insodoing, playing a part in the evangelisation of 21st century Western man and woman.
Many in the US, UK and Europe have been taken aback by President Obama's audacious and unconstitutional attack on the religious liberty of the Catholic Church in the USA. At the time of writing, we do not know where it will all end. However, while we do not know where it will all end, we cannot say that we have never been here before, and our patron happens to be just one heroic testament to that historical fact.
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has made various speeches, notably in Germany and in the United Kingdom, on the dictatorship of relativism and the dangers that become apparent when efforts are made at State and societal levels to 'erase God from the public sphere'. We should not be surprised if His Holiness's words are considered prophetic even within the time of his own Pontificate.
The economic crises affecting the West present Governments with numerous difficulties. How will the State respond to such economic turmoil when already respect for human dignity has been undermined by over forty years of abortion provided by our own legislatures? How will States whose moral foundations, built upon Christianity, have suffered and continue to suffer dramatic erosion, respond to the challenging times in which we now live? We see that in the United States, the Executive branch of Government has initiated an unprecedented attack on a fundamental principle of human freedom - religious liberty. It is tempting for this essay to focus on the USA because it is there that the Church is under greatest attack in the West, but it is clear that the forces of liberalism at work in the US are also at work in the United Kingdom and indeed Europe.
This essay will steer clear of drawing upon conspiracy theories and will also steer clear of examining liberalism at a pan-European governmental level, but will examine the case of one country and one country alone: the United Kingdom. The aim of this essay is to highlight the many areas in which liberalism is the huge threat to human freedom, all genuine human freedom, that the Holy Father has said that it is and why its path must inexorably end in tyranny. It does not intend to be alarmist, this essay only aims to point out why those democratic freedoms cherished by Western civilisation are now at such great risk. It aims to examine those trends and forces already at work in Western government and society and, using these trends, to offer projections of a future which can only be described as belonging to a dystopia.
What's at the End of the Road?
In 1932, a young man... by the name of Aldous Huxley, who looks in this picture remarkably like our Blessed hero and patron, wrote a book that became recognised as one of the greatest and most important of the 20th century. That book was called 'Brave New World'.
Despite the fact that the novel was a work of fiction, it has inspired many, since its publication, especially those in the Press who recognise in the rise of the State and the history of the 20th century, the inherent danger of the property of the human person passing from the One Whom we, as a country, once believed to be the Source and Origin of all life - Almighty God - to an all-powerful and over-reaching government who usurps His role in human affairs. And, despite the fact that the book was a work of fiction, it is credited, alongside George Orwell's '1984' as being uniquely inspired and even 'prophetic'.
Excerpt:
A biography of Blessed Titus Brandsma tells us that, 'in 1935, Blessed Titus Brandsma wrote against anti-Jewish marriage laws, which brought him to the attention of the Nazis. Titus later wrote that no Catholic publication could publish Nazi propaganda and still call itself Catholic; this led to more attention. Continually followed by the Gestapo, the Nazi attention led to his arrest on 19 January 1942. For several weeks he was shuttled from jail to jail, abused, and punished for ministering to other prisoners.
Titus Brandsma was deported to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1942. There he was overworked, underfed, and beaten daily; he asked fellow prisoners to pray for the salvation of the guards. When he could no longer work, he was used for medical experiments. When he was no longer any use for experimentation, he was murdered. He died July, 26, 1942 by injection with a deadly drug that, ten minutes later, took his life at Dachau concentration camp; his executioner was a nurse who had been raised Catholic, but left the Church.'
 |
| The cell of Blessed Titus Brandsma |
It struck me recently that The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, of which I am a member, has in its patron, the perfect intercessor and model for those using their talent for writing and, insodoing, playing a part in the evangelisation of 21st century Western man and woman.
Many in the US, UK and Europe have been taken aback by President Obama's audacious and unconstitutional attack on the religious liberty of the Catholic Church in the USA. At the time of writing, we do not know where it will all end. However, while we do not know where it will all end, we cannot say that we have never been here before, and our patron happens to be just one heroic testament to that historical fact.
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has made various speeches, notably in Germany and in the United Kingdom, on the dictatorship of relativism and the dangers that become apparent when efforts are made at State and societal levels to 'erase God from the public sphere'. We should not be surprised if His Holiness's words are considered prophetic even within the time of his own Pontificate.
The economic crises affecting the West present Governments with numerous difficulties. How will the State respond to such economic turmoil when already respect for human dignity has been undermined by over forty years of abortion provided by our own legislatures? How will States whose moral foundations, built upon Christianity, have suffered and continue to suffer dramatic erosion, respond to the challenging times in which we now live? We see that in the United States, the Executive branch of Government has initiated an unprecedented attack on a fundamental principle of human freedom - religious liberty. It is tempting for this essay to focus on the USA because it is there that the Church is under greatest attack in the West, but it is clear that the forces of liberalism at work in the US are also at work in the United Kingdom and indeed Europe.
This essay will steer clear of drawing upon conspiracy theories and will also steer clear of examining liberalism at a pan-European governmental level, but will examine the case of one country and one country alone: the United Kingdom. The aim of this essay is to highlight the many areas in which liberalism is the huge threat to human freedom, all genuine human freedom, that the Holy Father has said that it is and why its path must inexorably end in tyranny. It does not intend to be alarmist, this essay only aims to point out why those democratic freedoms cherished by Western civilisation are now at such great risk. It aims to examine those trends and forces already at work in Western government and society and, using these trends, to offer projections of a future which can only be described as belonging to a dystopia.
What's at the End of the Road?
Despite the fact that the novel was a work of fiction, it has inspired many, since its publication, especially those in the Press who recognise in the rise of the State and the history of the 20th century, the inherent danger of the property of the human person passing from the One Whom we, as a country, once believed to be the Source and Origin of all life - Almighty God - to an all-powerful and over-reaching government who usurps His role in human affairs. And, despite the fact that the book was a work of fiction, it is credited, alongside George Orwell's '1984' as being uniquely inspired and even 'prophetic'.
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Objects of My Ardent Interest'
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Objects of My Ardent Interest'
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
It’s from the story “Cinnamon Shops” and suggests how Schulz revels in the arcane and exotic in the midst of mundane reality. You might find such a scene in a story by Steven Millhauser:
“These truly noble shops, open late at night, have always been the objects of my ardent interest. Dimly lit, their dark and solemn interiors were redolent of the smell of paint, varnish, and incense; of the aroma of distant countries and rare commodities. You could find in them Bengal lights, magic boxes, the stamps of long-forgotten countries, Chinese decals, indigo, calaphony from Malabar, the eggs of exotic insects, parrots, toucans, live salamanders and basilisks, mandrake roots, mechanical toys from Nuremberg, homunculi in jars, microscopes, binoculars, and, most especially, strange and rare books, old folio volumes full of astonishing engravings and amazing stories.”
On the same shelf as the Schulz volumes are Cynthia Ozick’s, including The Messiah of Stockholm (1987), about a Swede convinced he is Schulz’s son and has found a copy of Schulz’s final lost manuscript, The Messiah. Ozick signed the book when I met her, the day I also met Raul Hilberg and Aharon Appelfeld. On this date seventy years ago, on Nov. 19, 1942, in his home town of Drohobych, while walking home with a loaf of bread, Schulz was murdered by a Gestapo officer.
Addendum:
Razglednicas:Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti -loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I fell beside him — his body taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming into death.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me said
through caked mud and blood congealing in my ear.
"Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still 'twitching'."
After writing his fourth and final "Postcard," Radnóti was badly beaten
by a soldier
annoyed by his scribblings. Soon thereafter, the weakened poet was shot
to death, on November 9, 1944, along with 21 other prisoners who unable
to walk. Their mass grave was exhumed after the war and Radnóti's poems
were found on his body by his wife, inscribed in pencil in a small
Serbian exercise book. Radnóti's posthumous collection, Tajtékos ég (Clouded
Sky, or Foaming Sky) contains odes to his wife, letters,
poetic fragments and his final Postcards. Unlike his murderers, Miklós
Radnóti never lost his humanity, and his empathy continues to live on
and shine through his work.
Addendum:
Razglednicas:Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti -loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I fell beside him — his body taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming into death.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me said
through caked mud and blood congealing in my ear.
"Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still 'twitching'."
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
We Are One: One story
We Are One: One story
Excerpt:
...Another book that I read, The Law of the Garbage Truck goes into greater detail of how to stop dumping garbage on each other. http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2010/10/garbage-truck-experience.html I can't control someone else but I can control myself and how I interact with others. I can check in with my own behavior....
Excerpt:
...Another book that I read, The Law of the Garbage Truck goes into greater detail of how to stop dumping garbage on each other. http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2010/10/garbage-truck-experience.html I can't control someone else but I can control myself and how I interact with others. I can check in with my own behavior....
Monday, November 12, 2012
We Are One: Self-esteem doesn't bleed
We Are One: Self-esteem doesn't bleed
Excerpt:
The height of cruelty reaches its peak by about middle school, around 11 - 13 years old but for some it doesn't diminish in high school. Teachers can get involved in the name calling and put downs. Tell an adult - are you kidding me? Then tragedy hits, suicide, murder, a killing spree.....Oh my what happened that this terrible thing occurred? Self-esteem doesn't bleed but people still die.
Note: All violence begins with 'words' which come from within the heart: our own thoughts. I once was chosen to teach a class for couples and found a simple, short program that I too could follow. It's called:
BLESS
1. Bless each other.
2. Love each other.
3. Encourage each other.
4. Share with each other.
5. Support each other.
That is how we are to treat 'everyone' who comes into our lives. "Love one another as I have loved you."
[cf. Corinthians 13.] Speak the truth 'in love'.
Excerpt:
The height of cruelty reaches its peak by about middle school, around 11 - 13 years old but for some it doesn't diminish in high school. Teachers can get involved in the name calling and put downs. Tell an adult - are you kidding me? Then tragedy hits, suicide, murder, a killing spree.....Oh my what happened that this terrible thing occurred? Self-esteem doesn't bleed but people still die.
Note: All violence begins with 'words' which come from within the heart: our own thoughts. I once was chosen to teach a class for couples and found a simple, short program that I too could follow. It's called:
BLESS
1. Bless each other.
2. Love each other.
3. Encourage each other.
4. Share with each other.
5. Support each other.
That is how we are to treat 'everyone' who comes into our lives. "Love one another as I have loved you."
[cf. Corinthians 13.] Speak the truth 'in love'.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Anecdotal Evidence: `I Never Remembers a Dream'
Anecdotal Evidence: `I Never Remembers a Dream'
Excerpt:
Twenty-five years ago this month, while researching a series on homelessness for my newspaper in Albany, N.Y., I spent a night in a shelter in that city. I remember two events: watching The Cosby Show with a group of the shelter’s guests, and being woken in the middle of the night when the man in the next bunk had a seizure and the EMTs took him away...
Excerpt:
Twenty-five years ago this month, while researching a series on homelessness for my newspaper in Albany, N.Y., I spent a night in a shelter in that city. I remember two events: watching The Cosby Show with a group of the shelter’s guests, and being woken in the middle of the night when the man in the next bunk had a seizure and the EMTs took him away...
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Dark Speech upon the Harp: Love of neighbor
Dark Speech upon the Harp: Love of neighbor
Excerpt:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
~ C. S. Lewis, from The Joyful Christian : 127 Readings (Touchstone, 1996), pp 197-8
“Razglednica”: Postcard 4
his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary
I toppled beside him — his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.
-Hypertexts: Miklós Radnóti, translated by Michael R. Burch
Translator's notes:
"Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."
Excerpt:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
~ C. S. Lewis, from The Joyful Christian : 127 Readings (Touchstone, 1996), pp 197-8
“Razglednica”: Postcard 4
his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary
I toppled beside him — his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.
-Hypertexts: Miklós Radnóti, translated by Michael R. Burch
Translator's notes:
"Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."
The poem was written on October 31 1944 and on Nov 6th the poet was shot and tossed into a collective grave.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Joan
Joan of Arcadia
Joan: Let’s see a miracle.
God: How about that?
Joan: It’s a tree.
God: Let’s see you make one.
* There is no failure so great that
a Christian cannot rise from it; there is no defeat so final that he cannot
convert it into victory. *Helen C. White
"My thoughts do not aim for
your assent - just place them alongside your own reflections for a while."
- Robert Nozick
Friday, October 26, 2012
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Excerpt:
Maria Gaetana Agnesi is best known from the curve called the "Witch of Agnesi" (see illustration from her text Analytical Institutions). Agnesi wrote the equation of this curve in the form y = a*sqrt(a*x-x*x)/x because she considered the x-axis to be the vertical axis and the y-axis to be the horizontal axis [Kennedy]. Reference frames today use x horizontal and y vertical, so the modern form of the curve is given by the Cartesian equation yx2=a2(a-y) or y = a3/(x2 + a2). It is a versed sine curve, originally studied by Fermat. "It was called a versiera, a word derived from the Latin vertere, meaning 'to turn', but it was also an abbreviation for the Italian word avversiera, meaning 'the wife of the devil'" [Osen, 45]. However, when Maria's text was translated into English the word versiera was confused with "witch", and the curve came to be known as the witch of Agnesi.
After the success of her book, Maria was elected to the Bologna Academy of Sciences. The university sent her a diploma and her name was added to the faculty. However, there is a debate over whether or not Maria accepted this appointment since by this time she had devoted herself to her work with charity. It seems that her father was the inspiration for her interest in mathematics. When he died in 1752, Maria gave up any further work in mathematics. "When, in 1762, the University of Turin asked her for her opinion of the young Lagrange's recent articles on the calculus of variations, her response was that she was no longer concerned with such interests" [Osen, 47].
Maria was a very religious woman. She devoted the rest of her life to the poor and homeless sick people, especially women. When the Pio Instituto Trivulzo, a home for the ill and infirm, was opened, Maria was given an appointment as the director of the institute. She took care of ill and dying women until her own death.
It seems to me that even though she was a genius, mathematics was only a temporary hobby of hers. It may be that she was only dealing with mathematics to please her father who apparently was expecting his prodigy child to be involved in mathematics. Of course, this is only a personal observation. However, her behavior implies that she was not dedicated to mathematics which I think explains why she gave up mathematics altogether as soon as her father died. She was a very shy and decent person. She was not ambitious to become a well-known mathematician. Her most famous work, Analytical Institutions, was intended to be a textbook for her brothers. Her intelligence and talent made it possible to integrate all the state of the art knowledge about calculus in a very clear way. Religious life and helping the needy seem to have interested her more than mathematics.
Excerpt:
Maria Gaetana Agnesi is best known from the curve called the "Witch of Agnesi" (see illustration from her text Analytical Institutions). Agnesi wrote the equation of this curve in the form y = a*sqrt(a*x-x*x)/x because she considered the x-axis to be the vertical axis and the y-axis to be the horizontal axis [Kennedy]. Reference frames today use x horizontal and y vertical, so the modern form of the curve is given by the Cartesian equation yx2=a2(a-y) or y = a3/(x2 + a2). It is a versed sine curve, originally studied by Fermat. "It was called a versiera, a word derived from the Latin vertere, meaning 'to turn', but it was also an abbreviation for the Italian word avversiera, meaning 'the wife of the devil'" [Osen, 45]. However, when Maria's text was translated into English the word versiera was confused with "witch", and the curve came to be known as the witch of Agnesi.
After the success of her book, Maria was elected to the Bologna Academy of Sciences. The university sent her a diploma and her name was added to the faculty. However, there is a debate over whether or not Maria accepted this appointment since by this time she had devoted herself to her work with charity. It seems that her father was the inspiration for her interest in mathematics. When he died in 1752, Maria gave up any further work in mathematics. "When, in 1762, the University of Turin asked her for her opinion of the young Lagrange's recent articles on the calculus of variations, her response was that she was no longer concerned with such interests" [Osen, 47].
Maria was a very religious woman. She devoted the rest of her life to the poor and homeless sick people, especially women. When the Pio Instituto Trivulzo, a home for the ill and infirm, was opened, Maria was given an appointment as the director of the institute. She took care of ill and dying women until her own death.
It seems to me that even though she was a genius, mathematics was only a temporary hobby of hers. It may be that she was only dealing with mathematics to please her father who apparently was expecting his prodigy child to be involved in mathematics. Of course, this is only a personal observation. However, her behavior implies that she was not dedicated to mathematics which I think explains why she gave up mathematics altogether as soon as her father died. She was a very shy and decent person. She was not ambitious to become a well-known mathematician. Her most famous work, Analytical Institutions, was intended to be a textbook for her brothers. Her intelligence and talent made it possible to integrate all the state of the art knowledge about calculus in a very clear way. Religious life and helping the needy seem to have interested her more than mathematics.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Bl. Pope John Paul II – Pray For Us | Defend Us In Battle
Bl. Pope John Paul II – Pray For Us | Defend Us In Battle
Excerpt: [I owe very much to this Pope.]
Let us pray for him, as he prays for us… and “Be Not Afraid.”
Here is a short bio from Catholic.org:
Karol J. Wojtyla, known as John Paul II since his October 1978 election to the papacy, was born in Wadowice, a small city 50 kilometres from Cracow, on May 18, 1920. He was the second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska. His mother died in 1929. His eldest brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932 and his father, a non-commissioned army officer died in 1941.
He made his First Holy Communion at age 9 and was confirmed at 18. Upon graduation from Marcin Wadowita high school in Wadowice, he enrolled in Cracow’s Jagiellonian University in 1938 and in a school for drama.
The Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939 and young Karol had to work in a quarry (1940-1944) and then in the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living and to avoid being deported to Germany.
In 1942, aware of his call to the priesthood, he began courses in the clandestine seminary of Cracow, run by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, archbishop of Cracow. At the same time, Karol Wojtyla was one of the pioneers of the “Rhapsodic Theatre,” also clandestine.
After the Second World War, he continued his studies in the major seminary of Cracow, once it had re-opened, and in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University, until his priestly ordination in Cracow on November 1, 1946.
Soon after, Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome where he worked under the guidance of the French Dominican, Garrigou-Lagrange. He finished his doctorate in theology in 1948 with a thesis on the topic of faith in the works of St. John of the Cross................. ---Ora pro nobis!---
Excerpt: [I owe very much to this Pope.]
Let us pray for him, as he prays for us… and “Be Not Afraid.”
Here is a short bio from Catholic.org:
Karol J. Wojtyla, known as John Paul II since his October 1978 election to the papacy, was born in Wadowice, a small city 50 kilometres from Cracow, on May 18, 1920. He was the second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska. His mother died in 1929. His eldest brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932 and his father, a non-commissioned army officer died in 1941.
He made his First Holy Communion at age 9 and was confirmed at 18. Upon graduation from Marcin Wadowita high school in Wadowice, he enrolled in Cracow’s Jagiellonian University in 1938 and in a school for drama.
The Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939 and young Karol had to work in a quarry (1940-1944) and then in the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living and to avoid being deported to Germany.
In 1942, aware of his call to the priesthood, he began courses in the clandestine seminary of Cracow, run by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, archbishop of Cracow. At the same time, Karol Wojtyla was one of the pioneers of the “Rhapsodic Theatre,” also clandestine.
After the Second World War, he continued his studies in the major seminary of Cracow, once it had re-opened, and in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University, until his priestly ordination in Cracow on November 1, 1946.
Soon after, Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome where he worked under the guidance of the French Dominican, Garrigou-Lagrange. He finished his doctorate in theology in 1948 with a thesis on the topic of faith in the works of St. John of the Cross................. ---Ora pro nobis!---
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Marks in the Margin: Resistance in Nazi Germany
Marks in the Margin: Resistance in Nazi Germany
Excerpt:
*We learned too late that it is not the thought but readiness to take responsibility that is the mainspring of action.* Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Excerpt:
*We learned too late that it is not the thought but readiness to take responsibility that is the mainspring of action.* Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Homeless man helps save baby born at truck stop | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
Homeless man helps save baby born at truck stop | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
xcerpt:
...homeless man hitchhiking at a truck stop near Oklahoma City turned out to be an angel for a young pregnant woman.
xcerpt:
...homeless man hitchhiking at a truck stop near Oklahoma City turned out to be an angel for a young pregnant woman.
Keaton Mason and her fiance were heading to a hospital because Mason was labor. They didn't make it, and Mason ended up giving birth in their white Honda at a truck stop along Interstate 40, News9.com reports.
Mason's baby girl was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.
"The lady was screaming, 'My baby, my baby's blue. … She's not breathing,'" said Jennifer Morris who was at the truck stop and called 911.
Then Gary Wilson appeared.
"Her angel was there," paramedic Sandra Lesperance later said..."El feren els àngels": ‘The Angels did It’
On February 24, 1409 the priest Father Jofré was going to the cathedral to deliver a sermon during Lent when he witnessed the lynching of a mentally ill man on a Valencian street near Santa Catalina Valencia (now Martin Mengod, formerly known as Silver). In response, he founded a hospice for the mentally ill.
On April 21, 1885 Pope Leo XIII granted a Papal Bull naming the Virgin of the Forsaken patroness of Valencia.
For many centuries those faithful to the Virgin have helped children, the elderly, the blind, and the mentally ill. - Source
For many centuries those faithful to the Virgin have helped children, the elderly, the blind, and the mentally ill. - Source
It is lovely and consoling to know that Our Lady cares so much for her children, no matter how forsaken, misshapen, mentally ill, abandoned, rejected, aborted or not, that she would never, ever turn her back on us.
... Vogue model Christy Turlington Burns and a host of female celebrities are encouraging mothers across the nation to ignore their children as part of “No Mother’s Day,” a sign of their support for reducing maternal mortality by supporting family planning and global access to abortion...
How insane is that?
Our Lady of the forsaken and mentally ill, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death! Pray for the most abandoned...
Our Lady of the forsaken and mentally ill, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death! Pray for the most abandoned...
Though father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will receive me. - Ps. 27
the Lord will receive me. - Ps. 27
After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus was on the earth forty days as it is written “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God…” (Please Read Acts 1:3-11).
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
God and PTSD : Committed to Freedom
God and PTSD : Committed to Freedom
Excerpt:
"It’s interesting to see how the actions of one person can affect so many other people. The damage caused by one predator/abuser has the potential to completely derail the survivor’s life and future. That survivor will most likely struggle as a partner and a parent. The actions of one abuser [...]....You can’t have me. No matter what you’ve done to me, you can’t have me. You shredded my heart, but I’m taking it back. You exploited my body, but it was never yours in the first place. You manipulated and exploited me, but I’m wising up to those tricks. " ~ShareBy Sallie Culbreth, M.S. Founder
While many people experience faith and God as positive, comforting, and fortifying, others do not. When the very structure of your faith experience is shaken – when you become angry with God, blame God or your faith community, or find that your beliefs are eroding, then your sense of betrayal, abandonment, and broken trust can be felt even more painfully. That translates into magnified PTSD symptoms for many people. This has a deep impact on how you move beyond abuse.
Perhaps you don’t have these faith struggles, but if you do, you may find it extremely confusing to figure out how and IF God fits into your recovery. These are not frivolous issues. For many of us, it goes to the core of our identity, our culture, and our ability to make sense of our lives.
Each person navigates through the crisis of faith in a unique way, but facing these deep questions is vital to your recovery. Listed below are a few of my suggestions for this process:
-------------
My Note: "There is no pit of Hell so deep that He isn't already there...suffering FOR us..."~Betsy Ten Boom in Ravensbruck.
I found at the Foot of the Cross that the Cross itself goes deep into the caverns of the Earth and its sufferings---into the hearts, minds, souls and lives in eternity...
And...the families affected by the abuse....
Excerpt:
"It’s interesting to see how the actions of one person can affect so many other people. The damage caused by one predator/abuser has the potential to completely derail the survivor’s life and future. That survivor will most likely struggle as a partner and a parent. The actions of one abuser [...]....You can’t have me. No matter what you’ve done to me, you can’t have me. You shredded my heart, but I’m taking it back. You exploited my body, but it was never yours in the first place. You manipulated and exploited me, but I’m wising up to those tricks. " ~ShareBy Sallie Culbreth, M.S. Founder
While many people experience faith and God as positive, comforting, and fortifying, others do not. When the very structure of your faith experience is shaken – when you become angry with God, blame God or your faith community, or find that your beliefs are eroding, then your sense of betrayal, abandonment, and broken trust can be felt even more painfully. That translates into magnified PTSD symptoms for many people. This has a deep impact on how you move beyond abuse.
Perhaps you don’t have these faith struggles, but if you do, you may find it extremely confusing to figure out how and IF God fits into your recovery. These are not frivolous issues. For many of us, it goes to the core of our identity, our culture, and our ability to make sense of our lives.
Each person navigates through the crisis of faith in a unique way, but facing these deep questions is vital to your recovery. Listed below are a few of my suggestions for this process:
- If you’re angry with God and if you have doubts, acknowledge it. God won’t be surprised. [A priest once told me God isn't going to roll over and die just because you get angry at Him.]
- Use caution when sharing your struggles with highly dogmatic and opinionated people. You don’t need to be pressured into silence or artificial compliance.
- Seek the wisdom of those who will validate your spiritual struggles and who will honor your honest questions.
- You may find it helpful to talk to God (or scream or whimper) about your anger, your questions, and your struggles. Then listen.
- Limit your exposure to faith rituals that feel toxic to you right now.
- Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. You need answers and you need thoughtful wisdom.
- Keep your heart and mind wide open.
- Understand that God’s Spirit is here to guide you into truth.
- Be on a quest as a seeker, not a cynic. If you’ve drawn a line in the sand and have your arms crossed, you’re not going to find spiritual peace. If you’ve sought answers and left footprints in the sand, then you’re on a journey that can help you move forward.
- Be prepared to experience fear, tremendous loss, and identity crisis as you struggle. Also be prepared to emerge from this as a different person.
- It is helpful to learn from others who have had similar struggles through books, film, and conversations. When you realize you’re not the first person to wrestle with faith and God, it can be tremendously comforting.
-------------
My Note: "There is no pit of Hell so deep that He isn't already there...suffering FOR us..."~Betsy Ten Boom in Ravensbruck.
I found at the Foot of the Cross that the Cross itself goes deep into the caverns of the Earth and its sufferings---into the hearts, minds, souls and lives in eternity...
And...the families affected by the abuse....
Monday, October 15, 2012
It Begins by Opening a Book
It Begins by Opening a Book
Excerpt:
So I went to our “spiritual reading” bookshelf and picked up a book the Ogre bought me a few years ago, which I’ve never even cracked the cover of. It’s by Kathleen Norris, whose Quotidian Mysteries were invaluable in reconciling me to my vocation to the domestic life...
Excerpt:
So I went to our “spiritual reading” bookshelf and picked up a book the Ogre bought me a few years ago, which I’ve never even cracked the cover of. It’s by Kathleen Norris, whose Quotidian Mysteries were invaluable in reconciling me to my vocation to the domestic life...
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Anecdotal Evidence: `Clarity, Heavy Rhythms, Strong Rhymes'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Clarity, Heavy Rhythms, Strong Rhymes'
Excerpt:
..and Chesterton’s “Lepanto” – poems written to be enjoyed outside a coterie of readers, poems that cheer, inspire...
Excerpt:
..and Chesterton’s “Lepanto” – poems written to be enjoyed outside a coterie of readers, poems that cheer, inspire...
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Delete Yourself
I'm not much on 'labels' as I KNOW that God has created each person as a unique creation with no carbon copies.
[Aren't you glad there's just one of me? Of course, I could say the same thing...etc.]
However, some have noted since the Catholic 'highlighting' of the word 'disorder' in headlines the DSM-V directly erases the 'word'--as if that really solves anything for people in distress. Sometimes I wonder whose side the 'healers' are on. I ran across this at one of the psych forums:
[Aren't you glad there's just one of me? Of course, I could say the same thing...etc.]
However, some have noted since the Catholic 'highlighting' of the word 'disorder' in headlines the DSM-V directly erases the 'word'--as if that really solves anything for people in distress. Sometimes I wonder whose side the 'healers' are on. I ran across this at one of the psych forums:
Delete Yourself - No Schizoids in DSM-V
Since the proposed DSM-V will no longer have SPD perhaps we should
all follow Reynolds and delete ourselves and migrate to other forums. I
have wondered if I am misdiagnosed. From what I read about the changes
in the DSM-V I am (or will be) Avoidant with a side of
Obsessive-Compulsive (since there is no SPD).
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/P ... -Walk.aspx
But, last year a psychiatrist told me I am schizoid and I don't have the money for a second opinion.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/P ... -Walk.aspx
But, last year a psychiatrist told me I am schizoid and I don't have the money for a second opinion.
by grnMM » May 17, 2012
As a green M & M I am appalled! Now we'll all be accused of being naked chocolate lovers.
by edsel32 date unknown
That's another one that bites the dust- the insurance companies won another round for their huge delete barrel. It's filled full of all those ailments they won't pay for any more with 'our' money.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Anthems in New Tongues I Hear Saluting Me (Whitman/Dali) | biblioklept
Anthems in New Tongues I Hear Saluting Me (Whitman/Dali) | biblioklept
Excerpt:
Salvador Dalí, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
“Prayer of Columbus” by Walt Whitman
A batter’d, wreck’d old man,
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d and nigh to death,
I take my way along the island’s edge,
Venting a heavy heart...
Excerpt:
Salvador Dalí, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
“Prayer of Columbus” by Walt Whitman
A batter’d, wreck’d old man,
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d and nigh to death,
I take my way along the island’s edge,
Venting a heavy heart...
Monday, October 1, 2012
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face
Feast day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.
The 'Little Flower', Doctor of the Church
(and my patron saint---along with Our Lady of Guadalupe)
Ora pro nobis.
The 'Little Flower', Doctor of the Church
(and my patron saint---along with Our Lady of Guadalupe)
Ora pro nobis.
We will spend
eternity getting to know and love God and each other.
“Each soul
created by God is a great mystery fathomed only through the eyes of the Heart
of God’s Love.” ~ St. Padre Pio
The Good God has
such a good heart that when He sees you weep, He will wipe away your tears and
pick you up and love you. I do not fear
to run to my Father, even when I have failed, for I know He will forgive me and
love me. ~St.Therese of Lisieux
The first
response of God is always love and mercy.
“I am just a
little child entrusted to the Father.
The privileges of Jesus are only for little ones for He said, “Unless
you become as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” In trying to learn to walk, a child often
falls down but the Father always gently picks her back up to try again. The
Mother washes her child off and clothes her anew with ‘butterfly kisses’ and
blesses her child on her way again. A
child knows she has only “empty hands” to give but she can always return love to
her Father and her Mother. God wants not
great deeds of us but great love.
When we
close our eyes to sleep in Jesus’ arms, we will be judged by our Love for one
another.—St. John of the Cross
============
So if you don’t want to ever fear again…give all
your prayers and sufferings and love for others and seek no reward for yourself
but for them and God will hasten to repay this great love He sees in your heart
so like His own!
“
In lowering myself so low, so low,….
He raised me so high, so high.”
Our Lady pray for us.
Be not afraid
He is at your side
He is at your side
Believe in Him
Jesus Christ our Lord
In Him alone
You will have nothing to fear
Jesus Christ our Lord
In Him alone
You will have nothing to fear
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