This is the kind of blog comment that makes you want to know its author. It came as a response to my post, years back, on The Gift of Tongues. I post it today with immense gratitude for the time he took to write it and with appreciation for the depth of his insight. Enjoy. And if it makes you think a little, that was the idea.

This article is incredible, and very sincere. It lacks complexity, is non-scripted, incorporates truth, and is from the heart. Very rare today. Even Jesus’ ministry was rare and didn’t heed that much worldy attention. The 5,000 people He had to feed was not even a visible blemish considering world population at the time was exasperatingly way higher than that.

I want to say this, to someone, anyone out there who reads this. Just know that it is true, God is real. This gift of tounges, it’s real. Is it mysterious? Very. Can science and math explain it just like it attempts to explain one God in three persons? Let me ask you this.. Can you completely explain science without using ANY math and vice versa? The creation cannot explain the creator. Before the first mind, thought up the first mathematical renditions, math was already in existance. Science, government, math, philosophy are partial understands from God. Think of when you went to college. ’101, 102, 103′ and so on course structures. Well, consider ALL the branchs of world and astro sciences are just a 101 to true reality. 101. Nothing more. Basic, as complex as they are. The Bible is also basic. Everything we need to live and to please God and protect ourselves can be found in the texts, but it’s still basic. So when it comes to human philosophies, including our understanding of the earth through sciences and numbers won’t we then be limited? Can a tree know everything about the ground it lies in? Before the tree, the ground was. Evolution should simply be defined by this statement: “The process in which God tests man by allowing his mind to move into more discovered roads of understanding and into even greater free will, stirred by permissable deceptive influencial interferrance.” (A book usually always gets more and more captivating up until it ends.) Using a two dimensional mind in two dimensional thought processes will produce two dimensional results. Period. Will oak trees grow from the pumpkin seeds you planted? So, instead of using our “problem-solving impulses” of our human nature so much so to the point of commiting idolatry (that is worshipping the tools He has given us instead of Truth), let’s give God…AND His mysteries, a chance. Just like you won’t grow muscles unless you eat food, you won’t know God unless you use faith. God’s glory is deep within the things He has chosen to HIDE from us. And us having to “know everything” further and directly proves how selfish, irrogant, and truly self-centered the fallen human race really is….and, driven by fear. Fear has many forms. One of it’s forms is to have to know, all the time. Have all and complete understanding, avoid unmistakable fate. Right? Wrong. Even if we knew everything, what would we do with what we knew being the world that we are?

Some things God does is a mystery. We, as people, might need to build a bridge and get over it.

Human understanding, mixed with our fallen state, incorporated with suggestions and lies of our unseen enemies will GREATLY use tactics, deception, stealth, and emotion to pervert God’s glory of concealment into division, seperation, confusion, indulgence, isolation and compulsion to rebuttal. Think of a painting suddenly springing to life and demanding the artist to tell it how he created the color blue. Shut up creation, and enjoy the beauty of what’s on the canvass. In this example, yes ignorance WOULD be bliss.

The enemy is good. No, you don’t understand, the enemy is very good. He invented deception. Think of the worst person you’ve heard of you can possibly imagine. Now think of that man, or woman, humbly and bashfully walking up to the very Thought that entered their minds and drove them into choosing to act and asking for it’s autograph.
There is so much more to the definition of the word ‘Lie’ then simply just “not telling the truth.” Picture the biggest mall you can possibly conceive and fill that mall with as many departments as you can think of. Now name it. Call the entire mall, “DECEPTION”. There really are driving intelligent forces that invent new ways of deceiving man. What you think you may be seeing is not always really what it seems. Think of a well known illusionist. His very job is to trick your mind. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, looks like a duck and flies like a duck, it must be a duck right? There is no absolute truth or law to that. So, no.

Then what on earth are we to do? What is truly real and what is counterfeit? Thank God for, well God.

The Holy Spirit is the lens of Truth. He is a person, not electricity or the holy force of God. Call Him a Ghost or a Spirit only because you cannot see him, but as the wind remains invisible as it blows through the trees, He’s there and He’s a Person.

One of The Holy Spirit’s responsibility is in our gifts and accomplishments as a human race and as mankind. Tongues is one of many. Sometimes we as people, under tradition, will baulk when Y doesn’t equal X and no matter how hard we try, 2 + 2 won’t equal 4 even though WE KNOW it should. It’s OK. Everything’s gonna be OK. God’s got us, and glorifies Himself with His hidden mysterious that we may never comprehend nor understand. Well that’s not fair, we may say, again we need to get over it. That’s called suffering as God kills the pride in our hearts. He=God. We=People…NEVER to be God or gods. We can do all things (suffer) in Christ who gives us strength. And one thing we do is suffer. Jesus helps us suffer the refining process of purification God uses to burn the impurities out of His gold…us.

So before we judge, divide, ask questions, or impulsively respond, let’s invite (because He’s a gentlemen and won’t force Himself on us….also, life is a TEST) the One Truth Triune God into our lives, speech, and understanding.

My prayer is that this made sense to somebody. It is very deep and very thought provoking I will admit, but that’s just the way He made me. I once was a very ignorant agnostic. Be sure He didn’t make that. I choose it based on my understanding of the world around me, out of the eyes of a child on throughout early adulthood. What or who we used to be, is not who we really are once we learn of our true selves through the eyes of God. Just like when we think we know something, we really know nothing based on how much MORE is out there then our microscopic revelation.

May all the glory and praise be bestowed upon our very humble, yet furious, just, yet merciful, great and holy God. Thanks be to Him through the glorious Lord Christ Jesus, Amen.

If this inspired you; praise God, ask for His wisdom, go outside and share your testimony and God’s love. What Jesus did for you, He did for everybody.

Don’t fight either. I cannot stress that enough. Rebuke the IMPULSE to attack a skeptic’s misunderstanding or to defend God. If you feel you need to defend God through argument then your God is too small. Repent and accept Jesus. Our God is a big eternal God and can handle himself. Can YOU handle your own responsbile response to an unbeliever’s questionable doubt? People refute due to lack of understanding or being stained by the acetone of religion. If you don’t know the right answer for them then pray and find someone who does. Give them a Bible, love them, pray for them, invite them to your home, feed them, cloth them, don’t ignore them. You never know which one is Jesus in disguise…testing YOU. He has the tendency of disciplining, training, correcting, guiding His own people before moving onto the world for it’s punishment.

When Joyce posted this little poem below on Facebook, it somehow hit home. I’ve been assured that I do not have Alzheimer’s (yet) but most people who have reached my age have noted decided slipping — decreased strength, agility, memory, hearing,  vision, energy, mental acuity. My new geriatrician inquired especially about my memory and when I said I have lately had more trouble remembering people’s names he said that was not unusual. He asked if I had trouble remembering the names of things and I immediately thought of Peg (now gone to the Lord) asking for “the name of the thing that goes over the water.” My friend and I came up with “bridge” and looked at each other. Peg was indeed slipping.

A few years ago I read the book Elegy for Iris, a famous author who was aware of the first signs of her slipping into what was finally to be  a devastating condition of being “sick, sad, and lost” as in the poem below.  What struck me was that at the beginning, Iris, herself, was aware of the onset.

Oh it’s a long, long while
from May ‘till December
And the days grow short
When you reach September.
When the Autumn weather
turns the leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time
For the waiting game.

For the days dwindle down
To a precious few…
September…November…
And these few precious days
I’ll spend with you.
These precious days
I’ll spend with you.

Having weathered yet another winter I find I am enjoying this springtime more than ever. The blue sky, the warm sunshine, discovering the my fig tree has survived the snow and the frost once again.  How many times do we have to see life spring forth from the ashes before we will believe in it?  As I watch myself slip physically almost imperceptibly, how is it that I feel, at the same time, growth  in strange and unexplainable  ways?

When you know it is already December and the slipping becomes obvious, it is time to put it all in the hands of the God who does all things well. I have six children who are both good and kind and doubt that anyone will ever find me sitting alone on the sturbcone, chewing gubber rum. Being sick, sad, and lost does not appeal (not do any of the other terrible things that can happen to people) but even suffering has a reason and there comes a time to “Let go and let God.”

The shroud of Turin is probably my favorite artifact and I’ve written about it repeatedly.  Also my favorite “picture” of Jesus is that of the face seen on the shroud.

Ever since I can remember, the Shroud of Turin—speculated to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ—has been a great source of mystery, inspiration and controversy.

The same is still true, as the Shroud has once again been in the news—a research team, last week, using carbon dating found that it actually did date back to a period that includes the time Jesus walked this earth.

According to the Christian Postreport, the team from Padua University said the cloth dated back to sometime between 280 BC and 220 AD.

In light of the finding, newly installed Pope Francis commented on the Shroud of Turin, saying, “This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart.”

The Pontiff added that the “disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest… And yet, at the same time, the face in the Shroud conveys a great peace; this tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty.”

Giulio Fanti, one of those testing the ancient cloth, and an associate professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at Padua University, told CNN, “We carried out three alternative dating tests on the shroud, two chemical and one mechanical, and they all gave the same result and they all traced back to the date of Jesus, with a possible margin of error of 250 years.”

Of course, it is still not known for certain whether the image impressed on the Shroud is actually that of the Lord Jesus, and frankly, I’m not sure how one could ever go about proving that.

Still, it IS fascinating to consider.

And the rest of the time, “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Source: Stoyan Zaimov – Christian Post

~~~

For a lighthearted, factual, somewhat humorous, somewhat ghoulish approach to the subject of DEATH we are blessed to have available a series of YouTube presentations, Ask a Mortician, by Caitlin Doughty, licensed mortician and University of Chicago alumnus.  It was the April issue of The University of Chicago Magazine that introduced me to  Caitlin and all the things you wanted to know about death but were afraid to ask.  Since my family is asking what I desire in the way of “final arrangements,” I thought I’d better get up to speed.

Below is episode one of Ask a Mortician in which Caitlin explains rigor mortis which lasts from 2-3 days after death.   With her dark clothes, black hair and bangs, and sometimes sepulchral voice she is rather creepy and reminds me of Morticia in the Addams family. Later she  tells us that decomposition of the body only takes about two months. She finds the whole process rather beautiful, reminiscent of the biblical “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” or the “back to the earth from which he sprung” of Sir Walter Scott.  I  found no hint in any of the videos which I viewed that Caitlin believed in a hereafter.

As for the “ashes” or the “cremains” given to the famiIy after cremation, Caitlin explains that the fleshy part of the corpse is vaporized when cremated and only the bones remain.  It is these bones, obligingly ground into ashes, that the family receives.

Here Caitlin talks about discussing death with children.

All these things considered, what would I prefer for MY final arrangements? First of all, if the wake and mass could take place quickly, I think I would rather not be embalmed. I will be “fresh enough” for a couple of days. However, permission is granted for embalming with good reason. Secondly, I have two sons who could make a lovely wooden casket if they were so inclined, but, otherwise, the cheapest casket will do. (I see nothing wrong with the idea of a “family casket” which could be used over and over!) Thirdly, I would prefer a grave to cremation. The church permits cremation nowadays and I do not worry that God will not be able to gather my scattered parts together in the hereafter. I expect my “hereafter” body will be quite different. Mary thought the risen Christ was the gardener and the apostles only recognized Him in the “breaking of the bread.” With surprise they exclaimed, “It is the Lord!” On top of which, God has shown he could handle even a fiery furnace if he wanted to.

By all means, I’d like a mass for a send off, and I’ll write about such arrangements elsewhere. There you have it. Whatever my children eventually decide is all right with me. I am hopeful that I’ll have better things to do than fret over what happens to this old body.

~~~

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. — Matthew 10:28

I was well into my sixties before I ever gave even a passing thought to prophecy. Why would I? It was nothing that came up in every day conversation. Sure, I knew the word. It reminded me of the Delphic oracle and prophets in the Bible, people of long ago, akin to Greek gods or Socrates, maybe real, maybe not, who cares?   I knew that the Creed in the mass said that God “spoke through the prophets.”  That, too, meant little to me.  All the stuff in the Old Testament was just prelude to the New Testament when God actually appeared on earth and gave us the low down.

Once I got into a prayer group in the 1970s I soon became acquainted with the chapter in Joel in which God promises to send his Spirit:

“Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit -”

This promise is repeated in Acts 2:17.  I wouldn’t have paid much attention to this, either, except some people in the prayer group started getting prophecies.  They would speak, as God, in the first person.  We weren’t supposed to accept it as “from God” unless it agreed with what the Bible said and was confirmed by someone or something else.

It was Father Joe’s idea that we gather as small groups in people’s homes.  There were four in my group, Betty, MaryEllen, (both now deceased), and I’m vague about the fourth.  It was all new to us, this gathering and praying stuff, but we gave it a try.   We were not to chat until after the hour of prayer.  With a little soft music in the background, we tried to center on God.  It was during one of the earliest of such gatherings that MaryEllen shook a little and came out with something that God had to say about “oil.”  It was just a couple of sentences but it turned out to be the first of many prophecies that she was to receive. Nobody wrote it down.

I took it all with a grain of salt.  During that time period, however, one morning in my bedroom I heard a male voice which said, “My people, I love you, do not be afraid.”   Well, of course it agreed with scripture.  God says practically nothing else.  Nobody was impressed when I reported this message at a prayer meeting.  Soon after that came my second (and last) prophecy.  No voice this time; words just dropped into my head.  They were:  “Repent.  The Lord is nigh.” When I went to mass that morning the lector read, “Reform your lives. The kingdom of God is at hand.”   Mind you, that was thirty years ago!  I considered it confirmed then but I’m still waiting for His coming.

The thing about believing in prophecy is that I knew the people who were prophesying. It just didn’t seem likely that they were making these messages up out of whole cloth. Eventually MaryEllen came up with a prophecy I’ve written about before which resulted in a vigil held every night in someone’s home to seek the Lord. I have a loose-leaf book full of prophecies received in those meetings. The day came just a couple of years ago when MaryEllen was in the nursing home and I brought her a copy of her 1982 prophecy. Her only comment after we read it aloud was, “Where did the words come from?”

I’ve asked a few people who have said “The Lord told me…..” whether they actually heard a voice. Usually the response is that the thought just came to them and they thought the thought was from God.

At this point in my life I have heard so many testimonies, read so many books, heard about so many saints that I have no doubt that God is involved in our day to day life and can and does communicate with us when he so pleases.   Just read about how God commissioned Saint Faustina to produce a painting depicting his Divine Mercy. Read about Juan Diego and how the tilma showing of Our Lady of Guadalupe came about.  Read the story of Padre Pio and his stigmata.

Compared with such marvelous events, it seems a small thing that God might now and then say a word to us ordinary mortals.  He has said, has he not, that those who seek the Lord will find him? He will not leave us orphans.

91-year-old Olivia Turner of Christchurch NZ surprises judges with her rendition of I Could Have Danced All Night.

Just a few months ago my favorite word was “cherished.” Today it’s “welcome.” Please feel welcome to my blog. I pretty much let it all hang out.

God seems to be about relationships, as evidenced by that “love one another” thing. The Trinity might be considered the “family” of God, with an interrelationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Throughout the Class Mammalia (which includes us) we note that it requires a relationship between a male and a female for a species to continue. Once a female becomes pregnant, it seems that she is hard-wired to care for her young. In more primitive times, the young would have surely died were she not equipped with mammary glands to produce milk. The power of the mothering instinct was brought home to me when our Cocker Spaniel, Josephine, was locked out of the house one day, leaving her puppies inside. Josephine really made a wreck of the wooden screen door, apparently clawing at it or biting at it, in her frantic effort to reach her puppies. I did not replace or repair the door, keeping it as evidence of the strength of mothering instinct. (I did paint over the bare wood resulting from her efforts, but what a testimony!)

Nature and nature’s God have arranged it that we come into the world as part of a family unit. We belong somewhere, with someone. God could have dropped us, full-grown, into the midst of strangers. But, no, children arrive so cute and helpless and needy that caring arises in us and the next thing you know we have the basic unit of society, the family. We begin life being connected and grow up amid people we have always known. Home, it has been said, is the place where when you go there, they have to let you in. There is nothing, nothing, nothing as good for a child’s soul as knowing he is accepted and welcomed. All the research shows that children do best when they are raised with a mother and a father in the basic natural unit, the family.

Things happen. Sometimes things do not go according to “the plan.”  Some children are not raised with the ideal mother, father, and stable home.   Still we never outgrow the need to be welcomed somewhere, by someone. “Please love me” is the cry of every heart.  It seems to me that until we find ourselves welcomed, until we find the acceptance, the approval, the welcome that we all need, until we find a “home,” a place, a purpose, and a plan for ourselves, that we are not really free to welcome others.  We are too busy looking inward,  trying to fill the void in ourselves, to spend much time looking outward.

There comes a day when we realize that families may fail, people will disappoint, but we still have a place, a plan and a purpose.  The place is where we are at the moment, the plan is to be loving to the person at hand, and the purpose is to seek the will of God.  We then find that we do have a family.  “Our Father” is our father.  Jesus is our brother.  Jesus’ mother is our mother.  We look about and find members of  our family everywhere.  They all follow (pretty much) the same moral code.  Brotherhood abounds.

We realize we are just passing through, and our final home awaits us.  We look about and recognize fellow travelers.  They, like us, are still “works in progress,” but they are family and somewhat worthy of trust.  We are finally welcomed and are welcoming.

Years ago when I was afflicted by agoraphobia I knew that something had gone dreadfully wrong; the feeling that I might literally “disintegrate” was uncomfortable (to put it mildly) and I knew I needed help of some sort. The thought that made it easier for me to go to a doctor was the knowledge that he was a Christian and he “had to” love me, even if I was crazy! To this day, that doctor remains for me the paradigm of Christian love. (Click “about me” at the top of the right hand column for that story.)

Hi, welcome to my blog.  And welcome to the family of God.

Daughters, together once again after such a long time  -  each and every one a blessing – Mary Eileen, Wendy Maurya, Kathleen Marian, Teresa Marie. Then there’s Margaret Maureen, of happy memory.

Peggy’s Last Christmas

When I last saw Peggy she was stuffing cotton into fabric tubes to be braided into wreaths and given as Christmas gifts.  She was also making a footstool for Ron and we had to travel to St. Augustine to get the proper foam for it.  It was there we visited the shrine of Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto.

The last time I heard from Peggy was the Easter before she died. She was so good about remembering every holiday. I think she was the only person who ever sent me an Easter card. God bless her and keep her.

I have noticed among my friends that there are a couple who will not buy Kleenex or similar tissues. I understand where they are coming from because there was a time when I avoided buying such tissues because I did not want to waste good money on something that would be used once and then thrown away. I also seldom used paper towels for the same reason. Why use up a whole roll of towels when there were plenty of rags available for the little cleaning jobs that paper towels are so handy for? As you might guess, I and my frugal friends date way back — to a day when there were no paper towels or Kleenex tissues.

There are always paper towels hanging in my pantry, and you can find Kleenexes (or their equivalent) in several rooms of my house. But – there has always been a little pile of handy rags available near the kitchen stove. They are so handy for the small cleaning job, they never fall apart, are easily rewashed in the washing machine or tossed into the wastebasket if they are too dirty or tattered. Just last month I cut up an old pair of pajama bottoms into a whole new batch of nice flannel rags!

We old ones don’t like waste. Sometimes I wish I lived in the days when folks gathered for a quilting party and exchanged pieces of old clothes destined to be re-fashioned into a new quilt or comforter. Such a communal gathering sounds like fun – with lots of conversation starters when reminiscing about making a dress and how many kids wore it until it reached the discard pile. Only once have I done something similar, when I pieced together the plush linings of a number of old coats into a cuddly blanket for my first son. He loved it until he went to college.

There are good rags and better rags. A piece of an old worn towel is top-notch. I like to have a lot of nice rags on hand for the occasional big mess, or a paint spill, for the things that paper towels were never very good at anyway.

I’ve always been a rag person but now I am, once again, a hanky person. At 89! Not to keep expenses down but because I have a collection of old handkerchiefs that are dainty and adorable and so much better for their purpose than tissues that you use once and toss away. You’ll find me these days with a hanky up my sleeve, just like my old friend Bertha. I especially enjoy the ones with colored edgings tatted by my Mom. I remember (in the old days when we had an ironing basket) how I liked to iron handkerchiefs, fold them in half, in half again, and then into the final triangle that seemed to be the approved shape for a freshly ironed hanky.

Sometimes we old folks muse about the awesomeness of God and the order in the universe.  Sometimes we muse about  keeping order in our own small part of the universe and rags and hankies.

Lloyd Marcus is another black man who refuses to drink the Kool-Aid. Let us pray that others will have ears to hear and eyes to see before it is too late! Please see previous post, IT HAS COME TO THIS.

To My Black Family Regarding Obama

by Lloyd Marcus

Make no mistake about it: Barack Obama is not so much a president seeking the best interests of America as he is the leader of a movement.

Whether you black folks in my family are ready to deal with it or not, the truth is, Obama is always on the opposite side of what I know y’all believe. Though claiming to be a Christian, Obama is always opposing Christianity.

Our family heritage is full of ministers, deeply rooted in Christianity. No one in our family supports homosexual marriage. And yet, y’all support Obama, who not only supports this sin, but is leading a movement hell-bent on forcing us to accept it as “normal.” Obama vowed to be not just a friend to the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities, but an advocate.

Now, someone please explain to me: how does this square up with the Bible you preached to me all of my life? It does not. Obama is black. You have chosen to side with him even over your commitment to Christ.

I realize that my statement may make you angry. The truth has a way of doing that.

Americans abort 4,000 babies a day. A disproportionate high number of those babies are black. ObamaCare forces Christians to fund abortions against their faith. But once again, you guys do not care. Obama is black. So whatever he wants to do is OK with you. You even accuse me of being disloyal to my race, while Obama is the guy supporting the slaughter of black babies.

Since Obama won the White House, you guys refuse to honestly critique any issue. At $1.84 when Obama took office, suddenly you are fine with gas averaging four bucks a gallon. Black unemployment is higher today than it was when Obama took office.

Apparently, that is OK as well.

Despite Obama running the country for four years, y’all say he bears no responsibility for anything, including the horrible economy. Obama is the biggest government spender in world history.

The federal government spends $405 million per hour that we do not have. So can one of my relatives explain to me how this is Bush’s fault?

Y’all say, “If only those evil racist white Republicans would get out of Obama’s way, he could fix everything!” I refuse to believe that folks in my family are that stupid. Thus, I can only conclude that y’all are willfully making excuses for your black idol.

I am elated that a few (two) in our family have seen the light, but the vast majority have not. What I find extremely disappointing is that no amount of facts/truth appears to cause you to at least question your Obama zombie-ism. Your racism is so all-consuming, you’re like the walking brain-dead, with Obama’s black skin trumping everything.

Ironically, expecting me to join your worship of Obama goes against how I was raised. I was raised to stand up for what is right — always striving to do things God’s way. But when America elected a black president, our family’s morality and objectivity were thrown out the window in matters relating to this bizarre, despicably conniving man. His race and skin color are all that matters. Who Obama is and what he stands for are irrelevant.

While I will always love my family, my respect for who we have presented ourselves to be from as far back as I can remember has been injured.

Despite your little digs inferring that I am the weird guy in the family, I will not join your worship of the false idols/gods of race and skin color. Y’all raised me better!