Cluster of wheat image Grapes and vines image Cluster of wheat image
March 26th, 2013

DAUGHTERS

my girls

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

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.
pegs wreath

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.

March 24th, 2013

OF RAGS AND HANKIES

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.

March 21st, 2013

IT HAS COME TO THIS (2)

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!

March 19th, 2013

AFTER ABORTION, WHAT?

The following letter was received from Sav-A-Life of Macon GA. It was from a woman named Jane. The letter was dated January 22, the year 2023.

Dear Mom,

Gosh, can you believe it’s 2023 already? I’m still writing “22” on nearly everything. Seems like just yesterday I was sitting in first grade celebrating the century change!

I know we haven’t really chatted since Christmas. Sorry. Anyway, I have some difficult news and I really didn’t want to call and talk face-to-face.

Ted’s had a promotion, and I should be up for a hefty raise this year if I keep putting in those crazy hours. You know how I work at it. Yes, we’re still struggling with the bills.

Timmy’s been “OK” at kindergarten, although he complains about going. But then he wasn’t happy about daycare either, so what can I do?

He’s been a real problem, Mom. He’s a good kid, but quite honestly he’s an unfair burden at this time in our lives. Ted and I have talked this through and through and finally made a choice. Plenty of other families have made it and are much better off.

Our pastor is supportive and says hard decisions are sometimes necessary. The family is a “system,” and the demands of one member shouldn’t be allowed to ruin the whole. He told us to be prayerful, consider all the factors, and do what is right to make the family work. He says that even though he probably wouldn’t do it himself, the decision is really ours. He was kind enough to refer us to a children’s clinic near here, so at least that part is easy.

I’m not an uncaring mother. I do feel sorry for the little guy. I think he overheard Ted and me talking about “it” the other night. I turned around and saw him standing at the bottom step in his pj’s with the little bear you gave him under his arm and his eyes sort of welling up.

Mom, the way he looked at me just about broke my heart. But I honestly believe this is better for Timmy, too. It’s not fair to force him to live in a family that can’t give him the time and attention he deserves. And PLEASE don’t give me the kind of grief Grandma gave you over your abortions. It’s the same thing, you know.

We’ve told him he’s just going in for a vaccination. Anyway, they say the termination procedure is painless.

I guess it’s just as well you haven’t seen that much of him. Love to Dad.

Jane

March 17th, 2013

IT HAS COME TO THIS

Twenty-five years ago my friend, Dolores, and I traveled to New York City to take part in our first Operation Rescue experience. We intended to sit down and pray in front of a abortion mill thereby stopping abortions for that day (“rescuing” those babies) and hopefully even leading to the closing of that abortuary permanently. When we looked out our window in the Times-Square Hotel we saw, down on the street, the noisy opposition chanting away. It was our first experience with the liberal left in a sizable group.

What they were saying confused me. They chanted – it stuck with me to this day – they chanted, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay – Born-again bigots, go away.”  I didn’t understand. We were there to protest abortion and they were protesting everything but. I knew I was not racist, sexist, or anti-gay. Born-again, maybe, but surely not a bigot. Don’t we Christians love one another, including the mothers we would like to help and the babies scheduled to die that day? Why didn’t they address the reason we were there?

I was new to the game then. I have since learned that it doesn’t matter what Christians up to or not up to, they are going to be accused of everything under the sun. Names will be hurled – hate-monger, bigot, liar, thief, homophobe, and on and on, with the idea that if you throw enough mud, something will stick. There is very little they can prove but they sure will try.

Remember Sarah Palin? What’s not to like? A good woman, good governor, well-spoken, sincere. Yet when she appeared on the political scene her home town,  Wasilla AK , was besieged with a platoon of dirt-diggers looking for something, anything, that they could pin on her. She was immediately hated by the left. Even after her campaign was over, they still went through 23,000 of her emails looking for something to take her down.

Remember Michele Bachmann? Another good woman. After I read her book I thought I would vote for her whatever she ran for. She still holds her position as a congresswoman, but has to fight for survival. Every strong conservative who looked like he/she has potential has someone dedicated to finding the dirt. Consider Anne Coulter, accused of voter fraud in 2006. She had addresses in two states and voted in the wrong one. Not twice, just once. If that is all the left can accuse her of, she must be a veritable saint. In her new book Coulter asserts that “anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion.” She “explains how “abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth.” (from Media Matters)

Consider the 2013 March for Life in January. A record-breaking half a million good people gathered to protect life in all its stages. Not a word about it in the main-stream media. But if one of those half-million folks did the least thing egregious, it would have been front page news. Consider the bad rap given to the Tea Party by the left. They cause no trouble, leave no mess. Still they are labeled racist and anti-gay. The evidence? None. Andrew Breitbart wrote “I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him [Rep. John Lewis] not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once.” No takers, but Breitbart met an untimely death.

A quote from Coulter’s recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

Liberalism is a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian belief in man’s immortal soul. Their religion holds that there is nothing sacred about human consciousness. It’s just an accident no more significant than our possession of opposible thumbs. They deny what we know about ourselves: that we are moral beings in God’s image. Without this fundamental understanding of man’s place in the world, we risk being lured into misguided pursuits, including bestiality, slavery, and PETA membership. Liberals swoon in pagan admiration of Mother Earth, mystified and overawed by her power. They deny the Biblical idea of dominion and progress, the most ringing affirmation of which is the United States of America. Although they are Druids, liberals masquerade as rationalists, adopting a sneering tone of scientific sophistication, which is a little like being condescended to by a tarot card reader.

Liberals hate science and react badly to it. They will literally run from the room, lightheaded and nauseated, when told of data that might suggest that the sexes have different abilities in math and science. They repudiate science when it contradicts their pagan beliefs—that the AIDS virus doesn’t discriminate, that there is no such thing as IQ, that nuclear power is dangerous and scary, or that breast implants cause disease. Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional.

It has come to this. Coulter, among many others, sees it clearly. The lines are drawn – between those who have no God and those who do.  That’s why her book is called Godless.  It’s a battle between the people for death and the people for life. The people for abortion, infanticide, mercy killing, and euthaniasia, who seem to love any critter better than the child. Who love the turtle in the egg more than the unborn baby. Who fear there won’t be enough room for all of us in spite of the fact that all THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD can fit in the State of Texas — and not only have “elbow room” but a real room of their own. Go figure!

In closing, a quote from Blessed Pope John Paul II of happy memory:

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the anti-christ. This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s plan and it must be a trial which the Church must take up and face courageously.

It has come to this.

March 17th, 2013

WORLD PRIZE

Here is my nominee for the WORLD PRIZE, the best prize ever. The WORLD PRIZE should go to the producer of this Power Point. Think of the understanding, wisdom, beauty, eloquence, talent, love, etc. that went into this!

March 13th, 2013

RESTORING LOVE WITH GLENN BECK

After Glenn Beck’s talks on Restoring Honor two years ago and Restoring Courage last year, I was looking forward to the final talk of the trilogy, Restoring Love.  Unfortunately Glenn went off on his own TV channel, The Blaze, and I totally missed the last talk on Restoring Love which should have and could have been the most important of the three.   It actually took place before Obama’s re-election (Glenn thought Romney would win!) but I have finally caught up with it and here, in a quest for completeness, is Restoring Love.   I called his first talk a “watershed event,” the second was almost as good, and the third, not so much.  It took place last July in Dallas TX. I give you Glenn Beck, still a good man!

TubeHome.com Video from everywhere!

The latest from Glenn Beck saying the “America is down on the ground, gurgling.” What are we to do?” “Lady Liberty is in critical condition, but it doesn’t have to end that way.”

 

 

 

March 5th, 2013

FRANK HODSON’S STORY

(Frank Hodson is my father.  I recently found these pages and read them for the first time as I typed them.)
 
CHAPTER ONE

In 1891, in Preston, England, my birthplace, where the people were predominantly Catholic, as our parents were, we, a family of five girls and two boys were much upset when our father turned away from his faith to become a spiritualist. It was not easy for the children to adjust to the new thought as we were confirmed in the old faith. Years later, I asked my father why he made such a drastic change in our lives and he gave me the following information.

At the time of the change, he said, a spiritualist medium came to town who declared she could contact departed spirits. My father had a friend who was a practicing magician. They decided to go to the meeting and expose the trickery. The medium went to different people in the audience and described the spirits around them. Dad and his friend waited until the meeting was over, then went to the medium and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself to tell such obvious lies.

She replied that she really could see these departed people, and after a long and heated session she said: “I see, Mr. Hodson, that I can never convince you and your friend by talking, but will you and your friend give me a chance to prove my gift tonight? Both of you go home and be alone at half-past ten, and sincerely pray that you will be able to see a spirit?”

They agreed. My father did his part faithfully and did see the spirit form of a young lady. He was greatly surprised and thought it was some black magic. He said to himself, “If I can go to the window, open it, look out to see if I am my normal self, if she is still here when I turn around, I will always believe.”

He said he went to the window, opened it, and all outside was as usual, then turned around to find the spirit still there but fading away. Then and there he decided to open a church and preach the doctrine of spirit return. Later he opened his own church and for seven years he invited mediums from other towns to come to his church and speak. My father attributed his luck in seeing his first spirit to the fact that the medium had promised to pray at the same time that he would be successful, because he was so sure that it could not be done.

As growing children we witnessed many seances in our home, where the mediums would come for supper after the service in the church. At times they would hold hands and sing hymns until someone would be controlled by someone dead and speak in a strange voice. It was a common thing in the evening for mother to ask Dad to let the white man speak through him, because now he had found out how to let the dead speak through him. He also had an Indian guide who could speak through him, but mother did not understand his poor English. Then Dad would sit for a time quietly, shake himself, and get up and speak in better words than my normal father ever used. Later he would return to his normal self.

Sometimes he had what they called physical mediums come to the church, and the large table had many ups and downs.  I remember when my father told me and my brother to get on the table to hold it down, but the table did rise a little.

Years later, coming home from the First World War, Second Division of the American Army, to Bridgeport, Connecticut, I married a good Catholic girl but I never forgot the spiritualist past.  I found myself, when I had five children, a little envious of the gifts my dad seemed to have attained.  Here I was in Bridgeport, with a family and no spirits to attend me.

CHAPTER TWO

I decided to pray and ask God to let me leave my body to prove to myself that there was a part of God within.  So I prayed, did some deep breathing to give me more courage, then said, “Now, God,  please give me proof.”  I found myself in a spirit form standing before a lovely endless heaven of azure light.  I found I was desirous of entering this astral world, but looking down my new spirit form of light, I found a round transparent chain of gleaming vibrating particles of light from my body center that emitted a glow of spiritual fire as they opened partly and then partly closed again.

The cold atoms of fire stretched from my new spirit center to the center of my body that I could still see.  Then I had the thought that if I wanted to enter the celestial home I would have to desire to break the chain of life.  Thinking about my wife and children needing my help I found the desire to enter this heaven of light lessen.  Desiring to go back to my earth body I found myself together again in my bedroom and quite shaken up mentally for some time later.

I seemed to have gone beyond the limits of self-seeking to find God in man, and I thought, “Never again!”   Later I began to read the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and was so much impressed by his thought that I wrote the book, Emerson’s Way of Life, and had it published.   I did not mention my astral journey in this book because it seemed too unusual to be believed.  At that time I had not read of any similar occurrence.  I wrote to Readers’ Digest and to the Science of Mind magazines, hoping that they had some record of a similar case, but got no reply then.  Years later, the Science of Mind published a case involving Robert Monroe of Charlottesville VA who had convinced some great scientists of his many similar experiences.  I wrote to Mr. Willis Kenneer, Editor of that publication, protesting his lack of mention of my report many years before.  He answered that Mr. Monroe’s case was believed by many scientists and could, therefore, be published.  I said he was sorry but hoped I would understand his position.

This astral journey made an indelible impression on my mind and since that time I have been able to return my memory to those events.  The atoms or cells vibrating with spiritual fire that I saw in the chain of life reminded me we all have these atoms of life within and we can make them more conscious to our mind by attention.  All searching for truth must be done slowly and prayerfully.  Treat the mind as a sacred area.  Let the attention flow to all parts of mind and body.  I found I was intensely alive with no harmful after-effects. Read the rest of this entry »

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