HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

MOTHERLESS CHILD-".... I cry songs, woes of separation"

There is a line from the poem "SEPARATIONS" by Hafiz of Shiraz that says :

"With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs,woes of separation"

_{^{Carolyn Striho doesn't sing this song, she cries it; from the heart of a child longing for the comfort of the arms that held her long ago, and believed would always keep her safe, and keep her from getting lost...but now something has robbed her of that comfort...the voice of a lost child trying to find her way back...}}

^{Click on down, it is the last song: But only listen only if you want your heart broken;}

How To Be a Poet (to remind myself) by Wendell Berry

 

   How To Be a Poet   

by Wendell Berry

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

 

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

 

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

 

PHOTOS:Back to the start by  Gabriela Camerotti 

A Day by nevertorun

Cold Hands by Gabriela Camerotti

by Hanna L.

Trying Something/ And an announcement on where this Blog is going-Crossposts with my Facebook and New Microblog:Haunted, too

The Something New:Crossposts with my Facebook and New Microblog (It is formatted for things like iphone, itouch and other portable devices:"Haunted, too"

And the announcement about this Blog-See Below

CROSS-POST FROM FACEBOOK-TRAVEL JOURNAL

Post...In which my traveling companion, Velveteen Rabbit, gives a medical update....on the Lame (and a bit clumsy) Lady...

Like the Skin Horse told me" "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"It doesn't happen all at once... I asked "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

 
So even though it looks like she is wearing a technicolor socks, and is a bit worse for wear, doesn't appear to be broken...it's just one of those things bound to happen when it's you REALLY love and are REALLY loved back...It's more important to be with your bros on their 50th birthday...so damn the risks of traveling alone with a shabby, wobbly body, loose joints, and eyes that are ready for a complete overhaul, and having to rest more hours than you party, ....no regrets...the trip was worth everything.

Dr. Rabbit, signing off...

PS:I still intend to resume posting on Haunted by the Holy Ghost, but my life of late has been complicated by Life, illness, death, family changes, changes on the Marriage Schism front, health front and other things I just have not been ready to post about, except to close friends and family...but I have been writing and have many drafts that frame the issues in a larger context, and appropriate for this Blog-WHICH WILL LIVE AGAIN, I PROMISE-

At the right time I will be publishing those, and that time may be very soon.

via-Haunted, too

The Something New:Crossposts with my Facebook and New Microblog (It is formatted for things like iphone, itouch and other portable devices:"Haunted, too"

And the announcement about this Blog-See Below

CROSS-POST FROM FACEBOOK-TRAVEL JOURNAL

Post...In which my traveling companion, Velveteen Rabbit, gives a medical update....on the Lame (and a bit clumsy) Lady...

Like the Skin Horse told me" "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"It doesn't happen all at once... I asked "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

 
So even though it looks like she is wearing a technicolor socks, and is a bit worse for wear, doesn't appear to be broken...it's just one of those things bound to happen when it's you REALLY love and are REALLY loved back...It's more important to be with your bros on their 50th birthday...so damn the risks of traveling alone with a shabby, wobbly body, loose joints, and eyes that are ready for a complete overhaul, and having to rest more hours than you party, ....no regrets...the trip was worth everything.

Dr. Rabbit, signing off...

PS:I still intend to resume posting on Haunted by the Holy Ghost, but my life of late has been complicated by Life, illness, death, family changes, changes on the Marriage Schism front, health front and other things I just have not been ready to post about, except to close friends and family...but I have been writing and have many drafts that frame the issues in a larger context, and appropriate for this Blog-WHICH WILL LIVE AGAIN, I PROMISE-

At the right time I will be publishing those, and that time may be very soon.

And my heart must bend like a rainbow....

You cannot be too gentle, too kind

You cannot be too gentle, too kind.

Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other.

Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy

 in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil.

Never condemn each other.

We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves.

When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another

 can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others.

 Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace.

Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows

of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil.

            - St Seraphim of Sarov

h/t MIND IN HEART

photo:bobbiwhiteman

…What, what will give me back my faith?

Father Zosima from Dostoevsky's "Brother's Karamazov":

“…What, what will give me back my faith?
Though I believed only when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking about anything…
How, how can it be proved? I’ve come now to throw myself at your feet and ask you about it.
If I miss this chance, too, then surely no one will answer me for the rest of my life.
How can it be proved, how can one be convinced? Oh, miserable me!
 I look around and see that for everyone else, almost everyone, it’s all the same,
no one worries about it anymore, and I’m the only one who can’t bear it.
 It’s devastating, devastating!”                                                               
“No doubt it is devastating.
One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced.”

“How? By what?”

“By the experience of active love.
Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly.
The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God
and the immortality of your soul.
And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor,
the undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul.
This has been tested.
It is certain.”

PHOTO:MUCH LOVE

ABOVE PHOTO:ANGER IN WINTER

...maybe you're asking the wrong questions?

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him?""

Is there anything more "God-like" than being mindful of another?

If you can change someone else's life by a single word, a deed, a glance...or by walking with them for a few moments as they travel through the valley of shadow... then you have done  more than than most men have done in a whole lifetime.

Nothing, and no one is more important than the one who is standing right in front of you...or as Fr. Stephen says:

"No where been commanded to change the world or to save civilization"...

"C.S. Lewis, in his The Abolition of Man, wrote of “men without chests,” describing a certain breed of modern man which had jettison his heart, having substituted false science and a devalued subjectivity for the eternal verities that had once linked human beings together in a common culture.

He wrote his work in the immediate years following World War II. Nothing in our educational system has reversed the trends of which he complained. We have not regained our chests – not as a culture.

However, we have no where been commanded to change the world or to save civilization.

 These are things that are measured on a much larger stage of history and longer period
than a single life.
It is not the diagnosis of our disease that is so important as it is the medicine of our healing.

The heart which must again fill our chests is not some missing part of Western Civilization
but the heart of flesh that is our inheritance in Christ.

It is an imperishable healing that alone can give us what we lack."

.

.

.

h/t to father stephen

What Is Man – That Thou Art Mindful of Him?

ONENESS of the CHURCH

Feast of The Apostles Peter and Paul by Saint John the Wonderworker

 About the Apostles Peter and Paul:  From a collection of Homilies and writings 

of St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai & San Francisco

The day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is the culminating feasts of the Gospel. Although the last event in the life of Christ which is related in the Gospel as His Ascension into heaven (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51), the preaching of the Apostles is closely bound up with the Gospel.

    The Gospel tells us of their being chosen, and the Gospel
    indicates beforehand the end of Apostolic activity.

Telling of the appearance of Christ on the sea of Tiberias and the restoration to apostleship of Peter, who by his triple confession corrected his triple denial, the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian speaks also of the prediction to the Apostle Peter concerning the end of his struggle.
When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whether thou wouldest not. This spoke He, signifying by what death he should glorify God (John 21:18-19).

It was not pleasing to the Lord then, to reveal the face of each of the other Apostles, although, when sending them to preach, He predicted to them, the persecutions that awaited them (Matt. 10:17-36).
Now, to the question of Peter about John, Christ replied: If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me (John 21:22).

The mysterious words of Christ about John, and the extraordinary circumstances of
the latter's end, have been the cause for the opinion, which spread in the Church, beginning from the days of the apostles, that John would remain on earth until the Second Coming.

Such a view of the end of the earthly life of the Apostle John is set forth in part also in the hymns on the day of his memorial, where mention is made of his special closeness to the earthly Church.

Therefore, the Church does not celebrate the day of the repose of the Apostle John
the Theologian, which is aso revered by the Church as a great feast, as is the day of repose of the Apostle Peter, which was definitely predicted by the Lord.

 It is precisely to the Apostle Peter and to no one else, that the Lord predicted the culmination of his earthly ministry, because it was Peter who first confessed Him,
on behalf of all the Apostles, to be Christ, the Son of God; he was the first to receive the promise of power to bind and loose, which was subsequently given to all the Apostles (Matt. 16:16-19; Matt. 18:18); and it was he who renounced Christ and was again restored to apostleship.
Indicating to Peter the culmination of his Apostolic preaching when restoring to him the Apostolic calling, the Lord thereby reveals the essence of the Apostolic ministry.

    The preaching of the Word of God not only by word of mouth,
    but also by deprivations, sufferings and death, constituted the
    following of Christ and the continuation of His work.

The Apostle Peter, as the most zealous of all and one who strove to be before the
others in word and deed, by his example aroused the other Apostle Therefore it is primarily him that Christ addresses.
He goes in front of the other Apostles, becomes their "leader;" and it is especially to him that the preaching among the Jews was entrusted, while the Apostle of the Gentiles was the one who received precisely this title, being converted later, the no less zealous Paul (Gal. 2:7-9).

   

These two Apostles were as it were the commanders
    of the rank of the Apostles, which is expressed
     (in the service to them) by the word "leaders."

    Without having authority over others, they both stood in front of all others
    by their warm zeal and labors.

Their life was the most brilliant and was a personification of the life and labors of all the Apostles.
The end of their earthly labors was especially impressive, thanks to the fact that it occurred before the eyes of the whole world.

One of them (Peter) was crucified upside down, and the other (Paul) was beheaded, both in Rome, towards which at that time the gaze of all peoples was directed.
The news of this quickly dew to all the ends of the universe, all the more in that
they were both known personally in many places; their names were everywhere the Savior had been preached

    The Apostle of the Jews and the Apostle of the Gentiles departed to
     Christ on the same day, as if indicating their equal nearness to God
    and the oneness of the Church of Christ, in which there it neither Greek
    nor Jew
                            (Col. 3:11).

    Therefore, the day on which the earthly labors ended for
    "the leaders of the Apostles, who labored more than all,"
    who "separated in body, are together in spirit;"
    became one of the memorable days for the whole Church.

The Apostle John the Theologian was still a1ive then, being in Ephesus, from
where he was exiled to the island of Patmes.
Not long before his transition into the other world, he wrote the Gospel, by which he completed the three Gospels written before him, and which he had approved.
Having already completed his Gospel, he added to it, the account of the manifestation of Christ on the sea of Tiberias in order that quoting precisely the words of Christ about himself, he might refute the opinion that he had been promised by Christ to remain on earth until the Second Coming.

In this afterward to the Gospel written by him, the Apostle and Evangelist John set forth the prediction of Christ to the Apostle Peter concerning his martyr's death, and thus he bound the memory of this death with the Gospel.

Just as the last chapter of the Gospel of John is literally the conclusion of the whole Gospel, so also the feast dedicated to the fulfillment of the prophecy set forth there
is as it were the conclusion of all the Gospel events kept in remembrance by the Church.

Being an immovable feast, it is nevertheless bound up with the movable feasts,
since the preparation for it-the Apostles' Fast-begins one week after the feast
of Pentecost; thus, it depends on the date of the celebration of Pascha.

    The feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul indicates
    the lot of the Holy Apostles here on earth and
    reveals the glory that followed it.

The earthly lot of the Apostles was to go around the earth preaching of the Heavenly Kingdom, in this emulating Christ by their poverty, endurance of dishonor and sufferings, by their love for the children of the Heavenly Father, their inward torments of childbirth over those who heeded their preaching and their grief over those who paid no heed to their words and finally, by offering themselves as a sacrifice.

    However, the culmination of their earthly life
    is the beginning of their heavenly glory.
    Their end is for them a dissolving of earthly ties
     and an ascent to Christ, Whom they loved,
    in order to remain eternally with Him (Phil. 1:23).

The day of their earthly end is the day of their heavenly birth, end the celebration
of it is a solemnity of the coming of the future age for those who have followed
Christ in this age.

   

The receiving of the crowns of righteousness prepared not only for them,
    but also for all who love His appearing (II Tim. 4:8).

    Coming after the feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit
    and being in part bound up with it, the feast of the
    Holy Apostles Peter and Paul culminates the yearly cycle of feasts
    dedicated to the earthly life of Christ and
    reveals the essence of His promises.

    Just as the Nativity of John the Baptist is the foreword to the Gospel
    and the beginning of the events described in it,
    so also the death of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is their culmination
    and the afterward of the Gospel.

    The Nativity of St. John the Baptist is the beginning
    of the preaching of the Gospel of the New Testament on earth;
    his Beheading is the preaching of it in hell;
    and the day of the Holy Apostles is the realization of it in heaven.

"The firm and God-proclaiming preachers, the pinnacle of the Apostles, Thou hast received into the enjoyment of Thy good things and into repose; for Thou didst receive their pains and death as above all offerings, O Thou Who alone knowest what is in the heart" (Kontakion).

"The feast of the all-honorable Apostles hath come, interceding for the salvation of all of us. Now mystically clapping our hands, let us say: come into our midst invisibly, vouchsafing immaterial gifts for those who praise your feast in hymns" (Glory at Lauds).