HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

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.

Round here she's slipping through my hands

Round here she's slipping through my hands, originally uploaded by Lacking Focus.  

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

For those who have been waiting for an official announcement

Hero and her Claudio-Betrothed.

The Heart, the Mind and Fences

    In order to be right about anything, the mind has the need
    to find someone or something that is wrong.
    In a sense, the mind is always looking for an enemy
    (the person who is “wrong”), since without an enemy,
     the mind is not quite sure of its own identity.

    When it has an enemy, it is able to be more confident about itself.
    Since the mind also continually seeks for certainty,
    which is a by-product of the desire to be right, the process of finding
    and defining enemies is an ongoing struggle for survival.
    Declaring enemies is, for the mind, not an unfortunate character flaw,
    but an essential and necessary task.

    Unfortunately, being right is not what people really need,
    even though a great deal of their lives may be taken up in its pursuit.
    Defense of the ego is almost always a matter of trying to be right.

    Interestingly enough, Jesus never once suggeted to His disciples
    that they be right.
    What He did demand is that they be righteous.
    In listening to His words we find that we spend almost all our energy
    in the wrong direction, since we generally pursue being right
    with every ounce of our being,
    but leave being good to the weak and the naive.

    People fight wars, commit genocide, and deprive others
    of basic human civil liberties, all in the name of being right.
    There is little doubt that if a further nuclear war ever takes place,
    it will be because the person pushing the button
    believes himself to be right.
    About something.

    Religion, at the level of the mind, can be a terrible thing,
    causing wanton destruction to individuals, families,
    and even entire nations, all in the cause of being right.
    Almost every religious system can, and in most cases,
    has operated solely at this level at some point in its history.
    This is the level of religious awareness that can cause
    the servants of the King of Peace to wage war on those
    who think thoughts different from their own;
    it bestows on those who have been commanded to forgive their enemies
    the right to annihilate their foes.


    The heart is quiet rather than noisy, intuitive rather than deductive,
    lives entirely in the present, and is, at every moment, accepting
    of the reality God gives in that moment.
    Moreover, the heart does not seek
     to distance or dominate anything or anyone by labeling.

    Rather, it begins with an awareness of its relationship
    with the rest of creation (and everything and everyone in it),
    accepting rather than rejecting, finding similarity
    rather than alienation and likeness rather than difference.

    It knows no fear, experiences no desire, and never finds the need
    to defend or justify itself.
    Unlike the mind, the heart never seeks to impose itself.
     It is patient and undemanding.
    Little wonder, then, that the mind, always impatient
    and very demanding, manages to dominate it so thoroughly.

Bread & Water, Wine & Oil.

Archimandrite Meletios Webber

h/t to Fr Freeman

photo-nevertorun

In Vain

In Vain

Either gods are omnipotent and, judging by the world they created, not good;
or they are good, and the world slipped from their hands, and so they are not
omnipotent.
 — The School of Epicurus


Six years old. I felt horror at the stony order of the world.
Later on, in vain, I sought shelter in colorful pictures of birds when I was
the round-faced secretary of the Circle of Nature Lovers.
Charles Darwin, a clergyman-to-be, announced with regret his theory of natural
selection, for he saw that it would serve the devil’ s theology.

By proclaiming the triumph of the strong and the defeat of the weak which is and has
always been the devil’s program which is why he is called the Prince of This World.

Everything that creeps, runs, flies, and dies is an argument against the divinity of man.

I turned to anti-nature, i.e., to art, in order to build our home, along with others,
out of the sounds of music and paint on canvas and the rhythms of speech.
Threatened at every moment, we marked our days on a calendar of stone or of paper.
Ready to be caught by a cold hand reaching out of the abyss to pull us down together
with our unfinished task.
Yet we believed that some of us had received a gift, a grace, to spite the force
of gravity.

Czeslaw Milosz

The “inverted pyramid"

 

  Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov], in his book on St. Silouan, presents this theory of the “inverted pyramid.” He says that the empirical cosmic being is like a pyramid: at the top sit the powerful of the earth, who exercise dominion over the nations (cf. Matt. 20:25), and at the bottom stand the masses. But the spirit of man, by nature [unfallen nature as given by God], demands equality, justice and freedom of spirit, and therefore is not satisfied with this “pyramid of being.”

So, what did the Lord do? He took this pyramid and inverted it, and put Himself at the bottom, becoming its Head. He took upon Himself the weight of sin, the weight of the infirmity of the whole world, and so from that moment on, who can enter into judgment with Him? His justice is above the human mind.

So, He revealed His Way to us, and in so doing showed us that no one can be justified but by this way, and so all those who are His must go downwards to be united with Him, the Head of the inverted pyramid, because it is there that the “fragrance” of the Holy Spirit is found; there is the power of divine life.

Christ alone holds the pyramid, but His fellows, His Apostles and His saints, come and share this weight with Him. However, even if there were no one else, He could hold the pyramid by Himself, because He is infinitely strong; but He likes to share everything with His fellows. Mindful of this, then, it is essential for man to find the way of going down, the way of humility, which is the Way of the Lord, and to become a fellow of Christ, who is the Author of this path.

Archimandrite Zacharias in The Enlargement of the Heart

ht/fatherstephen at Glory to God for All Things

photo-bitter tears by  nevertorun

A Little Orthodox Humor - from my Facebook collection

If you "got" this one click below for a few more...