HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

Of what use was it to be loved...if it all ended like this?

 

 
"And while the Boy was asleep, dreaming of the seaside, the little Rabbit lay among the old picture-books in the corner behind the fowl-house, and he felt very lonely. The sack had been left untied, and so by wriggling a bit he was able to get his head through the opening and look out. He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him.
Near by he could see the thicket of raspberry canes, growing tall and close like a tropical jungle, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy on bygone mornings.

He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden–how happy they were–

and a great sadness came over him.

He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings in the wood when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real.

He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him.

Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this?
And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground."...

 

Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, the Boy went out to play in the wood behind the house. And while he was playing, two rabbits crept out from the bracken and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:

"Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!"

But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.

 

From:

THE Velveteen Rabbit

by Margery Williams

 

 

 To My Brother, lovingly known to all as"Rabbit"

Another 365 sunrises without you and I keep looking for you; at times I see or hear something that seems familiar and I think to myself...do you ever come back and look at the child that is me who loved you so dearly?  I hope in some way that love, which often times left you worse for wear, also helped you find out what it is to be real, to be loved, and that you are frolicking, without pain and weariness with other "real" rabbits.

 

Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, the Boy went out to play in the wood behind the house. And while he was playing, two rabbits crept out from the bracken and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:

"Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!"

But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.

 

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

 

 

Separation

May none be shattered like me by the woes of separation;
My life has passed by wasted by the throes of separation.

Exited stranger, lover, heartsick beggar, mind bewildered;
I've shouldered brunt of Fortune and blows of separation.

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it;
With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

Where to go, what to do, who to tell my heart's state to?
Who gives justice, who pays out, for those of separation?

From the pain of separation not a moment's peace is mine;
For the sake of God, be just, give the dues of separation.

By separation from Your Presence I'll make separation sick,
Until the heart's blood flows from the eyes of separation.

From where am I and from where are separation and grief?
Seems my mother bore me for grief that grows of separation.

Therefore, at day and at night, branded by love, like Hafiz,

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

Hafiz of Shiraz

Translator:
Smith, P. (1986)

Melbourne: New Humanity Books.

Bishops, Saints and Church “Church politics”.

Bishop, originally uploaded by IzzY212.

THE DEFINITION OF A SAINT:

In the saint there exists nothing that is trivial, nothing coarse, nothing base, nothing affected (fake), nothing insincere. In him is the culmination of delicacy, sensibility, transparency, purity, reverence, attention before the mystery of his fellow men…comes into actual being, for he brings this forth from his communication with the supreme Person (God). The saint grasps the various conditions of the soul in others and avoids all that would upset them, although he does not avoid helping them overcome their weaknesses. He reads the least articulate needs of others and fulfills it promptly, just as he reads their impurities also, however skillfully hidden and through the delicate power of his own purity, exercising upon them a purifying action. From the saint there continually radiates a spirit of self-giving and of sacrifice for the sake of all, with no concern for himself, a spirit that gives warmth to others and assures them that they are not alone. … And yet there is no one more humble, more simple, no one more less artificial, less theatrical or hypocritical, no one more “natural” in his behavior, accepting all that is truly human and creating an atmosphere that is pure and familiar. The saint has overcome any duality within himself as St. Maximos the Confessor puts it. He has overcome the struggle between soul and body, the divergence between good intentions and deeds that do not correspond to them, between deceptive appearance and hidden thoughts, between what claims to be the case and what is the case. He has become simple, therefore, because he has surrendered himself entirely to God. That is why he can surrender himself entirely in communication with others.

The Experience of God,
Dimitru Staniloae.

h/t to s_p and "Pithless Thoughts" Blog and a good companion piece to last's Friday's post "The Chopping Block"
Reading both pieces may help keep a balance between the 2, 3 or 50 issues Bishops, Clergy, and Laity must weigh wisely while not losing site of the One True Thing.

And For Bea, the Girl in Red: I have great faith in all things not yet spoken...

 

I have great faith in all things not yet spoken...hints of hope, hidden whispers in the November Wind

 

 

Child in Red 

Rainer Maria Rilke

Child in Red

Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.

Rainer Maria Rilke

For Hero: Exposed on the cliffs of the heart...Now She knows...

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground
under your hands. Even here, though,
something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge
an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.
But the one who knows? Ah, he began to know
and is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the heart.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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.

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?

The inner quality of catholicity-A passage from Archpriest George Florovsky’s work entitled “The catholicity of the Church.”

The catholicity of the Church

A passage from Archpriest George Florovsky’s work entitled “The catholicity of the Church.”

The inner quality of catholicity

The catholicity of the Church is not a quantitative or a geographical conception. It does not at all depend on the world-wide dispersion of the faithful. The universality of the Church is the consequence or the manifestation, but not the cause or the foundation of its catholicity.

The world-wide extension or the universality of the Church is only an outward sign, one that is not absolutely necessary. The Church was catholic even when Christian communities were but solitary rare islands in a sea of unbelief and paganism. And the Church will remain catholic even unto the end of time when the mystery of the “falling away” will be revealed, when the Church once more will dwindle to a “small flock.” “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). The Metropolitan Philaret expressed himself very adequately on this point: “If a city or a country falls away from the universal Church, the latter will still remain an integral, imperishable body” (Opinions and Statements of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, Concerning the Orthodox Church in the East, St. Petersburg, 1886, p. 53.). Philaret uses here the word “universal” in the sense of catholicity.

The conception of catholicity cannot be measured by its wide-world expansion; universality does not express it exactly. Καθολικη from Καθ σλου means, first of all, the inner wholeness and integrity of the Church’s life. We are speaking here of wholeness, not only of communion, and in any case not of a simple empirical communion. Καθ σλου is not the same as Κατα παντóς; it belongs not to the phenomenal and empirical, but to the noumenal and ontological plane; it describes the very essence, not the external manifestations. We feel this already in the pre-Christian use of these words, beginning from Socrates.

If catholicity also means universality, it certainly is not an empirical universality, but an ideal one; the communion of ideas, not of facts, is what it has in view. The first Christians when using the words ‘Ekklisía Katholikí (Εκκλησια Καθολικη) never meant a world-wide Church. This word rather gave prominence to the orthodoxy of the Church, to the truth of the “Great Church,” as contrasted with the spirit of sectarian separatism and particularism; it was the idea of integrity and purity that was expressed. This has been very forcibly stated in the well known words of St. Ignatius of Antioch:

“Where there is a bishop, let there be the whole multitude; just as where Jesus Christ is, there too is the Catholic Church” (Ignat Smyrn. 8:2).

These words express the same idea as does the promise:

“Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:19-20).

It is this mystery of gathering together (μυστηριον της συναξεως, Mystírion tis sinákseos) that the word catholicity expresses. Later on St. Cyril of Jerusalem explained the word “catholicity” which is used in the Creed in the traditional manner of his Church. The word “Church” means the “gathering together of all in one union;” therefore it is called a “gathering” (εκκλεσια, Ekklisía).

The Church is called catholic, because it spreads over all the universe and subjects the whole of the human race to righteousness, because also in the Church the dogmas are taught “fully, without any omission, catholically, and completely” (καθολικως και ανελλειπως) because, again, in the Church every kind of sin is cured and healed” (Catech. 18:23 (Migne P.G. 33 c. 1044)).

Here again catholicity is understood as an inner quality. Only in the West, during the struggle against the Donatists was the word “catholica” used in the sense of “universality,” in opposition to the geographical provincialism of the Donatists (Cf. Pierre Batiffol, Le Catholicisme de St. Augustin, I. (Paris, 1920), p. 212

— “Rappelons que le nom ‘catholique’ a servi à qualifier la Grande Eglise par opposition aux hérétiques … Le nom est vraisemblablement de création populaire et apparait en Orient au second siècle. Les tractatores du 4. siècle, qui lui cherchent une signification étymologique et savante, veulent y voir l’expression soit de la perfection intégrale de la foi de l’Eglise, soit du fait que l’Eglise ne fait pas acception de personnes de rang, du culture, soit enfin et surtout de fait que l’Eglise est repandue dans le monde entire d’une extrémité à l’autre. Augustin ne veut connaître que ce dernier sens.” Cp. Also Bishop Lightfoot, in his edition of St. Ignatius, v. 2 (London, 1889), p. 319. Note ad Loc.

The history of the Christian and pre-Christian use of the terms ekklisía katholikí (Εκκλησια Καθολικη) and katholikos (καθολικóς) generally in various settings deserves careful study; apparently there have been no special investigations on the subject. In Russian, reference may be made to the very valuable, though not exhaustive or faultless, article of the late Professor M. D. Muretov in the supplement to his book Ancient Jewish Prayers Ascribed to St. Peter (Sergiev Posad, 1905). See also Bishop Lightfoot, St. Ignatius, v. 2 (London, 1889), p. 310, note).

Later on, in the East, the word “catholic” was understood as synonymous with “ecumenical.” But this only limited the conception, making it less vivid, because it drew attention to the outward form, not to the inner contents. Yet the Church is not catholic because of its outward extent, or, at any rate, not only because of that. The Church is catholic, not only because it is an all-embracing entity, not only because it unites all its members, all local Churches, but because it is catholic all through, in its very smallest part, in every act and event of its life.

The nature of the Church is catholic; the very web of the Church’s body is catholic. The Church is catholic, because it is the one Body of Christ; it is union in Christ, oneness in the Holy Ghost-and this unity is the highest wholeness and fulness. The gauge of catholic union is that “The multitude of them that believed be of one heart and of one soul” (Act 4:32).

Where this is not the case, the life of the Church is limited and restricted.

The ontological blending of persons is, and must be, accomplished in oneness with the Body of Christ; they cease to be exclusive and impenetrable. The cold separation into “mine” and “thine” disappears.

The growth of the Church is in the perfecting of its inner wholeness, its inner catholicity, in the “perfection of wholeness”;

“That they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23).