Further

I'm noticing that physical tension

I've learned what it means.

I'm responding to it proactively rather than letting it continue to build up and drive my choices.

Yes, some energy goes away when I do that, energy that I might have needed following a short night of sleep, but the gain is not worth reentering the dynamic.

Today's word

ultima /UL-tuh-muh/ - the last syllable of a word

This definition makes sense, given what I already knew about the related ultimate and penultimate. I think I was more familiar with the related penult, though I think I'd heard of neither ultima nor penultima. 

I think I'll probably end up pronouncing this word as /UL-tih-muh/, even though that isn't given as an alternate pronunciation.

Also, with apologies to the reader: the ultima of syllable sounds like a bunch of bull to me. 

It has been a very long time . . .

. . . since I've done anything truly reprehensible - although I'm sure that when I see what I think of as my "smaller sins" in the clear, loving light of God's truth I'll be appalled at how inaccurate that statement is. Still, it feels good to know that I have set boundaries that I remain unwilling to cross even when the temptation to do so may grow strong. And I am grateful to God for the grace that keeps me from giving rein to my more ignoble inclinations.

Timely

I'm so grateful, this morning, for friends who share the Word. FB gave me my favorite Christmas reading just when I need to get my thoughts where they belong.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Today's word

veridical /vuh-RID-ih-kul/ - 1. truthful, veracious  2. not illusory : genuine

I find it helpful, in light of last night's dream of a practice that I am sure is not God's will, that both example sentences in today's WOTD article deal with the fact that our memories and our sensory experiences (and, by extension, so much more that takes place in our minds, including our feelings) can be misleading.

A most vivid and graphic dream . . .

. . . stokes my inappropriate feelings and desires.

I renounce that impurity in the name of Jesus.

Well, that got worse before it got better

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a flurry. We were actually glad, though, when our dinner for 4 expanded to dinner for 12. First, our oldest grandson and his girlfriend said they'd join us. Then, on Christmas Eve after the grocery stores were closed, our youngest asked if it was too late for her crew to join us, too, for dinner, after all. Good thing I'd bought a way bigger ham than we needed.

I'd convinced myself that it would be okay to support the evening Mass in addition to Midnight and Christmas morning. Fortunately, we used the parish's normal Christmas schedule rather than our normal Sunday schedule. But even so, I really could have used that extra three hours. Maybe then I wouldn't have been par-baking pie crusts at 3:15 Christmas morning, or trying to cook and help with wrapping at the same time on Christmas Day.

Dinner ended up being very nice; there was nothing fancy, yet everything was good; well, the mashed potatoes were a little dry, since we ate about 90 minutes later than scheduled, which was about 75 minutes after everything was ready. It also included a very nice uncured ham that I was able to pick up on sale at Whole Foods when I went for my bulk spices (cinnamon sticks, cured allspice, fresh whole cloves), carrots with a cream sherry and honey glaze, and some canned green beans that our middle daughter and her husband contributed along with half the potatoes to round out enough food for the extra folks. Oh, and my daughter and I were the only partakers of the absolutely delicious cabernet-blueberry cranberry sauce. I screwed up the pie crusts something awful, but the pies were still yummy despite them.

After opening gifts, the anticipated altercation occurred, at least in part because it was anticipated, and two people left mad. Apparently one of the kids left a candy cane lying around, and our dog got it. Amid the already-hubbub of grandchildren excited about gifts, our middle daughter's husband raised his voice to call someone's attention to the situation, our youngest daughter took offense at his raised voice, our son-in-law and middle daughter took offense at her offense and left. Ugh. I may henceforth refer to this as The Catastrophic, Calamitous outCome of the Canine Candy Cane Caper^©.

These adults judge each other too harshly. They have too much a sense of superiority.

I taught them well, apparently, the part of myself that most needs to die.

Exhausted. Frazzled. Drained.

Like John, like Elizabeth, like Mary, like Jesus

Each of the principals in today's reading from St. Ambrose offers us something to emulate. Christ brings Grace, prenatal John recognizes His presence, Elizabeth responds to John's intrauterine testimony with humility and acknowledgement, Mary proclaims a wondrous canticle of God's greatness. Together, they offer, respond to, and acclaim the Father's wondrous grace and mercy.

At times in our lives we are each called to take on these various roles in the proclamation of the Gospel. Sometimes we are in need of grace; at others we are the one recognizing God's presence or proclaiming His love to someone else who desperately needs it.

We are all called to receive Christ and manifest His presence to the world.

Today's words

purlieu /PERL-yoo/ - 1a. an outlying or adjacent district  b. (plural) environs, neighborhood  2a. a frequently visited place : haunt  b. (plural) confines, bounds

I love the etymology for this one. I don't care for the first example so much, though my issue may be more with combination of preposition, object, and modifier it uses.

orchidaceous /ȯr-kə-ˈdā-shəs/ -  1. of, relating to, or resembling the orchids  2.  showy, ostentatious

This was in the Dictionary Devil today, and I wasn't expecting the definition (which was the second one, of course, or I'd have been expecting it), but didn't have any trouble matching it up when nothing close to the first one was there for the choosing.

The (at least temporary) return of pageview zip code posts

Blogger changed their landing page, so I no longer see a page view count every time I log on. When I've thought to check it, my current count hasn't been an assigned zip code. So I'm including the current one even though I've never been there:

Hillsdale, IN  47854 - I started my longest, hottest ever day of bike riding about 23 miles south and 7 miles west of here, The Ride Across Indiana: One day, One way, 160 miles.

Today's word

eternize /ih-TER-nyze/ - 1a. to make eternal  b. to prolong indefinitely  2. immortalize

It makes perfect sense, and I immediately recognized what it must mean, but I'm pretty sure I'd never encountered it before.

Today's Office of Readings

Since I primarily use the Divine Office during the seasons of Advent and Lent, and since Advent doesn't always have a full fourth week, I don't pray today's Psalm very often. I love the series of "isolated avian" references - pelican, owl, sparrow - though without knowing for myself how accurately they reflect each species' natural behavior. The last half of the second section speaks to why I believe that God has preserved me in spite of how utterly I've failed Him and those I love. The first part of the last section resonates with me right now because of the advancement of my kidney disease; I need to be careful not to let my mind get out ahead of that, though.

Today's Isaiah reading is more familiar (because the Office always uses this in the final octave of the Advent season, regardless of where it falls in the week), and every time I see the Lord refer to his stubborn people I must plead guilty.

This reading from St. Bernard gets me every time. (Rabbit hole warning: this link contains three others; one of them, though, contains the entire text of this reading, since the dated hyperlinks expire - or at least they used to; I haven't checked in a while.) The thing that strikes me about this reading this year is a shift in perspective: as anxious as the souls of all humanity throughout all of history are, collectively, for our Mother's answer to the angel, so much greater is God's desire for each one of us to provide our own fiat in response to Him.

When a friend tells you . . .

. . . , pretty much in so many words, that they've decided that no, they'd rather not be so close with you after all. And you just keep your mouth shut about it for months. But at least you accept that it's completely their right, and appreciate what they're willing to give you.

Actually: really appreciate.

Today's word

nosocomial /nah-suh-KOH-mee-ul/ - acquired or occurring in a hospital

A new word for me. My late uncle had to deal with a nosocomial staph infection, but we never used that adjective. I'm never going to get that pronunciation right, though; my mind insists that it's /noh-soh-KOH-mee-ul/.

Happy birthday, Karen

I miss you. Thank you for praying for me. You know I'm praying for you, too.

What a lonely, miserable day

And in the immortal words of Curly (Kill anybody today, Curly?), "Day ain't over yet!"

Today's word

gallimaufry /gal-uh-MAW-free/ - a heterogeneous mixture : jumble

Actually, I was somewhat familiar with this synonym for hodgepodge or farrago, but didn't quite recognize it when I first saw it as today's word on the Merriam-Webster site.

A lesson from a 5-year-old

After Mass we stopped by the house so that our 11-year-old granddaughter could get her toiletries and clothes. While I was waiting by the sliding van door in the cold, because I knew she wouldn't be able to get it closed tight, I heard our 5-year-old granddaughter calling my name. So when I got in the car, I asked what she wanted.

It seems there was a pencil on the floor by her seat, and she just had to have it. Unfortunately, no one could reach it, and no matter how hard she tried, neither could she. It consumed her attention most of the short ride to her home.

It occurred to me that many of us - myself included - spend too much of our time, attention, and energy to things that are beyond our grasp that we think we just have to have. We're more childlike than we know, but usually not in the ways that we're really called to be.

Last week of Advent

If I am anticipating accrurately, there are some powerful readings this week.

Hear me, O house of Jacob, all who remain of the house of Israel,
My burden since your birth, whom I have carried from infancy.
Even to your old age I am the same, even when your hair is gray (or gone?) I will bear you;
It is I who have done this, I who will continue, and I who will carry you to safety . . . 

Listen to me, you fainthearted, you who seem far from the victory of justice:
I am bringing on my justice, it is not far off, my salvation shall not tarry;
I will put salvation within Zion, and give to Israel my glory. - Is 46: 3-4, 12-13

These words remind me that I am not the first to experience God's presence and power and then to know doubt and darkness. His dawn breaks forth when it will best reveal His glory, but meanwhile He will not cease to sustain us through the night.

No man has ever seen God or known him, but God has revealed Himself to us through faith, by 87 which alone it is possible to see Him. - from a letter to Diognetus

I want to know, and God is reminding me that He has given me something that is better for me, now, than knowing: He has provided the gift of faith.

The whole of today's Office of Readings, including the Psalms, is worth the time, bringing me a great sense of God's loving presence exactly where I am.

Nuffin' weewy mavvers

Kismet

A quick survey of our most recently collected uses of kismet shows that it’s used of happy romantic pairings nearly half the time, and it’s rarely used of anything negative like an ill-fated love affair. - Merriam-Webster's Words at Play blog

Perhaps this word describes the totality of my life . . . 

I am entirely too focused on my own isolated depths. Again.

I must never lose sight . . .

. . . of what a great privilege it is to love you with all I have, and to be loved by you with all you have.

A rare day

Only once every seven years do we get today's Office of Readings. It fits my mood so well this morning. I am like Ariel, Bashar, Carmel, Shalem and Sharon. Augustine speaks of a groaning which must be purer than my own.

Perhaps, Lord, this is what it feels like to long for You. But it doesn't feel so pure and holy, even if it isn't so depraved as I have been in the past.

Lord, come quickly.

Waiting in the darkness

for the Light it cannot overcome.

When you get a really dangerous earworm

that lasts for days.

And yes, there can be such a thing.

It is, of course, utterly preposterous

I'll continue to live by it, though. I don't know how else to live.

Or maybe it's that I don't know any other way I'd want to live. 

Timeless truth

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who depend upon horses;
Who put their trust in chariots because of their number, and in horsemen because of their combined power,
But look not to the Holy One of Israel nor seek the Lord!I - Is 31:1-3

Is this not too often our approach to everything? Even when we think to cry out to Him, we look to our own solutions, not trusting that if we act according to His loving guidance He will provide for our needs. Our fear drives us to avoid the help that He provides and to seek what seems a more likely means of our providence.

By his own powers man cannot see God, yet God will be seen by men  because He wills it . . . The Spirit prepares man to receive the Son of God, the Son leads him to the Father, and the Father, freeing him from change and decay, bestows the eternal life that comes to everyone from seeing God.

As those who see light are in the light sharing in brilliance, so those who see God are in God sharing his glory, and that glory gives them life. - St. Irenaeus, bishop, from a treatise against Heresies

Grace. Always, it is God's gift that gives us life.

From Thomas à Kempis

Do not care much who is with you and who is against you; but make it your greatest care that God is with you in everything you do.

That is, seek to please only Him. We are often too concerned with what others think of us.

Do not think that you have made any progress unless you feel that you are the lowest of men.

Perhaps there is hope for me yet.

You are good at excusing and justifying your own deeds, and yet you will not listen to the excuses of others. It would be more just to accuse yourself  and to excuse your brother.

I have long observed this tendency of ours. This is most excellent advice for marriage, too.

More on humility

I was hoping to quote from the passage from The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, which I read in the breviary this morning, which was mainly focused on practical applications of humility. But my online source instead has the reading for the memorial of St. Lucy. This reading from St. Ambrose is also excellent, though, for the Advent season and for all who are seeking Christ, even though it comes from a book on virginity.

Whoever seeks Christ in this way, and finds him, can say: I held him fast, and I will not let him go before I bring him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me. What is this “house,” this “room,” but the deep and secret places of your heart?
Maintain this house, sweep out its secret recesses until it becomes immaculate and rises as a spiritual temple for a holy priesthood, firmly secured by Christ, the cornerstone, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in it.
Whoever seeks Christ in this way, whoever prays to Christ in this way, is not abandoned by him; on the contrary, Christ comes again and again to visit such a person, for he is with us until the end of the world.

I find myself doing housekeeping of this sort during this Advent season, repenting of and renouncing those thought patterns that turn me inward toward myself rather than toward Christ.

I'm going to have to write about the passage from The Imitation of Christ later. Stuff in there really resonated with me, but I don't want to misquote it.

A friend shared a great parody . . .

. . . of puppets telling the nativity story to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was absolutely worth watching.

It also has me in a weird emotional place, for two synergistic reasons. The last line of the song's original second verse (right before the choral section) resounds in my head. And that weekend when I saw Queen in concert.

Testimonies of God's love

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for us.

I read the historical account in one version of today's Office of Readings. But the Advent reading from a discourse On the Contemplation of God by William of Saint-Thierry strikes me more today:

O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?

. . . and later:

He taught us to love him by first loving us, even to death on the cross. By loving us and holding us so dear, he stirred us to love him who had first loved us to the end.
And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that we might love you – not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.

. . . 

Everything he did and everything he said on earth, even enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffeting – the cross and the grave – all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.
You know that this disposition could not be forced on men’s hearts, my God, since you created them; it must rather be elicited. And this, for the further reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and where freedom is lacking, so too is righteousness.

You wanted us to love you, then, we who could not with justice have been saved had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you except by your gift. So, Lord, as the apostle of your love tells us, and as we have already said, you first loved us: you are first to love all those who love you.

The voice, the Word

Yesterday the Office of Readings provided this wonderful reflection from St. Augustine that continues to amaze me every time I read it.

The word in my heart is to convey the love of God. Yet so often the "voice" of my actions falls short of that desire. I become like the mindless babbling into which we so often lapse when we are exhausted or frantic and lose our focus on the purpose of our speaking.

But also, too often I am a selfish voice, wanting to be loved for myself rather than desiring chiefly to let God be loved.

I guess now I know

. . . which circumstance sends me to the very edge. 

I've missed your tempting sharpness, old friend.

Season of longing

Catch 22

When your daughter gets a new sewing machine as an early Christmas gift. And your wife observes that it's nicer than hers. And your other daughter has a father-in-law who immediately buys a nicer version of everything nice they get, so you know how doing that fills your "kids" with disdain.

Mother of Salvation

To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.

God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed. - from a sermon by St. Anselm

Good stuff here, from this morning's Office of Readings. It seems the right balance between proper reverence and gratitude toward Mary and inappropriate worship of her.

Today's word

qui vive /kee-VEEV/ - alert, lookout — used in the phrase on the qui vive

I love this one, and hope I get an excuse to use it soon!

As promised

God, who is faithful, put himself in our debt, not by receiving anything but by promising so much . . . . He promised eternal salvation, everlasting happiness, with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the hoyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, and after resurrection from the dead no further fear of dying . . . . He promised men divinity, mortal immortality, sinners justification, the poor a rising to glory.
But, brethren, because God' promises seemed impossible to men - equality with the angels in exchange for mortality, corruption, poverty, weakness, dust and ashes - God not only made a written contract with men to win their belief, but also established a mediator of his good faith, not a prince or angel or archangel, but his only Son. He wanted, through his Don, to show us and give us the way he would lead us tot he goal he has promised.
It was not enough for God to make his Son our guide to the way; he made him the Way itself, that you might travel with him as leader and by him as the Way. - St. Augustine, from A discourse on the psalms

Good stuff, St. A.

Prayer by the light of the wreath again this morning

First time this week, but for better reason. Was glad for the opportunity to help a friend see the light of God's love pierce through the perceived darkness, and a short night of sleep followed by a night of catch-up was a small price to pay for it.

Had a quote from St. Augustine I wanted to share, but online I can only get the St. Ambrose reading. Except for big exceptions, I focus on the Advent season over the saints' feast days, and at home with my breviary I can do that. Maybe I'll get a chance to post later . . .

But that is not who I am

Not who I choose to be.

He systematically destroyed me

A chance to pray

I won't share here what my friend was going through, but I was glad of the opportunity to pray together, to remind and to be reminded of God's boundless love for us and the awesome ways He shows it.

A very nice compliment

So yesterday I'd resigned myself to sitting out the second communion hymn: J.S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Our director wanted to go straight into it from the preceding song, and I didn't have chords for the well-known instrumental part, even though I'd played it before, a few years ago. I grabbed some chords off of the Web last night, and had a printer issue that I resolved this hectic morning by rebooting it, only to discover at church that it was incomplete.

So when I noticed this after our first run through this morning, I took a few minutes to figure out what was missing. She gave me some coda chords she wanted me to use, which I needed to transpose because I was using a capo, but we ended up not using them because of when the communion procession ended.

It went pretty well. Afterward, my director said, "You, sir, are a hell of a musician."

I don't know about that; I was mostly just arpeggiating chords - okay, a little added fill, but not much - and only had to figure out a few of them on my own, but it sure was a nice compliment.

I keep mentally practicing

I doubt that I'll ever need to say them; I wish I felt absolutely certain that I will in the unlikely event that I do ever need to, regardless of the circumstances: "Thank you, but no; I've already hurt my wife sufficiently for both of our lifetimes."

Don't Ever Give Up

I've no idea if this post will be at all coherent, and that's okay.

Before I could start in on much of anything else this morning, I was reading a little of Matthew Berry's weekly fantasy love/hate, even though I don't have time for fantasy football. I like the other things he writes about in his column. Since it's Jimmy V week at ESPN, he ended that part with the quote from Valvano's famous speech at the ESPY's back in the 90's. It struck me, because of the strange feeling I had driving home from the pharmacy last night of wanting to set the cruise control, take my hands from the wheel, and close my eyes. I knew better than to give into this, of course. Oddly, it wasn't rooted in any circumstances of my life. Things are actually going pretty well.

After toileting, I lit the Advent candle for my first time of praying by its light in the morning. Sixth day of Advent. Clearly I haven't been doing this season right, not preparing my heart as I should, and that certainly has nothing to do with not having a whisky Advent calendar in my life.

I love to pray the Office of Readings during Advent and Christmas, by the light of the Advent wreath and then the Christmas tree. This morning's prayer time (link will probably not be valid indefinitely) was hard for me, but I think it will end up being in a good way.

Instead of the invitatory listed at the link above, I like to use Psalm 24 daily for most of Advent. This morning, when I reached the psalmist's observation about who can ascend to the holy place, I lamented my continued impurity and desire for worthless things. It was nearly a despairing feeling to know that I still struggle so much, until I remember that I am supposed to struggle, so that I might never seek to enter God's presence by any means except His grace as expressed in the Savior whom His people await. Then, in Psalm 34, I recognized that I am my own chief enemy, from whom I need the Lord to deliver me.

The Isaiah reading reminded me that all of God's children will ultimately find their place in Him, although some chastisement along the way may be in order.

And I still love the reading from St. Anselm, with its insistent call to make this time, this season, what it should be. I am not the first to long for God, even since Christ walked the earth fulfilling the Israelites longing for a Savior. I should, however, never give up seeking Him, or I shall certainly not encounter His presence.

It's a different world . . .

. . . than where you come from . . .

I've never been so rushed to put together a training basically from scratch.

A less angsty Thanksgiving

I am thankful that, even with a friend in NYC on the actual anniversary of my ill-fated weekend (the November calendars for this year and 1977 coincide), I had very little thought of those events this year.