Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Ardor from Hate


Dear LORD,

Tuesday, my first day at Freddie Mac, is done.

Thank You for it being over.

Thank You for being with me this first day, especially in the kindness of strangers, my new coworkers. Thank you for letting them be people who make the effort to extend themselves to help, to take time out of their day and their tasks to help me start, to set up my new work laptop and to schedule me getting my badge and all the little necessary things that aren't productive for them but so needed for me to find my feet.

It's a hard lesson to learn again: I must relearn to walk before I can hit the ground running... and I so want to run now.

LORD, I hate my new situation. I hate the cramped, public working conditions. I hate the heavy feel of anticipation and expectation and hurry from the team: why run only to plummet over a cliff? I hate the familiar faces from my old work-place, that they have new friends now and that they (think they) know me, adding to the burden of how I'm supposed to be here.

Stumbling blocks.

LORD, take these stones I reject and make them into an ediface pleasing to your sight.  Take my hates, my anger and fear and turn them into zeal for my Father's house to consume the 'me' in me and make me burn with ardor so that others may see me ablaze with Your Love and Spirit. Take my weaknesses and fill my emptiness with You and Your Strength, LORD, so that this new situation may be a blessing to me, to my family and to my society, these new coworkers, so I may be a blessing to them through You.

I ask all this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Prayer for Susannah


A prayer of supplication.

Dear LORD,

Susannah from my daughters' track team is in the hospital again with seizure which the doctors do not know the cause.

Please be with her. Please hold her in Your arms. Please let her and her family know Your Abiding Love and Care.

LORD, I devote this hour of prayer for he and her family that Your Will be known, done, and be a comfort and solace to them.

If you will her speedy and safe recovery, be it done.

I pray this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

Auld Lang Syne


Dear LORD,

Last, or, penultimate, day of work at Fannie Mae for the present.

Thank You for allowing me to start this last day correctly in Your Presence, LORD. Funny how we are always in the present in Your Presence, but we are always dwelling on the past or always worrying about the future. Why is that, LORD? Why is it that we dwell on the things we can no longer change or worry about the things that will most likely never come to pass? Why cannot we always be, now, like You, and instead of dwelling or worrying we could simply be, like You, and praise the gift You've given us, every second: the Present?

Thank You, LORD, for today. Thank You LORD, for the gifts that You are giving me today: my wife, who loves me and understands me and accepts me, no matter how trying I am. Thank You for the gifts of my children, who, no matter how stern, strict, and angry I can be with them, still forgive me and se me as their 'funny Papa.'  Thank You for letting me lose my cell phone last Thursday, allowing me to unplug from pointless distractions and plug back into what really matters: You, my family — my life.  Perhaps this job-chage will be to me what Father Berez's trials were to him: a roommate in seminary that he didn't want and an assignment to St. Michael, a parish he didn't ask for in prayer — stumbling blocks that became cornerstones in his life. Perhaps leaving this very good thing where I am loved and accepted, and going onto this new thing where I will start over and rebuild trust and understanding, are blessings from You.

Please make it so?

I ask these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Visit Alaska

Do so visit Alaska!

The bears ate neither me nor my siblings, but perhaps we were lucky? No, we weren't in Unalaska, either: I was stationed in Kodiak and also ended up in Attu, and my brother-in-law and his family have been dropped into the wilderness.

There's something mystical about being with other people of other cultures, and there's something life-changing about being alone, so alone that you know that you are the only person right here, and you know you will have been the only person ever to be where you are with the sky different, the mountain looking down, right into your soul, and the trees your only company. I savored this alone-time.

It also gave me a new appreciation of other people. There's a person! She or he is saying something to me! What are they sharing? Why are they sharing with me? How am I to be for this person so they can share from their heart to mine?

Do visit Alaska. I was stationed in Hawaii, but spent 200 days of the year up there, North of the Arctic circle, and was grateful for the months at sea the solitary time on land, sometimes among the flanneled people passing by in their pick-up trucks. 

If I go back, I might just stay.

A post in response to livebyladybugs bucket list

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Your Presence, Lord

Dear LORD,

Okay, wow!

The new Adoration Chapel is a marvel! And, still, it's just You, only You, and all for You.

I wish I were aware of your Presence at all times like I am now, here in this newly-refurbished Chapel.  I wish I could see Your Hand in my job change, and then I would have been less heartbroken about leaving what I know and the friends I've made here, and instead be more excited to be learning new things on the new job, making new friends and being a witness to You to more people, as You have let me be a witness to You on this current job.

I pray, not so that the circumstance favors me, but so that I may be a better person in the circumstances You place me, just as Jesus was a better person on the cross.

Thank you for giving me this time tonight with You in this new Chapel. Please help me to be aware of Your Presence here and everywhere and always with me, in whatever I do.

I ask this in the name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

I. AM. SUPERMAN!

So, recently there was some noise about how 70% of lemon wedges garnishing drinks carry diseases, so watch out what you drink, because all you diet coke drinkers at restaurants are gonna die!

I just so love the media: they are so narcissistically strident. "Let's create another thing for people to worry themselves to death over so we can sell more page-views!"

So, my response to that was: "Well, I haven't caught a disease from all those lemon wedges from over the years, so either your information is hyperbole, or I. AM. SUPERMAN!"

I'm so well-received!

The thing is, Man of Steel came out, and it's a fun little knuckle brawler of a movie that's diverting for a few hours (nearly three), everything a good summer blockbuster should be, but then that's it, right?

Or is it?

The thing is: Krypton fell for exactly the same things that are going on in this country, and through our very active bribery, throughout the world.

Eugenics?

Man of Steel is about the horrifying ramifications of what happens when Big Government/Big Brother decides who is born, how, and for what societal role to fill.

So much the case, that natural child-birth is consider "Heresy!" (Did Lara take any drugs to assist her birth? The movie's depiction seems to say the birth was totally natural), because it was not selected from a genetic feature of the Codex.

And what happens when others play God: that is determine who gets to be, and who gets not to be, and what their fates are, predetermined and assigned to them since before their birth?

Well, we saw it on the big screen: wailing and gnashing of teeth caused by the end of the world by the fires of Hell (these flames came from the under-world, after all).

Even our own self-designated attempts to save ourselves are destined to doom: a bloody uprising from a military dictator who knows 'better' (because now he gets to choose, doing exactly what the powers that be are doing, because that's all he knows what to do), ... 'better' being the total eradication of one race to be supplanted by a self-destructive one.

The special effects were migraine-poundingly good, however, so the movie had that going for it.

You know who was missing in this end of the world scenario, who is always present in every other portrayal? (Think Superman 2) (and no, kids, I don't forgive you for having never seen it: study your history and get back to me) ...

The President of the United States.

In all these movies, the President steps forward, by, for, and of his people, so that they may not perish.

No President in this movie. At all.

Why?

Because, sadly, the current President has done everything in his power to turn this planet into what Krypton became: a centralized Totalitarianistic regime, where, of course, every woman has the 'choice' to terminate undesireable births ... which, from the worker classes, is every birth.

My conclusion.

We do need a Superman to save us from where we're headed, because as sure as shooting, as surely as the Hell we're heading to, we are driving toward our own destruction at breakneck speed, and every correction we do only drives us faster and further toward and over the edge.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President"?

Not likely. He, our hero, our savior? Not likely.

Abraham Lincoln stood up, against the whole nation, and said we will be united, whether we wanted it or not. This President says 'We will take definite steps!' against the latest attacks against our country, and then goes off to see what the polls say are the best (politically safest) steps to take.

Our current President is not a leader, nor a hero.

In fact, when the (second) Revelation comes, Jesus is going to come with fire and the sword and the heavenly host of angelic armies to wipe the face of the Earth of us.

Jesus came to save us from us, and instead we reestablish the Roman empire where we cast our babies to the wolves.

"Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me."

Anybody from the social-engineering Left remember those words?

But this post is not an attack against our current President.

It's also not an attack against the Right, who did everything in their power to pave the way right to this current situation we are in.

"Homeland Security"?

That's an oxymoron, if I ever heard one. How does one 'secure' the 'home' by terrorizing its citizenry, spying on them, and then locking them up, for interminable imprisonment and unlawful interrogation just so they can catch the one bad guy of the hundreds they detain?

Was it 'guilty until proven innocent' then? Or was it 'it is better to kill 100 innocents to get to the one guilty party'?

(Replace the word 'innocent' with 'Muslim' and 'guilty party' with 'infidel,' for trending topics and beliefs elsewhere in oppressive, terrorized regions of the world.)

I thought we were better than that. I thought we were a country of ideals, a country where you had freedom to speak and to worship as you saw fit, insofar as it first did no harm to others.

I didn't think we were a country that could invade your privacy, hold you to task for crimes you did not commit but based on your race or religious beliefs, and then tell you how to live your life, or, tell you that now (in the womb) was a good time to die, or now (that you are a 'burden' on society) is a good time to die, or now (because you are Muslim or Hispanic or Catholic, or ... anything, really) you'd better have proof of citizenship at the ready, and that still doesn't mean anything, because we'll detain you if we want to, because your four-year-old daughter goes into a terror when separated from you at the gate at the airport.

I feel so much safer from the terrorists now that the little old lady in front of me got terrorized by TSA for having nail clippers.

That actually happened, I'm sad to say.

But we're not better than that, and, every day, in every way, we are moving closer and faster to the dystopia that Krypton portrayed.

Our President didn't show up in this latest movie, although he, or she, did in every other disaster movie, because our President, in this movie, would've told General Zod, "Hey, oy! Clear off, we're doing a better job than you already!"

That's why our President didn't show up in this movie.

But it's not the President I'm attacking: neither Obama nor the Bush father-son pair.

Our Presidents didn't get us into this mess that we call our present reality and our modern-day living.

We did.

All we have to do is to look into to the mirror, and thank ourselves for eugenics, stem cell research from harvested eggs, IVF, assisted suicide, abortions that have now taken more lives, silenced more screams, than all the previous wars since the beginning of history combined, socialized medicine (Europe has 10k accidental deaths-then-organ-harvests per year), welfare state, income tax (oxymoron), and Big Government as Big Brother knowing everything that we do, and occasionally providing guidance through laws and laws and laws, court rulings and regulations.

We are the most legalized, litigious society in the World. We have near the highest per-capita income, ...

And we are rushing, pushing ourselves right to the brink of that Black Hole.

Hell, the Aztecs pushed their sacrifices into the pit, offering them to their gods.

We're voluntarily pushing ourselves over the edge into the pit, and to what gods?

The sad thing is: we are pushing ourselves, to our doom, to no god, in fact: to the NoGod.

We've shortened the Truth: "There is no God but God!"

To the lie: "There is no god!"

There's only us now, we don't need no education, we don't need no opiate for the masses.

There's just us.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to offer some platitudinous (Christian) resolution.

But I despair, which is a grievous sin.

Yes, God, ... Jesus, fought the fight for us, and already won, so what is this fighting for, in me, fighting a fight that we already won?

But if we've already won, then how come there are so many losers in the world today? I'm not saying that to be derogatory to them. No, I'm saying that there are people walking around today, not masters of their destinies, but destined to be mastered by forces beyond their control: government, their health, fate, death, despair, doom. So what do they do? They're now little worker bees, little cogs in the wheels, that go along with the master plan, because there is no other plan that they can see, so they follow along, like lemmings, right up to the very end, and die alone, having accomplished nothing in their pointless lives.

This is the state of the World.

And we've won? How?

How can I say: it doesn't matter. It's just me and Jesus, and the world's gone to shit, but Jesus will take care of that. I just fix my eyes on Jesus, and all will be well.

How can I say that?

And, no, I'm not (just) a woe is me type. I've marched on Washington, D.C. I've written, and every week, I pray and pray and pray in front of God in His Majesty. I'm also a man of action.

And seen the world get worse, despite the actions I've taken.

My hope is my children, who are WAY better than I was, and that I can provide for them and my wife and protect them against the evil pull of the world up to now.

So, do I be a good daddy, like Jor-el, and save his children, and fight the good fight, and lose, and watch his world die around him?

I am sad that this may be what is left to me, to us, my brothers and sisters. That we fight the good fight, protect what we can, and ultimately see it all fall and fail, and die martyrs' deaths.

All of us believers and doers, doing what we can, but now it's too little, and too late, because most of us have taken what we've been given not as a gift of freedom and hope, but as entitlements, and we've used them up, and then traded them in for conformity, safety and security, and handed those keys to the kingdom over to ...

... people exactly like us, who know what's best for us, and start treating people like 'human resources' and use up those gifts, and eventually feeling entitled to them.

And now, ... this.

Sodom and Gomorrah.

Krypton's fate is our own. And just like Krypton, ... we're doing it to ourselves.