Choice and Desire

Love makes a soul fragrant so the love
is shared with everyone.

Jesus loves us immensely. He loves us enough to forgive us our sins and to inspire us to do things for people we don't even know; that is, to suffer for them so they truly can receive what they need.

Mind you, it is not for us to establish what or how much we will suffer, let alone to propose suffering the passion-life with Him. If such a thing happened in our life, it would be the case of Him proposing the suffering, knowing us as He does, and not of us offering to be crucified. Those he loves the most, He most afflicts, and if the passion-life is concerned, it will be real and genuine. He has asked so many to join Him in His passion-life. They loved Him very deeply to be able to embrace the cross, and it was impossible to suffer so without the love. Often, illness, particularly unknown suffering afflicted many, before the passion joined it's life to their own life. The suffering is such that there is no energy to direct our own passion; we lack the depth of emotion and intellect that exists when God is at the heart of a sharing of the passion.

A soul in whom Jesus occupies the most part of their minds and hearts are full of thoughts of Jesus, and Jesus is so full of the sufferings of His cross, that it is no great shift to focus on His passion-life from our desires for others and our service to them. 

Yet, it need not be the cross that intrudes into our lives. We may be dumbstruck to learn what has overtaken us. The unexpected misery engulfs us in love as we have never experienced it before. A grateful soul speaks tenderly to Him, and the love fills the heart so deeply, it is almost no suffering at all, to embrace what He may have arranged.

Wonder at the depths of love of the saints. 

Choice and Desire

Love makes a soul fragrant so the love
is shared with everyone.

Jesus loves us immensely. He loves us enough to forgive us our sins and to inspire us to do things for people we don't even know; that is, to suffer for them so they truly can receive what they need.

Mind you, it is not for us to establish what or how much we will suffer, let alone to propose suffering the passion-life with Him. If such a thing happened in our life, it would be the case of Him proposing the suffering, knowing us as He does, and not of us offering to be crucified. Those he loves the most, He most afflicts, and if the passion-life is concerned, it will be real and genuine. He has asked so many to join Him in His passion-life. They loved Him very deeply to be able to embrace the cross, and it was impossible to suffer so without the love. Often, illness, particularly unknown suffering afflicted many, before the passion joined it's life to their own life. The suffering is such that there is no energy to direct our own passion; we lack the depth of emotion and intellect that exists when God is at the heart of a sharing of the passion.

A soul in whom Jesus occupies the most part of their minds and hearts are full of thoughts of Jesus, and Jesus is so full of the sufferings of His cross, that it is no great shift to focus on His passion-life from our desires for others and our service to them. 

Yet, it need not be the cross that intrudes into our lives. We may be dumbstruck to learn what has overtaken us. The unexpected misery engulfs us in love as we have never experienced it before. A grateful soul speaks tenderly to Him, and the love fills the heart so deeply, it is almost no suffering at all, to embrace what He may have arranged.

Wonder at the depths of love of the saints. 

Reaction

 I have not yet gotten the paper back from Seattle Housing Authority detailing my recertification. Naturally that concerns me, and bothers, but my reaction is the same: love God more.

Reaction

 I have not yet gotten the paper back from Seattle Housing Authority detailing my recertification. Naturally that concerns me, and bothers, but my reaction is the same: love God more.

Release

I have just emerged from a very difficult time. As I have said in the past, I live in subsidized senior housing. I have to re-certify my eligibility for the subsidy every year, and I got paperwork slid under my door during the night, that I needed to fill out to submit for re-certification. I filled out the paperwork, was careful to sign everywhere a signature was required and turned in the paperwork to the office. Then, it was returned - twice. I visited the office but they insisted some paperwork was missing, and I told them I received no paperwork and had returned all I received with copies of relevant information and signatures.
I talked to the guy who handles the re-certification paperwork, who gave me a telephone number and name of a person to talk to about my paperwork. I called, but the person I needed to talk to was not in her office. I wrote an email, because the time for submitting paperwork had expired and if the paperwork was not submitted on time, one could lose their subsidy and become homeless.

Rents are outrageously high in the whole Seattle area, which affects millions of people, many of whom have no subsidy and live on the street, if you can all that living.

Many miserable, terrified, sleepless days later, my email was answered, the person had received my  paperwork and I was re-certified. At one point, for about three years, I did not have to re-certify, only having to fill in much simpler forms and return them to the office. With high rents everywhere,  people are desperate for any help, and applications to be on a waiting list are huge. When I applied for my subsidy, I had been on a waiting list for three years. I was working as a janitor for the place I was living, but the rent kept going up, and my wages were insufficient, so it was truly a miracle when an opening at a nearby senior housing complex opened up for me.

I learned what submitting to the will of God is like. Through the trembling, there was great love, but He insisted that I needed to pass through the test. Then, the email arrived, I was re-certified, and the burden vanished immediately.

This whole situation is mirrored in the lives of millions of people in Puget Sound, which includes Seattle and Tacoma and many other towns and cities. 

The solution is a simple one; rents need to be capped before they reach the point that people can't earn enough to pay rent. I told the mayor this on a forum, but they voted down the idea of rent caps - they don't need to pay rent, and the people owning the housing and buildings and real estate do not live here; they live in other places like China. Changes to laws permitting this must be made. If the leaders of the government refuse, they will pay a price. Unfortunately, the poor already pay too much. Many people can't pay the rent but live in homeless camps and work for a living, only the living is too little.

I pray that you pray that this situation be turned around. If the predicted "Big One" hits, then millions of people and the buildings that house them will be buried under rubble, and the investment of foreign countries will disappear with the investment of our our country in the catastrophe. There are other possibilities, of course. Puget Sound has the Cascade mountain range running centrally from norther california to the subduction zone under our feet. The result of the worst scenario is truly frightening to imagine. We can pray that we outlive the threat, but there is a substantial possibility that Seattle could be flattened.

We are not subject to hurricanes as the southern United States is, but there are other equally devastating possibilities we have yet to face. People can continue to act as if they are immune, but each day teaches me to pray for the people that the ambulances and aid cars pick up here and transport to hospitals. Many do not rerurn, but die and are never seen again. I have lost many good friends that way and each time a fire truck pulls up in our compound, I am reminded of them again and I pray.

Release

I have just emerged from a very difficult time. As I have said in the past, I live in subsidized senior housing. I have to re-certify my eligibility for the subsidy every year, and I got paperwork slid under my door during the night, that I needed to fill out to submit for re-certification. I filled out the paperwork, was careful to sign everywhere a signature was required and turned in the paperwork to the office. Then, it was returned - twice. I visited the office but they insisted some paperwork was missing, and I told them I received no paperwork and had returned all I received with copies of relevant information and signatures.
I talked to the guy who handles the re-certification paperwork, who gave me a telephone number and name of a person to talk to about my paperwork. I called, but the person I needed to talk to was not in her office. I wrote an email, because the time for submitting paperwork had expired and if the paperwork was not submitted on time, one could lose their subsidy and become homeless.

Rents are outrageously high in the whole Seattle area, which affects millions of people, many of whom have no subsidy and live on the street, if you can all that living.

Many miserable, terrified, sleepless days later, my email was answered, the person had received my  paperwork and I was re-certified. At one point, for about three years, I did not have to re-certify, only having to fill in much simpler forms and return them to the office. With high rents everywhere,  people are desperate for any help, and applications to be on a waiting list are huge. When I applied for my subsidy, I had been on a waiting list for three years. I was working as a janitor for the place I was living, but the rent kept going up, and my wages were insufficient, so it was truly a miracle when an opening at a nearby senior housing complex opened up for me.

I learned what submitting to the will of God is like. Through the trembling, there was great love, but He insisted that I needed to pass through the test. Then, the email arrived, I was re-certified, and the burden vanished immediately.

This whole situation is mirrored in the lives of millions of people in Puget Sound, which includes Seattle and Tacoma and many other towns and cities. 

The solution is a simple one; rents need to be capped before they reach the point that people can't earn enough to pay rent. I told the mayor this on a forum, but they voted down the idea of rent caps - they don't need to pay rent, and the people owning the housing and buildings and real estate do not live here; they live in other places like China. Changes to laws permitting this must be made. If the leaders of the government refuse, they will pay a price. Unfortunately, the poor already pay too much. Many people can't pay the rent but live in homeless camps and work for a living, only the living is too little.

I pray that you pray that this situation be turned around. If the predicted "Big One" hits, then millions of people and the buildings that house them will be buried under rubble, and the investment of foreign countries will disappear with the investment of our our country in the catastrophe. There are other possibilities, of course. Puget Sound has the Cascade mountain range running centrally from norther california to the subduction zone under our feet. The result of the worst scenario is truly frightening to imagine. We can pray that we outlive the threat, but there is a substantial possibility that Seattle could be flattened.

We are not subject to hurricanes as the southern United States is, but there are other equally devastating possibilities we have yet to face. People can continue to act as if they are immune, but each day teaches me to pray for the people that the ambulances and aid cars pick up here and transport to hospitals. Many do not rerurn, but die and are never seen again. I have lost many good friends that way and each time a fire truck pulls up in our compound, I am reminded of them again and I pray.

Types

 

There is prayer, then there is contemplative prayer. The latter is a precious gift. God gives it for a reason. One reason is that He must grant a greater degree of intimacy in order obtain from us, what He needs, and the soul that embarks upon a quest for intimate prayer must be terribly brave and unselfish. 

I had a time of many years of very intimate contemplative prayer. When that period ended, the current one began - a walk with Christ to the Cross, and to the passion-life. It can be a terrible spiritual dessication, interspersed with moments that are not so much illuminated with light, but lit on fire in a holocaust of love that is guaranteed to purify, and sanctify.

The solitary life is not devoid of human contact, but much of the contact can be on the spiritual plane. The kind that is on the earthly plane cannot hold a candle to the contemplative life on fire with God's love and the catastrophe of His touch.

Pray for your contemplatives, and prayer for your souls. If they are taken from our midst, we must do without the sweet fruits they win for us, except when God wishes to consume us entirely. If you chance upon a pierced soul whose wounds burn like the most awful fire, pause for a moment at least long enough to offer a drop of water for those souls who are in so much torment.