Turn It Off

 

Microsoft is in a ridiculous position. On the one hand it wants people to quit using windows 10 and use windows 11, but deliberately bars people from upgrading to windows 11 from windows 10. They state that hardware requirements and security as the reasons for not allowing an upgrade to windows 10. I have gotten to like windows 11 and find my self feeling very frustrated at being prevented by microsoft from upgrading.

Microsoft will never win any awards for security because of their sloppy practices when it comes to writing software to be used for security, or software to be used for other things. 

I even went to so far as to buy a refurbished system that was advertised as having windows 11 installed. That never happened. The system works, but it is stuck in windows 10 and can't be upgraded. I have tried some of the hacks people touted, but that didn't work. I wasted my money, but now they say that they will allow upgrading my system to install windows 11, onlly, if there is a button to click, it hasn't shown up. Frankly, it is very nasty indeed that they encourage people to tinker with the brains of the system to try to accomplish their purpose, because a mistake could brick the system insensible altogether.

So what use is microsoft or windows 11 if a person can't use what they  produce and they refuse to allow things to work? At one point I thought Linux might be an answer, and the temporary trial worked; I went from a windows environment to a Linux distribution, but the moment I wanted Linux to install permanently in place of windows, all hell broke loose and I even had to replace the hard drive. So Linux was not the answer. Apple has its own little own little kindgom, but membership in that realm is way to rich for my blood. I also have misgivings about how easy or difficult it might be to be born again as an Apple enthusiast, after some very unpleasant moments caused by bad upgrades and password snafus. I will never go through that again.

That doesn't leave much. But I am also aware of things looming beyond the horizon that might make doing things digitally very difficult, like power blackouts, massive earthquakes, disease epidemics and political catastrophes brought on by half-wit mental defective mouldering politicians and their nuclear bombs.

All my faith and trust in God are tested by other people and the things they do to other people to satisfy themselves. Why God doesn't give a hint at how we might turn things around without one or another of the above mentioned catastrophes slamminng down on us.

One is left wondering what will happen, why it was'nt averted or why God didn't step in and say "enough!" and bring the whole machine to a screeching halt and say what's on His Mind to set everything straight. The thing is, that could still happen without megatsunamis or nuclear warheads. I don't know how it would happen, or the consequences of an act of God falling on us in one preemptive moment. God's love nothwithstanding, He  insists on  justice for Himself. People who keep on trucking day after day without a change don't make things any easier on the rest.

The sun is coming up, it is bright  out and clear but the air is foul with a mixture of automobile engine exhaust and naturally  occurring wildfiire smoke lingering in the air.

I encourage everyone to sit down someplace quiet and be at peace long enough to get in touch with what's goin on inside themselves. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Clouds

 Clouds

I give thanks for dark and gloomy clouds for the way they reassure my soul and the way their bright light illuminates my soul.

If He can take care of my sad mood, surelly He is able to do all else that is necessary.

I give thanks for rainfall in the night's quiet which lifts up my soul.

A melody lifts me up, a blackbird's bright patches fluffing up when he sings reassures me when I am afraid.The bird is not afraid to sing, in spite of predators, giving away his hiding place. I will hide in His cloak and in His Heart I will take refuge and I will be safe, even if the nails of crucifixion explode within my wrists and feet. He bore all for me, shall I refuse Him anything?

Wingbeats

Not a single beat of his wings 

goes unnoticed by the Lord.

If it is necessary for you to change the way you live so that you are in solitude and silence, He will surely let you know. There are many ways to know; a way for each person on earth, so that there is great scope and variety, in accordance with the idea that there is never another you. You're it.

I found the thought of Nw Camaldoli intriguing and attractive, but it was not what God wanted, so that I do not live there today, and am not a member of that august community.

One should not be concerned with being unique. Each person is unrepeatable. So that having left behind the issue ot being unique is instantly resolved and you can get on to other more pressing things.

Do not worry about need. Each of us was born completely helpless and entirely dependant on other human beings for survival. Jesus told us in Scripture that we should not worry, that each day is sufficient to itself. Some, at this point, would wonder what's next, but that moment is taken care of by His Will.

So there are few things of concern still needful; prayer, dealing with solitude, responding to silence and solitude. These are full of enough urgency all by themselves. Haiving come and responded to the notion of joining a community or finding a place where one can truly be alone and live in silence, the moment is at hand when the stream of our prayers begins and we strive to keep it flowing, meaningfully and intensely. A person who thinks he can just plop down any old way in any old desert without preparation is nuts. He will discover that soon enough, if he is not prepared.

Eternity does not end, hence the necessity to be earnest in what one does in the presence of God. There is space enough in our time to respond to God, because He has built each day and moment until we are trained and ready for eternity. If we are sincerey, we will be prepared for eternity, and that care is wiped from  our consciousness. What remains is to be responsive to God, letting the stream of our prayers be as natural as our next breath.

There are enough people in need or in troubles of all sorts so that they are in jeopardy of losing their eternity because they are unaware of eternity or what it means. The world will try to take away our meaning so that our heading and our helm in life are unattended, not a good way to run a ship.

God will never cease calling us and longing for our presence, and if we love Him, we will be full of longing for Him. Let it not be hollow, empty, meaningless. How prescious the longing is that ties us to Himself. He will not let us fall from the cross to which He has fastened us, nor should we fear what the next moment brings, because we are attached to Him the way He is attached to the cross. Our hearts are attached to the Lord, so how do we become detached? by letting anything else occupy the space in our time and our awareness fostered by the Lord and trusting in Him. He cannot foul up the moment of our transition from our here and now that way the world can, and it abhors a steady man who trusts in God, and is dismayed that anything worldly might slip into oblivion as we meld into the Lord. Yet, do not be concerned. He knows our needs and the needs of those we pray for, and will bless us quietly for our prayers. If we love others more than ourselves, we cannot be lost because it always fulfills each need and leaves us satisfied and fulfilled as we will be in eternity.

We need noy be concerned for fancy clothes, rich foods or honors and recognitions, for there is nothing so valuable that we should forsake what God has forged, for somthing else. Do not forsake His Heart for any other, or any other person.

You need not worry about rules and regulations. The worldly are always fussing and quibbling over rules and regulations, but their concern is a waste of time better dedicated to the love of God. Do you think He knows if we love Him? Do you think He cannot draw us closer to Himself? Give time into His hands and He will see to it we satisfy His Heart.

Missing

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV9Rc7yOSj0&ab_channel=ASunnyAdventure

Our incomplete love is at fault for our inordinate longings. We are reluctant to admit how much someone means to us and what it  means when their presence is denied.

It is a shadow of the longing of all creation for unity with God, who made everything and orders all things in harmony, including us in His most lavish treats.

As much as we can miss a friend, He misses us infinitely more, and we do not always realize how great His love is until somehow He catches us in an idle moment and steals a bit of our heart, just enough to burn beyond enduring.

Union can catch us off guard, and reshape our life. The pain of our wounded heart longs to be whole again, but until we are ready to surrender all our defenses, so that we can feel the cross, we will waste most of our life not realizing what has happened to us or what is necessary to remedy the situation. To let it hurt as much as it wants to, and the Heart of Christ has finished binding us to Him and to the cross to become a fountain of grace and life to all who are near us.

See if it is so. Dare to sit still long enough, and let your distracted heart rest a bit until you are ready. 

If our dessication was not immensely worth it,
He would not bother with us at all. He is never content
to miss us and do without our company.

Contemplation

 

In transcendant prayer, words become a nuisance.

Contemplation is a gift of God, and blessed be the man who takes up prayer to encounter God in Himself. Lesser forms of prayer are no less desireable or meritorious, but prayerful living is not as common among the great numbers of persons.

To be given the gift of contemplative prayer is a blessing not that frequent, though those who have practised it have been swiftly swept up into God Himself to the wonder of the common observer.

It stands to reason, then, that for most persons, a fruitful prayer life is a great blessing as well, and the exuberance of joy expressed in pilgrimages and processions and decorations such as beautiful flowers are a means of expressing delight in the life and the Lord, every bit as much as contemplative ecstasies and other states of exaltation.

There is too, the injunction of the Lord that whoever is ashamed of Him, He is ashamed of them, and the lavishness of processions and services at church are a bold means to express love of a prayerful life in service to the Lord, to remind those who reject God that there are punishments for such behavior and blessings for life for those whose love of God is plainly demonstrated in a secular world. To get anyone to pray in public is a monumental task.Those involved in habitually encountering Jesus in contemplation are immediately engrossed in Him to their delight.

to divest our celebrations of God by foregoing processions, songs and vocal prayers as well as floral displays impoverishes our celebrations of God and dilutes our witness to the world. If some have taken advantage of the sentimentalities of persons by concetrating on the monetary gains to be had by a community celebrating a feast is obnoxious to the Lord, but we should reform our celebrations and not forbid them. 

Since contemplative prayer is a gift, it is not given widely among the congregation. When it is given, it is  meant to inform and instruct as well as to immerse a whole person in the experience of God as a consolation all His own. Often, the gift is given because a person has invested his entire self exclusively in God and desiring His presence not merely or solely so that one might be consoled but so that the Lord might be made known to all by the giving of and experience of Himself that rewards and demonstrates life perfected in His holiness.

Often God manifests Himself in a special way to someone as a demonstration of a service or special charism to exercise among the faithful where poverty and violence have been the common experience of life.

There are wealthy people in the world because there are the poor, and only the wealthy have the opportunity or means of alleviating the suffering of others. It is fitting therefore, that persons be raised up in the world who are gifted with the most intimate prayer to God so that they might console the unconsoled, the impoverished and those bereft of joy in its many forms.

In life there is misfortune, and many who profess only to make everyone they encoutner as miserable as possible. God has the right to snatch such miserable creatures out of their recreation, to turn them around and uplift them so they may lift the suffering out of their sorrows for the Lord's sake. We ought to give God thanks in all ways but most especially in our prayers for His providence, and if possible, by having processions that express every form of prayer and song and recital. To ban celebrations and demonstrations of solidarity with God is a mistake. Life for so many people is dreadfully tiresome and unenjoable. Anyone who exercises his ability to lift up others ought to be blessed for his love of God, and he should express his delight in Him in every way possible.

In order to pray it is necessary that one concentrate on the Lord; He then, if He so desires, can lift one up out of himself, and if one's appreciation and gratitude are sufficient, the delight given will transcend common life to enhance it with gratitude and the swelling of the feelings to more closely resemble those of Christ.

Adversaries

I am humbled because He forgives us.

Let us not forget that our adversaries may be cleverer than us, and more intelligent. That they can weaponize their cleverness ought to promote a desire to exceed their cleverness and that we might be able to use it for survival when the enemy is acting so as to destroy us, but might overlook something we already recognize..

If we are clever, we should also be wise. If we build a sword that is revolutionary in the context of military tactics, let us remember to build it with a steel that can cleave stone; if a sword is created from faulty iron, and we try to cut down an enemy with it, we may find the enemy cutting down our swords and killing us.

Let us not think we are superior to anyone else, for if our weaknesses are brought up before our eyes, we ought to own them and embrace them as if they contain some unseen merit so that we might succeed where others engage us to annihilate us.

We are sinners, and are subject to death; Forgiveness and healing of our weaknesses ought to prompt hummility in us and to remember that God is merciful and forgiving as well as healing what is broken in us. For if God acts to heal us, He demonstrates His superiority over us, and if we have embraced humility, He will respond to our moves with appreciation and love, and not let death overtake us.

Let us remember that we all are subject to death and our days are numered; there is only so much time to act as humbly as God Himself, for that is what He intends in extending His clemency to us.

Whatever offenses we acknowledge were born by us, let us remember God has forgiven us and not hold judgement over others.

Retribution belongs to God, and forgiveness is not held against us. Before condemning others, let us apologize for the wrongs that we have committed, and not foment wars to right supposed wrongs when everything we have thought and done can be deemed an injury inflicted on another. Sharing instead of greed will avoid a war, and a war averted is a great mercy which protects everyone from death and destruction so that good might be spread on earth that prospers everyone.

God views us according to forgiveness and mercy so that the most forgiving and most merciful are superior to those who are given to demonstrate miracles and spiritual prodigies.

Let us fulfill the promise that wars will cease, and a new heaven and earth will be created for the just to live in. We live in the universe we can scarcely see let alone undertand,, and we cannot grasp it until the old has passed away. We shall be stupified indeed if God has forgiven all sin but we are found committing the final sin before the old is erased by the new.

Let it be said that we busied ourselves working the works of peace and not of war, building rather than tearing down, building just peace and forgetting wars and killing so that we may forget each others' sins before God and making Him glad He was merciful to us when the first sin was committed, and endured our ignorance to Him in crucifying Him so there might be forgiveness and peace in the world.

Divisions

The light of a fire lights up the sky.

Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else knows a word that can bring peace; it is in God and is revealed not to liars and evildoers but to those who came close to God and were changed, as God changed Moses on the mountain.

Scheming and trickery will not bring peace, because true peace is not a human thing, but a divine one.

Pray that God should send a man to whom He has spoken the word that changes hearts and minds and delves into the hearts of people who do not know that they are chosen to be a tabernacle of peace.

They are few because very many cannot hear because of their worldly hearts, always seeking the divine but failing to see Him or hear Him or know Him. 

God wishes to uncover His children so they can be seen and come to know God. The land itself burns in the heat of drought, but it is not earthly water that He desires, but souls to sit listening in the silence for the holy word in the garden of God where He speaks to the holy in the silence.

You cannot find truth in worldly minds, but God can see and He can bring forth delights. Pray for peace and expect it to come from the light of God, not from men.