Service and Sacrifice

 Who are we talking about? Basically it is all about JESUS. He has the right to call a person out and set him or her aside in seclusion, solitude and silence. Their service becomes one of union with the suffering that sets people free and heals them. If we are only concerned with human feelings, we will never get any closer to Christ or healing and serving like Him. The life we are talking about is HIS, not our own, otherwise no one has the authority. We should judge no one and hold no one up to any other life or standard than Christ Himself. The very fact that He continues to suffer on the cross for our sake means that any union with Him will encounter the cross, since He is still one with the cross. Any union will be accomplished by merging with Him on the cross.+

Need

 The need of love, is love itself.

Touching

 

We must be as wise as serpents and

courageous as martyrs.

Every Christian should be aware that when you touch someone to heal them, you are touching their wounds. That in and of itself can deter a person from using a gift of healing, for fear of encountering the pain, and aggravating the suffering, but if one is deterred by these things, they are not healing, they are walking away from Jesus without saying a word, in an act of indifference that is more painful than any known suffering.

Some have the courage to touch, to offer prayer, to encounter the suffering, to enter into the wounds of Jesus, to confront His pain. He does not send us into the world with gifts to entertain us, but to go into the world equipped with a blessing for souls.

And what of that one that is sent out to be immersed into the wounds of Christ? The courage to ask to enter into another's suffering is the grace to set aside an ongoing reality of misery and bless another human being with the peace of wholeness and love. Jesus may be pained still from Golgotha, but He is not deterred by our cries as He imparts Himself into wounds in another person.

We live in an unprecdented din of noise and screams of loneliness and darkness. Jesus sends us to heal, to encounter wounds, so that precisley those people might be restore to peace and healing.

Pray for the healers in the world. In so doing you will bring peace.

Providence

Be at peace. He is providing.

I keep seeing videos of Russia being bankrupt and militarilly washed up, alongside Beijing having collapsed and China on the brink of political upheaval. It is hard to know how all these calamities  will be overcome; they must be overcome in order to continue as civilized human sociaties.

On the other hand, I read with disbelief, the ridiculous things being done to the government and the structures of our societies, and wonder just as much.

Perhaps worst of all, I can't imagine how the rubble can be cleared away and new cities be born from the collapse of the old ones. 

Science Fiction combines with reality to try to portray what will happen, and it is difficult to watch. On the other hand, we just had an anniversary of the nuclear attack on Japan, and see the results of attacks perpetrate by many different countries, on perceived enemies and how it can  be allowed and no possibility of being able to assist the victims. 

How can all this happen and no hope of rising appear? I appeal to Christians to set aside religious ideolgies so they can get in contact with religious reality in which the need for mercy screams at us to care.

It is like the pain in my hands, in precisely the places that would hurt if I were truly crucified. I have the means to palliate the pain, by taking pain  killing drugs. I also have the opportunity to just suffer with it and stand with my arms outstetched to Jesus offering all my heart struggles so to endure, begging for peace, for grace for redemption, hoping someone will care. It is easy to offer a word of comfort because the hard part, actually suffering, has already become part of my life and my life has come to be part of Christ's. 

I may not see, but I can know the way someone suddenly blinded might know what is going on around me. i takes patience and grace, love and an embrace of the God I serve. Sometimes it is I who embrace Him, and sometimes it is He who embraces me. My life is very small; I fear sometimes it is too small to help anyone in any way. Then it becomes clear to me that He is helping as He always has and always will, and I rest a litle in His arms.

Developments

 

From everywhere He reminds us of Himself,
and we must seek Him with all we can.

It is good to keep up with developments in the world, but not to the point that a video will supplant your reliance on Jesus. 

 The universe was created by God for us so we would have a place to live. He gave us intellect with which to chane the world so we might be able to live in it, but not to the extent that any human thought might overshadow God.

Atonement for our offenses against God  in the form of sin cannot oversharow Him to the point that we will supplant His will. The atonement necessary is just that, necessary and will be carried out.

The result of atoning for sin is the chance to show our love for Him and stand at His right side at the judgement. Judgement and a new creation will follow, and by then any alienation from God will be unfortunate.

We can see earthquakes, violent storms, volcanoes and the empty fury of nuclear war which render the earth  uninhabitable. There is no satisfaction to be had in mutual annihilation, and even less satisfaction in having our own will in our mututal wills.

Simplification and love in solitude and silence provide a way to go. There is no joy to anticipate except that rises out of love.

The frustration that modern people experience in life rises from lack of love for others, because God has made our will conditional to His. If our activities in life are  not gentle and purposeful toward the revelation of love for one another, it will remain futile.

Extremes

 

we are dealing with a man who has the  morality of an iguana, and the intellectual capacity of an earthworm.  He threatens to use nuclear weapons on Russia if they do not capitulate in Ukraine. Who does he plan to bomb with nuclear weapons to back up what he says? If anything, this will test what Jesus and Mary mean to us in reality, because these eventualities threaten to get out of hand, and the sole place sanity is evident is in a prayerful heart. Let us pray for peace and the Holy Spirit to influence people's raw emotions which threaten to get out of control and tear down what little is actually still left of civilization.

Treking

Regardless of  how much you wish to be far away from people, you may find that it is impossible. They live on in our memories and awareness.

If we are not engulfed in our own thoughts and consciousness, we are engulfed in something else, which may be very compelling. Such things are called temptations. The love of solitude is a healthy thing inasmuch as we spend our solitude in prayer, and not reminiscing about old friends or fond memories.

The pictures included on this post came from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV9Rc7yOSj0&ab_channel=ASunnyAdventure 

on Youtube. 

I spent quite a a bit of time searching for the photos included, two of which are of the sign and turn off that go to New Camaldoli Hermitage, and the Nepenthe Resort across the highway and down the mountainside a ways. At the moment the monastery is inaccessible because bad weather washed out the road. There is another route that can be taken to the monastery from the south but I don't know the particulars of how to get on the other route to arrive at the monastery. But, if you are looking for silence and solitude, the monastery is a great refuge from the din.