From my backyard about a year ago...
Posted on 07/01/2010 9:03:55 AM PDT by Mad Dawg
Happy Birthday.
Thank you!
I wonder if it is good to use the ‘spur’ of ‘mediocrity’. While the thought is true, I would be happy to be one of the Lord’s mediocrities.
Still, it is a good line. Certainly we can rejoice in the hope that great sinners often are made into great saints.
I have hopes for a jailed sexual offender and crack-head. Only hopes, but when he is NOT on an addictive tear he is very clear and sincere in his appeals to heaven. Now that he is, I hope, locked away from drugs for more than 10 years, maybe God will cultivate some real virtue in him.
Pray for Joe, please. I Baptized him some 20 years ago. I think his conversion was real, but his subsequent fall was dreadful.
Wow. I read your post to me just after I posted this:
Consider Joe added to my prayer list.
I wonder if it is good to use the ‘spur’ of ‘mediocrity’. While the thought is true, I would be happy to be one of the Lord’s mediocrities.
Hmmm...if mediocrity denotes "average" you've got some leeway, but what if mediocrity veers dangerously close to "lukewarm"?
Glory to God!
Which is more fun, seriously? Would you prefer listening to people praise you or to join with people all praising a beautiful sunset?
I’m going with the sunset, myself. Sure, I like to be praised, but it also makes me squirm almost as much as being blamed does. Far better, for more fun to forget about me and to enjoy the sunset.
And a sunset is just a trick of Creation, while the glorious Son, through whom such beauties come to us, is forever far more beautiful. If a sunset can lift us out of ourselves, how much more does He lift us from these mortal bodies and ridiculous selves into His glorious life, where the praise is forever His!
Just sayin’.
And let’s, those who care to, praise God for calling poor Mary of Magdala to be first to know the resurrection. If a former hooker, as she was alleged to be, can be the first to proclaim the Good News, there may be a little hope (no, there IS a GREAT hope) even for us.
And Happy Day Tax-Chick!
Me, too.
My mother sent me flowers. I'm cleaning up so they can be admired more easily. Dragons sure make a mess.
I like that post over there.
I was taking mediocrity only in the sense of average. Being the best we can be in the Army of Christ MAY involve being content to be mediocre. And arbutus is a mediocre flower, but it is still flower all the way through.
Lukewarm is, you are right, a calamity.
Amen to the prayers....and Mary Magdalene is one of my very favorite saints! ;-)
From my backyard about a year ago...
Wow!
He does good work, huh?
Great photo? Digital or what?
Digital photo, no editing or changes to the colors. That was one of those evenings where the sky was on fire. The spectacular sunsets are a blast, but my wife and I often sit and watch the more subtle ones, with various shades of blue, turquoise and purple mingling with the reds, oranges and pinks.
It amazes me when I meet people who don’t believe in God. It takes a terrible sort of blindness to look at that and see variations in the wavelengths of light penetrating due to dust, moisture, etc. Science describes, but it doesn’t explain.
And for uncounted years, often in a place no human eye can see it, God paints the sky with incredible beauty. Because God is infinite. Because he is an artist. Because he enjoys beauty and good, and delights in it. And sometimes, at your feet, you will look down and see a delicate flower no bigger than your little finger’s nail, and you cannot see its intricate beauty without magnification. In a few days it will be gone, and millions of them come and go and are seen by God alone...or perhaps by God and all the angels.
And people wonder what heaven will be like? We cannot imagine.
But yeah, if the beauty put in places where men do not see it is merely a kind of analogy for the beauty of Him who created beauty, then, well, wow.
Day, oh, whatever, um, 23, yeah.
If I pray for virtue, I realize soon not only that I have no virtue of my own, but that without God’s help I am not a strong enough vessel to bear His virtue.
The excellence of this Litany is that it approaches humility not simply by saying, “Lord, could you grant me that grace,” so much as saying, “Lord would you grant me the grace of humility by giving me the grace to WANT it?”
Wow. Yes it’s a big duh, but I guess it bears saying: Without Him, we really are a mess.
Lord, do not abandon us, however much we try to push you away.
Good morning.
Backatcha? Sleep any last night? I’m beginning my 4th day post norvasc and feeling WAY better!
Not enough, but that's my fault for staying up conversing with my husband. The baby went back to sleep without complaints.
I'm glad to know you're doing better!
Sometimes, I think the treatment may be worse than the disease ...
Day 23 it is. How well do you think it’s working? :)
Yeah, that's it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I seem to have a log in my eye ....
I have noticed that you have achieved a superior level of humility over the last 23 days. :)
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