Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Wednesday and November ADD Irregulars, Vagabonds of the WSN, Friends, Refugees, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Conversants, Lurkers, Phamily, Dawn Patrol, Triggeratti, Beautiful Bigots, Fascinating People and all Seekers of Sanity & Civility! I never did make a beginning of the month post for November, the day got ahead of me with its comings and goings. But today is here, and here we go at it again.
How about some quotes about death & dying today since in Cath-O-land it is all Souls Day and for many in Spanish cultures it is El Día de los Muertos. These Days of the Dead encapsulate All Saints (yesterday) and All Souls (today) and often overshadow the rest of the month. They are not meant to be days of morbidity and fear but rather celebrations of life and remembrance. The celebrations are often a syncretistic blending Catholic prayers for the Dead during November with some of the Ancestor remembrance and worship found in many cultures. Honoring the past is often as healthy thing for culture as it is for an individual. Destroying your past never allows one to learn from the difficult chapter or find integration through forgiveness. Forgiveness is never a blanket whitewashing of the past, like say amnesty which is a trendy word for the moment thanks to those who want a free pass on past actions. Forgiveness only works when there is accountability and repentance, not when there is a forgetful ignoring of the past as if "nothing happened." Lying poisons relationships and it is lethal when both the liar and the deceived know the lie is afoot and unaccounted.
Sorry, digressing, back to death and dying and some quotes. Perhaps a weeks worth, stay tuned for tomorrow. 🌞
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death. - Socrates
Few things have enriched my living more than thinking of dying. Few things have made me use time better than knowing it is not limitless. When I keep that awareness before me I experience many more days that are fruitful and vibrant rather than grey and nondescript. I hope it is many years from now but I try to be mindful of the moment being potential unknown.
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. - Pope Paul VI
There are only so many tomorrows - figure out what you think your life is about and get to it. Vocational discernment, discovery of your talent, realization of your passion or gift is much better for our youth than the standard grind of indoctrination-education. Discern well, but act on it sooner than later. That seems to be some of the best advice as we find our pilgrim journey and its meaning. Of course if you are prone to think life has no meaning, then enjoy the blindfolded roller coaster ride called life and death. Life is full of meaningful experiences even if one is prone to think there is no greater meaning at all.
All my life's about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn't cost very much money. - Norm MacDonald
I hope my last words are none of the following: Hold my beer or Watch this! or Oh oh After faith, nothing helps me find meaning, purpose and mindful discernment like humor. Prayer (meditation if you are not a deists, they are different but similar enough) and laughter are some of the best things I have brought along on my pilgrimage of life. Happy Wednesday Digital Neighbors!
Forest Sun in November
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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Good morning, digital neighbors! Blessed Sabbath to all my neighbors in Judaism and happy Saturday to all the rest of us! How about a few quotes on autumn for this fine autumn morning and a trip down memory lane for some of us? Have a great day, my friends!
"Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, / We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!" – Humbert Wolfe, "Autumn (Resignation)" (1926)
"Again the wind / flakes gold-leaf from the trees and the painting darkens— / as if a thousand penitents kissed an icon / till it thinned back to bare wood, / without diminishment." – Jane Hirshfield, "Autumn" (The Paris Review, 1988)
"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits." – Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903)
When I think of autumn and childhood, I always think of this old Disney cartoon. I probably watch it every autumn in the days leading up to Halloween. Enjoy!
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
