Losing to Gravity

Art by Jeffrey T. Larson, Laughing Ladies

thought one:

I realized that the widening jaw line of women, heretofore a grievous change, actually serves to move us physically from being mere women into being matriarchs in the society. As our chins widen, so does our authority. "Say something and see what happens," or as my mother put it, "That's enough," suddenly becomes enough. There is a new gravity we demand commensurate to the gravity of our cheeks. 

There are advantages to aging.

thought two: Why teaching at a Christian school is the best:

Teaching how setting affects plot:

"How would Jesus’ birth have been different if He had been born in 2025 America?

What would be the same?

What would be different?

Why is God, the Author of History, able to pick the correct time and place for things?"

Just thought, not to get serious or anything, but He would have made the powerful (who love darkness rather than light) very jealous and the meek (of whom is the Kingdom of God) rejoice. Godless religious leaders would probably still deliver Him into a miscarriage of justice on the part of the civil authorities, who had formerly aspired to better things, because the world in its wisdom chose not to know Christ, who is the end of the law for all who believe. Although uneasy, they probably would acquiesce for political reasons.

Dang. 

Execution doesn't happen so speedily here. We do live post-Jesus, and it shows. A Muslim country more likely? Seems like an appearance of Christ would split their religious community down the middle. America's religious don't seem to be earnest enough for things to get that serious. Tight-knit Calvinist circles? Could have happened frequently in Europe, but the political would have been too tightly aligned with the religious, and maybe too complete in eradicating the followers. No, the first century it had to be.

thought three: 

Ecclesiastes on Holy Saturday narrated by an unreliable narrator, but a very intellectual one. He has many good points in quick succession. We were already told he was the wisest man ever, and he says it's all vanity.

1 Corinthians 15 written by a man determined to count all things loss for one great thing. Calls them rubbish, actually. So, if there were no Resurrection, pity the poor Christian fools who indeed build their life upon vapor. The lacerated and incarcerated grandcousin of Solomon stands up to contradict: This Fact you did not take into consideration. And because of that, you are wrong; we don't need to just eat and drink to forget that tomorrow we shall die. We eat and drink and give thanks because tomorrow we shall die, and then live. Vapor turns into grace. "Never enough" turns into "My grace is sufficient". Meaninglessness turns into sacrament. A cry of "empty" turns into songs of "thank You."

He descended to the dead.

On the third day, He rose again.

thought four:

Can't stop.

"The human being is earth that suffers." -Barnabas

Good Friday

Art by https://www.fullofeyes.com/good-friday-2023/

thought one: 

The corruption is mine.

The life is Yours.

 thought two:

What is the significance of the fact that women accompanied Christ to the Cross? John, yes, too. But the crowd of women? An the anointing of Mary for His burial?

I feel it is related to Eve.

thought three: 

Mockery from evil stands out as a theme in the Crucifixion. But today, so did fear.

"Now I know that you fear God, you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me"

"And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words." Mark 14

"And they all left him and fled." Mark 14:50

"When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. " John 22

"And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, 67 and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” 68 But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway..." Mark 22

"When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?”"

"From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”"

"After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus[e] by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds[f] in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews."

Mark 14: 43 "Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. "

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,[c] Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

1 Peter 2

16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants[d] of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

1 Peter 3

"And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening." [submission and living in peace with spouse in a book devoted to the theme of suffering...!]

"14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil."

19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

thought four:

"After my own journey, I am ever mindful that somewhere in the pew, someone is doing what they always do while sincerely doubting their ability to hold onto their faith." -Kate Miller, Ancient Words in a Crisis of Faith

"Rule No. 23 When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always shew Pity to the Suffering Offender."

 - copied by George Washington, Rules of Civility.

What a man to be capable of recognizing such a thing.

Thought One: M. Henry on the Triumphal Entry

"Those that have a true value and veneration for Christ will neither be ashamed nor afraid to own him before men in any instance whereby they may do him honour."

Thought Two:

" (2.) Perhaps they were those more devout Jews that came up to the feast some time before, to purify themselves, that were more inclined to religion than their neighbours, and these were they that were so forward to honour Christ. Note, The more regard men have to God and religion in general, the better disposed they will be to entertain Christ and his religion, which is not destructive but perfective of all previous discoveries and institutions."

Morals and religion get such a bad rap these days, but I don't see that in Scripture.

The moral or religious are people living closer to the design of humanity.

It won't save them.

But morality/ religion is, in themselves, good.

They are you disagreeing less with God about how humans work. They are you submitting to something outside of your fickle self. They are you being more, not less human.

If they stand in the way of receiving Christ, if they are what you place all your trust in, if they don't include the love for God and neighbor defined in Scripture, it's an idol. But it's a good thing distorted.

Thought Three:

"Unbelieving fears are enemies to spiritual joys; if they be cured, if they be conquered, joy will come of course; Christ comes to his people to silence their fears. If the case be so that we cannot reach to the exultations of joy, yet we should labour to get from under the oppressions of fear. Rejoice greatly; at least, fear not."

Thought Four: Brother on a roll today.

" It well becomes the disciples of Christ, when they are grown up to maturity in knowledge, frequently to reflect upon the follies and weaknesses of their first beginning, that free grace may have the glory of their proficiency, and they may have compassion on the ignorant. When I was a child, I spoke as a child."

"cultural messages that can dehumanize ("excarnate")"

  From Dr. Leslie Thyburg's Catechism class @ Trinity Anglican Seminary:

"As Lent has begun, I’ve been thinking about different kinds of deserts. 

There are deserts we have chosen, and ones that we have not. There are deserts that seem devoid of life and sustenance, and ones that hold hidden wellsprings and remarkable beauty. There are deserts where we might feel completely alone, and ones where, to our surprise, help and company come to us in forms we did not expect.

Sometimes these are all the same desert, and we are the ones who become different as we travel deeper into it, able to perceive and know more clearly what the desert holds than we did when we first entered into it.

Always a desert changes us, if we allow it. And this is what Lent offers to us. This season provides a landscape that welcomes our own inner terrain: our fear, pain, and grief; our joy, solace, and hope; and the wild space within us where all of this lives together. Lent tells us that everything we carry in us—everything we carry in us—is met, held, and transformed in Love.

As we move into this season, this is a blessing for you."

"Where the Breath Begins

Dry
and dry
and dry
in each direction.

Dust dry.
Desert dry.
Bone dry.

And here
in your own heart:
dry,
the center of your chest
a bare valley
stretching out
every way you turn.

Did you think
this was where
you had come to die?

It’s true that
you may need
to do some crumbling,
yes.
That some things
you have protected
may want to be
laid bare,
yes.
That you will be asked
to let go
and let go,
yes.

But listen.
This is what
a desert is for.

If you have come here
desolate,
if you have come here
deflated,
then thank your lucky stars
the desert is where
you have landed—
here where it is hard
to hide,
here where it is unwise
to rely on your own devices,
here where you will
have to look
and look again
and look close
to find what refreshment waits
to reveal itself to you.

I tell you,
though it may be hard
to see it now,
this is where
your greatest blessing
will find you.

I tell you,
this is where
you will receive
your life again.

I tell you,
this is where
the breath begins.

—Jan Richardson"

On how to spot wolves

Thought One: How to Spot Wolves

"What affections and practices will they lead those into, that embrace them? If the doctrine be of God, it will tend to promote serious piety, humility, charity, holiness, and love, with other Christian graces; but if, on the contrary, the doctrines these prophets preach have a manifest tendency to make people proud, worldly, and contentious, to make them loose and careless in their conversations, unjust or uncharitable, factious or disturbers of the public peace; if it indulge carnal liberty, and take people off from governing themselves and their families by the strict rules of the narrow way, we may conclude, that this persuasion comes not of him that calleth us, Gal. 5:8. This wisdom is from above, Jas. 3:15. Faith and a good conscience are held together..."

Thought Two: The Son of Man has no place to lay His head

"It may encourage us to trust God for necessaries, that the beasts and birds have such good provision; and may comfort us, if we want necessaries, that our Master did so before us. Note, Our Lord Jesus, when he was here in the world, submitted to the disgraces and distresses of extreme poverty; for our sakes he became poor, very poor. He had not a settlement, had not a place of repose, not a house of his own, to put his head in, not a pillow of his own, to lay his head on. He and his disciples lived upon the charity of well-disposed people, that ministered to him of their substance, Luke 8:2. Christ submitted to this, not only that he might in all respects humble himself, and fulfil the scriptures, which spake of him as poor and needy, but that he might show us the vanity of worldly wealth, and teach us to look upon it with a holy contempt; that he might purchase better things for us, and so make us rich, 2 Cor. 8:9."

[Contrast warning with Jesus' invitation to first disciples' query, "Lord, where are you staying?"

"Come and see."]

 "Christ would have us, when we take upon us a profession of religion, to sit down and count the cost (Luke 14:28), to do it intelligently, and with consideration, and choose the way of godliness, not because we know no other, but because we know no better. It is no advantage to religion, to take men by surprise, ere they are aware. They that take up a profession in a pang, will throw it off again in a fret; let them, therefore, take time, and they will have done the sooner: let him that will follow Christ know the worst of it, and expect to lie hard, and fare hard. "

Thought Three: On Excuses

"This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea. Note, An unwilling mind never wants an excuse. The meaning of Non vacat is, Non placet—The want of leisure is the want of inclination. "

Orthopathy

Orthopathy: right feeling/ affections- right ordering of affections; having the mind of Christ

Thought One:

Katēcheō

Origin: Derived from kata ("down" or "according to") and echos ("sound" or "noise")

Thought Two:

""Memorization is underrated. But it’s understandable that contemporary society puts it down: Why worry about mental storage when we have digital storage?

One answer is that repentance depends on memory. Thus, memorization is a Lenten practice, a repentant turning back to the memory of God. "

...Memorization is a Lenten practice, reshaping our memories to be like God’s. When our memories are reshaped and reordered according to the immutable faithfulness of God in Christ, we re-appropriate God’s character—his steadfast love, his mercy, his compassion. Repentance, therefore, is a turning back to the virtues of God as we see them in Christ. Being united to him, we are united to the very character of God, for it is in the God-man that God’s virtue and human virtue meet. The hypostatic union is the locus of our repentance: In Christ human memory is re-figured to the memory of God.

Memorization may be a largely abandoned practice. But is by memorizing that we turn away from sinful distraction and share in God’s own, ever-reliable memory in Christ."

 -Fr. Hans Boersma

Thought Three: (But of course we must hear the right Reverend on Matthew 6):

“ Fasting is here put last, because it is not so much a duty for its own sake, as a means to dispose us for other duties. “

“It is an act of self-denial, and mortification of the flesh, a holy revenge upon ourselves, and humiliation under the hand of God. The most grown Christians must hereby own, they are so far from having any thing to be proud of, that they are unworthy of their daily bread. It is a means to curb the flesh and the desires of it, and to make us more lively in religious exercises, as fulness of bread is apt to make us drowsy. Paul was in fastings often, and so he kept under this body, and brought it into subjection.” - Matthew Henry

I'm sure I should fast food.

I make it far more complicated than it ought to be.

But in the meantime, Ash Wednesday is Feb. 18.

Food is a good thing, but the following have definitely negative results:

- Facebook (waste of time and ticks me off)

- Reading about politics (makes me feel both intelligent and morally superior)

- being snippy to my sister (my whole inward disposition, really)

May be sins to stop, and not things to give up "for Lent." Remedial Lent.

Thought four: on treasure

"In choosing the treasure we lay up. Something or other every man has which he makes his treasure, his portion, which his heart is upon, to which he carries all he can get, and which he depends upon for futurity."

"We must not covet an abundance of these things, nor be still grasping at more and more of them, and adding to them, as men do to that which is their treasure, as never knowing when we have enough. (3.) We must not confide in them for futurity, to be our security and supply in time to come; we must not say to the gold, Thou art my hope. (4.) We must not content ourselves with them, as all we need or desire: we must be content with a little for our passage, but not with all for our portion. These things must not be made our consolation (Luke 6:24), our good things, Luke 16:25. "

" It concerns thee to choose wisely, for thou art choosing for thyself, and shalt have as thou choosest. "

"Where the treasure is, there our cares and fears are, lest we come short of it; about that we are most solicitous; there our hope and trust are (Prov. 18:10, 11); there our joys and delights will be (Ps. 119:111); and there our thoughts will be, there the inward thought will be, the first thought, the free thought, the fixed thought, the frequent, the familiar thought. The heart is God’s due (Prov. 23:26), and that he may have it, our treasure must be laid up with him, and then our souls will be lifted up to him."

"Our treasure is our alms, prayers, and fastings, and the reward of them; if we have done these only to gain the applause of men, we have laid up this treasure on earth, have lodged it in the hands of men, and must never expect to hear any further of it. "

"The eye, that is, the heart (so some) if that be single—haplous—free and bountiful "

"but if the heart be evil, covetous, and hard, and envious, griping and grudging (such a temper of mind is often expressed by an evil eye, Matt. 20:15; Mark 7:22; Prov. 7:22), the body will be full of darkness, the whole conversation will be heathenish and unchristian. "

" The eye, that is, the understanding (so some); the practical judgment, the conscience, which is to the other faculties of the soul, as the eye is to the body, to guide and direct their motions; now if this eye be single, if it make a true and right judgment, and discern things that differ, especially in the great concern of laying up the treasure so as to choose aright in that, it will rightly guide the affections and actions, which will all be full of the light of grace and comfort; but if this be evil and corrupt, and instead of leading the inferior powers, is led, and bribed, and biassed by them, if this be erroneous and misinformed, the heart and life must needs be full of darkness, and the whole conversation corrupt."

"therefore it concerns us to understand things aright, to get our eyes anointed with eye-salve."

"God says, “My son, give me thy heart.” Mammon says, “No, give it me.” God says, “Be content with such things as ye have.” Mammon says, “Grasp at all that ever thou canst. Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem—Money, money; by fair means or by foul, money.” God says, “Defraud not, never lie, be honest and just in all thy dealings.” Mammon says “Cheat thine own Father, if thou canst gain by it.” God says, “Be charitable.” Mammon says, “Hold thy own: this giving undoes us all.” God says, “Be careful for nothing.” Mammon says, “Be careful for every thing.” God says, “Keep holy thy sabbath-day.” Mammon says, “Make use of that day as well as any other for the world.”"

"Let us not then halt between God and Baal, but choose ye this day whom ye will serve, and abide by our choice."