AspieWritesWhat

Monday Dec. 19, 2016 source:  https://wonderingfair.com So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him,  “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,   and you will  know the truth, and the truth  will set you free.” ~ John 8:31-32 (ESV) “No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ultimately self-destructive. Evil may set out to corrupt others, but in the process corrupts itself.”  ―  John Connolly ,  The Infernals “You think that your laws correct evil - they only increase it. There is but one way to end evil - by rendering good for evil to all men without distinction.”  ―  Leo Tolstoy ,  Christians and the Law-Courts       Christ sets us free, of that there can be no doubt! The freedom we have as members of Christ's body, and the mind-boggling scope of that freedom, is not easily grasped. We are inheritors of a peace that surpasses all un...

Sunday Dec. 4, 2016           "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" rings the unending cry of the four seraphim surrounding the Throne of Yahweh in Revelation 4:8b . This is the absolute holiness of the One who lives for ever and ever, all-annihilating, unapproachable save for one small doorway at the end of a long and narrow path. It's a mockingly small doorway by any worldly measure, just big enough for the faithful to enter through if they grovel on hands and knees with their faces in the dirt.  The holiness of the Lamb shines ever brighter as Church history yields ever more to the scrutiny of the present-day Christian conscience. The flashlight beam in the above illustration could represent God's "Holy-Vision" as He looks into the hearts of His human creatures and into the heart of the world we created along with the prince of darkness as its First Citizen. We are each born into many different kinds...

Nov. 18, 2016 Psalm 146:3      So it looks like Mothra Clinton and Godzilla Trump just had an apocalyptic curb-stomp battle down America way. Godzilla prevailed. Mothra is vanquished but may yet return for the next election cycle. The final battle has much of the American landscape in ruins. The Mothra supporters are not taking the loss well, nor are the Godzilla voters being particularly gracious winners. Grace is scarce in the United States, even scarcer than usual. I'm not sure how well the Godzilla supporters would have taken it had Mothra had become President Elect. All I know is that human nature is a constant and our better angels cannot prevail against it forever.        These videos below were taken on smartphone as it happened and contain some objectionable behaviour and language from the participants. Understandable, given the circumstances.  Vanity of vanities ....    source: CringePlanet ...

Nov. 9, 2016  An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life,  c. 1640 oil on canvas by Harmen Steenwyck      Is the use of idols the result of a fallen soul that will not turn to face God despite an ability to do so, or one that is simply unable to do so? Fair question.  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Who can destroy the secret idols of a sinful heart? When man does not submit the deepest mote of his being to the fire of sanctification, the secrets of his heart remain dark, dead, unredeemed. As lifeless as gold. Deceitful and wicked though it may be, the human heart can hold no secrets from its Creator, though we can bring forth a wilderness of vain imaginings in which to hide from Him. The City of Man is a city of idols and vanities. It's the city of everything foul and depraved and godless.  Our earthly existence as inhabitants of this city is an ongoing distraction, for some m...

Oct. 26, 2016 DEPART FROM ME I  NEVER KNEW YOU MIDNIGHT APPROACHES UNMASK I COME LIKE A THIEF              Those who would the best lack all conviction, while the worst a re already full of passionate intensity. Why? Because Niceness is the insidious foe of Goodness. It seeks to be the power behind the throne of Goodness, and it often is. Niceness is the usurper who clothes himself in obsequiousness and virtue-signalling, in smiles that do not reach the eyes.  And when Niceness is not a Latex perfection mask worn by inhuman monsters, it is at last a pitiful inadequate covering for moral cowardice. An apology.  The darkest places in hell, Dante wrote, are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis (Inferno: Canto XIII) .  Being lukewarm instead of hot or cold, God spits us out of His mouth! I think it would be less of an affront to Him (and ourselves) if we were depraved instead of gorm...

Angel of God, my guardian dear To whom God’s love commits me here  Ever this day, be at my side To light and guard, Rule and guide.  Amen. Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992 AD) No. 336 From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. “ Beside each believer stands an angel   as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.      Do you remember reciting that prayer as a child? I came across it while preparing to write this blog entry and it rang a bell, although muffled by the passage of thirty years.  G uardian angels are, if the above images are any indication, the child-minders of the angelic hierarchy. You see them watching over adorable children who are about to hurt themselves or get into some kind of trouble. Some are male, some are female, but al...

Sept. 30, 2016      “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understo...

Sept. 9, 2016       And what of the souls who are perfectly content in this dark, fallen world? They are the ones who revel in what this place is, and fight to defend it from those of us who labour to make life on Earth as it is in Heaven. For we happy few, there is a primordial sense of setting right what once went wrong. The Holy Spirit poured out onto the eleven apostles at Pentecost is with us now. The Great Commission still vibrates in the blood of Christ by which we are all knit together as one mystical body, transcendent of space and time. So is this the secret to lasting happiness in a dark, fallen world-- escaping into transcendence? There is a sprawling pharmacopeia   of substances which can deny the sorrowful realities of life and ease unrelenting physical pain.       Transhumanists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism ) hope for a day when the frailty and limitations of the human condition ultimately give way to di...

Sept. 5, 2016       His final work completed on the cross at Golgotha, Jesus made of himself an open door. ( John 10:9 )  ( Rev. 4:1 )  Up until that moment, it was a door closed and barred against all of mankind. It was sealed against all forms of religion. The shed blood of the Lamb laboriously turned the tumblers, shot back the bolts, and tortured the hinges of this door so that it could stand open in heaven  and offer us a new covenant. ( Heb. 9:15 ) To be a channel of Christ's peace, to have His Holy Spirit live within you, is to make of yourself an open door leading all the way back to Dayspring.       So many have decided to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven! To search for heaven and hell anywhere but in the immediacy of the moment, Quantum World: Awaken Your Mind contends, is a folly. "The future" seems to be a dismissive reference to the afterlife and more to the point, heaven and hell. This is, of ...

August 30, 2016 "For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory." ~Psalm 102:16    At age 2, Zion Harvey lost his hands and feet to a life-threatening infection. Doctors at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital performed the first bilateral pediatric hand transplant in the summer of 2015.  1 Year Later ...      This story made me think of the lyrical refrain from that old Genesis song, "Land of Confusion." This is the world we live in (Oh-oh-oh) And these are the hands we're given (Oh-oh-oh) Use them and let's start trying To make it a place worth living in      The song is about the fear, chaos, and existential despair of the 1980's Cold War era yet contained a powerful message of humanistic hope. If previous generations have failed to live up to their own ideals (which they have), surely it is the duty of future generations to succeed where their predecessors failed. The sins of the fathers ...

August 22, 2016 Portentous graffiti inside a confessional booth tucked backstage of the chapel area in the abandoned Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital. source:  http://www.trover.com/d/ODwJ-northville-michigan   (posted 1 year ago)       If you're wondering about the above image, I almost went with something staid and conventional: an ornately carved wooden confessional booth, evoking "High Church" Catholicism. I browsed Google and found a few very nice images, but nothing that  would convey the pathology, dysfunction, and turmoil of 21st century life. No, what I want is to highlight the raggedness, the wretchedness of our lives below the line of despair.  The Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital is an abandoned building in Detroit MI, opened in 1952 and closed down fifty years later due to the Reagan Administration's universal defunding of mental health services. It is said to be haunted . The photograph you see above was t...