AspieWritesWhat

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...

August 10, 2016 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God."      ~John 1:1       The earthly institution of Christianity is but the crudest approximation of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. The Bible is the closest we can come to the Living Word of God while stranded here on the shore of immanence.  The other shore, the transcendent far shore, cannot be bridged from where we stand. It hides from us from behind a veil and a symbol, glimmering from within the impenetrable dark cloud of unknowing. The far shore  unfolds delicately like a lotus flower, blooming inside the heart of the Gospel.  The True Word is not a book nor the paper on which it's printed, nor the symbols stamped into that paper. It does not properly exist as a physical object in three-dimensional space. In the beginning, the Word already existed.       He is a transcendental Father, whose di...

July 31, 2016 "Christ in Limbo" ~a Hieronymous Bosch Follower c. 1450-1516 Artwork Source           "He who does not descend into hell while he is still alive runs a great risk of going there after he is dead."       ~St. Philip of Neri      (1515-1595)      How  does one descend into hell while he is still alive? How is it even physically possible to go there without being incinerated?  At a glance, this is a nonsensical and quite morbid idea. It's the kind of thing that has driven people away from organized religion in droves.  It's vexatious to the churchgoer, but to the beloved of God it is what makes the Good News so incredibly good!  He who does not descend into hell *in spirit* while he is still alive does not understand the urgency of salvation, or why the Lamb of God was slain. We, the purchased, should know what it cost to buy us back from hell. So what doe...