a passionate repentance

I don't usually spend a lot of time wishing I was a child again. Truth to tell, I don't feel all that grown up now. Today, I wish I was seven again. Old enough to remember the way it felt to feel my father's knee against my back. So dizzy and scared. I'm gonna fall, Daddy. I'm gonna fall.. And his voice came back so clear and comforting. "No you're not. I've got you, I won't let you fall. I'm right behind you."

I was *standing*. Just like Trish and Melinda, just like all the other kids in the neighborhood. Without braces, or crutches or anything to mark me as different. Even if the only way I could do it was with my Dad supporting me, leaning against the knee he put against the small of my bony little back. It didn't matter, it was me and Dad and we were standing together.

When I was younger I didn't like to look at that picture. I used to think that somehow my dad was ashamed of the braces and the wheelchair, all the paraphenalia of my handicap. That he didn't want a kid who was different so he had to pretend. It was hard to look at that photo, as innocuous as it is.

Now I know that it wasn't anything to do with being ashamed of me. It was just like his taking to the ocean. Like his taking me to Salt River canyon even if I was in a cast up to my belly button. He wanted me to experience everything. He didn't want me to miss a thing. Even what it felt like to stand up, alone.

Now my father's drifting away, swept further and further out to sea. The future and the present slip further and further of his grasp, and he's left with all the broken pieces of his past. He sits sometimes, and looks at nothing much, surrounded by a group of amiable strangers, in a place that he finds somewhat familiar.

It doesn't matter Daddy. I remember. I am here, and I'll hold down my corner of the past, and keep it warm and alive with you. I don't have everything, there's a whole lot of your life that I wasn't a part of. But the part you shared with me, I have, and I cherish it. Each of us will keep our little pieces alive and burning. Maybe this is something we need to experience together, this slow dissolution. It's hard to let go of you, Daddy. It's hard to watch you let go of all the things I thought were such an integral part of you. But I've learned something too..nobody can take your dignity away from you. If someone else thinks it's gone--that's them, Dad. Not you. I love you. I'm so proud of you. You were a good Dad. And you still are. Still showing me stuff I need to know. Stuff I need to experience. I only pray that I'm brave enough to see what you're showing me, without trying to hang onto what was so hard.

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/03/12/031212-news-tide-theft-1-4/


I don't get it.


But apparently no one else does either.

*waves to *Shadowycat*
I hope you have a fantastic day. I am doing a bit better, but I expect the instant I dare have anything vegetable I will end up in the same navel-gazing formation. Perhaps it toughens up the insides. Chuck Norris will respect my colon.

And her daughter.
I enjoyed and admired her voice. I hope that she fell asleep in the Lord without pain or fear, and trusting in God.

I guess everyone has trouble finding ways to use their God-given gifts wisely. As well as living well.

Pace.

I've been away for a long time. I can't say why, journal, just one thing after another cropping up. No, I haven't stopped caring, it was nothing like that. No, no..shhh..I would never willingly get rid of you, it's just that I let too many other things get in the way. Little everyday things. Bad moods, depression, work, the odd video game. Oh, now I've done it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I *do* still love you. I swear to you, Ravehearst meant nothing to me. Nothing! Oh..don't cry. Please. I'm sure we can work it out. We can make it work. Maybe a media counsellor? There, there. Blow your nose.

They say that diabetics do great for the first year, and then after that stop doing what the doctor tells them to do. That thought gives me sick chills, since it sounds so much like something I would do. I've prayed over and over again, that I would find a store of determination and commitment but part of me asks "If you've never had it for anything else, what makes you think you'll find it for this?"

I've turned into the very person I most ardently wished I never would.

Copied from (I believe)Lux et Tenebrum's blog
The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn,
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

* * * * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

--Rudyard Kipling

For all those, who like me, miss their moms today.

Beautiful video on icons and iconography.

May God bless and protect them all, and bring them home again to us safely.

Father David's words are worth listening to even if you don't agree with them.


http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/valleyoftheshadow

Anything I could add..is just my blah-blah, and takes away from the truth.