the silence is telling, son of ephraim.

a quote by Fr Denis Lemieux

We tend to think of our lives as somehow being just about us, don't we? Even if we're essentially trying to be good people? You know: I am me and you are you and she is she and God is God and...we're all in little hermetically sealed compartments. We may bump up against each other, but ultimately we're all locked into our own selves. This kind of atomic individualism is deeply ingrained in us.

And God is God, and the world is the world: so much of modernity is founded on a conviction that the two are not just distinct, but strictly separated one from the other.

But 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'
(John 1: 14). . . . . . . . . . 

The rest is less convincing, but this introduction seemed clear and true, (oversimplified? perhaps but this helps make the point I think.)

I have just googled Fr Denis.
American.
His blog begins with a massive photo of the pope which rather put me off delving deeper but maybe later I will have a closer look. (The quote came through the group.)

yesterday I found out that Anna had been killed in a bicycling accident earlier in the month.

from the 'word from the desert' blog.
[It's not how I would word it but it resounds nonetheless.]

For if you change from inhumanity to almsgiving, you have stretched forth the hand that was withered.
If you withdraw from theatres and go to church, you have cured the lame foot.
If you draw back your eyes from a harlot, you have opened them when they were blind.
These are the greatest miracles.

St. John Chrysostom

actually though, I am quite near rock-bottom:
I have forgotten why.
There is a strange thing about the 'why' though.
we ask the question because we don't know the answer,
but this particular question cannot be answered. I know this through experience.
This 'why' is only answered by 'doing' whether we know why or not.
when we 'do' we find out 'why', but not the other way round.

which reminds me that the fundamental problem with luther's concept of 'faith alone' is that it paves the way to not doing. and when we don't do we gradually lose you and when we lose you - our desire for you - we lose our faith as well.
we 'do' because where we spend our time is where our heart is.

desire, faith and you. these words cannot be separated out: they are just aspects.

this quote from the end of a letter to the Tablet this week.

 . . . . and He sent His Holy Spirit at Vatican II to prepare the laity for a different future in which the gifts of all would be valued for service to His people.
May the Holy Spirit cut loose again and, this time, not be stifled as has happened to the Springtime of Hope after Vatican II. 

Judith Holznagel, Australia

Mark Townsend in a youtube video 

" religion comes along and tells us there's this ladder we need to climb up to this god who lives up there on a cloud . . .I dont think you climb up a ladder to God . . . . when you climb that ladder to God you are ironically climbing away from God . . . when you fall off the ladder . . . you break open and get knocked about . . . thats the place you meet God. . .