Taste of Evil

I have a lot of dreams.  They are normal for me.  Most of the time though, I don't remember them.  The are after all just our mind refusing to take a break. Or as my new favorite Sci-Fi book puts it

Earthborn animals do this thing, inside their brains-- a sort of mad firing-off of synapses, controlled insanity. While they're asleep. The part of their brain that records sight or sound, it's firing off every hour or two while they sleep; even when all the sights and sounds are complete random nonsense, their brains just keep on trying to assemble it into something sensible. They try to make stories out of it.  It's complete random nonsense with no possible correlation to the real world, and yet they turn it into these crazy stories.  And then they forget them.  All that work, coming up with these stories, and when they wake up they forget almost all of them. But when they do remember, then they try to make stories about those crazy stories, trying to fit them into their real lives. -- Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

I think that sums up dreams fairly well.  Even so, I feel a need to relate my dream because it was an experience I have never felt before.
Of course I don't remember exactly what I dreamed, but I remember how the dream made me feel.  The dream was filled with evil.  Not in the sense that I saw evil or did evil, just that I felt evil around me and was anticipating to see evil.  For the first time since I was a kid, I guess you could say I had a bad dream because  it freaked me out.  I woke up, scared from all the evil I was feeling in my dream.  I looked at the clock and of course it was 3:03... freaked me out even more to tell you the truth.
Still, the first thing that came to my head was the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner), so I furiously started saying it over and over in my head, trying to drive out the demon, the evil that seriously freaked me out.
Why that particular prayer, I have no idea. Why a prayer that focused on me and my sins when I was confronted with evil?
Anyway... God showered me with graces today and I am eternally thankful.

Peace all

Trying To Hold Fast

This has been my favorite song for a while.  I just liked the sound of it for the most part.
Until just recently did I look up the lyrics and actually read them.
I feel like I am in a canyon, searching for a way out.  I keep thinking, at the very least, that I have found someone to walk with me and Jesus.  All they seem to be doing is walking with us for a little while and then leaving.  Quite often I feel like I am just walking alone, even though I know I am not.
How many times to I have to get my hopes up, thinking maybe I have found a little bit of direction, only to hit a dead end?

Peace

God Does Respond

As the title would suggest, I am starting to see where God is answering me and leading me through different things.  No big questions answered yet, only small ones, but no less profound or awesome.  I firmly believe this is because I am trying to grow closer to Him and have been praying that I simply "do what He needs me to do".
Exhibit A- God had me step up.
Every last Friday of the month at our school all of the theology classes go to the school's chapel for Eucharistic Adoration.  One of the theology teachers, who also happens to be a deacon, uses the time not just for prayer but for instruction as well.  This frustrates me.
The problem is he puts the kids to sleep.  He means well and has good things to say; things that need to be said really.  But the way he talks just turns the students off, and really turns most adults off as well.
As I sat through his long speech, I prayer for humility because in my head I was thinking how I could be saying what he was trying to say so much better.  I knew I could reach the students and get them to understand what he was trying to say a lot more efficiently and clearly.  Feeling bad for thinking that, I prayed for humility and asked for God's forgiveness for not seeing the good work he was trying to do.
Well, as my class was leaving the chapel, I had a quick question for the deacon.  I asked and then as I turned to leave he asked me if I would talk to the next class about the things he had spoken about because he had to run an errand.
So, there you go.  I got my chance and actually the rest of the day I was the only one that talked because he asked me again if I would.
God gave me a chance to step up, I only pray that I said what He needed me to say in the way He needed me to say it.
Exhibit B- $20
My new hobby is mountain biking. Well, less biking and more fixing up bikes and making them look awesome and perform better.  This has become a slight obsession for me, so I have given up shopping for bike stuff for lent.  My student's have figured out my new hobby since I ride my bikes to school.  One student told me how he was looking for a bike and where he might be able to find one for cheap.  I told him where to look and said if he found one I would help him fix it up.
Well, since I have said I wont be buying any bike stuff, I have still been looking.  I found a guy selling some bikes on Facebook, with one that would be a nice bike when fixed up.  He wants (I say that because as of writing this, I have not seen the bikes, but will soon) $50 for the bikes.  I was going to go and just take out some cash to get the bikes, but I guess God had another plan.
After evening mass I swung by the grocery store to pick up some stuff.  I have a spot I usually park, but for some reason today I decided to pull into a different spot... don't really know why.  As I was pulling in, I noticed something on the ground in front of me in the parking spot.  With just a quick glance it looked like money.  Having been trained very well by my father on how to find money almost anywhere, I had a good feeling.
I pulled all the way into the spot, hopped out of my truck and walked around front.  I crouched down and yep, I was right, a $20 bill laying there just to the right of my passenger front tire.
Long story short, I had $32 in my wallet, so I don't have to pull out cash to purchase a bike I intend to give to a student, along with other bikes and pieces I intent to give to a local charity thrift store.
Haven't made the purchase yet, but I have a feeling things will work out well for everyone.

God is awesome and does show us the way... we just have to be looking in the right spot and be open to what He needs us to do.

Peace all

Devil At Work

At mass today, I slipped up.  I didn't say the "holy" where I was supposed to.  I don't really know why I didn't say it and ended up catching myself feeling slightly embarrassed   A thought that came to my head was somehow the devil was trying to get me to slip up.  It seems so simple, just messing up a response at mass.  But was it the work of the devil or one of the daemons?
Then, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the priest slipped up as well.  He slipped up at a part I have never heard a priest slip up at before... one of the easier, said at every mass, phrases.
My first thought was "aha!" it is the devil... he is lurking, trying to mess us up.
Whether or not the devil messed us up or not, my thoughts went to something more profound (I guess you could say).
As one grows in holiness, a.k.a. grows closer to God, is it easier to see where the devil is at work in the world?

I think so...
That is a scary thing when I think about it.  The closer I grow to God the more I will see how the devil and his daemons are at work in the world.  Being more aware of evil does not sound inviting I have to admit.
Still, we can't fight what we can't see.
So bring it on... as I grow closer to you Lord, open my eyes to see where the devil is at work.

Peace all

Being Humbled

Only from Catholic's do you hear the phrase "I had a wonderful confession today"... well, I did, but I still feel dorky saying it.
After standing and leaning on pews in line for the confessional, the priest came out.  He asked if those of us that were left wanted to follow him.  Mass was starting, so we could not continue in the Church.
I, of course, had hoped to just pop in, say my sins, be forgiven and be done.
Nope... God had other plans.
I knew the priest... heck, we had seen a movie together and hung out a few times.  So did I want to do a face to face confession? No... but that was my only choice.
So I sucked it up, swallowed my pride and went for it.  I hate confessing my "favorite" sin, but I had to.  Father talked a bit.  I will admit I don't remember much of what he said, but one thing sticks out.
Humility... for himself and for me.  It was a very humbling experience confessing the way I did.  Father mentioned though that when he was being trained for hearing confessions, the one thing he will never forget where some wise words of his teacher.  The priest training them said they needed to remember how it is a humbling experience for them each time.  They get to hear the confessions of sinners even when they themselves are sinners also.
As usual, I am completely blessed by the way things turned out.
Humility... gotta keep working at it.

Peace all!

The Future

I am literally sick about thinking about the future.  I get my hopes up, they get knocked back, I feel like crap, they rise again only to get knocked back... again.
Why does God put desires... good desires... into my heart if they might not be possible?
Day by day, that's what I need to do... quit looking ahead too far... quit getting my hopes up.
Hope in God, trust in God.

Until I can actually say I am doing that... this song basically sums up how I feel about one special person in my life.

Peace

Science Fiction Gem

"They had loved each other, but never slept together. Valentine had been pleased to hear it when Miro told her, though he said it with angry regret. Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves-- either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing."

This is an excerpt from a book I am currently reading; Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card.  It's a science fiction book, sure, but there is more to it that I did not expect.  Religion is a common theme, and the main religion dealt with is Catholicism.  The settlement Lusitania, on a distant planet also inhabited by a race of alien creatures, is an entirely Catholic settlement.  There is evangelization and heresy, those with strong faith those that are struggling to believe anything at all.  It is quite sociological study that could have, and probably did happen many times already in our Church's history.
Back to the quote though.  I found the quote to be, well, harsh, but stingingly true in what is says.  I know, from experience and from what I both hear and see, that chastity is not one of the popular virtues, especially in this country.  And not even with just the younger crowd... the lure of pleasures of the flesh holds no bounds.  Yet, for the youth, whether chastity is practiced or thrown in the dumpster (sad reference there) can have many repercussions. When the virtue of chastity is not developed at a young age and strengthened through the growing years, it can have horrible consequences.  The many examples of this are out there and don't need to be listed by me.
The idea though, that those who fail in chastity in their youth either become sheep or wolves is something I have never really thought about.  It makes sense in some ways though.  The sheep might be those people who become numb to what love and pleasures of the flesh should be and are intended for.  They just keep following the crap society gives them.  The wolves on the other hand would be those can never be satisfied.  They take and do whatever they can to feed their pleasures.  Searching for that next almost fulfillment of their lust drives them, in many cases, to do inhuman things; pornography, prostitution, rape...
For those of us that do try to stay chaste, I can only hope that we will become those who grow up strong and civilized... because Lord knows, we need more people like that in our world.

Peace all

Love and Corinthians 13

Well, I finally found a priest who had the courage to come out and say it.  This Sunday's second reading, from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, the famous chapter 13, is the worst reading that can be done at weddings!  Yet, it is the most popular.
I will go one step farther and say that this reading and its overuse may be one of the reasons why the sanctity of marriage is going down the tubes in our world today.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Paul isn't just talking about love between man and woman.  He isn't just saying how wonderfully self denying love is only between married people.  This is love in general.  This is the love that should be exuded by all people that call themselves a follower of Jesus Christ toward every other person on this earth.
I think it would be interesting to take poll on how many divorced couples used this reading at their wedding.  What is it nowadays... something like 50% of all marriages end in divorce.  If love never fails, how come in this country it does half of the time?
Diocese, especially in this country, need to make sure that marriage preparation is what it should be, and I say priests should refuse to marry a couple if they want to have this reading read at their wedding.  Lets make love something more then just something shown between two people... love is for all because Christ died for all.

Peace all