The man who not be king

Nov7

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which
end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite;
and their safety and interest require that they should promote such
manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential,
particularly military, supplies.”
FIRST ANNUAL ADDRESS, TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, JANUARY 8, 1790

After the war, there were calls for Washington to claim formal political power. Indeed, seven months after the victory at Yorktown, one of his officers suggested what many thought only reasonable in the context of the 18th century: that America should establish a monarchy and that Washington should become king. A shocked Washington immediately rejected the offer out of hand as both inappropriate and dishonorable, and demanded the topic never be raised again.
Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.
Vice President of American Studies

Which brings us to the madness of today…what with all this “No Kings” hoopla.

A few weeks back, October 18th to be exact, I was driving home from the Outer Banks…
I had just departed Duck…a most quaint little OBX town, when I next passed through
the adjoining little hamlet, Southern Shores.
As I turned onto the main drag, headed homeward, there was a sudden traffic snarl.

Sitting at a standstill in the car I noticed folks, mostly older folks, walking along the sidewalks, on both sides of the street.. many of whom were carrying signs.

“That’s odd” I mused.

As the car traffic slowly inched forward, I saw where the people were headed…there was a collective crowd on either side of the street gathering en masse a major intersection…
where it appeared that some sort of protest was assembling.

Huh???

What the heck is going on???

(Southern Shores, NC protest / Julie Cook 2025)

Here it was a lovely fall Saturday morning along the east coast…so whatever in the world
would have a bunch of older folks out and about causing a brouhaha on such a fine day?!

And I can say certainly say “older folks” because I too am said older folk!
and these folks were definitely my age and older with what appeared to be a few
young grandchildren thrown in for good measure.
Don’t you just love seeing an 8 year old holding a protest sign when you know good
and well they’re just joining in because “mimi and pop pop” are up in arms????
Kids just love an adventure no matter the cause.

So as I sat with nothing else to do in the midst of a standstill, I started reading the signs.

“86 47”
“No Kings”
“Democracy”

Suddenly, as I began to understood what was happening, my eyes spontaneously began
rolling as my blood began boiling.

It was all I could do NOT to roll down the window and begin shouting my argument
as to why this No Kings nonsense is just that…nonsense.

I quickly recalled having heard an interview recently given by a No Kings protester
where he stated that he was actually educated and had taken history classes in school
(who hasn’t) and that he fully understood we are a no king nation… yes well, duh.

What I remember from my history lessons…the last King who had his hand on us–
us being a fledging 13 colony nation to be…was that nutter mad King George….
King George III, the king who, most famously, lost the colonies.

Since that time, we’ve had presidents, vice presidents, senators, congressmen/
women, Supreme court justices…a three tired governmental system of checks and balances…
all of which has seen this “experiment in democracy” rock on for nearly 250 years.

Ours is but a short blip on history’s radar as compared to other nation’s with their kings, queens, parliaments, etc, but our experiment has rocked along.
Rocky indeed at times… but rocked on nonetheless.

I suppose the older I get, the less patience I have for such foolishness.
And so this clamoring of “no kings” nonsense, when last I checked, is truly a waste of
time and energy….time and energy that could be so much better spent.

For example, Western North Carolina is still reeling a year later following Hurricane Helene…
I know many communities who could use a great deal of help from folks who have nothing better to do than fuss and cuss their government…or perhaps they could turn their sights
to helping other areas ravaged by recent storms such as Jamaica….
There just seems to be so much that needs tending to rather then rabbling on about
hating the latest president

And from what I remember about my history lessons is that we have laws that forbid anyone
from threatening a sitting president. So therefore such placards stating “86 47” are a
direct threat to the life of a sitting president…
People use to be arrested for such.

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 740; June 1, 1955, ch. 115, § 1, 69 Stat. 80; Pub. L. 87–829, § 1, Oct. 15, 1962, 76 Stat. 956; Pub. L. 97–297, § 2, Oct. 12, 1982, 96 Stat. 1318; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

But I suppose when you have James Comey, the former FBI Director,
writing the same with shells in the sand…who knows anymore.

The fact of the matter is that we have no king nor shall we but if we did…

can we make a horse drink water???

Sep18

“A man maie well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will”.
John Heywood’s 1546 collection of proverbs

( one of the wild horses of Carolla, NC / Julie Cook/ 2023)

We’ve all heard the idiom right??

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink??

Meaning… you can lead someone someplace, be it literally or figuratively, but you cannot
make that person partake…not unless they want to and are willing to do so.
Bottom line, you can’t force anyone to do anything that they aren’t willing to do.

The only exception I can think of is if said someone is under some form of duress
and their hand is being forced for say, the sake of a loved one…
as in “you better do as I say or your family gets it” sort of exception…
But generally speaking…we can’t MAKE anyone do anything that they aren’t willing to do.

And as a quick aside… I certainly had no idea that that saying was actually such an old expression…but I suppose it makes sense…
a thought about making someone do something against their will
goes back, dare I say it, to the Garden of Eden…
both Adam and Eve knew better but yet….

So the other day I offered up a post for the first time in a long time.

It was written as more of a reflective post following the tragic death of a young man,
Charlie Kirk, rather than that of an actual opinion piece type of post.

I simply wrote the post out of a sense of sorrow for the senseless loss of the life
that seemed to be that of a fast rising star….a rising star that was suddenly struck down
entirely far too soon….as I thought of the sorrow surrounding his young family…

I was going to write a similar post following the horrific tragedy at the Catholic school
shooting in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago…a shooting that took place as children were in chapel for morning prayers..
however, following that shooting, my heart was just too shattered for words…
much as it was following the Sandy Hook shooting…
children are innocents are they not…?

So some folks would then naturally surmise that I’d be writing today about shootings.
The tragic, senseless, cowardice act of violence acted out from one person to others…
and in this case…with guns.

However that is not what I want or need to write about.

I think we’d all agree that there has been a growing division in not only our country but
rather there is a great deep chasm which is currently fracturing our collective
human family on colossal global scale.

Hate.
Anger.
Agitation.
Loathing.
Despising.
Division.
Protest.
Left.
Right.

It’s all there and growing by the minute.

I’ve been writing about this very notion throughout these past 10 years of blogging…
My observations of what is happening to us as human beings…not only here at home
but all around the world.

And that is the growing division within our hearts.
The loss of empathy.
The loss of civility.
The loss of compassion.
The loss of tolerance.
The loss of decorum.
The loss of compromise.
The loss of a responsibility one for another.

The list grows each and every day.

It’s become a tit for tat over the now skewed idea of what is right and what is wrong.

I witnessed this first hand, and dare I say very quickly, following my humble post
regarding Charlie’s murder.
The arguments that ensued so quickly on my little obscure post was only but a reflection
of a much greater sense of discord.

And it left me bewildered…

So back to my opening thought…
That being the notion of leading a horse to water and not being able to make it drink…

That idea became very clear to me following Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Immediately following that awful afternoon in Utah, the vile ugliness started.

It started in the blogosphere.
It started on social media.
It started in the national media.
It started at football games.
It started on college campuses.
It started in high schools.
It stated on talk shows.
It started on radio.
It started at concerts.
It started in hospitals.
It started in businesses.
It started in families.
It started…and it simply won’t stop.

It didn’t, nor does it, matter what anyone said /says or did or does—
it is/ was all going to be wrong….and still is all wrong no matter who you ask.

Charlie’s murder was simply another wedge.
Another soundbite.
Another thread unraveling from the fabric that makes us human.

Following the news of Charlie’s murder, I heard someone say that “you can’t
change someone’s mind if they hate you and want you dead.”

And so it seems as if it’s gotten to be that bad.
We simply cannot change someone who deeply disagrees with us..
disagrees with and our stance, our beliefs, our views, even our opinions, thoughts or ideas…

And so the best solution now appears to be that of silencing those who we disagree with.

Therefore, it seems to me, that leading anyone to the trough of discussion and dialogue is no longer viable.

Oh I could wax and wane most unpoetical as to the reasons for such a demise…
The breakdown of the family.
The loss of a moral compass.
The loss of one’s humanity.
The loss of faith in the one true omnipotent God….that which is much bigger
than ourselves and our vain egos.
The loss of intellect.
On and on ad infinitum…it goes…

So I suppose we must ask ourselves…will we allow ourselves to be lead to then to drink
from the trough of humanity…or will we continue on this hellbent path of defiant stubborn hatred???

Because if the answer is no, we will not…then woe be unto each of us.

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Jesus wept.
John 11:35

reflective observations

Sep13

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Søren Kierkegaard

“how sad and bad and mad it was – but then, how it was sweet”
Robert Browning

(Regal Fritillary with a notched wing winds down the summer on late blooming sedum/ NC/ Julie Cook/ 2025)

I find myself waking most mornings already with a heavy sadness.
It’s a deep sorrow that transcends both time and space as it’s something that runs
both past and present…it’s almost like a thread woven through my very being…
it’s simply something that’s just there… and I’ll be the first to admit
that I’ve gotten rather use to it…

However…as life would prefer it, Thursday morning I awoke with a sadness
that seemed heavier than most days..

You know how it is…your eyes first open, usually after a fitful night…
(those of you who have reached a certain age understand that most nights tend
to be a bit fitful)…
and for the briefest of instances, you are simply just you.
No real thoughts…no real ideas coalescing in one’s brain..just the act of opening one’s
eyes and acknowledging that it is indeed a new day.

Then suddenly, as if all at once, everything in the universe seems to come racing
right at you…it’s the cognizant reality of life and of what all is happening
in the world all around you..that which is both in you and outside of you…
it all comes racing to the forefront of your brain…

I was initially “in that moment”–coaxing, nay willing, my still tired eyes to open,
trying to adjust to the single beam of sunlight streaming through that tiny sliver
between glass and shade—feeling comfortable and safe still swaddled within my soft warm sheets…
and there it is…. within that millisecond between sleeping and waking a single name
emerges…

Charlie Kirk.

Then the thoughts immediately begin colliding one into another…

A young life gone in an instant.
An instant act of insanity….yet perhaps calculated insanity.
A young woman left grieving life without her young husband.
Two young children left to never really know their father.
A world gone mad that is now only growing madder by the minute.
And then the theme hits me like a hammer…young.

And so that extra added sense of heaviness settles in and I begin wondering…
why do we even bother any more to get up??
Why do we even bother anymore for anything…?

I did not know Charlie Kirk.
I did not watch or listen to his shows or talks.
I did not keep up.
But what I did know is that when I’d hear a story here and there…
I knew I admired his youthful enthusiasm.
I appreciated his sense of responsibility….
Responsibility to his family, to his generation– both past and future generations, to his President, to his country,
to his Faith…he had initiative and it was that very initiative which was directed
toward the positive.
No violence, no riots, no protests, no ranting, no profanity…but rather a
steely steadfastness rooted in dialogue and a deep Christian faith.

And as I sit here typing, another young man’s name came oddly to mind, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
odd…

I quit watching the “news” a few years back.
I still read news sites. I still get breaking news updates…
but I realized how upset the more I watched, the more frustrated and angry I’d become.

And despite my news hiatus, I still get mad.

Just as I did Wednesday afternoon when I heard that a young man who was speaking to other
young people, was murdered….murdered by, who we would learn, was also a young person.

Mad.
Angry.
Frustrated.
Sad.

He was murdered for just sitting around doing a Q and A.
Talking, laughing, answering, questions, offering advice to fellow young folks.

It was indeed murder.
It was indeed an assassination.
And that is pure unadulterated sorrow spilled right out in our laps.

So what do we do when sorrow spills out into our laps?

The ensuing reactions from those who did not “agree” with and dare I
say, did not even know Charlie Kirk, have been difficult at best to wrap a brain around.

I’ve long lamented this very thing on this very blog site for many years…
that being the lack of civility, decorum, and simply human empathy—empathy
that we should innately hold for our fellow human family members.

Maybe that’s why I felt as if I could no longer watch the news…
I was unable do anything to stop the insanity and bring some sense of civility
back to this Nation of ours. The old adage that we must agree to disagree
and be okay with that simply no longer exists in our world.

I’ve not posted on a regular basis for several years.
I’ve been sitting in the background, on the sideline, listening and learning.
God has had much to teach me and I’ve needed to be quiet in order to hear Him.
For our God will not shout over our own madness…not quite yet.
I’ve needed to quell my own righteous indignation.
I’ve needed to be reminded that those I disagree with, those
who are different from me, are equally created and loved by a most powerful God.
Just as I was.

We need more Charlie Kirks in this world.
We need youthful positive enthusiasm…enthusiasm that opens dialogue verses clenching fists.
Enthusiasm for life rather than a culture of death.
Enthusiasm for the love of one’s country verses division and hate.
Enthusiasm for forgiveness verses that of bearing grudges.

God is willing us, willing me at least, to get up out of bed each morning.
He wants me to share empathy with my neighbors.
Empathy regardless of the color hair, the tattoos and piercings on bodies.
Empathy regardless of offensive stickers on cars, decals on shirts, flags flying
or signs in yards—things I might not agree with.
I still must demonstrate empathy…God’s empathy.

Empathy from one of His created to another…

Give us strength oh Lord.

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace
which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

ps, the link

Jun9

be the hands

Jun8

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta

(a busy bee / Julie Cook / 2025)

It has been exactly 254 days as of today, Sunday June 8, 2025, since Hurricane Helene came calling.

She had first set her sights on Florida…
that’s what hurricanes do…they like to hit our coastal lined states…
But in Helene’s case, that wasn’t enough.
She decided to see how long she could blow.

Before all was said and done, a half dozen or so states had been effected…
Western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, north eastern Georgia and south western VA.
She even visited West Virginia as well as Kentucky all before
making her name synonymous with the likes of a once very wicked Katrina…

And thus those haunting words of the Bard continue ringing loudly in our ears…
Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.

We have watched the calendar turn… page after page, month after month…
season after season…
Fall, Winter, Spring and soon to be Summer… have each come, gone and continue to come..

And that’s why I think it’s important that everyone knows that we are still not okay.

Western North Carolina…my home…is not okay.

We are still not okay.

I suppose those of us who live in the thick of it all have grown almost oblivious to the daily caravan of dump trucks, massive debris and disaster vehicles, the shuttered businesses,
the abandoned parks and playgrounds, the empty schools, the twisted lumber that made up homes, the copious tangled corpses of once majestic trees, the single lane roads, the mangled steel,
the newly mountains made up of the flotsam and jetsam of a world that once was…
all of which now makes up our world.

A fisherman found another body just the other week.
A body tangled and mangled found in a body of water that had once been about 3 feet wide
that suddenly had grown to 25 to 30 feet wide on September 27th, 2024.

They say there really is no true death count as no one knew exactly who all was in the area
and where they were….
Residents.
The homeless.
Hikers.
Fishermen.
Tourists.

White crosses now dot roadways, creek banks, river banks, muddy slues, mountain sides…

Scars both physical, as well as emotional and psychological mark animal, human and land.

This morning someone posted on our area’s version of Nextdoor Neighbor a youtube video
created by an on-line journalist that they really enjoyed.
The title of the video caught my attention…
Inside the forgotten aftermath of Hurricane Helene…Still in ruins.

I watched the video.
It’s an hour long but well worth watching.

I hope you too will watch the video.

Sadly a camera lens can never truly show the full scope and depth of any type of view.

However the individuals who were interviewed, the firsthand accounts, the excavators and construction workers who have volunteered all of their time and equipment these 254 days and counting…
the voices, the losses, the sorrow…and in all of it…yes, even the hope…

Please don’t forget us.

Borrowing the words from one of the volunteers interviewed…”we must be the hands”….
and if not us, then who…?

https://youtu.be/A6wmG7QqaOk?si=mS1AEvSuEh05y7xd

a small diversion during the storm

May13

“The mind ought sometimes to be diverted that it may return
to better thinking.”
Phaedrus

(back deck view after the rains / Julie Cook/ 2025)

My little area of the world, Western North Carolina, is still reeling in the aftermath
of hurricane Helene….9 months have passed.

Progress, what progress there is, has been oh so slow in coming or just simply oh so slow.
Rebuilding roads, removing debris, shoring things up…
There are many folks who remain homeless and or displaced.
Many businesses have thrown in the towel and won’t be back.

The land, bruised and battered is now hiding underneath a fresh blanket of
spring greenery. The returning vegetation is but a mirage.
The damage, the slides, the thousands of fallen trees are all now simply hidden.

On top of what lies about me in silent disrepair…that which is now closest to me,
is also in a place of great disrepair.

So lest I allow all the raging storms of disrepair and despair, storms which are currently
swirling around me, simply engulf me…pulling me down to the depths of that which
seems almost hopeless and unbearable…

I went outside and looked at what now blooms.
Both sun and flowers.
Reminders of our everlasting hope!!

(the chive in bloom /Julie Cook / 2025)

(prairie smoke / Julie Cook/ 2025)

(sweet shrub / Julie Cook / 2025)

(poppy/ Julie Cook / 2025)

(mountain laurel / Julie Cook / 2025)

(rhododendron / Julie Cook / 2025)

(bearded Iris / Julie Cook / 2025)

(big leaf lupine/ Julie Cook /2025)

(the sun peeks through the parting clouds along the Mt Mitchell range / Julie Cook/ 2025)

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.
Psalm 34:17-20

Curve balls

May12

It is when there is most to be afraid of that we must not be afraid.
It is when we are most mistrustful that we must learn to trust.
It is when we are most at odds that we must believe in peace.
It is in a time of ideology that we must strive to see things as they are.
Nathan Beacom
Nathan Beacom is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. <a

istock

I’m not exactly a vastly knowledge baseball aficionado.
You know me, football is my game of choice.
But circumstances as of late have had my mind drifting toward thoughts of baseball.
In particular thoughts of certain types of pitches..
in particular a pitch known as a curve ball.

According to Wikipedia There was once a debate on whether a curveball
actually curves or is an optical illusion.
In 1949, Ralph B. Lightfoot, an aeronautical engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft,
used wind tunnel tests to prove that a curveball curves.
On whether a curveball is caused by an illusion,
Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean has been quoted in a number of variations
on this basic premise:
“Stand behind a tree 60 feet away, and I will whomp you with an optical illusion!”

However, optical illusion caused by the ball’s spinning may play an
important part in what makes curveballs difficult to hit.
The curveball’s trajectory is smooth, but the batter perceives a sudden,
dramatic change in the ball’s direction.
When an object that is spinning and moving through space is viewed directly,
the overall motion is interpreted correctly by the brain.
However, as it enters the peripheral vision, the internal spinning motion distorts how the overall motion is perceived.
A curveball’s trajectory begins in the center of the batter’s vision,
but overlaps with peripheral vision as it approaches the plate,
which may explain the suddenness of the break perceived by the batter

Sometimes I think of myself as a batter and God is the pitcher.
You know, the big game of life we all must play??

It’s 0 and 2, bottom of the ninth…my team is behind just as I’m behind.
I have to make this pitch and hit count.

I’m standing at home plate, the umpire just dusted it off.
He signals to the pitcher we’re ready.

I’ve tapped the bat a couple of times on the plate.
I’ve taken my quasi crouching position with my knees bent.
My bat is raised and slightly angled over my right shoulder.
The sun glints in my eyes as I squint ever lower under the bill of my ball cap.
And if you know me, I do tend to wear ball caps…

I’m desperately trying to read the Pitcher’s mind as to what type of pitch I’m going to get.
How and when best to swing.
The home score seems to hinge on my success.
The Pitcher, God in this little scenario, is winning…but I suppose we can confidently
say that God always wins.
Which is really in all of this, a very good thing.

But yet here I am…waiting for that perfect pitch…
when out of no where, a curve ball is headed directly at me.

And just as I think in that millisecond of time, which is now standing still,
that ball has left the Pitcher’s hand and is hurtling at 90 mph towards my face.
I quickly think that if I can possibly bring my bat slightly up under the ball,
I can knock it out of the park….

However in that same millisecond of thought, the ball suddenly dips even lower
than I anticipate.
It drops lower and lower as I forcefully bring the bat around waiting to feel that
solid impact of when wood meets leather.

The force of my swing almost twirls me around as the bat practically flies
out of my hands…
And that’s when I hear it…
not the cheering roar of the crowd, but rather the booming voice of the umpire…
“STRIKE 3, YOU’RE OUT!!!!

And that’s what’s currently happening.
I’ve gotten a curve ball.
But I’m not the only one getting this particular pitch.

After rushing a very dear friend to the ER, and having spent the past 7 days by her
side waiting on what the deluge of doctors and tests all had to say…the words came.
The words we humans all dread hearing…. “it’s cancer”

I’m not going to go into the details here as I need to respect everyone who is
being impacted by this particular ballgame’s late inning..

Yet I can’t help but think that God has pitched this ball my way because
He actually knows I’m the one who works best with these sorts of off the mark pitches.

It’s not that I want to be good at this type of pitch.
It’s not that I ever want this type of ball pitched to anyone.

In this case it is happening to probably the kindest person I know.
Selfless and generous to a fault are words that often describe her.
She is one of the favorites on the team if not THE favorite.
And now she’s in the hardest game there is.

But it is a game that can be won….will be won…it’s just going to
most likely run into overtime and extra innings before the final score is in.

I was told recently that my being here, in this particular game, is by no accident.
It seems Providence has had a hand.
It’s not my choice mind you, but we must deal the hand dealt us…or in this case,
play the ball pitched to us.

Many friends, teammates, have made the bold stance that they are praying the
big-gun sort of prayer…full healing.
I”m praying that prayer as well.

In the meantime, I’m pinch hitting.
We’ve got a game to win!!

All shall be well.
All shall be well.
All manner of thing shall be well.
St. Julian of Norwich

when what you knew turns out to be not what you know

Mar29

“It is the devil’s greatest triumph when he can deprive us of the joy of the Spirit.
He carries fine dust with him in little boxes and scatters it through the
cracks in our conscience in order to dim the soul’s pure impulses and its luster.
But the joy that fills the heart of the spiritual person destroys the deadly poison
of the serpent.
But if any are gloomy and think that they are abandoned in their sorrow,
gloominess will continuously tear at them or else they will waste away
in empty diversions.
When gloominess takes root, evil grows.
If it is not dissolved by tears, permanent damage is done.”
St. Francis of Assisi

“What you are looking for is what is looking.”
Saint Francis Of Assisi

(Carlo Acutis / as per Wikipedia)

One thing that has made itself perfectly cleat to me, throughout my hiatus from blogging…
these nearly four years of hide and seek with blogville…is the lone fact that
what I thought I knew….those hardcore “truths” that I’ve held up on the placards
of my own sanctimonious and self-righteous indignation,
are not exactly what I really know them to be.

And no that is not to say that I’ve come down with amnesia, lost my moral compass or
that I’ve let go of the tether to which I’ve held onto for most of my life,
linking me to my deep Spirituality….

And I admit that this has been, more or less, a slow forming sort revelation.
More evolving than those “ah ha” sorts of revelations.

That’s why I really appreciate what Saint Francis reminds us today (well, reminds me)…

…and that is that the Devil himself loves nothing more than to scatter his smothering and smoldering dust into the cracks of our consciousness—dust that, much like the smoke
from the local wildfires in this area that are far from containment, engulfs all what we
once saw clearly and changes what we thought we knew into something else entirely.

But we’ll explore that particular notion later…today’s thoughts however are more about the young man in the picture you see up above.

That young man’s name was Carlo Acutis.
And no, I didn’t know him.

However, from what I’ve gleaned from my perusal of his story,
is that Carlo was a typical teenage boy who hailed from Milan, Italy.

Carlo died in 2006 from a fast and devastating form of Leukemia.
He was just 15 years old.

Some of you may have recently caught a news story or two about Carlo.
He and his story have been sprinkled in many newsfeeds as of late.

What is perhaps most intriguing about Carlo is that he is to be canonized April 27th, 2025…
during what the Catholic Church has proclaimed to be the Jubilee of Teenagers.

I’m assuming that this canonization will be proclaimed by Pope Francis
(if he is well enough do so) from the balcony of St Peters.
Pope Francis will declare Carlo a saint.
The first millennial saint.

Now I know what some of you are saying and that a good many of you are already rolling
your eyes when you read about folks being made a saint….

Maybe your thoughts are that no living human is ever really truly “saintly”
or maybe it’s because you think the Catholic Church is, once again, off kilter.

I for one have always found that the deeply mystical is buried and strongly rooted in such practices.

I won’t retell what you can read for yourself regarding Carlo on a site such as Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Acutis

But I will briefly share my own 2 cents observation.

Firstly, I’ll confess that every time a modern day pope proclaims various individuals
as saints, I’m a bit skeptical or maybe I’m really just rather jaded by it all.

If you’re like me, you probably have many preconceived notions as to what a saint is
or should be…or perhaps better yet, you think you know what a saint shouldn’t be.

I for one think of words like wizened, gracious, kind, generous to a fault, wise,
sage, old, virtuous…just fill in the blanck with any sort of otherworldly
descriptor that would magically elevate someone to well above us average mortals.

But that’s the thing about saints, they are average…some are even below average…

Some have even been brigands, thieves, adulterers, liars, immoral and viciously corrupt…
but…the one thing that I do know….
is that God most often likes, and actually truly enjoys, using such lowly individuals
for His perfect plans.

God takes the imperfect and makes for the perfect…quite the anomaly.

So when I read about the “first Millenial” saint, I admit, I had that eye roll moment.
“A millennial saint…” un huh…what does a 15 year old teenage boy do to become a saint?

So rather than turning away smugly, I opted to dig a little bit
into the story of this young man.

And I think, the main thing I’ve gleaned about Carlo is that he was one to listen…
he listened inwardly and often tuned out the worldly.
What a novel thought about a teenager being something other than worldly.

Despite liking the typical teenage things such as gaming and futbol, Carlo had
interests that went beyond this world.
And I imagine that it was the more observant among us who actually picked up on
this little fact of Carlo. Those who looked a little deeper and didn’t take the surface
information as just that, purely surface.

This typical teenager was anything but typical.

Outwardly Carlo was typical but it was what was inside of Carlo that was untypical.

It was the quiet little things he did that silently moved him from
the world of typical to that of the untypical.
It was his focus.
His priorities.
His self discipline.
His desire to share his love of his faith.
His thoughts of those other than himself.

How many of us as teenagers were keenly aware of the needs of others
rather than the needs of ourselves and our close peers?

He liked the teachings of St. Francis….a young man who was not too different
from himself.
Francis, a young man who abandoned the affluence of his family and turned his focus
to helping the poor and those who lacked and suffered.

Francis wanted to turn everyone’s attention to God and away from the world.

Francis did so by living simply and by openly teaching and proclaiming.

Carlo did this by using his computer.
He used his computer prowess to eventually launch a website in order to evangelize and
help other young people find God.

A 21st approach to an age old desire to preach and to teach.
How to share with the masses when the masses are now so globally scattered.

Yet in a sad twist of fate, or rather in God’s mysterious ways,
in 2006, Carlo was diagnosed with what was thought initially to be a throat infection.
His symptoms suddenly and drastically got out of hand…and doctors quickly realized
this was anything from a throat infection.
Carlo was then diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia and his health failed rapidly.
He died 12 days following his initial diagnosis of a throat infection.

A small family’s tragedy of illness and loss with their child in 2006 is soon to turn
into a global sized phenomenon on April 27, 2025.

Despite being from Milan, Carlo had made his wish known that he wanted his parents
to bury him in Assisi, the home of St. Francis.
And how ironic that a pope named Francis will soon be canonizing this young man.

So today I write about Carlo not so much because of his interesting story
but rather I write because I’ve realized that what I thought I knew about saints,
teenagers, and the Church is anything but what I knew….
As I am reminded about God’s desire to utilize that, which to us mere mortals,
is the seemingly ordinary…He most often uses that which is ordinary for the what
is to be always the extraordinary.

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling,
and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness
and your every deed prompted by faith.
We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

broken reasons

Mar25

“Broken things are precious.
We eat broken bread because we share in the death of our Lord and his broken life.
Broken flowers give perfume.
Broken incense is used in adoration.
A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on the way to Rome.
Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.”
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
from his book, Through the Year with Fulton Sheen

(a sourwood limb broken from a recent ice storm/ Julie Cook/2025)

I’ll be the first to admit that I have really struggled to get back to my regular blogging standards.
You know what I mean…
those daily postings and offerings about things…at the time…that seemed pertinent…

For nearly four years now, I’ve been a bit quiet.
And that is NOT a word that many often attribute to me.
Quiet.

It was in those nearly 12 years worth of past daily postings, year after year,
that I’d find myself full of both passion and feeling.

Posts stemming from my desire to share…all of which sprung up from such places
as frustration, love, warmth, wrath, pain, sorrow, suffering, joy, laughter…
The entire gamut of human emotion would pour out from someplace deep and inward…
pouring out from my fingertips onto a key pad, onto a screen and into the netherworld of cyberspace—aka
the blogosphere or blogiverse.

If I had been suffering, I knew that others must have been suffering as well.
If I was joyful, I had hoped sharing that joy might bring joy to others.
All of my postings were done both for my own catharsis as well as to hopefully
touch someone else out there someplace…

Be it about education….
Adoption
Retirement
Aging
Health
Parents with dementia
Loved ones with cancer
Becoming a caregiver
Becoming a grandparent
Struggles and joy…
All about being a traveler…the journey, the process, the beginning as well as the end.
If I felt it, I wrote about it.

And suddenly there came a very loud yet odd silence.

But there are and have been reasons for my silence, my absence.
Reasons that are partially known by both you and I and reasons that
may not be known, even to myself.

However I have learned, as I am still learning, that within those reasons that
drew me or now draw me to post, there must be or return a real sense of zeal.

That burning desire, along with the proper allotted time, to adequately get back
in the saddle as it were.

I believe, for me that is, that God has to really be pushing something up inside of me…
pushing something up to the surface, something that He would want me to write about
and to share.
Because if He isn’t pushing, then I’m not motivated and I simply find it all a struggle.
The words, the desire…it just doesn’t…it just isn’t there and it doesn’t come.
It doesn’t flow.

I think writers call it a writer’s block.
Counselors may call it depression.
Others may call it a lack of enthusiasm.
Some may smugly call it boredom.

But I simply call it a bit of what St. John of the Cross described as the
“dark night of the soul.”

A dark and empty void.

When I first started this thing called a blog a little over 12 years ago,
I had three offerings a day. I was new to the notion of blogging and indeed a bit too enthusiastic. I had always longed to write and to share so when I discovered blogging
following my retirement from the classroom, I was like a kid in a candy store.

There was a morning post…a post to greet the day so to speak.
It consisted of a photo accompanied by an appropriate quote.
Then midday, there would be a more meaty post only to be followed by
again an image and quote in order to close out the day.
Kind of a 3 meal a day posting.
And hopefully, in all of that, there’d be something that actually said
something of some merit to someone.

Over the years, I learned how to reign in my enthusiasm and hone my focus.
The posts became basically a daily dose of observation…
be that from local surroundings, family,
travels or current events.
Opining and opinions galore.

Over the past 4, give or take, years…
there have been things that I thought I needed and or wanted to write about and share.
I was divorced.
I’d been alienated.
I’d been lost.
I’d said goodbyes.
I’ve said hellos.
I’ve been found.
I’ve been re-found.
I’ve been taken in.
I’ve begun anew.
There have been adventures….lots of adventures.
Grand adventures.
New places, new people, new beginnings.

There was a near national mutiny.
There was an election.
There remained divisiveness.
There remains uneasiness and an unsettledness.

There’s been Russia
Ukraine
Israel
Lebanon
Yemen
Iran
Mexico
Greenland
Denmark
France
The UK
And Canada for heaven’s sake!!!

So much to muse over, lament over, wail over, stand firm over…

And yet, I’ve said nary a thing.

Blogging friends (dear, dear Oneta and Kathy’s beloved Paul) have left us.

Time has come and gone…but for better or worse, it, time, does continue on.

And so…it was Bishop Sheen’s quote that I read the other day that spoke deeply to
where I’m finding myself.

All about being broken.
Not so much in a current state of brokenness but rather about simply being broken, almost constantly. The need for being broken.
Broken for a purpose and reason.

Hence God’s urgings and nudging about perhaps writing some more…posting some more.

Forgetting our hubris while remembering our brokenness.

Very Lenten and spiritually timely…don’t you believe?

“But mortification – literally, “making death” –
is what life is all about, a slow discovery of the mortality of all
that is created so that we can appreciate its beauty without clinging to it
as if it were a lasting possession.
Our lives can indeed be seen as a process of becoming familiar with death,
as a school in the art of dying…
all these times have passed by like friendly visitors,
leaving you with dear memories but also with the sad recognition
of the shortness of life.
In every arrival there is a leave-taking;
in every reunion there is a separation;
in each one’s growing up there is a growing old;
in every smile there is a tear;
and in every success there is a loss.
All living is dying and all celebration is mortification too.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen, Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings

seen better days…but….

Mar21

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart,
it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future,
not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied
with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.
The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.
A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be,
without wishing for what he has not.”
Seneca

(seen better days / Julie Cook / 2025)

So the other day, I swam back up to the surface of blogville in order to offer
a much belated post regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Helene here in Western North Carolina.

It is bad.
It is very bad.
Still….really bad…
As in really really bad….but….

A fellow blogger, Doug, offered a comment regarding my recent post.

Doug noted what we have all learned from our news and press outlets…
that national tragedies tend to sputter before quickly running out of steam,
all the while fading nearly silently from sight as we move on to the next
top story or tragedy.

Doug noted that, (as I offer just a tad of his comment)…“The public moves on.
In the meantime the victims try to find a blame for it all.
That’s natural. It’s the avoidence in blaming God..
because we can’t have any of that even though we often think it
Sometimes a person/people/entity is easy to target blame.
More often it’s a bit murky at best… and certainly poltical.

My response to Doug was that no, I had not seen, heard or sensed any particular blame.

There was no fussing or cussing of God for “allowing” this torrent to consume an entire
swarth of our Nation.
No one raised an angry fist to the Heavens lamenting the destruction that had
befallen them. And no one blamed any political party for any of this happening.

They did, however, voice frustration that assistance from our Government was slow in coming.

And I will readily admit that there was, and continues to be, a lot of frustration
with FEMA.
This all happened under Biden’s watch and is now under Trump’s watch.
A bipartisan sort of situation I suppose.

Folks were initially told that FEMA had no money.
They’d already used up their yearly funding on housing for illegal immigrants.

Then suddenly came the offering of a $750 gift card.
$750 seemed to many as an insult.

Firstly, we had no power for weeks.
There was no way to use a governmental issued debit card because cash was the only thing
stores, that had initially survived the destruction, could work with.

Banks had literally been flooded and destroyed.
There was no gasoline available within a two hour radius.
Grocery stores were flooded and destroyed.
Drug stores such as Walgreens and CVS were destroyed.
Lowes and Home Depots were flooded.

And the reality was that hundreds of people were literally isolated and cut off from
the world they had known.
There was no coming or going.
Roads were and still are, washed away.
Time had stopped and was standing still.
And for many…time remains stopped…it’s still September 27th 2024.

Following the storm and before I was able to evacuate, I actually stood on my back deck
for 3 days, watching the helicopters flying back and forth across the mountains.
The helicopters were flying low…I could see folks looking out the opened doors
of the copters, and so I waved.

I didn’t wave frantically but rather I simply waved as if to say hello.
I wasn’t waving because I needed help, but because I was grateful to see that people were
indeed out and literally up in the skies looking down for those who needed help.

Hundreds of individual helicopter owners and operators were out looking.
Not the US Military, but just plain ol folks wanting to help.
For whatever reason, the Military had been told to stand down and wait.
I know for a fact that many soldiers and guardsmen lamented the command.

And there are many stories of individual civilian pilots who were scolded by the Military
for interfering..
yet initially there were no military helicopters in the sky.

In the midst of the initial assessment, hundreds of homes had been washed away.
There was no access to a myriad of properties because all the bridges had been washed away.
Vehicles were buried under tons of mud that fell down from mountainside after mountainside.

The only thing many folks had was simply the clothes on their backs…
And maybe they were a few of the lucky ones to have been rescued…from their predicament…

So in the end, many folks declined the debit cards because they were not practical.

There was however a great outpouring from neighbor to neighbor.

What had happened almost immediately was The Cajun Navy.
They came with teams of pack mules.
They traversed the landslides to bring supplies to the hundreds of families who suddenly found themselves cut off from civilization.

There was Samaritan’s Purse.
They had people on the ground almost immediately.
They set about cooking, providing meals, providing water, taking chainsaws and shovels
to literally dig folks out of the destruction. They removed entire trees from homes.
They dug mud out of people’s homes.
They gave people a sense of hope….telling folks with their deeds, that no one is ever alone.

A Harley Davidson dealership that had been flooded, did a quick turn around to become a
recovery center.
Once the flood waters subsided, makeshift potable water shower centers were set up
in what were now an abandoned parking lot.
Church parking lots were turned into food banks and medical centers.

Bars and concert venues turned into food banks and help centers.

The Red Truck Men set up shop for the long run, buying a former restaurant.
They are providing breakfast, clothing, work supplies while going out to assist
homeowners trying to take back their homes from the wrath of Mother Nature.

On top of everything that is ongoing, we are now dealing with wildfires due in large part
to the tons of dried debris…add in the now constant high winds and exceedingly low humidity…

It’s as if we are now watching the horizon for the plagues of frogs and locust….but

(a start up wildfire as seen from my deck / Julie Cook / 2025)

There is no blame.
There is no time for blame.

There is however time for gratitude.
Neighbor thanking neighbor.
Neighbors they have never met or known…but still a neighbor all the same.

and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31