My Brother My Friend

I lost someone today, a brother from my time in Milwaukee he was a wonderful man, loving, kind fearless and a big influence on how I did my work for seven years. Now I am sitting here remembering him, missing him but part of me is thinking that he would be kicking me in the ass if he was here. I not getting on with the work, and that would bother him, I do think he would understand I am still rebuilding my life and yes Brother that's is working out. I have a good job, a fantastic wife and a son who fills me with joy and I know as ou said, “The work will always be there, lots to be done all the time.”

Take care Brother.....

I hope you can rest from all the work you did, have a scotch, eat some unhealthy food, no salad, and if you get a chance say a prayer for the brothers that you have left behind, I know you were a man with some fire in your ass...

Take Care and God Bless

Good Enough

For Today

Prep For Visits

I am going to my sisters today so I have made a cheesecake..... It’s done, ready to go...

For tonight for myself and Cindy Lou it’s chocolate pie made from scratch....

And boy does it look good....

Take Care and God Bless

Merry Christmas

Good Enough

Roads and Yes

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Roads

I have spent a lot of my life looking for the right road....

I was in the army, I was a cook, I was a warehouse guy, I was a salesman, I lived in religious life for many many years and all that time the road I was on changed from time to time. I would ask God to “Put my feet” on the right road, and he never failed to come through. All of my past experiences have added to the person I am, to the spouse I am, the father I am, the worker I am and even the kind of minister, or lay minister that I am. As I look at my life every time I have said “yes” to God on where my life should lead it has always worked out fantastically. I have been told more than a few times that I could not change the course of my life but I have always been able to with the Lords help, and now I have a good job, a wonderful wife and a beautiful son and every day I still find the Lord working away to “put my feet” on his road.....

Now I read this Gospel in another season of my life, and this time, I find myself drawn to the word perplexed. Mary’s “yes” is not immediate or easy, and she asks one specific question: How? What are the mechanics of this impossible pregnancy? The angel’s answer is far less specific: a rather vague assurance that God has a hand in this.

Somewhere between becoming a parent and simply becoming older, I find myself growing more attuned to the brokenness of this world. The beauty and wholeness of the little life entrusted to me stand in heartbreaking contrast to the pervasive ugliness of sin and selfishness. I am perplexed, bewildered, greatly troubled by the seemingly endless creativity with which we humans harm each other. 

Once again, though, Mary of the Annunciation stands as companion and inspiration. Her response to bewilderment is not to despair but to ponder. She lets her questions, her uncertainty, her trepidation draw her deeper into the mystery of who God is and how God works in this world. She takes the angel at his word: vague though it may seem, God does have a hand in this, and perhaps that answer is enough after all. 

And, eventually, Mary’s bewilderment gives way to wonder—wonder expressed in the praise-filled Magnificat she will sing in the next scene. So at the end of this Advent season, I pray for endurance in pondering, so that bewilderment at God’s apparent absence might give way to wonder at God’s ever-promised presence. When we say “yes” God’s hand becomes so evident that its impossible to miss.

Merry Christmas

Take Care and God Bless

Good Enough

Every day

Good Morning Gentle Readers

Every day I said this at prayer, and every day it touched my soul, today I find myself thinking about it.....

Give it a read and take from it what you think

Take Care and God Bless

Good Enough

The Canticle Of Mary

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior

For he has looked with favour on his lowly servant

From this day all generations will call me

Blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me

And Holy is His name

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation
He has shown the strength of his arm,

He has scattered the proud in their conceit

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

And has lifted up the lowly

He has filled the hungry with good things

and he rich he has sent away empty

He has come to the help of His servant Israel

For He has remembered His promise of mercy

The promise he made to our fathers

To Abraham and His children forever

Glory to the Father and the Son and to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever

Amen

That's A Thousand

Good Morning Gentle Readers

Well that's a thousand page views.....

For all of you who have had a look...

Thank you, I hope you liked what you saw

Take Care and God Bless

and of course

Merry Christmas

Good Enough 

Yes

Good Morning Gentle Readers

I would love to take credit for this one but I can't

Take Care and God Bless

Good Enough

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 

And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

“Let it be with me according to your word.”

Thus everything changed. Perhaps contrary to our cultural idiom, Mary’s fiat is not the domesticated, tired tale that we see enacted by children each year at Christmastime. Rather, it is a “yes” that sits at the very centre of Christianity’s theo-drama—for as we know, Mary’s unhesitating, perfect cooperation with God’s grace initiates that glorious mystery of our redemption.

For centuries, the Christian imagination has been captivated by the strange amalgamation that surrounds Mary’s humble yet resonating “yes”—the angel’s Ave, the paradoxical juxtaposition of God’s transcendence and immanence, the clear references to Scriptural fulfillment. From St. Irenaeus’ defense of Mary as the New Eve to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetic reminder that this fiat “gave God’s infinity/Dwindled to infancy/Welcome in womb and breast,” the Christian mind continually, and rightfully, returns to her “let it be done.”

But as members of a society that has hyper-emphasized a muddled understanding of freedom, we struggle to respond to our daily callings with Mary’s ready, “Here am I.” Unlike Mary, our modern culture compels us to say, “Let it be done according to my word.” But today’s Gospel challenges us to imitate Mary’s faithfulness—despite the reality that our own “yes” is often hidden behind what is seemingly mundane or routine. Nevertheless, each response to the good, from changing a dirty diaper to working with Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Mercy, is ultimately a response to the one who is the source of that good; today’s Gospel refreshes us with that certainty.

And because we are celebrating Mary’s Immaculate Conception, let us remember that God has given the Church this “favored one” not only to be the Theotokos, the Mother of God, but also to be our gracious advocate. We, who so frequently neglect the movements of grace in our lives, are invited to seek the intercession of the one who is “full of grace” so that all our souls may “proclaim the greatness of the Lord…[and] rejoice in God [our] Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

Not My Reflection

Reflection on Advent:

“God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be.

There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly….

God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.

God marches right in.

He chooses people as His instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer