marymajor's New Year message

It's the first day of 2009 so I'm using a different font for this post, just for a little change of pace. I've also posted a photograph of one of my favorite flower arrangements (when it is not being posed against a white background it is sitting on a bureau in the living area next to my Christmas tree).

I want to speak to all of you, including those who are on different calendars, and so you have already had your own cultural New Year's Day, or it is yet to come.

I'm not one who pays very much attention to the calendars of humankind, even my own Gregorian calendar. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is, unless I check the newspaper. I've always been like that because my philosophy about time is much different from everyone else's. Time is an important commodity, but the measurement of time is meaningless. What do I mean by that?

Time is golden, but it is not gold.

Time is very valuable as it is actually being lived, in the "here and now." Time wasted is never regained. However, once time moves from the present into the past, it has absolutely no relevance or value unless it was converted into something that was lasting.

For example, our society is obsessed with meaningful dates of joyous or sad events in the past. Let us use a birthday for example. But for most humans who lived, many of them as recently as the last century had no idea as to the calendar date of their own birthday. Birthdays were not observed or recorded in Biblical times, by either religious or pagans. One often did not know the actual year that one was born. The calendar is simply a tool for managing time as one is living it. Once time has been lived it has absolutely no further value unless it has been turned into something substantial and lasting, such as love, or wisdom.

US first President George Washington was one of the greatest men who ever lived, and we celebrate (or at least we used to) his birthday. But he was not great because of his birthday. His birthday gives us pause to remember his greatness. That is because Washington took the time that was given to him in his life and he converted it to activities that endured in the fight for and founding of this country. Suppose calendars didn't exist then, so what if Washington knew not what day he was born or any "date" for anything that he did as he fought for and created this country? Nothing would be different, because it is the deeds not the date that is important. The time that Washington lived was golden because he turned what he did into gold that has endured in its preciousness.

I'm not saying to abolish all calendars, though sometimes I am tempted. Instead, I wish that people would lose some of the neuroses that they have acquired about time and calendars. I first realized that many people have an unhealthy set of beliefs about calendars when I was "undercover" doing psychological work with a great cultist. Many things about me baffled her, but one in particular stands out. She could not understand two things. The first was that she could not understand why I seemed to have no interest in what we can broadly call "the past." Being a self admitted reincarnation believer (the New Age type, not the genuinely motivated traditional faith believers) she was obsessed with who "used to be" who and "what happened" in "past lives." New age reincarnation believers have a morbid fascination and thus a bondage worse than any slavery (since this bondage is voluntary and imaginary) to the past. So she thought I was an uninformed idiot for not obsessing about "past" events.

But who is the idiot, because the clue was right in front of her in the form of the second thing about me that baffled her. I have an intensely accurate and continuous awareness of where I am and where events occur regarding the cardinal directions of the earth: north, south, east and west. She marveled and was stymied to understand how I even have a total sense of direction in my dreams! For example, when I dream, I know where the dream action, such as it is, occurs in terms of the actual geographic orientation on earth. When I described a dream I could say, "Well, she was facing north and then people walked in an eastern direction until this that and the other thing happened." She had no idea why that was but the real sin was not to be curious enough to realize that I was not the fool in that duet.

Life and time is all about the here and now. It does not matter if it is your daughter's birthday, celebrating the day in the past that she was born, if you do not love her and you abuse her. If you have a daughter and you love her and have raised her to be a happy person with as much maturity and peace of mind as it is possible to have in this troubled world, then you have converted your golden time into "gold," and the date of her birth or any other calendar event is hardly relevant. You celebrate her graduation in June because she grew in joy and wisdom in school, not because it is happening on a particular human invented calendar date in June. I always know "where I am" and "what I am doing;" and that is why it manifests in my curious but simple to understand orientation on the real here and now earth in my real here and now life.

One thing that irks me about certain Christian denominations is that they use calendars to try to be "more correct" or more "accurate in the faith" than others, in actual competition. My goodness, people don't even know the actual date of Jesus' physical birth and yet some Christian denominations have false pride in being more "historically accurate" in their calendar. What makes me sad is that they have much more to be genuinely proud of, for example, the Orthodox who have preserved in their modern celebration so much of the old reverential ancient liturgy. Be proud of that; not in imaginary "accuracy" about dates from a time when people themselves barely knew what year they were born.

Notice the ancient Israelites kept careful calendars but not of the dates of individual people, but the dates of performance of their obligation to God. This is why I resonate with the Jewish calendar (though I don't pore over its pages, LOL, since I'm just not into calendars), because the faithful who follow the Jewish calendar are doing it for God, not for their own self congratulatory agendas.

Likewise my own church, the Catholic Church, has it right with its Liturgical Calendar. Through the year the Church celebrates the cycle of our faith. It is not the dates that is important, nor some sort of sense of "anniversary" repetition. It is, like the Jewish calendar, focus on God, and the great gift that he has given to us all in Jesus Christ. By celebrating through the Liturgical year we honor God and his prophets and saints, we remind ourselves of all that God has done for us, and we raise the young (and the new to the faith) up and draw them closer into immersion in the faith and the glory of God. I love the Liturgical Calendar of the Catholic Church. It is only diminished a little bit for me, though, as I have come to realize that cultists have through their own delusion "written themselves into Bible history" by actually thinking that they played a role in the times of the actual holy men and women who lived (once and only once) and who are now in heaven (not "reincarnated").

The Catholic Church has thus taken its two thousand year history and turned all of that time, good and bad, into gold. Not because the dates and the calendar pages were gold, but because the deeds that were accomplished, the words that were said, and the faith role models for salvation and charity were golden, and thus live on transformed into the gold of permanence generation after generation.

The five pillars of the Muslim faith are beautiful, not because they are five instead of four, or because the Prophet (PBUH) first performed his worship on a certain day in a certain calendar year, but because his golden example lives on as gold.

Calendars are important to know what date to show up with other people to celebrate God and life in its goodness, or to mourn the sad events as they happen, as they are part of life. But calendars are not tar pits that one must step into day after day and year after year in backward looking real or imaginary grief. As dangerous a tar pit is to look back on dates and events of a real past or an imaginary one and use it to puff up one's own inflated ego, cultivating hubris. Terrorists look back on real events in order to focus their outrage, which may or may not be justified, in unproductive and dark commemoration of wrongs or other terrorist events. Cultists continually look back on the past as "reasons" for "why" things are today, neglecting even the most fundamental use of logic and reasoning to deduce the actual reasons that people are the way they are. They would rather imagine they are reincarnated or imaginary descendants of Mary Magdalene than to recognize that, as the news reports today, there is an increased risk of mental disturbance among adults who were premature babies. They never look for rational reasons for problems; they always look for a way that they can insert themselves as heroes or anti-heroes into someone else's past.

So here we are, the first day or two of 2009. What does "New Year" mean? What does "2009" mean? All it means is whatever you have harvested of your time in 2008 and brought forward into genuine goodness that is "gold." Unfortunately, I think that due to lack of meaningful use of the golden time of 2008, there are now two reasons (the other being the secular economic crisis) that so many people are hurting with a lot less "gold" as 2009 begins. Try not to waste the time that you have each day. And remember, that does not mean a frenetic level of "productive" activity. Being quiet and appreciative of the goodness of life and God's mercy is not a waste of time.

marymajor's Diary: December 31

When I'm lonely I turn to the writings of the Popes of the last century, both their personal writing and their doctrinal writing. When I read what they write I feel like I am in their company and am not so lonely.


From Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical: Spe Salvi, "Saved by Hope"

Introduction
1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given.

Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.

Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here?

Faith is Hope
2. Before turning our attention to these timely questions, we must listen a little more closely to the Bible's testimony on hope. “Hope”, in fact, is a key word in Biblical faith—so much so that in several passages the words “faith” and “hope” seem interchangeable.

Thus the Letter to the Hebrews closely links the “fullness of faith” (10:22) to “the confession of our hope without wavering” (10:23). Likewise, when the First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be always ready to give an answer concerning the logos—the meaning and the reason—of their hope (cf. 3:15), “hope” is equivalent to “faith”.

We see how decisively the self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare the Christian life with life prior to faith, or with the situation of the followers of other religions.

Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).

Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future.

In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing): so says an epitaph of that period. In this phrase we see in no uncertain terms the point Paul was making.

In the same vein he says to the Thessalonians: you must not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Th 4:13). Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.

Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good news”—the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only “informative” but “performative”. That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.

marymajor's Diary: December 30

I've been thinking about talented musicians that I know, in particular, classical music composers and interpreters of such. The ones that I know feign modesty, but they do think they are pretty hot and keep their "brilliance" "under wraps." Some think they are kind of new modern day Beethoven's or Mozart's or something. Like I said, not actually too modest.

But if so, why is there not public acclaim for the works they produce, except among themselves? Friends writing reviews for friends and so forth. A very small percentage of Americans even listen to classical music. Why is that? I know, they figure Americans are the great unwashed country listening heathen. However, should not genuine prodigy command attention if it is so good? My friends do not have a clue, as talented as they may be.

I'm not a classical fan or expert (even when I took a few piano lessons it was Debussy or nothing for me; I'm just not into classical), but I know people and I know talent like nobody else. Here's what they don't understand.

All of the great composers lived in a time that was saturated with sincere belief in God. All of them were believers at some level, even if not personally devout. One cannot write a Requiem, for example, without having an underlying belief in both the Deity and the institution that one is writing about, and that the listeners of your music also believe in. This extends to all classical music. When those several generations of giants of classical music composition lived, they were lifted in their talent by their faith. Their aim at genius was true, because they aimed high. It is impossible to ever recreate the environment of the genius of these composers and the faith of the times that they composed in, and thus the mindsets they all had toward God, their music, their gift, their patrons and their audiences.

That is why there will never be another Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Hayden and so forth. That is why no one, no matter how talented or having inspiration or musical genius, can reproduce the level of genius and ever lasting relevance of their music.

Modern composers of the last century up and including now and those of the future are too self consciously concerned about the level of their output, rather than aiming for the sublime while actually believing in the sublime, and knowing that their audience does too. They have been infected by what they consider to be rational enlightenment, and the details of production and marketing in a God-omitting secular world. Of course they cannot ever achieve the brilliance of the masters! Duh!

Further, for "what if" fans, suppose you had brilliant atheist composers during the golden years of classical composition. Think about it; they would still be composing for audiences that are not atheists, in venues that are not atheist, and for purposes that are not atheist. The environment of faith that everyone lived within would have uplifted their work for legacy too. But it was people of faith who subscribed to and patronized the prodigies, who listened to their music, who appreciated the reach for the sublime rather than listening to those who are self consciously trying to be all on their own brilliant, innovative and cunning.

That is why when I must listen to classical, or actually am in the mood, it is so painfully obvious to me how the golden age of the composers can never be achieved again, either on an individual level or on the whole.

I think if my friends and acquaintances truly want to reach for the sublime and unlock the "inner genius" that they so modestly (not) think they have, they must understand this holistic view of composing. The composer is within the belief system of the time, and it shapes his or her music, just as it shapes their mind and the focus of their attention. If one is attending to the very highest, to God, even if one is writing a "secular" piece, it will be aligned for genius. None of the composers of the golden eras, even with the big egos, ever thought of themselves outside of a deeply believing environment and thus were lifted up beyond themselves as they composed.

When one is relentlessly focused on one's own "talents" and "interpretation" and "skill" and pseudo-spirituality, the results are painfully low since the bar is set so low. That is why we will never again see what was produced in music, and art, during the time of the great western believing, of faith in God being the obvious environment within which they created.

marymajor's Diary: December 29

And Jesus looking round, said to his disciples, "With what difficulty will they who have riches enter the kingdom of God!" Mark 10:23.


In the USA it's only a few days until the end of the calendar year and also the end of the tax year.

Thus it is the time of year that, depending on the tax code, the engaged delay or speed up their weddings, in order to achieve the best tax "break," whether to file taxes as a married couple or not.

Thus it is the time of year that those who are pregnant with child hope that "Daddy's little tax deduction" hurries up and gets born, as the child then counts for the entire year. In modern medicine they will "help" make this possible.

When I was born, people were married because they loved each other and had their wedding plans and household established.

When I was born babies were born because it was their natural time.

My mother was a little annoyed that I was born a bit late, but not because she and my father were "aiming for the right date."

In California a man who was married was divorced by his wife because she discovered that he claimed a yearly tax deduction for a disabled child of his that didn't live with him nor did he support the child. But he needed that tax deduction because that's the way the arm of the Antichrist, the tax code, has now ruled the mindset of families for many years now.

They divorced, she went to her parents' Christmas party, he followed with guns and a canister of rocket fuel. All are now dead in smouldering ruins as a country asks "Why?"

Taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes.

Right or wrong "dates."

Marriages and babies "timed" in order to satisfy the cruel people in the suits.

I'm glad that I was born when it was my natural time. Oh, but wait, for years I was hurt by those who thought my birth date "meant something bad" according to their "beliefs."

Jerusalem of the west has fallen in its ethics a long time ago.

Even in Babylon babies were encouraged to be born when God sent them, and people wed when they found each other, and the means to live.

No wonder so many get drunk on New Year's Eve.

And some say that drugs should be legalized so that "they can be controlled and taxed."

Even Babylon was better than that.

marymajor's Diary: December 28

"Dear Diary" by The Moody Blues

Dear diary, what a day it's been.
Dear diary, it's been just like a dream.
Woke up too late.
Wasn't where I should have been.
For goodness sake what's happening to me.
Write lightly, yours truly, dear diary.

It was cold outside my door.
So many people by the score.
Rushing around so senselessly.
They don't notice there's people like me.
Write lightly, yours truly, dear diary.

They don't know what they're playing.
Oh and They've no way of knowing what the game is.
Still they carry on doing what they can.
Outside me, and politely, dear diary.

It's over. Will tomorrow be the same?
I know that they're really not to blame.
If they wern't so blind then surely they'd see.
There's a much better way for them to be.
Inside me, yours truly, dear diary.

Dear Diary, it was cold today.
But the sun came out later,
so I went out and strolled about lookin' at the shops.
Didn't really see anything I liked, so I didn't buy anything.
Oh, now I know I posted a letter.
Been quite a nice day.

Somebody exploded an H-bomb today.
But it wasn't anyone I knew.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Dear-Diary-lyrics-Moody-Blues/BC0DACF0542AD6DF48256A6A002132AF

marymajor's Diary: December 27

On December 27 the Church honors and remembers St. John, Apostle and Evangelist,
c. 6BC to 104AD.

“3rd day within the Octave of Christmas”


From the Missal in celebration of St. John, Apostle.
“St. John is the Apostle who Jesus loved. It was he who reclined on the bosom of the Savior at the Last Supper. He is the author of the sublime Gospel, which so emphatically proclaims the Divinity of Christ. To him also our Lord, hanging on the Cross, entrusted His Beloved Mother. He died about the year 100.”

In the midst of the assembly the Lord opened his mouth; and filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding; He clothed him with a robe of glory (Ecclesiastes 15, 5).

Prayer: O Lord, in Your goodness, shine upon Your Church, that, enlightened by the teachings of Blessed John, Your Apostle and Evangelist, she may attain to everlasting gifts.

He who fears God will do good; he who is practiced in the Law will come to wisdom. Like an honorable mother she will meet him, nourish him with the bread of life and understanding, and give him the water of learning to drink. She will be made strong in him, and he shall not be moved; she will hold him fast, and he shall not be put to shame. She will exalt him above his fellows; in the midst of the assembly she will open his mouth, and will fill him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and will clothe him with a robe of glory. The Lord our God will heap upon him a treasure of joy and gladness, and will cause him to inherit an everlasting name, Thanks be to God. (Ecclesiastes 15, 1-6).

A saying went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple was not to die. But Jesus had not said, “He is not to die,” but rather, “So I wish him to remain until I come. Follow Me.” (John 21, 23, 19.)

This is the disciple who bears witness concerning these things: and we know that his witness is true. Alleluia (John 21, 24).

The just man shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow (Psalms 91, 13).

Peter and John answered, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right, in God’s sight for us to obey you rather than God. Surely we cannot help speaking of what we have heard and seen” (Acts 4:19-20).


From the Bible, the books written by John, Apostle:
Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go thy way, thy son lives” (John 4:48-50).

I write of what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and our hands have handled: of the Word of Life…And these things we write to you that you may rejoice, and our joy may be full (1 John 1:1).

I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one. I am writing to you, little ones, because you know the Father. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, and you have conquered the evil one (1 John 2:12-14).

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this has the love of God been shown in our case, that God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we may live through him. In this is the love, not that we have loved God, but that he has first loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. In this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen, and do testify, that the Father has sent his Son to be Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God (1 John 4:7-15).

This is he who came in water and in blood, Jesus Christ; not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness that Christ is the truth. For there are three that bear witness [in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth]: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are one. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God which is greater, that he has borne witness concerning his Son (1 John 5:6-9).

Look to yourselves, that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may receive a full reward (2 John 1:8).

Beloved, do not imitate evil, but that which is good. He who does what is good is of God; he who does what is evil has not seen God (3 John 1:11).

The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him, to make known to his servants the things that must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified them through his angel to his servant John; who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to whatever he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein; for the time is at hand (The Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle (Revelation) 1:1-3).

And they ((angels)) said to me, “Thou must prophesy again to many nations and peoples and tongues and kings.” And there was given me a reed like a rod, and I was told: “Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar and those who worship therein” (Revelation 10:11, 11:1).

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things concerning the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star…And let him who thirsts come; and he who wishes, let him receive the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:16, 17).