Jesus and Me - Glen Campbell - LIVE & Studio versions

Awoke this morning with this song playing in the heart, the words singing in the mind.  What lifts us up to His Real Presence, might also lift up someone else.  We can take our temporal bodies, minds, hearts--and because of Jesus' love and mercy, the choice to uplift and lift up, is ours.  Ask God for His power, grace and abundant faith.  Be lifted and uplift.

Glen Campbell's life story is in this song.  Perhaps it is why there is such appeal:  redemption is ours, also, for the asking. In today's Gospel reading at Mass [John 14], Jesus states His own love of the Father: ...the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me."  

How often do we stop and say within or without, silently or aloud how we feel about Him?  I love you, God!  I love you, Father!  I love you, His Real Presence!

Catholic Hermit on Call

One must strive to exist in the Order of the Present Moment, to go with God's flow.

Am in civilization until another day, on call to help out a person asking assistance.  It happens rarely, and yes, it is difficult physically especially when the pain is at the upper echelons.  But there is a goodness in making the effort as well as a goodness in being asked.  There are physical benefits, as well, such as being able to have a hot shower, a bit of human conversation, as well as being immersed in others' way of life and their perspectives, needs, and environment.

This consecrated Catholic hermit has been so slogged into the temporal dregs of existence and the temporal aspects of pain recently, that friends out there far beyond, have been uplifting the hermit with prayers and words of encouragement in emails.  The hermit is reminded just how very much aspects of temporal life, of that which is below, can hinder the mind, heart, and spirit from seeking the things of God and seeing His Beautiful.

The hermit's will is obviously weak, and the physical pain reduces the mind and emotions to lessened ability to perceive what otherwise could be overlooked.

A child mentioned that its two cats that love him dearly, have lately started to ignore him when someone else comes around.  The cats, he says, go to the other person rather than loyally sticking by him and playing.  So he said he had stopped playing much with his cats, since surely they did not care that much for him anymore....

An adult made some comments that rather wounded the emotions.  Then a parent made comments regarding the child, regarding how frustrating, and why does he not just do as asked?  Why go against what he is told, when it would be so simple to just do as asked and then have the time to play, and so forth?  The child's choices and ploys were getting to the parent, just as some of the adult's comments to the hermit had gotten to the hermit.

Then the reminder came from what the hermit had been reading and realizing as insights from His Real Presence and the Living Word just last week in the daily Gospel readings at Mass.  Do not be of earth, or below; seek that which is above, be with God above.  And, the hermit remembered what it was already noticing in its own life when the temporal fought for the mind and heart and spirit's attention, sucking it back into the below, into the dragnets of the temporal--and not of that of the temporal which leads and assists us to seek the things of God above and to find God's Beautiful.

So the hermit mentioned to the child that his cats were playing "mind games" with him.  "Don't let those two rascal cats get away with it!  Just keep playing with and loving them.  Don't let them pull this over on you or get you to think they do not love you as much as they always have.  They are just being little 'kiddies.'"

Then the hermit mentioned to the adult, the parent, to keep a sense of humor and not let the child play "mind games" with her.  Pull the bluff with the child. Pick and choose the issues to confront and the ones of which the child is seeking a childish reaction or attempting to get the parent's "goat."

Then the hermit reminded itself to not let the comments of others to get it down, to pull it back to the temporal and to self, and the self of the temporal aspects that stymie and do not lead the hermit's mind, heart, and spirit to the things of God.  And keep trying to not let the temporal pain remain in the temporal aspects that seem hopeless and so ravaging as to deplete the hermit and cause it to let down the armor of His Real Presence.

None of the comments, the bits of "mind games" we human "animals" play even if we do not mean to or realize, or the perceptions we hold from the past, of the temporal, are going to matter much.  They are what they are, and we can ask forgiveness for things we have said and done no matter how they were perceived by others.  But mostly we just have to keep existing by the grace of God in the Order of the Present Moment and go with God's flow.

Probably the best thing to seek of the things of God and His Beautiful, is His Perspective--His View. And the View of God--God's View--includes very much His View of His Created Temporal as it pertains to being treads and risers on the Stairway to Heaven.

Now, one last evening of civilization and temporal duty calls.  The consecrated nothing Catholic hermit will drag its very painful physical body up and out of bed, make some supper for the child, drive him to a baseball game, and painfully sit and stand--down and up and up and down while watching the child play the sport, giving as much full attention in the temporal yet with the fullness of body, mind, heart, and spirit seeking God's View.

The previous baseball game a couple evenings ago featured an unexpected event.  A young boy who had been skateboarding in the park nearby, fell and sustained a serious arm break.  The bone was broken through the skin and muscle--plenty of blood and excruciating pain--and onlookers galore. Thankfully, a man guided the injured boy to a bench and called paramedics, and then notified the boy's mother.  It took quite awhile, with the baseball game getting started amidst the ambulance and fire truck and medics working on the injured child, to get him stabilized in order to place him on a gurney and off to a hospital.  A break like that is quite serious, including the shock that occurs. Spirit, emotions, mind...into bodily reactions, and then return through the process:  body, mind, heart, spirit.

The consecrated Catholic hermit, a nothing to all but all to God, prayed for the child and watched the ballgame.  We are all, always on call.

A Catholic Hermit's Immediate Challenge in Finding the Things of God...

Yes, after pondering and praying and writing of seeking and finding the things of God, and seeing God's Beautiful in the daily muck, there is immediate challenge:  Put to the test!

Was going to try to hang some drywall, at least the lower course for cannot lift the higher.  The lower piece will have to be small as it is very heavy, as it is.  But put the level to the wall, and where Jorge had added numerous supports to existing studs, all has to be removed because they stick out.  The drywall would bump out or even have to shift where he added studs; the stair stringers cannot go in straight or plumb, either.

So, started to use the metal cutting blade and the reciprocating saw, to discover he had put as many as 34 nails in two 2x4's that are each 5' and 4', respectively.  (There are more in like stead.)  Then he had a footer plate nailed to the hilt, as well, but cannot get that out until the 1/2" plywood is somehow removed.  Cannot seem to wedge in a pry tool, for 37 nails are sunk in a 2'x4' piece of plywood.  Plus, it is basic carpentry sense to never use nails for landing sub-flooring; only use screws about every 8-10" or more, for nails will work their way up and pop the finished hardwood to be laid on top.

It's the CROSS!  Yes, all these nails driven in are reminders of God's Beautiful Gift of His Only Begotten Son for the redemption of our sins:  our lacking to any degree of God's Good--our lack of seeking and finding God's Beautiful Good!

Taking a big break from it.  So discouraging!  But discouragement is useful in finding the things of God.  

Left messages for Raphael to explain that Jorge cannot face the realities, but that truly, this is not a good work result here.  So if he ever utilizes Jorge on his work force, it would be well to supervise him.  Had tried to watch his work, but he did not want the old know-nothing around, plus thought surely he knew what he was doing.  

Took the opportunity to express in one message, how very grateful to Raphael, and that there have never been complaints prior to his or his men's wonderful work.  But felt it right to express the situation as a result of Jorge's efforts, surely done as the best he knew how.  And how thankful is this hermit, to Raphael, for pointing out its own errors in construction, as that is how it knows now, what is not.

Well, he did, to his way of perceiving, that is obvious.  Called the lumberyard, and Tom said the wood is useless now and was already weakened by being riddled with way too many nails.

Part of the praying is now for gangsters, for this nothing Catholic hermit wondered why a nice man like Jorge would riddle a relatively small piece of 2x4 and also plywood, with so many nails from the gun.  Perhaps His Real Presence wants the hermit to pray for gangsters who riddle their victims with multiple bullets until their bodies are filled with holes and all earthly use and life gone.  

Gangsters are people with souls--God's Beautiful.  He created them; their parents provided the human channel to their births.  They are things of God, in the good they possess as His Created Creatures. They have souls created in the image and likeness of God's Beautiful.  Somehow, in the muck, they developed a lack of some degree of good.  But, there is yet much of God's beautiful even in gangsters, such as hope of conversion.

Have been thinking about all these nails that must cut out, and the wood trashed--burned, perhaps. Yes, make an immolation of them and let the ashes waft as incense prayers to His Real Presence, turning things of the muck into things of God.  The nails themselves are God's Beautiful.  Someone a long time ago had God's inspiration to devise such things as nails, and they have been improved over time.  People make them, sell them, and use them for very good purposes.  They help build God's Beautiful buildings and abodes of His Created humans--souls all.  God's Beautiful!

Then there is God's Beautiful in Jorge's energy and delight in using the nail gun.  There is God's beautiful in the air of the air compressor that gives force to the nail gun.   

There is God's Beautiful in Jorge's commenting several times on all the tools the hermit has on hand--God's Beautiful Created Tools.  And there is also God's Beautiful Lowe's loan that the nothing Catholic hermit scrapes together by God's gracious Beautiful to pay monthly and hopefully pay off in another 5 1/2 years of God's Beautiful time, with God's Beautiful aspect of money for His Beautiful people's use.

There is God's Beautiful in all these things of God.  We just need to seek them and find them.  They are everywhere throughout the daily muck--that, too, God's Beautiful Created.  

Called the financial advisor (a truly God's Beautiful Creature through and through), and let him know the status with the hermit being God's Created lone worker bee here, and that having Te Deum Hermitage salable any time soon, is not seemingly in God's Beautiful plan of earth time and place. But we creatures never really know; only God knows all.

So will just keep persevering with the things of God:  His Beautiful Virtues and Graces and Prayers and Love of Him and of His Created.  If finances deplete prior to a salable hermitage, there is surely to be found God's Beautiful in the bankruptcy process. (Hopefully jesting, but truly, there are the things of God to be found in such aspects--God's Beautiful in bankers and lenders and lawyers.  God never leaves us without recourse in His Created Beautiful of His Creatures' temporal existences in God's Beautiful Creation.)

Decided it was also time to have a teeny liqueur glassful of God's Beautiful "Mystical Mist"--a concoction that He inspired the hermit to make a couple years or more ago, back in the easier life that was not at all so Godly Beautiful as now with the opportunities daily at hand, of such increased spiritual growth.

Will continue to seek the things of God.  'Tis time to take a first sip of the Mystical Mist, and offer "Cheers to God's Beautiful" in all things of God, and in the wondrous ways in which He is in and behind and under and over and before and after all of His Created Beautiful.

God bless His Real Presence in us.  Little children, let us love one another (and learn to see the things of God in all his Creatures and Creation).  Remain in God's Beautiful Love!