Building a grotto to La Nuestra Señora de
Guadalupe:
Fifteen years ago or so, I moved myself and all my books and writings to a tiny blue house. From the point of view of some 'moderns,' there's one fast way to become a kind of "instant eccentric" in the increasingly gentrified southwest...
My grandmother said that if you listened to stories about Mother Maria for nine weeks straight without interruption ... or if you said the rosary for nine days straight without your mind wandering once ... or if you walked to one of Mama Marushka’s shrines in the woods for nine nights in a row -- nine being the number of months Blessed Mother carried the living Christo before giving birth to the Light of the world -- that if you would do any of these, that Blessed Mother would appear to you and answer any question you might have about how to live on earth fully ensouled.
What if the Good Samaritan had left the injured man to die by the side of the road... instead of ministering to him? The injured man would have had nothing to say to encourage others to care for Life, for no one had helped him with his own injuries.
"Water can wear through stone,"
good advice my grandmother said ...
but not if that prayer puts us to sleep
causing "sinful patience" or an aeternal "put-up-with,"
rather than rousing us to new ideas and actions.
Consider then, an additional path of heart ...
When the wound to a people or the soul is ancient
or ongoing, and hierarchies chronically
disturb the healings,
then, what say you my sister subversive soul,
what say you my brother co-conspirator,
let us rise up to heal the wounds,
bypassing the hierarchy completely ...
“New seed is faithful. It roots deepest in the places that are most empty.”
--cpe
The night after the election of Barack Obama, Collin Powell was interviewed by CNN. He did not say about Barack: “Look what he did!” Instead Powell said about the people: “Look what we did!”
This is the prayer I prayed before I filled out the secret paper ballot whilst sitting in my pickup truck in a rain storm this week: Please help me vote for the souls who can do the most to help those who suffer most ...
Loss of "The Bounty"
You're wearing your scars inside-out, man,
Hardened Scars on the outside
Softest heart buried far down in the bilges....
That's backward, man; such a captain
disheartens, insults, barks orders far too harsh,
claims he's being lenient
when he orders sailors to be whipped in public,
instead of merely ordering they be hung til dead
Dear Brave Souls:
My columns at NCR will resume this coming week.
Levántate, da voces en la noche, al comenzar las vigilias;
Derrama como agua tu corazón ante la presencia del Señor;
Alza tus manos a él implorando la vida de tus pequeñitos,
Que desfallecen de hambre en las entradas de todas las calles.
Don’t just stand there, Rise Up!! Cry out! Cry out in the dark! Cry out at your vigil... Let your heart pour out like water ...let everyone and God see you are bold! Lift your hands! Lift! Your! Hands!... else your little children shall starve on every road.
Lamentations, 2:19
There is a place in soul and psyche, La selva subterránea, The underground forest... a mysterious locus which acts as El refugio, a protected place where the exhausted spirit can safely rest... and where attracted by La luz violeta the violet light from worldly wounds, angels come to tend to souls with infinite tenderness.
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