"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."
George Eliot
"I've seen something wondrous peering through my joy in the beautiful, a sense of its creator. Only people can be truly ugly, because they have free will to separate themselves from this song of praise. It often seems they will drown out this hymn with cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But I have realized they will not succeed. And so I want to throw myself on the side of the victor.”
Sophie Scholl
“What we would like to do is change the world— make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute— the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words— we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world."
Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
"Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and instruct me: for you are the God of my salvation; and I wait for you all the day. Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and loving kindness, as they have ever been of old."
Psalm 25:4-6
And let us be thankful for the three great gifts, given freely out of love: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness.
"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not so small) blessings.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I will say, rejoice; show patience and consideration to all, for the Lord is always near. Let nothing make you anxious; but with prayer, and by supplication, and with thanksgiving, let your needs be made known unto God; and the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds, in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:4-7
"Remember us, O Lord, in thy loving kindness and tender mercies, as ever they have been from old."
Psalm 25:6
For the first time post-COVID lockdown we are having all the extended family over for Thanksgiving dinner: 12 adults and 5 little ones. Most of them are working hard in modest jobs, just scraping by. There is a 20 pound turkey, and plenty of sides from the daughters. It's nice to see God's innocents running and speed-crawling around the house again.
There are times when we fall to our knees and thank God for all His blessings and tender mercies.
And there are other times when we arrogantly refuse to bend or bow, and to defer to anything but ourselves, in complacent pride. And then God brings us to our knees, to remind us of who we are, and how to be grateful for what we have been given.
Please remember to feed the least of His creatures, the birds and animals, and of course His children. What you do for the least of these, you do for Me.
Bring comfort and fellowship to the hearts of those you meet, especially those impoverished by fear and isolation, trials and afflictions, with a kind word and a smile and acts of mercy. Each of us has our burdens and troubles to carry. And it is our duty and joy and freedom to lessen the troubles of others, out of acceptance and thankfulness for His love, of those who are unworthy, like us.
I remember all of you in my thoughts and prayers, as always, my brothers and sisters in the Lord. And I give thanks for you and your goodness and your efforts to walk in His paths. And for those who have wandered off in the cold and dark.
Let us commend ourselves to His merciful forgiveness, and trust our futures to His loving kindness and tender mercy. Let us permit ourselves to be fashioned to His will, in our commitment to His gospel, not for His sake, but for ours, as He wisely commanded us.
Be kind to those who are around your table today, even those who may be 'difficult.' And pray for His mercy and enlightenment to give a more acceptable example to His children, if that difficult one is you.
Do not wait for God to show you the consequences of your sinfulness and waywardness and pride. Ask Him to show your sins to you, and for His forgiveness and mercy in thankfulness. Better now than later.
US markets will be closed tomorrow for the national Thanksgiving holiday.
They will be open on Friday, but will be closing early at 1 PM.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
"While some were speaking in the temple, and remarking how lavishly it was adorned with costly stones and beautiful memorials, Jesus said, 'These things that you see — the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'
And they asked him, 'Teacher, when will this be, and what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?' And Jesus said, 'See that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and rebellion, do not be afraid, for such things must happen first. But it will not yet be the end.' Then he said to them, 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place. And awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.'
When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that the time of its desolation draws near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those in the midst of the city must leave, and those in the country should not return. For these are the be days of God’s judgement, so that all that has been written may be fulfilled.'"
Luke 21:5-11
"The perpetrators were scholars, doctors, nurses, justice officials, the police and the health and workers’ administration.
The victims were poor, desperate, rebellious or in need of help. They came from psychiatric clinics and childrens hospitals, from old age homes and welfare institutions, from military hospitals and internment camps."
Commemorative Tablet, Tiergartenstraße 4, Berlin
“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."
Simone Weil, War and the Iliad, 1939
"They asked, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And Jesus said, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”
Luke 17:37
"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but they cannot understand destitution. They will be moved to the sound of beautiful music, and at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat."
Léon Bloy, Exégèse des Lieux Communs
"The kings of the earth, the nobles, the military officers, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid themselves in caves and among mountain crags. They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their judgement has come, and who can stand against it?”
Revelation 6:15-17
Stocks managed to gain a footing after another early selloff, and went into the close with a gain.
Gold and silver enjoyed a little bounce.
Some of the better miners showed signs of short covering.
VIX continued to decline.
Bitcoin continued backing off from its high, its recent run to $100,000.
Stocks are primed for a sell off. It's just a matter of what gets the ball rolling.
My big question is, 'can the US survive another two months of Genocide Joe and his Merry Pranksters?
I am trying to keep an open mind on Trump, as I generally tend to do with a new president.
It's not easy.
I look at the Western leaders and wonder where such a parcel of incompetent rogues came from.
“As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness To the Bitter End 1933-1945, noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed.
The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.
The second mode is shamanistic incantation. The fascist style depends upon 'endless repetition,' designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.
The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today.
The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims. When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that 'understanding is useless, you have to have faith.'
If people feel lost and alone and broken and hopeless today, what will it be like if the world begins to come apart at the hinges? Jesus was a man for simple people. He didn't make his messages incredibly complex. If you were a person that had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, then his message was easily understood.
Many who claim today with their mouths that they follow Jesus will abandon him then with their lives.”
Brandon Andress, And Then the End Will Come, April 2013
Today was an option expiration day for precious metals December contracts.
A classic wash and rinse for a big contract month. Take it up, and then smack it down hard.
Everything else is commentary.
If you have been following along here, you know what is likely to happen next.
How many times do you have to see this, to finally see it?
And yet this is far from the worst thing happening in plain sight, that few are willing to see.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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