Category Archives: Nature

2022-09-17 · 5:15 am

Buckeyes & grasshoppers, not what you think: anamnesis of Eden, but first the Holy Sacrifice

This Common Buckeye on the tarmac driveway next to the tomatoes calls to mind Tomato Buckeye Rot. The similarity of the markings is striking.

Imagine that your visual defense against predators is to look like a rotten tomato.

If you’re all nerdy about chemistry amidst a symbiotic ecosystem, the Common Buckeye in its various morphologies opens up a universe of bio-manipulation and applications (see Genesis 1:28). Nature is not ever what we think; there is always so very much more.

Creation speaks of God the Creator. In such times as this (see Romans chapter 1, beginning to end, no, really, go read chapter 1 of Romans now!) it is good to notice the beauty of God’s Creation and be pointed to God, thanking God, praising God.

Meanwhile, at the same time, this grasshopper was on the floor of the open carport. I mean, those eyes…

Anyway, over at Wikipedia we read about what fallen human nature has to be busy about, even with grasshoppers:

  • “In February 2020, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis announced they had engineered “cyborg grasshoppers” capable of accurately detecting explosives. In the project, funded by the US Office of Naval Research, researchers fitted grasshoppers with lightweight sensor backpacks that recorded and transmitted the electrical activity of their antennal lobes to a computer. According to the researchers, the grasshoppers were able to detect the location of the highest concentration of explosives. The researchers also tested the effect of combining sensorial information from several grasshoppers on detection accuracy. The neural activity from seven grasshoppers yielded an average detection accuracy rate of 80%, whereas a single grasshopper yielded a 60% rate.”

So, probably you don’t need to have a helicopter drop a thousand detection-grasshoppers onto this kid. You already know there’s something suspicious when he’s dressed for the arctic in a cover-the-bombs-parka when it’s a hot day. By the way, this 14 year old was successfully stripped of his bombs.

Anyway, this kind of research will surely save lives. Who would’ve thought? Grasshoppers!

There’s always more to learn. Fascinating. Thanks be to God. Love of God makes the thanksgiving exhilerating.

I call to mind the double anamnesis speech of Cardinal Ratzinger to the USCCB in Dallas, TX, in 1991. This is one his most important contributions, right up there with Ad tuendam fidem and then, as Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum.

Too bad the bishops didn’t understand a word of what he said, which means that they were already more involved in the second half of chapter one of Romans than the first half of that first chapter. And so we have what we have today.

Basically, you can’t have a remembrance of the pristineness of the Garden of Eden without first of all having a remembrance brought to one’s own living testimony (anamnesis, from which we have the word martyr) of the Last Supper united with Calvary, we being united in solidarity with the wounds of Jesus.

This is essential reading for today: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/conscience-and-truth-2468

It’s good to be solidly grounded in the joy of learning ever so much more about our relationship with our good God in these times of the denial of natural law, divine law, in these times of the denial of Jesus.

You know you’re getting somewhere when the Holy Ghost has you say, “Abba! Father!” through, with and in Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, looking forward to the new Eden, the new paradise, the new “garden” of the new heavens and the new earth in heaven.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a wretched sinner who crucified you, and please have mercy on the whole world. You founded your mercy on your justice. Thank you.

Oh. And imagine being hidden with Christ in God, your camouflage being the carrying about the death of Christ within us, you know, as the Master, so the disciple. I think of Saint Paul:

  • “From henceforth let no man be troublesome to me; for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body” (Galatians 6:17).
  • “But Father George! Father George! You don’t understand! Being close to Jesus in this world isn’t to be hidden at all. You stand out as the exception, not with the majority, what Karine Jean-Pierre says makes you an extremist!”

Yes, well. This is how it works: the closer you are to Jesus the more the world doesn’t understand your identity in Jesus, who said that the world will hate us as much as it hates Him. Who we truly are is invisible to the world just as the identity of Jesus as the Son of the Living God was not recognized by the world. Proportional to our ‘in your face’ proclamation, the more hidden with Christ in God we are.

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2022-09-05 · 8:30 am

Tomato wars: Hornworm-0 / Wasp-1

As soon as the massive hornworm hosts the eggs of the braconid wasp, cotesia congregates, the worm, while continuing to live as feeding host for the baby wasps, no longer eats or even moves. Nature working for you, as it should be. The little red wasps are friendly. Be nice to them.

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2022-08-11 · 9:25 am

Traditional Possum-Dropping & Traditionis-custodes-Dropping: Sacred Tradition & TLM

Until some animal rights groups got involved a couple years back, there was a live “possum drop” festival every year just south of the parish, then right close to the parish church. Then it was gone. The possums were treated like royalty in their highly decorated perches with all the food and water and comforts they could possibly want. They were gently lowered from on high. Who knows why? It is what it is. Kind of harmless, especially to the possums.

Any possums now being dropped are toys in the secret of people’s homes. Some traditions don’t die out so quickly. I saw this the other day in one of the parishioner’s homes:

It’s difficult to get rid of human traditions.

But what happens when it’s Sacred Tradition that’s being treated like human tradition?

There’s not only more resistance to what is thought by innovators to be open to change, but that change actually is impossible regardless of what kind of resistance there is, though that resistance will be there, and it will be implacable.

Sacred Tradition is constituted by the articles of faith, the traditiones as the Council of Trent calls them in its first dogmatic decree of 8 April 1546 in its fourth session. That supernatural faith provided by the Holy Spirit is univocal and handed on as if by hand, like handing on a book, but is actually wrought by the Holy Spirit, very personal, with love, providing us hope. The Council mocked those who otherwise thought they could control the very Revelation of God, changing doctrine, changing morals, stripping away truth and love and hope, while thinking themselves to be in complete control. For its mockery, the Council used the phrase quasi per manus, almost as if by hand, so as to say:

  • “You think you have God’s Revelation in hand, but you do not. You think you can change doctrine and morals, but you cannot. The handing on of Sacred Tradition is wrought by the direct work of the Holy Spirit. It’s not just tradition, but Sacred Tradition. We’re talking about the unmanipulatable Truth of the Living God. No prestidigitations will be suffered. You do not have control of Sacred Tradition.”

But the innovators will not see that, will not hear that, will not be able to understand that. The innovators will continue to treat the Sacred Revelation of God Himself as a mere possum, which they treat as oh-so-precious, but which they think can ditch any time they want.

Example: The Holy Spirit teaches us all that Jesus taught us. Jesus taught us that at the Last Supper united with Calvary, He recites His Wedding Vows with His Bride the Church, this is my body being given for you in Sacrifice, my blood being poured out for you in Sacrifice, total self-giving, Jesus insisting that this brings us His body, blood, soul and divinity. This has been the teaching of the Church always as it is always the teaching of the Holy Spirit. This is the lex orandi, the law of prayer. This is therefore the lex credendi, the law of believing. This is SACRED TRADITION.

In Traditionis custodes Pope Francis admits that the lex orandi, the law of prayer, is THE TRADITION guaranteed by the custodians of that tradition — though, wait a minute, they are not the Holy Spirit, but mere men — Ooops! The lex orandi is defined in His own accompanying letter as the Sacrifice of Jesus in the Sacrifice of Holy Mass as brought about with the consecrations, say, Hoc est enim corpus meum quod pro vobis TRADETUR. Yep. But Pope Francis says that such a Tradition of Traditions in the Consecrations is not any kind of expression at all of the Latin Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of the lex orandi. Wait… What? And then elsewhere he says that it is not the mandate of the custodians of tradition to guard doctrine and morality, the deposit of faith. Wait… What?

Fine. I’ll stay with the Holy Spirit, and the “custodians” can attempt all they want to betray the Holy Spirit. They won’t get far at all. Nowhere. To be a good custodian means not to add to, nor take away from, nor change anything. They can expound upon. How authentic that is has to be seen. But that’s all they can do.

Speaking prophetically: Their attempts, say, a printed version of Traditionis custodes, will likely give rise to a culture in which that printed version will be dropped from a great height, and we’ll call that tradition “The Traditionis custodes Drop“. And then that will be made illegal by idiots, regardless of how well that hardcopy was treated as precious as it was being ever so gently lowered in all mockery. And then, being forced underground, people will participate in “The Traditionis custodes Drop” only in the secret of their homes. But they will do it. With joy. With mockery befitting the event. And they they will go to their churches in thanksgiving, participating in a public dropping. And they they will assist at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Traditional Latin Mass, the TLM, being more custodians of Sacred Tradition than any of those congratulating themselves to be have ever been. And as all that drops, we raise the Lord on high:

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2022-08-10 · 9:27 am

Army worms on the attack

My poor tomatoes.

Are you disgusted?

Jesus said about Himself (in our perspective) Psalm 22: 6-7…

  • “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads.”

Yep. That’s us, in our fallen human nature, if we are without grace. With grace, we already know that that’s who we are on our own, total idiots who don’t see God right in front of us.

If we don’t recognize that that’s who we are if we are without grace, we have zero integrity, zero honesty, zero humility. We are full of ourselves, and we’re full of **** as pictured above. That’s not the kind of person who goes to heaven. I wanna go to heaven. The way to go to heaven is not to congratulate ourselves that we are holy, having saved ourselves because we’re the ones, the only ones; the way to go to heaven is to recognize that Jesus is our Savior because He’s the One, the only One.

Oh, and we are to be happy to stand with Jesus in His trials.

That means that if we are with Jesus, we are also considered to be worms by the rest of the fallen world. Ready for that?

Just be to persnickety: It’s not so much “worm” in the biblical text, but rather more specifically, “maggot.” Baalzebul, however you wanna spell it, means “Lord of the Flies”, that is, The Lord of Death, so, rotting corpses, so, maggots, hence, flies. Satan is the murderer from the beginning. Jesus says, “I am a maggot and no man” (in our perspective). How far we have fallen.

Jesus is considered a maggot because we are fallen and that’s how we roll in self-protection: Jesus is bad and evil, not me.

Again, the cure to this, in Jesus’ grace, is a bit of humility, honesty, integrity, so that, redeemed and saved by Jesus, being in His grace, standing in solidarity with Him, we are also then considered to be maggots, the worst of the worst. And moreover, we’re happy about this.

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2022-07-19 · 3:48 pm

Oh deer! Defensive driving in paradise with Jesus, Creator of the heavens and the earth.

Such a scene is to be seen anytime I’m doing Communion Calls such as last evening, or going anywhere throughout the forested mountains in this paradise which is my parish. Defensive driving techniques here have been all about edginess in knowing that there will be an accident unless you’re instantly ready to brake while avoiding. A good sense of situational awareness, actively looking for deer hidden by their camouflage and a bit of grass or mountain laurel.

While any typical jaunt will witness, say, a half-dozen small herds of a few deer to ten or twenty, not to mention elk and bear and boar and bobcats and lynx and mountain lions and panthers and cats and dogs and coyotes and red wolves and now gray wolves and box turtles and snapping turtles and snakes and ravens and turkeys and turkey buzzards and road pizza possums and road pizza woodchucks, even a beaver or two… well, none of them are much of a hazard. They are simply a joy. And having learned a bit of situational awareness for their sake and your own, one will get be trained up right quick for the real danger, which comes from other drivers “owning” the road, so that nobody belongs on the road but them. And they drive accordingly. Oh deer! And oh dear!

Appreciation of the fact that all of creation proclaims the glories of our good Creator makes one not overly situationally aware, so that one is worn out with hyperawareness, but instead has one in tune, as it were, a sintonia, a precision in being aware of one’s environment. I’m not quite getting across what’s happening… Let’s try again…

While I’m out and about on Communion calls, it is the very Creator of all things who is with me in the Most Blessed Sacrament. How humble He is to allow Himself to be dragged all over His own creation in Sassy the Subaru. And in seeing Jesus’ good creation I cannot but proclaim to Him that He did a good job of it, all befitting the needs of His Immaculate Mother in taking care of us who have adopted into the Holy Family. And as we bounce along a single-lane gravel mountain road with washouts here and fallen trees there, one is never so distracted as not being able to say: Look! A bald eagle! Be careful! A donkey!

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2022-05-15 · 5:17 am

Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (Super Flower Blood Moon NASA donkey edition)

That short animated video from NASA demonstrates what’s happening tonight up in North America, Eastern Standard Time.

  • Super = closer than farther, making the moon appear to be quite a bit larger to us here on earth.
  • Flower = when, in the Northern Hemisphere, flowers are in bloom (a bit hemispherist!).
  • Blood = the color thereof, because we’re so dramatic when it comes to astronomy. It’s just atmospherics, I know, but it’s still rather dramatic that the shadow this earth casts is blood red.

This isn’t the solar eclipse – sun to moon to earth – that took place on Calvary as our Lord died on the Cross. This is a lunar eclipse – sun to earth to moon. A dear reader asked me for an analogy using this event. Let’s see, our Lady, clothed with the sun, stands on the crescent moon…

Can we stand with our Lady in the light of the Son?

In thinking about this I do have a story about how I was compared to a jackass by a certain rather influential priest while in Italy. He was standing in the shade of a carport whilst I was standing in the sun.

  • O, Giorgio, che fa un asino nel sole? (Oh, George, what does a donkey to in the sun?)
  • Padre, un asino fa un po di ombra nel sole. (Father, a donkey makes a little bit of shade in the sun.)
  • Hai raggione, Giorgio, asino che sei. (You are correct, George, donkey that you are.)

This made for a round of laughter amongst other ecclesiastics, who were happy both to witness my progress in Italian after having just recently arrived, and to see my willingness to have myself condemned as a being a mere donkey.

It was not yet known that I love donkey history, such as donkeys always being in the midst of the Holy Family from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt and back, and then with Jesus going into Jerusalem to be crucified, every donkey also having his hour.

When we choose to be donkeys, standing in the Light of the Son, we clearly see the blood shadow we have cast upon the universe, not suppressing the truth of who we are before God. It is then that we are brought into the midst of the Holy Family. We have all of us crucified, shed the blood of the Son of the Living God with original sin, our own sin. His dear Mother stands next to Him, she being clothed in the grace of God, “the rays of the sun”, of the Son. We can choose to remain in the shadows (look at how shadowy is that moon under her feet), or we can, by grace, come into the light, becoming the children of God, donkeys that we are.

Methinks it’s good to be a donkey in the sun, in the Son.

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2022-05-12 · 8:44 am

Black-Face White Supremacy Squirrels

These pictures were taken just the other day. There are a good half-dozen to be seen all at once at this location. Here’s two together:

These are Oriental Tree Squirrels from Thailand, the majority squirrel in and around Brevard, NC. Legend has it that they came to this area by way of escape from a carnival truck waaay back in the day. They’ve spread out in perhaps a fifty mile radius.

And no, they were not bred to be this way on behalf of white supremacist democrats who dress up in blackface and who chum around with members of the KKK and put abortuaries in black neighborhoods so as to commit genocide-by-attrition of the black population. These squirrels are just a breed of squirrel.

But the wokistas will want their 2nd amendment rights to gun down innocent white squirrels so that they can congratulate themselves for “having done something.”

Do I mock the wokistas? Yes. Because more than anyone, they are racist and pretend to be triggered so as to have an excuse to smack down, say, Supreme Court Justices as “racist” for the attempt of those justices to save the lives of black babies in the womb. There is no one more racist than a wokista.

So, how is it that I wrote a post like this? Because real racism like that of the wokistas does bother me. Why’s that? Because God is OUR creator and Jesus came into this world to redeem the lot of us. Not all are saved, but that’s their choice. Bottom line: all lives matter. The wokistas have it that no lives matter. I disagree. And that’s not just a religious “opinion.” Respect for life is natural law written on our hearts by the Most High.

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2022-04-25 · 10:23 am

Eagle sighting, every day, but called “The Last”

Not my picture. I couldn’t get a picture of the one I saw, as I was driving at the time and he had been right over the top of the car. Massive white head, gargantuan wingspan, white tail. Yep.

The Bald Eagle, symbol of strength in freedom with God-given rights in the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution is refreshing to see amidst all the betrayal of these USA and of our military. There are so many, so high up, who are treasonous, who are intent on destroying this country, and for what? A couple of bucks from big money with which they can eat ice cream cones and drink from sippy cups while proving senility and dementia as marxist college kids do up subversion for him?

That’s a perpetual rant going on in my heart. But that betrayal of the “powers that be”, that violence against everyone from conception to death, dragging the world into persecution of the Church, fades into insignificance compared to the scandal and destruction of eternal souls by the pastors of the Church.

But that apostle and evangelist who has an eagle as a symbol always has encouragement for us daily at what is called the Last Gospel, exactly parallel with the Proto-Evangelium, the First Gospel of Genesis 3:15 and exactly parallel with the the Apocalypse, and is the Prologue of his Gospel:

  • In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per Ipsum facta sunt, et sine Ipso factum est nihil quod factum est. In Ipso vita erat, et vita erat Lux hominum. Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. Fuit homo missus a Deo cui nomen erat Iohannes. Hic venit in testimonium ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine ut omnes crederent per Illum. Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine. Erat lux vera quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in mundum. In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit. In propria venit et sui eum non receperunt. Quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit eis potestatem filios Dei, fieri his qui credunt in nomine Eius. Qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt. ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST, ET HABITABIT IN NOBIS et vidimus gloriam eius, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiae et veritatis.
  • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

When I see a Bald Eagle, that’s what flashes through heart and soul and mind.

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2022-04-08 · 5:55 pm

Rectory Rattler? Croatulus Horridus? Yet again?

This doesn’t seem to be a Copperhead. And there are plenty of non-poisonous Eastern Racers or Black Rat Snakes or even “Garden Snakes” with similar patterns for the very young, cleverly making them look more dangerous than they are. And I know that there are a gazillion different patterns for the tiny babies even amongst the poisonous rattlers.

But there are four tell-tale identifiers:

  • One is the super-fat body typical of a poisonous snake, whereas the non-poisonous are super-slender from head to tail, so that you can’t tell the tail from the body which is also about the same circumference as the head. But the specimen above has a super-fat body.
  • Then there’s the ultra-super-slender tail compared to that fat body, and that’s true of our specimen above.
  • Then there’s the rattle, of course, except for the super-young, like this guy. He has the tell-tale “button tail”, though that last button bit is a bit elongated. He just in middle of his first shedding.
  • Then there’s the exaggerated triangular head. Behold:

I think that about settles it. But I’m no herpetologist, though I do have lengthy commentary wrought with historical philology for chapters two and three of Genesis. But that doesn’t count here. If anyone can tell me what this is, I’m open to a correction.

Backing up my hypothesis – just a hypothesis mind you – is the fact that this part of Appalachia seems to be an epicenter for Rattlers. Horribly, people run them over on the road – it seems on purpose – and many then stop and rip out the fangs to use for necklaces. Yep. And then we’re all overrun by varmints.

He was very photogenic, in a rather cold-blooded manner, it being that he’s cold-blooded, and it’s very cold today. After pictures I chased him off to safer territory.

I mentioned this to someone who was horrified (per the name Horridus), afraid for me and Shadow-dog when it grows to some four to five feet long.

But they have rattles to warn you, right? They know how to avoid humans and dogs. They’re after mice and rats and mice and squirrels and… the neighbors’ chickens… and baby kittens and little puppies…

I know, I know.

I assume that they are living on the creek bank next to the rectory, under branches and such. All good.

And, just in case, I know right where my Sawyer’s Extractor is. Just a minute away. Lying down. Calling the neighbors to bring me to EMS or Urgent Care or the Emergency Room. Trying to be still, but using the Extractor a gazillion times.

Today, in the TLM calendar, it’s the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Time for another flower for the Immaculate Conception. Give me a minute to put up some pictures for that post after this one. You’ll need to tell the story for that one, though.

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2021-10-21 · 8:45 am

Mysterious garden beast: but don’t you be the beast. Ratzinger on Tradition, Conscience, Truth.

I’m guessing that this guy is a good 4 centimeters, just over 1.5 inches long. He didn’t let me get too close, but I swear I saw the bits pictured at the center bottom of the chart below, the pigeon tremex character. The markings, however, are not similar. But I’m in Western North Carolina, in the Smoky Mountains, not in Washington State. The center white dot is a reflection of the sun on the hard shell.

I’m always, always fascinated by the good creation of our Good Creator. And that doesn’t make me an ecoterrorist, or a green-party wild man, but rather one who sees the Creator also through His Creation.

Saint Paul in his epistle to the Romans, the famous chapter one, and then chapter two, speaks of this for us. Read it!

Firefly (Redemption, #2) by Molly McAdams

;-)

Meanwhile, here in Western North Carolina, in the back ridges of Appalachia, it’s a paradise: praise God!

  • Some don’t seem to see it at all, trashing up everything everywhere, shooting up heroin, taking meth and Fentanyl, beating on each other – even decapitations – loving the power of cynicism.
  • But many do see, as it were, God through His Creation, bringing to the fore the living memory of the first creation only through the living memory of the second creation: “Do this in memory of me…”
  • Once we have the second, we can get to the first, but then realize that it’s all even better:

O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.

O happy fault which merited such a great Redeemer.

Want a good read of just a few pages? Try Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s address to the USCCB in 1991:

Retrieving the Tradition: CONSCIENCE AND TRUTH

ratzinger37-3Download

DON’T BE AFRAID! Download it to read later! It’ll do good for your soul. That’s necessary these days.

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2021-07-15 · 7:32 pm

All things work together for the one who loves God, even…

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There are those who say that they will have a question for God if they make it to heaven, such as what’s the deal with wood-ticks and mosquitoes and wasps and hornets and yellow jackets. Myopic. And not recognizing the perfect ecosystems which we go about destroying. Mostly, it’s just not having a bit of humility, not wanting to open one’s eyes and be directed to the Creator by His Creation.

Meanwhile, this bit of stinging horror pictured above is just under the eves of the carport, just where I open the car door, so that when I stand up, all in black, these beasties think they are under attack, just inches away. I often feel them smashing into the “baseball” cap I wear. It’s their favorite spot no matter what I do, year after year. I’m allergic to such critters, a hereditary condition. Sorry, but I got out the ol’ wasp spray.

People say that Saint Francis wouldn’t like harming such innocent creatures, but that’s only because of the myths that have grown up around Saint Francis. No wimp, flowers in the hair hippie he, no, no, no. Go ahead, read the rule for his fledgling community that he wrote. Remember, he was deacon, and had courses in the law of the Church such as it was at the time. He is precise. He wants his friars in heaven. He wants them to be crucified to themselves and the world so as to live for Christ Jesus.

  • “But Father George, you’re talking about being crucified to yourself and to the world and you’re afraid of a little sting? Bwahahahahahahaha!”

I know. I know. But it’s just that a little sting could do me in right quick.

  • “But Father George, you used to have bee hives!”

Well, I never said I was always prudent in having no fear of anything. And these beasties are different than bees.

Our Lord says that we will have no questions when we enter, please God, into heaven. But I insist that I will have a question, but it will be merely rhetorical. When something bad happens to us here on earth, we tend to ask, perhaps with some bitterness: “Why is it always me?”

When we enter, please God, into heaven, it seems to me that we will be so thankful and so awestruck at the love and goodness and kindness of the Lord, that we will ask the same thing: “Why me, Lord? I am a useless servant who only did what he had to do.”

And you know what that is? Going to Confession. Oooo! That stung, didn’t it? ;-) But don’t be afraid of a little sting. The happiness of the grace of absolution, just so wonderful.

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2021-07-03 · 8:09 am

Rattler’s rattle rattles plot twisting. [Update: Father Gordon’s humor.]

Whenever I put up a picture of a snake and say it’s a Timber Rattler (common here in Western North Carolina, especially on the road where I was) there are those who say that that’s impossible, a conspiracy theory, an exaggeration, just more unnecessary drama, all in a laudatory effort, methinks – PLOT TWIST – to normalize the presence of rattlers (which, to be sure, I love to see around as well). I don’t want to step on them. But I also don’t want to run over them. I love to see nature in full force.

The fake nay-sayers will say that surely I didn’t see the tell-tale pattern, or if I did, it was merely being sported by an immature Eastern Racer (Black Snake) or some such.

Then they’ll that surely I wasn’t close enough to see if it had a triangular head, you know, like this:

But then, still pretending to doubt my insistence, will say that is surely didn’t have an actual rattle, and add that some snakes can shake their tails with no rattles and make them kind of sound like rattles (true!). But, then there is this:

Now what? Baiting someone to think that this is not a Timber Rattler and so is therefore great for using in a humorous selfie like this?

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[In the picture immediately above, that IS a Black Snake. But Father George is wearing a black shirt…] But what happens then – and this is the purposed intention of those deceitfully shrieking about conspiracy theories and exaggerations – what happens then is that I’ll pick up what is really a Timber Rattler and I’ll get bit by that serpent and die. [In speaking with Father Gordon this morning, he quipped that “it is unclear who was about to bite whom.” Hahaha. :-) I walked or rather slithered right into this. :-) ]

ANALOGY TIME!

  • “Father George! Father George! You’re exaggerating! You’re a conspiracy theorist! You’re melodramatic! Stop saying that Covid-19 vaccines are taken from living organs of human beings (aborted alive for this reason), because, you know, that means that you, Father George, are taking away our good feelings for getting Covid-19 vaccines! You meanie! You old meanie! Those were miscarriages taken out of dumpsters and, you know, stuff like that! Father George, you’re like that old Serpent, the ancient dragon and Satan, lying about doctrine and morality like you do. Father George, there is no sin, there is no Savior, there is no heaven, no hell, and therefore no Satan, no ancient serpent!”

And these people bait even the elect to fall into sin, getting bit by the demonic rebellion against the Living Truth that the Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception is.

But then, plot twist:

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2021-05-24 · 7:25 am

Evolution over 420,000,000 million years [updated in one day for evolution’s sake]

Zero change.

There’s never been even one instance of macroevolution proven.

There’s plenty of microevolution. I had freckles as a kid. But despite what Planned Parenthood says, I wasn’t a salamander in the womb.

And more than that, Redemption and, please God, Salvation, makes it possible for us to carry within us by created grace, sanctifying grace, the Most Holy Trinity. That ain’t happenin’ with other creatures even though created by… wait for it… our Creator. We are to be Tabernacles of the Holy Spirit with that fiery Love. God is Truth. God is Love.

UPDATE:

  • We are, in fact, creatures with free will and all mankind is fallen. I mean, let’s take a look at how reasonable, how scientific we are:

That looks well organized, thoughtful, surely a factory putting means of production into action out of love of God and neighbor… Shock! Nur Arbeit macht Frei. What’s that mean? Freedom? …

This was all so very scientific! scientific! scientific! just moving evolution along with eugenics! And human mothers only have salamanders in the womb! Margaret Sanger a sycophant of Hitler, literally. Perhaps it is possible that with any scientific theory, there may be some self-serving politics afoot, so that science in that case is not science, but an abuse of science by butt-hurt emotions, you know, the entitlement to be smahht, you know, not dumb.

  • Obviously, I’m baiting people to go on a treasure hunt for Peking Man! There’s even a treasure map: 39°55′4″N 119°34′0″E. I mean, who was that Marxist poet Jesuit guy who fancied himself as an impressive scientist, paleontologist (ooo! a multisyllabic word!), theologian and, of course, philosopher? Oh yes! Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Now there’s a trustworthy guy! Sigh.
  • I’ve not said one thing about what side of evolution I tend to think answers more questions more consistently in the most simple manner against critics coming from all sides, that is, with the least possibility that we are reading premises into where they must not be or extracting premises from where they must be.
  • What I did say is that pro-death idiocy is butt-hurt emotional greed, making us, as Chesterton has it in, if I remember correctly, The Everlasting Man, less reasonable than the animals, products of our fallen human nature.

One gentleman of Princeton fame chimed in with an article about Ratz from a guy in Vienna (with whom I first had a sit-down way back in the 1990s in Rome), an article which sports this citation:

I couldn’t agree more with those very well chosen words. They are, in fact, exactly what I was expressing in my original post up top. Logically, they mean almost nothing. It’s just baiting for more thought about it all.

In thinking about this, let’s try to limit discussion as to whether faith can purify reason. ;-)

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2021-02-19 · 10:51 am

Moonshiner Crane sighting! Priesthood in the time of Covid-19, like it doesn’t exist

Whilst straightening out the curves and flattening the backside blue ridges of the Appalachian Communion Call routes, Sassy the Subaru had to have her new brakes tested so as not to run over an all too calm Sandhill Moonshiner Crane. He just stood in the middle of the road, eyeing Sassy screech up to this sudden standoff, just barely nervous enough to bat open and shut his six and a half foot wingspan a couple of times, and then ever so slowly tip-toe into some bramble cover in the neighboring field. In this picture you can’t see the head and bill and not much of the neck as he saunters to the left into natural camouflage.

Much more common than cranes on the road are turkey vultures and hawks and ravens and crows all eating the remains of road-kill. Reptiles include snapping turtles and a variety of snakes. Mammalian sightings, often in the form of road pizza, include squirrels and possums. Since there is little traffic, brakes are applied for dogs and cats, as well as, of course, for bears and deer. I’m happy to get a picture of picture of elk. I’ve not been quick enough for actual panthers (not melanistic lions), mountain lions (much heavier, stockier), a variety of lynx. Coyotes (the animal kind) and red wolves are to be seen, once a gray wolf (now also being introduced).

It’s all great therapy for the madness of today’s dark and violent world, the lies, the cover-ups, the manipulations, the power-grabbing, the….

Not everyone in this lock-down world has such opportunities to race round about creation doing Communion Calls with our Eucharistic Jesus, Creator of His beautiful creation. I share these posts for some respite with what few pictures I can get in hopes of assisting the imagination of the home-bound to take flight on the roads with Jesus and I. And it is like flight on these hilly, curvy roads…

Did I say straightening out the curves and flattening the hills? Eeeee Haaaawwww…

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2021-02-09 · 8:54 am

Snow dogs?

A parishioner is up north at the moment. His view for a couple of minutes…

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2020-08-20 · 6:50 am

Cicada! Cikada! CISA beware! Eschatological hopes of heaven to dare!

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It’s enough to spook even the most seasoned of agents of the new CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), part of the Department of Homeland Security and headquarted in my favorite small town of Rosslyn, VA. ;-) A good friend is one of the few and the brave who work for CISA. The reason for any nervous spookiness is that these insects sound like transformers in the nanoseconds prior to blowing up, the last thing CISA would want regarding essential online military and intelligence stability:

To do anything about them you have to wear hearing protection. The cicada pictured up top and twice more below did his transformation thing on one of the old fence posts along my driveway.

The transformation thing means that he may well now be fully 17 years old. If he’s in sync with his fellow cicadas, there may be others – by the millions – hatching out right about now. The sound they make is literally deafening. Let the concert begin! That’s what I say. This is one of the coolest wonders of nature, of our good God’s creation. What a great imagination God has! Um… Can one even say that?

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Look, I’m sure we will all look much worse than that if we were buried six feet under for 17 years! That he comes out in bright green (green is for hope) ready to play an orchestral performance is – sorry if the analogy limps – is like the resurrection from the dead…

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Well. Fine. Some may find that the analogy isn’t just limping, but is rather crippled.

I bet such unimaginationed people find everything about cicadas to be annoying.

As for me, I find cicada concerts to be soothing. And I like how they look fierce with the big green hammer-head shark eyes.

I wonder what I will look like at the resurrection unto life before the general judgment wrought by Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, who will absolutely come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Oh! I remember:

  • “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)

By the way, I don’t at all mean to be presumptuous in hoping to make it through the general judgement so as to be on my to heaven so as to be part of the Holy Family. Hope is an infused virtue that comes with sanctifying grace (which I hope to enjoy!). We have to have hope. Confession helps with that, right? It makes for a transformation, right?

If we didn’t have hope, we would only look forward to looking like the empty shell of a bug a couple of pictures above, but not just for 17 years, for all eternity.

As I always say really very frequently: “I wanna go to heaven!”

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2020-08-05 · 6:30 am

Bald Eagle sighting above the Rectory

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Standing next to the American Flag in the driveway, this is best picture I could get of a magnificent Bald Eagle. Sorry it’s not clearer. But my heart thrilled to see this representation of my own patriotic spirit.

On Eagles Wings?

  • “You have seen for yourselves how […] I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. (Exodus 19:4)
  • “They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

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2020-08-05 · 5:58 am

Beasts of WNC. I love my parish.

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Mama bear and baby bears headed in the direction of the hermitage, about three quarters of a mile as the bear walks, right up and down a back ridge or two.

Then there’s this guy out on the front walk of Holy Redeemer church here in Andrews. Just a baby, and despite the infancy camouflage, I think this is merely an Eastern Racer:

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Then, on a Communion Call to home-bound in the time of Covid-1984, fully 16 dear. It would have been 17, but one died after getting its leg blown off last hunting season. People who have guns but who don’t know how to shoot are so very annoying. I won’t tell you where these are, except that they are within the five state area near Andrews!

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2020-07-25 · 3:56 pm

American Dagger Moth at the rectory? Gun and dagger for a minister?

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Andrews, western NC, July 25, 2020. I doubt this is an American Dagger Moth, as the caterpillar – at least at this tiny stage – has no yellow fuzz at all, just smooth yellow, though with a multitude of dagger-life black spikes. It’s also sitting on a cucumber leaf, not up in various trees of its normal habitat. Maybe this is normal for the beginning stages.

Having said that, the biodiversity in WNC is immense, and the variations of the “norm” seen elsewhere are quite marked both in flora and fauna. Lots of “That’s unique!” going on here. I’m not sure if this one has both pros and cons. Some caterpillars are benign. Some inflict horrific health conditions. Some are to be especially tolerated for what they do later as moths and butterflies.

I’m no Lepidopterologist (I had to look that up…). I’m just putting this up for interest. It’s so easy to love the natural world that our dear Lord created:

  • “For what can be known about God is evident […], because God made it evident […]. Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made.” (Romans 1:19-20)

The Lord makes it ever so easy to walk with Him when out in the creation He created.

Meanwhile, me being me, I thought of my EDC when I saw the name “American Dagger”:

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This contraption is carried on the belt on the left side, just across from the appendix-carried Glock 19. The easy snap-in holster for the knife is attached to the paddle holster for the magazines, carried semi-horizontally for the quickest possible switch imnsho. The straight blade is 2.5″, just slightly longer than the American Dagger Caterpillar when it is full grown. The knife is upside down, if you will, as my left hand – weak hand – can grab it in what is already, then, an upside-up position for the hand straight out of the holster. Perfect.

The American Dagger Moth is quite benign, just like the caterpillar. The same goes for the Glock 19 and the knife. The knife is used all day long, in gardening, in opening letters and boxes. It’s a tool just like Glock is a tool. The caterpillar has spikes, tools that are useful in defense against unjust aggression.

Speaking of that, some say with a smile: “A minister with a gun?” finding this to be curiously humorous. When I mention that I’m also the police chaplain and that 2nd amendment capacities are prudent and moral, describing some of the situations one can and does get into accompanying officers, their exclamation turns into: “A minister with a gun!”, that is, no longer with a question mark, but with quiet admiration, nodding their heads in agreement.

Mind you, I’m not a law enforcement or any kind of officer. I don’t do that. But if someone’s actively pumping bullets into an officer, it’s entirely within the purview of the 2nd amendment for a citizen, a civilian, to exercise 2nd amendment capacities to protect a victim suffering from mortal unjust aggression wherein the imminent provision of death is actively in progress. One uses the least amount of force to repel that unjust aggression, whatever that least amount happens to be. It’s the last thing you would ever want to be involved in. It is what it is in this fallen world. Lest anyone think that there is such thing as unjust aggression at all, here’s just a few minutes with the great Kayleigh McEnany:

Our Lord has created the animals with tools for their defense.

The greatest of all prophets, John the Baptist, gave advice and encouragement to the law enforcement – even of occupying forces! – so that they too might be saved, not apart from their duties, but as they carry out their duties.

Our Lord Himself does not shy away from The Battle of The War. He also has the proper tools. And… and… He is the last one standing:

lion of the tribe of judah

A few scars to be sure in His hands and feet and side. He’s good with that. We thank Him for it. Amen.

Be the caterpillar, with great charity and goodness and kindness. But be the caterpillar. Our Lord expects it of you.

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2020-07-16 · 9:48 am

gardening and walking with the Lord

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That picture was uploaded from the garden June 1, 2020. I was amazed. Gardening is an encouragement to walk with the Lord, to be a co-worker in the garden He planted, as we read way back in Genesis, the Lord desiring that we till the ground, walking with Him.

BTW, however much walking with the Lord is mocked, that walking with the Lord, such as to Emmaus, is not bad and evil. Gardening, walking with the Lord, can be a very fruitful time with the Lord during the day, in the evening, in the morning. Walking with the Lord does not necessarily imply progressivism or anything dialectical, or any kind of tolerant-of-all-mortal-sin-so-called-accompaniment”. We are to pray always. Always means always.

The Lord said that to enter into the kingdom of heaven we are to be like children. To be thankful to the Lord for His creation takes the heart of a child. In this violent drug town I’m quite sure that there are very few who see the paradise in which we live, the mountains and streams and national and state forests and stunning biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the three squarrrsh groupings have continued to grow, edging on 4 feet high and 12 feet wide:

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I’m guessing they’re starting to give up as it’s now mid-July and they’ve really been pumping out the squarrrshes, requiring harvesting twice a day. If it’s your first time gardening, this is a good first plant to plant.

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Meanwhile, the spaghetti squarrrshes are getting way to heavy for their own good. I’m taking the advice of hammocks for the ones which have gotten themselves into impossible situations. And, yes, those are tiny zip-ties. :-)

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The 5-gallon bucket tomato plants are doing well, relatively speaking. These were grown from seeds. There were five seeds thinned out to three plants for each bucket, still too many… but now I know. If you can see them, there are seven tomatoes from this bucket at the moment. These plants are only 1/3 the size of the store-bought seedlings transplanted and given tomato cages. Here’s one of those, also seven tomatoes:

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One of my gardening parishioners laughed when he found out I was taking a census of tomatoes on the plants, saying that they would soon be uncountable. It’s only mid-July and there is a tomato, an early girl, already turning color:

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I know. I know. Gotta do up some weeding, which is not work, btw, if you’re “walking with the Lord.”

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