Not Doing A Post Today

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

Back tomorrow at least with a guest post. We’ve been having a veritable “health events” carnival this week, and I’m starting to suspect…

Well, in Giovanni Guareschi’s Don Camillo stories whenever something happened where the priest might do or say the unadvisable…. the phrase goes something like “The good Lord sent a fever that prostrated him for a week, so he didn’t even know what was happening.”

It’s not that bad, but there’s a bunch of things we can’t figure out have have to be pursued right now. And maybe there but for the grace of G-d go I.

Bolstered by that sense, I’ll post a religious snippet that has actually brought me comfort in dark times. Note it doesn’t promise ease or fun…


From The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton:

“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,

          We do not guard our gold,

          Men may uproot where worlds begin,

          Or read the name of the nameless sin;

          But if he fail or if he win

          To no good man is told.

          “The men of the East may spell the stars,

          And times and triumphs mark,

          But the men signed of the cross of Christ

          Go gaily in the dark.

          “The men of the East may search the scrolls

          For sure fates and fame,

          But the men that drink the blood of God

          Go singing to their shame.

          “The wise men know what wicked things

          Are written on the sky,

          They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,

          Hearing the heavy purple wings,

          Where the forgotten seraph kings

          Still plot how God shall die.

          “The wise men know all evil things

          Under the twisted trees,

          Where the perverse in pleasure pine

          And men are weary of green wine

          And sick of crimson seas.

          “But you and all the kind of Christ

          Are ignorant and brave,

          And you have wars you hardly win

          And souls you hardly save.

          “I tell you naught for your comfort,

          Yea, naught for your desire,

          Save that the sky grows darker yet

          And the sea rises higher.

          “Night shall be thrice night over you,

          And heaven an iron cope.

          Do you have joy without a cause,

          Yea, faith without a hope?”

Don’t ask me what came over me. I get a strong feeling ONE of you out there needs to read this. So…. (Shrugs.) It could be a funny picture saying “this post is not a post.”

Back with real fare tomorrow.

52 thoughts on “Not Doing A Post Today”

      1. Yeah, I’ll admit there are a few valid points mixed in with the racism and antisemitism, but when he said “the Germans woke up to the parasites in their midst” after World War 1 — essentially excusing the Nazis — I decided I really don’t like that asshole. I don’t like the few commenters I bothered to read, either. That place seems to be chock-full of assholes.

        1. The political insanity that let the NSDAP create the Third Reich was /not/ purely a matter of a German realization about forces that were completely internal, and had previously existed.

          It is at least partly the USSR’s fault. There was the mass murder in the Ukraine, which the Germans knew about. There was the Bavarian Soviet Socialist Republic, which told the Germans that they were on the chopping block, at some point, after the Ukrainians. Then there was almost certainly Soviet support for the communists that the NSDAP were competing with for nutjobs, and contesting with for violent overthrow of the prior government.

          So, yeah, that element does sound like a reasonable decision point for you.

          And the over all essay does sound like something that patthomas would find credible, and would also think would carry much water around here.

          1. Hey, I was just quoting the asshole. I know there was a lot more to it than what he said.

            The problem with assholes like that is that they are actually right about a few things. Now, when we make those valid points, the Left can accuse us of all the assholery that was mixed in with them. It’s one of Niven’s Laws: “There is no cause so noble that it won’t attract a few shitheads.” And then the Leftroids can use those shitheads to score points against us.

            There are some people you could really, really wish weren’t on our side.

            Hey, Sarah, Bob’s making sense again. Has the world gotten that crazy? 😛
            ———————————
            There is no shortage of people convinced they can create the Perfect World. They just have to eliminate all those imperfect people who don’t fit in it.

              1. Tsk – such unbridled optimism you express.

                My analysis makes that a current best case scenario.

                My only question is how much fire (and whether it needs to be atomic) will be required to clear the totalitarian kudzu.
                ~

            2. Some folks tar with overly broad brushes, as if wanting a sound currency and trains running on time requires you to buy all the rest of the items on the Fascism card … although I note those same people always want to order their Socialism a la carte, as if the free ‘education’ & ‘health care’ are separable from government deciding whose ‘social credit’ is sufficient to drain public resources.

              Nor do they recognize that Free Market political economics with “just a pinch of government regulation” is like a drinking fountain with just a smidge of fecal matter in it.

              Pfui.
              ~

              1. It turns out they what they actually want is Fascism, they just don’t want to call it Fascism. When the government and Big Corporations cooperate to trample people’s rights, though, what they call it doesn’t matter. A turd by any other name still stinks.

            3. For several years now, the world has been crazy enough that the expected value of the ratio of ‘things I say that make sense’ to ‘things I say’ should be at least 2/10. Maybe it should even be higher than 3/10.

          1. No, the Reader does not claim that. He notes, as he has here before, that writers’ words are the Reader’s illumination.

      3. When is a post, not a post?
        Why, when said not to be by one’s host
        But can that host say no post
        Well, it’s her post first and foremost

    3. Judging by word count, it’s a notice, not a post. And it’s the message what we need right now.

      “As soon as I document Their crimes and tally the damage done, I’ll say a fervent prayer and plan the next battle that must be won. “

    4. ceci n’est pa une publication

      My apologies unclear if that is the correct French for a post but that concept didn’t exist (other than large items of wood, Iron Concrete etc.) when I learned french so I mus trust (shudder) in google translate

  5. God’s Grandeur. by Gerard Manley Hopkins

    The World is charged with the grandeur of God
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
    crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
    Generations have trod, have trod, have trod,
    and all is bleared, seared with trade; bleared, seared with toil;
    and wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
    is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod..

    And for all this, nature is never spent;
    there lives the dearest freshness, deep down things
    And though the last lights off the black West went,
    Oh morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs–
    Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

  9. Higgledy piggledy
    Evil Space Princess-y
    Proudly proclaims that
    “It’s not a post”.

    Dragons and carpings
    (And frequent explosions)
    Prove that she’s still quite a
    Generous host.

  10. One of our hymns in church this Sunday was “On Eagle Wings” by Michael Joncas. I always choke up when we sing this:

    “And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings
    Bear you on the breath of dawn
    Make you to shine like the sun
    And hold you in the palm of His hand.”

    God Bless, everyone. Good health and fair skies, Sarah.

    2. That is a reference/paraphrase of Isaiah 40:31 (here in NET translation)

      But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength;
      they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings,
      they run without growing weary,
      they walk without getting tired.

      Lovely song…

  13. I hope you soon feel better. I enjoy your posts. Print them out and read them with my coffee. So, to encourage you to write soon… one of my poems.

    Advice to young writers! by Paul Clayton

    Write!
    Hone your craft
    day and night;
    live simply,
    brown rice and rain water

    Meditate;
    Write!
    Take a walk,
    And tomorrow…
    write again.

    Be pure and
    Write!
    Hug your kitty,
    but not too hard.
    Write!

    Look around and see,
    what is there…
    beneath…
    all the…
    crap ―
    More crap!
    Write about it!

    Read too;
    blow up your TV
    (about 3 ounces of C4 will do);
    think, and
    Write!

    Listen to your Muse and
    Write!

    Eat your rejection letters
    slowly, and rage
    in front of the mirror;
    screaming out,
    “I will publish,
    damn you!”

  16. Some day you really must do a post on your definition of “a post.”

    As you’ve put up a Chesterton post I will take leave to recommend a program currently running on Catholic television (EWTN), titled The Apostle of Common Sense.
    https://www.ewtn.com/tv/shows/g-k-chesterton-apostle-of-common-sense

    This series hosted and produced by the “American Chesterton Society, explores issues through the eyes of the greatest writer, theologian, and philosopher of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, with humor and substance.” (quoth IMDb)

    Each episode runs somewhat under thirty minutes (it varies, according to subject matter) and is worth repeated viewing, offering informative, thoughtful, entertaining and insightful expressions of Chesterton’s thought.

    Also available on DVD through Ignatius Press (I believe – don’t hold me to it) and, for all I know, streaming – but as my TV don’t stream I canna attest to tha’.

  18. I listened to Sarah’s theme song today. What else could it be? ‘The Unidentified Flying Tuna Trot’ by R.E.O. Speedwagon.

    Yeah, okay, not Carp, but it is an airborne fish.

  20. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.
    A magical thing. And sweet to remember.
    We are nearer to Spring than we were in September.
    I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.

  21. You and us. I think it is fallout from hell moves. We finally get enough of a break to be ill in. God bless and prayers for better days.

    TOO MUCH TO DO-!!!! (st00pid bodies)

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