Maundy Thursday - Mama

Mama, you knew your Son had come to save us all. You knew that you were the mother of our Creator, our Redeemer, Love in its Purest and most Gentle and Precious Form. You knew what you’d signed up for when St Gabriel at the Annunciation had told you what God wanted of you. Your consent to allow yourself to be used for such a Purpose for the entire world, your fiat, you consented to be part of a much, much bigger and sweet plan than the world had ever experienced – and will ever – know.

Your love for the Father and for all was enough for you to, without a second thought, say, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’ (Luke 1.38) That simple statement changed the entire fabric of everything, because you didn’t flinch, you stood and said, ‘Yes.’

You knew that you would be a pariah in your community, and you knew that the gossip would flow like a river. But none of that mattered to you, because you knew that God had chosen you for a Special Purpose.

Triduum Thoughts 9 April 2020 - Holy Thursday Night.

Sitting during Mass this evening, I was listening to the Readings, and then Deacon Tim's homily and got to thinking about a lot.  Sometimes my thoughts come at me like drinking from a fire hydrant.  Other times, it's barely trickle of anything out of a frozen tap.

Tonight, I want to share with you something that came to me, and I would love your honest opinion.  It's my hope that this draws you ever-nearer to our Sweet, Beloved Lord and what He has done for us.

When God Steps Back - What does this mean?

I subscribe to a rather neat newsletter, Friends of the Little Portion Hermitage. I like reading these so much, I save each one. Today’s title caught my eye and it gave me pause when I read it. ‘The Discipline of Darkness.’...

Third Wednesday of Advent: JOY

Recently, someone I care very much about like my own flesh and blood was put through some unnecessary things by family. Now, ‘family’ … I want to explore that word a little. Family, as we are typically...

We must pray for our priests.

I'm weird.  I love being Catholic.  I love the fact that my Jesus wants so desperately to be with me, He went to all the lengths necessary to do so.  I love that He also gave a way for me to be with Him, too, this side of Heaven.  I'm grateful He gave the sacrament of Confession so that we could connect each Mass.  A friend said that 'Sin isn't dirt on one's soul, and people need to stop seeing it as such.  Sin is a WOUND.'  My friend is one of the wisest people I know and I really look up to this person quite a bit.  It's why I enjoy talking with and spending time with them so much.  I learn a lot each time.  I continue to learn things and I'm given a listening ear when I'm trying to process something I don't understand quite fully or something that I don't like but need to because it's necessary for my salvation.

The Pros and Cons of Technology

Recently, my nephew (he’s in his mid-20s) and I were out adventuring around town (we ended up at Walmart, which seems always the ‘it’ place for my friends and me to end up when we’re bored haha), and on our way back, we were listening to music and we were talking about technology.

Life isn't about having what we want, but appreciating what we already have!

I saw something earlier in my e-mail that prompted me to write this article.

The subject? It was about appreciating what we have. That gave me pause and I thought, 'Hm. I do that. I wonder how many others do, too?'

Random actual update. :)

Happy New Year, y'all!  I hope you had as great a time welcoming the new year as much as I did.  Welcome, 2019!  You were anticipated!

Good-bye, 2018. You won't be missed. Not entirely.

I'm going to share something incredibly real and raw with you all.  I don't think being vulnerable is necessarily a BAD thing, but it is not something that I'M entirely comfortable with, so bear with me.

As 2018 comes to a close, I have done a LOT of reflection on how things went.  The ebb and flow of life, as a whole.

Being a rainbow when everything's black and white.

Recently, I had someone come to me and ask for advice on how to survive. Specifically, how to come ‘out’ to the family about their sexual orientation. This person has expressed concern about having been previously treated as a pariah, sending this person – not compassionately – to counseling as a way to ‘purge’ this information from this person.

This… is a delicate matter. There are a lot of people who don’t agree with this lifestyle, and there are a lot who do. It’s been a constant source of contention for many, many years, probably centuries. But, sticking with the modern era, and with some of the crusty old political types trying to force us back into the 1950s, well, I can see the concern as being quite valid.

Love hurts when it ends. But, why?

Love. There are varying definitions of that word, but I want to talk about romantic love, and specifically, why does it hurt so much when a relationship ends?

My niece asked me to try to answer this question. I told her I would do my best. I won’t go into the specifics behind her reason, but I will say that there’s not been one person I know who HASN’T gone through the blistering heartache of a breakup. We all have, regardless of how amicable (and in some cases, toxic) it was.

Alright, so here we go.

'The Devil beating his wife' - what does that even mean?!

I don’t know about you, but I use a lot of really old (and sometimes cliche’ [don’t judge me!]) phrases and sayings.

For example: last week, my neighbour and I were sitting on her patio talking, and it was raining. At one point, while it was still raining, the clouds opened up, and my neighbour commented, ‘Oh, no. The Devil’s beating his wife now! The sun came out and it’s still raining!’ We sat and watched the weather shift a little and she and I pondered about the origin of that statement. How did it even come about? WHY would someone say such a thing? The devil wasn’t ever married … was he? Is he? I don’t think so. Given what he is (species), as far as I’M aware, there’s no such thing as marriage for him or any other angels.

I think Amazon's trying to kill me.

Awhile back, I'd found this book available on the Kindle store for pre-order about Helen Keller. Now, I remember a bit about her when I was a kid, I used to have a little book about her that I was OBSESSED WITH. I read it till it fell apart. You could ask me any factoid about her, and I probably knew. Now? Notsomuch.

It's time we get serious about our fun, people.

Alright, boys and girls, let's take a moment to talk about a little something with big, serious, and weighty consequences.  Bullying.  Specifically, in this case, AUTHOR BULLYING.

No one likes to be picked on or attacked.  Growing up, as children we tested the proverbial waters of what is, and is not, socially alright.  Regardless of what isn't alright, though, sometimes there are those people who do cross the line and say or even do terrible things to their fellow humans for whatever ridiculous reason that drives them to ugly behaviour.  Bullying, in any form, is NOT alright.  PERIOD.

Seasons Greed-ings.

Good afternoon, everyone!

I promise I'm still around.  I had all my time and energy focused toward NaNoWriMo.  And now, here we are, the day after I nailed it with a final word count of 50,022 words.  That was spread out over several things, the bulk of it was my book, including edits, and a couple other projects.

Now, I am currently battling throat frogs and chest gremlins.  I have a cold.  It seemed to creep up last week and hit me full-force on Friday.  And now, I feel terrible.

Cat Shaming = Photo Opportunity? Yes, please.

I've secretly always envied artists that do 'series' of paintings.  Each painting in said series tells part of a whole story, and that whole series is what the overall goal of a story's message is supposed to be.  Like we writers, writing multiple books for a series (I'm looking at YOU, Stephen King, and your many books in the Dark Tower series...).  Tonight I confessed out loud (well, on social media, but same thing) I'd always secretly desired to do a photo series.  Tonight that happened to come to fruition.  I have decided to do this series in the only way I can think of: narration.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I've enjoyed putting it together  (that is to say once I came back from my neighbour's place because I was on the verge of tears from frustration at the initial onset of everything... And then watched a good episode of Paranormal Witness).

Q&A With Morty!

Good afternoon, friendly reader! Today's interview is with Morty McKowsky. Morty* is 20 years old and from Jersey Shore, New Jersey. Morty is a rather unique individual. He showed up to our visit wearing Day-Glo orange pants, neon yellow shoes, and a rather loud Hawaiian shirt with pink and purple palm trees all over it. His hair was slicked back with Vaseline (he said it keeps it back the best, gel just wasn't doing it). I have to admit, I wasn't quite sure what to make of him. I'll let you decide.

My sit-down with Terrence!

Hello there, friends!

We're sitting down today to talk to Terrence✨, a 17 year old girl who is in her Senior year of High School at Silverleaf Academy✨.

Terrence is a nice young lady, and we appreciate her willingness to sit down and discuss all things writing, as she herself is a writer as well.

Let's talk habits.

I was looking around for some inspiration this morning before I finally decided to call it a night and go get some sleep.  I mean, it was almost 5.30 in the morning, after all!

One thing that caught my eye, though, was something about habits.  Specifically about a habit I wish I didn't have.

Couple big things going on....

First, I linked my Tweaky Muse blog to my Goodreads page.  :)

Second, I got an e-mail about six hours ago about NaNoWriMo.