Why Secondhand Bookstores Smell Good

"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."
~ "Why secondhand bookstores smell good" Perfumes: The Guide (via YMFY), 

Bookshelf Porn

I knew there was a reason! As someone once said, "When I have money, I buy books. If there is anything left, I buy clothes and food."

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Always Thankful

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

It's 300am Somewhere...

"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning."

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."

~ Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, 14:47

Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

~ 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need

~ Philippians 4:6-7,11-12

According to the Gospel, it should be said that undoubtedly each person is given his own saving cross. This cross has grown on the soil of our heart, and it is only through this cross that we can be saved. From this it follows that if we refuse to carry our cross of obedience for no legitimate reason, we refuse to go by the way of Christ, by the saving way, and we want to invent for ourselves another way, free of labor, for attaining the Kingdom of Heaven. But this cannot be.

~ St. Anatoly of Optina

I am coming to realize that there is simply no avoiding my particular cross. I may kick, I may scream, but it is here for the duration.  No matter how much I try to wiggle away, I always find myself face to face with it. And I seriously and truly abhor it. With every fibre of my being.

Above and beyond anything else, I. Hate. This. Thorn.

God says, “…And? It’s a thorn. A cross. You aren’t supposed to like it. You are supposed to bear it and deal with it. MY WAY.” God’s way, in case you were behind on this one, is forgiveness, love, mercy, patience. Acceptance. Long-suffering (emphasis on the long and the suffering.) I am definitely still an American Christian. ~sigh~

God’s way and my way differ completely. I would prefer that my particular cross take a long walk on a short pier, to be perfectly honest.  There is nothing in me that really thinks any part of this will produce anything in me except more pain and suffering. I am not into that sort of thing and would really rather avoid it, kind of like a large spider. Or have someone else come kill it.

The Lord in His wisdom has decreed that this is not the case for me. Somehow this cross, this thorn, is part of my salvific journey and I have to master it. No. That’s not right. I have to submit to it. I have to allow God to master me in spite of it. I cannot allow the thorn in my side to distract me from His comfort, or make me discontent with what He has already given me (and we don’t even need to talk about how much that is…SO much He has given, the mind boggles!). There is so much left to do! Being distracted is not going to do anything but keep me from His plan for me. And He does have one (Jeremiah 29:11) and I have an inkling, just the slightest sparkling, of what part of it is. 

Distraction by obvious trifles is not on the list of things I need to be indulging in right now. Has He not told me He would care for me and for my son, regardless of what happened around me?Yes. And more than once.

 

There is something coming. Something good for me in spite of circumstances and ill will. I have been looking for something good for quite some time and I know that the Lord will see me through this Dark Night of the Soul to the sunrise of His blessing.

I just have to bear it.

This cross.

This thorn.

The point (HA!!) being that I need to draw even nearer to Him. That I must let the Lord soothe me and my aching soul as I endure to reach the end of the race He has set before me to run.

God grant me grace to accept what You have given me with thankfulness and a whole heart. All You do is for my good and for the salvation of my soul. I am so thankful to You for entrusting me with what You have thus far. Please make me worthy of it. Give me grace to endure with a peaceful spirit and to trust fully in Your Word and Your promises to me.

I stand before the gates of thy Temple, and yet I refrain not from my evil thoughts. But do thou, O Christ my God, who didst justify the publican, and hadst mercy on the Canaanite woman, and opened the gates of Paradise to the thief; open unto me the compassion of thy love toward mankind, and receive me as I approach and touch thee, like the sinful woman and the woman with the issue of blood; for the one, by embracing thy feet received the forgiveness of her sins, and the other by but touching the hem of thy garment was healed. And I, most sinful, dare to partake of thy whole Body. Let me not be consumed but receive me as thou didst receive them, and enlighten the perceptions of my soul, consuming the accusations of my sins; through the intercessions of Her that without stain gave Thee birth, and of the heavenly Powers; for thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

~ Prayer before Communion by St John of Damascus

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Relevant Reading

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Philippians 4:6-7,11-12

The Dark Night of the Soul, St John of the Cross 

The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitgerald

The Gift of Dryness in Prayer, Mother Maria Angelica

Somethin's Comin'

Looking for Something Good

The Chapter that Spoke

What About Your Friends?

I am more excited about my life and future today than I have been in a very long time. Yet another chain has been struck and I'm more free than I ever thought I would be. If not for my friends standing in the gap for me today and over the past few years, it would have been so much harder to make it this far.

I never knew how many friends I had until everything went kablooie. They've picked me up, driven me around, held me while I cried, delivered good swift kicks to my rear end, and just plain loved me through my mess and ridiculousness to this point. Without them, I truly believe I would have sunken into some kind of  mess that there would be no climbing out of.

And they never let me down. When I had surgery last month and was unable to drive but was forced to because of various circumstances, folks stepped up to the plate and said we will help you because we know your situation. Yes, I had a couple of good cries about that because these weren't only people who could make their own schedule; a lot of these folks had to take off work, rearrange their lives, and pretty much jump through flaming hoops for me.

For me. The chiefest of sinners. And for Gabriel, my son. I know I do not deserve the blessing of all the people who have stood by me, and who continue to stand by me to this day. You are part my life and you are family, and I am so blessed, lucky, favored, fortunate, whatever to have been allowed to know all of you. The list includes so many people that I won't even try to name you all because I will inevitably leave someone out. I love you all. Thank you so much for your help when things went kablooie the past couple of weeks. After the past couple of years of my weird, you guys seriously iced the cake on this one!


This list, by the way, also includes people I have never met in real life! These people--all over the world even!!--who  uphold me in prayer daily; including the priests, deacons, and monastics, and one very special Bishop (rock on, Your Grace!) and so many other lay people. Thank you for remembering me. Your prayers have been the foundation on which I brace myself for whatever assaults come my way and each time I have been able to stand firm and not only survive, but thrive.

So...Thank you. I am blessed beyond my ability to describe. God grant you all many. many years! Thank you for reminding me what friendship truly is and for being there as I've walked this road. God only knows what would have become of me if I had to do everything alone.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 
For if they fall, one will lift up the other; 
but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. 
Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? 
And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. 
A threefold cord is not quickly broken. 

~ Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Relevant Reading
Somethin's Comin'
I Love My Friends
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Psalm 55

A Prayer

O Lord, accept me in penitence.
O Lord, leave me not.
O Lord, lead me not into temptation.
O Lord, grant me good thoughts.
O Lord, grant me tears and remembrance of death and compunction.
O Lord, grant me the thought of confessing my sins.
O Lord, grant me humility, chastity and obedience. O Lord, grant me patience, courage and meekness. O Lord, plant in me the root of all blessings, the fear of Thee in my heart.
O Lord, grant me to love Thee with all my mind and soul, and always to do Thy will.
O Lord, protect me from certain people, and demons, and passions, and from every other harmful thing.
O Lord, Thou knowest that Thou actest as Thou wilt; may Thy will be also in me, a sinner, for blessed art Thou for ever.
Amen.

Church in the News!

Church comes home
Altar, gleaming icons mean temple is ready for anointing
BY CHELSEA KELLNER -ckellner@newsobserver.com RALEIGH

As Laurie Hooten walked through the temple doors, she jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Oh, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed.

Photos by Chuck Liddy - CLiddy@newsboserver.com

Ahead, a team of men was carefully gluing a tall golden icon of the Virgin Mary to the ornate wooden wall surrounding the sanctuary. Two more icons already gleamed to its right, paintings copied from antiquity of Jesus and the icon of All Saints.
 
"There really is a God, there really is Jesus, there really are all those people in heaven, and now we can walk in and see reminders of that," Hooten said.

After years of waiting, All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church finally has a permanent home. Last Wednesday, workers rushed to finish the altar and iconostasis in time for the building's consecration Nov. 9.

"It's a coming-of-age," Father Nicholas Sorensen said. "The church will finally be consecrated, a holy, permanent structure for people to worship. We've got that sense of completion."

On Nov. 9, a bishop will anoint the building with oil and holy water in a long service, marking the building as a temple, not to be used for any other purpose from that day forward.

Photos by Chuck Liddy - CLiddy@newsboserver.com

A consecration is rare, a once-in-a-lifetime event for most priests and parishioners. Then again, this is a temple more than a decade in the making.

Before its location on Buck Jones Road, All Saints was a "port-a-church," says founding member Tony Brancaccio.

Founded in 1992 with about 30 members, the parish rented the Page-Walker Arts and History Center in Cary for services, or the Boys Club in Raleigh, or reserved a park community center.

After buying their current property, parishioners attended services in a building intended to become the parish hall. Attendance ballooned to about 400 members and that space got crowded, with standing room only at some services. The altar was a table covered by cloths, and the icons were small printed reproductions.

All Saints tried twice before to begin its main building, but found it unaffordable. The new structure cost about $1.6 million, saved during the decades by a careful congregation. It has high ceilings and gold domes and plenty of room to grow.

"We think of it as home and as an extension of our home," parishioner John Cook said. "Nothing makes it better than to have room for a bigger family and more people to love."

Services have been held in the new building for the past year. But to be consecrated, the altar needed to be permanent and the iconostasis - the wall of icons leading to the sanctuary where the altar stands - had to be complete.

Icons are an important part of Orthodox worship, Sorensen said. Each is a portrait of Jesus, Mary, an apostle or a saint painstakingly reproduced by hand with careful adherence to the ancient originals. Sorensen stresses that the icons themselves are not worshipped, but that they serve as a representation and reminder of those revered by the parish.

Very little has changed about the Orthodox service or the church structure itself since the first century, Sorensen said. The idea is for the church to provide stability in rapidly changing times. That means that particular icons are required for the new sanctuary, with a particular placement. An icon of Jesus stands to the right of the doors to the hand-made wooden altar, the Virgin Mary to the left. They are flanked by John the Baptist, the All Saints icon and two angels. The other positions are up to the individual parish. Here, parishioners chose to place St. Nicholas in one of those spots, in honor of Sorensen.

Last Wednesday, the iconostasis was complete. Parishioners rushed to finish the altar.

"If you go 20 years back, we could only dream of this," Brancaccio said. "For me, this is living a dream."

In another 20 years, the scent of the incense will have worked its way into the ductwork. Jesus and Mary will still hold their arms out to the world from the wall behind the sanctuary.

And, parishioners hope, the temple will continue to be an oasis of stability in a volatile world.

"I leave the world behind when I come in here," Brancaccio said. "The world stays outside, and I'm at peace."

Kellner: 919-829-4802

Minor correction, the Consecration service will be 6 November not 9 November. LOL!

One thing I asked of the Lord,
   that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
   all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
   and to inquire in his temple. Psalm 27:4

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Relevant Reading
All Saints Orthodox Church Consecration Service & Event Information

Hope

"Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing."

~ Mary Margaret Blanchard, Once Upon a Time

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Counsels of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

The person that is struggling to the best of his abilities, who has no desire to live a disorderly life, but who, in the course of the struggle for faith and life, falls and rises again and again, God will never abandon. And if he has the slightest will not to grieve God, he will go to Paradise with his shoes on. 

 We mustn't despair when we struggle and continuously see nothing but the slightest progress. We all do nearly nothing, some a little more, some a little less. When Christ sees our little effort He gives us an analogous token and so our nearly nothing becomes valuable and we can see a little progress. For this reason we mustn't despair, but hope in God. 

What a wonderful thing it will be when we know ourselves! Then humility will be for us a state of being, and God will position us well with His divine gifts. Then the spiritual laws will cease working, and the one who rises the highest will humble himself, for we will all walk low, we won't fall and we will continually receive the grace of God which is given to the humble.  

The goal of the Christian is to rise to God without machines. 

In the hour of prayer, when our mind wanders to thoughts of bad things, or if these thoughts come without our wanting them, we shouldn't wage an offensive war against the enemy, because, even if all the lawyers in the world joined together, they wouldn't make any headway with a little demon. Only through ignoring them can one chase these thoughts away. The same is true for blasphemous thoughts.

If you want to grab God's attention so He'll hear you during prayer, turn the dial to humility, for God always works in this frequency; then humbly ask for His mercy.

My brother, don't ask for anything in prayer except for repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the grace of God, and God will uphold you in His grace and will give you whatever you need for your own salvation as well as whatever is needed, should the case arise, for you to help another soul in need. 

Conscience is the first law of God, which He carved deeply into the hearts of the first-created. In turn we each make a photocopy from our parents when we're born.

Children contract their first spiritual colds from the open windows of their parents' senses. The mother passes on her cold especially when she is not modestly dressed and scandalizes her children with her behavior.

The holy life of parents instructs the souls of their children and so they naturally obey them and grow up with piety and without psychological problems, and the children are pleased with their parents. The parents are gladdened by their children in this life and in life eternal, where they will once again glory in them.

When one realizes one's sinfulness and the great mercy of God, the heart cracks, as hard as it may be, and real tears fall of themselves and then man prays and weeps without effort.

Let us struggle with all our powers to gain Paradise. The gate is very narrow, and don't listen to those who say that everyone will be saved. This is a trap of satan so that we won't struggle.

Christ is wholly love, goodness and consolation, and never suffocates. He has an abundance of spiritual oxygen.

Live in constant glorification of and thanksgiving towards God, for the greatest sin is ingratitude and the worst sinner is the ungrateful person. 

Those who are in the world must not despair when they are overcome by many passions, and when their nature is unruly and races passionately downwards. Rather, they must trust in the almighty power of God and turn the steering wheel of their powerful engine back onto the road toward God, upwards. 

Counsels of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

I Love My Friends!

"Preserve, then, my sons, that friendship ye have begun with your brethren, for nothing in the world is more beautiful than that. It is indeed a comfort in this life to have one to whom thou canst open thy heart, with whom thou canst share confidences, and to whom thou canst entrust the secrets of thy heart. It is a comfort to have a trusty friend by thy side, who will rejoice with thee in prosperity, sympathize in troubles, encourage in persecution. What good friends those Hebrew children were whom the flames of the fiery furnace did not separate from their love of each other!"

St. Ambrose of Milan.

Thank you all for your support and prayers! ~hugs~

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Relevant Reading
Daniel 3
Something's Comin'

Just Received the Following Email

Date: Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 5:23 PM
Subject: Congratulations!
Mailed-by: XXXXXXX

To: XXXXXXX

All Graduands:

Congratulations to all of you on your success! You have been cleared for the December 2011 Graduation contingent upon successful completion of the courses that you are currently enrolled in or the removal of any deficiencies. I have included the Graduation Readiness Checklist-Fall 2011 for your review.If I may be of further assistance, do not hesitate to contact me.

  

Best,

Virginia Purefoy Jones, M.L.S.

University Librarian and Assistant to the Dean

School of Library and Information Sciences

North Carolina Central University

Durham, North Carolina  27707

 
Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!