The Later Parade

And then I went into one of my semi-insane flights of fancy, this one about the pageant of Christ I’ve been mentally conjuring lately. I said “You know how in a parade on earth there are…oh I don’t know, five-star generals, and beauty queens and grand marshals? Well I’m thinking after we die or…you know, when it all comes together in the end, there’ll be a different kind of parade, when all the people who were good, who were kind, who God sees as important get to ride on their floats. So there’ll be Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. and...I don't know, the people who drowned trying to rescue someone else, and bringing up the rear, limping, staggering, inching along in broken wheelchairs with a dingy banner, there’ll be the alcoholics! Not just the ones who got sober, either, but all of us. Because we suffer so much and people think it’s our fault and we try, most of us, to be kind anyway… 

I looked over. Alan was staring straight ahead, a set look on his face. 

“A..alan?”  

“I can’t get as far as anything like that at all,” he said. “I’m just trying to train myself not to swear so my son will let me hang out with my grandkids.”  

Plus it turns out he doesn’t even have any grandkids yet. He wants to be in shape for them if and when down the line. 

So there you have it. The heroism of ordinary people who walk the streets, our secret sorrows, the invisible burdens the better among us bear without complaining, never even knowing what they do is a huge, noble deal. 

-- Heather King

Down There By the Plane

Left: Heather King
Right:  Me, in sheer delight

Friday Link Roundup - 9/6/13

Starting a new feature around here called the Friday Link Roundup, to be a sampler of my daily bread for the week.

Let's begin.

1. Excorcist Amorth: "Those who want war in Syria are instruments of the devil." (Spanish)

Rough translation excerpt:

'The Lord is a God of peace, wants peace, wants love between men, desires solidarity and support, so the rich help the poor. And Satan is the one who wants death and war,' he said.

In relation to the day of fasting, prayer and vigil called by Pope Francis for peace in Syria and the world on Saturday, September 7, the exorcist said without a doubt, 'annoy the devil, and not only him.' 'I prefer not to name names,' he added.

My family will be participating in the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria, called by the Pope for the whole Church, that he refers to. If you're interested in participating too, Artur Rosman at Cosmos The In Lost has the quick & dirty on the Pope's call and prayer for peace in Syria, and Catholic rules of fasting.

Sidenote: ACI Prensa is run by the spiritual family belonging to the Sodalits, an order of consecrated laymen that several of my friends from college joined.


2. Those who have ears: one of my brother's bands, Low Times, just released an album of demos. Check 'em out, they're a rip-roaring good time.

This is actually the second album featuring the same demos, remixed and with some interludes and a few new songs, so I'm not sure if they're technically still kosher demos. Doesn't matter - they're worth as many hears as your ears can take.

3. Miley Cyrus, eh. But this is worth reading:

What everyone saw Miley doing on Sunday night was what I did almost every night from the age of 18 to 33. I added the Grey Goose when I was 28 and that was like a match to gasoline. ...

You wanna help Miley Cyrus? Go down to the closest Jr. High to you and start mentoring the students there. Chances are that they don’t have role models that aren’t on TV and their parents would appreciate the help.

 
4. On a related note:

There is no one who simply reacts, without also making choices.  There is no one who simply makes choices, without reacting to other people.  It’s almost as if we’re all in this together.

5. MS3TK meets Dark Dungeons

Heh! Who doesn't love a good Jack Chick joke?

Mike: Crimony! Doesn’t this girl have a home?
Crow: [In a girl's voice] I can’t mom, I’m trying to role-play all by myself.
Tract: … I’m fighting the Zombie …
Mike: Because it’s the only one.
Tom: Dibs on the zombie

6. Heather King: PEACE IN OUR PERSONAL LIVES

Peace in our relationships within ourselves, with our family, friends and neighbors, is the start of peace in the world.

It's in large part because I got sober that I have such great hope--more than hope, personal knowledge--that people can change. Because my own heart changed. And make no mistake about it, when your heart starts to change you have to do a whole unbelievable ton of ongoing work to help the change along. You have to make your life's work helping the change along. You have to ask a whole lot of people for help when you don't want to ask at all. You have to be willing to be humbled again and again, to feel awkward, to risk, to fail, to stretch, to suffer, to walk in darkness. To pray ceaselessly. To come face-to-face with your terrible wounds, your terrible selfishness, your terrible fear, your endless, absurd limitations. It is precisely because I am so damaged, so weak, so unbelievably easily triggered and prone to violence myself that I need the Sacraments.

I could never get along with some abstract ideal of peace. I need Christ, nailed to the Cross, to know that goodness, truth, beauty and peace have a price. I need his Body and Blood to even think of being willing to pay it.

7. GK Chesterton, "A Word"

The breaking of the girths of gold, the needs that creep and swell.
The strengthening hope, the dazing light, the deafening evangel,
Through kingdoms dead and empires damned, through changes without cease,
With earthquake, chaos, born and fed, rose,--and the word was "Peace."

_________

That's all folks!