A visit from my daughter

 

What a blessing.

A nap on my lap. How many decades since that happened?  Very touching. 

Thank you, Jesus 

What today? low energy

 

Call it first spring day in the neighborhood 64°

     Webinar on being, ego.  Mention of the Jesuit psychologist who realized in his 80s that he fantasized most of his career. That seemed so real to me in regard to the many business people we have been dealing with this past month.  Unreal necessary interactions and phone calls.

     Worst is body aches and pains. Lord heal ZiJN

Sunday in the park

 

With Red

     God and webinars today. Lord be we us through this Holy Week. Let us think of you daily, Lord Jesus. 

Grant us thy good will

 

Portsmouth NH 8-7-2014

        Life is short, death is long. Each day plays out like a fishing line cast out and reeled back through the same waters, with only occasional snags to mar repetition. Lord have mercy. IJN

Thank You for Healing

  

And for helpers

All better almost

Staples out, no cast, sling optional 

Thank you, Lord, for another good day.

Long lasting

 

Y’s flowers aren’t giving up the ghost. 

Neither should we, tired as we are. High temp

57° today,  but it felt so chill and gray. I as such a grump this morning, packing pills.  The nurse was here to hear me, I’m ashamed to say.  PT also visited, arriveing as I departed for hair appointment with dear M. Her previous client left ultrasound delicious homemade treats— lemon pound cake, pb chip chocolate cookies, Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies—I want to remember them, and her (Aging silver blonde long pageboy with a red going for fuchsia side streak). M sent home a goodie bag for A and me. Little dog and I stopped at Chic Filet to bring home very agreeable lipped.  Then comfy nap time with Red.

Thank you, Lord for this life, IJN.

Busy day

Contrast: porch tracks

 Thank you, Lord, for the energy needed to complete all the new tasks I have.  Steward.  Thank you for sunshine and mild temperatures which seem to raise energy and decrease pain. IJN

Color

 

Self portrait in color?

     Be cheerful and praise the Lord. See the beauty of contrast, light and reflection. IJN

God help me

Vanitas

     I repeat.

     I feel like I have been rudely thrust into a world that is far too complicated. 

     I may exaggerate, if I say life has always been a struggle, not so joyful, not beautiful as I wish to declare it.  Is it a gift or a curse you give us at conception, Lord?  Should I even ask?

      I review in mind the personal calamities and breakdowns that mark my aging personally, especially recently.  I am also touched by news reports of murderous events, this time the hanging death of a teenage Iranian wrestler by his theocratic regime.  I feel my heart wring physically. I go numb. 

     Lord why?  You are sad, too, so can or will you do nought to help suffering humanity?  I want to plead to you,  “Rescue us!” But I don’t believe you will. Or that we can rescue ourselves, despite all the helpers and forces for good that I find all around me. I’m in the wilderness.  Death starts to look like a door out, if a cowardly one that leads me to abandons those I help. 

 

    Lord, if this is not despair I feel, it’s damn close to it. So again I can’t help crying, Omnipotent,  save me, Jesus help us, God have mercy,

An answer, a comfort, comes.  Lee van Lear, Daily Five, Substack today:

“ And I see that I am brought here in goodness, 

in life, and in being 
to own what takes place 
to earn my place in it 
and to assume the responsibility of being a living creature 
here in this solar system 

I can only recognize my responsibilities and duties 
by turning to the authority of every cell in my body 
and listening to their own vibration. 

For they have no doubt as to their purpose 
and yet I must bring more than this alone.

For no creature can be found by God unless it has doubt in it. 
And no man can find God 
without the doubt of everything that drives him forward through life. 

No woman can find God 
without the doubt that drives her forward through everyday life.
 
So we come together here in the unknown. 
All of us Uncertain. 
Questioning. 

Searching for a deeper and more spiritual connection 
to this energy that flows throughout the body— 

willing, perhaps, to accept the conditions of life itself. 

A place of the unknown, 
moving forward into the unknown
with only light and love to illuminate it in the end. ”

Spring has sprung

 

Thank you for our daily bread

And flowers

And sleepy little dogs

And healing husbands who

enjoy March Madness 

IJN

What to pray

 

July, 2025, neighbor’s fragrant lilies

     They spin not, neither do they toil..,, yet God provides.  Yield to that authority, says Lee rightly  IJN

This is the soil in which Lord have mercy grows its roots 

this is the place where the blood of Christ is spilled 
to bring being to the new man and the new woman 

This is the place of mystery and becoming. 
And I bring the great prayer to this place 
to offer it once again. 

Lord, 
I call to thee from the depths of mine iniquity. 
I have not delivered myself sufficiently unto thee. 
I know not how. 

           Lee van Lear, today, inner Christianity, Grace Knows no Limits, substack

So weary

S’s midnight high wind calamity Tuesday

     Probably lack of caffeine today. Lack of keeping in touch with you Lord. Odd how when life gets tough I shut down from you. It doesn’t help. I need your comfort.  Help me, Lord

Recovering

 

At home

Happier, looks like

Lord help us sleep peacefully through the me night and heal.  Watch over and heal KA. Bless our dear ones. IJN

God have mercy

Snow yesterday 

    Lord give me strength. Spare and heal Allan. I am afraid 

IJN

Heal the wounded

 

God help him speedy and complete recovery, including his self recriminations. IJN

Post op. Feeling much better

Walking Ties, 3/11, 2026

  This is my March 11 post; not sure what editing error I made to land it on 3-12.  A’s serious accident occurred about 1:30 3-12 though I didn’t know about it until nearly 4pm.  Probably that had etwas to do with it  

An alternative 

To the foot bridge

The whole structure. Today 3-11-26 10:10 am

     I walked ties across the Tug River as a child with Aunt B and Uncle B. It was scary. This pic shows the spaces between them, and one can easily trip. No footbridge in Nolan. Trains could—and did once—pass us. We had to quickly step off onto small platforms with rails to hold. The train was right there. Like I said, scary. I never forgot. 

  Lord, we build protections for ourselves and trust them to work for us. Let us place our trust completely in you instead.   I pray for special blessing on CV today and each day she continues on the narrow track of her acute illness.  IJN

Soggy and dreary

  

Rock Row quarry pit, 11:45am

       This scape may not be nearly as pretty as in good weather, but it’s still dramatic.  I only snapped twice, feeling let down, and the second is off focus more than I like or can adjust; rather like the morning felt. Tired. Unenthused.

       Red and I both got soaked and chilled outside the neighborhood, but we’re none the worse for it.  We accomplished four small tasks: investigated potential text scam at phone store, bought Crumbl cookies, bought lunch and supper at MB supermarket, and walked 30 minutes in the rain.  Feels good as we both relax now, and I’m recalling the genial people we encountered, especially the grizzled long beard with bad knees like mine, also buying readymade supper.  Plus there were five handsome young folks buying cookies, a man with a muscular densely tattooed sleeve photographing a store entrance, and a friendly young black haired store clerk, all eager to pet Red.  What an attention magnet he is!

     We were talking last night about relationship as a function of Time/Heropass and Divine Love. Another good memory, abstract certainly, but now I associate it with these pleasant encounters with strangers.  I am reminded of the importance of getting out and about, regardless of mood or weather. That needs to be a constant aim:  meet people.

     Lord bless all the folks we encountered today.  Bless our tribe and our friends.  Forgive us the hurt we cause and forgive those who harm us:  forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, in your words. IJN

Light and warmth

 

,

Almost sunrise, 6:45 am

     Thank you, Lord, for both.

    Must such wondrous creations of comfort and beauty also be sources of guilt and remorse of conscience?  Reminded that I have and many others have not, I acknowledge that I do little enough to balance the situation. No wonder nuns and monks take vows of poverty!  But in the argument of works vs faith, Works is not the Way, says the Epistles.  But I’m probably offering self calming excuses. 

     Always in the Wilderness, do not enjoy, that should be the aim, thus sayeth my liberal friends, too.  All talk. 

    Lord help me not to offend, but to also be truthful and sincere. To you, me, them.  IJN

Sunshine where u find it

Water in the street can be very beautiful

     

    Today is the 102 year anniversary of Mom’s birth. Thinking of her.

     Thinking not of God or Jesus. And I am asleep today. Again binge watched stupid TV today. 

    I forgive myself, perhaps too easily. Lord, will you forgive me for my waste of your precious gift  of time?  IJN

    Thank you for life. 

I’m melting, melting

 

69°, start of daylight savings time

     Snow is going fast, but those piles are higher than they look and it’s definitely mud season. 

     

     Lord have mercy, God have mercy.

Anniversary

 

Of Mom’s death. Here she is in DC, about 20 yrs old

     For some reason I always get her death and birth dates confused. She was born March 9, 1924, at Winco Block, Naugatuck, West Virginia, and died March 7, 1997 Columbus, Franklin, Ohio.

Stupidly, no citation on this 8-24 research I was doing. 

Presumably, my grandfather would have been working at this coal mine when my mother was born, his third child.

 

       God bless the tribe, who was, who is gone, who is, who will be.

All Gods creatures

I like lizards, 3-24-2021 GA

     Brings back memories, nostalgic and a bit sad, as pics invariably do.   And this is a season of past deaths for me, mom and Suzanne. Lord have mercy. Remember our passed love ones. Help us prosper for their sake. Keep them in our hearts and minds. IJN

Before it slips away

 

,

Street ice end of driveway, 8:20 am

     How many people see the tiny and constant beauties You create?  I am fortunate and grateful to have “artists’ eyes” with which to look upon Your Creation. 

 Lee’s podcast, “Caterpillar Vibes” describes communication of bees, butterfly caterpillars and ants to illustrate the idea of “vibration, movement and communication (as) a fundamental cosmological property.”  For me he clarifies, at least for a while, the ubiquitous but murky sling of “vibrations” by every contemporary sort of “spiritual”  type onto their beliefs with little attempt to explain their meaning.  I never quite found it self-evident.  Maybe I’m too thick; my vibration is too low. 

      Well, I admit that’s likely a true self-observation.  But when you’re swimming in them, it’s just hard to notice the vibes with accuracy. Or modify them, when needed, as can. 

     So thanks again, Lee. And thanks, Lord, for good teachers. Help us discern and take to heart the lessons you send.  IJN

         

First light

 

Moments ago, 5:56 am

Later 8:18

     Lord grant us, Lord help us create, a fruitful day. IJN

     A new installment of the Flaubert Reports yesterday,  Jesus’ Teenage Years, The Ungrateful Dead, Part II. The humor and sweetness of those essays calms me and warms my heart. In this one especially the reference to babies immediately, permanently receiving the Light of Christ moves me. The assertion that it has never left the world is glad tidings indeed. 

      “But I have never seen light move through any Being the way it does through Christ.

The way it does, you say?

Of course.

I say it in the present tense; because even now the Light of Christ is alive.”

    

     Then there is also the Heartfire.

From The Klutz, 2-5-26, Lee van Lear

We’ll see

GA pollen, 3-2-23

Where to?

 

10-12-15, Poland, Me

Poland Springs property, if memory serves

     I like this photo leading from light into dark, the sunlit path in to what looks like a dark cave; it’s a very simple metaphor for current events actually.  I’m glad to say we did not watch war TV yesterday. There were some references in one webinar about not watching the news at all to lower stress, but think it’s important to stay in the loop, just take in only as much as you can handle and parse it for yourself.  It strikes me as odd, no bullets flying in my neighborhood despite the barrages in other cities in the world. That condition alone removes from us, me, at least, the sense of reality or urgency of armed conflict. It does not take away fear of the unpredictable consequences of war. I think that’s really magnified in anti-Trump protesters.

    God help us cope with our fears IJN

Prescient?

 

No end in sight this morning

     A said yesterday that he thought I was prescient about the immanence of our war with Iran because I stated I thought it might start this weekend, before he left for the post office. He phoned me five minutes afterward, telling me indeed it had already begun. No magic insight on my part, I replied; just paying attention to recent Fox News, “reading” the President and Cabinet pronouncements there for the past fortnight . Then M’s worry last night about Iran during our meditation session reinforced my own sense the coming of war.

     I dread most the political backlash to Trump in this event.  I am sick to death of holier-than-thou  protesters and the Democratic bloc in Congress.  They are all too blind to look before their TDS at policies and events of the past several decades. Nor do they see reason toprotect their own interests and those of this nation. 

        Marc Levin stated my opinion and wish rationally, as he often does:  drop the “off-ramp” foolishness; press the military success to actual victory with surrender.  For nearly fifty years this Iranian threat has hung like the Sword of Damocles over US and the western world.

       Jihad. End it permanently, I plead. Let Iran grow back to peaceful democratic prosperity, along with the other Muslim nations, and of course a double blessing on Israel. Let US interests be satisfied, and hush the homegrown whiners who won’t try to understand that mindset.  IJN