Monday with a Vengeance

"And now, my son, waste no time on questions, but obey. This damsel is wounded. Your horses are spent. Rabadash is at this moment finding a ford over the Winding Arrow. If you run now, without a moment's rest, you will still be in time to warn King Lune."
Shasta's heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. But all he said out loud was:
"Where is the King?"

~C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

lessons from the Magadalen

Crucifixion - Bernardo Daddi

vatican museum - Crucifixion triptych

i took this photo, rather in a rush, and cannot find a better image anywhere. these others i found were the closest thing to capturing the same emotion of Mary Magdalen's face torn with grief. there is no simpering piety here, simply the unbelievable pain of watching her Beloved suffer unthinkable tortures and then die.
this is what holiness is, and there can be no delusions about this if we are to attain that for which we strive. "he who loves much, is forgiven much." if somehow we--if I--can remember that this is what love is, if we can embrace this manifestation of love, then all these trials that can seem so overwhelming will be so easy, or at least bearable, and . . . and what? and i am going to stop because all of the phrases that come to mind are so painfully cheesy and platitudinous.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Niccolò di Buonaccorso 
(image courtesy of Christie's)

no bend in the road

life never really "gets easier," does it? there is no mythical point or event that magics things to be hunkey-dory or smooth sailing. i have been thinking very  much lately about anne shirley's "bend in the road." we have watched others, one by one in swift progression, follow the bend in their roads, leading away from here and away from us. what looked like a bend in our road has turned into, perhaps, a zig-zag; we are here for the duration. so, to glean another quote from anne's stories, it is time to "gird up our loins and hoe in," as we prepare . . . to stay. who would have thought that homeostasis could be so wearing? is this not what we are made for? but contentment must be in the here and now, or it will never be, at all.
that's all i have to say, for now. my mind is sort of numb, and i am trying very hard to take one day, one moment, at a time. Godspeed to all of our dear friends!