My Interview on The Journey Home

Charlie Hebdo and Our Cultural Insanity

 I have to admit. I am kinda out of it. I turned off the television for good in the 1990's and don't watch tv--local or cable. I read headlines online, but I am so sick of the lies of the media, I tend to not go further than that. 

So when I saw the headlines about the massacre in France at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, I wept and prayed. So tragic. What is wrong with our world?

Then my mother called and informed me what  the cartoons in the magazine Charlie Hebdo were like, I cringed. Then I got angry.

The story is even more tragic than I imagined. The event in France highlights the increasingly insane and twisted worldview we westerners have embraced. 

This incredibly vile magazine, by all standards of good taste, should have been run out of business years ago. It's filth should never have been patronized by anyone who considers themselves decent. Sure, they may have had the legal right to publish it, but the public should have never allowed it to survive the free market. 

So now, in honor of the freedom of the press to publish pornographic filth, heads of state marched in the streets. While I know they were marching against violence, which I totally agree with, it is grotesquely tragic that Charlie Hebdo magazine was held high and made the martyr of free speech. 

Seeing all these people holding signs "Je suis Charlie" made me want to puke. I would be okay with holding up signs of "NO VIOLENCE in the name of God." Sure. Absolutely. But to purposefully attach one's sympathies to this abominable magazine rather than the people who died? Are we insane?  

That would be as creepy as chanting, "I am George" when abortionist George Tiller was murdered. We can decry the murder of any soul without elevating the victim to hero status.

Pope Francis got it right. Freedom of speech has its limits. When respectable people don't self-regulate their liberties, there will be consequences. Charlie Hebdo magazine should have been thrown out of France. When we allow such wickedness to flourish, wickedness will....flourish. 

Am I blaming the victims? Of course not. No one deserves to be assassinated. I am not taking up for those who killed them. But now, after such a tragedy, we should not align ourselves with such a magazine and make it look heroic for publishing such filth. 

I am NOT Charlie. Hell NO!!! 

A Dream, by Teresa Beem

This is a record of what happened last night. It is one of several dream incidents that I have not recorded. But I will record this one.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015; Manassas Park, Virginia. 

My husband and I were lying in bed watching the first episode of a documentary about Prohibition by Ken Burns. I had already seen it but wanted to review it because it explained a lot about American culture in the 19th century.

I fell into a very deep sleep. Then:

Everything was in grays and blurry like a colorless thick fog, like shadows dancing on a wall from a fire. There was nothing scary about the shadows, nor in the shadows.

The space around me seemed to close in on me even though I could tell the place was infinite. And I was inside this space, unable to move back or forward, suspended without being able to advance nor retreat. 

There were no sounds exactly, just an expansive deep space sound—like a dead silence in a huge cathedral. I could feel nothing, for I wasn't physical anymore.

I knew I was dead. 

I panicked because I realized life was over. It was over, I repeated to myself, life on earth is over for me. But I couldn't remember anything—nothing. I couldn't remember who I was, my life, everything was a blank. I was totally helpless. I couldn't go back into life, I had to be here. But I wanted to go back into life.

Though I had no physical body to feel cold, through my spirit, there was a deathly chill sensation. There was a frozenness about the place that you experienced, but couldn't feel. 

To write that knowing I couldn't go back into life made me sad or regretful is to confine an emotion. Emotions were no longer inside me for there was no "me," physically at least. A sadness permeated everything. It was as if I could swim in this fog for a millions years and if I reached out and touched something, it would be the sadness I experienced when I first arrived.

I did not feel as if I was being punished. I did not feel as if I had chosen this. It was just there and I didn't even know how to figure out anything. Everything was a state of being that couldn't be changed or understood.

Yet, all of that was peripheral. What was the most terrifying thing about the place was the realization that I was alone. There was an eternal "aloneness." 

And I felt something human words are unable to describe. I was facing an infinite isolation on all sides of me, and there was a deep horror, a steely terror that I never imagined. I have always heard that the worst type of loneliness was to be alone in a crowd. No. The worst type of aloneness is when there is no one left anywhere in the cosmos. Not even God.

Then I woke up and looked at the time. It was 9:35 pm and the documentary was still playing on my computer a few feet away.


ANALYSIS:

Was this from God to teach me something? I don't know. But I do know that growing up Seventh-day Adventist, not believing in purgatory or hell, I had never been afraid of either. Now I am. But the first thing I thought of when I awoke was that I needed to pray for people in purgatory. They were helpless and alone just as I had experienced. 

Then secondly, pondering as I look back upon the dream, I realized that I have not appreciated life. I feel a bit like Scrooge this morning wanting to jump and scream and shout that I am alive. I have been buried so deeply in theology and the knowledge that I am eternally God's child, that I haven't really been appreciative for this life—as much as I should be anyway. The gift of life is extraordinarily important and we should not focus all our attention on the afterlife. This life is a gift.

And finally, the dream taught me something. Goblins and ghosts and demons are not as scary as isolation. An eternity of aloneness, without God, without loved ones, without friends, that is what hell is. And you don't even have memories to comfort you.

Wow. Don't go to hell. It is hell. And I just had a little few seconds of something like it.

BRAVO Dolan, Kurtz and Cordileone! YEAH TRUTH!

Two delightful and brilliant Catholic scholars. 

A Good Witch Story

As long as it is Halloween, I thought I'd give you a good witch story:

Trick or Treat?

Bad News....

More than half of all U.S. couples live together before marriage.

There are 2.4 million marriages a year in the US and 1.2 million divorces a year. 

The US has the third highest divorce rate in the world.

70% of Christian men look at pornography.

Pornography is the number one export of America.

Americans spend $13. 1 BILLION on pornography each year, the same amount that we give in foreign aid.

More than 260 million Internet pages are pornographic, an increase in 1, 800% in the last five years.

One large study ten years ago showed that 56 percent of divorce cases involved one party having an obsessive interest in

pornographic websites. Another more recent and extensive research showed that in 2/3rds of all divorces pornography played a significant role. That equates to well over 600,000 divorces each year in the US.

More than 1/3 of married Christian men commit adultery. 

But it gets worse:

35% of teen boys say they have viewed pornographic videos “more times than they can count.”

15% of boys and 9% of girls have seen child pornography.

32% of boys and 18% of girls have seen bestiality online.

39% of boys and 23% of girls have seen sexual bondage online.

83% of boys and 57% of girls have seen group sex online.

Many teenagers involved in a relationship are being pressed to engage in anal sex.

Okay enough! 

And the worse news is that is just the beginning.

So what do we do? Do we just watch tv and eat popcorn and allow the Lord to take care of it? Do we have a momentary sigh and wish there was something we could do? 

There is. You be holy. You be a saint. That is the very best thing we can do. We have the power of all heaven at our disposal if we get on our knees. Time to get serious. Time to watch. Time to listen. Time to fast and pray.

He's our only hope.

______________________

Sources:

http://www.charismanews.com

Some of these statistics were testified by Dr. Jill Manning (reported by Psychology Today Magazine) at a 2004 United States Senate Committee meeting as well as from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

As well as other sources

Faithful Shepherds?

  I, [the Lord Almighty] will judge your leaders for ruining my vineyard and plundering the house of the poor. The bishops and priests and pastors who have been crushing God's people and grinding their faces. O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.

Isaiah 3:1-12 updated for our times.

 As Christians, where did we get this idea that our bishops, priests and pastors were going to do the right thing, were going to be faithful to Christ? Certainly not from scripture:

His watchmen are blind, All of them know nothing. Allof them are mute dogs unable to bark, Dreamers lying down, who love to slumber; And the dogsare greedy , they are not satisfied. And they are shepherds who have no understanding; They have all turned to their own way, Each one to his unjust gain, to the last one. "Come," they say, "let us get wine, and let us drink heavily of strong drink; And tomorrow will be like today, only more so." Isaiah 56:10-12 

For the shepherds have become stupid And have not sought the Lord; Therefore they have not prospered, And all their flock is scattered. Jeremiah 10: 12

Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard, They have trampled down My field; They have made My pleasant field A desolate wilderness. Jeremiah 12: 10. 

"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!" declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tendingMy people: "You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds," declares the Lord. Jer. 23: 1-2 

Weep and wail, you shepherds; roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock. For your time to be slaughtered has come; you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery. The shepherds will have nowhere to flee, the leaders of the flock no place to escape. Hear the cry of the shepherds, the wailing of the leaders of the flock, for the Lord is destroying their pasture. Jer. 25: 34

My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place. Jer. 50: 6 

Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals....This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. Ez. 24:2-5, 10. 

My anger burns against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders.... Zech. 10: 3

Jesus called Israel's leaders vipers and white-washed tombs. But His own disciples acted little different when in Gethsemane they all scattered at the first sign of trouble. Judas, the man who sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver was among His hand-picked! Peter, the betrayer, was the prince and leader of the leaders! Therefore we know that those who are called are often very weak men and the position as leader often calls them to courageously fight to become strong men of God. And some of them can and do fail in that struggle.

It's not just Israel's problem. After Christ ascended to heaven their were problems with the shepherds. (Jude 1: 12) 

The Bible doesn't tell us the shepherds anointed by God and set over the people are going to be faithful. Quite the opposite. The leaders are no better at following God then we are at following our leaders!

So where did this idea of looking to our Christian leaders to be faithful originate? In Christian history? No.

Christian History

Many popes and bishops failed the Bride. When King Henry VIII threatened England's bishops if they didn't support him as the head of the church,

St. John Fisher, Martyred by King Henry 8th

all but one or two of the bishops crumbled and cut themselves off from the pope. 

Throughout history God's sheep have been dazed by greedy, selfish, cowardly shepherds. Expect that it will be that way today. Somehow, miraculously the church is still here after two thousand years. Christ has kept His promise to never leave her. 

In Catholicism Today

The Church seems to be having its own Gethsemane moment where are bishops are falling asleep or sneaking behind a few bushes in order to avoid persecution. Hold on... just like the Apostles during Friday and Saturday, its going to get worse before it gets better, but know that the Body of Christ, His Bride, will remain even thought the great

Apostolic stars seem to fall. Remain steadfast within the Body. Sunday is coming. 

Where have I heard that?