On the Way: thoughts for pilgrims

djpasternak

A beloved nearly ninety-eight-year-old aunt of mine passed on recently. She was the last of a generation that included aunts and uncles and parents in both my husband’s and my families. Often referred to as the ‘greatest generation’ they lived through WW11, the great depression, and so on. Now we have taken the place of those pilgrims who tread the earth and now exist in another realm. We are ‘on the way’.

One of us, our generation, passed through and joined those souls almost two years ago. Last week, his widow, our dear neighbor, moved out of the neighborhood, and in cleaning out years of things, came upon a book of poetry with inspiring photographs by Russell G. Terra: On the Way: thoughts for pilgrims. In just 106 pages, he revealed his pilgrimage on earth, his spiritual Way. She handed me the book just before leaving her home.

After reading the poems with accompanying photos, I googled him and came upon a biography by Fr. John E. Boll in the archives of the Sacramento Diocese. Just as the book of poems impressed me, the biography drew me to pursue his life further.

I ordered the only available copy of the book of poems on amazon to give to a poet friend of mine. My next blog will reveal some interesting facts about Russ, found in the 37 page biography.

The Anxiety of Christmas and the Spirit of Christmas

djpasternak

Every year I vow to prepare for Christmas, buying presents throughout the year, gathering recipes for cookies, planning Christmas Eve dinners and special Christmas meals, etc. However, this has never happened; and this week before Christmas I find myself writing cards, wildly ordering gifts from amazon, stocking up on food, and progressively becoming more and more anxious.

Once again, despite my determined attempt to limit spending, here I stand in line at the Shoprite, and realize I forgot bread, the reason for this shopping trip. Leaving my cart with just one more customer in front of me, I trustingly run to the other end of the store, pick up three loaves and return, only to see a woman loading her cart onto the conveyor.

With steam escaping from my ears, I smile at her, and she ignores me. An older couple comes in line behind me, and I shake the urge to grumble. Meanwhile, I recognize a familiar employee checking out the woman who took my place in line. The checker is wearing a headband with two Christmas balls attached to springs. When my pushy adversary exits the scene, I empathetically tell the checker, “You look tired.”

She keeps working and I say, “I like your hat.”

She says, “A man gave me a half dozen of these in different colors. “The couple behind me must have found that funny, and laughed. My mood rose, but fell when screen showed my bill was above  one-hundred dollars. Suddenly, the checker stopped and announced. “Wow, this is your lucky day. You have an angel. This is amazing.”

“I, I won something?”

“You have a Yotsey angel. It takes four ones and you have five.”

“That’s great?” I ask her.

“Better than great. The angel will stay with you all day.”

“You made that up!”

She held back a giggle. The man behind me started telling a joke about St. Peter as the line behind him grew longer due to our conversation. I showed them the medal around my neck. “This is St, Raphael the archangel. Now he has company.”

Reflection: That random incident reveals that the Christmas Spirit is still alive and well, even amid the self-inflicted anxieties of this wonderful season, celebrating God’s greatest gift to mankind.*

(Note: my AI program reminds me I should add ‘and womankind’.)

Election Night 2024: Continued

djpasternak

My husband and I found a u-tube sight, run by a group of individuals skilled in statistics and knowledge concerning presidential elections. Although they chattered with each other throughout the broadcast about the odds of who would win, they also kept touch with the regular stations and compared their findings. At first they revealed their belief it would be a short night and a landslide for Trump. From the map of blue, red, light blue, and pink it appeared they were right for the first hours.

It was apparent they were on the red side and their excitement grew as Trump swept the map. Then California and the west coast came in and some swing states seem to be turning blue. My husband stayed glued to the screen but I kept leaving the room unable to cope a defeat. At one point I went to bed but that only lasted minutes and we both sat there, dreading an unacceptable outcome. The broadcasters grew doubtful as well and desperately made endless computations that we couldn’t follow.

As the tension built up at one point it appeared we’d lose Pennsylvania, a must win swing-state, when the Philadelphia vote came in. I went into the kitchen for several minutes aimlessly walking back and forth. But after that, I sat there until 3:00 am when the tide tuned and it was a landslide for Trump. We went to bed with more hope for our country and ourselves than we had since the 2020 election.

The once joy filled democrat party turned angry and believes we are doomed. Now every avenue of stopping Trump and his agender is rampant across the country. Our hero, unperturbed pushes on. One of my unhappy friends told me she’d give him a year. The man conveys the kind of hope of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence. And the ‘dance of joy’ resounds with the faith of our fathers as the young at heart follow our leader to the tune of ‘Young Man’.

Election Night 2024

djpasternak

Looking back on the election of 2020, it felt as if the four years ahead were centuries away, for those of us who believed the once party of the people, the regular folks, would wreak havoc on our country and our lives. In our hearts, a good number of us recognized an evil, disguised as good, would steer our beloved nation into gehenna. In fact, in many ways the last four years gave evidence of that reality.

It wasn’t just the inflation, the open border, the takeover of the major newspapers and TV stations. More devastating still was the decay of our moral bearing: abortion increasing after the defeat of Roe V. Wade nationally, with states divided and those like NY and NJ advocating and inviting women from states with stricter laws to come and receive their right to abort up to and including nine months. In fact Governor Cuomo had the Empire State building lit up when the NY legislator voted for abortion unlimited even to the survivor of an abortion alive to be left to die.

I for one, will always vote on that issue alone. But there is so much more that occurred the past four years: transgender surgeries performed on children as well as gender confused adults, required sex-ed in NJ schools grades one to twelve, mandated by the state under Gov. Murphy. Laws protecting criminals rather than victims in certain states, that increase crime. The destruction of cities with ‘race riots’ seemingly quite organized with little recrimination and blaming crime on the police. And the list goes on and includes preventable wars, as our nation weakens and our economy deteriorates.

So on election night 2024, anxiety and hope tossed back and forth as votes came in and there were predictions of an election that would take perhaps days or weeks to verify the winners. Some said it would be ‘neck and neck’ and others predicted a landslide…

To be continued

No Greater Love…

djpasternak

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling.” (Matthew 23:37 NIV)

In editing my novel, Daybreak From On High, I came to the chapter about when Jonathan (the protagonist) went to consult with the Pharisee, Nicodemus. Jon heard him speaking about his visit to Jesus (Yeshua) secretly at night. The Pharisee related what Jesus said to him. The last thing was the quote from Matthew, comparing how He and a mother hen are alike, to convey His love for the children of Israel. This simile is one of the many found in scripture. One might say the Bible is the best ‘writers’ guide’ to simile and metaphor.

The way God and His Son Jesus, love Jerusalem as His Chosen People includes all who believe in Jesus and His teaching. We are Jerusalem, the people of God. It is awesome ! However Matthew 23:38-39 is a warning : Look, your house will be abandoned and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say. ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. There is so much to unpack here. Its far, far above my understanding.

What did come to mind in writing this post, was a simile: Writing Daybreak for seven years is like the Israelites spending forty years in the desert. On the other hand, probably not a real simile, but I now know how imperfect the novel really was. Perhaps, like those Israelites, it humbled me. We both needed time.

Each of us is a work in progress. To God a day is like a thousand years: His love far above our love.

‘You can Quote Me’: Reagan Continued

djpasternak

(Reading over some of my past blogs, I came upon one that requires a second look. Busy editing my novel begun seven years ago, I’ve not written anything new lately, including a blog post. Yes, I did say I’ve been writing, rewriting. editing, researching “Daybreak” for seven years. So if you are seriously considering writing a novel, be prepared. Perhaps you might consider blogging instead.)

Here it is Sunday morning again; how the weeks of summer fly by. I did not want another week to go by without continuing the blog about Pres. Reagan’s speech to Evangelical Christian in 1983. It is even more crucial today and this is my way of conveying his message now through Quotes he used then:

Pres. Reagan: …a commitment to freedom and personal liberty, that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted

C. S. Lewis: The greatest evil is not done now…in those sordid dens of crime that Dickens loved to paint. It is…not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result; but it is conceived and ordered, moved seconded, carried and minuted in clear, carpeted, warmed and well lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.

Whittaker Chambers: The crises of the western world exists to the degree in which the west is indifferent to God, the degree to which it stands alone in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God.

Pres. Reagan: I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages–last pages even now are being written.

William Penn: If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.

Alexis de Toqueville: Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness, did I understand the greatness and genius of America, America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Perhaps this last quote is the source of another we have heard in most recent time, by a most unlikely messenger, not exactly angelic: Make American great again! Four words that require four more: Make America good again! Who knows if, how, or when? Who was it that said? No one is good but God alone.

Time to go to Church!!

The Nurturer: Poem for Mary

djpasternak

Inspired by a meditation from a book, “Come to Mary’s House” by Shawn Chapman

A tiny nest above my head An arch of iron and vine The flash of fluttering wings Hardly noticed disappears A glimpse of abandonment to deviate my sight From above to beyond.

Protect and persevere A mother bent on caring for her own As God’s own mother watches over us–our souls Unharmed and fully grown, To fly to Him through her.

DJ Pasternak June 2024












		


			
		
	






	
	

		
Third  World  or  Emerging Communist Country?
	


	

							

			 djpasternak		
		
		

			
Are we becoming a third world country, as Judge George Daggett stated in his recent concise letter to our local paper, The Township Journal?


Barack Obama made a disturbing statement about his plans as president in an Oct 2008 campaign visit to Colombia, Mo: “…we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”. I also saw and heard a statement he made recently when a reporter asked if he regrets not being able to run for a third term as president. He said, no, but he would like to be able to tell a president what to do with an ear phone in that president’s ear.


During the Obama terms, race relations deteriorated, socialist programs increased. He bowed to an anti America dictator of Iran, refused to host Netanyaha but rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese leader, admitted giving Iran 400 million dollars in cash, etc etc.


In our pledge of allegiance to the flag, we say “..to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. However, under the Biden’s administration, this desired transformation could become a reality: a third world communist country with liberty and justice for the chosen few. Certainly not for the thousand imprisoned Jan. 6th protesters, or the nine and counting men and women imprisoned for saving babies lives, nor for Donald Trump or for you or me.

		


			
		
	






	
	

		
Tales and Trials of Donald Trump: According to Me
	


	

							

			 djpasternak		
		
		

			






In 2016, we couldn’t believe he received the nomination for president of the United States. What could we do? I remembered ‘way back a thousand years ago’ when I first heard this builder, playboy, casino owner millionaire said he wanted to run for president. It thought it was incredulous and I refused to belief he could ever in a ‘million years’ win the nomination.





My mother was living with us and she just couldn’t believe the color of his hair. My husband and I held our noses and voted for him and I’ve heard several other people say they voted the same way. I went to bed the night of the election when it seemed Hilary would certainly win. My husband woke me up in the middle of the night with the news Trump won. I was elated because his opponent stood for most everything I opposed. This was the first surprise of many to follow.





I can’t relate the ride he took us on in his four years in office, but in spite of his gigantic ego, he was bringing My America back with gusto! I had confidence in my government again, In 2020, I watched all four of his rallies in my home state of Pennsylvania, in ‘coal country’. I watched them to the end and sang and danced as he did his thing to the the music of Young Man.





I have no idea if he will be president again, but I’m routing for him and for my country. The Greatness I’m looking for is a return to faith in God, and an end to the craziness attacking our sanity: bad is good and good is bad, he is she or perhaps a goat or xyz, destruction, injustice and persecution….





I can say all of this because I live in the United States of America! But for how long this is true is up to God in his mercy and perhaps the remnant of believers…and to my amazement Donald Trump!

		


			
		
	






	
	

		
Politics, Religion and Trump !
	


	

							

			 djpasternak		
		
		

			

In a previous blog, I wrote about GK Chesterton and his response when a news publication in London told him he could write a column for the paper, as long as he didn’t write about politics or religion. He did take the job, but he said, “I didn’t write about anything but politics and religion.” He held that position for the publication for thirty years,





What I know of this huge man, both in scope and in physique, I find in his prolific writing and debating— courageous presentation of the truth. I do wonder if he wrote for a newspaper in the USA today, what would he say about our President Trump. I can only speculate; but I believe it would be most articulate, insightful and also include more than a touch of humor. Seriously, this is a philosopher who was known for catching buns in his mouth.





The truth is, I just know GK would love Trump with all his indictments and charges (unspecified by the court) and those women standing in line with open hands and money sacks over their shoulder. His observations would be sometimes strikingly piercing and other times hilariously humorous. They would of course be political and religious, whether overt or subtle.





To sum it up, although GK Chesterton was huge in his physical body and his body of work. I leave you with one short quote to ponder: “The way to love anything is to realize it may be lost.”





We have much to lose and only one man blocking this loss is Our beloved DJ Trump. Yes, I do believe in my heart of hearts, GK would love him! And pray our country will be preserved by God with Trump as his instrument, a most unlikely saint.