Publisher @OrbisBooks, saint-whisperer @GiveUsThisDayLP. #TolstoysTalesofTrump. #MastersofSocialIsolation. Seeking meaning in the sacred and the absurd.
Joined December 2016
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St Francis set up the first Christmas crèche in a cave in Greccio, with live animals and a crib. Those who gazed on this “living Sermon” seemed to behold a living baby. This year in Greccio Pope Francis issued a letter on the meaning of the crèche. bit.ly/2SqYgCI
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A thread from Christmas past.
Is it too much to imagine that Trump, after spending a miserable Christmas Eve all alone in the White House, pretending to “give out” contracts for the Wall, dissing the Fed, and “briefing his team“ on N Korea, might be awakened by the ghosts of Xmas past, present, future? ...
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Joh Muir, “patron saint of the American wilderness,” d Dec 24 1914. After recovering from a terrible accident he determined to devote his life to the study of nature and the “godful wilderness.” He settled in Yosemite where he spent months communing with the rocks, trees, cliffs.
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He helped establish Yosemite and Yellowstone as national parks and became a forerunner of the modern environmental movement. “Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love.” @OrbisBooks
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The master knew more about wind than maybe anyone. But he deplored windmills and wouldn’t allow them on the estate. These “ugly monsters” spewed fumes, spread disease, and seemed to mock him. They should “go back to the future where they came from.” #TolstoysTalesofTrump
President Trump: "I never understood wind, you know I know windmills very much. I've studied it better than anybody."
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It might have been anyone on the estate (tho presumably a man) who had inscribed “Down with the Master” in the snow. In response the master decreed that nobody would receive Christmas presents this year. #TolstoysTalesofTrump
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While dining with friends the master suddenly accused one of them of stealing frozen strawberries he had been saving for dessert. On the theory that there might be a duplicate key to the larder he assigned his daughter to investigate. #TolstoysTalesofTrump
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As a rule it spoils the whole thing if you have to explain, but my father insists that nobody will get this reference. The Caine Mutiny 1954 Humphrey Bogart Court scene piped.video/CLUZ0Nv7UH4 via @YouTube
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Some may wonder why I post #TolstoysTalesofTrump. They are for my mother—a psychologist, a Christian, a lover of wit and literature, who died 6 years ago. Trump embodies all the qualities she taught me to disdain. And when I post these I imagine her “looking down” and smiling.
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Spot on thread.
It’s not the Christmas anybody wants, but an unhinged ruler claiming to worship Jesus while he abuses his office to cling to power is actually pretty close to the biblical story.
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In his annual Christmas addresses to the Curia, Pope Francis always likes to rock the boat. Here, relating Christmas to his strategy and vision for change, he doesn’t disappoint.
“The Church is 200 years behind the times”—In address to Curia, Pope decries those who “assume a position of rigidity” which “comes from fear of change,” and places “obstacles on the terrain of the common good, turning it into a minefield of hatred”: press.vatican.va/content/sal…
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They were too young at the time, but they were raised to honor their father’s memory. Many others lost their fathers on the Russian front or elsewhere, and faced the burden of knowing they had sacrificed their lives in service of a delusional maniac.
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Upon hearing Mary’s greeting, her kinswoman Elizabeth felt her baby leap inside her. The pregnant Mary responds by uttering a prayer of thanks to God for his promises, especially to the poor. In time both those babies will be killed because of the threat imbedded in that prayer.
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Terrence Malick’s new film about Franz Jägerstätter is called “A Hidden Life.” Franz’s story would literally have remained hidden if not for the work of Gordon Zahn, American sociologist and Catholic CO, author of “In Solitary Witness.” (I have a special copy.)
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