Eucharist @ MindSay

Basic Intro to Apologetics:

Apologia

 

Atheism:

Atheism Succinctly

Brief intro to atheism and issues relating.

 

Atheism’s Assertions

Consists of 45 essays relating to atheism (as of Dec 07) including discussion of morals, logic, cosmology, etc.

 

Richard Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins – Zeitgeist Weltanschauung

 

Sam Harris:

Sam Harris – Myth Buster or Myth Maker? (Blogger version)

Sam Harris—Myth Buster or Myth Maker? (Squidoo Version)

 

Dan Barker:

Dan Barker’s Assertions

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s very own Dan Barkers many claims and fallacies examined here.

 

New Testament Apocrypha:

Regarding the Gospel of Judas (Blogger version)

Regarding the Gospel of Judas (Squidoo Version)

 

Archaeology Documentary:

“The Lost Tomb of Jesus” (Blogger version)

“The Lost Tomb of Jesus” (Squidoo Version)

 

The Da Vinci Code:

Thank God for The Da Vinci Code!!! (Blogger version)

Thank God for The Da Vinci Code!!! (Squidoo Version)

Discusses the book/movie and includes a section of the Salman Rushdie incident and comments by Richard Dawkins.

 

Roman Catholicism:

Roman Catholic Maryology

Roman Catholicism's Doctrine of Eucharist

Roman Catholicism's Doctrine of Purgatory

 

LDS Church:

Mormonism – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint

 

Islam:

Islamicus

 

New Religions:

The Bahá'í Faith

This religion, which derives from Islam, believes that its founder was the return to earth of Jesus Christ. According to them the second coming took place in the late 1800s.

 

Life and Doctrine:

Contains 51 essays (as of Dec 07) on the various apologetics topics including theology, aberrant Christian groups, inspiration, discernment, logic, hermeneutics, misc.

 

For Fun:

Life in Albuquerque

I wrote this just for fun about living in the state that many people think is a foreign country.

 

Books:

No End Books

Many books for sale at frugal prices.

 

T-Shirts:

Grand Design Graphics

My t-shirt designs.

 

 16He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

 17He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

When I read this scripture I always remember the great hymn by Charles Widmeyer, "Come and Dine" written one hundred years ago:

"Jesus has a table spread Where the saints of God are fed, He invites His chosen people, “Come and dine”;
With His manna He doth feed And supplies our every need: Oh, ’tis sweet to sup with Jesus all the time!"

 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. (!)

Then Jesus says something most startling! He says: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."

Saturday. March 12, 2005.

I've just woken up. 2:50 am in the morning. Normally I go to bed around this hour. It's sad because I keep thinking about one person. I don't know why. It's something I know I've got to give up. It's useless. The coos of "New Slang" roll in my ear. Am I too dumb to refine? And if you'd a'took to me like a gull takes to wind, well I'd a jumped from my tree and I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores and the rest of our lives would a' fared well.

Oh, Christ. I really know the meaning now of the dawn breaks like a bull through the hall. It's just so quiet. And cold. That's why I'm listening. Remembering in the black. And now why am I letting this song go? It just makes me sad. I have nothing. Had nothing. I still can faintly remember the song you made up. When I sing it in my mind, I feel like we're the only two that know it. Maybe that's not true. But I feel like that. Christ, were you gonna be the one that saves me? And no more, I think. I've never felt so utterly bleak and at the same time, so to the core of things.

*

It's 9:09. 9 is my favorite number. It feels like much later because of how early we woke. I sit in Benedict House, silent, alone. I feel like maybe I should be somewhere, getting assigned a task, but...no one told me anything.

(my note: I wrote a poem from this entry, which summarizes the rest of it)

We walked to Lauds
at five this morning in the aching cold.
The land was hollow;
The earth lay strewn below the open womb of cobalt,
a lacuna dowsed indigo.
The fallow fields shivered with the dew.

We walked beneath the vaulting sky curved like a spoon,
the spoon holding us to the mouth of God,
food to be swallowed by the open maw,
consumed by the dark continuum.

We walked together, but apart;
The trees bowed, plumed in billowing moss.
The paths we crossed--arteries to the deep heart.
Monolithic trunks, grey-barked,
raised arms in vain to meet the concave sky
full of stars cradled in its purple arc.
I remember the sign of Scorpius,
marked by the scarlet star set in its head, Antares,
and its dagger-tail, delicately arched to sting.
Its harsh beauty awes and pins me
with a stark resignation, that before this, I was awful.
We are one in the dark,
blueback sky rolling in vibrato, stars scattered
in the sprawling shadows falling back
to harrow the ground again,
as it was in the beginning,
world without end, without start (amen)
and we are bound to the boundless,
we are found in the hallowed dark.

*

After service, and breakfast (which consisted of delicious fresh scrambled eggs from the monastery's chickenhouses and a variety of fresh breads) I fell asleep at the table in refectory. It was still dark outside. Joey patted me on the back. I was grateful. We couldn't break the silence, but David and I had trouble with that. With my head on the table, collapsed in my arms in exhaustion (having had probably about 8 hours of sleep between the last two nights) I really wondered what I had gotten myself into. A monastery? What the hell am I doing here? Sleep is the easiest escape. I dreamt a little while I nodded, of what I don't know. Well, that's a lie. I'm pretty sure it was Michael. 7:30 came for Eucharist, the bells ringing their reminders. David and I were hesitant to go because we are not Catholics and so we can't receive it. But it was so reverently holy. After mass we gathered in a circle around the altar while the priests prepared the sacraments upon it--a pitcher of wine, a plate of flat bread, and in a line they all stood and raised one hand while reciting. Then we all sent our reverberating voices spiraling to the simple church's rafters, but it was not the solemn chants of earlier. These were joyful, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus, and it didn't matter that I didn't understand a word of latin or even if I was pronouncing it correctly for me to sing along. And the sun honeyed the tiled floor, streamers coming in from the gardens over the river outside, leaving their glitterplay across the water to brighten the simple white shining robes and yellow oaken church walls into something like the most ivory angel cloaks and golden bulwarks of heaven. And even though I did not take the communion because of my desire not to offend the brothers (since I am not confirmed Catholic) I was still a part of the unbroken ring around the sunsplayed altar.

I have been to church five times within the day and each time I prayed for Michael; I don't really know why, evne so early in the morning I know he's not even conscious to think of me, nor would he.

*
Meeting Mary

Shadows of eagles roll over the grass.
I read James Joyce this morning, Ulysses;
and just like the ink had grabbed the monks' words
from the air and spirited them to the page,
black and white like the psalters' calligraphy,
it read:

"As it was in the beginning, is now.
On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins,
base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be.
And snug in their spooncase of purple plush, faded,
the twelve apostles having preached to all
the gentiles: world without end."

Page twenty-nine. I walked with Joey that day too
by the bamboo that hedged the river,
knowing each probably wished another
was there instead. I fell on my knees
in front of the statue of the Virgin,
Our Lady of Mepkin, her placid face
the only other present. Mother of God,
intercede for us, in the garden
with green terraces by the primordial river
fringed by quivering, angel-haired trees.
Queen of Heaven, a flower has freshly fallen
upon the face of Jesus in your arms.
The root of Jesse has blossomed
in the camellias and magnolias
and the silver moss
mirrored in the waters.
And I found myself saying out loud:
"I just don't know what to do.
Please tell me."

Later I listened to James Taylor
and just wondered whether to forget
about love here, to forsake it,
and he said:

"It doesn't take any sacrifice."

I knew why. It was in Brother Kevin's mellifluous voice
when he pronounced the word Je-sus
and I remember the baby's face graced by flower petals.
And I knew why, when I laid by the river,
listening to Oasis, watching the sparrows flit overhead
because the wind started to roar when
I said:
"Maybe you're gonna be the one
that saves me."

And the waters answered as they fled
in a gurgling rush and by the riverbed
the gnats glittered in the sun,
the dancing specks, the sparking flecks of embers flung
The little beauties;
the one
longer strand of grass that stands out from the rest
as I am laying pressed against the contour of the earth's breast.