Re Barbaratherese

[BarbTherese]

"Barbara Therese? Who is she?"

 

Dunno - if you happen to find out, please PM me when I log back in! :)

 

 

I thought I would log back in and write this into Word then try and get it into Phatmass tonight 6.34pm Sun 28.7.13.  I start new office voluntary work tomorrow and Tuesday I have my regular specialist appt and my brud (brother) will take me there - and then we are having lunch together.

 

  Starting a new office voluntary job and a quite involved one tomorrow is quite nervy (short enjoyed steps to the bigger goal) and then seeing my psychiatrist on Tuesday is nervy this time too.  I much prefer this new anti-psychotic she has prescribed.  It has its problems, but what pill hasn’t!  But Tuesday she will pronounce whether I am still sane or whether I will have to go back on YUK Seroquel – because as nasty as it can be in side effects, it does keep me sane it would seem if this lower and much better anti-psychotic just aint doin the job.   She will know within 5 mins of talking to me about the weather where I am in relationship to Bipolar – not, that is, my eccentricities HERE ,  but Bipolar it seems.  It’s the Bipolar that is the illness……I have been eccentric from birth according to Mum…..and confirmed by psychiatry.  Problem is, I have no idea what on earth “eccentric behaviour” is when it is it seems.  Assessment by the other methinks.  Social boundaries and all that jazz!

 

 As well as this I am editing a quite complex lengthy document for my brother and as quickly as I am able. I was supposed to finish it by today.  But I had no idea just what a job I was letting myself in to complete.  He is a gifted orator and writer – but grammar, not so much spelling, is off the board and it can change the sense of what he wants to say and sometimes diametrically so.  Polarities.  Editing his document is asking a lot of me in mental concentration – and related mental exhaustion. Next week I really hope to put my feet up for a short while, plus put back into place my formal prayer times.  They have completely gone amiss and I am lost without them.  I am praying ( and for all my intentions too) â€˜on the run’as I call it and absolutely no substitute for stopping, relaxing and quality time with Jesus.  Oh there can be times when stopping for prayer is anthing but quality time to the senses!  It happens – and no big deal.   It’s these times when an hour glass, if I had one, would repeatedly be shaken to try to make time pass quicker.  Apparently St Teresa of Avila used to do this, although it may have been in the early days of her prayer journey……….not after almost 67 years more or less of the journey.

Until I can get my normal routine back again, I will be logged out of Phatmass and I’ll have to ‘see you when I am looking at you’.

I miss Phatmass!................Cacha when I am able probably next week sometime……….be good, take care, prayer (not necessarily in that order) ……May The Lord ever bless you most richly.....risky, but at once, richly......…Barb J

[BarbTherese]

Well, I'm back.  The first edit of our family's history (author: my brother, Mick) is complete.  Spoke with Mick today and it will probably be another two weeks before another edit will be needed.  So I can now catch up, in hope, of what I need to catch up on and with in the coming two weeks.

[KnightofChrist]

Good luck with all the work hope it's fun! And prayers for your health.

 

God Bless

[BarbTherese]

Thank you KofC!  ..........very much indeed for your thoughtfulness and kindness.

 

Received two lovely communications form the previous Charity I worked for saying lovely things about me personally and my work that left me with a simply "Gosh!" and the phone call and two written communications I have received (one via email, the other in my bosses handwriting) all bowled me over too and offered me my job back if I ever wanted it.  And I would go back in a flash, if it wasn't for my back and legs and all the travel it involved.  I really loved the place with a will.

 

My old boss spoke too of my calm and compassion towards any and all - and of my sense of humour and gift for writing and writing clearly and well - and in the most glowing of terms.  "Gosh!" says I to myself.

 

The first day at my new Charity was very funny although I'm sure they didn't think this.  I was my usual friendly and chatty self but the office workers struck me as rather down in the dumps.  I thought to myself "I'm going to have to try to cheer this lot up and bring a bit of life and joy into this office".

 

Walking home it hit me!  At the new Charity there was a Board Meeting after work and having been a secretary, I can recall well the stress and pressure of a looming Board Meeting and preparing reports etc.  The poor darlings were all stressing out.  I walked home feeling quite sorry for them all and of course the Board Meeting accounted for their distracted state.  So I am looking forward to work tomorrow in the hope the office is a joyful and very happy place, much like my old job.  On the real plus side of this new job, it is an absolutely worthwhile Charity and they are really struggling desperately for funds and they haven't been able to get a girl Friday type of volunteer to do what girl Friday's do in an office, which is just about everything.  And girl Friday is right up my ally, so I am really hoping and praying I can be a real plus for them.

 

But oh boy, I sure miss my other job and the friends I made there.  I will call in every so often.  I love them all to pieces.

 

Healthwise - and thank you so much for thinking of my health KofC and prayerfully.  Your prayers are answered.  My psychiatrist has pronounced me absolutely sane beyond doubt, if absolutely eccentric beyond doubt.  I don't have to go back on Seroquel and this new one Stelazine 5mg she had had plans to increase slowly to 20mg - but she thinks that 5mg is sufficient!!!  The problem I can have with people is that I am a marked eccentric and those that know I suffer Bipolar think that my eccentricities are symptoms of Bipolar.  They aren't.  Eccentricity is not a mental illness.  My next door neighbour calls me "Maverick" ..........LOL..........but it describes me very well I thought after I Googled it on dictionary.com.

 

The problem with being an eccentric is that you have no idea of when it is showing even markedly.  And as for being any sort of maverick, the same applies.  I wander in and right out of the 'herd' without being aware for a second whether I am in our out nor concerned about it.

 

But I have had a very big disagreement with my brother and my family.  Having been 'tapped on the shoulder' as it were by The Lord with this recent serious major surgery and a borderline mass of 4kg in my abdomen that could have turned malignant and probably would have left there much longer, I am suddenly aware in a new way that I have a 'use by' date.  I am aware suddenly in a new way that 'the hour is late'. 

My brothers have climbed their way up in the social world through jolly hard work and they do try very hard to control me.  I said something to me astounding to my brother that surprised me the moment it was out my mouth.  "I do not intend to leave this world knowing I never really visited it".  No one is going to tell me any more who I am and who I am not - and if they don't like it then get out of my face and I will get out of theirs - type of attitude within reason and charity.

 

I am weary of being a 'socially unacceptable' person for one reason or another - and weary of other people feeling they have the right (probably because " the poor dear is ill with mental illness) to tell me who I am and who I am not.  What I should and should not do and think.  Weary!  And I am not doing The Lord any favours one iota by obeying 'authorities' that cannot 'hear' what The Gospel is actually saying to a very large degree by the very person of Jesus per se.  "No one lights a light (and we are all messengers and the message is the messenger) to put it under a bushel."  And the hour is late, very very late and in more ways than one I know.

 

Sanity is an every shifting imaginary line created by society to protect it's 'borders' and 'the herd' as functioning is mutual togetherness without challenge - protecting the status quo which SOCIETY THINKS is working.  Take the homosexual issue for example, back less than 20 years ago perhaps, an homosexual person was regarded as mentally ill.  Society has shifted its imaginary line in order to embrace homosexuality as socially accepted nowadays in the main.

 

And it is very true that in a world gone mad, then it will be those that are sane that will be considered crazy, insane, loopy, cray cray! (new word I have learnt).

 

And psychiatry (for all the wonders it has worked for me) is nothing but a creation by society to "keep its more creative members in line" - within 'the herd' and its values etc.

Edited July 31, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

And we are a world that has gone completely mad!  The whole of the middle east is in violent uproar socially.  And 'free world' thinking apparently had been to leave Saddam Hussein in place rather than disturb the whole middle east situation.  We invade Iraq and look at the middle east now.  We have refugees fleeing trouble spots on boats, so desperate they risk their lives to get to Australia in the desperate hope for safety and Peace (and associated issues)......and they think it worthwhile to take terrible risks to do so......that really is total desperation almost beyond belief.................

 

And every day in winter (here in Sth Aussie)I have the heater on mostly, I eat well, I live well with a nice roof over my head and a garden.............as billions of my fellow human beings and my brothers and sisters endure the suffering that they do.

 

Insanity - it is madness!  Not only this but because of the GFC (global financial crisis), the true situation is that the so called free world is almost broke, if not broke already.  And if not "almost broke" heading rapidly in that direction.  Weather changes are going to effect the poorest of countries meaning that they will not be able to grow food and probably it is the free world striving to make all the money that it did make................and then lost through greed..........that has brought the weather situation about, the shifting climate and climate temperature situation.

 

We feel we have the right to murder millions to preserve and defend the whatever that is our own.  But others do not have the right to do the same to us.

 

Complete insanity.

 

Absolute madness and this is what striving for the 'mighty dollar' has done for the world and by those The Lord had gifted most.  This is what putting up false idols to serve has done for us.

 

I wrote a line in a poem years ago "Judgement will come - and none avoid it".  Problem is that deep in our hearts, our bones, we subscribe to this but then many to most perhaps don't live the reality of it all in our daily lives and now the situation is that psychologically conditioned into it all, we can't get out of the hole we have dug for ourselves -and I am among them!

 

I know a favourite trick of satan.  Let them think they have it all, then at the very last moment pull the rug out from under them.  Then that evil beast has a good laugh as now.  But The Lord is stronger than that thing - and He has given us Pope Francis.  Listen to him because only The Lord can rescue us if He Will from what lay ahead..................I know, I have seen what lays ahead (cause and effect) if we do not repent and live as followers of Jesus should live each in our own way.  If each Catholic per se person in Grace does not listen to their own heart and follow their heart we are headed globally for terror as never before and not only terrorists per se is my meaning.

 

We need to listen carefully to Pope Francis !!!!!!!!  The hour is late !  Should you think me a little light in the head .............remember that often it can be the very least in this world that The Lord chooses and after a long road in much suffering.  Not always, but sometimes.

Edited August 1, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

The priest, religious and theologian who discerned the way I lived was a Gospel way of life and pointed this out to me said to me before his death "Girl! Be credible!"  I replied "Then Father, if I am not credible, would I be incredible?"   He was not amused at all - dear and holy man and priest that he was.

What I don't think he ever realised is that I have no idea whatsoever in the even remote what "credibility" is in essence.  I know the definition, but I have developed since his untimely death through cancer an aversion to definitions.  To placing a concept in my mind and then trying to live that definition out.  Rather, I throw myself into the hands and heart of Jesus and cry "Help me, Your most least, be credible whatever it is, Lord, I humbly beg of You, my Lord and my God!".........for one only prayer of pleading i.e. on the issue of living out human definitions.

Edited August 1, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

...........satan I is entirely covert, insidious, very highly intelligent and a constant observer............and it is spirit............personified.............as spirit not limited by.............you work it out..............

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Satan is very powerful i guess is what your saying, thats why we need Jesus. In my weakness i cry out remembering my humanity and that God is all powerful and not me. When i am strong in the worldly sense i get proud and forget that i am but a man, and start thinking perhaps that i am a God worthy of praise and many gifts, perhaps even to a degree expecting people to bow down and worship my will, and when they don't exact them with thunder and lightning bolts. I suffer from this pride all to often and forget whom is truely GOD, and i hate it.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

But i believe that the Lord Almighty will have the last say, he will not leave me to the devils will. 

 

P.s. Perhaps i should say us, he will not abandon any of his children who ardently seek his will, though we may fall at times and forget whom is the master.

 

Onward christian souls .

JESUS iz LORD.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[BarbTherese]

Satan is very powerful i guess is what your saying, thats why we need Jesus. In my weakness i cry out remembering my humanity and that God is all powerful and not me. When i am strong in the worldly sense i get proud and forget that i am but a man, and start thinking perhaps that i am a God worthy of praise and many gifts, perhaps even to a degree expecting people to bow down and worship my will, and when they don't exact them with thunder and lightning bolts. I suffer from this pride all to often and forget whom is truely GOD, and i hate it.

 

Hi again Tab, always good to read your posts and ‘talk’ to you again as we do the rounds.

Tab, insofar as I am concerned, and I’m not God nor worthy of any gifts either.  But The Spirit blows wherever He May without consulting us not interested in our opinions at times.  We simply need to accept this, because God IS FREEDOM itself and free to move as and where He wishes eternally without any advisors except His Divine Wisdom.  We are every last one of us, just what you describe above, however many of us, including me, - or should I rather state more accurately perhaps, I don’t like to admit it to myself let alone blaze it all over a public forum.

To my mind, Tab, you are much closer to God than you realize.  And it is a truth known as the “via negativa” in our spiritual and mystical theology that the closer one actually IS to God, then the further away from God he or she seems to be in their own deep estimation. 

 

Tab, I’m getting quite long in the tooth (amongst the elders in the tribe or community) and I’vve had 68 years almost with my head in one form of Catholic Theology reading or another.  According to Mum and Dad at 4yrs of age amazingly I could read fluently (I used to read the paper to Dad at times apparently) when I was so little I could walk under a kitchen table.  I rather think that is Mum and Dad’s licence and an exaggeration, but I could read from a very young age and have always loved to read about my Faith, theology in particular.

 

 

Satan is very powerful i guess is what your saying, thats why we need Jesus. In my weakness i cry out remembering my humanity and that God is all powerful and not me. When i am strong in the worldly sense i get proud and forget that i am but a man, and start thinking perhaps that i am a God worthy of praise and many gifts, perhaps even to a degree expecting people to bow down and worship my will, and when they don't exact them with thunder and lightning bolts. I suffer from this pride all to often and forget whom is truely GOD, and i hate it.

 

Yes, satan is very powerful because it is very intelligent.  But it is nothing to fear because indeed The Lord is far more powerful than that evil thing.  The Lord’s Love and Power, Mercy, is absolutely infinite and endless.  Something our minds cannot grasp.

Tab, you are human, although very often I don’t like to admit to myself that I am only indeed human and subject to the same faults and failings as the rest of humanity differing only in type and perhaps degree.  Rest assured that if we fail, no matter how badly, The Lord intends to use that situation we or I have created for good.  This is sound Catholic Theology and I wont go into it here, unless you would like me to do so with quotations from the CCC and other reliable sources. We read in the first few paragraphs of The Book of Job in Scripture, that satan must indeed ask God's Permission before it can act in any way re Job.

 

Pride is the eternal problem and to my mind St Francis of Assisi said that pride, including spiritual pride too, will only die 10 minutes after we die.  We either learn to live with the fact that Jesus was spot on when He called us all sinners and not good people at all – or we are going to kick ourselves all over the place and be fated to be totally focused on ourselves, rather than accepting ourselves as we are, because God Loves and cares for us as we are, and put our focus on loving self because God Loves one to pieces, and put focus on loving the other.  Jesus has told us that it is through loving others that we reveal how much we Love God, and there is no other way at all.

St Teresa of Avila talking to her nuns about Unity with God said that the surest and safest way to Unity was through love of neighbour.

 

 

 

Somone told me this and i like it. "God has three answers to a request in prayer, they are, Yes,No and Wait." I think and feel that it is in the times of waiting we are taught very valuble lessons, refined and molded.

Yeahhh, I can go along with that, Tab.  God always answers our prayers without fail.  It just might be that the answer is not the one we wanted.  Man proposes to God, but God disposes or decides.

 

 

Also i thought up this phrase (probably been said 1000 times in a 1000 different ways.) "Gods justice will always lead us to his mercy."

 

Really beautiful Tab.  I like to say “God’s Justice is a raging fire, His Mercy is the water that quenches that fire”.  God’s Mercy to us, to me in particular, is because He knows just how weak and at the mercy of my own finiteness and fallibility, my pride, that I am.  Because God is God and knows how weak we are indeed, His very Divine Justice demands that He be kind, understanding and Merciful to the poor weak fallible creatures we are marked by original sin and struggling with it from the moment we are born and the fact of original sin and the consequences was never our fault.  Hence The Father sends His Son to us to actually walk this earth and remain with us forever in The Blessed Eucharist.  He is still with us in every way, fully human and fully Divine!

 

The Father sends His Divine Son out of His Justice to share with us to not fear His Justice because it is His very Justice that demands of Him that He be Merciful to His creatures, His creation - and rather than leave that Revelation until Judgement Day - he wants us to know it in our own lifetime because He desires us to be full of Peace and Great Joy "Behold!  I bring you tidings of Great Joy that shall be to all the people" (talking to the shepherds at the Nativity of Jesus)............... for today in Bethlehem.................."  This is the stunning awe and wonder of The Catholic Church and Her Teachings....given to Her us by God..................and we need to get the message STRAIGHT AND ACCURATE  and into the vernacular, the colloquial and by the persons that we are..............and quickly!  The hour is late!  We need to love and appreciate, value and pray daily for Pope Francis and our priests in particular and very ardently from the heart............and then each and every one of us needs to interpret what we know IN, WITH FROM OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL HEARTS ...............this, to me, is the wondrous gift that Pope Francis is to us at this time. Listen to him!

The horror of sin and our failings today is not so much Hell in the hereafter, it is the Hell we are creating for each other here on earth when it was never intended by God for all his creatures.  It is an affront to His Majesty and Glory and to His Son who died so terribly for us....to The Divine Plan of The Blessed Trinity for creatures and creation......

 

 If I received what God’s Justice owes me, I would explode into nothingness and Hell right here at the keyboard.  Sometimes sin can be measures by Graces granted not to sin.

 

I have just finished writing to someone via email and I told them a little story I created : On Judgement Day we all get our turn in ‘the hotseat’ just to keep us all laughing at each other while Our Lady does a headcount of everyone.  Jesus and his foster Dad St Joseph are busily making the necessary number of extra beds (‘cause peter got it wrong’).  The angels and saints are busily tidying up Heaven as all the guests prepare for the great banquet to come.  Our Lady has carefully washed and ironed an apron for Jesus who will be waiting on us all.  That in some small measure captures my concept of the extent of the Mercy God will grant to us all without exceptions.  What about those Jesus says “Depart from me!” – well Hell does exist and satan exists and its workers and I know it………and anyone who chooses to live an evil life is in the employment of satan.  But God Himself does not destroy them on the spot..........neither should we.  We are called to love our enemy and to do good to those who persecute us.  Now this "do good" is a very interesting question to ponder ............. it is not wishy washy stuff at all.  It really is only for the strong prepared for and accepting of consequences if any.  Look at what happened to Jesus - it is a sign to us and if you like, it is a warning to us.  "They have persecuted Me and they will persecute" you......(thus).........."take up your cross daily and follow Me".....

 

 

But i believe that the Lord Almighty will have the last say, he will not leave me to the devils will. 

 

 

Leave you to ol’ nik’s will????  Tab yer aint even close to that things will.  NEVER.

 

Perhaps i should say us, he will not abandon any of his children who ardently seek his will, though we may fall at times and forget whom is the master

 

High five, Tab, we think alike………….jolly sound theology, mate!

 

I think of you as quite young and to my mind, you have Faith and wisdom far beyond your years, which is the work of The Holy Spirit in you.

 

God bless and keep you close as He does, continuing to richly bless you in many holy ways for a few ways only, Faith Wisdom Understanding Self Knowledge and rich humility and outstanding simplicity......

......catcha on the rounds, mate................Barb

[BarbTherese]

Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye's Profile:

"Okay this is something of what i believe about Christianity and the Grace of God. 

For me Grace is this, God invites you to sit at the banquet table and puts a piece of fruit and a knife in front of you, this is grace. And it is up to the person to peel the fruit,cut it up into pieces and eat some and give what is left away. One can sit there and just look at the grace without any actual feeding of the person. And i probably haven't explained myself well, but this to me is the path to heaven, grace,faith and works,grace needs to be acted upon in faith and works.. The grace being the gifted fruit and the faith is peeling it and cutting it up into pieces and the works is sharing that fruit with others. Grace,faith and works i believe to be the way to heaven. Not Grace alone,not faith alone,and not works alone,we need all 3 and it reflects the trinity."

 

 

I read the above on your Profile, Tab - that is absolutely profound and spot on to my mind!   Thank you.  It reminds me absolutely of Jesus telling a parable..............and then later explaining it to the apostles.  I think it was the sower goes out to sew his seeds parable, after which Jesus explains the parable to His apostles when they ask its meaning.  

 

Thanks again.......can I quote you?........Barb :)