Magnum Mysterium!

I drove to Waco this morning to visit the sick in hospital and by some miracle didn't end up in hospital myself, given the driving on I35. All well and good, even though I wasn't able to visit the remarkable, awesome, amazing, Magnolia Moneyspinner Rip-Off Silos. 

People travel from all over America to visit the Silos. Why? It's a mystery, and when I got back to the Compound I found another. Here it is.

Who could possibly have done such a thing? Did some intruder, possibly a Ukrainian, break in and attempt a little quid pro quo, a little legal-pad-shredding malfeasance only to be chased off by a ferocious Blue Guard? Or was there another culprit?

Perhaps, readers, we need a closed door inquiry.

Transparently,

LSP

The Pyx And The Knife

I drove to Waco this morning. No, not to visit the truly awesome Silos but to take the Sacrament to a man in hospital. Two of his family were there and I brought Communion for them too.

It's a simple enough rite and I use elements from an old book called the English Ritual, a relic from the days when the Church of England hadn't been taken over by Mantis People and the Anglo-Catholic movement was just that, a movement.

Regardless, when it was time to administer the sacrament, the strangely outsize Hosts stuck in the pyx; they wouldn't exit the small made-in-China faux brass container. Solution? Whip out your folder, mine's a Cold Steel Recon 1, and pry the Hosts loose. Then the rite can continue.

Ecce Agnus Dei... "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him which taketh away the sins of the world," the small congregation replying, "Lord I am not worthy that thou should come under my roof but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed." 

Communion administered and final benediction given, I remarked that I'd never done such a thing before and I haven't. Using a knife to administer Communion to the Sick isn't in the manuals, not even the Knott variety, and I felt a little sacrilegious. "Don't worry," said C, "We're all country people here."

That reassured me, as does the knowledge that Christ's Body was given to his Mystical Body, there in that hospital room.

Make of this what you will.

God bless,

LSP

If You Meet The Buddha On The Road Shoot It

Taking a leaf out of Mr. Kerouac's book, I got on the road with a view to visiting the sick in Fort Worth and escaping the anguished howls of whining fauxtrage emanating from Hollywood celebs and Lena Dunham over Trump's armed forces trans ban. 

Jack Kerouac

I took the Cadet, by way of company, and explained the situation. "You see, old chap, this woman's on a ventilator and might not get better, so I've got to go. Conscience demands it, to say nothing of the Gospel," all very to the point and thank you very much. "But what if we meet the Buddha on the road?" asked the young 'un, suddenly turning all Cassady. "Oh, that's easy. Shoot it, right through the ****ing swede."

Shoot it

We arrived in Fort Worth without incident, thank God, and I left my interlocutor in the hospital cafe while I went upstairs and administered Last Rites. I pray my friend recovers full health. And here's the thing, Pastors.

You've Got A Lot To Answer For, You Two.

If you feel a pang of conscience, an instinct or intuition that you should visit someone in trouble, act on it, don't delay. Notwithstanding the Buddha, of course, which you're at liberty to shoot on the road. And while we're at it, Jack Kerouac was a Mass going Catholic. So was the freakish Andy Warhol.

Not a lot of people know that.

God bless,

LSP

Charity, Brethren

A big part of the famous LSP lifestyle involves getting into the rig, driving out into the countryside, and visiting the sick. Sometimes I take Blue Caritas; he can play with his dog pals while I look after pastoralia. But here's a serious thought, as you bite into your refreshing Obamka ice cream treat.

Yum

You can, and should, be as orthodox as the day is long. Go right ahead, memorize the Summa, have Gilson and Maritain at your fingertips, be able to parse scripture like Farrer and take on the error of our times like the fabled Chesterbelloc. 

Bad Deacon!

Good job, well done. But without love, it amounts to nothing and worse. The Apostle shoots in the X Ring, in his Epistle to the Corinthians:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

A clanging cymbal. There's a warning in that and while you finish off your delicious Obamka, say a prayer that priests and pastors are given the grace to live into the precepts of charity.

That doesn't mean, by the way, that Hillary shouldn't go to jail.

God bless,

LSP

Visit The Sick, in Waco

Waco, on Sunday Morning

I have to visit some people in hospital in Waco. Will the town still be there, and how do hospitals operate underwater anyway?

A Couple of Divers, in Waco

That remains to be seen.

Dive, Dive, Dive!

LSP

Storm Front

Maybe it's because we don't pay enough carbon tax and don't have a ban on hi-cap magazines, but for whatever reason, it seemed like we were losing the War on Weather this morning. 

The sky began to turn green and the air became still in the Ozlike light. Very much the calm before the tornado which didn't come, although the rain did. Like a deluge. That meant I didn't go visiting this morning because I had to make the compound's sturdy tornado bunker (basement) available to the public.

Then the storm passed over and I made my rounds, visiting the sick, the dying and the bereaved. There's no shortage of these, unfortunately. But still, it meant stopping by a fine restaurant.

It also meant gauging the exponential growth of a chicken operation, and running cattle, to say nothing of pondering the militia presence in the local Walmart car park. 

It's all going on in the countryside, I tell you.

And the the storm is by no means over.

LSP

Get on The Horse

You can be a sad determinist or some variety of Calvinist and believe that everything is preordained. I chose to exercise my freewill and went for a ride. Don't be a fatalist, I muttered grimly to myself, get on the horse.

We started off slowly, trotting along in the clear air of a crisp, sunny Texan morning and posted off down a trail in the Mesquite. As I understand it, posting trot isn't very "Western" but so what, it's good for the horse's back and the rider's sense of rhythm, to say nothing of muscles. They got a good workout.

After a little while it seemed right to open up and off we galloped, not too furiously but plenty fast enough. It's a great feeling, moving at speed with a horse through the countryside.

We finished with some uphill galloping, Go on! Up that hill! followed by a brisk trot back to the barn. I say barn, but it's more of a walk-in with a trailer doing duty as a tack room, and what's wrong with that? Nothing at all.

Ride over, I drove the country route to Waco, down 933, cleverly avoiding the heinous I35, and visited the sick in hospital. One of them's made a pretty miraculous recovery. I thank God for that. And remember, God's knowledge is necessary but it's also eternal and simultaneous, or present tense. 

That doesn't contradict free will. Speaking of which, I'll clean some guns after Stations of the Cross. There's nothing, ahem, predictable about that, at all.

Stay on the horse,

LSP

The Crying Towel

When I'm feeling pathetically sorry for myself and tempted to snivel into a crying towel, I reflect on the woman I visited in ICU this morning.

That puts things in perspective right away.

God bless,

LSP

Visit the Sick

Being an LSP isn't just about guns and going to Canada, it's also about visiting the sick. If I was more of a Mission Priest I'd probably do that in an ATV. As it is, I just use my "rig," which is a basic, ex-fleet, 2008, F150 X-cab. 

Some people get to drive Raptors and perhaps I'm a bit jealous, but I can't complain, the truck gets me there. Still, I'd like to have 4x4.

But rigs aside, I do my best to get out to the sick and housebound and I should probably do more of that. After all, there's that bit in Scripture, "I was sick and you visited me."

Part of this means going to nursing homes, or "assisted living facilities," which is what I did today. Everyone seemed happy and upbeat and a fair few were demented with it, cackling from their rooms or sitting stranded, in their wheelchairs, in the corridors.

May God bless them, the Saints intercede for them and the Angels watch over them.

If you think that's idolatry you're wrong.

LSP

I Drove to Dallas

I drove to Dallas yesterday to visit a sick man in hospital. After that I fell back to to the DFW HQ with a view to meeting up with some friends at one of the local restaurants. Nothing fancy, just a pizza (they call them "flatbreads"...) and convivial company. But no. That was apparently too much for the team, one of whom "had to go hunting" early the next day. Interesting excuse.

DFW HQ

So I stayed in, creating a powerful marketing strategy for a restaurant/food blog called Cheapskates. The byline being, "We Want Great Scoff at a Great Price."  Stay tuned.

Home Again. Note Kyptek

Then, today, it was time to get back on the road for the country. No complaints there and tomorrow's plan is simple. Say the Mass(es), chair a meeting, go for a horse ride, maybe followed by a shoot.

Golden Void

Speaking of which, I suggested that the Diocese screen potential clergy on their ability to ride and shoot. "If you can't ride, and you can't shoot, you can'get in," I told our bishop, disarmingly. He didn't say no.

I take that as a promising sign.

God bless,

LSP