Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Wednesday Roundabout
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Clown Force Multiplier
Who Runs This Clownshow?
Here in the Compound's fast-paced newsroom we've been confused. Who's running this great nation, a demented old sock puppet or some other thing? Disturbing photo evidence from the Easter weekend says it's not Old Joe.
Monday, April 18, 2022
Kingdoms
The Fall of Mariupol, or Total War Cometh?
Here we are, on Easter Monday, and birds sing, the sky is mostly clear of chemtrails, and all's well except for the fact that the most ferocious war on European soil since the '40s is taking place before our eyes. No small thing, and some of you doubtless have friends engaged in the conflict. Get home safe, guys. But what's the story?
I don't pretend to know, though it's curious that Western State agitprop's been lockstep in defending cokehead, actor clown Zelensky. And we have to ask, how many of our overlord$ were making ma$$ive amounts of cash out of this unfortunate eastern European country?
It seems the Ukraine, like some kind of casino where the bank always wins and you are the bank, was jackbot all the way. Regardless. Mariupol's about to fall after an extreme fight, and what next? Phase two of this ill-begotten war. As in Russia goes hard. Let's see how that pans out.
In the meanwhile, Russians With Attitude offer analysis:
They (Ukrainians believe they are) fighting an apocalyptic battle against the forces of evil who are trying to eradicate all of humanity. This is what they sincerely believe, but they also sincerely believe the Russians are not somehow serious about war and will not not fight the war like a war. It's super weird.
Super weird? A bit like the western left ascendancy defending literal Odin Valhalla Nazis on the Donbass front. OK, equivalent to Wagner? Next step, acceleration. Please bring this hideousness to an end.
Your Pal,
LSP
Sunday, April 17, 2022
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Cooking With LSP - Bread
I know, man shall not live on bread alone. That in mind, we notoriously have bodies which need to be fed and the aerogel rubbish which passes for bread in our supermarkets, if you can even find it, doesn't cut the ticket. Problem? Solution. Make it yourself. Here's how.
Get a mixing bowl and add 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour, 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast, and 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Mix that beast around, stir it up, then cover the thing and rest it, covered, somewhere out of reach of animals. And here's the thing.
Let the dough rest and rise overnight++, ignore it, let it do its thing as though it were an errant teen. Then, somewhere before Vespers on Holy Saturday, remove the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball. Let it rest some more in a bowl on parchment paper as heavy metal heats up in the oven at 450*.
After the metal's hot, about 30 minutes, pull it out and transfer the dough to the pot, parchment paper and all, then cover the thing, put it back in the oven and kick back for 30 minutes. Maybe clean a gun or sharpen a kukri, not that any of you have such things. They were lost at sea. Whatever, your call, no rule.
After 30, uncover the metal and finish off the loaf for around 10 minutes. Result? Behold your delicious, life giving bread and fall upon that scoff, like a warrior.
LSP
Holy Saturday
The body of Jesus lays in the tomb, and all is still.
GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
God bless,
LSP
Friday, April 15, 2022
Good Friday #2
It's Good Friday so let's have some Donne:
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne?
If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They'are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.
Yes, they speld differentlie in those dayes,
LSP
Good Friday
The Altars are stripped, consumatum est, it is finished, and TS Eliot writes:
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
Thursday, April 14, 2022
A Maundy Thursday Reflection
Here we are, it's Maundy Thursday and we're faced with two mandates, to "love one another as I have loved you," and "This is my body... this is my blood... do this..." With Christ washing his disciples' feet and then celebrating the first Mass on the night before he suffered.
The two might seem unrelated or even discordant, especially liturgically, but hold on, the one follows the other. Jesus washing his followers' feet is an act of humble love and where is this brought to a point, exemplified, played out to the full?
On the Cross. "He humbled himself taking the form of a servant and became obedient, even unto death on a cross," and again, "Greater love hath no man but to lay his life down for his friends." The foot washing, then, serves as a type or figure of the crucifixion.
And what is the Last Supper, the first Eucharist, but that same sacrifice made present for us under the forms of bread and wine? This is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for us upon the Cross to cleanse us from sin. So we find ourselves back at Jesus washing his disciples' feet.
In the face of such a gift, of God's unfathomable love for us given in sacrifice on Calvary, what can we do but love him back and in doing so keep his commandment to love one another as he loved us.
Watch and Pray,
LSP
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Funeral
The funeral went well, with cowboys and cowgirls from all over the country descending on Waco to pay their respects. Quite a thing. I told them a short story in the homily, which went something like this.
Bud didn't suffer fools gladly though he was always good to me, and sometimes in a tough way. A few years ago I was laid up in bed with a broken femur, thanks to a mad Arab, and called Bud on Saturday to see if he'd lined up a priest to cover the Mass on Sunday.
"No," he replied. "Why not?" I asked, "Because you're going to do it." Not wanting to seem like a wimp I rolled up to church on a walker the next day and said the Mass. S took a photo and made a meme; there I was at the Altar on a walker with him alongside. And the legend? "When an old cowboy bullies the priest into saying Mass with a broken leg." We laughed but he was right, got me moving again.
And that was Bud. What a good man. We had a lot of fun over the years, mostly at church, where we'd go back and forth, "I'm going riding after Mass," I'd tell him, "Huh. Don't fall off." Well, you can't take that lying down, "Don't worry, if things get tippy there's always the pommel thing." A moment of silence, "We call it a saddle horn."
Again, "Why don't you genuflect anymore?" I'd ask. "Because I don't have any kneecaps," straighteye stare, "Maybe you're just a dangerous Protestant." He was, you understand, a faithful High Churchman and a catholic Christian. To say nothing of an outstanding athlete and really good man.
But I won't bang on. Rest in peace, my friend, and thank you all for your prayers.
God bless,
LSP