Jan 11, 2026

Living in Unconditional Love (250)

 

“Love flows from God to humans without effort:

As a bird glides through the air without moving its wings-

Thus, they go wherever they wish united in body and soul,

Yet separate in form.”

–Mechtild of Magdeburg

 

My wife Eileen died from esophageal cancer in February 2020 one year after being diagnosed, 60 years after we met on Long Island. Then my brother Tom became ill (not COVID), and I spent a total of six weeks being with him in Ohio, but he died in October 2020. My sister-in-law Sue Mahoney died from Covid-19 in January 2021. On top of it all stood the pandemic, locking everyone down almost two years. Covid has proved to be a persistent problem, and many of the long-term effects are quite serious, and it has proven much more serious than flu.

01/11/2026                             It seems impossible that this is the 250^th version of this weekly journal. That is almost five years of jotting my thoughts, almost always on Saturday evening and published on Sunday. I find it interesting on occasion to look back and see what was going on at various times in my life. These moments of jotting my thoughts down each week give me time to put things in perspective and see how my life is going.

Tim and Julie and their two children (hard to call them children when they are in their 20s) have spent the week here while the house was insulated. The work was finished early in the week, but it takes awhile to dry and a strong odder is still present. Hopefully they will be able to go back sometime this week, but time will tell. They have two cats and two medium sized dogs, but they remain downstairs with a gate in front of the stairs. We have had nice chats, but mostly they remain downstairs where the tv is located and I remain upstairs and do my usual quiet things.

We have had a nice blanket of snow that covered all over the Christmas holidays, but it is raining now so much of the snow will be gone by tomorrow. It is supposed to stop raining by morning so I should be able to go to church without problems.

My Christmas tree is still up as we do not put it up until Christmas eve, and I plan on keeping it up for a few more weeks, as I enjoy see the bright and festive scene. Barbara put away much of the Christmas decorations she had put up at Thanksgiving, so only the manger and tree show my love of Christmas at this time.

I mourn for our world. Our great country has gone the way of the Roman Empire, grabbing lands and oil from others, demanding the right to absorb other lands and make them our own, and other imperial actions, including killing our own citizens. It will be a wonder if we can remove those responsible for this mess, but we will have a beginning opportunity this year. It will be extremely difficult to regain the trust of the rest of the world even if we can remove the present causes.

Meditation

Gentle One, the pain our once great nation is inflicting on others is incalculable with thousands dying from many causes (but especially hunger-related) that are related to this country’s actions. It is hard to believe that this once great nation known for its’ compassion and generosity is resorting to war-like behavior and imperial demands. Please aid us in returning to our generosity and loving actions we were renowned for and once again gain the respect of the world that we have lost so quickly over this past year.