The Peaceful Gnome

Woo Hoo! No more 5 people a dog a cat and a rat in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. We are moving to Ceres into this 5 bedroom house and my mom will be moving in with us too! We are all very excited! Thus the excessive use of exclamation marks. ;-)

Even though we really need it I still don't LIKE it :-)

Psalm 18:17-20 From on high he reached down and seized me; he drew me forth from the mighty waters. He snatched me from my powerful foe, from my enemies whose strength I could not match. They assailed me in the day of my misfortune, but the Lord was my support. He brought me forth into freedom, he saved me because he loved me. (From Matins this morning) -- Larry Devich I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Philippians 4:11b

Max and Nicole , originally uploaded by ldevich . Cousin Nicole meets Max

For those who play Civilization or are Science Fiction fans this is familiar.  I'm pretty sure they are delusional about actually getting it built by 2050 but it would certainly be cool if they did :-) Obayashi's Space Elevator to Be Operational by 2050 February 27, 2012 by Range Space The holy grail of getting into orbit has always been the ultimate development of space elevators, long, thin strands that could ferry passengers and cargo into orbit at minimal expenditure. Now a Japanese company, Obayashi Corp, specializing in engineering and construction, announced that it aims to complete a space elevator by 2050. Obayashi Corp is building the  Tokyo Sky Tree , an observation tower under construction in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan, and has been the tallest artificial structure in Japan since 2010, and their plan calls for a 96,000 kilometers of carbon nanotube cables extending from an anchor point planted deep in the sea, into space, where it would be secured by a spaceport, which a...

Testin , originally uploaded by ldevich . So, supposedly this should have automatically posted to my blog, but I didn't see it there, so I'm trying this instead. That is going to Flickr, where I should have all of my photos anyway, and uploading it from there.

So, everything I put on the blog is supposed to go to Facebook but it seems it doesn't always STAY there.

What first strikes me as I read this passage today is the idea of the star guiding the wise men to Jesus so they can worship him. It tells me that God can use unexpected methods to bring us to the place he wants us to be. I have heard all sorts of explanations for the star of Bethlehem. Super Novas or conjunctions of planets or whatever. All I know is that the star was what God was using to guide these gentiles to the place where Jesus was to be found. Today God does the same thing, drawing us to the church, where we find Jesus present in the mass, body and blood, soul and divinity. He uses whatever means he needs to use in order to move us in the right direction. Always gently and lovingly guiding us forward so we will be with Him forever. The star can be a person who speaks to you of Christ, or a book you read, the Word of God in the bible or a work of art that makes you think about God or even just a beautiful church or a sunset or a flower. God can and does use anything an...

Right now :-)

4:25am Today I am meditating once again on Matthew 1:18-25. Once more the name Emmanuel leaps out at me and brings me joy. God is with us! What could be better than that? God is with us, and we call him Father! Yes, that is even better I think. And we don't just call him Father, we call him Abba, Papa, Daddy! As a little child to a father are we to our God. He cares for us, loves us and protects us and we just sit back and look at him with love and say, "Daddy!" when we see him. He is with us everywhere and always, but in a very special way in the church, in His bride, our mother, the church. And in the church He is with us most importantly in the sacraments, in Baptism and in the Eucharist where we eat His very body and drink His very blood. I jokingly say sometimes "You are what you eat." This is so very true in the case of communion with the Lord. We become closer to Him in communion, he draws us in to him and we are His very body, as are our ...

4:20am In reading over this passage for a second morning, and talking to Jesus about His coming to save us, I thought for while about my utter dependence on God. How everything I have, everything I am and everything I can have and can be, comes from the gracious hand of God. It seemed to me, as I pondered, that this dependence is so complete that if ever God stopped thinking about me I would cease to exist in that moment. But no, that can't be quite right. I think that the Lord has given us a truly independent existence. That we have true free will to choose Love, that is to to choose God. Of course without the grace of God even that is impossible to us, after all, faith itself is a gift of God. I'm not sure I can explain what I'm getting at here. While we are dependent on God for everything, our very existence even, we have still been created as eternal beings. Designed to live forever in communion with God, and only in communion with God can we find true fulfi...

In this passage what jumped out at me as I read was the faith of Joseph, and the obedience of Joseph. It seems to me that most of the time we hear about the faith and the obedience of Mary, and surely she is the most amazing example of faith in the bible, but I don't think we should neglect to think about and honor Joseph for his faith. Joseph found that Mary was pregnant, even though they had not had relations. He came to the obvious conclusion but was trying to figure out some way of quietly ending things, without disgracing Mary. This passage doesn't say if Mary tried to explain to him what happened or not. I'm sure if she did he found it impossible to believe. Then an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream. I wonder how often God speaks in dreams today? I know I have had a few dreams that seemed to give a vague sort of indication of what the solution to a problem might be, or a direction I should take was pointed out. But I have never had a dream like Joseph...

Gospel Mark 1:40-45 The leprosy left him, and he was made clean. A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. He said to him, "See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them." The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This passage from the gospel of Mark is today's gospel reading for the mass. I heard a sermon on it last night at St. Charles a...

I think that being God's Love in the world means reacting to life in a spirit of sacrifice, in a spirit of Love to neighbor, which in my case is my family mostly. When I see needs I should work to meet those needs, when I see sin I should forgive it and heal it. When I am frustrated I ought to recall Jesus on the cross giving His all for me and strive to respond in that same spirit. Here is a mundane example of how I have failed to do this up until now. I have a refrigerator in my bedroom in which I store my food, separate from the rest of the family's food. This is because I want to eat a certain diet and felt that I could better control what I ate by keeping my supplies apart the rest. However, I bought a large supply of bacon, and then did not cook it frequently enough to consume it before it went bad. Why did I do this? Because I was afraid the smell would let them know I was eating yummy bacon, and that would cause them to beg for some of my bacon. Yet because I d...

This morning I meditated again on Matthew 1:1-17. A thought came to me during my meditation this morning that God, being infinite in wisdom, knowledge, power and love, knew when he created the cosmos everything that would ever happen in it. I realized that He chose to create knowing full well the cost to Him that would be incurred by the rebellion of humanity against Him. That from the very beginning of His creative act he knew that He would take on human flesh and redeem the world. Somehow all of the pain and horrors of the world are outshone in eternity by the love between man and God and man and man and within God in the Trinity as well, I suppose. Since God is this infinite being of Love we can be assured that everything does work out for the very best. This thought doesn't really relate directly to the passage but it came to me as I sat and pondered it and talked with Jesus so I'm going with it as my thought of the day. My commitment today is to show forth that Love...

The Angry Gnome is turning over a new leaf. Or so I hope. Instead of political rants and self absorbed pouts I'm planning on sharing my morning meditations here instead. What do you think of that idea? I'm using Fr. John Bartunek's book "The Better Part." ( http://www.amazon.com/Better-Part-Christ-Centered-Resource-Personal/dp/1933271108 ) as my starting point, using the method of mediation he presents, Concentrate, Consider, Converse and Commit. Concentrate on the Lord in prayer, then consider carefully and prayerfully a gospel passage, converse with the Lord about it and finally make a commitment to really do something with what I've read. Below is the result of todays effort. This morning I read Matthew 1:1-17, that is the genealogy of Jesus. I considered this, as it relates how Jesus comes into the world, the real world of sin and death. The real world of history, the world of lust and hate and sweat and tears and hunger and pain. Not a floating s...

I just picked up a keyboard for my iPad that doubles as a protective case. It's from Logitech and so far I'm loving it. Right now I'm sitting across from Best Buy at a Starbucks having a cup of coffee while I kill time waiting for the next Rapid Bus back to Livermore. It took me about 30 seconds to hook it up and apparently it has enough of a charge to work for now. Which brings up the one thing I'm not all that thrilled about, charging. It turns out that you need to plug it into a computer to charge it! There is no dedicated plug to use, you charge it on a computer via USB and micro USB. That is really annoying because part of my logic and justification for getting this keyboard was the desire to get rid of my computer so I would not be tempted to play Civilization all day long anymore! <sigh> Ah well, I suppose I'll just have to keep it and use it for charging my keyboard and playing Civilization. The fates have spoken. -- Larry Devich I have lea...

I'm out for another walk on a nice sunny day and there is no water in Arroyo Mocho, which is just plain wrong for February. :-(. Come on Oregon, send us some of that rain you are hogging!