Fixing Our Gaze on The Immaculate Conception

A most blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception to you!

In this clip from The Song of Bernadette we see Bernadette fixing her gaze on the beautiful lady who has been appearing to her at Lourdes.  In answer to Bernadette's request to learn her identity, the lady responds, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Watching Bernadette in the opening scene as she knelt there on the ground, I was impressed by the purity of her expression as she looked upon the most pure Virgin.  How rare it is to see that kind of innocence today!  And I thought about the Catholic concept of custody of the eyes and what a daily battle we must fight to practice it.

It's frightening, but much of what we should guard against today, we may not even be aware that we see.

Let me explain.

I just finished reading a transcript of a Solari Report podcast on entrainment technology, a form of mind control.  In it, Catherine Austin Fitts interviews Adam Trombly, a scientist/physicist, about how this technology is used and what you can do to minimize its influence on your life.

Basically, the entrainment relaxes/pleasures you and puts you in a state of openness to suggestibility.  The suggestibility part is where they implant the subliminal message they want you to act upon.  Entrainment is used surreptitiously in all kinds of media--dvd's, cd's, radio, movies in the theaters, etc., but it seems television paved the way for the others starting way back in the 1950s.

Maybe I've finally discovered why Catholics accepted the New Mass in 1969.  They had been lulled to sleep by gathering in front of the TV at home instead of kneeling in front of the Immaculate Conception and the Crucifix.

John Senior was so right when he admonished Catholics to "smash the television," in his classic book, The Restoration of Christian Culture.

Of course now the television has morphed into all kinds of different screens that we must guard ourselves and our children against.  We haven't done such a good job.  Just look at how we fell for the notion that public school children needed computers in the classroom to be able to keep up with technology and compete in the modern world.

After reading about entrainment techniques, I firmly believe that the so-called "snowflakes" are a product of it.  Previously I had thought it odd that Hillary Clinton had called on pop singers to boost her campaign.  But now I understand that their music and videos are powerful vehicles for entraining listeners.  The raw emotion from the melting snowflakes finally makes sense.  At first I thought it was all the coddling they received in school and a lack of critical thinking skills.  And, of course, a lack of the True Faith.

As I thought more about the idea of how we, like Bernadette, should "fix our gaze" on the Immaculate Conception, I became aware of the double meaning, as "fix" also means to repair.  We do need to constantly fix our gaze by avoiding as much as possible the things the world wants us to see.  And we must pray the Rosary, which Our Lady gave us as the most efficacious weapon for our battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The Rosary, with its beautiful mysteries, gives us lovely pictures to contemplate and incites the imagination to holy thoughts, which makes us more human, more alive, more able to create.  All this is in direct opposition to the sounds and images that the world wants us to consume.  Look around, and you will see the results--zombie-like people who are consumers, not creators.

Interestingly, entrainment technology takes advantage of God's design for our brains.  As  Mr. Trombly explained it, "Entrainment technology basically is the technology that exploits a neurological function called frequency following response. And, frequency following response was discovered in the earlier part of the 20th century and in terms of this type of entrainment was a matter of when the brain hears a repetitive pattern.

"It can be a repetitive pattern of words, it can be a repetitive cadence of rhythm, or in modern times it can be a repetitive acoustic sound coming across the loud speaker. It can be in a certain wave form, a certain frequency, the brain will follow that sound. The brain will follow that sound whether it’s monaural or binaural or surround sound; the brain will fall into rhythm with that sound." 

My conclusion from that explanation?  

God hard-wired our brains for the recitation of the Rosary with its repetitive pattern of words and repetitive cadence or rhythm!  Without fixing our gaze on the Immaculate Conception and praying the Rosary, we leave ourselves open to conquest by the Powers of Darkness, the enemies of Christ.

Three Steps to Follow

Fix your gaze  
Pray the Rosary and
Entrain your brain to follow that sound to Heaven.

An Exciting Evening with the Disturbing Mary Poppins

Crazy girlies!

I went with Emma and some of her friends to the musical version of Mary Poppins last night in Houston's Theatre Under the Stars. I had no particular interest in seeing the show, other than realizing that I desperately needed to get out for an evening, and going somewhere with Emma and her friends always rejuvenates me. They're amazingly sweet and, as you can see in the photos above and below, crazy funny.  It's a special treat to do things with them.

Aaron and Angela ham it up after the show.

Michelle had spent the night with us.  She and Emma really pitched in to help me so that I could go, taking care of all the grandparents' evening rituals for me while I directed a crew of furniture movers until 6:15.   Talk about cutting it close!  The show was to begin at 7:30 and was a 45-minute drive away.  And I had to change clothes first.  If it hadn't been for Emma and Michelle steadfastly encouraging me to go, I would have given up and collapsed on the couch.  It had been a really long day in a series of long days.

Thanks to Emma Jo Go-go's high-speed driving skills we zipped in and out of traffic, narrowly missing a stalled vehicle in the middle lane of Hwy. 90 and skirting major congestion with two fire trucks at the scene of a burning vehicle on I-10, where we briefly shot toward the closest exit but then ricocheted back to our former lane when it was apparent we could get by the disaster relatively quickly.

I'm convinced Emma's guardian angel rocks a jetpack.

Michelle was following us in her car, poor baby!

"Come on, Mich," Emma would whisper under her breath when she lost sight of her in one of our fantastic maneuvers.  We arrived at the theatre with the warning bell signaling ten minutes till showtime.  By then I felt like I had already had enough excitement for the evening and was ready to go back home.

The usher directed us to take one flight of stairs to get to our seats in the mezzanine.  I should have asked her to define "flight".  My leg muscles turned to silly putty by the time we reached our destination.

"You've got to be kidding me," I thought, as each new stairway appeared before me.

Finally we arrived at the mezzanine and found our seats.  We met Angela and Aaron there.  I dropped into my chair and anticipated an evening of light entertainment.  Unfortunately, I could never get into the show.  I was constantly trying to figure out why much of it made me uncomfortable.  I don't know if it was because I was so tired or what, but I couldn't come to a conclusion about it as a whole, other than something was not right about it, and there were a lot of things that really disturbed me.  One of the things was the occult-like symbols that were flashed in the background when Mary Poppins put some kind of spell on the children.  I think it was to get them to go to sleep.  I tried to focus on the symbols to see if I could recognize anything definitely of the occult, but I couldn't.  Casting a spell of any kind was serious enough to grab my attention, though.

I searched my memory trying to find if I had ever read anything about the author of the book or the original story itself, something that would help me understand my discomfort.  I realized I knew nothing other than the Disney movie, and I haven't seen it in years, certainly not since I have developed a Catholic worldview. I kept thinking, "Who is Mary Poppins?  Nothing is ever explained about her or her unusual relationship with Burt, the chimneysweep.

Then there was this song, "Anything Can Happen if You Let It."  I felt like it was conveying a twisted message, but I couldn't quite pin it down.  One line of it that really caught my attention was Mary Poppins' praising of free thinkers.  I couldn't understand the rest of the song, other than the refrain.  I looked up the lyrics this morning.  It promotes being open minded to the point of being able to "see the world more upside-downish," so that you can "turn it on its head then pirouette it."  Hmmmm.

After reading the lyrics, I decided to just google Mary Poppins and occult.  I found a post on the Women of Grace site that explains that the author of Mary Poppins, Pamela L. Travers, was into the occult and theosophy.

Although the Disney film (which Travers apparently hated) was clean, her books are quite dark and mixed with many occultic elements from magick to reincarnation, all of which came from her association with theosophy. 

Needless to say, things started making a lot more sense.  Clearly, the musical draws more from the book than the Disney movie, not that I'm making a case for Disney.  I'm definitely not.

One of the things that really bothered Emma was Mary Poppins' saying that she was "practically perfect." There was a song about this idea, and Emma and I talked about it on the way home.  In the Women of Grace post, there is a quote which addresses this issue: Mary Poppins as the Great Exception:  Helene Vachet of the Theosophical Society’s Quest Magazine clearly describes the theosophical meaning behind much of the symbolism and story of Mary Poppins.

“Mary Poppins, one could say, resembles a guardian angel, demon, or cosmic being who comes from time to time to visit Earth,” Vachet writes.

The sky and wind bringing Mary Poppins to Cherry Tree Lane refers to a “walker of the sky” described in theosophic writings as a siddhi, or spiritual power to which a yogi joins himself to “behold the things beyond the seas and stars” and to “hear the language of the devas”.

Travers’ Mary Poppins is referred to in the books as the “Great Exception,” which Vachet says means that “she has gone beyond the evolution of humanity and her life now stands in contrast to those who have not yet reached this stage.”

My goodness.  And at first I thought Mary Poppins was just a lot of fluff!

Now that you know all the background, you can really appreciate this picture from St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska, that I found in the March 14, 2016 online edition of Omaha.com. 

Are you starting to "see the world more upside-downish?"  Apparently this display of Mary Poppins is just to celebrate "culture."  It puts me in mind of a parody of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven.  I'm sure it's just a coincidence, though.

New Disney Cartoon Scares the "Stuffins" out of Me

I never read the New York Times, but I decided to this morning just on a whim.  As someone who has long been disturbed by the way Disney twists classic stories and promotes sexuality to children,   this article about a Disney cartoon caught my interest.  First, I studied the picture.  I noticed several Masonic symbols.  On the bed are two pillows.  One is in the shape of a pyramid, and the other is a pentagram shape.  There is an all-seeing eye right at the middle of the girl's stethoscope.   In the background there is a table with the doctor's equipment.  Take a few seconds and look at it.  It's clearly a workbench with tools on a pegboard.  My gut reaction was that this is about torture, not healing.  On the second page is another picture of  McStuffins toys for sale .  On the top right corner of the package it says, "Doc really makes Lambie Talk".  Spine-chilling.  The doll says, "Time for your checkup!"

I have never seen the program.  The points I made were based solely on the pictures in the article.  For those readers who think I am imagining things and overreacting, here's a description of the show that you can feel good about:

Disney Junior’s “Doc McStuffins,” an imaginative animated series about a six-year-old girl who runs a clinic for stuffed animals and broken toys out of her backyard playhouse, was the #1 most-watched preschool series launch in cable TV history in Adults 18-49, which means moms and dads were tuning in and making sure their kids got to see the little female African-American doctor who was helping her stuff animals feel better about visiting their physician.

Oh, the Possumbilities!



A used possum popper

 I thank God for possums.  If we didn't have any, I would buy some and set 'em loose on our property.

Why?

Because I can't think of another hobby for my menfolk that offers the excitement, variety, fun, and satisfaction that hunting and killing possums offers.  It's wonderfully economical too!  They can do it right here at home, and it usually takes less than 20 minutes.   When they come back inside, their chests are expanded; they are grinning happily,  and they have a definite bounce in their steps.  They regale me with the details of the hunt, opening wide the lid on their secret cache of words that they normally reserve for talk between themselves about SEC football.

Usually, it is a surprise sighting that sets the game in motion.  One night as we were driving up the driveway about 11:00, my husband spotted a possum lighting out across the hayfield.  Herb tossed a flashlight to Nathaniel, and Nathaniel didn't need to ask questions.  He leapt from the moving vehicle and pursued the varmint on foot.  Herb followed, bumping along through the tall grass, which switched the sides of the car angrily as Herb tried to zig when Nathaniel zigged and zag, when Nathaniel zagged.  I watched our headlights cut through the darkness and sweep crazily from side-to-side, briefly illuminating our next door neighbors' bedroom windows.  Two or three times.  Oops.  That was the possum that got away, but he still did the menfolk a right smart o' good.  They were PUMPED when we finally returned to the driveway and parked the car at the house.  Emma and I were just slightly overwhelmed and a wee bit nauseous, but we recovered.

Recently Herb actually sat in a rocking chair on the front porch and waited for one to show up and make his day, er, night.  It did.  And he was so happy!  He described the whole scene to me the next morning before instructing me that if I went out the front door and turned to the left, not to be scared when I saw the dead possum, perfectly rigid in its last agony.  Wasn't that sweet of my dear husband?  He is always looking out for me that way.  That particular day, if I went out the back door and turned to the right, I would see another stiff and grimacing possum.  He was left over from two nights before.  His fearsome visage caused our cats to tiptoe by him, ever on the alert lest the varmint leap up and attack.  They needn't have worried.  That possum died from what my friend Sylina calls "lead poisoning".  He warn't gonna git up ever agin.  A lot of possums meet death by lead poisoning around here, but some fall due to  cranial contact with a blunt object, like say, a crowbar.  Some play cowboys and injuns with Chief Nathaniel Compound Bow.  Others succumb because a hoe mysteriously gets caught between their head and shoulders.  And then there is the colorful "death by paintball".

So much variety to the danse macabre!

The Symphony and a Movie, Together

Emma and I watched the first movie in the "The Lord of the Rings" series, The Fellowship of the Ring, last night while listening to the soundtrack being performed live by the Houston Symphony, a chorus, and soloists.

I noticed that I enjoyed the music much more, but I also often felt torn between watching the movie and listening to the music.  This has never happened to me while watching the video at home.  Sitting in Jones Hall last night, I tried to imagine what my brain was doing every time I felt that tug.  I didn't figure out anything.  I wish I could have my brain scanned while watching the movie on a big screen with the recorded soundtrack and again in a situation like last night's with the live music.  Without that kind of feedback, all I can say is that I did not like my attention being divided that way, even though I did much prefer the live music.  Maybe if the musicians had been hidden in an orchestra pit as they are in a ballet performance, I would not have had a problem.  I noticed that when the music grabbed my attention, I listened to it more intently and looked at the musicians.  I missed a lot of the movie this way.  Of course, I  have seen the movie before, so maybe I would not have done this if it were my first viewing.

The Houston Symphony has several of these live soundtrack-plus-a-movie performances on their schedule.  I suspect that it has figured out that the segment of the public that will buy a ticket to sit and listen to a traditional live symphony performance is dying off and that the symphony must provide the visual stimulation that young people are used to in order to attract them.  Several years ago I started noticing the trend of offering pop music on the schedule, complete with pop singers.  For example, Earth, Wind & Fire will perform with the Houston Symphony next spring.  (If you are not familiar with its music, just click on the link for a sample.)  I guess this is concert is to attract the 50 year-olds?  This movie thing just continues this dumbing-us-down development.  It's sad.

I had expected that a lot of "Lord of the Rings" fans would come dressed as a favorite character.  Emma spotted a couple, but that was all.  I didn't see them myself.  I did see several women in shorts.  Someday maybe I'll learn not to be disappointed by this.  Going to a symphony concert is so much more pleasurable to me when women wear sequined gowns and diamond earrings.

Meanwhile, Back at the Country Water Park and Cow Wash

Fostering Gentlemanly Pursuits

A lot of influences came together recently and sparked an epiphany for me: Young men need a place to gather to talk about and do manly things. It's not that I didn't know previously that men need a designated place, I just didn't see that space as for any men other than my own two.

With them in mind, over the last couple of years I have been working toward making our game room more manly. We've had the essential leather couches, pool table, and dart board since we moved in almost six years ago. The room was painted a wimpy pale yellow, though. I bought an oak game table and chairs from a thrift store, hung a longhorn skull for a hat rack and pictures of airplanes and dogs. Herb chose a rich terra cotta shade for the walls, and he and Nathaniel painted them. I am no decorator, but it seemed to fit the requirements of a "man cave". I thought: mission accomplished.

Then, Nathaniel got an X-box and started spending more and more time on it. It is connected to the internet so that he not only plays with other people, he talks to them on a headset. As I listened to his conversation over several months, I realized that he had team buddies that he played with regularly and that he talked to them as if they were right in the room with him, congratulating them when they did well, thanking them for helping him, warning them to "look out". It reminded me of a script from a war movie.

These "friendships" were very important to him. Though my husband is quite content to have no social life at all outside of work and church, Nathaniel is exactly the opposite. He has never enjoyed doing things by himself, and a project that he would not attempt on his own, he will throw himself into enthusiastically with friends. I tried to think of what I could do to help him get to spend more time with his flesh and blood friends, most of whom live far from us.

HINDSIGHT: IT'S SO ANNOYING

As I thought, I realized that I had spent much more time and effort catering to Emma's interests and helping her develop hobbies--not on purpose, but because as another female I understood her better. I wondered if it was too late for me to try to help Nathaniel.

I started thinking about Chesterton and the role traditional pubs used to play in a gentleman's life--not a place to get drunk but a place to have good discussions, play games, and enjoy a good beer. Chesterton and his writer friends (the Inklings) met regularly in the Rabbit Room at the Eagle and Child, a pub in Oxford.

The corner of the pub where the Inklings met. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

So I began thinking of creating something comparable at our house. I needed more than just a room, though. I needed enough activities for them to do so that it would make it worth their time and gas to drive out here. More, I wanted these activities to foster bonds between them and help them to become better men.

I sifted through and narrowed down until I came up with this short list of manly things that they could do at our house: fly radio control airplanes, shoot guns, practice archery, and play chess, poker, darts, and pool.

All of these things are doable at our house. I talked it over with Nathaniel, and he likes the idea. Now we just need to plan the grand opening.

An Unusual Thursday

We almost didn't go to hear Andrew and Noah at Anderson Fair Thursday night.

We had had a bad afternoon dealing with an incompetent Post Office employee, who made us despair of ever getting Emma's passport.

Emma was so disconsolate when we got home that I suggested we watch just a little of Bright Star, the movie about the romance between poet John Keats and Fannie Brawn.

What a ludicrous idea! Once we started it, there was no turning it off. The film mesmerized us, right through to the last credit. It was difficult to move afterward. We wanted to stay in that dreamy world of poesy.

Emma even said, "Let's don't go to Anderson Fair."

I insisted, though, because backing out of going places at the last minute is one of my worst faults. But, oh, it was hard! We had to hustle to get the milking done so that we could make it downtown before 9:00, when the music would begin at Anderson Fair.

We were a few minutes late, so Andrew and Noah were already playing when we came in. We ordered a chicken quesadilla at the counter and then slipped into the darkened music hall--the combination of no light and an old uneven floor forcing us to feel our way to a table and chairs. Thankfully, the stage was lit.

By its light we saw dimly a man's outline pause at our table to deliver the chicken quesadilla. We soon discovered that it was loaded with "the works". Each shadowy forkful foretold a little adventure. "Ooooh. Yuck," Emma whispered after choking down a blob of sour cream. I inadvertently consumed a chunk of avocado, which I find disgusting. Overall, though, it tasted delicious, and the chicken especially was tender and flavorful.

The entertainment proved similar to the quesadilla. It was songwriter's night, so the van Norstrands shared the stage with an older, local duo, which for us was sour cream and avocadoes.

The van Norstrands, however, did not disappoint. Their music exudes freshness and energy, and their manners were almost courtly in their collaboration with the two other musicians. Andrew and Noah's songs seem grounded in folk tradition and do not shy away from expressions of love and lifelong commitment.

When Andrew introduced one of his songs as one that he wrote for his girlfriend, who has since become his wife, one of the older men said that you want your songs to be "effective, but not that effective". We shuddered.

Between sets we explored the building, a quirky, tumbledown old place. To the left of the counter, we found a strange room that had one wall lined with books. Emma giggled when she discovered a book on logic, shelved above a label that read, "MYSTERY". The bathroom was a rustic throne room, as the toilet sat upon a platform, a whole step up from the main floor. The tiny bar area boasted a painting of a bare-breasted lady that was mounted high up on the wall. The customary promotional photos of mostly unknown-to-us performers papered the walls elsewhere.

The customer service was really good; they treated us like family. I liked the fact that they don't take credit cards. They even had a wide selection of teas for Emma. She ordered a cup of red raspberry.

Emma drove us there and back and did fairly well. She told me on the last leg of the trip home that we shouldn't stay out late like this except on rare occasions. I felt kind of guilty. Then I remembered that this is the girl who was playing hide 'n' seek with her cow at 2 a.m. Monday morning, jumping up and roaring, "RAAAAAAH!" whenever Fiona found her, causing Fiona to jump and run, kicking her heels, at which point Emma would hide again, and the whole process would start over.

I ignored her.

Chipotle Restaurants Sponsor Free Screenings of Food Inc.

Thanks to Hammond Farm for this tip:

In Houston, you can see it tonight, July 15, at the Angelika in downtown Houston, 7:30 p.m. Go to Chipotle's site to see other locations for free admission to the movie that I reviewed here. Avoid the previews if you can.

Laetare Sunday Dinner Theatre

Last Sunday night we attended our parish's annual Laetare Sunday Dinner Theatre. Herb's mom and dad are visiting, so Herb's mom went with me, Nathaniel, and Emma. Herb and his dad planned their own evening of steak and an action movie.

The dinner theatre was in our parish hall. It was fabulous as usual. The play was adapted from Tuna, personalized to our parish with a lot of funny one-liners. One of them involved an essay contest in which a real life mother of 14 was said to have written an essay titled, "Birth of a Nation". The audience roared and so did the mom and her family, who were sitting right behind me.

The food was catered, and every dish was hot and flavorful. Teen girls from our parish did an excellent job waiting tables. It was an occasion for Emma to dress up from head to toe in thrift store bargains. . .




and for Nathaniel to cut up with our friend Mickey.



.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the rest of our friends at our table, except the backs of their heads: Anselm and his parents and grandmother. The grandmother just moved here this month from Louisiana. Emma had visited with her after Mass that morning and had fallen in love with her, so she was delighted when Grandmother K. chose to sit by her. Emma told me later that as she sat down, Grandmother K said playfully, "I'm going to sit by Little Miss Glamour."