September 23, 2023 by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri
https://beyondthesestonewalls.com/posts/on-the-day-of-padre-pio-my-best-friend-was-stigmatized
30 Year Anniversary:
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Walnuts:
Ten or more years ago I planted Walnut Trees on a new 34 acre property my wife and I purchased. This week October 3, 2022 I stopped by the property for a look see. As I drove by the Walnut Trees I noticed some had green walnuts hanging in the branches. Upon further investigation I found numerous Walnuts had fallen to the ground. I began to pick them up one or two at a time. Before I knew I had a bucket full.
I took them home and on the way I began to reflect upon the walnuts hidden inside the husks. Some still green and others had already turned black. What to do? How does one recover the nut hidden inside the husk? After watching a video I ventured into trying to de-husk the walnuts.
Oh woe is me!! I filled the bucket with water, began to stir the walnuts in hope the husks would fall apart. No such luck! So next I tried using a spoon handle to extract the husks from the nuts. Those that had already tuned black peeled rather easily. Those that were still green no suck luck. Before I knew it I had soaked my hands in the raw walnut soup I had created. Oh Oh!! I pulled my hands out for a moment! My Oh My – my hands are black!!
Quickly to the sink with warm water and soap! No luck, no luck, no such luck! Next to my handy computer – search “how clean walnut stain from skin” I pray – yes I pray!!
Stain stain go away – black hands I pray! I began to reflect upon my youth when my dad took me to a large house near the street. It had a huge walnut tree near the street. It was in the fall. My dad showed me all the walnuts – multiples of walnuts covered the ground. I still remember, I was just a kid 7 or 8. My dad told me the walnuts could stain things but that memory hit me just a little late at 80 years old. Just a kid and I remember — Yikes I have black hands!
White Vinegar next, hydrogen peroxide next, vegetable oil next, warm water and soft scrub and brush! Lord have mercy the stain remains! I am a marked man and my wife will be home so very soon! Lord have mercy!
Ah sucks — Not going to be able to hide this stain!
Well! I surrendered! The good Lord had giving me a blessing to reflect upon – a stain that wouldn’t go away soon! What’s this all about Lord?
Nature and the Holy Spirit speak through the nature of a walnut! Yes I know how crazy “a Walnut”!! It has a hard husk to protect the growing nut inside as it grows and develops. Oh yes, as the walnut matures over time the walnut husk begins to turn black slowly and finally falls to the earth.
It lays patiently waiting for someone like me to find and pick it up – completely depending upon curiosity to investigate! Yes a hard husk to protect it as it matures and then begins to soften into a mush with a unique ability to stain one’s skin. Yet hidden inside a real treat – yes protected by the hard hard shell of the walnut as if to protect it’s heart!
The gift and treasure within in hiding! Nutrients with the potential to sustain life. Imagine two hard layers of protect the inner core – the heart of the Walnut. Given time the shell will soften and disintegrate back into the earth. To die and be transformed as nutrients so that future new life can be reborn again! And yes the gift to the taste buds – the walnut provides the needed nutrients to sustain there treasure of new life more abundant for those with eyes to see and mind willing to open to the potential hidden within a very hard husk!
Mother Mary – Fatima:
“Beyond These Stone Walls” – Mother Mary (Virgin) – Some don’t get it::
Test Post for James
Hey hey! Welcome from the theideacon!
The Cost of a Misstep:
Beyond these Stone Walls:
Charlene has learned something about mercy. The lesson did not come cheap, as her memoir describes. Only such a wounded healer could call upon the Church’s shepherds with the force of having lived the Gospel of Mercy, to refine the voices they are listening to in all this. “What kind of shepherds,” she wrote. “abandon their sheep when they make a misstep.”
I hope someone will open and read the following link:
Beyond These Stone Walls: Prison and the Cross:
Some months ago in my search to find myself amidst life’s twists and turns I found the web site “Beyond these Stone Walls”: I subscribed to this site and now receive periodic updates.
The following post is associated with the spiritual struggle of one who finds themselves in a prison – not necessarily by choice yet very much confined by circumstances in life.
The Cross of Human Suffering:
I have to say it was a lesson unexpected as a result of ministering to prisoners and then encountering the essence of a prison one can not see yet can be imposed. What I discovered through reflection on this reality is the unspoken message Jesus Christ communicated while hanging on the cross. The language used in the message is the unspoken word clearly passed through the cross of human suffering.
Jesus Christ – The Way:
In order for one to begin to understand this language of the cross, one must suffer sufficiently that one becomes willing to search in earnest to find the narrow gate “hidden in the cross” and then be brave enough to take the necessary deep dive into the abyss of life required to find oneself and there the answer that lies in wait.
The reward one finds when they take the deep dive is simply this: One begins to see with spiritual eyes and one begins to hear with spiritual ears that which has always been present.
Another example of a journey to discover “the already and not yet” doorway only possible with ones cross!
The Dark Night: John of the Cross: Accent of Mt Carmel
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/ascent-of-mt-carmel-12494
New Beginnings
Hey to Lily and Molly! July 2023, beginning of new adventures. Junior in College, my how time flies. Graduation from High School with dreams of new adventures in College and the world.
What am I going to be when I grow up? Whom am I?
Was asking my self that question over 60 years ago. Never dreamed I would do the things I have. Never dreamed one day I would program computers in the Nations busiest Air Traffic Facilities. Never dreamed I would make changes to the software program “on the fly” (real time). Nervous and jerky was I! I knew it wouldn’t take long for the computer to give me the answer out if my changes worked.
Dreams — Today, Tomorrow, and Unexpected:
So it is today in 2023, I wonder what will unfold in the world of your dreams are wrapped up? I wonder if I will ever even find out what your dreams are? I wonder if you are able to see and articulate the “Spiritual War” that is raging and unfolding as I write this post?
Barriers Unseen – the Nature of Humanity:
Hidden within human nature barriers exist! Stumbling blocks await! Wounds and hurts accumulated especially as a child unaware. Have not heard a word from your mother since 2006 or so. Intense is my description! Kinda like being fully awake and alert and one enters the code into a computer with fingers crossed all the while trusting in a gift one was born with yet having no idea until later in life!
Forgiveness – Really – Is it Possible?:
The real test of growing up and becoming mature! When one reaches 50 years a testimony has been clearly articulated. Multiple phone calls and trips speaking without using words – one who pursues even when rejected “Forgives”. Not so easy to understand or accept!
Hope One Day to Hear your Voices:
Really Real 2023: The Donkey and the Tiger:
The Donkey told the Tiger. The grass is blue.
The Tiger replied: No the grass is green.
The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, and to do so they approached the Lion.
Before reaching the clearing in the forest where the Lion was sitting on his throne the donkey started screaming: “Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue!”
The Lion replied : “True, the grass is blue”.
The Donkey rushed forward and continued: “The Tiger disagrees with me and contradicts me. Punish him!”
The King then declared: “The Tiger will be punished with 5 years of silence.”
The Donkey jumped for joy and went on his way, content and repeating: “The grass is blue.”
The Tiger accepted his punishment, but he asked the Lion: “Your magistracy, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?”
The Lion replied: “In fact the grass is green.”
The Tiger asked: “So why do you punish me?”
The Lion replied: “That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is not possible for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with a Donkey, and on top of that to come and bother me with that question.”
The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who doesn’t care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his belief’s and illusions. Never waste time on discussions that make no sense… There are people who for all the evidence presented to them do not have the ability to understand, and others who are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and the only thing they want is to be right even if they aren’t.
A Sliver of Wood:
God and Truth a Fire:
An encounter with God and Truth is to encounter fire! Prison is a place of confinement one can not escape the spiritual furnace that wraps it’s arms around a soul! Often the prisoners does all things possible to avoid the reality of the intensity of the furnace one can not escape!
Words so often are not adequate to describe the intensity of that fire! What people do often speaks more powerfully than words!
Unspoken Words:
A lifer walks into the room knowing full well his quilt is real yet the spirit of hope of possible new life fills his being. Another soul watches a grown man drop to his knees on the hard prison floor bowing his head low to the floor speaks volumes of the result of the intensity of spiritual fire that can consume a soul.
Just who is the teacher asks my soul?
Deny Yourself – Pick up Your Cross:
A grown man who chooses to deny himself the Eucharist stands in stark contrast to those who embrace self sin of pride while boldly announcing to the world they worship the spirit of self – rejecting God’s design in favor of shouting to the world they own the tree of knowledge in the Garden and can recreate themselves.
God’s Design for Physical Touch:
The need to be physically touched is ever so powerful! If positive touches are found wanting, negative touches are pursued! The lesson taught during the HIV/AIDS crises before anyone knew how the virus was passed! I could hear the voice of soul crying out from those facing
facing death!
Inside Prison Walls:
I stood as a witness then and today as a witness to that which so very few can see all the while observing the former celebrate scandalous sin the world of media celebrates.
I ask? Just which behavior communicates who is it that truly repents real sin as to those whose behavior and social media celebration of sin is broadcast to world! Unavoidable is the misleading leading of multitudes of selfie happiness seekers to imagine the destruction of healthy organs, the very soul and spirit of truth to be sacrificed on an altar of imagined self gratification. Who is leading others into prison bars of false truth where the great deceiver awaits them with open arms?
How to Open the Closed Door:
The one who gets down on their knees to the only God who can create, heal and save the broken soul opens the door to new life more abundant!
Am I walking Alone?
I witness both! Almost no one stands as a witness to a grown guilty older man bending his knees to the only power that can heal, cleans and forgive!
The Splinters Hidden in the Wooden Cross:
Hopes Home: Hope lives and can be found in the small slivers of wood found in a cross one chooses to pick up and carry as they follow the spirit of salvation.