Friday 20 January 2017

Fish on Friday

Good day to you all. Greetings, love and blessings to you.


                          If you are wealthy, be humble. Plants bend when they bear fruit.


 There is a wall of separation between oneself and others and between you and me. Destroy this wall!


God is not so far away. He is not in the heavens above, nor in hell below. He is always near you.


 What God gives is never exhausted, what man gives never lasts.
Be contented and cheerful with what comes.




 Do not be obsessed by egotism, imagining that you are the cause of action: everything is due to God.



You should not stay for even one second at a place where people are speaking disrespectfully of a saint.

  Peace and love to you my brothers and sisters. Please pass this on.
Your bro of Christ and all the saints esp today, Shirdi Sai Baba, Peter G Kimble  

Thursday 19 January 2017

Today its worth the struggle. Jesus please give me strength to carry on. Painting out the blues.

Good day brothers and sisters.
Today in this blog I am revisiting my holiday and the photos I shot in Barbados. Then as well there are some shots I took today of a painting which as I type this it is still wet! 




                                          This is one of the dogs at my partner's family home
                                          in Barbados. He is very very old.



                            Here is my beloved Sylvia walking in what may be and is, Bridgetown, but as
                       she is at work as I am typing this, I cannot confirm this to be true. Though now its some hours on and its as written.

                                             Above is a goat I liked and below are some of mums
                                              dogs.





    The dog above was a present for a little girl in  my partner's family.























Have a good day and please pass this blog on. May I ask that those of you who pray, to pray for my health to get better. Blessings and love to you and all. Your brother in Christ, Peter.


Wednesday 4 January 2017

Sayings from our spiritual brothers and fathers which will help guide us on the good path. Plus art from yours truly.

Good day my beloved brothers and sisters. For those of you who do not know, my latest  good news. Sylvia Gooding accepted my proposal that she becomes my wife. YES THANK YOU JESUS.

  

Talking to an angel.


   The ancient father Arsenius asked the angel what he must do to be
   saved. The angel answered:--Thou must flee, and be silent and sit
   still.

   Afterwards, in a vision, the angel read these words to the Servitor out
   of the book of the ancient fathers:--A well-spring of all bliss is to
   keep thyself quiet and in solitude.

   Abbot Theodore. To keep thyself pure and spotless will advance thee
   more in knowledge than study will.

   Abbot Moses. Sit in thy cell:--it will teach thee all things.

   Abbot John. Keep thy outward man still, and thy inward man pure.

   The same. A fish out of water and a monk out of his monastery will
   equally come to grief.

   Anthony. Bodily mortification, interior devotion, and seclusion from
   men beget chastity.

   The same. Wear no garment in which vanity can be discerned. The first
   battle of a beginner is boldly to resist sins.

   The Shepherd. Be wroth with no one, until he tries to pluck out thy
   right eye.

   Isidore. A wrathful man is displeasing to God, however great may be the
   miracles which he works.

   Ipericius. It is a less sin to eat meat when it should have been
   avoided than to backbite thy neighbour.

   Pior. It is very wicked to bring forward the sins of others, and to
   keep back our own.

   Zachary. A man must suffer great humiliations if he is to arrive at
   perfection.

   Nestor. Thou must first become an ass, if thou wouldst possess heavenly
   wisdom.

   An Ancient. Thou shouldst be immovable in weal and woe, like one dead.

   Helias. A pale complexion, a wasted body, and a lowly bearing beseem
   well a spiritual man.
   
   An Ancient. Take away from me wine, for the death of the soul lies
   hidden in it.

   The Shepherd. He who still complains, and cannot keep from anger and
   much talking, will never become a spiritual man.

   Cassian. As the dying Christ bore Himself upon the cross, so should our
   manner of life be fashioned.

   Anthony said to a brother:--O man, help thyself; otherwise neither God
   nor I will ever help thee.


 Paphnutius. It is no use to begin well, unless thou dost carry it
   through to a good end.

   Abbot Moses. Avoid whatever would deprive thee of purity of soul,
   however good it may appear.

   Cassian. The term of all perfection is attained, when the soul, with
   all its powers, is gathered up into one only object, God.

   The Servitor sent these examples and sayings of the ancient fathers to
   his spiritual daughter, who drank them all in, and applied them to
   herself, as though he had meant her also to exercise her body with
   severe chastisements, after the austere fashion of the ancient fathers.
   And she began accordingly to mortify and torment herself with
   hair-shirts, and cords, and cruel bands set round with sharp iron
   nails, and many other such-like instruments of penance.

   But when the Servitor became aware of this, he wrote to her as
   follows:--Dear daughter, if thy purpose is to order thy spiritual life
   according to my teaching, as was thy request to me, cease from all such
   austerities, for they suit not the weakness of thy sex and thy
   well-ordered frame. The dear Jesus did not say, Take My cross upon you;
   but He said to each, Take up thy cross. Thou shouldst not seek to
   imitate the austerity of the ancient fathers, nor the severe exercises
   of thy spiritual father. Thou shouldst only take for thyself a portion
   of them, such as thou canst practise easily with thy infirm body, to
   the end that sin may die in thee, and yet thy bodily life may not be
   shortened. This is a very excellent exercise, and the best of all for
   thee.

   She wished to know from him why he himself had practised such great
   austerities, and yet would not advise her or others to practise them.
   Upon this he referred her to the holy writings, saying:--It is written
   that, in former times, some among the ancient fathers led a life of
   such superhuman and incredible austerity, that the very mention of it
   is a horror to certain delicate persons of the present day; for they
   know not what burning devotion can enable a man, by the divine aid, to
   do and suffer for God. One who is filled with such fervour finds all
   impossible things become possible of accomplishment in God; just as
   David says, that with God's help he would go through a wall (Ps. xvii.
   30). It is also written in the book of the ancient fathers, that some
   of them did not treat themselves with such great severity as others
   did, and yet they were all striving to reach the self-same end. St.
   Peter and St. John had not the same training. Who can fully explain
   this marvel, unless it be that the Lord, who is wonderful in His
   Saints, wills, by reason of His high sovereignty, to be glorified in
   many different ways? Besides this, our natures are not all alike, and
   what is suit able to one, suits not another. Therefore it must not be
   thought that, if perchance a man has not practised such great
   austerities, he will be thereby hindered from arriving at perfection.
   At the same time, those who are soft and delicate should not despise
   austerities in others, or judge them harshly. Let each look to himself,
   and see what God wants of him, and attend to this, leaving all else
   alone. Speaking generally, it is much better to be moderate rather than
   immoderate in the practice of austerities. But as the mean is hard to
   find, it is wiser to keep a little under it, than to venture too high
   above it; for it often happens that, if a man mortifies his bodily
   frame to excess, he will have afterwards to indulge it to excess;
   though certainly many great Saints have forgotten themselves in this
   point through the fervour of their devotion. Such austerity of life,
   and the examples which have been mentioned, may be of use to those who
   are too tender with themselves, and to their own injury give too much
   rein to their rebellious bodies; but this concerns not thee, nor the
   like of thee. God has many kinds of crosses with which He chastens His
   friends. I look for Him to lay another sort of cross upon thy
   shoulders, which will be far more painful to thee than these
   austerities. Accept this cross with patience when it comes to thee.

   Not long afterwards God afflicted the Servitor's spiritual daughter
   with long and weary illnesses, so that she continued sickly in body
   until her death. She sent him word that it had come to pass with her as
   he had predicted. Upon which he wrote in answer thus:--Dear daughter,
   God has not only afflicted thee according to my words, but He has also
   wounded me in thee; for I have now no one left who will help me with
   the same diligence and godly faithfulness to complete my little book,
   as then didst when thou wert well. Therefore the Servitor besought God
   earnestly on thy behalf, that it might be His good will to give thee
   back thy health; and when God would not forthwith hearken to his
   prayer, he was angered against Him with a loving anger, and was minded
   that he would write no more books about the faithful God, and would
   likewise leave off his usual morning-greeting through ill-humour,
   unless God made thee well again. Now when he had sat down in the
   disquiet of his heart, according to custom, in his chapel, his senses
   were absorbed in ecstasy; and it seemed to him that a company of angels
   came before him in the chapel, and sang to comfort him a heavenly song,
   because they knew that at that time he was in peculiar sorrow; and
   they asked him why he looked so sad and did not sing with them. Then he
   told them how he had behaved in his excess to the dear God, because He
   would not hearken to his prayer for thy recovery. And they counselled
   him to desist from it, and not act thus; for that God had ordained this
   sickness for the best, and it would be thy cross in this world, and
   through it thou wouldst earn great grace here, and a manifold reward in
   heaven. Therefore be patient, my daughter, and receive it simply as a
   loving gift from the faithful God.


Below are some pictures, not of my latest art, but that which I feel go with the writing I am sharing with you...




                                           The light of Christ has come into the world and
                                            my life.





 Blessing love and peace to you my brothers and sisters. If you have heard the saying there is no gain without pain, you may start to imagine or not what I shall gain from my youngest son Harry 13yrs dying just over a year ago. He is still so missed here, yet I am sure he has been so welcomed in Heaven. Bye For Now, your bro Peter