Irenaeus AF (Irenaeus Lee Malatesta)

@irenaeusaf.bsky.social

109 Followers 125 Following

Father. Orthodox Christian. Punk. Failed Philosopher. Wannabe bass player. Triathlete. Assbutt. Lazy Sod. Aspiring meditation coach. In recovery. Widower. Divorcée.

If the world hates you because of Jesus, that's expected. If the world hates Jesus because of you, that's a problem.
That feeling when your cow-orker sends out an email asking “is anyone familiar with the error ‘package too large’?”
Just found out my cow-orkers are so young that they didn't even know that WKRP in Cincinnati was a TV show. Alas my Les Nessman jokes was in vain.
"One of Homo sapiens' cleverest abilities is 'false belief,' or our understanding that someone else may think something false is true, even when we know better. But it's not there at birth: until around age 4, children have trouble grasping that their mind isn't the same as everyone else's. If a friend leaves the room, and someone moves a cookie in their absence, young children believe the friend will come back and know where it's been moved. They know it themselves, so why doesn't everybody?"
That moment when you're at Church and you notice that the most prominent icon in the sanctuary is of Christ taking a modified crane stance.
Thinking about intentions and actions this morning. A few years ago, my sweetie bought me a really touching gift - a pair of bonsai trees with their branches interlocked reminiscent of one of my favorite short story, Theodore Sturgeon’s slow sculpture where two bonsai trees shaping each other is used as a metaphor for the love of two broken people. The directions for these trees said they needed a very dry climate. But someone in the house kept watering them. And they grew sickly and died. Despite the intention to help, the result of the actions of whoever it was death and destruction. I think about that sometimes. I wish there were a way for me to see the ways that I try to help others that are the exact opposite of what they need. In what ways does my ignorance inform my well intentioned actions to make them hurtful instead of helpful? I need to do better at looking at the face of others and see them for who they are and not who I think they should be. And I need to do the same when looking in the mirror - to have compassion for myself and figure out what it is that I need rather than what I think I need.
“Westerners today define more things as less than human and fewer things as greater than human than did their ancestors a millennium ago.”