Married couples must learn self-emptying. They must give way to one another. Then they learn to accept another existence in their own existence.
Featured image: Murom in portraits: The family of Priest Polisadov. 1910. source
Married couples must learn self-emptying. They must give way to one another. Then they learn to accept another existence in their own existence.
Featured image: Murom in portraits: The family of Priest Polisadov. 1910. source
Featured in the first issue of Hobo Nickels, RAT GAS is my own name for the extremely prolific artist of the “Triple Cities” area (Binghamton, Endicott, and Johnson City, NY), since “rat gas” is a term used in a few of his pieces. He wheat-pastes, staples, and nails hand-written posters with three main themes: God is good, drugs are bad, and abortion is wrong. Through presidencies and panics, he very rarely strays from these three topics. Between 2017-2021 I photographed his work, and even had the chance to meet him once (he was a friendly man). These are some of those photos:
In over 15 years of involvement with graffiti/street art, even the most prolific artists rarely come close to the scale of RAT GAS, who will paste five, six, seven layers of his own work atop older pieces as they begin to deteriorate and fade, and who walks miles on foot across town to spread his messages. Any time I have occasion to visit the area I keep an eye out for him. RAT GAS sightings were one of my very favorite parts of living in the area.
Listen to me, people of all nations, men, women, and children, all of you who bear the Christian name: If any one preach to you something contrary to what the holy catholic Church has received from the holy apostles and fathers and councils, and has kept down to the present day, do not heed him. Do not receive the serpent’s counsel, as Eve did, to whom it was death. If an angel or an emperor teaches you anything contrary to what you have received, shut your ears.
Featured image: The Mar-Saba Monastery (Monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified) where St. John of Damascus served as a hieromonk, and reposed. source
A weak person prays that no one slanders him, a courageous person prays that God will help him not to slander others, neither in word nor thought.
Featured image: Annunciation Orthodox Church, Natick, MA. 1938
Do not do anything without signing yourself with the sign of the Cross! When you depart on a journey, when you begin your work, when you go to study, when you are alone, and when you are with other people, seal yourself with the Holy Cross on your forehead, your body, your chest, your heart, your lips, your eyes, your ears. All of you should be sealed with the sign of Christ’s victory over hell. Then you will no longer be afraid of charms, evil spirits, or sorcery, because these are dissolved by the power of the Cross like wax before fire and like dust before the wind.
Featured image: source
Just as a basic concern is to be careful of anything that might be harmful to our physical health, so our spiritual concern should watch out for anything that might harm our spiritual life and the work of faith and salvation.
Therefore, carefully and attentively assess your inner impulses: are they from God or from the spirit of evil?
– St. John Maximovitch, wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco
Featured image: St. John Maximovich
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819 edition
This is the companion link to Hobo Nickels n.4. Below is the complete 1983 Sandia Labs document. It’s huge, but the parts referenced in issue 4 mostly follow page 99 for those interested in looking further into it. You can also learn a bit more about how the radioactive material is stored here. (archive)
Some people who were living carelessly in the world have asked me: We have spouses and families and we are surrounded with social and earthly cares. Then how we follow a life close to Christ like the one that the monks live?
I replied to them: Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate any one; be sure you participate to the church services; be compassionate to the ones who are in need; do not scandalize anyone; do not destroy another person’s domestic happiness and be faithful to your spouse. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.
Featured image: Wooden Orthodox Church interior in Radruż, Poland.
Dwell not in the temple of idols . . . Do you not hear the great St. Paul, who says in other words, ‘Do not read either the pagan philosophers, or the orators, or the poets; do not repose in the study of their works.’ Let us not be too confident that we shall not believe the things we read. It is a crime to drink at the same time of the chalice of Jesus Christ and that of the demons.
Featured image: Staro Hopovo Monastery, Serbia.