Keep Calm and Carry On

What is this?? This strange and unknown slogan at a time like this?? Where did it come from?? Well, I only had heard about it recently from watching a show about The Brit List coolest places, things, and people in pop culture.   Since I am an Anglophile, interested in all things British, and therefore moving to the UK, I wanted to find out more about this thing.

During World War II, the British monarchy wanted to bring about more interest to the war efforts during that time. So, the government created the Ministry of Information to create some posters to boost morale.

The first two were produced with King George VI's crown on it.  Along with those two, the third one displayed here was also produced by His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) of England. The plan was to issue it when Britain was being invaded by Germany.  As this never happened, the poster was never seen by the public eye.  It was believed the poster was destroyed at the end of the war in 1945.

Sixty years later, a bookseller stumbled upon a copy hidden among a pile of books bought from an auction. A small number remained in the National Archives and the Imperial War Museum in London.   Sadly, there are no record of the original creator of the simple yet quintessential  Britishness of the slogan. I am seeing evidence of a late resurgence of this calming and reassuring message since the Western civilization is in such a panic over doomsday and the current state of affairs of the world.

Britain has a way of keeping its cool in a crisis.  They are known to solve their problems in a common horse sense kind of way and with a no nonsense attitude.  They have never been one to panic and rush about foolishly.  They sit down with a cup of tea and say "Keep Calm and Carry on!" and watch the rest of the world go by in their blind fury of turmoil, strife, pettiness, and greed.  

That is exactly what I will do also.  Keep calm and carry on.  As I go thru my personal journey while it is in an upheaval and not knowing where God is taking me, I can adopt this endearing British attitude towards my life.  I feel like I can fare better whilst I am learning about the Catholic faith and also what God wants me to do.  There are times when I have had my doubts and insecurities about my relationship with my fiance.  That is normal for any prospective bride to go thru so I been told.    There are also times when I feel lost.  Again, very normal when your life is changing before your very eyes.   So, doing these two things, going to Mass & keeping calm is better than being panicky. 

Mass: Quality or Quantity??

 To answer that question, I look to sources that will help us explain what mass is and how important it is.  I kind of had an inkling but I wanted more of a defined definition.  This is from northwestern.edu. 
 
"We use the word mass to talk about how much matter there is in something. (Matter is anything you can touch physically.) On Earth, we weigh things to figure out how much mass there is. The more matter there is, the more something will weigh. Often, the amount of mass something has is related to its size, but not always. A balloon blown up bigger than your head will still have less matter inside it than your head (for most people, anyhow) and therefore less mass.

The difference between mass and weight is that weight is determined by how much something is pulled by gravity. If we are comparing two different things to each other on Earth, they are pulled the same by gravity and so the one with more mass weighs more. But in space, where the pull of gravity is very small, something can have almost no weight. It still has matter in it, though, so it still has mass."

So, there you have it.  That is what mass is.  We are constantly weighing things around us.  Take for example a trip to the grocery store.  As we walk thru the produce section, we pick out a handful of potatoes to put into a bag, we then weigh it in a scale to get the right weight per price.  We then go check out at the cash register and go home after much weighing and comparing things in the store.

Now there is a different kind of mass that most people have never experienced in their lifetime or they just don't understand or know about it.  It is the Catholic Church's Mass.  What is it?  Mass is an ancient form of celebration.  It is the central act of worship in the Catholic Church where the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is made present in its Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, the bread & wine.  That is not to say we are sacrificing Christ all over again.  Rather, it is a re-presentation of His original sacrifice to us.  That means that Christ is present in the Eucharist.  That is His body and blood we are partaking of.  The bread & wine are not merely symbols.   This ritual strengthens the faith of Christians worldwide and how we keep Christ in our lives as we go about our daily business of our journey on earth.

As I go thru my life trying to find my place in this world, I am weighing things of a more personal nature.  I am trying to make things right in my life since I knew I had erred in the past.  There were things that I knew I shouldn't have done. I am now trying to make amends for it.   Now I know I shouldn't have consulted a psychic or played with a ouija board.  Those are things that God disapproves of.  It was even mentioned in the Old Testament of the bible. Leviticus 19:31, "'Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.'"

Today, I went to Catholic Mass but I knew I had to learn to crawl before I can walk in the Faith.  From my research about Catholicism, I knew I couldn't partake of the Eucharist until I am confirmed a member of the Church.  So, I am crawling now.  Constantly weighing things and  learning what I need to do.  From the image in this post, you can see where I might be now. The smaller ball could represent quality.  The bigger ball could represent quantity.   Like the old saying goes in the bible, you must drink the milk first before eating the meat.  1 Cor 3:2 "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able."  So, I am experiencing the smaller ball, quality before quantity.  I am drinking the quality of the milk before I can eat the quantity of the meat. 

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