Words 12.31

 Words Twice a Week            12.31

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Well there are a slew of scripture lessons we could run into over the next 7 days.  There are lessons for -

Holy Name  (Jan 1)  and in fact the tradition of remembering and observing the circumcision and naming of Jesus on the eighth day goes way back.  The tradition of starting a new year on Jan 1 is not all that clear.  In England, March 25 was considered the beginning of the year until 1752.  Just after the equinox?  Start of the planting season?  

New Year’s Day (despite the above, there are lessons for the day.)

The Second Sunday of Christmas

Epiphany  (Jan 6) The arrival of the Wise Men.

We will look at one or two lesson from each set.

Holy Name - 

Numbers 6.22-27   The Blessing

+ God tells Moses that one of the jobs of the priests is to bless the people.  Just what does it mean to bless someone?  If we remember Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, it was/is a pretty big deal, and there is a certain “uncontrolled” or “magical” quality about it.  Or, has it just become the close of worship?

+ “The Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you…”  it has to do with being protected, being treated with grace and kindness, with being at peace.  Thinking about it that way, who has the power to bless you?  Who do you have the power to bless?

+ Has there been a time in your life when you have felt particularly blessed?  How about now?

Luke 2.15-21   The shepherds come and leave; Jesus is circumcised and named Jesus.

+ Jesus is named in obedience to what the angel said.  Mary and Joseph didn’t get to pick a name.  Where did you get your name?  If you could change it, would you?  And to what?  If you have a child, what went into choosing a name for him/her?

+ we note three different sets of people in this story.  The shepherds – they came and told everyone and then went back to the flocks and fields and are not heard from again.  All who heard – they marveled and then went back home and were not heard from again.  Mary -  she heard the words of the shepherds (it would have been nice if Gabriel had shown up) and pondered them and kept them in her heart.  She is the only one who reappears in the story of Jesus’ ministry.  What do you suppose she heard in the message of the shepherds – affirmation? Uncertainty about the future? Fear?  (See the note on the arrival of the wise men below!)

New Year’s Day

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

   -  The opening lines from a poem by Louise Gates Haskell – you can read the rest of it here.

Ecclesiastes 3.1-13

+ To everything, turn, turn, turn….What does it say that there are seasons for killing, destroying, throwing stones, tearing apart or down, hate, war?  Does it mean these things will always be with us?  Is life always a mixture?  Would this be good news or not?  What are you most feeling now?

+ according to vs 12-13, the best thing is to find enjoyment in life, food, work.  So a positive view of work.  And we are certainly enjoying food these days!

+ if we read on to vs 15, it says “everything that happens has happened before, all that will be has already been”.  I’ve been reading the Thursday Next series of mysteries where the timeline of history is set for all time and it is the job of the ChronoGuard to keep reality from veering too far from it.  It’s interesting, and confusing!  How do you feel about reality – how much ability do we have to alter it?  In particular, is the human experience/experiment open ended?  How does this fit in with the idea that God is bringing all to an adequate conclusion?

Ps 8  “O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth…”  This is just such a nice psalm.

+ Praise from children gets made into a fortress.  A piece from Meister Eckhart – “If I were alone in a desert and feeling afraid, I would want a child to be with me.  For then my fear would disappear and I would be made strong.  This is what life in itself can do because it is so noble, so full of pleasure and so powerful”  Would Mary have felt something like that when Jesus was born, or would that have come later?

+ What are humans, compared to the heavens?  William Anders, one of the Apollo 8 astronauts who first orbited the moon in 1968, later said that although the astronauts went on their mission to explore the moon, what they really discovered was the planet Earth. He added: “I think it’s important for people to understand they are just going around on one of the smaller grains of sand on one of the spiral arms of this kind of puny galaxy…. Earth is insignificant, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”

+ What does it mean to be given dominion? - Authority? Ability to have an affect on something? What was God thinking?

Second Sunday of Christmas

Jeremiah 31.7-14

+ vs7 is a request – “Come and save what’s left of Israel!” How does that resonate with you today?

+ and then God promises that there will be a grand return.  That sounds good, although the days we would like to return to were not always as good for all as they were for us!  Note that all kinds of people of varying abilities and ages and situations will return.  What would be some of the things that would need to happen for such a return?

+ there will be more food than they need.  Well, we are still trying to eat up holiday desserts before they get to stale!

Epiphany  Jan 6 - 

Matthew 2.1-12     The Wise Men arrive and depart

+ and note that this is a different story from Luke’s.  It doesn’t always work too well to try to mush them together.  Luke has a shepherds, a stable, poverty, angels.  Matthew has wise men, a palace, wealth, dreams.

+ the Wise Men go home by a different road.  I always used to go home from church by a different way after the service on Epiphany, or on Christmas Eve.

+ it’s always a problem when there are two kings mentioned.

+ note Christ is for all people.  What does that mean – that all people should be Christians, or that God loves all people, or something else?

+ this from Fred Craddock -

Stories of old rulers being threatened by the birth of heirs to the throne were common in Matthew’s day, but clearly the direct antecedent was the Moses story.  This image of a tyrant, jealous and intimidated, screaming death warrants and releasing the sword of government against the innocent to preserve entrenched power, stabs awake the reader and abruptly ends a quiet Lukan Christmas.  But Matthew must speak the truth: good news has its enemies.  One has but to love to arouse hatred, but to speak the truth to strengthen the network of lies and deception.  It is no mystery One who gave himself to loving the poor and neglected of the earth would be killed; there are institutions and persons who have other plans for the poor and neglected.  Of course, no one wants a hassle, much less a clash, but what shall Jesus’ followers say and do?  The fearful whisper, “Tell the Wise Men to be quiet about the Child.”  Wow.

Ok – here’s a piece I wrote a number of years ago – a little lighter take on the Wise Men.

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men came from the east to Jerusalem…

    “WISE men?”

That’s right.  They saw the star and followed it and found the baby.

    “And you call them ‘wise’?  I’ll bet that’s not how their families saw it…

In the evening…

“Pack my bags, mother.  I’m off in the morning.”

    “What do you mean, ‘Off in the morning’?  Where are you going?”

“The star was there.  We’re going west to find the baby.”

    “Are you nuts? How do you know it was a star and not one of those satellite things?”

“It was a star; it was THE star.  We’re going to find the child, to worship and adore, and then we’ll be back.”

    “We?”

“Melchoir and Balthesar are going, too.”

    “They’re as loopy as you are.  How will you know where to go?”

“We’ll just head west.  There’s sure to be signs when we get there.”

And in the morning…

    “Well, I packed you some sandwiches, they’ll last a few days, then you’ll just have to hope 

    something is open, which I doubt, this being the holidays and all.”

And she watched from the open door until he was just a dot on the horizon, and then she closed the door and knelt down and prayed -

“Dear God, whoever you are, watch over my loopy husband.  Grant him traveling mercies.  Help him find this child to worship and adore.  Keep him out of trouble.  One way or another, bring him safely back.”

The star still shines brightly over the manger of Bethlehem.  Just over the hills on the western horizon, you can see it if you close your eyes and look with your heart.  It’s just after Christmas, a good time to shy away from the “Wise” men.  Keep an eye out instead for those who are slightly “loopy with the season”.  As you come from wherever it is you are, to worship at the manger, and adore, may God grant you traveling mercies – safely there, and one way or another, safely back.

That’s it for now – Happy New Year!

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Words. 12.27

Words Twice a Week            12.27

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Last week’s challenge – a “longest night” poem.  Here’s what I came up with -

   Temperatures and snowflakes fall,

   dark comes early, light comes late.

   Our world pulls in, becoming small.

   We sit beside the fire and wait

   to hear the springtime siren call.

   But first the winter must abate.

   There’s time to think and read and write 

   ... or...maybe binge-watch ______ tonight.  (TV? Football? The News? The sky?)

“Best I could do”.  Not too profound.  Feel free to make any changes!

This week’s challenge -

What would be one line from a song or poem or play that you keep in mind as you look back over the past year?  What would be one line you keep in mind as you look ahead?  Well. I know what I would choose for the first one – I’ll have to think about the second.

Ok – like I said, the church pushes St John to Dec 28 this year – here’s one last bit on John, from Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It -

 “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”

Some days from the church calendar

Dec 28  The Holy Innocents, or the Children of Bethlehem.  The story in Matthew 2.16-18 that when Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Wise Men he ordered the killing of all the boys under two years of age in the vicinity of Bethlehem.  Most scholars think it’s just a story, possibly prompted by Pharoah’s attempt to kill the Hebrew babies before Moses was born.  There is no historical record of it ever happening, which is good.  On the other hand, while we are aghast at the cruelty attributed to Herod, what about our own country where some children are separated from their parents and many children go hungry?  Perhaps a day to think of them.

Dec 29  Thomas Becket   He was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170.  He engaged in conflict with Henry II, King of England, over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral.  Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a play Becket about it.  T.S. Elliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral.  The pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales are on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Becket at the Cathedral. The king's exact words are in doubt and several versions have been reported. The most commonly quoted, as handed down by oral tradition, is "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?", but according to historian Simon Schama this is incorrect: he accepts the account of the contemporary biographer Edward Grim, writing in Latin, who gives us "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?" Many variations have found their way into popular culture. 

And from the earth/world calendar -

Dec 28 

+ Maurice Ravel died in 1937.  He wrote Bolero – what comes to your mind: 10 or Torvill and Dean or ….?

+ the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was signed by Richard Nixon.

Dec 29

+ Rainer Maria Rilke died in 1926.  Here’s one of his poems – it could qualify as a “longest night” poem -

  The bleak fields are asleep,

  My heart alone wakes;

  The evening in the harbour

  Down his red sails takes.

    Night, guardian of dreams,

    Now wanders through the land;

    The moon, a lily white,

    Blossoms within her hand.

+ Congress passed OSHA in 1970

+ Christina Rosetti died in 1894.  She wrote In the Bleak Midwinter.  Here’s a link to a piece about another of her poems – None Other Lamb - and a musical setting.

+ On this day in 1890 the US Army killed/massacred between 250 and 300 men, women, and children of the Lakota people at Wounded Knee.

Dec 31 

+ John Wycliffe died in 1384.  He was an English reformer.  His writings legitimized the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, he insisted on scripture as the sole criterion of Christian truth, and he was one of the early translators of the Bible into English.

+ the first “ball drop” in Times Square took place in 1907

+ Ricky Nelson died in a plane crash in 1985.

       If you gotta play a garden party I wish you a lotta luck;

       If memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.

Actually the whole Madison Square Garden concert event was apparently a little more confused than it at first seemed to him.  Maybe a time to end the year remembering perceived slights, deciding to assume the best intentions of all involved, and begin the new year with a clean slate.

+ Here is a covenant prayer from John Wesley’s Watch Night Service -

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low by thee. 

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.  So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Wesley wrote that he found the Covenant Renewal Service meaningful – “Many mourned before God, and many were comforted” and “It was an occasion for a variety of spiritual experiences… Afterwards many desired to return thanks, either for a sense of pardon, for full salvation, or for as fresh manifestation of His graces, healing all their backslidings.”  In London the service was usually held on New Year’s Day; throughout the country the service was held whenever Mr Wesley visited the societies.

Jan 1

+ the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaimed in September of 1862 took effect on this day in 1863.

Jan 2

+ the birthday of Isaac Asimov in 1920.  He wrote or edited 500 books.  He was first and foremost a science-fiction writer, one of the big-three along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.  “No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.”     But he was also a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.  He wrote mysteries.  He wrote a guide to the Bible, a guide to Shakespeare, and several collections of limericks, including Limericks, Too Gross (144 by Asimov and 144 by John Ciardi).  As part of his Robot series of books and stories he devised the Three Laws of Robotics and later added a “zeroth” - “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

Jan 3

+ the birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien in 1892.  He would be 129, just a year or two short of the age at which Biblo set out from the Grey Havens with the elves (and Frodo) for the Undying Lands.  I don’t know – would you want to live forever?  Sounds kind of long to me.  

That’s it for now.  Happy New Year!

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Words 12.24

 Words Twice a Week            12.24

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Ok – we wimped out on the flaming dessert idea, and went for the “almond extract on as sugar cuber” – Fail!  Epic Fail!  Not only did it not really flame, but the almond extract soaked into the cake and did not really improve the flavor.  I did discover that if you put the sugar cube in a little tinfoil dish, it’s a somewhat more dramatic!

And then on the Sunday after Christmas we sometimes did a blessing of the toys and played with them for a few moments in the service.  If we were going to church this Sunday, and if you could bring one present to play with that you got this year, what would you bring?

Now – some thoughts on some of this Sunday’s lessons -

Psalm 148

+ Joy to the World – all Creation is called to praise the Lord, who after all, made it all.  I assume this means that all creation is called to live so that all the rest of Creation can continue to praise the Lord.  Are we holding up our end of that bargain?  Or are we pushing some of the rest of Creation toward extinction?  And by extension, are we moving ourselves off the stage?  The word of this psalm is clearly that that is not God’s dream.

+ first the heights and those in them are called to praise, then the earth and sea and those in them are called to praise, then humans.  Or should we understand humans as part of the “earth and sea” section?

+ CEV translates vs6 as “He made them to last forever and nothing can change what he has done”.  How do we understand that?

+ Again the CEV translates vs14 “Like a bull with mighty horns the Lord protects his faithful nation Israel…”  Putting aside the question of what does God do if Israel is unfaithful, is this a good translation of “He has raised up a horn for his people…?” (NRSV)

+ what images come to your mind when you think of these parts of creation praising God -

- the sun and moon and stars:  missed The Conjunction!

- sea monsters and the deep sea: __________________

- fire, snow, frost, wind:  __________________________

- mountains, trees: ______________________________

- animals:                       cardinals at our feeder           

- humans: old, young, inbetween:  we’ve been watching The Nutcracker

Isaiah 61.10-62.3

+ well, first off we are going to extend it at least to vs4 because that mentions “Beulah” in KJV, that’s the “Happily Married” in NRSV.  My mom’s name was Beulah, and yes, she was happily married, first to Wilbur, my dad, and then after he died, to Donald, another wonderful man.

+ we looked at 61.10-11 a couple of weeks ago.  It’s nice to have these lessons that we get in a prophetic kind of a way during Advent, and then in a more proclamation or fulfillment kind of a way after Christmas.

+ probably 10-11 is the prophet speaking, and he/she is all geeked up with new clothes and bling and can’t wait to let us know!  Of course if we are wearing God’s power and justice – how do we look?  As we said before, The Emperor’s New Clothes comes to mind!

+ then scholars seem to think God starts speaking in ch 62, after being silent for a long time. And God says he/she/God will keep speaking as long as it takes.

+ we get a new name, just as Mary did last week – ours is “Crown”, “Diadem”, “Beulah”.  Bring forth the royal DIADEM – you can hear the basses chugging along “Crown him, crown him, crown him...Lord of all.”

+ “You will please the Lord and your country will be his bride….”  Well, this takes a certain amount of unpacking – is any country that pleases the Lord his bride? Is this just for Israel? How is Israel doing at this? How are we doing?

+ “Your people will take the land….”  How does that strike you?  

Luke 2.22-40

+ “When the time came for their purification…” - Luke is careful to point out that Mary and Joseph were devout and followed all the guidance of the Law with regard to having a child. They had him circumcised, they waited until Mary was once again “ritually clean” and then they brought him to the temple.  And of course they offered the sacrifice permitted for a family in poverty.

+ what sacrifices did your parents make for you, if any?  What is the guidance offered by our faith for new parents?

+ if Mary and Joseph are portrayed as following the Law, Simeon and Anna come into the story representing the Spirit.  How do Law and Spirit come together in your life?

+ Simeon takes the baby – kind of like the pastor/priest may have taken you when you were baptized - and says “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…” or some newer translation, noting three things 1) this is God’s doing, 2) it is for all – Jews and Gentiles alike, and 3) this is glory for Israel, not because they are privileged, but as they are God’s faithful servant.  This much was probably an early hymn that Luke incorporated.

+ then Simeon goes on in a more somber note -  1) the child will cause some to stand/rise and others to fall; 2) Mary will suffer; 3) all this will reveal people as they are – kind of like a benchmark for your mutual fund!

+ we don’t have any of Anna’s words, but with the same authentication as Simeon, she tells people about Jesus.

+ what inspired words would you have for the parents of a new baby?

+ and Jesus grew, became strong and wise, and God blessed him.  There’s one more story of Jesus’ childhood – Lk 2.41-52 (the boy Jesus in the temple) – which ends with essentially the same words, and that’s it.  If you had to pick two stories from your childhood – one that your parents did with/for you, one that you did on your own – what would they be?

Finally, do you have a favorite Christmas Eve song, poem, story, legend? Here's one of mine, it's Thomas Hardy The Oxen

Christmas Eve, twelve of the clock/"Now they are all on their knees",

An elder said as we sat in a flock/ By the embers on Christmas Eve.

We pictures the meek, mild creatures where/They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there/To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave/In these years! Yet, I feel

If someone said on Christmas Eve/"Come see the oxen kneel

In the lonely barton by yonder coomb/Our childhood used to know."

I should go with him in the gloom/Hoping it might be so.

That’s it for today – Happy Christmas! 

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Words. 12.20

 Words Twice a Week            12.20

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Backspace, backspace – Friday (Dec 18) was the birthday of Charles Wesley.  He was the brother of John, and the musical force in the founding of Methodism. He published over 6,000 hymns, O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing (all 18 verses), Love Divine All Loves Excelling, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, and Hark the Herald Angels Sing among them.  The tradition is that many of his hymns were able to be sung to popular tunes of the day, even barroom songs.  The theology in his hymns – especially the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, the depravity of mankind, and humanity's personal accountability to God - did much to shape Methodism and United Methodism to this day.

A few days from the Church Calendar -

Dec 21   St Thomas  He gets called “Doubting Thomas”, but I think that’s a bad rap.  “Thomas asked questions other were thinking.  When Jesus headed off to see Lazarus, Thomas suggested the disciples go with him.  And at the end, Jesus said to Thomas ‘blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’” (Sound familiar? That’s actually from the Email a Day from July 3, the other day on which the church remembers St Thomas!)

Maybe today is a day to realize that we don’t have, or need, all the answers.  Maybe it’s a day to just let the mystery be.

Dec 24   Christmas Eve  (Well, the church calendar apparently does not actually include Christmas Eve, so look below for it on the world/earth section!)

Dec 25   Christmas Day – the day we celebrate the reality that Jesus was born one of us.  Someplace I saw a note a week or two ago about how some of the wonder Mary must have felt was not just that “the Word became flesh” but that the flesh it became was hers.  Here’s one of the collects for Christmas from the Book of Common Prayer -

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, 

and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: 

Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace,

may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; 

through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, 

now and for ever. Amen.

Ok, not really sure about that “pure virgin” part, but hey – it’s even more so a day to just let the mystery be!  And maybe recheck the Words from last Thurs about the whole virgin thing.

Dec 26   St Stephen  (the “Feast of Stephen” upon which Good King Wenceslas went out!)  Well, Stephen was the first person to be martyred for the Christian faith.  He was one of the seven deacons in charge of distributing food and aid to the poor.  When he bested some of the religious leaders in a debate, they hauled him before a council where he gave a long speech, basically a summary of much of the Old Testament story, and concluded that his hearers were resisting the word of God, just as their ancestors had done.  When they took him out to stone him, a young man named Saul watched over their coats.

(and an aside about Wenceslas -  he was actually the duke (kníže) of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935. His younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel, was complicit in the murder.  His martyrdom and the popularity of several biographies gave rise to a reputation for heroic virtue that resulted in his elevation to sainthood. He was posthumously declared to be a king and came to be seen as the patron saint of the Czech state.)

Dec 27  St John, Apostle, Evangelist   (Well, ok, technically the church pushes St John’s day to the 28th and The Holy Innocents to the 29th this year because the 27th is a Feast of Our Lord, but we’re going to think about St John this week anyway.)  He was one of the first disciples, a “son of Zebedee” who left him in the boat and went to follow Jesus.  He was one of the “inner circle of Peter, James, and John” who were present for many significant events in Jesus’ life.  He was also referred to as “the disciple that Jesus loved”.  The Gospel, the Book of Revelation, and the three Letters from John are attributed to him, though some think some of them might have been written by one or more of his disciples.  His gospel is significantly different from the first three.  He was the only one of the 12 to stay with Jesus to the end and stand with the women at the foot of the cross, where Jesus gave Mary and him to each other.  “In the beginning was the Word…”, “God so loved the world…”, “Let not your hearts be troubled…” (and then note that it was Thomas who said “We don’t know where you are going, how can we know the way” and Jesus said “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.”), the other “I am” sayings, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…”, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth...I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven…” - just some of the words and images we owe to him.

And some days from the earth/world calendar -

Dec 21  Winter solstice/Longest night

+ some are recognizing that not all feel “joyful and triumphant” and are starting to hold “Blue Christmas” services or gatherings.  Might be especially meaningful this year.  That’s not exactly what Elvis was singing about, but close!

+ Here’s a nice blessing that I picked up somewhere along the line.  We usually light a candle sometime during the evening, or this year we were thinking maybe a flaming dessert!!.  Probably not!  Maybe a cupcake with a candle in it.  We could say this while we eat it!  

May you find peace in the promise of the solstice night,

That each day forward is blessed with more light.

That the cycle of nature, unbroken and true,

brings faith to your soul, and well being to you.

Rejoice in the darkness, in the silence find rest,

and may the days that follow be abundantly blessed.

+ And also there is this conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn – if the skies stay clear!  If 2 planets collide and the skies are cloudy do they make a sound?

+ the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.  W Paul Jones says he scandalized his family by laughing at the size when he saw it.  “It’s size and shape can hardly support the legend that it was a stepping stone into a new world.”  Have you seen it?  What did you think?

+ in 1965 the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted by UN member states.  Hmmmm….  We pause for prayer -

Dear God - 

Help these people open their hearts and minds and see beyond the flesh and accept the unaccepted. Help them walk with open eyes to see the beauty you have given each one of us.                           - Ronny, age 15, Central Juvenile Hall, East Los Angeles

+ still on Dec 21 – it was the 80th day and Phileas Fogg finished his round the world journey.

Dec 22

+ the first Christmas tree to be decorated with electric lights.  I wonder how long it took them to untangle the cords, I wonder how long they lasted before one bulb burned out and they had to check each one.  Some of the lights we have decorating our window-boxes have gone out – it looks like squirrels have chewed through the wires apparently thinking the lights were something to eat?

+ Dwight L Moody died on this day in 1899.  He began by evangelizing wounded civil War soldiers, and went on to form Sunday school associations, and international revivals.  His practices included using popular, emotional hymns and songs, printing religious tracts and were much copied.  He founded the Moody Bible Institute.

+ and then someone named Joe Strummer died on this day in 2002.  I never heard of him, but he was a singer/songwriter and – wait for it – a guitar player!  (Ok – I looked him up and his real name was John Graham Mellor, and he was a founding member of the punk-rock band The Clash.  So that’s not quite as cool as it seemed at first, but…..)

+ another Joe – Joe Cocker died in 2014.  He sang With a Little Help from My Friends at Woodstock, Up Where We Belong for An Officer and a Gentleman, and You Can Leave Your Hat On for the movie 9 1/2 Weeks (Tom Jones sang it for the film and the play The Full Monty!)  Cocker performed for George H W Bush at one of his inauguration concerts in 1989.  I didn’t know all that.

Dec 23

+ the transistor was invented.  When I was a kid – having a transistor radio was a pretty big deal.

+ in 1975 President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act and we all started using the metric system.  Didn’t we?  Actually there are three countries in the world that don’t use it – us, Liberia, and Burma(Myanmar).

+ in 1888 van Gogh cut off his ear in a bout of depression.

Dec 24   Christmas Eve

+ Santa and the reindeer, caroling, Sunday School pageants, midnight mass, candlelighting service – what are your warmest Christmas Eve memories?

+ here’s an unhappy note – in 1865 the KKK was formed.

+ in 1914 the Christmas Truce broke out among the soldiers. It lasted until their officers forced them back into battle.  It seems like we just noted whoever it was that said old men declare war and send young men (and women) off to fight them.

+ of course in 1826 something called the Eggnog Riots broke out at West Point, the cadets having over-indulged.

+ John Muir died on this day in 1914.  He had a hand in establishing the National Parks – especially Yosemite, Sequoia, Mesa Verde, Glacier, Mount Rainier, and Crater Lake. 

Dec 25  Christmas Day

+ Isaac Newton, Humphrey Bogart, and Rod (Do, do do do; do do do do…) Serling share Jesus’ birthday. 

Dec 26

+ 1966 Kwanzaa was observed, celebrated for the first time.

+ Jack Benny died in 1974.  A certain amount of racism in the show, but he was a master of the slow look.

Dec 27

+ the Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded.  When I was young(er) they used artwork by Kathe Kollwitz of poverty and hunger with the line “Seed corn must not be ground.”  

+ Charles Darwin set out on the HMS Beagle in 1831.  His journey took a little bit longer than Phileas Fogg’s – almost 5 years!

Two options for this week’s challenge - 

1) write a “longest night” poem/prayer;

2) if you were going to change your last name to reflect something about you – more than “one who comes from the West” – what would you change it to?

That’s it for now -

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