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.
Some days from the Church calendar -
Jan 18 The Confession of Peter Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am (or the Son of Man is?).” They said, well, John the Baptist, Elijah, another of the prophets? And Jesus said “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” And Peter said “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.” So – what about us? Who do we say Jesus is? The days between the Confession of Peter and the Conversion of Paul (Jan 25) are traditionally the ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. For a while communities would have noontime services in various churches, often with a bread and cheese lunch following.
Jan 20 Fabian – no, not that one! This Fabian was the bishop of Rome from 10 January 236 to his death on 20 January 250. When Pope Anterus died and they were trying to choose a new pope, Fabian had come in from the countryside, but no one really thought anything about him. While they were reading and considering names of various illustrious church leaders, suddenly a dove came down and landed on Fabian. He was chosen by acclamation on the spot. Apparently he ended up being martyred, so maybe it wasn’t that good a deal after all.
Jan 21 Agnes Another one of the virgin martyrs. She was a lovely young woman, but betrayed as a Christian when she refused to marry. After several unsuccessful attempts to put her to death, she was finally beheaded, or stabbed, and died.
Jan 23 Phillips Brooks (December 13, 1835 – January 23, 1893) He was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the Rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts. He wrote something you know really well. You can either look it up, or I will tell you next week!
And some days from the world/earth calendar -
(backspace if necessary, depending on when you are reading or hearing this) Jan 17
+ according to my Shakespeare a Day book, today was the day in 1604 that the Hampton Court Conference actually commissioned a new translation of the Bible, the Authorized Version (AV) aka, “The King James Version.” Other sources just say it was during January, but it had to e one of the days, and like I say, my Shakespeare a Day book says it was Jan 17. I just think it is fascinating that it was commissioned by Church of England leaders, translated by Church of England scholars, and indeed shaped to reflect and support Church of England practice and polity, and then it ended up for a time being a favorite version of American conservatives! Life is just too cool.
Jan 18
+ 2021 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reopens. See below.
+ the first hockey association was formed in 1886, in England of all places????
+ A.A. Milne was born in 1882. (Also in England!) He died on Jan 31. So in between now and then we are going to read Winnie the Pooh online. At 8pm each night one person or family will read one chapter of the book. If you would like to zoom-in and listen, here is the link -
Charlie West is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting any night this week -
Topic: Reading Winnie the Pooh
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87923371806?pwd=QnU5cERtMW00M2lYUmhobXQzUGMrdz09
Meeting ID: 879 2337 1806
Passcode: 973394
Jan 19
+ Scrabble was first marketed in North America. I assume you can play Scrabble on line. I guess if you don’t take too long you could play on Zoom! You would all have to have your own set. And caution – there is a “word builder” tool on the website – you put your letters in and it shows you all the possible words. For example, I put in c,h,e,a,t and there were 41 possibilities. Frankly, I’m not that good at scrambling letters – the puzzle in the paper each day – I can’t ever get it.
+ and birthdays – Robert E Lee (1807), Edgar Allen Poe (1809), Janis Joplin (1943), and Dolly Parton (1946). (Huh. I would not have guessed Janis was older than Dolly!) So what would you do with all of that? Read The Raven or Annabelle Lee? Sing or listen to Me and Bobby McGee? Watch the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music? Quiz – which of these did not sing Me and Bobby McGee? Kris Kristopherson, Roger Miller, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, The Grateful Dead, Gorden Lightfoot, Dolly Parton, or Johnny Cash? (Trick question – they all did. Along with me and you and a lot of other folks.)
Jan 20
+ the ACLU was founded to protect the Bill of Rights and ensure they are observed. Sobering question of the day – how many of the 10 Rights can you name without Google?
+ It’s the birthday (1888) of Lead Belly (Huddie Leadbetter). He did not sing Me and Bobby McGee, but he did sing Goodnight Irene, The Midnight Special, Cotton Fields, and The House of the Rising Sun. Bob Dylan credits Lead Belly for getting him into Folk music. In his Nobel Prize Lecture, Dylan said "somebody – somebody I’d never seen before – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song 'Cotton Fields' on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.” (Sounds almost like Paul on the Damascus Road!) There was/is a movie. Apparently it’s on Prime.
Jan 21
+ Vladimir Lenin died in 1924. George Orwell in 1950. W Paul Jones comments that Orwell made popular terms like Big Brother and doublespeak in which “lies” are simply “disinformation” and “evil” becomes “mistakes”. Anything resonate there? Jones goes on, “Lenin was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who, in the minds of many betrayed the people’s dream, making real Orwell’s prophetic fears.”
Jan 22
+ The US Supreme Court handed down it’s decision in Roe vs Wade. The matter was not exactly settled!
+ in 1943 the temperature went from -4F to +45F in two minutes in Spearfish SD.
Jan 23
+ first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It included among others, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Fats Domino, Robert Johnson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Jimmie Rodgers, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and – yes – Elvis. In other words, the soundtrack of my (and your?) youth.
+ Edvard Munch died in 1944, Salvador Dali in 1989, two artists who seem to fit in these uncharted and troubling times.
Jan 24
+ The Apple Macintosh went on sale in 1984. I went with Radio Shack instead. How about you?
+ Thurgood Marshall, first African American Supreme Court justice died in 1993. Winston Churchill died in 1965. We could use both of their characters today.
Then kind of serendipitously, these two things came into my inbox on the same day this week so I thought I would pass them on -
Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
and
Frederick Buechner, talking about a time when his family’s life had pretty much fallen apart and his Grandmother (?) counsels them to just stick it out, to do the best they can –
When it comes to putting broken lives back together—when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls—the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from le bon Dieu himself, a helping hand.
Seems with all that musical stuff this week there should have been some connection to “People who need people….”
That’s what I got for now…
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