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 25 Conversion of Paul He had been a persecutor of Christians, and was just riding along on the way to Damascus when “wham”, and after a bit he went to being one of the faith’s leading voices. Would you say you have had a “conversion experience”? When was it, what was it like.
Jan 26 Timothy, Titus, and Silas, Companions of Saint Paul. Everybody needs someone or ones to share their life with. Note that while Paul was one of the leading voices, we usually hear of “Paul and Someone”.
Jan 27 Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, Witnesses to the Faith Often given only one brief mention in one story, still these women and many more that they represent were significant in the beginning years of our faith. And certainly there are others in this time who are doing significant things as well. I remember Sunday School teachers, seminary professors, church members, pastors and pastor’s spouses who shared the faith with me, either directly or in acts of kindness.
Jan 28 Thomas Aquinas One of the world’s greatest theologians. His family tried to deter him from becoming a friar, even having his brothers kidnap him and hold him in a castle for a year, and hiring a prostitute. He resisted and became a Dominican. According to United Methodist/Trappist W Paul Jones, “he was able to relate faith and reason so well that his work has become the official philosophical theology of the Catholic Church. Near the end of his life he had a mystical experience of such power that he regarded his writings as ‘like so much straw’, yet he was one of the world’s greatest Christian theologians. He died at 49.”
And some days from the world/earth calendar -
Jan 25
+ the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924.
+ the first solar power plant opened in Odeillo, France again, 1977
+ birthday in 1759 of Robert Burns. Anyone interested in having a (zoomed) Robert Burns Supper? Could you do that with a pasty or a bratwurst instead of a haggis? (I don’t think I need no haggis!) We could say the grace and a few of the other elements – “Welcome the Guests,” “Address to the Pasty”, “Word to the lassies”, “Reply to the laddies” – a few poems, and sing Auld Lang Syne. Maybe it would work best for me if we put it off until Saturday (?) so as not to run into Winnie the Pooh.
+ 1947 Thomas Goldsmith patented a “cathode ray tube amusement device”, considered to be the first arcade game. Pong, PacMan, Space Invaders, Tetris…...they were all on their way!
Jan 26
+ the first European settlers arrive in Australia. This is kind of interesting. The Dutch were the first to catch sight of Australia and make landfall, Jan 26, 1606. The first real attempt at settling and colonization came with the British who landed the First Fleet of convicts and laborers and set up a camp and raised the flag on Jan 26, 1788.
+ 1925 the birthday of Paul Newman, heartthrob, known for having the bluest eyes in Hollywood. Favorite movie? Do you suppose he is better known today for his movies or his salad dressing? He said “It's been a privilege to be here.”
Jan 27
+ Giuseppi Verdi died in 1901; Mahalia Jackson in 1972; Pete Seeger in 2014. On the other hand, Lewis Carroll was born in 1832; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1756. I guess out of all of them I’m most familiar with Pete Seeger.
+ 1983 three astronauts died in a cabin fire preparing for Apollo 1.
Jan 28
+ 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. We were glued to the screen – it didn’t seem possible. According to wikipedia -
President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on the evening of the Challenger disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. Reagan's national address was written by Peggy Noonan, and was listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars. It finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.: We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'
+ Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in 1881; W.B.Yeats in 1939
+ the Lego brick was patented in 1958. We had a bunch – I don’t know if they are stored away or if we got rid of them.
+ in 1820 Fabian von Bellinghausen sights Antarctica – believed to be the first to do that. He was the leader of a second Russian global circumnavigation expedition. There were apparently two ships that made up the expedition and they circled the continent twice.
+ Pride and Prejudice published in 1813. I haven’t actually read it or even watched any of the various movies or tv shows. “Mr Darcy” is about all I know.
Jan 29
+ Robert Frost died in 1963. First of the Inaugural Poets! Someplace I saw a line about “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one my gps suggested, and …..” Have a favorite Frost poem? It’s hard to even know where to start. I suppose for these day Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, or maybe Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter. We’re still 3 or 4 months to Nothing Gold Can Stay or The Pasture! He also said “Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.”
+ The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, was published in 1845. “Quoth the Raven……...”
Jan 30
+ the first computer virus – Elk Croner – was created and released by 15 year old Richard Skrenta as a joke. Ha, Ha.
+ Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933
+ The Beatles gave their last public performance in 1969. We thought they would go on forever. Have a favorite Beatle – pre or post breakup? A favorite song? Would you say as a group they were greater than the sum of their parts?
+ FDR was born in 1882.
Jan 31
+ the birthday of Franz Schubert (1797); Jackie Robinson in 1919
+ A.A. Milne died in 1956. We are reading chapters 6-10 of Winnie the Pooh this week! Check last week’s “Words” for the zoom link if you want to join us. Here’s the invitation – (I think you have to cut and paste?)
Charlie West is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Winnie the Pooh
Time: Jan 23, 2021 07:45 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87923371806?pwd=QnU5cERtMW00M2lYUmhobXQzUGMrdz09
Meeting ID: 879 2337 1806
Passcode: 973394
+ Edwin Armstrong died in 1954 – he is credited with inventing FM radio
+ the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was passed in 1865. It was ratified and adopted on Dec 6, 1865. If only it was as easy as that. Here’s a prayer from Celeste Wilson, participant in the Mountain Sky Conference (UMC) virtual journey of daily prayer,
Heavenly Father,
Please give us the discernment to:
Recognize the truth,
Acknowledge injustice where we see it.
Courage to stand against racism and hatred.
Help us to know when to speak up and when to calmly listen.
We pray this in your son's Holy name.
+ most books say Menno Simons died on this day in 1561. He left the Catholic Church and joined the Anabaptists, who replaced infant baptism with (youth or adult) believer’s baptism. They were persecuted by Protestants and Catholics alike. Menno pastored many of the associations, organizing into groups called Mennonites. He provided wise and gentle leadership. Mennonites tended to be liberal in doctrine, conservative in societal innovations, and above all devoted to pacifism.
That’s what I got for now -
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