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 – note Shrove Tues and Ash Wednesday are “moveable feasts that are determined by the date of Easter and happen to fall on Feb 16 and 17 this year.)
Tues (Feb 16) Shrove Tues/Fat Tues/Mardi Gras Wikipedia notes - Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession and absolution, the ritual burning of the previous year's Holy Week palms, finalizing one's Lenten sacrifice, as well as eating pancakes and other sweets. Yeah – I’m down with the eating pancakes and other sweets! Actually we had squash raised waffles on Saturday – don’t know if we’ll be ready for pancakes on Tues or not. Might have to just go with the “other sweets”!
Here’s a little more from Wikipedia on “pancake races” - On Pancake Day, "pancake races" are held in villages and towns across the United Kingdom. The tradition is said to have originated in 1445 when a housewife from Olney, Buckinghamshire, was so busy making pancakes that she forgot the time until she heard the church bells ringing for the service. She raced out of the house to church while still carrying her frying pan and pancake, tossing it to prevent it from burning. The pancake race remains a relatively common festive tradition in the UK, especially England. Participants with frying pans race through the streets tossing pancakes into the air and catching them in the pan while running. The pancake race at Olney traditionally has women contestants who carry a frying pan and race over a 415-yard course to the finishing line. The rules are strict: contestants must toss the pancake at the start and the finish, and wear a scarf and apron. On your mark, get set……..
Apparently Shrove Tuesday is observed is other ways in different countries…..
Wed (Feb 17) Ash Wednesday a time of reflection before Easter. Some people give up things like chocolate or meat or dessert, some people take on things like daily devotions, acts of kindness. Lent Madness begins. I’m still not sure exactly how it works, but you can get your own bracket on the website and start filling it out.
Feb 18 Martin Luther – he was a German professor of theology, priest, author, composer, monk, and a seminal figure in the Reformation. Luther taught that salvation and, consequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge, and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. (Wikipedia) He wrote a number of hymns, but I’m afraid as United Methodists we really only sang A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Unfortunately he was pretty antisemitic and wrote negatively about the Jews throughout his career, although he rarely encountered Jews during his life, living in a locality which had expelled Jews some ninety years earlier.
Feb 20 Frederick Douglass Born of an unknown white man and a black slave woman he became a central civil rights leader through powerful oratory and vivid writing. He was turned over to a “slave breaker” to be tamed. One day they fought, and Frederick won. He pointed to this incident as a turning point and wrote “It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. He died on this day in 1895. Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he later chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her “Little Valentine.”
Feb 21 John Henry Newman – born on this day in 1801, he was an English theologian and poet, first an Anglican priest and later a Catholic priest and cardinal.
And some days from the church/world calendar -
Feb 15
+ birthday (1874) of Ernest Shackleton. There have been a couple of movies or tv specials – one with Kenneth Branagh and one for PBS and The Discovery Channel. In 2017, the musical play Ernest Shackleton Loves Me by Val Vigoda and Joe DiPietro made its debut in New York City at the Tony Kiser Theater, an Off-Broadway venue. Blended with a parallel story of a struggling composer, the play retells the adventure of Endurance in detail, incorporating photos and videos of the journey.
+ Nat King Cole died in 1965. He was the first African-American man to host an American TV series. He learned to play the organ from his mother, the church organist. His first performance was Yes, We Have No Bananas at age four! On November 5, 1956, The Nat 'King' Cole Show debuted on NBC. The program started at a length of fifteen-minutes but was increased to a half-hour in July 1957. Rheingold Beer was a regional sponsor, but a national sponsor was never found. The show was in trouble financially despite efforts by NBC, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, and Mel Tormé. Cole decided to end the program and the last episode aired on December 17, 1957. Commenting on the lack of sponsorship, Cole said shortly after its demise, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."
+ Canada adopted the “Maple Leaf” flag in 1965. Apparently the leaf represents the country’s forests, the white strips in the middle the arctic snow, and the red stripes on the edges are for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Why aren’t the oceans blue? I don’t know. A god day to listed to the Maple Leaf Rag, or to stock up on maple syrup if you are planning on pancakes tomorrow!
Feb 16
+ tomb of Tutankhamun opened in 1923, releasing “The Curse of Tutankhamun”!
Feb 17
+ the “Committee for Relief to the Wounded”, a precursor of the Red Cross and Red Crescent was founded in Geneva in 1863.
+ Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” premiered. Apparently it was poorly received. Just goes to show – first impressions are not always lasting.
Feb 18
+ Kublai Khan died in 1294. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree… Xanadu was also the name of the fantastic estate in Orson Wells film Citizen Kane, and was also the name of a movie in 1980 with Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly in his last role. Read the poem? And then I guess I’d pick the movie with Olivia and Gene over Citizen Kane this time. It says Prime has it – to rent.
+ The Chicago Seven were acquitted in 1970. Speaking of acquittals!
+ Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto by looking through photos taken a month earlier. It was a planet, but then it wasn’t.
+ Yoko Ono was born in 1933, John Travolta in 1954
+ Michelangelo died in 1564. Greatest artist of his time? Of all time?
Feb 19
+ Thomas Edison patented the phonograph in 1878.
+ The Soviet “Mir” Space Station was launched in 1986. Did we still think space was where we could cooperate and work together? Now we have a “Space Force”?
Feb 20
+ Batman and Robin newspaper comic strip appears in 1944. Didn’t ever see the comic strip. Comic books, tv show, movies.
+ John Glenn orbited the earth (first American) in 1962.
+ Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake premiered in 1877.
+ Ferruccio Lamborghini died in 1993. I just like saying the name!
Feb 21
+ Nixon embarked on visit to China in 1972.
+ the peace symbol was designed in 1958, combining semaphore symbols for N and D, short for Nuclear Disarmament. I remember learning semaphore years ago in Boy Scouts. I never got very good at it.
+ world’s first railway journey takers place in Wales in 1804.
+ W H Auden was born in 1907. Have a favorite Auden poem?
+ Malcolm X assassinated in 1965
A prayer for this week -
God of justice and mercy, hear us now as we pray.
We hear the voices of those crying in the streets. “No justice, no peace”
and we remember that your prophets asked
how we can say peace when there is no justice.
Still today your children cry out for justice.
Forgive us, O God, for not examining the sinful systems in which we were raised.
Grant us your Spirit that all may have abundant life.
We, although many, are one in Christ Jesus.
We trust in his grace and his challenge to love our neighbors.
We celebrate our diversity, given to us by God.
Where our community is fractured, we pledge to work for reconciliation.
We pledge to work in cooperation with others, listening and speaking with caring.
We celebrate the wholeness of all persons, given by God.
O God, equip us now for the work of liberation and compassion.
Send us forth to be ambassadors of justice, kindness and mercy,
as we walk humbly with you. Amen.
From Knitted Together for God’s Good Work: United Methodist Women Program Book
2020-2021, Communications Department of the United Methodist Women, 2020
That’s what I got for now….
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