Words 7.18

 Words Twice a Week          7.18

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.

A few days from the church calendar -

July 22  Mary Magdalene – a follower of Jesus and witness to crucifixion and resurrection. (I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses….) She was mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles and more than any other woman in the gospels, other than Jesus's family.  The portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute began after a series of Easter sermons delivered in 591 when Pope Gregory I conflated Mary Magdalene, who was introduced in Luke 8:2, with Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:39) and the unnamed "sinful woman" who anointed Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36–50.  In 1969, the identification of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany and the "sinful woman" was removed from the General Roman Calendar by Pope Paul VI, but the view of her as a former prostitute has persisted in popular culture.  While The DaVinci Code was a heck of a book, and it would be nice to think of this little community of common people somehow preserving and protecting a bloodline, there is probably no truth to it.  

July 24  Thomas a Kempis - born around 1380, he was a German/Dutch “canon regular” – kind of like a monk.  He wrote The Imitation of Christ.  Thomas spent his time between devotional exercises in writing and in copying manuscripts. He copied the Bible no fewer than four times.  A few quotes -

   +"Without the Way, there is no going,

     Without the Truth, there is no knowing,

     Without the Life, there is no living."

   +"At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read, 

     but what we have done." 

   +"For man proposes, but God disposes" 

A shortened form of his motto – “In a little corner with a little book”.  (Where he found peace.) And then this is kind of touching (to me at least!) “A monument was dedicated to his memory in the presence of the archbishop of Utrecht in St Michael's Church, Zwolle, on November 11, 1897. In 1964, this church closed, causing his shrine to be moved to a new St. Michael's Church outside the centre of Zwolle. In 2005, this church also closed and his shrine was moved to the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ten-Hemelopneming kerk (Assumption of Mary church) in the centre of Zwolle.”  (Wikipedia)

July 25  Saint James the Great (to distinguish from James the Less, with “great” meaning taller or older, not more important!), one of the “sons of Zebedee”, one of the “sons of thunder.”  James and John were two of the first disciples to follow Jesus, and several times in the gospels are two of the three disciples who are set apart with Jesus.  

A few days from the Earth/World calendar -

July 20

+ birthday of Edmund Hillary (1919), he climbed Mt Everest; of Carlos Santana (1947), he played Black Magic Woman, a song actually written by British musician Peter Green, which first appeared as a Fleetwood Mac single in various countries in 1968.  I didn’t know that.  And apparently it’s some guy named Gregg Rolie singing it.  Huh.

July 21  

+ Capital Hill Hot Dog Lunch  -  The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council in the USA, designates July as National Hot Dog Month; National Hot Dog Day falls on the 3rd Wiener Wednesday of July, which in 2021 is on Wednesday, July 21 – historically based on when the North American Meat Institute hosts its annual Hot Dog Lunch on Capitol Hill.  So I put it on my calendar, and always think it might be kind of fun to have a hot dog with the senators and representatives guys and gals.  On the other hand, with all the stuff that’s coming out of Washington these days, I don’t know if I would enjoy hanging out with them or not.  That’s kind of sad.

+ last space shuttle landing (2011)

+ in 1983, the lowest temperature ever recorded.  In Antarctica, it was -128.6 (F).

+ in 1969, Neil Armstrong took “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Any response by the “man in the moon” was not recorded!  It’s almost as full moon – what do you see, a man in the moon?  The woman in the moon?  It’s really red/orange – smoke/haze from the fires out west, I guess.

July 22

+ it’s the birthday of Emma Lazarus in 1849.. She wrote The New Colossus, among other works.

July 23

+ Henry Ford sold his first car in 1896, and the Ford Motor Company sold it’s first car, a Model A, in 1903

+ birthday of Daniel Radcliffe in 1989.  He was a cute little kid.

July 24

+ birthday of John Newton.  He wrote Amazing Grace.  He also wrote Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.  Captain of a slave ship turned abolitionist, he lived to see the British Empire abolish the slave trade in 1807, just months before he died in December.

July 25

+ birthday of Emmett Till (1941)

Ok – That’s what I got for now…..  I’m taking a week or two off to have knee surgery.  Should be back with you in August!

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