Words 2.6a

 Words Twice a Week        2.6a

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.

Church days below -

Ok – some days from the world/earth calendar.  

And the Olympics are on.  I find the abilities of the individual athletes just unbelievable.  I try not to pay too much attention to “the countries they represent.”  I try to think more along the lines of “the countries they are from.”

And first – backspacing a couple of days to Feb 3 – It was the day in 1959 when “the music died” – Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson were killed when their plane crashed.  Wow – it says Waylon Jennings was in Buddy Holly’s band (not “The Crickets”, a later band.)  I didn’t know that.  In fact, wikipedia says he gave up his seat on the plane to the Big Bopper who had the flu.  I don’t know if I knew that or not.

Feb 7

+ It’s the birthday of Charles Dickens (1812) and Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867).

+ The Beatles came to America and sang on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

Feb 8

+ the official ground breaking for the first 8 stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame took place.  The first eight stars were for Olive Borden, Ronald Colman, Louise Fazenda, Preston Foster, Burt Lancaster, Edward Sedgwick, Joanne Woodward, and Ernest Torrence.  There are links for each of them on the website.  And I didn’t know this – there are five different catagories, and some people – Gene Autry – have five stars, one for each catagories.  And not all the persons are actually persons – Buggs Bunny, Big Bird, Alvin and the chipmunks, Snoopy, and Winnie the Pooh are some of the 18 “characters” with stars.

Feb 9

+ Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in 1881.  (Well, wikipedia says he died on Feb 9.  I don’t know if this is one of those old calendar/new calendar things or just an error in one of the books .) Anyway, he wrote Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov.  Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile. In the following years, Dostoevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writer's Diary, a collection of his writings. He began to travel around western Europe and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial hardship. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he eventually became one of the most widely read and highly regarded Russian writers.

Feb 10

+ birthday of Boris Pasternak (1890).  He wrote Dr Zhivago.  The book was banned by Soviet authorities and had to be smuggled to Italy to be published.  And although the authorities tried to suppress the news, his funeral turned into a huge public event.  His last poem and a picture of the dacha where he lived are on the website.  Apparently now Dr Zhivago is part of the Russian school curriculum.  And on Dr Zhivago the movie – Omar Sharif and Julie Christie whoa!  And Lara’s Theme?  Double whoa!

+ Bob Dylan released the The Times They Are A Changing album in 1964.  What were you doing in 1964?  Have times changed? 

Feb 11

+ Rene Descartes died in 1650.  Among other things, he said “I think, therefore I am”. (Well, he said it in Latin, but that’s how we say it now!)  He was also a mathematician and we owe the whole x and y axes to him.  Next time you see the graph of the pandemic cases and deaths, think of him.

+ Bernadette had a vision of The Virgin Mary at Lourdes in France, who revealed a healing spring to her.  It became famous, but Bernadette died after much sickness, at age 35.

Feb 12

+ George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premiered.  Or here’s Leonard Bernstein playing it.

+ Charles Schultz died in 2000.  

Feb13

+ Last Peanuts comic strip published in 2000 – the day after Charles Schultz died.

+ Waylon Jennings died in 2002.  He was 64.

That’s what I got for now…..Back to snowboard cross!

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Words 2.6

 Words Twice a Week        2.6

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 – a couple of days late already.  Look – the Olympics are on and I can’t resist watching the things these people can do.  So here’s some days from the church calendar.  Can’t let Fanny Crosby’s go by.  I’ll see if I can get something about days from the earth/world calendar up before the week is over!

Some days from the church calendar -

Feb 10  Scholastica  She was born around 480 in Italy.  An old tradition says she was the twin sister of Benedict of Nursia (who created the Rule of St Benedict and the Benedictine Order.)  Scholastica is credited with founding the Benedictine nuns.

Feb 11  Fanny Crosby (Francis Jane van Alstyne)  She was a poet and composer.  Although blind either from birth or shortly afterwards, but she wrote 8000 hymns, including "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour", "Blessed Assurance", "Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home", "Praise Him, Praise Him", "Rescue the Perishing", and "To God Be the Glory" and 1000 secular poems, many of which were set to music.  Crosby memorized five chapters of the Bible each week from age 10, with the encouragement of her grandmother; by age 15, she had memorized the four gospels, the Pentateuch, the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms.  In April 1846, Crosby spoke before a joint session of the United States Congress, with delegations from the Boston and Philadelphia Institutions for the Blind, "to advocate support for the education of the blind in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York". She testified before a special congressional subcommittee, and she performed in the music room at the White House for President Polk and his wife.  Among the songs that she sang as she accompanied herself on the piano was her own composition:

   Our President! We humbly turn to thee –

   Are not the blind the objects of thy care?

Feb 12  Charles Freer Andrews  Born on February 12, 1871, he was an Anglican priest and Christian missionary, educator and social reformer, and an activist for Indian Independence. He became a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi and identified with the Indian liberation struggle. He was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to return to India from South Africa, where Gandhi had been a leading light in the Indian civil rights struggle.  C. F. Andrews was affectionately dubbed Christ's Faithful Apostle by Gandhi, based on his initials, C.F.A. For his contributions to the Indian independence movement, Gandhi and his students at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, named him Deenabandhu, or "Friend of the Poor".

Feb 13   Absalom Jones    He was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman who became prominent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disappointed at the racial discrimination he experienced in a local Methodist church, he founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787, a mutual aid society for African Americans in the city. The Free African Society included many people newly freed from slavery after the American Revolutionary War.  In 1794 Jones founded the first black Episcopal congregation, and in 1802, he was the first African American to be ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church of the United States. 

After becoming the first black and freedman to be ordained as a priest, and as the Constitution's deadline for abolition of the slave trade passed, Jones took part in the first group of African Americans to petition the U.S. Congress.   Jones died on February 13, 1818, in Philadelphia. He was originally interred in the St. Thomas Churchyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His body was relocated to Lebanon Cemetery and then to Eden Cemetery. In 1991, his remains exhumed, cremated and placed in a reliquary in the Absalom Jones altar of the current African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas (now located at 6361 Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia).  A cenotaph was placed at Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania marking the site of his former grave.  Ok – hands up, how many people know what a cenotaph is?  Basically, it’s a gravestone marking an empty grave!  Why all that moving of the remains?  I don’t know.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 2.3

Words Twice a Week        2.3

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 thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for Sunday – Fifth after Epiphany

Isaiah 6.1-13

+ “In the year that King Uzziah died…”  one writer notes that Uzziah was the last of the powerful monarchs of Judah, a time of chaos, change, confusion might be coming, in which Israel would need to pay special attention to the word of God?  How is that time like our time?

+ the priestly and prophetic spheres are not all that separate – in high church cultic setting Isaiah experiences a prophetic call.  Is your worshiping congregation formal, informal?

+ God did not abandon the world, but entered/reentered, seated in the Temple.  But God is holy and the world is not – the two do not mix, like oil and water.  This makes a dangerous situation.  Isaiah sees the hem of God’s garment and even that is enough to fill him with fear.  This is not a “And he walks with me and he talks with me” vision of God!

+ Isaiah is sent to proclaim destruction.  Here’s how Buechner puts it -

   Mystery said, “Go give the dead Hell till you’re blue in the face and go show the blind Heaven till you drop in your tracks because they’d sooner eat ground glass than swallow the bitter pill that puts roses in the cheeks and a gleam in the eye.  Go do it.”

   Isaiah said, “Do it till when?”

   Mystery said, “Till Hell freezes over.”

   Mystery said, “Do it till the cows come home.”

And this is what a prophet does for a living and, starting from the year that King Uzziah died when he saw and heard all these things, Isaiah went and did it. 

+ It feels to me like God is putting an eviction notice on the door.  Is the idea to destroy Israel as it is in order to allow God to remake it?

+ Is there anything in your life that this resonates with?

Luke 5.1-11

+ Mt and Mk both have a similar scene, but they place it earlier in the story – Jesus appears as someone proclaiming a new future.  Here Jesus has already had great success and borrows Peter’s boat because the crowds are pushing him into the lake!  That success moves Jesus from working alone to involving helpers/disciples

+ And this is interesting, we speak of this as “the Call of the disciples” but there isn’t really any call here.  Jesus simply announces “From now on you will be catching men and women.”

+ it’s the first time Peter is named in the gospel, although we have met his mother in law in 4.38.  If there is a mother in law, is there a wife?  Is she part of what Peter walked away from?

+ at first Peter is the only one named – John and James get tagged on at the end.

+ Simon walks away from miraculous catch (economic high point of his life) 

+ Jesus says “Put down the nets” and Peter says “Been there, did that, got that t-shirt - but if you say so…”  Followers don’t necessarily understand, but they do obey.

+ the issue was not Peter’s lack of skill at fishing, it was his humanity(sinfulness).

+ again, Holiness of Jesus vs humanity(sinfulness) of Peter/Simon.  This is not a “what a friend we have in Jesus” scene!  Peter’s response is “Go away from me”! And Jesus’ first words are “Don’t be afraid.”  What was Peter afraid of?  Do you ever feel that way?

 + then I really like this – “catch (men and women)” as in “to take alive” as in “to rescue from death” as in Holden Caulfield/The Catcher in the Rye.

+ and this miraculous catch of fish.  (This is from Richard Swanson)  In ordinary life, these fishermen end the day with torn nets, sunken boats, a catch that will glut the market and lower the prices, and no promise for tomorrow.  Might as well leave it all behind!

+ another writer notes that Peter walks away from the economic high point of his life.

+ How do you think about it?

+ What kind of promise for the future does this scene give for everyday life?

+ “The rabbis say, ‘If you are told the messiah has come, finish what you are doing.  Messiahs can wait, daily work must be done.’”

+ And again, is there anything in your life that this story resonates with?

O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me, 

and while smiling, have spoken my name.

Now my boat’s left on the shoreline behind me,

By your side I will seek other seas.

I love that image of Jesus smiling and saying my name.  What “boat” have you left behind?

And finally (added later) this from Soren Kierkegaard (and no, I don't read Kierkegaard, it came in the Daily Dig from Plough!)   Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not instructing it. At the same time – as is implied in his saving work – he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower. This is why Christ was born and lived and died in lowliness. . . . What then, is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him, and thus he fails to be or strive to be what he admires.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 1.30

 Words Twice a Week        1.30

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 -

Feb 1  Brigid of Kildare  one of the three national saints of Ireland, along with Patrick and Columba.  If she was a real person, she lived about 451-525 and founded several convents.  She shares a name with a Celtic goddess, and her feast day is also a Celtic holiday – Imbolc – marking the beginning of spring.  Often there was a special meal on St Brigid’s Eve (Jan 31) with stuff like “colcannon” (mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale – num?) and biscuits.  Sometimes people left articles of clothing outside on Jan 31 for St Brigid to bless – which were then thought to have healing properties.   Apparently starting next year St Brigid’s Day will be a national holiday in Ireland – the first one named for a woman.

Here is the herding blessing -

I will place this flock before me

As was ordained by the King of the World

Bride to keep them, to watch them, to tend them,

On ben, on glen, on plain,

Bride to keep them, to watch them, to tend them

On ben, on glen, on plain.

Arise, thou Bride, the gentle, the fair,

Take thou thy lint, thy comb, and thy hair,

Since thou to them madest the noble charm

To keep them from straying, to save them from harm.

Since thou to them madest the noble charm

To keep them from straying, to save them from harm.

From rocks, from drifts, from streams

From crooked passes, from destructive pits

From the straight arrows of the slender banshee

From the heart of envy, from the eye of evil

From the straight arrows of the slender banshee

From the heart of envy, from the eye of evil.

Mary Mother, tend thou the offspring all,

Bride of the fair palms, guard thou my flocks,

Kindly Columba, thou saint of many powers,

Encompass thou the breeding cows, bestow upon me herds.

Kindly Columba, thou saint of many powers,

Encompass thou the breeding cows, bestow upon me herds.

Feb 2   The Presentation of the Lord  a day that brings up two of my favorite lines of Scripture: “I would rather be a doorkeeper (custodian?) in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of wickedness”  -the psalmist.  Even though the tents of wickedness look pretty glamorous sometimes!  And “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…”  Simeon.  I just like the way it rolls off the tongue!  This is also known as Candlemas – last chance to take down Christmas decorations, and a day to bring your candles to the church to have them blessed for the rest of the year.  Ok – we didn’t do that growing up Methodist/United Methodist but I guess I could get into it now.  We don’t really burn much in the way of candles anymore.  And note this – in some places, France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, it’s a day to have crepes   I can definitely get into that, whether or not all the candles in the house are lit!  And note that this is one of the oldest of the church feasts, dating from the 4th century!

Feb 3  The Dorchester Chaplains   Four military chaplains, a Methodist, a Reformed Rabbi, a Roman Catholic, and a Reformed Church in America, were on The troop transport ship Dorchester when it was sunk on Feb 3, 1943.  It was part of a convoy escorted by Coast Guard Cutters Tampa, Escanaba, and Comanche.  The four helped others into the life boats, gave up their life jackets when the supply ran out, “linked arms, sang hymns, and went down with the ship.”  They were on their way to their first assignments.  Sadly, even though they gave up their life jackets, the water temperature was 34, the water temperature was 36, and most of the men in the water died from hypothermia.  Only 230 the 904 men on board were rescued.

Feb 4  Cornelius the Centurian – he had a vision telling him to send for Peter, who at the same time had that vision of stuff being let down from heaven and the voice saying “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.”  When they come together, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and his household and Peter baptizes them – the first Gentile converts.  Or maybe one of the first, if you count Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.

Feb 5  Saint Agatha – one of the (particularly grim) virgin martyrs.  Also an American horror movie from 2018.  Ok – I’m not watching it!

Some days from the world/earth calendar

Jan 31

+ it’s the birthday in 1797 of Franz Schubert.  He’s known for a variety of compositions, more than 600, including The Trout, a setting of a poem by some guy named Schubart.   It sounds like it’s about the joy of catching a fish, but the last verse is a warning to young women not to be caught by young men!  Schubert dropped the last verse, making it able to be sung by men or women!

Feb 1

+ Martin Luther King Jr and 200 others were arrested in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, after peacefully protesting against voting restrictions.  In 1960, four Black students start the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins.

+ and it’s Imbolc – see above!

+ the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere in 2003, due to some of the heat shield being damaged.  Engineers suspected problems but limited the investigation, as there would have been nothing the crew could have done about it anyway.  

Feb 2

+ James Joyce was born in 1882, and he published Ulysses in 1922.  I never got past the first chapter or maybe two.  We could have a contest to see who reads farthest before giving up. Are you in?

Feb 3

+ Woodrow Wilson died in 1924.  He was involved in the negotiations ending WWI and tried to set up a League of Nations, but it did not really succeed.  He encouraged Fourteen Points as principles for peace, but he also supported racial segregation in the federal bureaucracy and military.

+ It’s the birthday of Felix Mendelssohn in 1809.

Feb 4

+ Facebook was founded in 2004.

+ Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906, Rosa Parks in 1913, Alice Cooper in 1948. Bonhoeffer was part of the Confessing Church that opposed the Nazis in Germany, and for a few years went from town to town as a part of “the seminary on the run”!  He wrote about the difference between Cheap Grace and Free Grace; could we say Rosa Parks lived it out? Alice Cooper – the Godfather of Shock Rock – is a hockey fan, a baseball (Tigers)fan, a basketball (Pistons) fan, and an avid golfer.  He coached Little League.  Although he originally did not speak publicly about his religious beliefs, Cooper was later vocal about his faith as a born-again Christian.  Just goes to show – I’m not sure what, but it goes to show.  Here he is doing I Never Cry.  Actually better without the visuals, maybe!  I remember roller-skating to that in the basement of the Episcopal Church in St Ignace – I was doing a youth drop-in center thing as part of the Straits Area Resort Ministry.

+ for Bible geeks, German archaeologist Constantin von Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus.

+ in 1861 the Confederate States of America were established at a meeting in Montgomery, Alabama.

Feb 5

+ the world’s largest gold nugget was found in 1869.  It’s named Welcome Stranger.  Found only 3 cm (1.2 in) below the surface, near the base of a tree on a slope leading to what was then known as Bulldog Gully, the nugget had a gross weight of 241 lb 10 oz. Its trimmed weight was 210 lbs, and its net weight was 192 lbs 11.5 oz!  Here’s a link to a BBC story about the celebration of the 150th anniversary.

+ world’s first synthetic plastic – Bakelite – was announced.

Feb 6

+ Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England in 1952.  I suspect we’ll hear about that this week!

+ Gustav Klimt died in 1918.  Here’s a link to The Kiss, from his “golden years”. And here’s more information than we need to know - “As he worked and relaxed in his home, Klimt normally wore sandals and a long robe with no undergarments.”

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 1.27a

 Words Twice a Week        1.27

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.

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Fourth after Epiphany

(and haven’t had – or taken – time to read about these yet.  May add to this “Words” later.)

Psalm 71:1-6 

+ a word of confidence and trust in difficult times.  How does that relate to us and our world? (I’m listening to reports from Ukraine!)

+ time for a break and the prayer for peace in the world -

    God of all Creation, 

    let the peace which is in your heart 

    flow into your world, 

    and may all who share your world 

    live together in justice, kindness and humility. 

    We ask it in the name of Jesus, Prince of Peace. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:4-10    

+ “Before I formed you in the womb…”  I’m reading All We Can Save, a book of essays on climate and environment by women, many of them indigenous.  One of the themes is that we are in some sense descendants of the rocks, trees, and other beings that were here before us. 

+ Have you ever felt inadequate (like a child) to a task or opportunity before you?

+ “Do not be afraid of them” – who might we be afraid of?  Or what actions might we be nervous about?  Probably for us it doesn’t mean our efforts will be successful, but that God will be with us and love us even so.

+ four destruction images, only two building up. 

Added later -

+ Here’s a bit from Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – it notes that Jeremiah’s “call” is somewhat un-traditional and confused (not linked with any particular event, overwhelmingly God is the actor, Jeremiah has only a few words which are strongly silenced – in short it does not fit the standard “call narrative form”.)  The writer suggests the call of Jeremiah is for an ambiguous or chaotic time when the mere repetition of orthodoxy is not adequate, and in fact becomes part of the problem.

+ thus the destruction images?  Are there aspects of orthodoxy today that need to be uprooted?

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  

+ vs1 – who would you put on the “noisy gong, clanging symbol” list today?

+ vs11 – “when I became a grown-up” – when was that?

+ “Then I will understand, even as I have been understood.”  I think that for many people, being understood is a really significant issue.  Which is more important to you – understanding someone else or being understood yourself?

  

Luke 4:21-30

+ one thing I noticed reading through this time is that at the beginning and the ending of this lesson, the people don’t really know who Jesus is or don’t recognize him.  They say “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” and in their eyes he is, but in the story line of the gospel, no, he is God’s son. And at the end he walks through the crowd – and they don’t recognize him?  Anyway, that’s one thing I’m thinking about this year.

+ and again, this is a little confusing – Jesus puts thoughts in their minds – “Do here what you did at Capernaum”, but Luke hasn’t told us about Jesus doing anything at Capernaum.  That’s next week’s story!

+ and does it make a difference that the people don’t really say anything – Jesus says “Doubtless you will say….”

+ Elijah and Elisha both had connections with “foreigners” – is Jesus suggesting God will turn away from Israel, or that God will bring others into the family?  Who would Jesus maybe point to today?  How would we feel about that?

+ How does this resonate with the lesson for next week (call of Isaiah) where God tells him to say  “Keep listening but don’t comprehend; keep looking but don’t understand.”?   It sounds almost like God is nailing an eviction notice to the door and getting ready to rent to someone else!  More about that next week….

Added later -

+ what does the crowd expect, seeing that “this is Joseph’s son”, one of us?  Special treatment? Just proud/glad for one of our own to be making a mark in the world? Nice to see that “little Jesus” (from Sabbath school, youth fellowship, etc.) is still taking the faith seriously?

+ the writer notes that Jesus’ words are fine in the abstract, but not received so well in the particular.

+ and again, as we noted last week, Luke is perhaps using this story as a preview of Jesus’ ministry – at first he is popular, then the crowds turn against him, then crucifixion and resurrection (forshadowed by his walking through the crowd at the end?)

+ resentment grows when “Jesus takes God’s favor to others, especially Capernaum,said to have had a heavy non-Jewish population.”  We keep wondering – who would that be today? 

That’s what I got for now…..

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