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To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold (1900-1980)
Arizona editor and free-lance writer, Oren Arnold was born in Texas in 1900, and attended primary and secondary schools in Henderson, Texas. Following studies at Rice Institute in Houston and the University of Texas, he secured positions as editor of three local newspapers. After his 1927 marriage to Adele Roensch, he accepted the position as Sunday editor of the Arizona Republican and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1932, Arnold began his free-lance writing career, publishing a number of books beginning with Superstition's gold in 1934. He was very active in local civic and religious groups including the First Presbyterian Church of Phoenix, the Phoenix Kiwanis Club, Phoenix Executives Club and the Phoenix Arts Council. He died in 1980.
gave to my mother when I was in high school, almost 40 years ago! I haven't made it since DC was a baby, about 27 years ago. Little loaves are in the oven right now. When they come out of the oven, I pour orange juice mixed with powdered sugar on top, then chill overnight.
The idea: it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for one blog friend. By participating in this endeavor we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the blogging blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a blog blessing may upload this image to their sidebar if they choose to. To read more about the blogging blessing please click here .7:13 Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?
7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
7:15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
Friend DHT gave me copy of a responsive reading from her Unitarian Church this past Sunday. It is #621 "Why Not a Star?" in the Unitarian hymnbook and is by Margaret Gooding (1922-2003).
![Artist: He Qi Title: Messiah [Click for larger image view] (46119)](http://lib6.library.vanderbilt.edu/cdri/jpeg/HeQi_038.jpg)
| Messiah | |
| Notes: | Dr. He Qi is a professor at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and a tutor for master candidate students in the Philosophy Department of Nanjing University. He is also a member of the China Art Association and a council member of the Asian Christian Art Association. Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A: Paul's letter to the Romans speaks of Jesus, "descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord...' -- He Qi's painting imagines the incarnation by placing the new-born Jesus at the feet of the risen Jesus, who emanates the spirit of holiness. |
|---|---|
| Date: | 2001 |
| Artist: | He Qi |
| Object/Function: | Painting |
| City/Country: | Country: China |
from Meister Eckhart:
We are all meant to be mothers of God...
for God is always needing to be born.
Thou son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, be born again into our world. Wherever there is war, wherever there is pain, wherever there is loneliness, wherever there is no hope, come, thou long-expected one, with healing in thy wings.
Holy Child, whom the shepherds and the kings and the dumb beasts adored, be born again. Wherever there is boredom, wherever there is fear of failure, wherever there is temptation too strong to resist, wherever there is bitterness of heart, come, thou blessed one, with healing in thy wings.
Saviour, be born in each of us who raises his face to thy face, not knowing fully who he is or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond his knowing and that no other has the power to make him whole. Come, Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee even though he has forgotten thy name. Come quickly. Amen.
Frederick Buechner
This was so punny, I had to copy it and put it here.
Plus, of course, I like Mary holding baby Jesus.
1 / 20 To see the gallery of pictures, go here. Click to go to the next picture.
Twin boys Itohowo and Kufre stand surrounded by angry villagers who believe they are bringing evil to their lives
Photograph: Robin Hammond/The Observer
Today we all received info from Shalem about getting there, with times, etc. So there's a flurry of emails about arrivals, so we can share a shuttle (and split the cost) from Baltimore to Emmitsburg.
I am feeling excited!
life is a garden,
not a road
we enter and exit
through the same gate
wandering,
where we go matters less
than what we notice
~ Bokonon ~
(The Lost Book)
Thank you, Fran!
Where there is great love there are always miracles," he said at length...."Miracles ....rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."
Willa Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop
St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas both said that being and goodness are the same thing. In fact, if we can get back to the level of pure being, we experience profound goodness. That's the contemplative stance. That's the perspective of the Kingdom. That's the Original Blessing. Jesus recognized the Kingdom because he lived out of that contemplative center.
Many other forms of prayer we've been taught require thinking thoughts or saying and reading words. I'm not saying they're bad; they're obviously good. But we can do all of the above—think thoughts about Jesus and Mary, read the psalms or recite memorized prayer—without transforming our consciousness. We do it in the old system. The ego is still in charge. It may not be conscious, but we think, I'm the center of the world. I have my feelings. I have my opinions and I, in this hardened silo, will now think about Jesus.
Guess what? Nothing will change.
The egg hasn't been cracked. The illusion is intact. When we talk about contemplative prayer, we're not talking about thinking about Jesus inside your old system, but about a transformation of consciousness where you move to a new place beyond over-identification with the ego, beyond identification with the privatized, separate self. That's a true and lasting revolution.
from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr
To subscribe to Richard Rohr's daily email meditation, go here.
Here's a book-lover's Christmas tree--that would be for me! (Except I don't have such empty book shelves and wouldn't treat books this way.)
To look at very odd, totally weird Christmas trees, go here.
![[suckling.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHtjBe0cuI-9y-AAYa0Nq75aBeGUVl9yzsfQ87znO0d6v6gji-0h53ldfL3pdwmJP1KUdqf4UMdqw8XRtq1P75oUlcoufcY22T-EgeNYBM1Vi6eWAUAa2tolWXUgNeq4LgieT9pt3kS2o/s1600/suckling.jpg)
Tonight husband CB and I went to Rockport to see the opening of Billy Keen's exhibit "Visions of Santa" in the Rockport Center for the Arts. He has painted a different Santa every year since 1974.
What began as an explanation about an art method has become a rich Christmas tradition. In 1974 native Texas artist Billy L. Keen was showing a coworker how the Old Master painters used a method called "underpainting" to achieve flesh tones. He decided to use Santa as subject of the demonstration because it was the Christmas Season.
Keen hung the painting in the room of his one-year old son. The following year he painted a new Santa for his second son. By the third year, it seemed like a "neat thing to do." After that it became an annual tradition.
I first met Billy Keen about ten years ago when we were both attending the "Listening Heart" series at Lebh Shomea House of Prayer in Sarita, TX. Over the years we've attended Five Day Academies together and then we were in the Two Year Spiritual Academy (2001-03) with his wife Linda. (That is also where I met Katherine E.)
Billy and Linda asked CB and me which Santa we liked best. CB chose one that looked rather like Merlin. I kept changing my mind, but tended to like the ones that look like Saint Nicholas, especially one that seemed to be in the Russian icon style. Many of the Santas seemed to look like Billy, the option of the artist!
 | Angel (Alaska) wood. This angel has black pig tails and tiny, almost unnoticeable wings (like we're living with angels unaware). All the figures have a tiny red dot for a mouth, eyes with pupils and tiny eyelashes at the corners of their eyes. I like the thought that the angel's wings are so small "like we're living with angels unaware." It's a sweet image. This is from Day 6 at the Advent Calendar site. |
I know a lot of people who are doing their best, married to men or women of a different faith, to raise their children to belong to both. I'm not sure how you can simultaneously believe that Jesus was the messiah and that he wasn't, or that Allah is and isn't God, but the only thing worse, it seems to me, is believing, as many kids today do, in "nothing." When I ask some of the kids I know what they "are" and they say "nothing," I'm always a little horrified. More than a little. They get Christmas presents, but they don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. They just do the secular part. They get the presents, but not the gift.
The gift is knowing who you are. That is what I have tried, sometimes awkwardly and inartfully, to give to my children. It is what my parents, for all their failings, gave to me. The gift is faith in something larger. And it's not something you can find under a Christmas tree if all you're really looking for is a present.
I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)
"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.
I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room.(FranIam)
I stood for a moment considering what all this meant. Oh, I knew what it meant, I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it. He was back. And he was mad.
I ran down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. I was immediately hit with a blast of cold. I took a step back as I tried to catch my breath. I bent over, hands on my knees panting. He always had this remarkable effect on me. After so much time, it no longer scared me, but it was a shock nonetheless……
“You know,” I panted, “There’s no need to break things to get my attention.” (DCup)
I woke up hungry. I rolled out of bed smacking my alarm clock that was singing Carly Simon and thinking to myself I have to stop eating pizza right before bed and then sleeping till noon. I must remember to change that station to something that will actually wake me.
Stubbing my toe on my boots on my way to the kitchen, I glanced sideways down the hall and caught the dead body out of the corner of my eye. (Wyldth1ng)
As I limped along, slipping on the melting applesauce and jumping when a shard of glass gouged my foot, I wondered what to do. I could scream or I could call for help or I could clean up the mess. Might as well yell: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Then there was a knock on the door. Why would someone knock so early in the morning? And so quickly after I yelled? (Jan)
I tag:
Garlic or Salt
Crimson Rambler
Jiff
Mompriest
The line was long at the post office today, but I didn't mind because I mailed ALL my Christmas packages! This is the earliest I've ever done this. Most go to Washington State, and it is a relief to get them on their way.| Prayer is an act of love, words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love. |
| St. Teresa of Avila The Way of Perfection |
This (rather crookedly placed) icon is the one my friend NKE bought me in Belgrade, where it was painted. I believe this is the Virgin of Vladimir. Let me know what you think, if you know that icon. 
| |
Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be.
- Archbishop Oscar Romero
The Virgin of Vladimir is an icon who chose me. I have a reprinted copy of her that I pray with, but now I realize I also have a handwritten Virgin of Vladimir. I received her for my birthday from my friend NKE, whom I first met in Yokosuka, Japan Naval Base when we were both in 7th grade. This past summer she and her sister accompanied their parents on a trip to Belgrade, where she found this for me. I so appreciated receiving a handwritten icon from such a dear friend that I did not try to decipher which icon of the Theotokos she was.WASHINGTON (AP) -- Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day -- or nearly $1 million a minute.
What's that mean to you?
It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.
Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.
To read the rest of the article go to National Debt Grows $1 Million a Minute. I first saw this at Truthout.org.
Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxies, containing a vast number of stars, swing past each other in a graceful performance choreographed by gravity. The pair, known collectively as Arp 87, is one of hundreds of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby universe. Arp 87 was originally cataloged by astronomer Halton Arp in the mid 1960s.
If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.
– Thomas a Kempis
"The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation. The Lord has left us love notes scattered extravagantly across creation. Hidden in the eye of the tiger, the wet muzzle of a calf, the delicacy of the violet, and the perfect curve of the elephant’s tusk is a very personal, priceless message.
"Watch the lamb in awkward play, butting against its mother’s side. See the spider putting the final shimmering touches on an architectural wonder. And absorb a truth that is wordless. The grace of a deer, the soaring freedom of a sparrow hawk in flight, the utter self-possession of an elephant crashing through the woods – in every one of these there is something of ourselves. From the great whales in the blue Pacific to the tiniest of tree frogs in the Amazon basin, unity embraces us all. "
by Eknath Easwaran
The Thought for the Day is today's entry from Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By. (Copyright 1999 and 2005 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation.)
Select the Thought for the Day for any day of the year.
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Mother Syncletica (4th century). |
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Eight Desert Mothers. |
WillsMama suggested these somewhat grumpy questions for this RevGalsBlogPals Friday Five:
Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....
1. Dessert/cookie/family food:
Chocolate covered cherries. From when I was a little girl my dad and I would give each other chocolate covered cherries. Since my dad died, sweet husband CB has bought a box for me every Christmas. I hate them—they are sickingly sweet.
2. Beverage (seasonal beer, egg nog, etc.):
I don’t like eggnog, especially the commercially made variety. AE loves eggnog, and I’ve never known why.
3. Tradition (church, family, other):
What is a difficult tradition to start and one that irritates some people in my family is me going to church on Christmas morning. Since re-joining the Episcopal Church, I love the Christmas morning service. However, the children were not used to having church on Christmas at all, and this seems contrary to family traditions. To make “peace”, I’ve thought of skipping it, but my heart/soul hungers to be at All Saints for that short time on Christmas morning. This is not a rejection of family at all, but is a deeper need of mine that is at the core of my being.
4. Decoration:
When so many in south Texas (in my neighborhood, anyway) decorate their lawns and every inch of their houses in glittery holiday regalia at Thanksgiving time, I want to resist. I will eventually put out my collection of Nativity scenes, which don’t quite fit into a “decorative” niche.
5. Gift (received or given)
The year I was given potpourri and a book describing how to make it.
BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.
Christmas songs that go over and over in stores before it is even December.
