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This is the first nativity scene I ever had. My cousin Margaret, whom I visited this past fall in Calgary, Canada, gave it to me when she had traveled in France as a young woman.
Spirit, spirit of gentleness,
blow through the wilderness, calling and free,
Spirit, spirit of restlessness,
stir me from placidness, wind, wind on the sea.
You moved on the waters, you called to the deep,
then you coaxed up the mountains from the valleys of sleep;
and over the eons you called to each thing;
“Awake from your slumbers and rise on your wings.”
You swept through the desert, you stung with the sand
and you goaded your people with a law and a land;
and when they were blinded with idols and lies,
then you spoke through your prophets to open their eyes.
You sang in a stable, you cried from a hill,
then you whispered in silence when the whole world was still;
and down in the city you called once again,
when you blew through your people on the rush of the wind.
You call from tomorrow, you break ancient schemes.
From the bondage of sorrow all the captives dream dreams;
our women see visions, our men clear their eyes.
With bold new decisions your people arise.
(James K. Manley (20th century), hymn-writer. Published in Everflowing Streams (1981). "Spirit," l. 1-4 (1978).)
As we prepare for the birth of our Lord Jesus, we invite you
to share some Advent scenes at the House of Prayer.
To join in our joyful celebration of the Incarnation, we invite you
to spend time with some Christmas scenes at the House of Prayer.
For the first time in my life I baked a flourless chocolate cake yesterday. I am wondering if it is like "Chocolate Decadence," which was once a popular dessert in the 1980s. A friend was having a dinner party last night, and when I volunteered to help, she gave me this recipe. It was somewhat complicated, but well worth the trouble.In the darkness of the season, in the silence of Mary’s womb,
new life waits and grows.
Hope is shaped in hidden places,
on the edges, in the depths
far from the blinding lights and deafening sounds of consumer frenzy.
In the darkness and silence of my own life,
I wait,
listening for the whisper of angel wings,
longing for a genuine experience of mystery,
hoping for a rekindling of joy and the establishment of peace.
I lean into the darkness
and silence.
Expectant.
"The Five" at DC and AA's wedding 9-2-06John Dear has written an excellent article about Advent, Advent: Time to be on the look out.
He writes:
"The Gospel would shake us from our weariness. 'Don't sleep while Mumbai burns. Don't yield to the culture's allures: shopping, selfishness, indifference, violence and war. Don't act as if there is no God, as if change is impossible, as if there's nothing you can do. Don't sleep as apocalypse encroaches. Don't remain unaware of the world's agony. Wake up! Look around! See what's happening. Get ready for peace!'"
And then goes on with this:
"And so this Advent let's become visionaries. Let's reclaim our imaginations and say "Yes, we can. Yes, a new world is possible; indeed, a new world is coming" --- a new world without war, poverty, nuclear weapons, violence or global warming. Get ready for it. Urge others to prepare. Such preparation is the spiritual task at hand.
"A final blessing. May these holy Advent days renew our lives, lead us to peace, fill us with grace and hope, disarm our hearts, turn us back toward the God of peace, and make us faithful watchers, ready for Jesus and his Christmas gift of peace.
"Together, we sing: 'O come o come, Emanuel! Come, Lord Jesus.'"
Go here to read the entire article
Last night I attended the annual AIDS Day memorial service, which was at my church this year. It was a small gathering, as the service had not been well advertised. Still, it was lovely, especially the music.
This is husband CB driving us to Austin from Corpus Christi on Thanksgiving morning. It took about 4 1/2 hours to get there.
Thanksgiving Day at eldest son DC's home. Here are three of my four children, since AE is in WA State. They are third child BJ, eldest son DC, and youngest child MJ.
DC's dog Sampson came outside to see banished Troy (BJ's dog), who was not allowed in the house in Austin because he is too rambunctious.
DC and MJ looking at the view from Mt. Bonnell, which is over 700 feet above sea level--that's high in Texas! It is a natural limestone formation that stands 200 feet (!!) above the ground. The view is lovely and showed me some autumn colors that I don't see further south in Corpus Christi.
This is Troy, BJ's Brittany Spaniel. He has so much energy that he is rarely still, which must be why he is so skinny. This was taken today at our home in Corpus Christi.
This is from last year's Day After Thanksgiving. Same holds true, though I did not shop today. Instead, I drove from Austin to Corpus Christi. I had no desire to shop and still don't.
Here I am looking out our front door at MJ when she got her new camera in June--with my ever-present reading glasses on. I have so many pairs of glasses laying around the house, but can still get panicky when I cannot find a pair. Unlike me, husband CB has three designated pairs--on the table where he reads the newspaper, by his computer desk, and always in his pocket. I am much more haphazard.
So here's another site I have found about spending in this holiday season. It was started by Canadian Mennonites: Buy Nothing Christmas. I'm not ready to buy nothing, but I am interested in the alternative suggestions they list here. There are 50, so one idea or more may be relevant to a family that isn't ready to eliminate all spending.PEOPLE CAN CHANGE
"How can we, as ordinary people, change society for the better? I'm not a politician, lobbyist, professor or big-time consultant (I'm currently a graduate student and a journalist). I'm tired of feeling like I can't do anything.
"So, even if it's insignificant, I've decided to participate in a Buy Nothing Christmas. It's an experiment - I'm curious to see what happens. I think it's a great way to challenge our own consumer mindset, to put our faith into action, to offer a prophetic "no" to unfettered free-market consumer capitalism, and an excellent way to generate some good dinner-table discussions on the topic of economics, politics, religion, and what we're not getting each other for Christmas."
I like Aiden's observations. . . .reminds me of Buy Nothing Day.![[superior-scribbler-award.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftyPxgL8FQ9GyV-Qn9X7brSuFOvCnPZuGW6oazo0FC8W4f0VEg54ot2Zq9H7joB6YKsuiG_6Swz80Vlcx1jq9MsRlCZ_uvQlDntuUALXmU9hbiosLoEttrpvZN85kpi7TSkc8o8uZxhg/s1600/superior-scribbler-award.jpg)
Today 12 needlepoint kneelers were introduced and dedicated to First United Methodist Church of Corpus Christi, TX. They are beautiful; just one is pictured above. This is a project that has been ongoing for the past four years. Each stitcher who created the kneeler walked in a procession to the front of the sanctuary and placed the pillow in its particular spot.
(Even though I am for peace, I grew up on Marine bases and still have pride in the U.S. Marine Corps.)
| "In the course of discussing tax policy with an unlicensed Ohio plumber, Barack Obama suggested that "spreading the wealth around" a bit more would be good for the country. Obama was trying to explain why he wants to impose a modest tax increase on people who make more than $250,000 a year while reducing taxes on those making less than that amount. John McCain and his supporters immediately seized on Obama's remark as a sign that Obama favors a socialist form of income redistribution. "The notion that a progressive income tax is a form of socialism is ludicrous. Since the time of Teddy Roosevelt, Americans have recognized that those who are flourishing most in society should pay a proportionately higher share of tax. After all, they are the ones benefiting most from the social stability and infrastructure that government provides. Talk of socialism would be laughable except that it is part of a larger, disturbing reality in American politics: it has become almost impossible to talk about the disparities in wealth that have arisen over the past three decades and about how this stratification undermines democracy and fosters unequal outcomes in other areas of life, including educational opportunity and access to health care. "Since the late 1970s the share of national income going to the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled and the share for the top 0.1 percent has tripled. More than 40 percent of total income goes to the wealthiest 10 percent—their biggest share of the nation's pie in at least 65 years. The very wealthy have become enormously wealthy, while middle-class workers have seen their wages stagnate—barely keeping pace with inflation—and at the same time have had to deal with sharp increases in the costs of health care and education. "In light of this trend, the dispute between McCain and Obama on taxes is minor: Obama wants to return the top marginal tax rate to 39 percent, where it was under Clinton, while McCain wants to keep it at 35 percent. Both men, in other words, would maintain the mildly progressive tax system that currently exists. The current system is actually much less progressive than it was in earlier decades—under Eisenhower the top tax rate was 91 percent, and under Nixon it was 70 percent. Those were hardly socialist administrations. "Though tax rates are not the only factor shaping economic conditions, they are an important measure of how the burdens of common life are being distributed. The warnings about socialism should be seen for what they are: a blunt effort to block any discussion of the ominous fact that the U.S. has become a nation of increasing inequality and, for many, of declining opportunity." | |||
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by the Century editors
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Corpus Christi is where husband CB and I live. Daughter MJ is going to college in San Antonio. Son BJ lives and works in Houston. And now daughter AE from Seattle will be in Houston this weekend! Though AE does not like TX very much, we're glad she'll be down here for a few days. She will be attending a conference in Houston.
I took this from someone's blog who belongs to RevGals, but I forget where it came from, except that it is by Bill Keane! Thank you!
"The death of those we love and who love us opens up the possibility of a new, more radical communion, a new intimacy, a new belonging to each other. If love is stronger than death, then death has the potential to deepen and strengthen the bonds of love.
"It is only when we have died that our spirits can completely reveal themselves. The spirits of love, once freed from our mortal bodies, will blow where it will, even when few will hear its coming and going."
From Becoming the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
