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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)
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