Joyeux Noel

Wishing everyone a Joyeux Noel

from the Wisemen and their Landlady!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Dear Landlady,
Sorry for the delay in writing but Paris is just too much fun!  This week we spent a good bit of our time touring the Notre Dame Cathedral, which, as you probably know, is one of the best known cathedrals in all the world. Such architecture! So different from that feeding trough that we found the Christ child in oh so many years ago...

And we had the good fortune to meet some fellow astronomers.  So colorful.  They hail from Mumbai where they dwell within a Zoroastrian community.  Turns out there was some confusion when they were purchasing their tickets online to return home from their tour of Rome.  Somehow they wrote 'Paris' instead of 'Parsi.'  They thought the question had to do with their religious identity, not their flight destination.  Can you imagine?  So a simple spelling error compounded by a misunderstanding caused quite the mix up.  As you know, wars have been started over less!  But the Parsis have been delightful companions for us.

 

Of course there was an awkward moment when #3 blurted out that he didn't quite understand how they could possibly have been able to type, never mind purchase tickets online since it's quite obvious to everyone present that their arms are only painted on.  Oh my, dear landlady, there was such a cumbersome silence at that point, but the Zoroastrians were kind enough to eventually find the humor in the situation. I'm going to have a word with #3 when we get back to the hotel. 

 

 

Will write more tomorrow.  We're off to see the famous Notre Dame bells.  I hope the vibration does not knock us off of our nonexistent feet. 

They're back (the wise ones, that is)

'Twas 3 days after Xmas, and all through the house,

there were shouts of glee because Bethany had

finally transferred most of my files from my

"almost dead" computer to my new one:)

So now I'm able to bring you the latest adventures

of the Wise Men.  And if you are not familiar with their previous

 adventures, I invite you to click here to read all about them.

And yes, they are STILL here.  I thought they had left for

the Holy Land last week so I was surprised to see them

on their bathroom shelf this morning.  I have to admit,

they have been in quite the funk for the past few months.

They tell me it's because of the world wide recession but I know

it's because of all the time they have spent with that leprechaun

they've been sharing their bathroom shelf with since March. 

Me:  So why are you guys still here?  Didn't you see the star

shining in the night with the tail as big as a kite?

WM#1:  Yes we saw it but Laddy (the Leprechaun) told us that

we should let some other wise ones visit the Christ child this year. 

After all, why should we always be the one ones who share our gifts? 

Me: You share your gifts because that is what God created you to do.

Wow...you really have been influenced by Laddy.  Haven't I

told you not to trust him?  Just look at that smirk on his face.  All

he cares about is his pile of gold. Not only is he not interested in

sharing it with you, he wants your gifts  too!  Good thing your gifts

 are attached to your arms or they would be in his pile by now!

WM#2: Dearest landlady, is there any conversation during which

you do NOT mention our affliction?  We do have feelings you know.

Me:  I'm terribly sorry.  I forget that you can be quite sensitive about that.  

Please accept my apologies.  In the meantime, I will remove Laddy

from the sill, which I should have done long ago.  Tomorrow we'll have a

 real conversation about your impending journey. 

 In the meantime, I've brought you new reading material.  

100 Graces.  It will help your mind and spirit settle down. 

May you find wisdom inside its pages which will enable you to recall your own story. 

You do have one you know, and it is sacred.

Good Night my wee wise men.

Twelfth Night

It's Twelfth Night - a day in ages past when there would be great carousing with rich feasts of food and the drinking of fine wassail as people celebrated the end of the Christmas season. This is a custom that has almost died out as we usually stop celebrating Christmas after New Year's Day.

And for the past 20 years my parents would drive a very long distance to a British bakery to purchase an authentic British Christmas Cake and send it to me on Christmas Eve. My father died earlier this year and I really didn't expect the infamous cake to appear. But my sweet sister Becky drove my mother to Santa Monica to get the cake and mail it to me - just in time for Christmas.

If you've never tasted Christmas cake it's quite similar to fruit cake with a "wee" bit of alcohol thrown in. The white icing on top is hard and it covers a thin layer of marzipan. It's really rich and one piece is usually more than enough. And so I am celebrating this 12th Night by cutting into the cake (which gets better with age) and raising a toast to my dad - knowing he is with us in spirit.

11th Day of Christmas

It's the 11th day of Christmas and frankly I'm beginning to feel like this dead christmas tree. Are we just so over this whole Christmas season or what? I arrived at work at just before noon today and I swear it was beginning to get dark. Really.

I am very aware of the darkness this winter here in the Northwest. And frankly, if "11 pipers piping" came dancing through my door at this very moment I'd probably shoot them. All of them.

Fortunately I don't have to depend on my emotional state for joy. Emotions pass by like clouds. I know that I will feel the warmth of the sun again. (Of course, that might take quite awhile.) So I leave you with my last Christmas focused quote of this season. It's a great one by Thomas Merton.

"Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. " Thomas Merton

photo from here

Almost there...

It's the 10th day of Christmas and the Magi have traveled so far.

Determined to follow that star, they aren't letting anything stand in their way!

Of course, it would really help if everyone pitched in.

(ok, this graphic is supposed to show the dirt coming
out of the hole as the 3rd wisemen digs under the wall.
i have no idea why it isn't working, but if you click on the
picture you will see it move:)

9th Day of Christmas

"Seasons of Love" is from the Broadway musical "Rent." The lyrics speak of how we measure a year of life & they come to the conclusion that the only way to do so is in seasons of love. As we come closer to the end of the season of Christmas (Day 9) and edge closer to the season of Epiphany, it is good to look back and forward for we all have something in common - we have all experienced 525,600 minutes in 2009. How did you measure those days? How much love did God measure in sending his son to the stable in Bethlehem? As the song says "know that love is a gift from up above." How do you plan to measure your days in 2010? Click here to enjoy the song.

ALL

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes,

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Moments so dear.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights

In cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure

A year in the life?

How about love?

How about love?

How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

JOANNE

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life

Of a woman or a man?

COLLINS

In truths that she learned,

Or in times that he cried.

In bridges he burned,

Or the way that she died.

ALL

It's time now to sing out,

Tho' the story never ends

Let's celebrate

Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love!

Remember the love!

Seasons of love!

JOANNE

Oh you got to got to Remember the love! remember the love,

You Measure in love know that love is a gift from up above Seasons of love.

Share love, give love spread love Measure measure your life in love.

8th day of Christmas

What? How can it be the 8th day of Christmas if it's New Year's Day? Haven't we moved on? Aren't we busy making resolutions that will last about as long as it takes us to write them down? According to several online news sources the following are the most popular resolutions made by Americans:

1) Spend more time with family

(and with the high level of unemployment this is becoming much easier to do)

2) Exercise

       3) Lose Weight

        4) Quit Smoking

5) Enjoy life more (which if you did #2,#3,#4, & #6, could actually happen,

unless of course your only enjoyment in life comes from #2, #3, #4 & #6.)

      6) Quit Drinking

        7) Get out of debt

                   8) Learn something new

 9) Help others

   10) Get organized

Over the years I've made almost all of those & broken every one of them. They are all great things to do and I would not discourage anyone from attempting any of them. It's the hope of being human that we want to make changes both in and for ourselves. So no matter where I'm at with any of these desires for change, I want to delight in the realization that God is in all aspects of life. And here is the good news - this has been gifted to us through the love and light of a child born to Mary, who on this 8th day of Christmas is given the holy name of Jesus - Savior.

And this is my resolution for 2010. To live each day in that love - by becoming more present to the good and the bad, the light and the darkness, the joys and the sorrows, the extraordinary and the mundane moments - remembering that God is "with me" in all of it. May you know that God will be "with you" in all the moments of this coming year.

Midnight Prayer for New Year's Eve

Midnight Prayer

by Richard Rohr

God of the seasons, Lover of the ages,

Master of every moment:

You who are beyond time yet within all time.

We return to you what you have given to us —

the moments, the minutes, the hours, the days,
the weeks, the months, and the year of  2009.

Time has been gracious to us again,

and we thank you for freely giving us these human bodies,

these events, and these relationships.

We have lived another year and we have died another year,

and now you are granting us the beginnings of another.

We now hand over to you the blessed year, 2009,

with all that it gave us and all that it took from us,

knowing that both are necessary, just like our breath.

We trust you in both the givings and the takings,

the inhalings and the exhalings.

May every breath of 2010 be a breath of the Holy Spirit,

joyfully received and joyfully returned,

beginning with this one right now.

Amen.

here is my suggestion for a new year's resolution:

subscribe to Richard Rohr's daily meditations for more great prayers.

(artwork is available from Inkslinger Art.)

Happy New Year!

6th Day of Christmas - Jesus & Women

"Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were

first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.

They had never known a man like this Man -

there never has been such another.

A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them,

never flattered or coaxed or patronised:

who never made arch jokes about them...;

who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension;

who took their questions and arguments seriously;

who never mapped out their sphere for them,

never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female;

who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend;

who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious.

There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel

that borrows its pungency from female perversity;

nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus

that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature."

(Dorothy Sayers, as quoted in the book "Freeing Theology")

5th Day of Christmas

Since I'm out of town today this is the best I could do!

4th Day of Christmas

Just when I'm starting to feel all warm and cuddly with the Baby Jesus in his manger, here comes the 4th day of Christmas and the Feast of the Holy Innocents to truly put a "harsh" on my Christmas "mellow."

If you recall this horrific tale, Herod slaughters all baby boys under 2 in his vile effort to kill this new king that the Wise Men were seeking. Jesus is born and blood is shed. Innocent blood....Baby blood. I don't like it and I doubt that I'm supposed to just turn the page to the next more "pleasant" bible story - so I'll act like Mary and ponder this one for a bit.

What were her thoughts when she heard about all those other mothers and fathers whose children were murdered because of her son? Was she overcome with fear? Or was she able to hold on to the "Fear Not" message of the angel Gabriel? Did she wonder if her own child would die at some point? I don't know....but this I do know:

1) Jesus changed everything but not in the cuddly cozy way that I like to picture. The light arrived and the darkness fought back. 2)Seeking Jesus proved to be very dangerous for the Magi and deadly for many who have sought him since then.  3) This world is filled with power-hungry Herods. They are countless. So long sweet baby Jesus. Hello the reality of the sin of the world. And 4) It is through his life and death that the darkness is overcome.  Alleluia!

As for the photo....There are so many disturbing artistic depictions of the slaughter of the innocents that I instead chose to share this picture I took of the Angel of Harmony. She sits in Thanksgiving Square on the Belfast waterfront, holding a ring of thanksgiving, with her feet on the globe.

While there I could not stop thinking of the many innocents killed in this small corner of the world.  Let us remember to pray for all children around this world today who are suffering at the hands of yet another Herod.

3rd Day of Chrismas

I know this photo has been making the rounds since the beginning of the decorating season, but I wanted to acknowledge the cleverness involved. Bravo!

It's Not Over

Hmmm....looks like I missed Christmas posting and here it is the day after. I had to take down my tree this morning before it spontaneously combusted. It was so dry and it's only the second day of Christmas. We have 10 more days to go! Thanks to the poet Ann Weems, whom I have enjoyed quoting all this season, I do know that this birthing of Christ is decidedly not over.  This is a good thing, a very good thing.

Often this season I would hear someone say, "Jesus is the reason for the season" and/or "Let's put Christ back in CHRISTmas," as if we only pulled Christ out once a year to be carefully positioned within our ceramic creches. But we are continually giving birth to Christ in our daily lives.  Well, Ann says it better than I can....go ahead...read her words...

"It is not over,

this birthing.

There are always newer skies

into which

God can throw stars.

When we begin to think

that we can predict the Advent of God,

that we can box the Christ

in a stable in Bethlehem,

that's just the time

that God will be born

in a place we can't imagine and won't believe.

Those who wait for God

watch with their hearts and not their eyes,

listening

always listening

for angel words."

- Ann Weems

Are you curious as to where and when God will be born in the coming year for you?

Silent Night, Holy Night

I wonder what they were thinking that night
as they made their way to that dark and cold stable?

"Into this silent night

as we make our weary way

we know not where,

just when the night becomes its darkest

and we cannot see our path,

just then

is when the angels rush in,

their hands full of stars."

-Ann Weems

Coat of many layers

I'm in need of something humorous....and so on this night before Christmas Eve I give you Liberace's coat of 5 layers (if you include the collar)....wonder if it's mink? silly question?

Also, I've heard of all these songs except for "Gesu Bambino"

Redemptive Ripples

'Like a stone on the surface of a still river

Driving the ripples on forever

Redemption rips through the surface of time

In the cry of a tiny babe'

Bruce Cockburn
click here for the rest of the lyrics of this classic re-telling of the story

Christmas Spirit

As we head towards the New Year,
are you finding this to be the case?

"Next to a circus there ain't nothing
that packs up and tears out faster than
the Christmas spirit."
- Kim Hubbard

Feast of the Holy Innocents

And here we have the 3rd feast day of the first week of Christmas. This time an enraged King Herod orders the murders of all boys in the area under the age of two in an attempt to kill this new "king" the wise men had told him about. Merry Christmas?

This is another one of those mysterious paradoxes - the birth of a Savior and the death of innocent babies. No sooner had Jesus arrived on Earth and someone was trying to kill Him. There have been various numbers thrown around over the centuries. Were 144,000 or 14,000 slaughtered? Or perhaps it was between 400 and 4? Bethlehem was a small village so the number was probably on the lower end of the scale but regardless of the number - if it was your son that Herod was after then one would have been too many.

So who are the Herods that children around the world fear today? And what is our responsibility? May we see Christ in every child we encounter today, realizing that we are all called to nurture and protect the innocent.

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The icon: troparion for the holy innocents - "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation: Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they were no more."

St. John the Apostle/Evangelist

Today is the feast of John the Apostle/Evangelist. Like many of the other disciples he had several claims to fame - here are a few:
- He was the first male disciple to believe that Jesus had actually risen from the dead.
-He was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
-He is believed to have written the book of Revelation.
But my favorite is that,
- He was asked by Jesus himself to care for his mother. And as I looked at the many images available online this one struck me as the most tender - Jesus was a good son - not only to his heavenly father but to his earthly mum. So for all of His talk as to who was or wasn't a family member (Matthew 12: 46-50), as He neared death on the cross, He took a moment to make sure Mary was cared for. May we realize today that Christ is always taking care of each and every one of us.
This crucifixion view is : 'The Virgin, Saint Dominic de Guzman, Saint John the Evangelist', painting by Juan de Borgoña, c. 1515, the Louvre (my only question about this painting is - why doesn't mary have a halo like everyone else? did it slip behind her head? )