Is It Just Us?

We're back home from Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter's house. Is it just my family, or do others have chaotic gatherings on holidays?

I tend to have my prearranged picture of how things will go. Leisurely hors d'oeuvres and wine sipping, then all of us moving along calmly to the dinner table. Everyone behaves, the food is tasty, and the conversation sparkles.

But, no. The men and the boys rush at the main-meal food as though today's dinner will be their last meal for a long time. Where's this, where's that? I need a spoon! Then an argument ensues about a trip to Disney World which will not take place until February. Once we get those two to postpone the argument to a later time, the dream of leisurely hors d'oeuvres dies, and the rest of us make our way to the dinner table, where some are half finished eating their meals. Grandpère says a blessing, and there we are around the table - all of us - for a brief time. The food is delicious. That part of my ideal picture comes to be.

Afterwards, the adults manage to have something resembling a conversation for a couple of hours, in spite of the football game on TV, and boys wrestling on the floor, and the occasional howl from one of the wrestlers, who has been hurt.

Then, we come home. One holiday past, one to go. Christmas will be at our house. Oh, joy.

Thus endeth the family Thanksgiving saga.

Seriously, one of the things that I am thankful for is that my children live nearby, and that we can be together for our wild family gatherings without long drives or plane trips.

Thanks to all of you for your good wishes for the holiday. I'm thankful for my virtual friends, even the virtual friends whom I have met, to quote Johnieb, "...many of whom aren't that bad in person, on first acquaintance".

A Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!

A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.

For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:1-5



A Litany of Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks to God our Father for all his gifts so
freely bestowed upon us.

For the beauty and wonder of your creation, in earth and
sky and sea.
We thank you, Lord.

For all that is gracious in the lives of men and women,
revealing the image of Christ,
We thank you, Lord.

For our daily food and drink, our homes and families, and
our friends,
We thank you, Lord.

For minds to think, and hearts to love, and hands to serve,
We thank you, Lord.

For health and strength to work, and leisure to rest and play,
We thank you, Lord.

For the brave and courageous, who are patient in suffering
and faithful in adversity,
We thank you, Lord.

For all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice,
We thank you, Lord.

For the communion of saints, in all times and places,
We thank you, Lord.

Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and
promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord;
To him be praise and glory, with you, O Father, and the
Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer 836-7

The photo shows the altar at San Cristóbal in Panamá, decorated for "Harvest Thanksgiving". San Cristóbal is Padre Mickey's parish church. I hope that he does not mind my stealing his photo. Isn't the altar beautiful?

What Social Status Am I?

What Social Status are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as alternative You're partially respected for being an individual in a conformist world yet others take you as a radical. You have no place in society because you choose not to belong there - you're the luckiest of them all, even if your parents are completely ashamed of you. Just don't take drugs ok? alternative 58% Middle Class 42% Lower Class 33% Upper middle Class 25% Luxurious Upper Class 17%

My result cracked me up. Thank you, Roger, for finding it. I love it.

My parents, God rest their souls, are likely rolling in their graves.

Feast Of St. Edmund The Martyr

Image:The Wilton Diptych(Edmund detail) from Wiki.

Pagan hordes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, invaded England and killed Christians before they became christianized, and then more pagan hordes, the Danes, invaded England and killed Christians before they became christianized.

In the ninth century, St. Edmund was King of East Anglia, after the first wave of invaders had become Christian. When the next wave of pagan invaders conquered his territory, he was given a chance to submit to the Danes, on the condition that he forbid the practice of the Christian faith, but he refused and was abused and killed. He was buried in the town of (have a guess) Bury St. Edmonds in East Anglia.

From James Kiefer at the Lectionary.


READINGS:

Psalm 21:1-7 or 126
1 Peter 3:14-18
Matthew 10:16-22

PRAYER

O God of ineffable mercy, who gave grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for your Name: Bestow on us your servants the shield of faith, with which we can withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Blogger down!

Friends of Eileen, (or even if you're not her friend, yet) the Episcopali Fem, go give her some love. She's had a really bad day - really, really bad.

How Low Can You get?

From KDKA via Your Right Hand Thief and other vias and additional information at Oyster's site:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

Fox received a $10,000 enlistment bonus.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

He will never be able to pursue his career as a policeman.

Honestly, you think you've heard the absolute worst about the treatment of those sent off to the killing fields to fight our wars once they return home, but then comes news like this, which leaves me close to speechless.

Fox's mother, Susan Wardezak, started Operation Pittsburgh Pride, which sends gift packages to the troops in Iraq.

UPDATE: It appears that "thousands" of troops may have received letters similar to that of Jordan Fox. TPM Muckraker has a video of an interview with Brigadier General Michael Tucker, who is investigating the problem. The general said, "This doesn't pass the common sense test," and, "We're not sure what happened but we're gonna fix it."

I hope so.

Feast Day Of St. Elizabeth Of Hungary

Nederlands: Sint Elisabethskerk in Grave, The Netherlands - Elisabeth 5

The feast day of Elizabeth was yesterday, November 19, but I ran out of time to post. Like St. Margaret of Scotland, Elizabeth is another model of compassionate royalty. Her royal spouse joined her in her sympathy for and desire to help the poor and sick. She began her good works while she was still in her teenage years, influenced by the example of St. Francis of Assisi.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Also called St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, born in Hungary, probably at Pressburg, 1207; died at Marburg, Hesse, 17 November (not 19 November), 1231.

She was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary (1205-35) and his wife Gertrude....

From Wiki:

At the age of four, Elisabeth was betrothed to Louis IV of Thuringia, called the Blessed.
....

In 1221, at the age of 14, Elisabeth married Louis, and the marriage appears to have been happy. In 1223, Franciscan monks arrived, and the teenage Elizabeth not only learned about the ideals of Francis of Assisi, but started to live them. Louis was not upset by his wife's charitable efforts believing that the distribution of his wealth to the poor would bring eternal reward; he is venerated in Thuringia as a saint (without being canonized by the Church, unlike his wife).

She became a widow at the age of twenty, when her husband died of the plague while on the Sixth Crusade. She took a vow of celibacy and placed herself under the discipline of a harsh spiritual director, inquisitor, Konrad von Marburg, who sometimes administered beatings as punishments, when she did not follow his directives. (Appalling! Imagine having an inquisitor as a spiritual director.) Elizabeth died young, at the age of 24.

The many hospitals named St. Elizabeth are named after this saint, not, as many believe, after the mother of Mary,

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

Psalm 146:5-7

Information not in quotes and image also from Wiki.

From the Lectionary

READINGS:

Psalm 146:4-9 or 112:1-9
Tobit 12:6b-9
Matthew 25:31-40 or Luke 12:32-34

PRAYER

Almighty God, by your grace your servant Elizabeth of Hungary recognized and honored Jesus in the poor of this world: Grant that we, following her example, may with love and gladness serve those in any need or trouble, in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

From Riverbend In Syria

Riverbend, the Baghdad blogger, has a new post on her blog. Thanks be to God! Her previous post was from September 6. This one has been up since October 22. Has it really been that long since I checked in? I'm ashamed to say that I must have given up looking.

Syria is a beautiful country- at least I think it is. I say “I think” because while I perceive it to be beautiful, I sometimes wonder if I mistake safety, security and normalcy for ‘beauty’. In so many ways, Damascus is like Baghdad before the war- bustling streets, occasional traffic jams, markets seemingly always full of shoppers… And in so many ways it’s different. The buildings are higher, the streets are generally narrower and there’s a mountain, Qasiyoun, that looms in the distance.

Riverbend and her family have only temporary visas in Syria. Where will they go when the visas expire? She tells the harrowing story of her family's trip back into Iraq to enter Syria again to get visas that were good for a few added months. Then, the realization that she and her family are refugees hits home.

By the time we had reentered the Syrian border and were headed back to the cab ready to take us into Kameshli, I had resigned myself to the fact that we were refugees. I read about refugees on the Internet daily… in the newspapers… hear about them on TV. I hear about the estimated 1.5 million plus Iraqi refugees in Syria and shake my head, never really considering myself or my family as one of them. After all, refugees are people who sleep in tents and have no potable water or plumbing, right? Refugees carry their belongings in bags instead of suitcases and they don’t have cell phones or Internet access, right? Grasping my passport in my hand like my life depended on it, with two extra months in Syria stamped inside, it hit me how wrong I was. We were all refugees. I was suddenly a number. No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee. A refugee is someone who isn’t really welcome in any country- including their own... especially their own.

This is the "freedom" that Bush has spread to Iraq - the "freedom" to become refugees. This is the picture of their "liberation" from Saddam. Lord, deliver us all from Bush's good deeds.

We live in an apartment building where two other Iraqis are renting. The people in the floor above us are a Christian family from northern Iraq who got chased out of their village by Peshmerga and the family on our floor is a Kurdish family who lost their home in Baghdad to militias and were waiting for immigration to Sweden or Switzerland or some such European refugee haven.

The first evening we arrived, exhausted, dragging suitcases behind us, morale a little bit bruised, the Kurdish family sent over their representative – a 9 year old boy missing two front teeth, holding a lopsided cake, “We’re Abu Mohammed’s house- across from you- mama says if you need anything, just ask- this is our number. Abu Dalia’s family live upstairs, this is their number. We’re all Iraqi too... Welcome to the building.”

I cried that night because for the first time in a long time, so far away from home, I felt the unity that had been stolen from us in 2003.

Yes, Saddam was a cruel despot and caused the deaths and torture of many. But are the Iraqis better off now? Have we actually done the people of Iraq any good with our violent intervention?

What Classic Movie Am I?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Oh, no! This is awful. Couldn't I be a Jewish mother? Is there no classic movie on the subject of Jewish mothers?

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. I ask you: do I look like Marlon Brando? No. Don't answer that.

I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier

Below are the lyrics of the chorus to the WWI era song, "I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier":

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy,
Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away,
There’d be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.

My mother-in-law used to sing the song. My father-in-law was a doughboy in World War I. We have a photo of him in his full uniform. When the war was over, he brought home his army blanket, which is now a remnant, due to the moths having dined on it for years, and his rifle and three helmets, one American, one French, and one German. The German helmet has a bullet hole clear through one side of it.

We also have an old French sword which my father-in-law said was given to him by a French woman whose husband had died in the war. He was single when he was in the war, and we wondered if there was a romantic story behind the gift of the sword, but he never said.

Grandpère grew up to be a soldier of sorts, but not a fighting soldier. During the 1960s, he joined the Army Reserves and served six months active duty and 5 1/2 years as a reservist. During the Cuban missile crisis, he came within a couple of hours of being called up, but the crisis eased. That's his war story.

Here's a link to an old recording of the song at History Matters.

Thanks to the Weird Rabbit for the link to the song.

World War I recruiting poster from Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado.