STORY OF THE DAY - FASHION ANGEL

these are multi-purpose wings & when
she's not flying they accessorize nicely
with almost anything she wears

From StoryPeople.

Nice.

LET THE JOY AND HAPPINESS BEGIN!

I borrowed the image from my friend Dan at Facebook, and I promise to return it at the end of 2012.

And the Peanuts gang from Doug and me.

If you think I'm watching football today, think again. I will have a bowl of Grandpère's delicious vegetable soup, with cheese and crackers and a glass of wine, and then I will chill.

Last night we attended a very nice, low-key party, with good food and good company, and almost, but not quite, made it to the turn of the New Year, as we made our departure at around 11:25 PM in 2011.

UPDATE: I found an old piece of paper with this quote from the New York Review of Books copied in May of 1998 in my KJV, which I used for the Bible readings today.

A poem of Goethe's describes a quiet scholar returning from a party. "How was it?" he was asked.

"If the people there were books, I would not read them."

Not my party!

A BLESSED AND JOYOUS NEW YEAR!

Stonehaven Fireballs Ceremony 2003

Celebrating the New Year in the Scottish style:

HOGMANAY

WE are come to the door,
To see if we be the better of our visit,
To tell the generous women of the townland
That to-morrow is Calendae Day.

May God bless the dwelling,
Each stone, and beam, and stave,
All food, and drink, and clothing,
May health of men be always there.

Should the guisers be inhospitably treated, they file round the fire withershins and walk out, and raise a cairn in or near the door, called 'carnan mollachd,' cairn of malison, 'carnan cronachd,' scaith cairn.

They tramp loudly, shaking the dust of the place off their feet, and intoning with a deep voice the following and other malediction.

The malison of God and of Hogmanay be on you,
And the scath of the plaintive buzzard,
Of the hen-harrier, of the raven, of the eagle,
And the scath of the sneaking fox.

The scath of the dog and of the cat be on you,
Of the boar, of the badger, and of the 'brugha,'
Of the hipped bear and of the wild wolf,
And the scath of the foul foumart.

THE BLESSING OF THE NEW YEAR

GOD, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbour,
May my neighbour bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.

Benedictions and maledictions from Carmina Gadelica here and here.



Robert Burns - "Auld Lang Syne"

A lovely version sung by Dougie MacLean from the album "Tribute".

Click on the snowflake for the snow effect.

New Year's Prayer

Dear Lord, please give me…
A few friends who understand me and remain my friends;
A work to do which has real value,
without which the world would be the poorer;
A mind unafraid to travel, even though the trail be not blazed;
An understanding heart;
A sense of humor;
Time for quiet, silent meditation;
A feeling of the presence of God;
The patience to wait for the coming of these things,
With the wisdom to recognize them when they come. Amen.

New Year prayer from Appleseed.

THE TRAVELS OF IZZIE AND AMELIA

My friend Amelia is driving cross-country with Princess Izzie. Amelia and Izzie stopped for lunch at my franchise in Arizona, pictured above. I told her I hoped she had been well-served by the staff, and if not, I would be after them. Amelia assured me:

June, the staff was friendly and efficient. No need to hassle them. Between all the Mimi and June franchises you are one busy woman. :-)

I'm glad to hear it. The employees in all my franchises are well-trained in the art of serving well.

I'm told the little princess, pictured below, did not want to get up and on the road this morning.

Izzie luv, you will never reach your destination, if you lounge around in bed all morning.

FOR THE EARLY BIRDS WHO ARE ALREADY IN THE YEAR 2012

A friend at Facebook posted the greeting, with the comment, "Well, it IS French ...," and I could not resist.

HE PITCHED HIS TENT AMONGST US

The Very Rev Tracey Lind preached one of the best Christmas sermons I've come across in my life at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio.

The real symbol of Christmas is not the Christmas tree, Santa Claus, an angel, or even a star; no, the real symbol of Christmas is a newborn baby. Writing from a Nazi prison during World War II, Dietrich Bonhoeffer articulated this radical truth about Christmas. “We are talking about the birth of a child, not the revolutionary act of a strong man, not the breathtaking discovery of a sage, not the pious act of a saint.”
....

The paradox of Christmas is that God chose to enter the world in the very form to which human beings are drawn, and yet in circumstances from which we tend to turn away. Jesus – Emmanuel – God with us was born as a homeless baby on a bed of straw in a cold and dirty stable, amid barn animals. His parents were poor and unwed, a teenage mother and her fiancé who were forced to travel far from home to register for taxes with an oppressive government. Then, after a brief but powerful ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing, at the age of thirty-three, he was condemned of treason and heresy, and executed as a criminal on a cross of wood. Our God’s coming into the world was like that of thousands of children born in similar circumstances every day; his ministry has been both an inspiration and a threat to people, institutions, governments, and yes, even churches throughout the ages; and his death has been repeated all too often in virtually every country on earth.
....

As I stand among you tonight, I am mindful of those who, because of war, economic hardship or natural disaster, are forced to sleep in tents and under tarps around the world, and I know that the Risen Christ is dwelling among them. But I’m also aware of those who are intentionally pitching tents on public squares, sidewalks, parks, parking lots, and even church steps as part of what-has-come-to be- known-as the Occupy Movement; and I keep seeing the face of Jesus in that crowd.
....

This fumbling, stumbling and sometimes bumbling coalition of young people, many of whom are graduating from college with enormous debt and limited job prospects, joining forces with the out-of-work middle-aged and out-of-luck elders, are doing their best to speak and act prophetically about the transformation they see as essential in today’s world.
....

You see, when God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, God comes and sleeps beside us, sometimes as a new born child and sometimes as homeless adult. And then God waits to see how we respond.

Please read the entire sermon, especially the conclusion, which proclaims the gift of hope, the Good News that the Christ Incarnate dwells amongst us.

While growing up, I heard over and over in my Roman Catholic school religion classes that Easter, the feast of Christ's Resurrection, was the greatest feast in the church. All the children I knew, and I include myself, thought Christmas was the greatest feast, and I wonder if this idea of the children was not just about Santa and presents, but rather that they grasped, if only in a shadowy way, a truth that grown-ups miss. Once again, in my dotage, filled with awe and wonder, I've come to believe that the Incarnation/Nativity, the momentous event of God come down to be one of us, born a helpless babe, human, just like us, sharing our joys and sorrows, is the greatest feast of the Christian church. Without the Incarnation, none of the rest of the Jesus story, including the Resurrection, would have happened.

And I've run on about the Occupy movement probably to the point of boring some of you, and I'm not sure where the movement will go, but I believe the Christian churches ought to be a presence with the rag-tag groups who have pitched their tents around the country, because who knows but that they are God's angels, bearing messages we need to hear?

The lovely Nativity set is Raku pottery and belongs to Penelopepiscopal at One Cannot Have Too Large a Party.

TWO STORIES OF THE DAY

Eye For Stuff

sees a lot of stuff other people miss

Soul Mate

How can you be sure it has a soul? she
said. You can't, I said, unless you've got
one yourself.

From StoryPeople here and here.

SHARK CHALLENGE

A millionaire decides to throw a massive party for his 50th birthday, and during this party he grabs the microphone and he announces to his guests that down in the garden of his mansion he has a swimming pool with two great white sharks in it. "I will give anything I own, anything he desires, to the man who dares to swim across that pool."

So the party continues with no events in the pool, until suddenly there is a great splash, and all the guests of the party run to the pool to see what has happened.

In the pool is a man, and he is swimming as hard as he possibly can. The fins come out of the water and the jaws are snapping and this guy just keeps on going and the sharks are gaining on him and this guy reaches the end and he gets out of the pool, soaked to the skin and exhausted and breathing hard.

The millionaire grabs the microphone and says, "I am a man of my word: Anything of mine I will give -- my Ferraris, my house, absolutely anything -- for you are the bravest man I have ever seen."

"So, sir, what will it be?" the millionaire asks.

The guy grabs the microphone and says, "Why don't we start with the name of the bastard who pushed me in!"


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

Better him than me, as I am a very poor swimmer.

Image from Wikipedia.

FEAST DAY OF FRANCES JOSEPH-GAUDET

From the Lectionary:

Frances Joseph-Gaudet (1861- December 1934), prison reform worker and educator, was born in a log cabin in Holmesville, Mississippi of African American and Native American descent. She was raised by her grandparents. Later she went to live with a brother in New Orleans where she attended school and Straight College. Widowed early, she dedicated her life to prison reform. Beginning in 1894 she held prayer meetings, wrote letters, delivered messages, and secured clothing for black prisoners, and later for white prisoners as well. Her dedication to prisoners and prison reform won her the respect of prison officials, city authorities, the governor, and the Prison Reform Association. A delegate to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union international convention in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1900, she worked for the reform of young blacks arrested for misdemeanor or vagrancy. Joseph-Gaudet was the first woman to support juvenile offenders in Louisiana, and her efforts helped found the juvenile court. She eventually purchased a farm and founded the Gaudet Normal and Industrial School. The school, which eventually expanded to 105 acres and numerous buildings, also served as a boarding school for children with working mothers. Joseph-Gaudet served as principal of the school until 1921 when she donated the school to the Episcopal Church of Lousiana. Though the school closed in 1950, the Gaudet Episcopal Home opened in the same location four years later to serve African American children ages four to sixteen. The endowment fund currently supports St. Luke’s Community Center on North Dorgenois Street, where a hall honors Frances Joseph-Gaudet

PRAYER

Merciful God, who raised up your servant Frances Joseph-Gaudet to work for prison reform and the education of her people: Grant that we, encouraged by the example of her life, may work for those who are denied the fullness of life by reasons of incarceration and lack of access to education ; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thanks be to God for one or our own here in Louisiana, who took up the cause of prisoners and prison conditions, a cause that still today is often neglected in this country which is No. 1 in the world (per capita) in the number of persons imprisoned, even as Louisiana, along with Alabama and Oklahoma, is one of the top three states in the country in numbers of persons incarcerated.

Psalm 146

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

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.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The Lord will reign for ever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him,* God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

UPDATE: Please read Margaret Watson's reflection at Speaking to the Soul. Margaret blogs at Leave it lay where Jesus flang it.

'AN EMERGING CHURCH'

From George Packard at Occupied Bishop:

I had another interview with Thom Hartmann....

All to say--as I mention during the interview--that when I was on top of that ladder at the Duarte property and about to take that plunge into trespassing things all got very clear. Our dear Church is being re-formed whether we like it or not. It is just exciting!

Blase Bonpane, Director of the Office of the America & Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard join Thom Hartmann....