tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-121595222024-03-16T03:08:27.640-04:00Home in the railroad earth...in homes of the railroad earth when high in the sky the magic stars ride above the hotshot freight trains...
-Jack Kerouac, "October in the Railroad Earth"steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.comBlogger251125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-2362353943185149672023-11-01T20:33:00.006-04:002023-11-01T20:33:30.495-04:00"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUz3joFCnkDmGovR5pzHKfiK2ysPfZLIBCqlP8UVHc37RgB7hcIZL_xjwpwAirwgwrLy8PRh4X5NQ99ykdtAQxTunAg5MXGIF42YuuQqrFRJ7iSNQpc5LIRQ6QWmYQH_JAJr4sQQnYVo4guy_SSFBoyizID9UjLS1glbcsMaety6o-Jkpf4nKwlA/s800/All-Saints.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="800" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUz3joFCnkDmGovR5pzHKfiK2ysPfZLIBCqlP8UVHc37RgB7hcIZL_xjwpwAirwgwrLy8PRh4X5NQ99ykdtAQxTunAg5MXGIF42YuuQqrFRJ7iSNQpc5LIRQ6QWmYQH_JAJr4sQQnYVo4guy_SSFBoyizID9UjLS1glbcsMaety6o-Jkpf4nKwlA/s320/All-Saints.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Or wait—try All Saints. That’s what they call places when
they can’t decide on a single saint.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-Garmus, Bonnie. “Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chemist and television cooking show host Elizabeth Zott, the
main character in “Lessons in Chemistry,” is an avowed atheist, but has a soft
spot for a Presbyterian minister named Wakely, who isn’t given a first name.
Wakely, who gives the eulogy for Elizabeth Zott’s partner, Calvin Evans, later
befriends Elizabeth’s young daughter Mad (sometimes called Madeline, but
legally “Mad”), who is trying to find information about her late father. She
knows he lived in a Catholic orphanage in Iowa, and while Mad can’t find its
name in the Sioux City phone book (this is 1962) under “Saint,” Wakely makes
the quip about “All Saints.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which is a roundabout way of introducing the Feast of All
Saints, celebrated in many Christian churches on November 1. It may be one of
the purest Christian holidays because it’s been eclipsed by the pagan holiday
it was meant to supplant. If Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster are correct, the
celebration of All Saints on the first day of November began in the eighth
century in the British Isles, to provide a Christian alternative to the Celtic
festival of Samhain (pronounced SAH-win in Irish). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Outside the British Isles, the feast had been celebrated in
the spring, but by the ninth century the November 1 date spread across the
English Channel to the Frankish Empire. By the twelfth century, November 1 had
become All Saints’ Day in Western Christendom. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back in Britain, it wasn’t called All Saints’ Day, but All
Hallows, or Hallowmas, from the Old English “hālig,” meaning “holy.” Merriam-Webster
notes: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“All Hallows' used to be a bigger deal—one 17th-century
source notes that ‘the three grand days are All-hallown, Candlemass, and
Ascension day’—and since important feast days usually started the night before
with a vigil, the evening before All Hallows' gained its own notoriety as All
Hallows' Even or All Hallows' Eve. All Hallows' Even was shortened to
Hallow-e'en by the 16th century. The word Hallowe'en began to lose its
apostrophe in the 18th century, though we still have some evidence for the
apostrophized version.” (“The Origin of 'Halloween.' Or 'Hallowe'en'?”) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Celtic tradition, Samhain was a time when the line
between the living and the dead became blurred, and the souls of the dead could
visit the living. Some of the traditions of Samhain, such as wearing masks,
carving vegetables (often turnips) into lanterns, and telling ghost stories, began
to be celebrated on Hallowe’en. The Christian celebration added souling, where
people went through the town asking for cakes, “soulcakes” in exchange for
prayers for deceased relatives, which became the ancestor of trick-or-treating. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Today, Halloween, without the apostrophe, is virtually
divorced from All Saints’ Day. We usually celebrate All Saints’ Day on the Sunday
following November 1. And of course, it isn’t just for people who “can’t decide
on a single saint,” but for all the saints, known and unknown. In the
traditional Episcopal lectionary for All Saints’, the first reading makes it
clear:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10,13-14<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(a commemoration of patriarchs, prophets, and other heroes
of ancient Israel.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Let us now praise famous men,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and our fathers in their generations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The LORD apportioned to them great glory,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">his majesty from the beginning.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and were men renowned for their power,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">giving counsel by their understanding,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and proclaiming prophecies;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">leaders of the people in their deliberations<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and in understanding of learning for the people,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">wise in their words of instruction;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">those who composed musical tunes,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and set forth verses in writing;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">rich men furnished with resources,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">living peaceably in their habitations --<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">all these were honored in their generations,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and were the glory of their times. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are some of them who have left a name,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">so that men declare their praise.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And there are some who have no memorial,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">who have perished as though they had not lived;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">they have become as though they had not been born,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and so have their children after them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But these were men of mercy,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Their posterity will continue for ever,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and their glory will not be blotted out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Their bodies were buried in peace,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and their name lives to all generations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Image: Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455),<b> </b><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.3px;">The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><br />steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-47873198224648791832023-04-13T22:04:00.001-04:002023-04-13T22:04:08.576-04:00Frank Tracy Griswold, R.I.P.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHK7gOYes78eWmW3-bNyw7Rl3rieEBTA8WL4Jc8XocdutrFQzaHXecMdBjhyl7TQzj_ZzHMVaqd2A-YGin9mry5spgVYiQE0zD0hJfARlIAebhgdaVvXQ40iorajGMh7xFcq7TiC1Q9IuLqkIy8QqTdAaDzBMuwS73RxGQKhqytBoMKijoZqE/s1706/2007BishopGriswold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1706" data-original-width="886" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHK7gOYes78eWmW3-bNyw7Rl3rieEBTA8WL4Jc8XocdutrFQzaHXecMdBjhyl7TQzj_ZzHMVaqd2A-YGin9mry5spgVYiQE0zD0hJfARlIAebhgdaVvXQ40iorajGMh7xFcq7TiC1Q9IuLqkIy8QqTdAaDzBMuwS73RxGQKhqytBoMKijoZqE/s320/2007BishopGriswold.jpg" width="166" /></a></div><br />Frank Tracy Griswold III, tenth Bishop of Chicago and 25th
Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, died March 5 at age 85. A scion of a
prominent Philadelphia family and a descendant of two American bishops, he was
instrumental in guiding the church into an era of inclusion, including the
ordination of women and members of the LGBT community. Although very much an
Anglo-Catholic, he helped negotiate the church’s full communion relationship
with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And even before he was bishop, he
participated in the revision of the Book of Common Prayer.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I like to think I participated in his elevation to the episcopate.
In 1984 I was a member of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, a struggling parish on
the West Side of Chicago, when Bishop James Montgomery announced his impending
retirement and called for a bishop coadjutor—one who would become diocesan
bishop on his retirement. Bishop Montgomery had been socially liberal—he had
worked with civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr.—but he was
theologically conservative. He opposed the ordination of women, though he did permit
other bishops to ordain women in the diocese.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After Bishop Montgomery made his announcement, all the parishes
in the diocese were given a chance to weigh in on the candidates for bishop
coadjutor. And for me and the other St. Martin’s vestry members, one Frank T.
Griswold stood out among the rest. We learned that he had been a member of the
group that wrote the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and had been a major
contributor to Eucharistic Prayer B. While I wasn’t a member of the diocesan
convention that elected Frank Griswold, St. Martin’s delegates supported him.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On November 16, 1986, my wife Kathleen, a Roman Catholic,
and I participated in a joint Episcopal-Catholic service. It began at St. James
Episcopal Cathedral, where Episcopal Church bishops Montgomery and Griswold,
and Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin signed a 12-point covenant between
the two churches. We then processed to the Catholic Holy Name Cathedral for the
joint service. Bishop Griswold later wrote of the service: “The Episcopal
diocese of Chicago entered into a covenant with the Roman Catholic archdiocese
in 1985, shortly after I was ordained bishop. In the covenant we agreed to
share resources and to collaborate wherever possible in areas of ministry,
evangelization and service to the poor and needy.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Bishop of Chicago, Griswold welcomed women into the
clergy. His Anglo-Catholic credentials helped ease that transition—by 1997,
when he left the Chicago to become Presiding Bishop, 41 of the diocese’s 146
priests were women. In 1994 he was one of 80 bishops to sign a statement
declaring sexual orientation to be “morally neutral” and that “faithful,
monogamous, committed” gay relationships were worthy of honor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His election as Presiding Bishop brought him to the center
of the worldwide Anglican struggle over the role of both women and the LGBT
community in the church. In 2003 he presided over the consecration of Gene
Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the church. “I see no
impediment to assenting to the overwhelming choice” of the diocese’s
constituents, Griswold said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the midst of this controversy, he presided of the 2000
General Convention’s ratification of ''Called to Common Mission,” the compact
with Evangelical Lutheran Church, which allows Lutheran pastors to serve in Episcopal
churches and vice versa. Again, his High Church background was surely a factor
in its passage. And he was co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International
Commission from 1998 to 2003.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, his successor as Presiding
Bishop, praised Griswold as a “peaceable diplomat,” who navigated the church
though controversial times. “That journey was not easy, but he led from the
heart he knew. And sometimes that heart prompted surprising humor, slipped in
slantwise,” Jefferts Schori said. “We give thanks for his steady and
sacrificial leadership, his deep wisdom and lightheartedness, and his care not
only for this chafing church, but for all God’s creatures.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Originally written for The Tower, a publication of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana. Photo credit, Randy Greve via Wikimedia Commons.</p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-9238615464911127922022-02-02T16:09:00.000-05:002022-02-02T16:09:19.457-05:00The Feast of the Presentation, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7dYHAm1SSP6OQwPFkj2fcKxRDHdjOkjZcMSNbMQ3XwGt5xrEbTsKwteUaE6PqJMQa9fzlhw0px9l0lgoF3ETQBX126qjUxB0bTLgs3qedJ69MblonagC4-SvUbmTz7NMmU5Pr63CGB_jdBmYgRSmKzqpeiORgAk_Ot0lxpztYQvBqfYnAs4U=s3930" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3066" data-original-width="3930" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7dYHAm1SSP6OQwPFkj2fcKxRDHdjOkjZcMSNbMQ3XwGt5xrEbTsKwteUaE6PqJMQa9fzlhw0px9l0lgoF3ETQBX126qjUxB0bTLgs3qedJ69MblonagC4-SvUbmTz7NMmU5Pr63CGB_jdBmYgRSmKzqpeiORgAk_Ot0lxpztYQvBqfYnAs4U=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Feast of the
Presentation, also known as Candlemas, celebrated February 2, forty days after
Christmas Day, marks the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, as told in Luke,
2:23-24 : “When the time came for their purification according to the law of
Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is
written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as
holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in
the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’” (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Under Mosaic law
(Leviticus 12:2-8), women were considered unclean for forty days after giving birth
to a male child and sixty-six days after bearing a female child. Once the period
of purification was complete the woman would bring to the priest a lamb for a burnt
offering and a pigeon or dove for a sin offering. But “If she cannot afford a
sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering
and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement on her
behalf, and she shall be clean.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luke doesn’t
mention that Joseph and Mary could not afford a sheep, but his audience would
have been aware of it. But Luke’s focus isn’t on the ceremony, but on two
elderly people in the temple. The first, Simeon, had received a revelation from
the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s
Messiah. Guided by the Holy Spirit, he enters the Temple, and when Joseph and
Mary bring Jesus to be presented, he takes the infant in his arms and utters
one of the most beautiful short prayers in the New Testament, which is best rendered
in the poetry of the King James Version:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;"> according to thy word;</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, </span><br />
<span style="background: white;"> which thou hast prepared
before the face of all people,</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, </span><br />
<span style="background: white;"> and to be the glory of
thy people Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Simeon blesses the child, but gives a prophetic warning:</span>
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of
many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner
thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Luke follows with the story of the prophet Anna, “the
daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher,” and “a widow of about fourscore
and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with
fastings and prayers night and day.” (KJV) She recognizes the infant Messiah as
soon as his family enters the temple.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">While Luke’s aim is to convince his readers that that Jesus
is the Messiah, the solemn feast of the Presentation has since become comingled
with Roman, Celtic, and Germanic traditions. In ancient Rome, the festival of
Februa, the Etruscan god of purification and the underworld, took place on the February
1. February 2, falling midway between the winter solstice and the spring
equinox, is the first Cross Quarter Day, when the Celts celebrated Imbolic,
which marked the lactation of ewes and the anticipation of the spring lambing
season.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Christians celebrated the feast with candlelight processions
and the blessing of candles, reminding us of Simeon’s prophecy that Christ will
be “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” and the day became known as Candlemas. It
marked the end of the Christmas-Epiphany season. And as English folklore tells
us,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">“If Candlemas be fair and bright,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Come winter, have another flight.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Go winter, and come not again.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Goudy Old Style",serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But it’s the German version of this European belief that we
know best. According to German legend, if a badger poked its head out of its
den and saw its shadow on February 2, winter would continue for weeks. A cloudy
day, when it could not see its shadow, meant the end of winter. When the
Germans came to Pennsylvania, the groundhog replaced the badger, and the
tradition caught on. Happy Groundhog Day, and a blessed Candlemas!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Goudy Old Style", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Image: Jacopo Tintoretto, "Presentation of Jesus in the Temple," circa 1590.</span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-16678339671403509402022-01-06T08:02:00.001-05:002022-01-06T08:06:54.376-05:00"God in man made manifest": The Feast of the Epiphany<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbb30h9VWOkt-VNplzqxP1i6QDuMFiWK0or4a1k0i0Rugz4r5MQuP6na0P3z_EzlL0mZ90qjguX2KA_JAJBtMs8gsgzADpYE1wk8aG2mqslmQ2DvTQYAORAudPnRn6xiZdlZ3JWQfAAAApOaNelVg1nh0d_T87B0Cl_ZFSQbNXxPFRB4UlAKk=s1920" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1022" data-original-width="1920" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbb30h9VWOkt-VNplzqxP1i6QDuMFiWK0or4a1k0i0Rugz4r5MQuP6na0P3z_EzlL0mZ90qjguX2KA_JAJBtMs8gsgzADpYE1wk8aG2mqslmQ2DvTQYAORAudPnRn6xiZdlZ3JWQfAAAApOaNelVg1nh0d_T87B0Cl_ZFSQbNXxPFRB4UlAKk=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p class="poetrytext" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 30.0pt; margin-right: 24.0pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 24pt 3pt 30pt; text-indent: -24pt;"><span class="initcap"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif;">A</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif;">rise, shine; for your
light has come,<br />
and the glory of the <span class="lordsmallcaps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span> has risen upon you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="poetrytext" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 30.0pt; margin-right: 24.0pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 24pt 3pt 30pt; text-indent: -24pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif;">For darkness shall cover the earth,<br />
and thick darkness the peoples;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="poetrytext" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 30.0pt; margin-right: 24.0pt; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 24pt 3pt 30pt; text-indent: -24pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif;">but the <span class="lordsmallcaps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span> will arise upon you,<br />
and his glory will appear over you.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">-Isaiah 60: 1-2 (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Today, if you mention January 6, most Americans will
think of a mob storming the U.S. Capitol. It was an unhappy coincidence, for
January 6 marks the solemn feast of the Epiphany, a day of hope and triumph for
Christians: the story of wise men from the East who followed a star to the city
of Bethlehem and honored the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. And of Herod, who attempted to trick the wise men into revealing this
infant King to him, but was foiled by an angel of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Matthew calls the wise men Magi: plural of magus,
from the Persian magush. And, of course, a cousin of the word magic. Matthew
does not give the number of these magicians from the East, but because of the
three gifts, tradition holds there were three. They were likely Persian Zoroastrians,
early monotheists, who had a unique connection to the Jewish people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Cyrus the Persian, the only Gentile to be recognized
as a messiah by the Jews, conquered Babylon and set the captive Jewish people
free. And it’s clearly no coincidence that Matthew uses the term “magi.” He was
writing to a Jewish audience, who would have recognized the connection between these
Persian visitors proclaiming the new Messiah and the liberator of the
Babylonian Captivity. And that may be one reason the first reading, Isaiah 60:
1-6 begins by proclaiming “your light has come“ in a time of darkness and ends
with “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of
the Lord.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Christopher Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William
Wordsworth and Bishop of Lincoln) in his 1862 Epiphany hymn, “Songs of
Thankfulness and Praise,” writes of the liberating effect of the revealed King:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Manifest in
making whole</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Palsied limbs
and fainting soul;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Manifest in
valiant fight,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Quelling all the
devil’s might;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Manifest in
gracious will,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ever bringing
good from ill;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anthems be to
thee addrest,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;">God in man made
manifest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Later on, the Magi received names: Caspar,
Balthasar, and Melchior. They became kings: Caspar, of India; Balthasar, of
Arabia or Ethiopia; and Melchior, of Persia. Yet for Matthew, they were Magi:
members of the Zoroastrian priestly class, who came to do homage to a new
Messiah who would bring light in a time of darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Image: Pietro Perugino, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1496-1500.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-47047365480383948842021-12-27T17:40:00.001-05:002021-12-27T17:40:05.639-05:00Saint John the Evangelist and Marcus Borg's "Post-Easter Jesus"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvsdA7Qyyl-OIDKoYLEeQ5y_qZDDgUtFlKnvf6AbxBES5uNCgChKjo8OO18p5DKu-cTDq-4M9s48KeFDcSzxuY13ILHpFbLX63wpgF5K9qwOlXMw2TdtZnTSCBN6d2cVhho9ih-oDv7Z_JDbVJUYvxLOKAXVY97OI_fC5j_OhGPHKGrl1nPJg=s4808" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4808" data-original-width="3168" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvsdA7Qyyl-OIDKoYLEeQ5y_qZDDgUtFlKnvf6AbxBES5uNCgChKjo8OO18p5DKu-cTDq-4M9s48KeFDcSzxuY13ILHpFbLX63wpgF5K9qwOlXMw2TdtZnTSCBN6d2cVhho9ih-oDv7Z_JDbVJUYvxLOKAXVY97OI_fC5j_OhGPHKGrl1nPJg=s320" width="211" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Nathaniel said to him, 'Can anything good
come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, 'Come and see.'"<br />
-John, 1:46 (NRSV)<br />
<br />
In the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, the Gospel reading for Christmas
morning is John 1-14. For me, who had a secular upbringing, the reading
initially seemed out of place. Why do we read the Prologue to John's Gospel on
Christmas? There was no mention of Bethlehem, or Jesus' earthly birth. And
later in the same chapter, we have Nathaniel make the quip about Nazareth, a remote
town in Galilee. Philip doesn't say, "The man was born in Bethlehem--he's
a proper Messiah," but "Come and see."<br />
<br />
We celebrate the author of the Gospel According to John on December 27, the
Third Day of Christmas. Like the other three canonical gospels, the earliest
manuscripts of John are anonymous. Ancient tradition has attributed it to John,
one of the Twelve Disciples, identified with the anonymous "disciple whom
Jesus loved" in the gospel. Artists usually portray him as a beardless young
man. In "The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown the author argues that the
beardless figure on Leonardo's "The Last Supper" is actually a woman,
whom the book identifies as Mary Magdalene. But it's clearly the figure of
John, as any historian of Renaissance art can explain.<br />
<br />
But back to my initial question: Why do we read the Prologue to John on
Christmas. It's a reminder that Christ was, as we say in the Nicene Creed,
"eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True
God from True God." If Matthew and Luke write of Jesus' birth on earth,
John tells us the eternal Christmas story:<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God.</span></i><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He was in the beginning with God. </span></i><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being </span></i><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in him was life, and the life was the light of
all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
overcome it.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[the Baptist]<i>. He
came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through
him. </i></span><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He himself was not the light, but he came to
testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was
coming into the world.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He was in the world, and the world came into
being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his
own, and his own people did not accept him. </span></i><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But to all who received him, who believed in his
name, he gave power to become children of God,</span></i><b><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></sup></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">who were born, not of blood or of the will of
the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace
and truth.</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (John 1-14 (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The late theologian Marcus Borg made a
distinction between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus. The three
synoptic Gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke--focus on the pre-Easter Jesus--his
earthly life, mission, death, and the reports of his resurrection. And while
John gives us stories from Jesus' earthly life, they don't follow the pattern
of the first three. Without the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Jewish
Messiah who expands his ministry to Gentiles. With John, Jesus is
"the Way, the Truth , and the Life"(John 14:6).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Image: </span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">John the Evangelist, miniature from the Grandes
Heures of Anne of Brittany, Queen consort of France (1477-1514). (Wilimedia Commons)</span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-66521004089175771752021-11-11T09:30:00.000-05:002021-11-11T09:30:46.279-05:00Saint Martin of Tours<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ZykNXh-_yVLt7TRqNYUTlpNbZLQ_HwJzmgfNp-fPpwq9c_KZn3jdcmgOSinLm-5j0C2szRRrtwn9yeDmlk5PVvoZuWQvq9M40nCN8qxESkHEEkHUsUeFqvDqilu3YM6vpAF58A/s2048/El_Greco_-_San_Mart%25C3%25ADn_y_el_mendigo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1105" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ZykNXh-_yVLt7TRqNYUTlpNbZLQ_HwJzmgfNp-fPpwq9c_KZn3jdcmgOSinLm-5j0C2szRRrtwn9yeDmlk5PVvoZuWQvq9M40nCN8qxESkHEEkHUsUeFqvDqilu3YM6vpAF58A/s320/El_Greco_-_San_Mart%25C3%25ADn_y_el_mendigo.jpg" width="173" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What happens when a persecuted faith becomes a favored
religion? The story of Saint Martin of Tours, whose feast day is November 11,
provides some clues. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Martin was born in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary), of
pagan parents, some three years after the emperor Constantine had made
Christianity a favored religion. At the age of 15 he was conscripted into the
Roman army, where he was eventually stationed at Amiens, in Gaul. By this time
he had become a catechumen, or inquirer into the Christian faith. One winter
day, according to legend, he met a half-naked beggar outside the city gates.
Moved with compassion, he cut his military cloak in two and gave half to the
beggar. In a dream that night, Christ appeared to him wearing the half cloak.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Martin then appealed to be released from the army.
When he was accused of cowardice, he offered to face the enemy armed only with
the cross of Christ. Before the battle began, the enemy sued for peace, and
Martin was allowed to leave the army. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Martin eventually made his way to Poitiers, in
southern Gaul, to become a disciple of Bishop Hilary. He lived as a hermit, but
he attracted so many followers that he had to establish a monastery. Legend
says that he did not want to become the Bishop of Tours in 371, but was
persuaded to visit the city to give last rites to a dying woman, and was there
made bishop by acclamation. As bishop, Martin had no qualms about destroying
pagan shrines. But he would not accede to the taking of human life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And Christians authorities began their own
persecutions of heretical Christian sects. One was Priscillianism, named for Priscillian,
bishop of Avila, who preached vegetarianism, teetotalism, and celibacy. His
call for the renunciation of marriage brought him the censure of Church
authorities. The Council of Saragossa condemned his teachings in 380, the same
year the Edict of Thessalonica made Nicene Christianity the official religion
of the empire. After unsuccessfully appealing to Pope Damasus and Ambrose of
Milan, Priscillian and six of his followers appealed to western Emperor Magnus
Maximus at Treveris (modern-day Trier, Germany). It wasn’t a good move.
Maximus, at the urging of Bishop Ithacius of Ossanova, had Priscillian and his
disciples condemned to death.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For Martin, excommunication, not execution, was the
proper punishment for heresy. He made the long journey to Trier, where he
persuaded the emperor to remove Priscillian and his companions from imperial
jurisdiction. But soon after Martin left Trier, Ithacius prevailed on the
emperor to have the men beheaded. They were among the first, though sadly not
the last religious dissenters to be executed at the behest of church
authorities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Martin refused to communicate with Ithacius after
learning of his treachery. But later, when Martin returned to Trier to plead
for the release of two rebels held by the emperor, Maximus would agree to the
pardon only if Martin would make peace with Ithacius. Martin did so to save the
lives of the men, though he later reproached himself for his weakness. For me,
Martin’s compassion was his greatest strength.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Martin is the patron of soldiers and beggars.
Because his feast day coincided with the pagan feast of Bacchus, he is also the
patron of drunkards and innkeepers. But he also needs to be remembered as a man
of Christlike love, who stood against the abuse of power by church and imperial
authorities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Image: El Greco: Saint Martin and the Begggar, c. 1577-1579, Wikimedia Commons</span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-46894870722562685332021-09-03T16:18:00.000-04:002021-09-03T16:18:28.302-04:00Saint Phoebe and the path to female deacons in the Episcopal Church<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2E6F2-J5do_SA3YAd57iuC5wMM9sYgQiuwgbSTfschGbYMaK0_FaYGuvOkcIxXnjyopQlgEjyVowhlW1V9ZzAMg69VZD4esV3H7O3Q_6ZwvLx2j8yQ17LXF634j3_ndgZH23CQw/s600/Phoebe+from+Guy%2527s+Chapel+south+London.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2E6F2-J5do_SA3YAd57iuC5wMM9sYgQiuwgbSTfschGbYMaK0_FaYGuvOkcIxXnjyopQlgEjyVowhlW1V9ZzAMg69VZD4esV3H7O3Q_6ZwvLx2j8yQ17LXF634j3_ndgZH23CQw/s320/Phoebe+from+Guy%2527s+Chapel+south+London.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a
servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: That ye receive her in the Lord, as
becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of
you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also.” King James
Version (1611, as updated in 1769)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a
deaconess of the church at Cen′chre-ae, that you may receive her in the Lord as
befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she
has been a helper of many and of myself as well.” </span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Revised Standard Version (1946)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a
deacon of the church at Cenchreae, <b><sup> </sup></b>so that you
may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in
whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of
myself as well.” New Revised Standard Version (1989)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These two verses are all we know about Saint Phoebe,
whose feast day in the Episcopal Church is September 3, but they tell a more
than one might expect. Paul is entrusting her with the letter, which she will carry
and read to the house churches of Rome. She,s also a benefactor, or patron of
both the church and Paul’s mission. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Episcopalians and most Anglicans recognize Saint
Phoebe as a deacon, but as the translations above show, that has not always
been the case. The issue is twofold: historical practice and the interpretation
of the Greek word “diakonos,” literally meaning “servant.” The word itself is
masculine, but it’s one of a few Greek nouns with common gender—that it can
change gender due to context.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The translation of “diakonos” closely follows the
status of the female diaconate. In seventeenth century England, where there
were no female deacons, or even deaconesses, the translators of the King James
Version rendered “diakonos” as “servant.” For Anglicans, the King James Version
was the only authorized version of the Bible until 1881, when English Revised
Version was published. But both it and the 1901 American Standard Version kept
“servant.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Revised Standard Edition of the New Testament,
published in 1946 by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, translates
“diakonos” as “deaconess.” By this time, numerous Protestant churches,
including the Episcopal Church, had deaconesses. In our church, women’s
religious orders emerged during the Anglo-Catholic movement of the mid-19th
century, and in a few dioceses, bishops appointed deaconesses to perform social
service work, such as nursing. The General Convention of 1889 passed a canon which
officially recognized the office of deaconess. A deaconess had to be "a
devout woman of proved fitness, unmarried or widowed." If she married, her
appointment was vacated. Deaconesses were “set apart,” rather than ordained. And
according to priest and theologian Royden Keith Yerkes, as of 1953, “The Bishop
was directed to lay his hand (not his hands) upon the head of the candidate
and, after a prayer of blessing, to say ‘N, I admit thee to the office of
Deaconess. In the Name of . . . etc.’ Thus it was made a little easier to say
that she had not been ordained and that her Office was not part of the official
ministry of the Church.” Yerkes, writing in March 1957, asks “What is a
Deaconess?” He argues that the “…General Convention leaves the whole subject
bathed in mist.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yerkes reminds his audience that in the early
church, “…both men and women could be made deacons. The word deaconess was not
used until the fourth century; men and women were both called deacons.” But the
status of deaconesses remained “bathed in mist” until the 1964 General
Convention adopted a canon defining the office of deaconess as “ordered,”
rather than “set apart.” It also allowed married women to be ordained deaconesses.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">California Bishop James Pike, in 1965, pushed a bit
beyond the canon to ordain Deaconess Phyllis Edwards as a deacon. According to
the Associated Press, “Bishop Pike draped a red stole over the right shoulder
of the white-robed deaconess as a symbol of her ministry…. The rites found the
48-year-old widow bright-eyed, pink-cheeked and far more calm than her fellow
clergymen at the altar.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pike was five years ahead of General Convention,
which in 1970, eliminated all distinctions between male and female deacons,
except, of course, that of being a precursor to the priesthood. The title
“deaconess” was dropped.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By the NRSV’s 1989 publication, women in the Episcopal
Church were priests and bishops, as well as deacons. Most other denominations
in the National Council of Churches included women in all levels of their
ministry. Based on these changes, and more important, updates in historical
understanding, the translators of the New Revised Standard Version described
Phoebe as a deacon<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today, the Episcopal Church is blessed with deacons,
both male and female. And here at St. John’s, we are particularly blessed by
Deacon Melissa Renner, who enlivens and enlightens our parish, and who can
trace her ecclesial lineage back to St. Phoebe.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> Image: St. Phoebe, detail from the Chapel of Thomas Guy, London. Photo credit: Alamy</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Note: In researching this article, I relied primarily
on the following:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/article/priscilla-papers-academic-journal/what-can-we-say-about-phoebe"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What
Can We Say About Phoebe? | CBE (cbeinternational.org)</span></a><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://anglicanhistory.org/women/yerkes_what.html"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What
is a Deaconess? by Royden Keith Yerkes (no date) (anglicanhistory.org)</span></a><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The Episcopalians” (2005) by Gardiner H. Shattuck,
Jr. and David Hein<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-5127099258436749132021-08-01T06:42:00.000-04:002021-08-01T06:42:27.759-04:00Joseph of Arimathea (Feast Day August 1) in Scripture and Legend<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKtuVTlJXyW5_G4vXjgxr9tmfaXXmpxD9oqmyG_IzYIA9_UsPPpon4g8uqlSea-6feNAq1oKidTU7GPiH8shU7X8W9tiW8sdzTy3fOe6zqzD3Z2WqDcmGaHZtP3eePY0PKmUzmZg/s600/joseph+of+arimathea+preaching+to+the+britons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="600" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKtuVTlJXyW5_G4vXjgxr9tmfaXXmpxD9oqmyG_IzYIA9_UsPPpon4g8uqlSea-6feNAq1oKidTU7GPiH8shU7X8W9tiW8sdzTy3fOe6zqzD3Z2WqDcmGaHZtP3eePY0PKmUzmZg/s320/joseph+of+arimathea+preaching+to+the+britons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“When evening had come, and since it was the day of
Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a
respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for
the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then
Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked
him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion
that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen
cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in
a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the
door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the
body was laid.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Mark 15: 42-47 (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned in all four Gospels,
but Mark, the earliest to be written, succinctly explains his role in the
burial of Jesus. Matthew (27:57-60) adds that he was a rich man and a disciple
of Jesus, and that he buried Jesus in a tomb meant for himself. Luke (23:50-53)
mentions that while Joseph was a member of the council (the Jewish Sanhedrin),
he did not agree to their plan and action—to turn Jesus over to the Roman
authorities. John (19:38-42) that Joseph was a secret disciple “for fear of the
Jews,” and that Nicodemus assisted him in preparing Jesus’ body for the tomb.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">From the Gospels’ accounts of Joseph, we learn that
Jesus had at least one ally in the Sanhedrin and Joseph had the courage to ask Pontius
Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, for the body of Jesus, whom Pilate himself
had sentenced to death for sedition against Rome. Had it not been for Joseph’s
intervention, Jesus’ body might have been left on the cross to become the food
of birds and dogs. Joseph’s insistence of giving a Jesus proper burial was
crucial to the story of the Resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Naturally, legends arose about this key figure in
Christian history. He was, according to one legend, Mary’s uncle, and thus the
great uncle of Jesus. The story, which has the ring of plausibility, is based
on a Jewish tradition that the senior male relative of a deceased person had
the responsibility to give him or her a proper burial. And from that story,
plus another that Joseph had made his fortune as a merchant, came the legend
that he had taken the teenaged Jesus with him on a voyage to the tin mines of
western Britain. It inspired William Blake’s “From Milton,” which begins:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And did those feet in ancient time<br />
Walk upon England's mountains green?<br />
And was the holy Lamb of God<br />
On England's pleasant pastures seen?<br />
And did the countenance divine<br />
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?<br />
And was Jerusalem builded here<br />
Among those dark satanic mills?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 1916 Sir Hubert Parry set the poem to music as
“Jerusalem,” which was voted the United Kingdom’s most popular hymn in 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another legend says Joseph of Arimathea returned to
Britain with the Holy Grail. The story, though, originated in late
twelfth-century France, with Robert de Boron’s “Joseph d'Arimathie.” The word “grail,”
from the Old French “graal,” which meant any kind of a vessel, from a chalice
to a cauldron, was virtually unknown until the Arthurian tale, “Perceval, the
Story of the Grail,” by another late twelfth century French poet, <a name="_Hlk77774081">Chrétie</a>n de Troyes. In Chrétien’s poem, the grail is
not holy, but is something the knight Percival witnesses. Robert expands the
tale and declares the Grail, now the Holy Grail, to be the chalice Jesus drank
from at the Last Supper. In Robert’s poem, Joseph is imprisoned because he is
accused of stealing Jesus’ body from the tomb. The resurrected Christ presents
Joseph with the Grail, which sustains him for years until the Emperor Vespasian
releases him from prison many years later.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In Robert’s narrative, it is Joseph’s
brother-in-law, Bron, who brings the Grail to Britain. But in English lore, especially
in and around the town of Glastonbury in Somerset, Joseph himself brought the
Grail to Britain, where he hid it in a Glastonbury well, now called the Chalice
Well. In a related myth, Joseph planted his pilgrim’s staff on Glastonbury’s Wearyall
Hill, which grew into a thorn tree. Joseph is said to have founded Glastonbury
Abbey, which became major pilgrimage site largely because of the legends surrounding
the area. Pilgrimages to Glastonbury continued, even after 1539, when the abbey
was destroyed and looted on the orders of Henry VIII. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But even without the legends—and there are many more—we
honor Joseph of Arimathea chiefly for his courage in asking Pilate for Jesus’
body and then placing it in his own tomb.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Merciful God, whose servant Joseph of
Arimathea with reverence and godly fear prepared the body of our Lord and
Savior for burial, and laid it in his own tomb: Grant to us, your faithful
people, grace and courage to love and serve Jesus with sincere devotion all the
days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">-Prayer from Forward
Movement Daily Prayer <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span><div><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Image: William Blake, St. Joseph of Arimathea preaching to the inhabitants of Britain</span></div>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-44522468254611771322021-07-22T09:49:00.002-04:002021-07-22T09:49:28.536-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE587zwvGMGvlZ5DGM3rZZnkz5OAd_bkr2oGvqWqL4NJwzmOvcW673qLwtkomzOmTU3grIVqZBEcoY2DQc0IOqVOe0xZEyTyiu-5Slw55CAp0F9k_SBgNeSLwdbavZ5JhYa7epkw/s2048/Alexander_Ivanov_-_Christ%2527s_Appearance_to_Mary_Magdalene_after_the_Resurrection_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1541" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE587zwvGMGvlZ5DGM3rZZnkz5OAd_bkr2oGvqWqL4NJwzmOvcW673qLwtkomzOmTU3grIVqZBEcoY2DQc0IOqVOe0xZEyTyiu-5Slw55CAp0F9k_SBgNeSLwdbavZ5JhYa7epkw/s320/Alexander_Ivanov_-_Christ%2527s_Appearance_to_Mary_Magdalene_after_the_Resurrection_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">MARY MAGDALENE,
“APOSTLE TO THE APOSTLES,” JULY 22<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We don’t know a
great deal about the first generation of Christians, especially the women. But
in the case of Mary Magdalene, we seem to “know” too much. Her name is
mentioned only thirteen times in the New Testament, but for centuries,
Christians have “known” she was a prostitute. In more recent years, others have
claimed she was Jesus’ wife, who bore his child, and whose descendants later founded
the Merovingian dynasty of France.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Her
identification as a prostitute was cemented in 590 by Pope Gregory I, who, in a
sermon on Luke 7:36-50, said: “The one that Luke calls a sinner, and that John
names Mary [of Bethany, John 11: 2], we believe that she is that Mary of whom,
according to Mark, the Lord has cast out seven demons [Mk 16: 9]. And what are
these seven demons, if not the universality of all vices? Since seven days
suffice to embrace the whole of time, the number seven rightly represents
universality. Mary had seven demons in her, for she was full of all vices. But
now, having seen the stains that dishonored her, she ran to wash herself at the
source of mercy, without blushing in the presence of the guests. So great was her
shame inside that she could not see anything outside to blush.”</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gregory uses the
example of the penitent woman to criticize bishops “who look down upon their
flock with contempt, to disdain all the sinners who meet in the people, to
refuse to sympathize with those who confess their faults to them, and finally,
like the Pharisee, not to be touched by the sinful woman.” It’s a fine sermon,
but its conflation of the penitent woman with Mary Magdalene, as well as with
Mary of Bethany, distorted the image of the first witness to the Resurrection. However,
it did provide a role model for “fallen” women—that Christ himself would hold
up this penitent woman as an exemplar of faith. It was not until 1969 that the
Roman Catholic Church declared she was not the “woman in the city” of Luke 7.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In more recent
years, Mary Magdalene has been named Jesus’ wife. Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci
Code” (2003) popularized the theory, but he took most of his information from
“Holy Blood, Holy Grail” (1982), by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry
Lincoln. The book’s authors claim that the Holy Grail (Sangraal or Sangreal in
Old French), was really Royal Blood (Sang Raal or Sang Real), and that Mary
Magdalene fled to Gaul after the Crucifixion, where she bore Jesus’ child,
whose descendants founded the Merovingian Dynasty of France. She, of royal
blood from the House of Benjamin, and not any chalice, was the Holy Grail. The
book’s theories have largely been discredited by Biblical scholars, but the Da
Vinci Code, along with the 2006 movie based on the book has a lot of staying
power. The noncanonical Gnostic Gospel of Philip, probably written in the third
century, says “The companion of the [savior] is Mary of Magdala. The [savior
loved] her more than [all] the disciples, [and he] kissed her often on her
[mouth].” (Marvin Mayer translation from the Coptic—anything in brackets is guesswork.)
But none of the Gnostic texts which mention her claim she was Jesus’ wife, or
that she bore his child.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So what do we
know about Mary Magdalene from Scripture? All four canonical Gospels were
written in the late first century—much closer to the time of Christ. From Luke
8: 1-3:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“After this,
Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good
news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who
had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom
seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s
household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them
out of their own means.” (NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mary was most
likely wealthy and had been cured of serious afflictions. And, of course, in all
four Gospels, she was the first witness, or one of the first witnesses to the
Resurrection. As such, St. Thomas Aquinas called her “The Apostle to the
Apostles.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is one curious
matter about her name. For centuries, it was assumed that she was from the
village of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. But it appears that the village was
called Magadan, and was misnamed by a cartographer. In Luke, she’s “Mary (called
Magdalene.)” And Magdalene, or Migdal, in Aramaic, means “tower.” Some
historians have speculated that just as Jesus gave his disciple Simon bar Jonah
the nickname “Rock” (Cephas or Peter), renamed Mary the “Tower.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">July 22 is the day
we remember Mary Magdalene, “The Apostle to the Apostles,” and perhaps “The Tower.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Image: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> (1835) by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Andreyevich_Ivanov" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov">Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></p><br /><p></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-10986878446201097482021-06-14T16:37:00.001-04:002021-06-14T16:38:56.249-04:00Evelyn Underhill, Theologian and Mystic (1875-1941)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5UupgbRfgvCqOdIKiBQvPjGPjJbekNdN8AAufqoBgTHtKyHMIFwrCz0rK7JS5ebGKgHjOpQE9fcxgBrcr3OC80wg3msiVeqmAcSqB-Ct3Iv6tC8ZDc6eCaEH1b-a43VmbVvWZ8Q/s300/evelyn-underhill-icon.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="234" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5UupgbRfgvCqOdIKiBQvPjGPjJbekNdN8AAufqoBgTHtKyHMIFwrCz0rK7JS5ebGKgHjOpQE9fcxgBrcr3OC80wg3msiVeqmAcSqB-Ct3Iv6tC8ZDc6eCaEH1b-a43VmbVvWZ8Q/s320/evelyn-underhill-icon.png" /></a></div>"'The Spiritual Life’ is a dangerously ambiguous term; indeed, it would be interesting to know what meaning any one reader at the present moment is giving to those three words. Many, I am afraid, would really be found to mean ‘the life of my own inside’: and a further section, to mean very holy, difficult, and peculiar—a sort of honors course in personal religion—to which they did not intend to aspire.”
-Evelyn Underhill, “The Spiritual Life, 1936 <div><br /></div><div>“Spiritual but not religious.” It’s a common descriptor, especially on Internet dating sites. People can claim they have a foot in the spiritual world without being a member of “organized religion,” a phrase almost guaranteed to scare away potential mates. But before blithely accepting the “SBNR” label, those with a spiritual bent would do well to consult the works of Evelyn Underhill, the English writer who almost single-handedly put “spirituality” into the common parlance. Underhill, whose feast day is June 15, understood that the spiritual life, without the discipline of religion, too often becomes centered on the self. “Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the center foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Religion, she reminds us, is about “this adherence to God.” (the Spiritual Life)
Evelyn Underhill wasn’t an abbess or a martyr, but the daughter of a London barrister and the wife of another, who had an inquisitive mind and the advantage of a university education. She began her writing career as poet and novelist, but gravitated toward the study of mystics and mysticism. Her monumental work. “Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness” (1911), defined mysticism as “active and practical, focused on the “changeless One,” based in reality, and leads to the “complete remaking of character.” In “Practical Mysticism” (1914), she demystifies mysticism for the general reader, defining it as “the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has attained that union in greater or less degree, or who aims at or believes in such attainment.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Underhill was strongly attracted to Roman Catholicism and may have converted if it had not been for the objections of her husband, Hubert Stuart Moore, an Anglican Protestant. After years of attending Catholic Mass without receiving the Sacrament, she reconciled with the Church of England in 1921. In 1937, she published her last major study, “Worship,” in which she reminds her readers that “the worshiping life of the Christian, while profoundly personal, is essentially that of a person who is a member of a group.” Once again, she warns against spirituality without discipline. </div><div><br /></div><div> While Underhill’s work is voluminous, a fine introduction is “Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings,” edited by Emilie Griffin (Orbis Books, 2003). And with June 15 marking the 80th anniversary of Underhill’s death, the Evelyn Underhill Association will hold a virtual celebration of her life, including an address by former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, June 14-18. For further information, see http://evelynunderhill.org/
</div><div><br /></div><div>Image: <span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #707070; font-size: 15.008px;">Icon of Evelyn Underhill by Suzanne Schleck (schleckicons.com)</span></div>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-52772661550972272952021-03-26T13:06:00.062-04:002021-03-26T19:01:56.473-04:00Henry Kisor reviews "Gun in Cheek," 1987<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC182a4k8ixpYXio56P1hBwdD4HiE-li0bTu1ENFj_h-O4fG0YYn-Rg90dlHFG7uf3b4PaWuv4VazkDaKKxWpLFLcH0UVQ4Y2wvooKO9zjkzviRxLVg3p4t9uCj9VyxYriSH4YGg/s1000/gun+in+cheek.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="625" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC182a4k8ixpYXio56P1hBwdD4HiE-li0bTu1ENFj_h-O4fG0YYn-Rg90dlHFG7uf3b4PaWuv4VazkDaKKxWpLFLcH0UVQ4Y2wvooKO9zjkzviRxLVg3p4t9uCj9VyxYriSH4YGg/s320/gun+in+cheek.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">For several months I was part of Autonomy, a online platform created by HarperCollins to discover new writing talent. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/authonomy-writing-community-closed-by-harpercollins" target="_blank">It finally shut down in 2015</a>, with an announcement almost entirely in the passive voice: <span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“in recent years publishing of titles from the site has slowed as we have opened other submissions channels, and the community has become smaller, so the decision to close Authonomy has been made.”</span> There was some fine writing on Authonomy, but a lot of mediocre to atrocious prose as well. I discovered this post from 2010 on a flash drive, so I decided to repost it. Back then , I didn't know Henry Kisor, whom I've since met through Facebook.<br /> </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;">During the time when I was an active Authonomy member, I read
some incredibly bad writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a
yellowed newspaper clipping reminded me that these Authonomists were pikers compared to Michael “The Fastest Typewriter in the East” Avallone. </span><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;">The article, a “Weekend Whodunits” column by Henry Kisor, in
the April 17, 1987 <i>Chicago Sun-Times, </i>reviewed <i>Gun in Cheek: An
Affectionate Guide to the “Worst” in in Mystery Fiction </i>(Mysterious Press)
by Bill Pronzini, a compendium of bad mystery writing, mainly of the hardboiled
variety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kisor begins with this excerpt
from<i> </i>“one of a series of abominable pulp mysteries of the 1950s by
Richard F. Prather, which featured a private eye named Shell Scott,” <i>Take a
Murder, Darling:</i><i><o:p> </o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>He was dead, all right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed and strangled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either somebody really had it in for him or
four people had killed him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or else it
was the cleverest suicide I ever heard of.</i><i><o:p> </o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;">Two of the funniest examples were from the speeding
typewriter of Avallone, who seems to have had trouble with human anatomy: </span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;">“His thin mustache was neatly placed between a peaked nose
and two eyes like black marbles.” (<i>Don't Die in Bed)</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“She...unearthed one of her fantastic breasts from the folds
of her sheath skirt.” <i>(The Horrible
Man)</i></span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><o:p> </o:p></i>Pronzini even finds examples from more contemporary mystery
writers: “The sun [was] shining its ass
off.” (<i>Looking for Rachel Wallace </i>by
Robert B. Parker, “who of all writers should have known better,” remarks
Kisor.)</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>Pronzini's examples were not exclusively American. “Nobody,” writes Pronzini, “approached the
art of name-calling with more verve and scorn” than British writer Berkeley
Gray's detective, Norman Conquest. Kisor
provides a few examples:</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“'Reach, slugs!' he said calmly.”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“'There are a a lot of things you don't know, reptile.'”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“'It's a shame that a chunk of hellspawn like you should be
one of the throng.'”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“'Say that again, filth, and my trigger finger will give a
very nasty jerk.'”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>But it's an American Kisor uses for the final quote in his
column. “Nobody,” he writes, could
construct a stumbling metaphor better than Joseph Rosenberger... in his Death
Merchant spy series:”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Tuskanni stood in the open doorway at the top of the stairs,
a .38 Colt automatic in his hand, watching as the burly drivers tried to bring
down the two brothers—their efforts making as much sense as the termite who was
a conscientious objector and went around trying to eat up draft boards.”</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;">The column inspired me to read Pronzini's book. As I recall, though, Kisor managed to get the
best examples from the book. But
rereading the article gives me pause to reconsider my judgment. All of the examples are in grammatical English,
with no comma splices, dangling participles, or other errors. Richard Prather
uses “all right,” as opposed to the “alright” which abounds in Authonomy—even
among the better writers. (What's scary
is that the spell check in Open Office Writer has no problem with “alright.”) Avallone may have had trouble placing the
parts of the body, but he knew the parts of speech. Quite a few of my fellow Authonomists don't.</span></p><p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Standard"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>“May their roscoes forever spit 'Ka-Chow! Chow!'” concludes
Kisor.</span></p><p class="Standard"><o:p></o:p></p></div>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-34775850297221565292021-02-17T21:02:00.000-05:002021-02-17T21:02:33.002-05:00Lent Ain't What it Used to Be<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0XqNitFubbkeQElS3OLpYb4Phr-2hlsGcKDHD06JlhSwrpYrlIc-0pN42aIOUkg-z14d3RzOAEPDytUN89EIcOiA1N22DOV4Fklm29Fu-Rj2O4S35ravTnxH4cELBwQG7hyphenhyphennBdQ/s960/Lent+Julie+Lonnerman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0XqNitFubbkeQElS3OLpYb4Phr-2hlsGcKDHD06JlhSwrpYrlIc-0pN42aIOUkg-z14d3RzOAEPDytUN89EIcOiA1N22DOV4Fklm29Fu-Rj2O4S35ravTnxH4cELBwQG7hyphenhyphennBdQ/s320/Lent+Julie+Lonnerman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Dear People of
God: The first Christians observed with great</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">devotion the
days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">it became the
custom of the Church to prepare for them by a<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">season of
penitence and fasting…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-1979 Book of
Common Prayer, pp. 264-265<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While there’s evidence that the first Christians did
prepare for the days of the Lord’s passion and resurrection, the forty-day “season
of penitence and fasting” was not established until the fourth century. Nicholas
V. Russo, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at University of
Notre Dame, in a 2013 essay, “The Early History of Lent” (available online),
writes that second-century Christian apologists Irenaeus of Lyons and
Tertullian mention a two-day or 40-hour fast, based on the time Christ was
believed to be in the tomb. The historian Dionysius of Alexandria, writing in
the mid-third century, writes of a fast of up to six days. “Only following the
Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. did the length of Lent become fixed at forty
days, and then only nominally,” Russo writes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity
with the Edict of Milan in 313 and Christians were free to practice their faith
publicly, a 40-day fasting season could be observed without drawing attention
to the penitents. There were regional and local differences in the church until
Pope Gregory I (590-604) set the beginning of Lent on what became known as Ash
Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, and excluding Sundays. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The fasting was far stricter than today: only one
meal a day, with no meat, fish, fat, eggs, or dairy, and taken in
mid-afternoon. (One reason some Episcopalians call Shrove Tuesday “Pancake Day”
is that pancakes were a traditional way of using up milk, butter, and eggs
before Lent.) Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were strict fasts, though water was
allowed. Sex? Try not to think about it. And there were even bishops in the
14th and 15th centuries who forbade laughter during Lent, according to Denis Janz,
professor emeritus at Loyola University in New Orleans. (Los Angeles Times, Feb.
25, 1995)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But over the centuries, the strictures of Lent were
eased. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) allowed for a certain amount of “snacking,”
especially for those engaged in manual labor. Fish joined the list of allowable
foods sometime later. Meat and dairy products became acceptable so long as a
pious act was performed to make up for the indulgence. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While some of the Eastern Orthodox churches have
much stricter Lenten requirements, both the Roman Catholic and Episcopal fasts are
not onerous. Rome is much more specific: “The Catholic Code of Canon Law
requires those 18 to 59 years of age to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. And
fasting means partaking of only one full meal, with snacks or smaller meals
allowed at two other times through the day. It is also recommended that those
14 and over abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and every Friday during
Lent.” (“The history of Lent,” by Doug Archer, Catholic Register Special, February
12, 2009, found online.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Episcopal Church, naturally, is less specific.
From “An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church,” under “Fast”: “The Book of Common
Prayer recommends fasting for the season of Lent, which Christians should
observe ‘by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and
self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's Word’ (BCP, p. 265). The
BCP designates the weekdays of Lent and Holy Week and all Fridays except in the
seasons of Christmas and Easter as days of ‘special devotion’ with ‘special
acts of discipline and self-denial’ (which normally include fasting). An
exception is made for the feast of the Annunciation in Lent and feasts of our
Lord on Friday. Although modern social habits have led to a decline in fasting
on Fridays, and in Lent and Holy Week, the BCP calls for fasting, discipline,
and self-denial on those days.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We can be thankful that the Episcopal Church does
not impose the draconian fasts of the early Middle Ages, and, so far as I know,
has never imposed bans on sex and laughter during Lent. But as Doug Archer
writes, “The traditions and practices surrounding Lent are varied, but they
have a common focus:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>preparation for the
celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Some would argue that at
the start of this new Lenten season, that should be the focus of every Catholic.”
And, of course, every Episcopalian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Image by Julie Lonneman</span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-4483739666018830302020-12-29T21:13:00.001-05:002020-12-29T21:32:44.228-05:00 "God's work must truly be our own.”<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRnH0EV8ZUNQ4k26IPYDb75CT_nG8Qg8zGD_OAaEvgZx8afPHvsxvqhnkst-piB6wfJxMcLr8E0FBB_cCfE81HVg0djZDorkTwnBDlIULtdil9Wo1Rkz9T8Asy2tiRqQCSOcV08w/s624/History_Inaugural_Address_JFK_SF_HD_still_624x352.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="624" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRnH0EV8ZUNQ4k26IPYDb75CT_nG8Qg8zGD_OAaEvgZx8afPHvsxvqhnkst-piB6wfJxMcLr8E0FBB_cCfE81HVg0djZDorkTwnBDlIULtdil9Wo1Rkz9T8Asy2tiRqQCSOcV08w/s320/History_Inaugural_Address_JFK_SF_HD_still_624x352.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div> <span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sixty years ago, on January 20, 1960, America’s
first Roman Catholic president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, took the oath of
office. Even those who are too young to have heard his inaugural address live
know its most famous line, “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your
country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” And most of us
have heard “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,
oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The last sentence of his address gets relatively
short shrift from contemporary media:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of
our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and
His help, but knowing that here on earth <a name="_Hlk59303252">God's work must
truly be our own</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Thurston Clarke, in his book, “Ask Not: The
Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America,” dismisses
it by saying, “it is customary for an inaugural address <a name="_Hlk60166973">to call upon the Almighty for His blessing and assistance</a>,
and Kennedy adheres to the formula in his concluding paragraph.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet it goes beyond simply calling on the Almighty—the
final clause turns that request on its head by reminding listeners that they
are the ones who must do the Lord’s work. At first glance, they don’t seem to
be the words of a Catholic. And they aren’t. While Kennedy outlined the basics
of what he wanted to say, his principal writer for the speech was Theodore Sorensen,
a Unitarian, His mother, though, was of Russian Jewish descent. And Rabbi
Jeffrey Salkin, in his blog, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2017/05/29/jfk-john-f-kennedy-one-hundred/" target="_blank">“Martini Judaism” (May 29, 2017)</a>, writes that “God's
work must truly be our own” was “the most Jewish thing JFK ever said.” Salkin
goes on to explain: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“We can’t recite motzi (the blessing over bread)
over wheat. And you can’t recite kiddush over a cluster of grapes. Here is why.
God makes wheat and grapes. But people have to transform those raw materials
into bread and wine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For Episcopalians (and Roman Catholics), that same
logic applies to the Eucharistic Prayer. And Salkin goes on to give another
example:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“As the Talmud states, ‘Every judge who renders a
fair decision is like a partner of the Holy One in the act of creation.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Talmud, Shabbat 119b). The Talmud also
promises that ‘a judge who decides a case in accordance with true justice
causes the Shekhinah, God’s Presence, to dwell in the midst of Israel.’ By
seeking justice, we can bring God into the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And in that sense, JFK’s final sentence clearly applies
to Christians. It echoes Micah 6:8, which Presiding Bishop Michael Curry regularly
invokes in his call for his Way of Love:</span> “<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">He has told you, O
mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (NRSV) And it surely reflects
Jesus’ summation of Jewish Law, which recite in the first Eucharistic Rite:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This January 20th, we’ll witness the swearing in of
the second Roman Catholic president. No one is expecting Joe Biden to echo
President Kennedy’s inaugural. For one thing, the nation is deeply divided
today. Vice President Richard Nixon, who might have challenged the election
over voting irregularities in Illinois and Texas, did not, in order to help
unify the nation in the Cold War. (There are others who say he knew there was
as much vote stealing for Nixon in the Chicago suburbs and Downstate as there
was in Cook County for Kennedy, but in any case, he didn’t challenge the
election.) Today we have an outgoing president who refuses to concede, with
millions of followers who believe him unquestioningly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So when it comes time to “to call upon the Almighty
for His blessing and assistance,” President-elect Biden could do worse than to recall
the last sentence of President Kennedy’s inaugural.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Note: I wrote all but the last two paragraphs for "The Tower," the newsletter of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church. While the Episcopal Church is no longer "The Republican Party at Prayer," even in Elkhart, Indiana, there are enough diehard Trump supporters in the congregation that I wanted my audience to consider the JFK's 1960 remarks without directly bring up the world of January 2021. Photo from History.com</span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-68946980245040034792020-10-19T09:14:00.000-04:002020-10-19T09:14:49.668-04:00Luke the Social Justice Warrior<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBMFRLnnbcdvcN17LBDmH7eE5FVRPj9fB2ZDJei_qOKzgmTBzlW0o0zmApOkhgdbbxQyKt_oVsbcLyGZEmHUDAu7x6YmDH4hREx0dnsSEdzDk8vj4aUAVQo-VEq0s2bilnLHYcA/s2048/Jan_Bruegel_d._%25C3%2584._009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1388" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBMFRLnnbcdvcN17LBDmH7eE5FVRPj9fB2ZDJei_qOKzgmTBzlW0o0zmApOkhgdbbxQyKt_oVsbcLyGZEmHUDAu7x6YmDH4hREx0dnsSEdzDk8vj4aUAVQo-VEq0s2bilnLHYcA/s320/Jan_Bruegel_d._%25C3%2584._009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">St.
Luke, the Social Justice Warrior<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Each of the four Gospel writers has a distinct point
of view. St. Mark, the first to write a Gospel, gives us the basics. St.
Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. St. John’s mystical view begins at the
very beginning—the Creation. St. Luke, whose feast day is October 18, portrays
Jesus as a social justice warrior in the tradition of such Old Testament
prophets as Isaiah and Amos. In fact, in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Mary,
before she gives birth, sings the Magnificat, based on the Song of Hannah from
First Samuel. Of the Lord, she sings:<br />
<br />
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,<br />
and lifted up the lowly;<br />
he has filled the hungry with good things,<br />
and sent the rich away empty.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A few years before Jesus’ birth, the Roman Empire proclaimed
the “good news” of Augustus Caesar and lauded him “as Savior, who<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has put an end to war and has set all things
in order; and (whereas,) having become (god) manifest, Caesar has fulfilled
all the hopes of earlier times.” (from the inscription at Priene). In Luke 2,
an angel proclaims “good news of great joy for all the people: <b><sup> </sup></b>to
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the
Lord.” Luke is issuing a direct challenge to the Roman Empire, as anyone of his
time would have recognized.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6: 17-49), Jesus preaches
“Blessed are you who are poor” without the comforting “in spirit” of Matthew’s
Sermon on the Mount. And while the Jesus of Mark and Matthew both proclaim the Two
Great Commandments, which we recite in the Rite I Eucharistic service: “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like
unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But only Luke goes on to ask,
“who is my neighbor?” He then gives us the story of the Good Samaritan, in
which a foreigner is the good neighbor. (Luke 10: 25-37)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles,
also written by Luke, have many other examples of Jesus and his disciples as
the social justice warriors. But one passage initially suggests Jesus was
calling for literal warriors. On the night before he was crucified, and after
the Last Supper, Jesus, who earlier had told his disciples to go out “without a
purse, bag, or sandals,” tells them “’the one who has no sword must sell his
cloak and buy one.<b><sup> </sup></b>For I tell you, this scripture must
be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is
written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two
swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’” (Luke 22: 35-38)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Luke’s Jesus is calling for the fulfillment of scripture—Isaiah
53:12—that the Lord’s Anointed “was numbered with the transgressors.” Later after
Jesus’ arrest, one of the disciples “struck the slave of the high priest and
cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched
his ear and healed him.” Thus, we can follow Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s
call to work for social justice through the Way of Love. No swords required.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(All Scripture quotations from the New Revised
Standard Version.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> Image: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Harbor Scene with Christ Preaching (Wikimedia Commons)</o:p></span></p>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-30224901260079884282019-04-27T23:08:00.000-04:002019-04-27T23:08:20.902-04:00Saint Thomas the Human<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh58xjh6T_bWeLlvaQG1NdwAE2FNFGhF6NB-kLo7YncHOQOyVB2054GVLJhNHtLXLSZckUdk3YIhW_8UtM30AD2qka9AtacF20MBHFc2hJU88Pg_VYU2LW4qletowzMSBTvOYm9Yw/s1600/El_Greco_-_Apostle_St_Thomas_-_WGA10599.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="664" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh58xjh6T_bWeLlvaQG1NdwAE2FNFGhF6NB-kLo7YncHOQOyVB2054GVLJhNHtLXLSZckUdk3YIhW_8UtM30AD2qka9AtacF20MBHFc2hJU88Pg_VYU2LW4qletowzMSBTvOYm9Yw/s320/El_Greco_-_Apostle_St_Thomas_-_WGA10599.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Of Jesus’ twelve
disciples, Thomas, to me, is the most intriguing. There’s the mystical Thomas, of
the Secret Gospel of Thomas, to whom Jesus chooses to divulge his secrets:</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">(1)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Jesus said to
his disciples: "Compare me, and tell me whom I am like." </span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">
(2) Simon Peter said to him: "You are like a just messenger." <br />
(3) Matthew said to him: "You are like an (especially) wise
philosopher." <br />
(4) Thomas said to him: <br />
"Teacher, my mouth will not bear at all to say whom you are like." <br />
(5) Jesus said: "I am not your teacher. For you have drunk, you have <br />
become intoxicated at the bubbling spring that I have measured out." <br />
(6) And he took him, (and) withdrew, (and) he said three words to him. <br />
(7) But when Thomas came back to his companions, they asked him: <br />
"What did Jesus say to you?" <br />
(8) Thomas said to them: "If I tell you one of the words he said to me, <br />
you will pick up stones and throw them at me, <br />
and fire will come out of the stones (and) burn you up."</span></i><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">-Saying 13
Patterson/Robinson translation</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">And then there’s the other mystical Thomas, of The Book of
Thomas <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>the Contender, who is portrayed
as the twin brother of Jesus: </span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The
savior said, "Brother Thomas while you have time in the world, listen to
me, and I will reveal to you the things you have pondered in your mind. </span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">"Now,
since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine
yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, and how you will come
to be. Since you will be called my brother, it is not fitting that you be
ignorant of yourself. And I know that you have understood, because you had
already understood that I am the knowledge of the truth. So while you accompany
me, although you are uncomprehending, you have (in fact) already come to know,
and you will be called 'the one who knows himself'. For he who has not known
himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already
achieved knowledge about the depth of the all. So then, you, my brother Thomas,
have beheld what is obscure to men, that is, what they ignorantly stumble
against." </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">-from the John D. Turner
translation</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The Acts of Thomas, a third-century writing,
portrays Thomas as a missionary to India, as well as a twin brother of Jesus,
who performs miracles and admonishes a newly-married couple to abstain from
sex. This Thomas makes the Puritans look like free love advocates.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">But, of course, the Thomas we know best is the
Thomas of John’s Gospel, the disciple who was not present in the Upper Room
when the risen Christ first appeared to the other apostles. When told of this
miracle, he took the disciples’ tales with more than a grain of salt:</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span><i><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his
hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I
will not believe.” </i><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i> </i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">A week later his
disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors
were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then
he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand
and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord
and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">(John 20:25b-29 (NRSV)</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Thomas does not go so far as to put his hand in
Jesus’ side, but he got the point. It’s always seemed unfair that Thomas is singled
out and admonished by Jesus because of his doubt, while the other disciples
were never so tested. Professor Elaine Pagels in <i>Beyond Belief: The Secret
Gospel of Thomas </i><span style="margin: 0px;">(Random House,
2003),<i> </i>argues that the author of John’s Gospel was familiar with the Gospel
of Thomas, and used the story to discredit the disciple as insufficiently
trusting.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The theologian Marcus
Borg made a distinction between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus,
with the Gospel of John portrait of Jesus being very much a post-Easter one. John
does not follow the narrative of the three synoptic Gospels—Mark, Matthew, and
Luke—but presents us with a mystical Jesus who says “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” -John 14:6 (NRSV)
John’s Christ puts a premium on belief, as opposed to, say, Luke’s Sermon on
the Plain, or Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, where actions and attitudes are
the focus. </span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Perhaps
Pagels is right—that the author of John wanted to discredit the Thomas of the
Gnostic Gospel. But even if he did the Thomas portrayed in John’s Gospel is a
sympathetic character because he’s so human—of course he’s unwilling to believe
a dead man could come back to life. (In the synoptic Gospels, the male disciples
don’t believe Mary Magdalene when she announces the Resurrection, but Jesus
never admonishes them for unbelief.) Yet for someone raised as an agnostic and still
having a difficult time with belief, I identify with this Thomas. I was confirmed
at Trinity, Iowa City, in 1979, which was not Anglo-Catholic enough at the time
to require confirmation names. If it had, mine would have been Thomas.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">In the
Anglican Communion, the feast of St. Thomas is December 21, so he’s lost in the
pre-Christmas anxiety. The Roman Catholics celebrate him on July 3, which means
he loses out to Independence Day in the United States. So the most reliable
celebration of St. Thomas is the Second Sunday of Easter, when the Gospel
reading is the story of Thomas’s doubt and belief. And, of course, the service
ought to include the singing of “O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing!”</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I’m still
fascinated with the mystical Thomas of the Gnostic Gospels and curious about the
Acts of Thomas. But the all-too-human Thomas of John’s Gospel resonates with
me.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Image: St. Thomas by El Greco (Wikimedia Commons)</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-67232665852175230302018-12-28T18:35:00.000-05:002018-12-28T18:38:43.663-05:00On the Fourth Day of Christmas: Life isn't fair--the Holy Innocents<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<i><span class="text Matt-2-16" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></i>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgjrKYuc0MZWKl97TwaOor3sER0-K2eQsmkIq4l0CqBgLTxmegv6-qfk1_2-iVriLLkVddkNE-UERSU5F3wFtY_Do1riCb_Jba9bpxEllZtYl-BWyaBqSPABO8qdcnObU-oR3yg/s1600/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Massacre_of_the_Innocents_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1097" data-original-width="1600" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgjrKYuc0MZWKl97TwaOor3sER0-K2eQsmkIq4l0CqBgLTxmegv6-qfk1_2-iVriLLkVddkNE-UERSU5F3wFtY_Do1riCb_Jba9bpxEllZtYl-BWyaBqSPABO8qdcnObU-oR3yg/s320/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Massacre_of_the_Innocents_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span class="text Matt-2-16" style="box-sizing: border-box;">When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,<sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></sup>he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.</span><span class="text Matt-2-17" id="en-NRSV-23187" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:</span></i></div>
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<span class="text Matt-2-18" id="en-NRSV-23188" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; left: -44px; line-height: 22px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><i> </i></sup><i>“A voice was heard in Ramah,</i></span><br />
<i><span class="indent-1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="indent-1-breaks" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: monospace; font-size: 6.73px; line-height: 0px;"> </span><span class="text Matt-2-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">wailing and loud lamentation,</span></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="text Matt-2-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">Rachel weeping for her children;</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="indent-1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="indent-1-breaks" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: monospace; font-size: 6.73px; line-height: 0px;"> </span><span class="text Matt-2-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."</span></span></i></div>
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<span class="indent-1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text Matt-2-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">Matthew 2;16-18 (NRSV)</span></span></div>
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The selection of December 28 as the Day of the Holy Innocents seems out of place--the story takes place after the Epiphany, which we celebrate on January 6. A quick Google search found a concise answer to the question by Michelle Arnold, "staff apologist" for the Catholic Answers Forum:<br />
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<i>The arrangement of the Church’s liturgical calendar is not always intended to be in chronological order. Sometimes feast days are arranged by theological significance.</i></div>
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<i>In this case, there are a slew of feast days right after Christmas that emphasize the fact that the events surrounding Christmas were an anticipation of Christ’s eventual passion, death, and resurrection. On December 26 is the feast of St. Stephen Protomartyr the first Christian martyr after the establishment of the Church. December 27 is the feast of Sr. John the Evangelist the Beloved Disciple who stood at the foot of the Cross and received the Blessed Mother from Christ to be his own Mother. December 29 is the feast of <span style="color: #001003;">St. Thomas Becket</span>, bishop and martyr. In the midst of this is December 28, the feast of the <span style="color: #001003;">Holy Innocents</span>, the first martyrs after the birth of Christ.</i></div>
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<i>In short, the Church’s placement of a slew of martyrs’ feast days right after Christmas is intended to remind Catholics that Christ was, as Bishop Fulton Sheen once pointed out, the only man born to die. Christmas is important because it made possible Easter.</i><br />
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While Matthew's gospel is the only source for the Massacre of the Innocents, historian Thomas Madden points out that such a slaughter would have been consistent with what we know about Herod the Great, the king of Judea. Even though Herod was "king of the Jews," though under Roman oversight, many did not consider him Jewish, because his mother, Cypros, was the daughter of an Arab sheik, and thus a Gentile. Jewishness, then as now, was matrilineal. His father was an Idumean--someone who was considered racially impure by many Jews.<br />
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Herod, perhaps because of his questionable parentage, went out of his way to direct Roman wealth to his domain, engaging in numerous building projects, including the rebuilding of the Temple, new walls around the city of Jerusalem, the port city of Caesarea. But these projects cost money, and his high taxation made him hugely unpopular--he hired mercenaries and maintained what amounted to a secret police to prevent rebellion. And he placed a golden statue of an eagle--a symbol of Rome and a violation of the Commandment against graven images--atop the gate of the new Temple. When two popular teachers, Judas and Matthias, persuaded their pupils to take down the eagle, Herod had teachers and students burned alive.<br />
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The story of the Holy Innocents may not be literally true, but it's certainly in keeping with Herod. Matthew, who was writing to a Jewish audience, has the Holy Family flee to Egypt, in a reversal of Moses' flight from Egypt. After Herod's death, the family returns not to Bethlehem, but to Nazareth.<br />
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But surely Matthew is also reminding us that life isn't fair--that in the human realm, those in power will commit enormities to maintain their power. One can hardly look at the last hundred years to find countless examples of the massacre of innocents in the name of power, prejudice, and fear.<br />
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As Michelle Arnold explains, the Day of the Holy Innocents is one of "a slew of martyr's feasts right after Christmas" to remind us that Christmas leads inevitably to Golgotha and to Easter.<br />
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Image: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, <i>Massacre of the Innocents</i><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><i></i><i></i><br />steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-1913931689477716372018-12-27T21:32:00.003-05:002018-12-27T21:32:52.992-05:00The Third Day of Christmas: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8wrMZN1lIlnvtKEORxg2PmAhGTNnGwEDutGXTZM3azX7TUQzKfR-dtzAc6T3q0h6kB64c0AfnjlgY2E_ra3VUfdFtZO6J13io3JsABgCsRMmrk9tgWdHJ2a9fshYz0jC-tOfRg/s1600/De_Grey_Hours_f.26.v_St._John_the_Evangelist.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1412" data-original-width="810" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8wrMZN1lIlnvtKEORxg2PmAhGTNnGwEDutGXTZM3azX7TUQzKfR-dtzAc6T3q0h6kB64c0AfnjlgY2E_ra3VUfdFtZO6J13io3JsABgCsRMmrk9tgWdHJ2a9fshYz0jC-tOfRg/s320/De_Grey_Hours_f.26.v_St._John_the_Evangelist.png" width="183" /></a></div>
"Nathaniel said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, 'Come and see.'"<br />
-John, 1:46 (NRSV)<br />
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In the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, the Gospel reading for Christmas morning is John 1-14. For me, who had a secular upbringing, the reading initially seemed out of place. Why do we read the Prologue to John's Gospel on Christmas? There was no mention of Bethlehem, or Jesus' earthly birth. And later in the same chapter, we have Nathaniel make the quip about Nazareth, a remote town in Galilee. Philip doesn't say, "The man was born in Bethlehem--he's a proper Messiah," but "Come and see."<br />
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We celebrate the author of the Gospel According to John on December 27, the Third Day of Christmas. Like the other three canonical gospels, the earliest manuscripts of John are anonymous. Ancient tradition has attributed it to John, one of the Twelve Disciples, identified with the anonymous "disciple whom Jesus loved" in the gospel. Artists usually portray him as a beardless young man. In "The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown the author argues that the beardless figure on Leonardo's "The Last Supper" is actually a woman, whom the book identifies as Mary Magdalene. But it's clearly the figure of John, as any historian of Renaissance art can explain.<br />
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But back to my initial question: Why do we read the Prologue to John on Christmas. It's a reminder that Christ was, as we say in the Nicene Creed, "eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God." If Matthew and Luke write of Jesus' birth on earth, John tells us the eternal Christmas story:<br />
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<i><span class="text John-1-1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.</span><span class="text John-1-2" id="en-NRSV-26037" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>He was in the beginning with God. </span><span class="text John-1-3" id="en-NRSV-26038" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being </span><span class="text John-1-4" id="en-NRSV-26039" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. </span><span class="text John-1-5" id="en-NRSV-26040" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.</span></i></div>
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<span class="text John-1-6" id="en-NRSV-26041" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>There was a man sent from God, whose name was John </i>[the Baptist]<i>. </i></span><i><span class="text John-1-7" id="en-NRSV-26042" style="box-sizing: border-box;">He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. </span><span class="text John-1-8" id="en-NRSV-26043" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. </span><span class="text John-1-9" id="en-NRSV-26044" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="text John-1-10" id="en-NRSV-26045" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. </span><span class="text John-1-11" id="en-NRSV-26046" style="box-sizing: border-box;">He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. </span><span class="text John-1-12" id="en-NRSV-26047" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,</span><span class="text John-1-13" id="en-NRSV-26048" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.</span></i></div>
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<span class="text John-1-14" id="en-NRSV-26049" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.</i> (John 1-14 (NRSV)</span></div>
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The late theologian Marcus Borg made a distinction between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus. The three synoptic Gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke--focus on the pre-Easter Jesus--his earthly life, mission, death, and the reports of his resurrection. And while John gives us stories from Jesus' earthly life, they don't follow the pattern of the first three. Without the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who expands his ministry to Gentiles. With John, <span class="text John-1-14" id="en-NRSV-26049" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Jesus is "the way, the truth , and the life"<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">(John 14:6).</span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span></div>
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<i></i><br />steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-33810302116398086162018-12-26T17:16:00.000-05:002018-12-26T17:17:59.878-05:00The Second Day of Christmas: a blunt reminder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="text Acts-6-1" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. </span><span class="text Acts-6-2" id="en-NRSV-27093" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.</span><span class="text Acts-6-2" id="en-NRSV-27093" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><sup> </sup></span><span class="text Acts-6-3" id="en-NRSV-27094" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Therefore, friends,<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NRSV-27094b" data-link="[<a href="#fen-NRSV-27094b" title="See footnote b">b</a>]" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 8.26px; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;">[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+6&version=NRSV#fen-NRSV-27094b" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position-x: 0%; background-position-y: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #631e16; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote b">b</a>]</sup> select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, </span><span class="text Acts-6-4" id="en-NRSV-27095" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” </span><span class="text Acts-6-5" id="en-NRSV-27096" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.</span><span class="text Acts-6-6" id="en-NRSV-27097" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Arial"; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
-The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 6:1-6 (NRSV)<br />
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On the day after Christmas Day, the Church throws us a curveball. From the magical story of the Lord coming to earth in the form of a sweet baby, we celebrate the church's first martyr--a man who, in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, speaks out against the powerful--and is killed as a result.<br />
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I recently heard that a poll of historians named Alexander the Great to be the most significant figure in Western history. Jesus and Paul were tied for fifth. The reason: Alexander imposed Greek culture and language all over the eastern Mediterranean. Christianity could not have spread so rapidly without the first "lingua franca." By the third century B.C. Jewish scholars in Egypt began translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek; by Jesus' time, the resulting book, the Septuagint (seventy), so named because 72 men were supposed to have translated it, had supplanted the Hebrew text in some communities. The book was written, appropriately enough, in Koine, the dialect of Alexandria, Egypt, which had become the language of commerce throughout the Near East.<br />
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Thus there were Jews in Palestine whose sole language was Koine Greek, and it appears that many of them became followers of Jesus. And one of the first rifts in the church was over language--the Greek speakers felt the Hebrew (Aramaic) speakers were neglecting their widows. The matter was handled quickly enough by the twelve disciples, though with a certain arrogance: "It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables," which doesn't seem in keeping with Matthew 20:28: "Just as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve..." The seven men included one Stephen, who turned out to be an effective preacher as well as a servant.<br />
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Stephen's preaching led to accusations of blasphemy, and as a result, he was brought before the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish elders. His speech to them may not have been politic, but he was literally speaking truth to power. After giving a synopsis of Jewish history from Abraham through Solomon, and pointing out the Chosen People's, stubbornness, he aims his rhetoric at his audience: "<span class="text Acts-7-51" id="en-NRSV-27157" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. </span><span class="text Acts-7-52" id="en-NRSV-27158" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><sup class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. </span><span class="text Acts-7-53" id="en-NRSV-27159" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.” (Acts 7:51-53)</span><br />
<span class="text Acts-7-53" id="en-NRSV-27159" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span class="text Acts-7-53" id="en-NRSV-27159" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Stephen is immediately condemned to death by stoning for blasphemy. Like Jesus, he asks forgiveness for his killers. And the author of Acts mentions that a man named Saul is among Stephen's persecutors.</span><br />
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After the joyous celebration of Christmas, the Church gives us a blunt reminder that proclaiming the Gospel can have deadly results. But the story of Stephen's martyrdom also gives us a reminder that the most adamant foes of Christ can become his allies. Saul the persecutor, or course, becomes St. Paul the Apostle.steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-86674429410448447472018-12-25T20:42:00.000-05:002018-12-25T20:48:27.332-05:00On the First Day of Christmas: An audacious proposition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are dumb enough to take the literally.”</div>
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~John Dominic Crossan</div>
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In what we now call the first century, there was a small sect of Jews and "God-fearers"--people who attended the synagogues, but weren't willing to submit to circumcision, Jewish dietary laws, and other rules of that faith--who accepted an audacious proposition: that God himself had come down to earth to live among us in the form of an itinerant rabbi named Joshua, or Jesus, from the backwater town of Nazareth.</div>
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And what was worse, this man had accumulated a ragtag army of followers, including fishermen, a tax collector, and an anonymous woman of ill repute. He singled out the poor, the mournful, and the hated as blessed, while condemning the rich and favored. He showed up in Jerusalem just before the celebration of Passover, and went on to outrage both the Jewish and Roman authorities by attacking the money-changers at the Temple--an action which led to his execution for sedition against the empire.</div>
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His death by crucifixion should have been the end of his movement, but his followers claimed he had come back from the dead. And somehow, more and more people--especially the God-fearers--joined the movement, or the Way, as he called it. As the Way's adherents increased, and their leader had not yet made a promised second return, there was a need to write the story down.<br />
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The first narrative was the Gospel According to Mark--attributed to a friend of Simon bar Jonah, whom Jesus called Peter, "The Rock." It begins not with Jesus' birth, but with his baptism in the River Jordan. Mark was probably writing to Jesus' followers in Rome.<br />
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The next two Gospels, those attributed to Matthew, a Jew who was also a despised tax collector; and Luke, a Greek-speaking companion of Paul, a persecutor of the Way before his conversion, give us two conflicting birth narratives. Both place Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, the city of David, and the place where the Davidic Messiah (Anointed of God) was to be born. And both proclaim a miraculous virgin birth. John's Gospel, like Mark's has no birth narrative, but we read the prologue to his gospel on Christmas morning, for it places Christ as, as we say in the Nicene Creed, "begotten, not made, of one being with the Father." but let us consider the narratives of Matthew and Luke:<br />
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In Matthew's account, Mary and Joseph are betrothed (but considered married) and living in Bethlehem. When Joseph learns Mary is pregnant, he initially plans to "divorce her quietly" rather than shame her and perhaps subject her to death by stoning, but an angel comes to him in a dream, saying that Mary will bear a son conceived of the Holy Spirit, who will save the people from their sins. Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, cites the prophets, and then references the story of the Exodus, though with a twist. The baby Jesus, after being proclaimed a great king by wise men from the East, survives a plague of the firstborn, though brought about by the false king Herod, by the Holy Family's flight into Egypt. When the family returns, it is to Nazareth.<br />
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Luke is writing more to the Gentile God-fearers, who are less familiar with Jewish narratives. He places the birth in Bethlehem with the device of a census, in which each head of household must travel to the city of his tribe. The census is for the purpose of Roman taxation. Luke, in fact, goes out of his way put the onus on the Romans--it takes place during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Joseph and Mary can't even find a decent place to stay, so Jesus is born in a stable. Instead of Matthew's wise men, Luke brings lowly shepherds, summoned by angels, to see the infant king. And the angels proclaim Jesus to be a Savior--the same word used to describe the emperor. If Matthew's Jesus is greater than Moses, then Luke's is greater than Augustus.<br />
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The two birth narratives, if taken literally, not only contradict each other, but are at odds with the facts as we know them--the Census of Quirinius took place in 6 A.D.--about ten years after Herod's death. And the Romans never required people to travel to their tribal hometowns. Matthew and Luke weren't historians. They were writing to put the birth of Christ into perspective to their respective audiences. And their narratives must have connected. Nearly two thousand years after they wrote their narratives, we're still repeating them.<br />
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steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-63828053909697346412018-07-24T07:47:00.000-04:002018-07-24T08:07:48.626-04:00Don't Kill the Magic: an airline man takes over Amtrak<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zsShhVg-7zx5FX-QR6qAFobAEJ1_6da5I2wSjjgpKnRZ5OzOtmn3VErThE5sFFfqlyNd4qQsP4cxKqfaCLk_8KpkbC1tyenQ5OMp2TOjZKAMgsV1gZ-ESZ_0zLjbRdyN_MNWuA/s1600/Westbound_Southwest_Chief_on_Raton_Pass+hinge+of+fate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; clear: right; color: #0066cc; float: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zsShhVg-7zx5FX-QR6qAFobAEJ1_6da5I2wSjjgpKnRZ5OzOtmn3VErThE5sFFfqlyNd4qQsP4cxKqfaCLk_8KpkbC1tyenQ5OMp2TOjZKAMgsV1gZ-ESZ_0zLjbRdyN_MNWuA/s400/Westbound_Southwest_Chief_on_Raton_Pass+hinge+of+fate.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="color: #161616;"><span style="background: transparent;">“<span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Having
spent much of my productive life at the state and federal levels
observing, studying, regulating and then leading a rail management
team, I am appalled with what increasingly appears to be a unilateral
violation of the public trust by Amtrak's current leadership to
dismantle our interconnected, intercity passenger network, beginning
with the hollowing out of its long-distance passenger network.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">-Joseph
Boardman, former Chief Executive Officer, in<a href="https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/amtrak-where-is-the-public-input-where-is-the-transparency/?RAchannel=home" target="_blank"><i> Railway Age,</i> </a>May 10, 2018</span></span></span></span></div>
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“There's something about a train
that's magic...” In the 1980s Amtrak launched what may have been
its most successful marketing campaign ever. In the face of shutdown
budgets from the Ronald Reagan Administration, Amtrak, which had
taken over most American intercity passenger trains in 1971, ran a
series of television <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0MIkduzGx4&t=2s" target="_blank">advertisements</a> for its of long-distance western
trains, featuring the throaty and sensuous voice of Colleen Dewhurst
promising mystery and adventure: "And where the Rockies are most forbidding</div>
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you will pass through and travel on to the ocean named
for peace,” she huskily intones in the 1986 ad promoting the
Chicago-Seattle/Portland <i>Empire Builder. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">The
legendary folksinger Richie Havens ends the commercials with a
plaintive “Al</span>l Aboard Amtrak.”<br />
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Passengers flocked to the trains, whose
1950s-era equipment had recently been replaced by double-deck
Superliner cars. And every time Reagan or his successors promised to
cut Amtrak out of the budget, these same passengers deluged their
representatives in Congress with letters and calls, and the national
system survived. Today the “national” in the National Railroad
Passenger Corporation, Amtrak's official name, is under assault by,
of all people, its Chief Executive Officer. And his first target for
elimination is the Chicago-Los Angeles <i>Southwest Chief.</i></div>
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In its first 46 years of operation,
Amtrak's management understood that while the busy Boston-New
York-Washington Northeast Corridor was the core of its operation, it
had an obligation to serve the rest of the country as well, with both
short-distance intercity trains and the overnight long-hauls, such as
the <i>Empire Builder </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span><i>
Southwest Chief. </i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Not only do
the long-distance trains serve places with little or no alternative
public transportation, they assure support from members of Congress
who would hesitate to fund Northeastern service alone. But on January
1, 2018, when former Delta Airlines chief Richard Anderson became
Amtrak's sole CEO, that whole understanding has vanished.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Anderson is no
believer in the magic of train travel. After all, air travel once had
its own aura of magic. But since the advent of airline deregulation
and the rise of executives such as Anderson, flying has become more
of an ordeal than a magical experience. And Anderson's first actions
as Amtrak CEO were to impose the kind of passenger-unfriendly rules
so familiar to fliers—<a href="https://thepointsguy.com/2013/12/amtrak-announces-changes-to-its-refund-policy-beginning-march-1-2014/" target="_blank">confiscatory refund policie</a>s, the elimination
of discount programs such as AAA and Veterans' Advantage, and a
reduction in senior and child discounts.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">It
then announced it would eliminate (the press release said “retire”)
the <a href="https://csanders429.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/pacific-parlor-cars-being-retired/" target="_blank">Pacific Parlour Car</a> on the Los Angeles-Seattle </span><i>Coast
Starlight—</i><span style="font-style: normal;">a first-class lounge
car that has boosted ridership on the route. There are no plans to
replace it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In late March
Amtrak announced it would stop operating most<a href="https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/hotline/hotline-1060/" target="_blank"> special trains</a> or
charter operations, thus throwing away the goodwill of hundreds of
organizations, along with the extra revenue such services provided.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">And
then Anderson began bad-mouthing the long-hauls. At the <a href="http://railpac.org/2018/04/21/amtrak-ceo-phasing-out-long-distance-trains-in-favor-of-corridors/" target="_blank">California Rail Summit</a> April 19, Anderson, who appeared angry when asked about
the services, said that the long-distance services cost $750 million
a year to operate (a figure based on questionable accounting
practices—something I'll cover in a later post), and then went on
to complain that only four per cent of passengers travel from end to
end. This seems to reflect Anderson's airline background—the idea
of multiple stops is simply alien to him. Anderson was asked, “What
about the 'National' in NRPC? Are you not supposed to operate a
national system? He was, according to one observer, “fuming,” and
abruptly said,</span><span style="color: #161616;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">“</span></span></span><span style="color: #161616;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Anyone
have a question about policy?” as though these questions weren't. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">On
the same day as the California Rail Summit, a <a href="https://media.amtrak.com/2018/04/new-contemporary-dining-soon-two-amtrak-routes/" target="_blank">news release</a> announced
that “Amtrak will offer contemporary and fresh dining choices for
sleeping car customers, instead of traditional dining car service,
embarking aboard its <i>Capitol Limited </i> and <i>Lake Shore
Limited </i>trains beginning June 1. Translation: No more hot meals;
cold boxed dinners for sleeping car passengers, whose meals are
included in the ticket price; and no option but the lounge car menu
for coach passengers, who until June 1, could pay for meals in the
diner.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">And
then on May 8, railroad artist and railfan Andrew Fletcher released a
bombshell—an <a href="https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4548829" target="_blank">e-mail </a>he had received from Joe Boardman, Amtrak CEO
from 2008 to 2016—which accused Amtrak management of attempting to
eliminate the national Amtrak system beginning with the <i>Southwest
Chief. </i>I was skeptical at first because the e-mail seemed hastily
written and was replete with grammar and punctuation errors. It was
not like the well-crafted Boardman messages I was used to reading
when I worked for Amtrak. But Mr. Boardman confirmed the message, and
later published a more polished version in <i>Railway Age, </i>That a
former Amtrak CEO would publicly criticize his successor was
unprecedented.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">Amtrak,
Boardman reminds us, “is not a privately held corporation whose
fate is to be determined by a few individuals behind closed doors. It
was created by the people and for the people and and is funded by
taxpayers who help supplement Amtrak's farebox revenue. Amtrak
provides a cherished public service, with opinion polls repeatedly
validating support for its existence and even expansion.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">And
in June, Boardman's prediction that “Amtrak management and its
board of directors have drawn a line in the sand at the foot of Raton
Pass, targeting the <i>Southwest Chief </i>as their first—but not
last—long-distance train to target for cutting” came true.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">The
<i>Chief </i>is a special case. Much of its route through Kansas,
Colorado, and New Mexico is little-used or unused by Burlington
Northern Santa Fe freights. But BNSF was willing to work with the
states and Amtrak to maintain the line. And the states came up with
the money, in the form of TIGER (Transportation Investment Gaining
Economic Opportunity) Grants. In March of this year, New Mexico
Senator Mark Udall announced that Colfax County, New Mexico had
received a $16 million <a href="https://www.tomudall.senate.gov/news/press-releases/new-mexico-democrats-announce-16-million-grant-to-repair-southwest-chief-line-in-nm" target="_blank">TIGER grant</a> for improvements on a 200-mile
stretch of track between Lamy, New Mexico and Trinidad, Colorado.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">But
there was a catch: Amtrak had to make a $3 million copayment in order
for the county to receive the grant. And in May, Amtrak Chief
Financial Officer William Feidt <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/railroads/390155-lawmakers-request-meeting-with-amtrak-ceo-over-funding-for" target="_blank">refused to make the payment </a>unless "a
comprehensive financial plan and accompanying commitments by relevant
states and BNSF for the remainder of the infrastructure investments
and additional maintenances (sic) costs for this route in New Mexico
must be completed.” Amtrak has never imposed such conditions on
track improvement projects on other segments of its route.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Senators
and Representatives from the there states were incensed, to say the
least, at Amtrak's decision to renege on its earlier commitment to
maintain the line. They requested a meeting with Amtrak officials.
But instead of negotiating with the people's representatives, they
arrogantly refused to consider anything but cutting the route. They
proposed replacing the train with bus service between Dodge City,
Kansas or La Junta, Colorado on the one hand, and Albuquerque, New
Mexico on the other. <a href="https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/heinrich-balks-at-amtraks-plan-to-abandon-nm-route/4961142/" target="_blank">New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich</a> said, I think
this was one of the most unproductive meetings with an agency level
official that I’ve ever experienced,” he said. “To learn that
not only are they planning to pull back their commitment to the TIGER
grant, but that they're going to abandon the route I think is just
outrageous.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;">And
if Anderson gets his way, he'll effectively kill the train. There's
very little about a bus that's magic, after all. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #161616;"><span style="font-family: "crimson text" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Image: Westbound Southwest Chief emerging from Raton Tunnel, by "Hinge of Fate," Wikimedia Commons</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-40906839417859258142018-04-03T23:16:00.000-04:002018-04-04T00:00:19.132-04:00Watching "Roads to Memphis" in the Age of Trump<div data-block="true" data-editor="e9mli" data-offset-key="blje3-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="blje3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT9iGI23TOBSg5zCTyvxyfWwc2LaO9UzeKt8jiG1n05jv4ZOH-Cxni6rAqnzx7zGFhR8o1Dsse9hbRNu7oAsNkTTsWqllczU6sF3C6JGpmXyS2PhGIjmEK7cnJECcNAzgkcKTDgQ/s1600/Roads_to_Memphis_Sig_Image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT9iGI23TOBSg5zCTyvxyfWwc2LaO9UzeKt8jiG1n05jv4ZOH-Cxni6rAqnzx7zGFhR8o1Dsse9hbRNu7oAsNkTTsWqllczU6sF3C6JGpmXyS2PhGIjmEK7cnJECcNAzgkcKTDgQ/s320/Roads_to_Memphis_Sig_Image.jpg" width="217" /></a><span data-offset-key="blje3-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I just finished watching "Roads to Memphis" about the journeys of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Earl Ray, from April, 1967 to April 4, 1968. The documentary then follows Ray to his eventual capture at London's Heathrow Airport on June 8, when he was attempting to flee to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), then ruled by white supremacists.</span></span><br />
<span data-offset-key="7ilq8-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I had seen it before when it was first shown in 2010, but it still felt like a punch to the gut as the camera focused on the squalid bathroom from which Ray fired his 30.06 rifle at our greatest champion of nonviolence.</span></span><span data-offset-key="df9sn-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" /></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="e9mli" data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Ray was a small-time criminal who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary on April 23, 1967. The documentary follows him on the lam--through the United States and Canada, and then to California and to Mexico, where he tries and fails to make pornographic movies. He returns to California, where commits himself to the presidential candidacy of Alabama governor George C. Wallace, who's running a campaign to bring back racial segregation.And somehow he gets the idea that powerful people would reward him if he killed the symbol of the civil rights movement.</span></span><span data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="12gai-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We follow him to Atlanta, and finally to Memphis, where he rents a room overlooking the Lorraine Motel, where King is staying. We know the rest.</span></span><span data-offset-key="26v5q-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" /></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="e9mli" data-offset-key="78f0a-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="78f0a-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
F<span data-offset-key="78f0a-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">ifty years later, the legacy of James Earl Ray is still with us, marching by torchlight in Charlottesville, murdering churchgoers in Charleston, killing a man who was armed only with a cellphone. There are just too many examples. And nearly eight years after we elected the first black president, the onetime "Party of Lincoln," nominated a man who had claimed Barack Obama had not been born in America, and whose campaign tactics resembled those of George Corley Wallace. And we elected him.</span></span><span data-offset-key="8eh8d-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br data-text="true" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" /></span></div>
</div>
<div data-block="true" data-editor="e9mli" data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Yet there was a glint of hope toward the end of the program, when Coretta Scott King came to Memphis to head the march her late husband had planned to lead. And there is surely hope today, as we see women stand up for their rights to be free and equal citizens. We see the students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High stand up for their right to go to school without being murdered. The Black Lives Matter movement is similarly calling for an end to the assumption that black people's lives do not mean as much as those of others.</span></span><span data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
T<span data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">housands of Americans have been spurred into activism by the rise of Donald J. Trump and his politics of division, many choosing to oppose the Party of Trump in the state legislatures. Locally, here in the very red 11th State Senate District of Indiana, Edward Liptrap, a Navy veteran and woodworker, is taking on Republican Joe Zakas, who's held the seat since 1982 and was unopposed in his last general election, in 2014. In Indiana's Second Congressional District, three strong candidates are vying to challenge Republican Jackie Walorski, who regularly praises the Trump Administration.</span></span><span data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="807t4-0-0" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">And perhaps it's time for former president Barack Obama to return to active politics and take on the mantle of King. James Wolcott, writing in this month's issue of Vanity Fair, suggests it in a roundabout way. And Obama has the distinct advantage of a Secret Service that should be more than a match for any budding James Earl Ray.</span></span></div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-61709417918323210712017-04-07T23:27:00.001-04:002017-04-07T23:29:58.269-04:00Fifty years ago: Last Run of No. 190<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's really been 50 years. I was all of fifteen years old. On the evening of April 7, 1967, I boarded a Trailways bus at the Iowa City bus terminal in the old Burkley Hotel for Cedar Rapids. From there I had to find the address of the Rock Island Lines depot, which turned out to be in the downtown freight yard. I had already bought the ticket back to Iowa City. I was a little bit worried about finding the station, though, as there were no buses back home until morning. But after walking what seemed like a mile ( it wasn't) from First Avenue, I came to the little cinder-block station and found I had lots of time to spare before the train came in. There was a <i>Des Moines Register </i>reporter of the station who talked with me.<br />
<br />
I was there to ride the last run of Rock Island Lines' No. 190, the last vestige of the Zephyr Rocket, a Minneapolis-St. Louis streamliner jointly operated by the Rock Island and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. The train debuted in 1941, with a sleeper and observation-lounge, as well as reclining seat coaches. By the mid-sixties it was coach-only, but the railroads kept it running until the Post Office canceled the mail contract. Without the Railway Post Office, the lightly-patronized train would become a big money-loser, and the two railroads petitioned for discontinuance in late 1966. After a series of hearings the Interstate Commerce Commission granted the petition.<br />
<br />
So I was there on the platform as the train came in, led by a single diesel locomotive, followed by the R.P.O, the baggage car, and a single coach. I snapped a picture of the coach before boarding. I had a simple Kodak camera with a flash attachment. The big press bulbs I had bought captured the image.<br />
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On board, I met two other railfans--Don Hofsommer, who was an instructor in history at Oklahoma State, and LaVerne "Andy" Andreessen, who had earned his master's in accounting at the State College of Iowa (now University of Northern Iowa), and was engaged to be married. (Sadly, I learned that Andy, a longtime accounting professor at UNI, died in 2009 when researching this piece.) The would be operating south to Burlington, where the equipment would turn and return to Minneapolis. Don offered to pay my fare to and from Burlington, but I had to decline--the northbound train would be too late for me to make my connection at West Liberty. I talked about trains with my fellow railfans until I got to West Liberty, where I'd have a long wait for my connection--No. 9, the former Corn Belt Rocket. I didn't know it at the time, but No. 9 would be gone--technically consolidated with No. 5 between Chicago and Rock Island, and discontinued west of there. It was also a victim of the Post Office's decision to cancel the mail contracts.<br />
<br />
The Minneapolis-St. Louis corridor, in a civilized country, would have high-speed trains traversing the route. Instead, we Midwesterners are going to have to fight to keep the few trains we have. It's still possible to go between St. Paul and St. Louis by train, but with a change of trains in Chicago. And if the Trump Administration has its way, the St. Paul-Chicago link will be gone by the end of September. Once again it's time to repeat author Peter Lyon's line from <i>To Hell in a Day Coach: </i>"Passengers of America Unite! You have nothing to lose but your trains!<br />
<br />steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-48034569244141282352017-02-02T19:25:00.000-05:002017-02-02T19:25:12.034-05:00From The Presentation at the Temple to Groundhog Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCyGhAqO4k4aekSF6EAEzim9YbjV-oc17UMzPCyMqhc94xykLao7CEhE-u1xNw4tIcTspGj9QzfwwNAnbD9PERVfOoHgAO0Pt1zWJF1f52jNWyMrjneBbAXzYPJJxzwNy4mTePg/s1600/Ambrogio_Lorenzetti_-_Presentazione_di_Ges%25C3%25B9_al_tempio_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCyGhAqO4k4aekSF6EAEzim9YbjV-oc17UMzPCyMqhc94xykLao7CEhE-u1xNw4tIcTspGj9QzfwwNAnbD9PERVfOoHgAO0Pt1zWJF1f52jNWyMrjneBbAXzYPJJxzwNy4mTePg/s1600/Ambrogio_Lorenzetti_-_Presentazione_di_Ges%25C3%25B9_al_tempio_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" /></a></div>
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Here in the States, February 2 is
Groundhog Day. But that celebration springs from the ancient
Christian holiday of The Presentation at the Temple, or Candlemas, along with various pre-Christian
festivals it supplanted. The holiday stems from the Jewish
purification rite for women after childbirth, which takes place forty
days after the birth of a male child, as well as the ritual of the
redemption of the firstborn, which exempts the firstborn not of the
Levite tribe from priestly service. The story of the purification
ritual is found only in the Gospel of Luke:</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24989"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24990"></a>
2<i>2 When the time came for their purification according to
the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him
to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord,
“Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”),
24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated
in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young
pigeons.”</i></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24991"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24992"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24993"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-24994"></a>
<i>25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon;
this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the
consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It
had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see
death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by
the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents
brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under
the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God,
saying,</i></div>
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<i>29 “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in
peace,<br /> according to your word;<br />30 for
my eyes have seen your salvation,<br />31 which
you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,<br />32 a
light for revelation to the Gentiles<br /> and
for glory to your people Israel.”</i></div>
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<i>33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what
was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and
said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling
and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be
opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be
revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”</i></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-25002"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-25003"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-25004"></a>
<i>36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel,
of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with
her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a
widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but
worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At
that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about
the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.</i><br />
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-Luke 2:22-38 (NRSV)</div>
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The story refers obliquely to the Holy
Family's poverty. Leviticus 12 states that the woman “shall bring</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="en-NRSV-3052"></a>to the
priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first
year for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin
offering.” But, “if she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take
two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the
other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement on
her behalf, and she shall be clean.” Luke's audience would have
been aware that the offering of two doves was an indication that
Joseph and Mary could not afford a lamb.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">
Luke also gives us the prophetic
stories of Simeon and Anna. Simeon, for whom it was prophesied
that he would not die until he had seen the Annointed, responds to
his encounter with the infant Jesus with poetry and prophecy.
Anna, who reminds us that prophets are not always men, proclaims
the Savior.</div>
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So how did the Feast of the
Presentation of the Lord become Groundhog Day? The early Christian
bishops were expert at co-opting local festivals, and most of them
were willing to look the other way when elements of paganism
showed up in the celebrations. The Presentation, forty days from
Christmas, coincided with the Celitc feast of Imbolc, the Roman
festival of Lupercalia, and the Germanic celebration of the bear.</div>
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At Imbolc, the festival of the
goddess Brigid, usually celebrated February 1, the Celts went out
into the fields with torches to bless the land about to be plowed.</div>
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Lupercalia honored the Lupercus,
the god of fertility and shepherds, and was celebrated February
15. Part of the festival was to purify the city. Plutarch
described another aspect of the celebration:
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<blockquote>
<span lang="en"><i>Lupercalia, of which many write
that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also
some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of
the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through
the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet
with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get
in their way, and like children at school present their hands
to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped
in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.</i></span></blockquote>
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Thus, the festival tied in well
with the Purification.</div>
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A third pagan festival, from which
Groundhog Day developed, was the Germanic celebration of the bear,
marking the time bears came out of hibernation to check on the
weather. According to the Wikipedia page, “Candlemas,” the<span lang="en">
“festival was characterized by bear costumes or disguises, and
mock rapes and abductions of young girls.” There were also
torchlight processions.</span></div>
<span lang="en">So the Church's Feast of the Presentation
absorbed elements of all these pagan festivals. The torches were
replaced with candles, and the celebration became known as
Candlemas. And the bear seems to have been replaced with a large
rodent, which provides a </span><span lang="en"><i>raison d'être
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">for
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. This year, Punxsutawney Phil saw his
shadow, so he's predicted six more weeks of winter. I'll go with
that. I'm not up to going out with at torch to seek a bear's lair.</span></span><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>(Image: Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Presentation at the Temple, 1342 (Uffizi, Florence)steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-56448450237424431642016-12-15T18:09:00.000-05:002016-12-15T18:09:38.874-05:00Mother of Vice Presidents
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I should have known. As
soon as Donald Trump chose Mike Pence as a running mate, he was bound
to win. You see, Mike Pence is a Hoosier. "Indiana is the mother
of Vice Presidents; home of more second-class men than any other
state,” quipped Thomas R. Marshall, of Columbia City, Indiana, who
also served as Woodrow Wilson's vice president.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Marshall was exaggerating,
but not by much. The Hoosier State has provided the nation with five
vice presidents, with a sixth waiting in the wings. There was a good
reason for three of them—Indiana was once a swing state. That's
hard to imagine now, given that it rarely goes Democratic in national
elections, but in the time between the end of Reconstruction and the
First World War, when much of the Democratic Party was southern, the
state was almost evenly divided between the two parties. Other swing
states were Ohio and New York. Because Democrats held “the Solid
South” and Republicans controlled New England and the Great Plains,
a presidential candidate who carried New York and either Ohio or
Indiana would win the presidency. Presidential candidates normally
came from New York or Ohio, while Hoosiers were often slated for the
second spot. While the first Hoosier VP, Schuyler Colfax, Ulysses S.
Grant's first VP, served before the Swing State era, the next three
fit the pattern: Thomas Hendricks, who served briefly under Grover
Cleveland; Charles W. Fairbanks, William Howard Taft's vice
president; and Marshall.</div>
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<br />
</div>
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After the First World War,
Indiana became solidly Republican, going Democratic only in the
landslide elections of 1932, 1936, 1964, and 2008, so it seemed
unlikely that the state would produce any more “second class men.”
Yet it has. Vice President George H.W. Bush, was not only 64 years
old when he received the Republican nomination, but Reagan
conservatives suspected him of being too moderate. He needed a
younger and more conservative running mate to balance the ticket.
Forty-one year-old Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, who had beaten the
legendary Senator Birch Bayh in 1980, fit the bill.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And this year the
Republican nominee, Donald Trump, had a problem with the Religious
Right. Trump may be a Presbyterian, but he isn't terribly religious,
as his reference to Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians as “Two
Corinthians” demonstrates. The most prominent Evangelical
conservative of the 2016 campaign was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But
Cruz had denounced Trump for insults to his wife and father and had
initially refused to support the GOP nominee. Enter Indiana Governor
Mike Pence, with sterling evangelical credentials.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In following posts, I'll
look at Indiana's vice presidents, beginning with Schuyler “Smiler”
Colfax, vice president from 1869 to 1873.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12159522.post-80576273531465187922016-01-12T21:01:00.000-05:002016-01-14T15:58:24.642-05:00Anne Therese "Terry" Strader, R.I.P.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43K34NBgBR2Jn9NaePPqeLZsVZL5Ahy7sO_9kvevrShaq-vJK5szwnFYO0W2zFAFGxEd1iwx7IYwVb7YYPTnnKNS9LuKY1uB2dv-exnQNulMDsde-wzl8bqs34ho3V0Z8FLZ3Ig/s1600/Anne+Therese+Strader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43K34NBgBR2Jn9NaePPqeLZsVZL5Ahy7sO_9kvevrShaq-vJK5szwnFYO0W2zFAFGxEd1iwx7IYwVb7YYPTnnKNS9LuKY1uB2dv-exnQNulMDsde-wzl8bqs34ho3V0Z8FLZ3Ig/s320/Anne+Therese+Strader.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I'll never have another chance to beat
Terry Strader at Scrabble, though even if I did, my chances would be
about the same as winning the Powerball jackpot. She always won. But
the prospect of beating her wasn't the reason I looked forward to
those games at her dining room table in Davenport, Iowa. It was
Terry's calm, reassuring voice that told me things were going to be
all right, that Kathleen and I could get over the next hurdle.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Back in the fall of '72 I met a lovely
young woman at the University of Iowa's Currier Hall cafeteria and I
was smitten. Kathleen Crews and I were married in August of '73, in
the Rose Garden of Vander Veer Park in Davenport. We were deeply in
love, but that doesn't always fix everything. Things didn't always go
smoothly.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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But beginning in August, 1975, we had a
support system. In the summer of that year we happened upon Terry
Chouteau on the St. Ambrose College campus, who warmly invited us to
her wedding to George Strader, a young man she had rescued from the
school's pre-seminary program. And perhaps because of his near-brush
with the celibate, priestly life, Terry and George were champions of
the institution of marriage. And that included ours.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Their wedding Christ the King Chapel on
the St. Ambrose campus was a wonderful affair, with children from the
Bethany Home in Moline, where both Terry and George worked, playing
roles in the ceremony.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And as the years went on, our visits to
the Straders were magical. There was “The Flame,” a winter
gathering at what was then Terry's grandmother's house on Newberry Street,
where a dozen or so of us sat around the fireplace on the rear
sleeping porch, talking and munching on snacks. The highlight of the
night was her brother Tom Chouteau's telling of “Nate the Snake,”
an interminably long tale with a groaner punchline, but at their
gathering, it just added to the magic.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
More often it was just a visit, first
at their walk-up apartment on West Third, then at their little house
on West Fourth, and later at the Newberry Street house that became
their home. We'd feast on Harris Pizza and then settle down to a
friendly game of Scrabble, which Terry would inevitably win. But it
was her soft, even-toned voice that provided us the magic, the
unstated message that our marriage was more important than the
stresses that sometimes went with it. And when we decided to have
children, they supported us in every way they could, including
becoming godparents to all three of our children.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Terry and George had five children, and
they were all born by Caesarean section. She once joked that the
doctors should just install a zipper across her mid-section. Of
course, they were way ahead of us in the grandchild department.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Kathleen and I were both looking
forward to the time I could retire. We'd move to Davenport and see a
lot more of the Straders. Maybe they'd even have a Flame, with the
iconic retelling of Nate the Snake. But then, sometime in 2014,
Kathleen got the news that Terry had been diagnosed with Stage Four
ovarian cancer. It's one of those cancers that's rarely detected
early and has a pitifully small survival rate. But her daughter,
Jennifer Rakovsky, who had overcome her own battle with cancer, got
her into New York's Sloan Kettering Medical Center. And we got our
hopes up. Way up. Terry can do magic—surely the magic will rebound
on her.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And for a while it seemed to be
working. The rounds of chemotherapy had not only kept her alive, but
she recovered to the point where she was looking healthy. Last August
Terry and George they had a 40th wedding anniversary celebration at
St. Mary's Parish House. The magic returned. Terry looked radiant as
she and George were showered with love from friends and family. And
it was a time for friends and family to reconnect with each other, as
well. One magical moment came when Kathleen and her friend Dixie
Baker Lewis linked arms and sang “Show Me the Way to Go Home.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Shortly after the celebration, Terry
and George went back to New York, where she was to receive some kind
of experimental treatment. We didn't hear anything for quite some
time. Then in November she came down with a high fever. After the
fever finally broke we learned that she would be evaluated—she'd
either go into rehabilitation therapy or hospice care. And a few days
later we learned she was going into rehab. Once again, our hopes were
up.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw7tQkxUa8d5h5phkyae2Y5uUfy3yTT2FuvVnE5lpGxzM0Sjc51JugBsjPfvj6aQouO3ys8XK2vap9-pxUPt1o8I1UxEV5jC9ncQxmOCD7GlYqfaG4obL1g3WB8n2EL8Zeuu6bBg/s1600/Kathleen+at+Terry+and+George%2527s+40th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw7tQkxUa8d5h5phkyae2Y5uUfy3yTT2FuvVnE5lpGxzM0Sjc51JugBsjPfvj6aQouO3ys8XK2vap9-pxUPt1o8I1UxEV5jC9ncQxmOCD7GlYqfaG4obL1g3WB8n2EL8Zeuu6bBg/s1600/Kathleen+at+Terry+and+George%2527s+40th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Flash forward to Saturday, January 9.
I'm on the phone with Kathleen, who's in Davenport to move her mother
from an independent living apartment to nursing home care. She's
under quite a bit of stress. So I'm in front of the computer with
Facebook open, and I see the line, “Terry is back home on Newberry
Street!” That exclamation point must mean good news. I was excited
enough to read the line to Kathleen. But longer Facebook posts have
that “See More” link you have to click on, and when I did, I
found the it was anything but good news. Terry and George had been
transported from New York to Davenport by private ambulance, where
she would receive hospice care. I wasn't ready for it. Neither was
Kathleen. The only good news was that she would die in her beloved
home surrounded by friends and family. The end came only a few hours
after I read the message.</div>
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Terry's gone, at least in body, but we
still have the magical spirit she passed on. She spent forty years
teaching all of us her brand of magic. I pray that we've learned
well.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>steve on the slow trainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18257811143869341854noreply@blogger.com2