Man in the Maze

AMAZING GRACE

2012-01-23T07:54:00.006-07:00

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From Wikipedia
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"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with lyrics written

by the English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807), published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.

Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was pressed into the Royal Navy and became a sailor, eventually participating in the slave trade. One night a terrible storm battered his vessel so severely that he became frightened enough to call out to God for mercy, a moment that marked the beginning of his spiritual conversion. His career in slave trading lasted a few years more until he quit going to sea altogether and began studying theology.

Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses, and it may have been chanted by the congregation without music. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States however, "Amazing Grace" was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named "New Britain" to which it is most frequently sung today.

Author Gilbert Chase writes that "Amazing Grace" is "without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns", and Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that it is performed about 10 million times annually. It has had particular influence in folk music, and become an emblematic African American spiritual. Its universal message has been a significant factor in its crossover into secular music. "Amazing Grace" saw a resurgence in popularity in the U.S. during the 1960s and has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th century, sometimes appearing on popular music charts.

"Amazing Grace", with the words written by Newton and joined with "New Britain", the melody most currently associated with it, appeared for the first time in Walker's shape note tunebook Southern Harmony in 1847. It was, according to author Steve Turner, a "marriage made in heaven...The music behind 'amazing' had a sense of awe to it. The music behind 'grace' sounded graceful. There was a rise at the point of confession, as though the author was stepping out into the open and making a bold declaration, but a corresponding fall when admitting his blindness." Walker's collection was enormously popular, selling about 600,000 copies all over the U.S. when the total population was just over 20 million.

"Amazing Grace" came to be an emblem of a religious movement and a symbol of the U.S. itself as the country was involved in a great political experiment, attempting to employ democracy as a means of government. Shape note singing communities, with all the members sitting around an open center, each song employing a different director, illustrated this in practice. Simultaneously, the U.S. began to expand westward into previously unexplored territory that was often wilderness. The "dangers, toils, and snares" of Newton's lyrics had both literal and figurative meanings for Americans. This became poignantly true during the most serious test of American cohesion in the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865). "Amazing Grace" set to "New Britain" was included in two hymnals distributed to soldiers and with death so real and imminent, religious services in the military became commonplace. The hymn was translated into other languages as well: while on the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee sang Christian hymns as a way of coping with the ongoing tragedy.

The communal understanding of redemption and human self-worth has changed since Newton's time. Since the 1970s, self-help books, psychology, and some modern expressions of Christianity have viewed this disparity in terms of grace being an innate quality within all people who must be inspired or strong enough to find it: something to achieve. In contrast to Newton's vision of wretchedness as his willful sin and distance from God, wretchedness has instead come to mean an obstacle of physical, social, or spiritual nature to overcome in order to achieve a state of grace, happiness, or contentment. Since its immense popularity and iconic nature, "grace" and the meaning behind the words of "Amazing Grace" have become as individual as the singer or listener. Bruce Hindmarsh suggests that the secular popularity of "Amazing Grace" is due to the absence of any mention about God in the lyrics until the fourth verse (by Excell's version, the fourth verse begins "When we've been there ten thousand years"), and that the song represents the ability of humanity to transform itself instead of a transformation taking place at the hands of God. "Grace", however, to John Newton had a clearer meaning, as he used the word to represent God or the power of God.

The transformative power of the song was investigated by journalist Bill Moyers in a documentary released in 1990. Moyers was inspired to focus on the song's power after watching a performance at Lincoln Center, where the audience consisted of Christians and non-Christians, and he noticed that it had an equal impact on everybody in attendance, unifying them.
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James Basker also acknowledged this force when he explained why he chose "Amazing Grace" to represent a collection of anti-slavery poetry: "there is a transformative power that is applicable...: the transformation of sin and sorrow into grace, of suffering into beauty, of alienation into empathy and connection, of the unspeakable into imaginative literature."

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The Dictionary of American Hymnology claims it is included in over a thousand published hymnals, and recommends its use for "occasions of worship when we need to confess with joy that we are saved by God's grace alone; as a hymn of response to forgiveness of sin or as an assurance of pardon; as a confession of faith or after the sermon."

JESUS AS A TEENAGER

2012-01-19T18:57:00.004-07:00

From THE URANTIA BOOK

Part IV, 127
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AS JESUS entered upon his adolescent years, he found himself the head and sole support of a large family. Within a few years after his father’s death all their property was gone. As time passed, he became increasingly conscious of his pre-existence; at the same time he began more fully to realize that he was present on earth and in the flesh for the express purpose of revealing his Paradise Father to the children of men.

No adolescent youth who has lived or ever will live on this world or any other world has had or ever will have more weighty problems to resolve or more intricate difficulties to untangle. No youth of Urantia will ever be called upon to pass through more testing conflicts or more trying situations than Jesus himself endured during those strenuous years from fifteen to twenty.
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Having thus tasted the actual experience of living these adolescent years on a world beset by evil and distraught by sin, the Son of Man became possessed of full knowledge about the life experience of the youth of all the realms of Nebadon, and thus forever he became the understanding refuge for the distressed and perplexed adolescents of all ages and on all worlds throughout the local universe.
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Slowly, but certainly and by actual experience, this divine Son is earning the right to become sovereign of his universe, the unquestioned and supreme ruler of all created intelligences on all local universe worlds, the understanding refuge of the beings of all ages and of all degrees of personal endowment and experience.
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1. The Sixteenth Year (A.D. 10)
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The incarnated Son passed through infancy and experienced an uneventful childhood. Then he emerged from that testing and trying transition stage between childhood and young manhood — he became the adolescent Jesus.
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This year he attained his full physical growth. He was a virile and comely youth. He became increasingly sober and serious, but he was kind and sympathetic. His eye was kind but searching; his smile was always engaging and reassuring. His voice was musical but authoritative; his greeting cordial but unaffected. Always, even in the most commonplace of contacts, there seemed to be in evidence the touch of a twofold nature, the human and the divine. Ever he displayed this combination of the sympathizing friend and the authoritative teacher. And these personality traits began early to become manifest, even in these adolescent years.
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This physically strong and robust youth also acquired the full growth of his human intellect, not the full experience of human thinking but the fullness of capacity for such intellectual development. He possessed a healthy and well-proportioned body, a keen and analytical mind, a kind and sympathetic disposition, a somewhat fluctuating but aggressive temperament, all of which were becoming organized into a strong, striking, and attractive personality.
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As time went on, it became more difficult for his mother and his brothers and sisters to understand him; they stumbled over his sayings and misinterpreted his doings. They were all unfitted to comprehend their eldest brother’s life because their mother had given them to understand that he was destined to become the deliverer of the Jewish people. After they had received from Mary such intimations as family secrets, imagine their confusion when Jesus would make frank denials of all such ideas and intentions.
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This year Simon started to school, and they were compelled to sell another house. James now took charge of the teaching of his three sisters, two of whom were old enough to begin serious study. As soon as Ruth grew up, she was taken in hand by Miriam and Martha. Ordinarily the girls of Jewish families received little education, but Jesus maintained (and his mother agreed) that girls should go to school the same as boys, and since the synagogue school would not receive them, there was nothing to do but conduct a home school especially for them.

Throughout this year Jesus was closely confined to the workbench. Fortunately he had plenty of work; his was of such a superior grade that he was never idle no matter how slack work might be in that region. At times he had so much to do that James would help him.
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By the end of this year he had just about made up his mind that he would, after rearing his family and seeing them married, enter publicly upon his work as a teacher of truth and as a revealer of the heavenly Father to the world. He knew he was not to become the expected Jewish Messiah, and he concluded that it was next to useless to discuss these matters with his mother; he decided to allow her to entertain whatever ideas she might choose since all he had said in the past had made little or no impression upon her and he recalled that his father had never been able to say anything that would change her mind. From this year on he talked less and less with his mother, or anyone else, about these problems. His was such a peculiar mission that no one living on earth could give him advice concerning its prosecution.
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He was a real though youthful father to the family; he spent every possible hour with the youngsters, and they truly loved him. His mother grieved to see him work so hard; she sorrowed that he was day by day toiling at the carpenter’s bench earning a living for the family instead of being, as they had so fondly planned, at Jerusalem studying with the rabbis. While there was much about her son that Mary could not understand, she did love him, and she most thoroughly appreciated the willing manner in which he shouldered the responsibility of the home.

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To see the entire paper, which covers Christ's life

from ages sixteen to twenty, go here:

http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-127-adolescent-years

COLD CUSTOMS FOR THE EPIPHANY

2012-01-06T08:33:00.022-07:00

The Epiphany, January 6, or January 19 in the Eastern Orthodox rite, is the traditional day that Christians celebrate the arrival of the magi. A number of other religious, semi-religious, and even pagan practices have been associated with marking the date, which also got intermingled sometime in the past with the celebration of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River.

No matter - the icy plunge near the beginning of the year symbolizes a new beginning, a holy immersion that washes away sins. This is good, and actually sort of convenient, since your heart may very well freeze up and quit from the incredible shock to your system (it happens to a few every year).

On this day, while honoring an old Russian tradition, believers dive into ice holes, usually made in the form of a cross, in lakes, rivers and other water bodies.

Some 30,000 believers dipped themselves in ice holes in 37 fonts in Moscow where waters were blessed by Orthodox priests during the night, with 260 rescuers monitoring the safety of swimming as air temperature was below minus 20 degrees Celsius.

A Moscow district official and some other 50 people bathed in an Epiphany font in the center of the Russian capital.

"I feel as if I was reborn. This is the first Epiphany bathing in my life and I am sure it won't be the last," Leonid Sidorov, deputy head of Moscow's Central Administrative District, told journalists.

The feast's peculiar feature is the rite of the Great Blessing of Water, performed in Russian churches.

Holy water is then given to believers, who store it for long periods and use it to cure illnesses and bless themselves or things and premises around them. Some people think any water - even from the taps on the kitchen sink - poured or bottled -
on Epiphany becomes holy.

Close to 100,000 people came to Moscow's 268 Orthodox churches to bottle holy water on the occasion.

In southern Russia's city of Sochi, where the air and water temperature is some 12 degrees Celsius, about 3,000 people jumped into the Black Sea and started swimming at midnight to celebrate the feast.

Some 20,000 people dipped into cold water during the night in the city of Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga Federal District.

From the RIANAVOSTO website

Blessing of Waters

The Orthodox Churches perform the Great Blessing of Waters on Theophany (Jan 6 or Jan 19, depending on whether the region, or church, follows the Julian or the Gregorian calendar). The blessing is normally done twice: once on the Eve of the Feast—usually at a Baptismal font inside the church—and then again on the day of the feast, outdoors at a body of water. Following the Divine Liturgy, the clergy and people go in a Crucession (procession with the cross) to the nearest body of water, be it a beach, harbor, quay, river, lake, swimming pool, water depot, etc. (ideally, it should be a body of "living water"). At the end of the ceremony the priest will bless the waters. In the Greek practice, he does this by casting a cross into the water. If swimming is feasible on the spot, any number of volunteers may try to recover the cross. The person who gets the cross first swims back and returns it to the priest, who then delivers a special blessing to the swimmer and their household.

Certain such ceremonies have achieved particular prominence, such as the one held annually at Tarpon Springs, Florida. In Russia, where the winters are severe, a hole will be cut into the ice so that the waters may be blessed. In such conditions, the cross is not cast into the water, but is held securely by the priest and dipped three times into the water.

The water that is blessed on this day is known as "Theophany Water" and is taken home by the faithful, and used with prayer as a blessing. People will not only bless themselves and their homes by sprinkling with Theophany Water, but will also drink it. The Orthodox Church teaches that Theophany Water differs from regular holy water in that with Theophany Water, the very nature of the water is changed and becomes incorrupt, a miracle attested to as early as St. John Chrysostom.

Theophany is a traditional day for performing Baptisms, and this is reflected in the Divine Liturgy by singing the baptismal hymn, "As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Alleluia."

We had a post during our ADVENT SERIES this past

December concerning the wise men, the magi. Here it is:

http://maninthemaze.blogspot.com/2011/12/magi-are-moving.html

PSALM 40 - DELIVER ME, O LORD

2012-01-03T13:36:00.024-07:00

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he stooped to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me up out of the desolate pit,

out of the mire and clay;

He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God;

many shall see and stand in awe,

and put their trust in the LORD.

Happy are they who trust in the LORD!

they do not resort to evil spirits

or turn to false gods.

Great things are they that you have done,

O LORD, my God!

how great your wonders and your plans for us!

there is none who can be compared with you.

Oh, that I could make them know

and tell them!

but there are more than I can count.

In sacrifice and offering you take no pleasure

(you have given me ears to hear you);

Burnt-offering and sin-offering you

have not required,

and so I said, "Behold, I come.

In the roll of the book it is written

concerning me:

'I love to do your will, O my God;

your law is deep in my heart.'"

Your righteousness have I not hidden

in my heart;

I have spoken of your faithfulness and

your deliverance;

I have not concealed your love and

faithfulness from the great congregation.

You are the LORD;

do not withhold your compassion from me;

let your love and your faithfulness

keep me safe for ever,

For innumerable troubles have crowded

upon me;

my sins have overtaken me and I cannot see;

they are more in number than the

hairs of my head,

and my heart fails me.

Let them be ashamed and altogether dismayed

who seek after my life to detsroy it;

let them draw back and be disgraced

who take pleasure in my misfortune.

Let those who say "Aha!" and gloat over me

be confounded,

because they are ashamed.

Though I am poor and afflicted,

the Lord will have regard for me.

You are my helper and my deliverer;

do not tarry, O my God.

COME HOLY SPIRIT, ANIMATE US

2012-01-01T15:34:00.010-07:00

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Christ Jesus, before ascending into heaven, You promised to send the Holy Spirit to Your apostles and disciples.

Grant that the same Spirit may perfect in our lives the work of Your grace and love.

Grant us the Spirit of Fear Of The Lord that we may be filled with a loving reverence toward You.

the Spirit of Piety that we may find peace and fulfillment in the service of God while serving others;

the Spirit of Fortitude that we may bear our cross with You and, with courage, overcome the obstacles that interfere with our salvation;

the Spirit of Knowledge that we may know You and know ourselves and grow in holiness;

the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten our minds with the light of Your truth;

the Spirit of Counsel that we may choose the surest way of doing Your will, seeking first the Kingdom;

Grant us the Spirit of Wisdom that we may aspire to the things that last forever;

Teach us to be Your faithful disciples and animate us in every way with Your Spirit.

Amen.

Prayer for the Indwelling of the Spirit

Holy Spirit, powerful Consoler, sacred Bond of the Father and the Son, Hope of the afflicted, descend into my heart and establish in it your loving dominion. Enkindle in my tepid soul the fire of your Love so that I may be wholly subject to you. We believe that when you dwell in us, you also prepare a dwelling for the Father and the Son. Deign, therefore, to come to me, Consoler of abandoned souls, and Protector of the needy. Help the afflicted, strengthen the weak, and support the wavering. Come and purify me. Let no evil desire take possession of me. You love the humble and resist the proud. Come to me, glory of the living, and hope of the dying. Lead me by your grace that I may always be pleasing to you. Amen.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Come Holy Spirit, Creator Blest

(Veni, Creator Spiritus)

Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,

and in our souls take up Thy rest;

come with Thy grace and heavenly aid

to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,

O heavenly gift of God Most High,

O fount of life and fire of love,

and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;

Thou, finger of God's hand we own;

Thou, promise of the Father, Thou

Who dost the tongue with power imbue.

Kindle our sense from above,

and make our hearts o'erflow with love;

with patience firm and virtue high

the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,

and grant us Thy peace instead;

so shall we not, with Thee for guide,

turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow

the Father and the Son to know;

and Thee, through endless times confessed,

of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,

Who rose from death, be glory given,

with Thou, O Holy Comforter,

henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.

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From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part II, 34, 6

Those who have received and recognized the indwelling of God have been born of the Spirit. “You are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you.” It is not enough that this spirit be poured out upon you; the divine Spirit must dominate and control every phase of human experience.

It is the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life, that prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind. Spirit-motivated beings “never thirst, for this spiritual water shall be in them a well of satisfaction springing up into life everlasting.” Such divinely watered souls are all but independent of material environment as regards the joys of living and the satisfactions of earthly existence. They are spiritually illuminated and refreshed, morally strengthened and endowed.

In every mortal there exists a dual nature: the inheritance of animal tendencies and the high urge of spirit endowment. During the short life you live on Urantia, these two diverse and opposing urges can seldom be fully reconciled; they can hardly be harmonized and unified; but throughout your lifetime the combined Spirit ever ministers to assist you in subjecting the flesh more and more to the leading of the Spirit. Even though you must live your material life through, even though you cannot escape the body and its necessities, nonetheless, in purpose and ideals you are empowered increasingly to subject the animal nature to the mastery of the Spirit. There truly exists within you a conspiracy of spiritual forces, a confederation of divine powers, whose exclusive purpose is to effect your final deliverance from material bondage and finite handicaps.

The purpose of all this ministration is, “That you may be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man.” And all this represents but the preliminary steps to the final attainment of the perfection of faith and service, that experience wherein you shall be “filled with all the fullness of God,” “for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.”

The Spirit never drives, only leads. If you are a willing learner, if you want to attain spirit levels and reach divine heights, if you sincerely desire to reach the eternal goal, then the divine Spirit will gently and lovingly lead you along the pathway of sonship and spiritual progress. Every step you take must be one of willingness, intelligent and cheerful co-operation. The domination of the Spirit is never tainted with coercion nor compromised by compulsion.

And when such a life of spirit guidance is freely and intelligently accepted, there gradually develops within the human mind a positive consciousness of divine contact and assurance of spirit communion; sooner or later “the Spirit bears witness with your spirit (the Adjuster) that you are a child of God.” Already has your own Thought Adjuster told you of your kinship to God so that the record testifies that the Spirit bears witness “with your spirit,” not to your spirit.

The consciousness of the spirit domination of a human life is presently attended by an increasing exhibition of the characteristics of the Spirit in the life reactions of such a spirit-led mortal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” Such spirit-guided and divinely illuminated mortals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in human faithfulness perform the duties of their earthly assignments, have already begun to discern the lights of eternal life as they glimmer on the faraway shores of another world; already have they begun to comprehend the reality of that inspiring and comforting truth, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And throughout every trial and in the presence of every hardship, spirit-born souls are sustained by that hope which transcends all fear because the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the presence of the divine Spirit.
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PRAYERS FOR THE BLUE PLANET

2011-12-28T18:50:00.009-07:00

Prayer for a blue planet

Our Father of the Heavens:
Your whole creation, sun, moon, stars and this earthly orb, which you made with your hands in all its fragile beauty, and every creature of this earth to which you have given life, all of them testify to your power and grace, save only man whose mouth is stopped with words. Forgive us for what we speak and do not speak. Forgive our world, your world, which you have left us free to nurture and to defile. Make yourself known to all who are broken in spirit or in flesh, and that is all of us. We long for your peace, which the world can neither give nor take away, the peace that exists only in the eye of the storm, and the heart of the battle. Give us finally the joy of the child born to Mary, whose mercy stretches out across the skies. Amen.

BLUE WORLD

by Justin Hayward of THE MOODY BLUES

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Heart and soul took control
Took control of me
Paid my dues spread the news
Hands across the sea
Put me down turned me round
Turned me round to see
Marble halls open doors
Someone found the key
And it's only what you do
That keeps coming back on you
And it's only what you say
That can give yourself away
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Underground sight and sound
human Symphony
Heard the voice had no choice
needed to be free
Fly me high touch the sky
Left the earth below
Heard the line saw the sign
Knew which way to go
Cos it's easier to try
Than to prove it can't be done
And it's easier to stay
Than to turn around and run
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It's a blue world
It takes somebody to help somebody
Oh it's a blue world
It's a new world
It needs somebody to love somebody
Oh it's a blue world
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Heart and soul took control
Took control of me
Paid my dues spread the news
Hands across the sea
Put me down turned me round
Turned me round to see
Marble halls open doors
Someone found the key
And it's only what you do
That keeps coming back on you
And it's only what you say
That can give yourself away
Cos it's easier to try
Than to prove it can't be done
And it's easier to stay
Than to turn around and run
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It's a blue world
It takes somebody to help somebody
Oh it's a blue world
It's a new world
It needs somebody to love somebody
Oh it's a blue world
It's a blue world
It takes somebody to help somebody
Oh it's a blue world
It's a new world
It needs somebody to love somebody
Oh it's a blue world

A silent prayer for those who do not speak

From our large blue planet to the unborn, small and meek

Pray for all our brothers and sisters to be aware that all is

connected to The One

. To the Father and the Spirit and His only begotten Son

That all life is sacred, and all life has the right

To live as soul intended, for this, we all must fight

So let your silence now be heard as the evil tries to sway

Or else nothing will be left when it comes to Judgement Day….

Lisa P. Donato

CHRISTMAS DAY

2011-12-25T18:37:00.032-07:00

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"Digging Into The Birth of Christmas"
by Ariel David,
The Associated Press
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ROME - The church where the tradition of celebrating
Christmas on Dec. 25 may have begun was built near
a pagan shrine as part of an effort to spread Christianity,
a leading Italian scholar says.
Italian archaeologists last month unveiled
an underground grotto that they believe ancient Romans
revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's
legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.

A few feet from the grotto, or "Lupercale,"
the Emperor Constantine built the Basilica of St. Anastasia,
where some believe Christmas was first celebrated on Dec. 25.
Constantine ended the frequent waves of anti-Christian
persecutions in the Roman empire by making Christianity
a lawful religion in 313. He played a key roll in
unifying the beliefs and practices of the
early followers of Jesus.

In 325, he convened the Council of Nicaea,
which fixed the dates of important Christian festivals.
It opted to mark Christmas, then celebrated at
varying dates, on Dec. 25 to coincide with the Roman festival
celebrating the birth of the sun god, Andrea Carandini,
a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University,
told reporters Friday. The Basilica of St. Anastasia
was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council.
It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25,
part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to
Christian celebrations in the early days of the
new religion, Carandini said.
"The church was built to Christianize these
pagan places of worship," he said. "It was normal
to put a church near these places
to try to 'save' them."

Rome's archaeological superintendent Angelo Bottini,
who did not take part in Carandini's research,
said that hypothesis was "evocative and coherent"
and "helps us understand the mechanisms of the passage
from paganism to Christianity."
Bottini and Carandini both said future digs
could bolster the link between the shrine and the church
if structures belonging to the "Lupercale" are found
directly below the basilica.
The "Lupercale" shrine - named after the "lupa,"
Latin for she-wolf - is 52 feet below the ground.
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From THE URANTIA BOOK

Part IV, 122, 8

The Birth of Jesus

All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.

In just the same manner as all babies before that day and since have come into the world, the promised child was born; and on the eighth day, according to the Jewish practice, he was circumcised and formally named Joshua (Jesus).

The next day after the birth of Jesus, Joseph made his enrollment. Meeting a man they had talked with two nights previously at Jericho, Joseph was taken by him to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and who said he would gladly exchange quarters with the Nazareth couple. That afternoon they moved up to the inn, where they lived for almost three weeks until they found lodgings in the home of a distant relative of Joseph.

The second day after the birth of Jesus, Mary sent word to Elizabeth that her child had come and received word in return inviting Joseph up to Jerusalem to talk over all their affairs with Zacharias. The following week Joseph went to Jerusalem to confer with Zacharias. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth had become possessed with the sincere conviction that Jesus was indeed to become the Jewish deliverer, the Messiah, and that their son John was to be his chief of aides, his right-hand man of destiny. And since Mary held these same ideas, it was not difficult to prevail upon Joseph to remain in Bethlehem, the City of David, so that Jesus might grow up to become the successor of David on the throne of all Israel. Accordingly, they remained in Bethlehem more than a year, Joseph meantime working some at his carpenter’s trade.

At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Jerusalem by Zacharias.
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Christmas children, is not a date,

it is a state of mind.

Mary Ellen Chase

American Author & Educator

He who has not Christmas in his heart,

will never find it under a tree.

Roy L. Smith

Bible Educator

I will honor Christmas in my heart,
and try to keep it all the year.
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Charles Dickens
British Author of A CHRISTMAS CAROL
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THE END OF ADVENT 2011

2011-12-24T20:08:00.025-07:00

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I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
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When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
.
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King
.
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
.
John Jacob Niles
.

The One Who Cries in the Wilderness

This is another passage from a piece we used

earlier in the series, written by a Father Alfred Delp S.J.,

who was condemned as a traitor in Nazi Germany.

He wrote this shortly before he was hanged in 1945.

Woe to an age when the voices of those who cry

in the wilderness have fallen silent, outshouted

by the noise of the day or outlawed or swallowed up

in the intoxication of progress,

or growing smothered and fainter

for fear and cowardice. The devastation will soon

be so terrifying and universal that the word

"wilderness" will again strike our hearts and minds.

I think we know that.

But still there are no crying voices to raise

their plaint and accusation. Not for an hour

can life dispense with these John-the-Baptist

characters, these original individuals, struck by

the lightning of mission and vocation.

Their heart goes before them,

and that is why their eye is so clear-sighted,

their judgment so incorruptible.

They do not cry for the sake of crying

or for the sake of the voice.

Or because they begrudge earth's pleasant hours,

exiled as they themselves are from the

small warm companionships of the foreground.

Theirs is the great comfort known only to those

who have paced out the inmost and furthermost

boundaries of existence.

They cry for blessing and salvation.

They summon us to our last chance,

while already they feel the ground quaking

and the rafters creaking and see the firmest of

mountains tottering inwardly and see the very stars

in heaven hanging in peril.

They summon us to the opportunity of warding off,

by the greater power of a converted heart,

the shifting desert that will

pounce upon us and bury us.

Let us ask for clear eyes that are able to see

God's messengers of annunciation;

for awakened hearts with the wisdom to hear

the words of promise. Let us ask for faith

in the motherly consecration of life as shown

in the figure of the blessed woman of Nazareth.

Let us be patient and wait,

wait with Advent readiness for the moment

when it pleases God to appear in our night too,

as the fruit and mystery of this time.
.

And let us ask for the openness and willingness

to hear God's warning messengers and to

conquer life's wilderness through repentant hearts.

We must not shrink from or suppress

the earnest words of these crying voices,

so that those who today are our executioners

will not tomorrow become accusers because

we have remained silent.

Let us then live in today's Advent,

for it is the time of promise.

To eyes that do not see, it still seems

that the final dice are being cast

down in these valleys, on these battlefields,

in those camps and prisons and bomb shelters.

Those who are awake sense the workings

of the other powers and can await

the coming of their hour.

Space is still filled with the noise of

destruction and annihilation, the shouts

of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping

of despair and helplessness.

But just beyond the horizon the eternal realities

stand silent in their age-old longing.

There shines on us the first mild light of

the radiant fulfillment to come.

From afar sound the first notes as of

pipes and singing boys, not yet discernible

as a song or melody. It is all far off still,

and only just announced and foretold.

But it is happening. This is today.

And tomorrow the angels will tell

what has happend with loud rejoicing voices,

and we shall know it and be glad,

if we have believed and

trusted in Advent.
.

.
Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.
.
John Updike
American Author
.

.
“You must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation’ … But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2 PETER 3: 3-4, 8-9
.

We live in astounding times. The combination of momentous political change and unusual natural phenomena in recent years has many folks wondering just what the heck is going on. The evangelist Billy Graham recently wrote that he has never in 50 years of ministry had so many people ask him if the end of the world is at hand. The timing of the Second Coming has always titillated Christians, perhaps because it is concealed. For as Jesus said, “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

That instruction often gets forgotten when believers see events that correspond with the signs Christ said would foreshadow His return. There is growing speculation that the Second Coming is imminent, a trend that will only intensify as the turn of the millenium approaches. Christians must take care to not be deceived – either by those who insist He’s coming tomorrow, or those who claim He won’t return in our lifetime. For the “scoffers” are also many, and are on thin ice as well. For decades, progressive thinkers ridiculed “Bible believing” scholars who insisted that Christ’s return would be immediately preceded by such unlikely events as European political union and a cashless society. No one’s laughing today.

But as Peter understood, a comma on a page in the Bible could be 50 or 100 years for us. God defines “soon” much differently than we do. God’s desire is for “everyone to come to repentance” – for us to invite Christ into our hearts and our lives. On a Bethlehem night 2,000 years ago, He came as a babe. One day, He will come in glory.

In our world, He comes to us through the love and caring of forgiven people living changed lives. Christ means for us to join him in eternal life. For now, His will is for us to be here, loving our neighbor until they ask us why, and then pointing them toward the Cross.

These meditations were prepared by Rich Miller of Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Rich is a lay speaker who attends the The Hopewell United Methodist Church in Hopewell Borough, N.J.
From the Christmas in Cyberspace website
.

GOOD KING WENCESLAS

2011-12-23T19:20:00.009-07:00

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"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol about a king who goes out to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (the second day of Christmas, December 26). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935), known in the Czech language as Svatý Václav.
.

.
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyrics, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853. Neales' lyrics were set to a tune based on a 13th century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("The time is near for flowering") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
.

.
Source Legend
.
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex justus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, the chronicler Cosmas of Prague, writing in about the year 1119, states:
"But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched."
.

.
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on Wenceslas the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
.
From Wikipedia

Even as a young child, I remember feeling moved

as I sung this unusual carol. Why does Good King Wenceslas

have such a deep and lasting impact on its hearers?

Perhaps it is because there are so many levels of meaning

to this carol. A child may hear one thing,

an adult may hear another. I find that I can

sing it again and again, and new meaning continues

to pour forth from the carol. Recently the phrase

‘Fails my heart, I know not how, I can go no longer’

really spoke to me. It reminded me that sometimes

there are times in our lives when life and its stresses

seem to overwhelm us, and we feel that

‘we can go no longer.’

The response of Good King Wenceslas was most interesting.

He said: ‘Mark my footsteps, my good page,

Tread thou in them boldly: Thou shalt find the winter’s rage

freeze thy blood less coldly.’

Wenceslas reminds us that when we are all alone,

life can feel very bleak. It is at such times

that solidarity with another human being can help

‘our blood freeze less coldly’.

Wenceslas affirms that we are not alone,

and subtly points to the basic Christmas message that

Jesus our Master will never leave us in the cold.

Rev. Ed Hird, St. Simon's Anglican Church

North Vancouver, B.C.

WINTER SOLSTICE

2011-12-22T10:39:00.025-07:00

.
The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice
(December 25 being the solstice date in the ancient Roman empire).
.

Joseph Campbell

Author of The Masks of God, The Power of Myth, and more.

.
The love that descended to Bethlehem
is not the easy sympathy of an avuncular God,
but a burning fire whose light chases away
every shadow, floods every corner,
and turns midnight into noon.
This love reveals sin and overcomes it.
It conquers darkness with such forcefulness
and intensity that it scatters the proud,
feeds the hungry,
and sends the rich away empty-handed.
.
(Luke I:51-53)

.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE
.
Tonight we celebrate the Sabbat of Yule, also known as the Winter Solstice, or Midwinter.
This is both one of the oldest of the Sabbats, and also one of the youngest. Oldest in that ancient civilizations celebrated the solstice and the return of the sun thousands of years ago…youngest in that many of thoseancient customs have translated themselves over the years to the more modern traditions of the holiday season we now know as Christmas.
.
The word solstice comes from the Latin sol stetit,
which translates into “sun stands still,” a reference to the fact that for several days in December (and also in June), the sun appears to rise and set at more or less the same point on the horizon, appearing to stand still in the sky.
.
These solstices divide the year into two – a Dark Half and a Light Half…
six months of waxing sun and six months of waning sun.
The Winter Solstice marks the return of the Sun,
and thus the beginning of the Light Half of the year.

As such, it was of tremendous importance to ancient peoples,

governing the round of their lives, and serving as an anchor point in
the natural as well as agricultural and pastoral year.

.
The Winter Solstice has always been a time of celebration –
whether it be the return of the sun, the promise of evergreen boughs, or the birthday of the Midwinter King. This Child of Wonder has been celebrated in so many ways with so many names, throughout an extended period of time, but regardless of the culture or time period, always seems to share some similar characteristics. A surprising number of the gods of the ancient classic world maintained nativity stories which would later influence the development of that story best known and celebrated today – the birth of the baby Jesus. Amongst those deities are Tammuz (Mesopotamia), Attis (Asia Minor), Apollo (Greece), Mithras (Rome), Baal (Palestine), and Osirus and Horus (Egypt).
.

In modern times, Yule has come to be indissolubly linked
with the festival of Christmas, and the celebration of
the birth of Christ.
The myths of this festival have become so deeply imbedded in our own culture that we now take many of the customs of the season for granted, and no longer stop to ask ourselves why we in fact do decorate a fir tree at this time, or place green boughs and candles in our homes, or erect a nativity scene, or have our pictures taken with Santa Claus.
.
Yet, as we begin to consider the alternative history of Christmas, we come to recognize that many of these traditions have a far deeper meaning that we originally thought. There’s the story of the wondrous birth, as explained above.
The Christmas Tree began life as the Solstice Evergreen,
being adapted in medieval and Victorian times
to the tinsel-decked image of today.
Even the ancient carol “The Holly and the Ivy” comes from
a pre-Christian age when the Lord and the Lady of the Greenwood were honored by the hanging of green garlands from ridge poles of houses. Indeed…holly and ivy, along with mistletoe, make up the three sacred plants of Yule…according to the Celtic Druids.
And that good old character known as Santa Claus actually derives from the ancient shamans who were the first priests and magicians of the human race.
.
The very notion of a gift giver descending from a high place bearing gifts can be traced back to the shaman’s habit of climbing up the world tree to reach the otherworld, and then climbing back down with the gifts of prophecy and wisdom to give to the rest of us.
.
Yet, regardless of how one chooses to celebrate this time of the year, or by which name…the Winter Solstice has been celebrated in different places and at different times throughout history; even today we can still acknowledge it in our own individual ways.
.
From the deafpagancrossroads.com website
.

FROM BETHLEHEM TO GOLGATHA

2011-12-21T19:37:00.015-07:00

The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole.
If we become immersed in one,
we are led to all the others.
Thus the way from Bethlehem leads
inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib
to the cross.
When the blessed virgin brought the
child to the temple, Simeon prophesied
that her soul would be pierced by a sword,
that this child was set for the fall
and the resurrection of many,
for a sign that would be contradicted.
His prophecy announced the passion,
the fight between light and darkness
that already showed itself
before the crib.
.
Edith Stein
Jewish convert to Catholicism
killed at Auschwitz
.

.
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; and with you I am well pleased."
.
Luke 3: 21-22
.

And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we perish?”
.

Mark 4: 37-38
.

.
And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem,
and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives,
then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. .
All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,
And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David:
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.
.
Matthew 21: 1-11
.

.
And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha,
that is to say, a place of a skull,They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof,
he would not drink.
And they crucified him, and bparted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
And sitting down they watched him there;
And set up over his head his accusation written, This Is Jesus the King of the Jews.
Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.
And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
And saying, Thou that destroyest the atemple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the bSon of God, come down from the cross.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,
He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
.
Matthew 27: 33-38
.

THE JEWS OF JESUS' TIME

2011-12-20T18:08:00.037-07:00

.
From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part IV, 121, 7
.

By the times of Jesus the Jews had arrived at a settled concept of their origin, history, and destiny. They had built up a rigid wall of separation between themselves and the gentile world; they looked upon all gentile ways with utter contempt. They worshiped the letter of the law and indulged a form of self-righteousness based upon the false pride of descent. They had formed preconceived notions regarding the promised Messiah, and most of these expectations envisaged a Messiah who would come as a part of their national and racial history. To the Hebrews of those days Jewish theology was irrevocably settled, forever fixed.
.

.
The teachings and practices of Jesus regarding tolerance and kindness ran counter to the long-standing attitude of the Jews toward other peoples whom they considered heathen. For generations the Jews had nourished an attitude toward the outside world which made it impossible for them to accept the Master’s teachings about the spiritual brotherhood of man. They were unwilling to share Yahweh on equal terms with the gentiles and were likewise unwilling to accept as the Son of God one who taught such new and strange doctrines.
.

.
The scribes, the Pharisees, and the priesthood held the Jews in a terrible bondage of ritualism and legalism, a bondage far more real than that of the Roman political rule. The Jews of Jesus’ time were not only held in subjugation to the law but were equally bound by the slavish demands of the traditions, which involved and invaded every domain of personal and social life. These minute regulations of conduct pursued and dominated every loyal Jew, and it is not strange that they promptly rejected one of their number who presumed to ignore their sacred traditions, and who dared to flout their long-honored regulations of social conduct. They could hardly regard with favor the teachings of one who did not hesitate to clash with dogmas which they regarded as having been ordained by Father Abraham himself. Moses had given them their law and they would not compromise.
.

.
By the time of the first century after Christ the spoken interpretation of the law by the recognized teachers, the scribes, had become a higher authority than the written law itself. And all this made it easier for certain religious leaders of the Jews to array the people against the acceptance of a new gospel.
.

.
These circumstances rendered it impossible for the Jews to fulfill their divine destiny as messengers of the new gospel of religious freedom and spiritual liberty. They could not break the fetters of tradition. Jeremiah had told of the “law to be written in men’s hearts,” Ezekiel had spoken of a “new spirit to live in man’s soul,” and the Psalmist had prayed that God would “create a clean heart within and renew a right spirit.” But when the Jewish religion of good works and slavery to law fell victim to the stagnation of traditionalistic inertia, the motion of religious evolution passed westward to the European peoples.
.
And so a different people were called upon to carry an advancing theology to the world, a system of teaching embodying the philosophy of the Greeks, the law of the Romans, the morality of the Hebrews, and the gospel of personality sanctity and spiritual liberty formulated by Paul and based on the teachings of Jesus.
.

.
Paul’s cult of Christianity exhibited its morality as a Jewish birthmark. The Jews viewed history as the providence of God — Yahweh at work. The Greeks brought to the new teaching clearer concepts of the eternal life. Paul’s doctrines were influenced in theology and philosophy not only by Jesus’ teachings but also by Plato and Philo. In ethics he was inspired not only by Christ but also by the Stoics.
.
The gospel of Jesus, as it was embodied in Paul’s cult of Antioch Christianity, became blended with the following teachings:
.
The philosophic reasoning of the Greek proselytes to Judaism, including some of their concepts of the eternal life.
.
The appealing teachings of the prevailing mystery cults, especially the Mithraic doctrines of redemption, atonement, and salvation by the sacrifice made by some god.
.
The sturdy morality of the established Jewish religion.
.
The Mediterranean Roman Empire, the Parthian kingdom, and the adjacent peoples of Jesus’ time all held crude and primitive ideas regarding the geography of the world, astronomy, health, and disease; and naturally they were amazed by the new and startling pronouncements of the carpenter of Nazareth. The ideas of spirit possession, good and bad, applied not merely to human beings, but every rock and tree was viewed by many as being spirit possessed. This was an enchanted age, and everybody believed in miracles as commonplace occurrences.
.

.
Well my father and mother were survivors of the Holocaust so I was raised in a very strict Jewish home, not just religiously but culturally. We had “us” and “them”. My father said something really sad to me once when we talked about Jesus. He said “If Jesus knew the trouble he was going to make to the people of Israel, he would have never been born.” So Jesus was kind of looked upon - it wasn’t Jesus, it was his followers and the church and the anti-Semitism of Christians – that always obscured the person on who Jesus was. I don’t think a lot of Jewish people have ever dealt with who Jesus really is. They deal with a caricature of him. They deal with all of the rumors and things that people say. Think about it: my folks, their image of Christianity were people who wore crosses and turned the gas on my people, my grandmother and my grandfather. For them to deal with Jesus on an honest level of a Jewish Messiah living in Israel....well, most people think Jesus was Italian and the gospel happened in Rome. The idea of a Jewish Messiah and a Jewish Jesus is not something that was current in Jewish thinking.
.
Jhan Moskowitz
Jews for Jesus
.

.
As was said (John 1:11),
To his own he came,
yet his own did not, and could not,
recognize the true being of Jesus Christ, and the
indwelling Logos to which he constantly attempted to
draw their attention.
Even when he was right there in front of them,
the very lighthouse of palpitating spiritual energy,
their untrained eyes could not perceive his real nature.
They were too occupied with their
religious observances, traditional ideas, scriptural authority
and the approval of the leaders.
.
Ravi Ravindra
Christ The Yogi
A Hindu Reflection on the Gospel of St. John
.

ANGELS FROM ON HIGH

2011-12-19T19:49:00.012-07:00

.
From an essay by Father Alfred Delp, S.J.,
who was imprisoned and later executed because of
his resistance to the Nazis during World War II.
.

I see Advent this year with greater intensity and anticipation than ever before. Walking up and down in my cell, three paces this way and three paces that way, with my hands in irons and ahead of me an uncertain fate, I have a new and different understanding of God’s promise of redemption and release.
.
This reminds me of the angel that was given to me two years ago for Advent by a kind person. The angel bore the inscription, “Rejoice, for the Lord is near.” The angel was destroyed by a bomb. A bomb killed the man who gave it to me, and I often feel he is doing me the service of an angel.
.
The horror of these times would be unendurable unless we kept being cheered and set upright again by the promises that are spoken. The angels of annunciation, speaking their message of blessing into the midst of anguish, scattering their seed of blessing that will one day spring up amid the night, call us to hope. These are not yet the loud angels of rejoicing and fulfillment that come out into the open, the angels of Advent. Quiet, inconspicuous, they come into rooms and before hearts as they did then. Quietly the bring God’s questions and proclaim to us the wonders of God,
for whom nothing is impossible.
.
For all its earnestness, Advent is a time of inner security, because we have received a message. Oh, if it ever happens that we forget the message and the promises; if all we know is the four walls and the prison windows of our gray days; if we can no longer hear the gentle step of the announcing angels; if our soul no longer is at once shaken and exalted by their whispered word--then it will be all over with us.
We are living wasted time and are dead
before they do us any harm.
.

.
The article below is interesting for a number of reasons, .
not the least of which is that this comes from a website for pastors - reformedworship.org sponsored by the Christian Reformed Church. Here's resources for planning and leading worship. It's ideas about how to get your message across. In this case it's how to get mileage out of angels.
.
Have You Seen the Angels?

by Kenneth D Coeman
Pastor, Sonlight Community Christian Reformed Church
Lynden, Washington
.
It's fall. You are already noticing the Christmas catalogues showing up in your mailbox.

Though school has barely begun, your calendar tells you it is time to plan for Advent and Christmas.

And the very thought of it makes you tremble just a little.

You are a conscientious pastor or worship leader involved in planning worship in your church.

You know how easily the meaning and magnificence of the incarnation of our Lord can be trivialized.

You know how slowly your own heart warms up to its radiance, how dull your own mindcan be to its meaning. But still, each year that holy jealousy for the glory of Christmas is stirred within you.

The hope begins to build again within your heart that once more this year no one in your congregation will leave the manger unclear about what happened, unmoved by its magnitude, or unchanged by its message. You want so much more for them than mere amazement or a touch of "the Christmas spirit," meaningful as such emotions may be. You want them to experience what people under Nazi occupation and oppression during World War II felt when they heard the news that D-Day had come: a sudden and solid hope that liberation is imminent, hope that quickly crescen-doed into inextinguishable joy.

One doorway into such a vision of Christmas is opened for us by, of all creatures, the angels.

Angels are everywhere during the advent of Christ. The largest concentration of angels anywhere in the Bible occurs right here—rebuking, informing,encouraging, guiding, protecting, advising, and most of all, worshiping. Moreover, their presence and message did precisely then what we desire now for ourselves and our people: they transformed the vision of ordinary folks going about their ordinary routines by revealing to them that the living God was in fact entering their world—that he was, as in the case of the shepherds, right in the neighborhood. A rigid priest, a baffled young virgin, a strict fiance, common shepherds—all were met with messages by angels.

The impact on each of them was profoundly life-changing.

If our people can be led to see the incarnation through angels' eyes, should we expect anything less?

Moreover, if ever people were open to messages from angels, they are open now. Angels have been making quite a stir in the popular imagination. In fact, in the last two years there has been a tidal wave of fascination with angels.

Harvard Divinity School now offers a course on angels. Boston College offers two.

The most celebrated play on Broadway recently was Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America, the story of a divine messenger who ministers to a man with AIDS. There are angels-only boutiques, angel newsletters, angel seminars, angels on Sonja Live.

Especially at Christmas there are angels everywhere. We make them in snowdrifts, hang them on trees, bake them in cookies, play them in pageants.

• Billy Graham's book on angels has been republished. The first edition sold over 3 million copies.

• Hillary Clinton wears a gold pin on days she needs special help. "Angel's wings," she explains.

Angels are in the media and cultural air. You can even buy books on angels at the local warehouse supermarket outlet!

Given these realities, we are presenting the themes and formats of the following five services [not included here] in the hope that the angelic light once shed upon the birth of Christ will illuminate minds and brighten hearts still today.
.

From THE URANTIA BOOK

Part IV, 122, 8

At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Jerusalem by Zacharias.

THE FINAL WEEK OF WAITING

2011-12-18T21:36:00.013-07:00

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ADVENT Week 4.

.
In this final week of waiting the sense of expectancy
in the Church is heightened.
The 14th century Dominican mystic, John Tauler,
explains the gift of Zechariah's
silence like this:
.
God cannot leave things empty; that would be to contradict
his own nature and justice. Therefore, you must be silent.
Then the Word of this birth can be spoken in you
and you will be able to hear him.
But be certain of this:
if you try to speak then
He must be silent.
.
There is no better way of serving the Word
than in being silent and listening.
So if you come out of yourself completely,
God will wholly enter in;
to the degree you come out, to that degree will he enter,
neither more nor less.
.
LISTEN
.
In the Gospel of the 4th week of Advent Joseph listens
to the message of an angel and does what
God is asking of him….
.
Then in the Gospel for the Midnight Mass
the angel speaks these words:
Do not be afraid. Listen!
.
Take time this week to listen
to the silence of your heart
to the silence of God’s still small voice
to the words ‘Do not be afraid’.
Do not be afraid
Listen
.
From: The Season of Advent - A Process of Waiting
Archdiocese of Saint Andrew and Edinburgh, Scotland
.

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Last Days of Advent . . . . . . Pope John Paul II, Dec. 18, 2002

.Pope John Paul II in his address on Dec. 18, 2002 said,
"The liturgy of Advent…helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not just about commemorating the historical event, which occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously."
.

.
Those who have attended a mother giving birth can witness to the intensity of the moment when everyone involved realizes: “this is real, this is now, this is going to happen.” It’s an experience in which the human being must surrender to the inevitability of a forceful mystery. This last week of Advent evokes that kind of experience: God means to break forth in our world, real and now and inevitable. Our entire identity as/in Christ is thrown forth on accepting God’s intentional presence as truth.
.
The Peace of Christ: do we accept it as near, now, inevitable truth? It makes demands on us: love your enemies, turn your cheek, return good for evil. Are these simply inspirational words that really can’t be applied when we are wounded, threatened attacked?
.
Throughout this Advent we have reflected and prayed together for peace: within us, between us, throughout our world. This final week of Advent, perched on the hinge of the winter solstice and pointed towards a new year, reminds us that our task of peacemaking is the everyday work of following Christ.
.
Is it our Christian identity and purpose to be agents for the birth of the Peace of Christ? The near, the now, the inevitable—it only waits for our cooperation.
.
From Church of the Epiphany
Louisville, Kentucky
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CHRISTMAS THROUGH INDIAN EYES

2011-12-17T16:36:00.023-07:00

.
Everyday is our Christmas.
Every meal is our Christmas.
At every meal we take a little portion of the food
we are eating, and we offer it to the spirit world on behalf
of the four legged, and the winged, and the two legged.
We pray - not the way most Christians pray -
but we thank the Grandfathers, the Spirit,
and the Guardian Angel.
.

The Indian Culture is actually grounded
in the traditions of a Roving Angel.
The life-ways of Roving Angels are actually
the way Indian People live. They hold out their hands and
help the sick and the needy. They feed and clothe the poor.
We have high respect for the avatar because we believe
that it is in giving that we receive.
.

We are taught as Traditional children
that we have abundance. The Creator has given us
everything: the water, the air we breathe,
the earth as our flesh, and our energy force: our heart.
We are thankful every day. We pray early in the morning,
before sunrise, to the morning star, and the evening star.
We pray for our relatives who are in the universe
that someday they will come.
We also pray that the Great Spirit's son will live again.
.
Looks for Buffalo, Oglala Sioux Spiritual Leader
From the AAA Native Arts website
.

.
As I sit quietly on this December 25th,
a day so holy to all of Christendom,
I reflect sadly on the memories of the ancestors, elders,
brothers and sisters who perished in the cold winter winds
and snows of the past; the victims of white diseases,
of gunshots and swords, of starvation and exposure.
My heart is heavy with their loss.
The words, "Peace On Earth, Good Will To Men,"
have always, and still are today, meant only for the chosen few.
Will it ever change? I pray to the Creator,
and to the God-Spirit of every person alive
by whatever name it is called,
that peace and good will enter the heart of each
while there are still two-leggeds to walk the earth.
.
Julia White
.

.
A Native American Christmas Prayer In The Form Of A Poem

O Great Spirit, Grandfather, God of the Holy book.
Like the Hebrew children to Thee we pray, we look.
As a man I have troubles, my people many sorrows.
Sins of yesterday, have tainted even our tomorrows.
.
For a redeemer I pray, a great messiah our people need.
Send Him to my heart first, my soul desires to be freed.
Is the Christmas manger where the savior laid His head?
Is the child from Bethlehem He who rose from the dead?
.

Did God include the red man when His only Son He gave?
Can Jesus not only my soul heal, can He my people save?
I can find no other hope when I walk through a barren land.
So to this Christmas Jesus I will lift a trembling weary hand..
.
" Let not your heart be troubled you believe in God.
Believe also in me"....Jesus Christ
.

Wesley Jones
.

THE TIME OF NO ROOM

2011-12-16T16:07:00.038-07:00

An Essay for the Advent Season by Thomas Merton
.
So there was no room at the inn?
True! But that is simply mentioned in passing,
in a matter-of-fact sort of way, as the Evangelist
points to what he really means us to see -
the picture of pure peace, pure joy:
"She wrapped her firstborn Son in swaddling clothes and
laid him in a manger" (Luke 2:7).
By now we know it well, and yet we might still be questioning it except that a reason was given for an act that might otherwise have seemed strange:
"There was no room for them at the inn." Well, then,
they obviously found some other place!
.
But when we read the Gospels and come to know them thoroughly,
we realize there are other reasons why it was
necessary that there be no room at the inn,
and why there had to be some other place.
In fact, the inn was the last place in the world
for the birth of the Lord.
.
The Evangelists, preparing us for the announcement
of the birth of the Lord, remind us that the fullness of time has come.
Now is the time of final decision, the time of mercy,
"the acceptable time," the time of settlement,
the time of the end.
It is the time of repentance,
the time for the fulfillment of all promises,
for the Promised One has come.
But with the coming of the end,
a great bustle and business begins to shake
the nations of the world.
The time of the end is the time of massed armies,
"wars and rumors of wars,"
of huge crowds moving this way and that,
of men "withering away for fear,"
of flaming cities and sinking fleets, of smoking lands laid waste,
of technicians planning grandiose acts of destruction.
.
The time of the end is the time of the Crowd:
and the eschatological message is spoken in a world where,
precisely because of the vast indefinite roar of armies
on the move and the restlessness of turbulent mobs,
the message can be heard only with difficulty.
Yet it is heard by those who are aware that
the display of power, hubris (power),
and destruction is part of the kerygma (message).
That which is to be judged announces itself, introduces itself
by its sinister and arrogant claim to absolute power.
Thus it is identified, and those who decide in favor of this claim
are numbered, marked with the sign of power,
aligned with power, and destroyed with it.
.

.
Why then was the inn crowded?

Because of the census, the eschatological massing of

the "whole world" in centers of registration,

to be numbered, to be identified with the structure

of imperial power. The purpose of the census:

to discover those who were to be taxed.

To find out those who were eligible

for service in the armies of the empire.

The Bible had not been friendly to a census in the days

when God was ruler of Israel (2 Samuel 24).

The numbering of the people

of God by an alien emperor and their full consent

to it was itself an eschatological sign,

preparing those who could understand it

to meet judgment with repentance.

After all, in the Apocalyptic literature

of the Bible, this "summoning together" or convocation of the powers
of the earth to do battle is the great sign of "the end."

It was therefore impossible that the Word should lose himself

by being born into shapeless and passive mass.

He had indeed emptied himself,

taken the form of God's servant, man.

But he did not empty himself to the point of

becoming mass man, faceless man.

It was therefore right that there should be no room for him

in a crowd that had been called together

as an eschatological sign.

His being born outside that crowd is even more of a sign.

That there is no room for him is a sign of the end.

Nor are the tidings of great joy announced in the crowded inn.

In the massed crowd there are always

new tidings of joy and disaster.

Where each new announcement is the greatest of announcements, where every day's disaster is beyond compare, every day's danger demands the ultimate sacrifice,

all news and all judgment is reduced to zero.

News becomes merely a new noise in the mind, briefly replacing

the noise that went before it and yielding to the noise

that comes after it, so that eventually everything blends

into the same monotonous and meaningless rumor.

News? There is so much news that there is no room

left for the true tidings, the "Good News," the Great Joy.

Hence the Great Joy is announced, after all, in silence,

loneliness and darkness, to shepherds "living in the fields"

or "living in the countryside" and apparently unmoved

by the rumors or massed crowds.

These are the remnant of the desert-dwellers,

the nomads, the true Israel.
.

Even though "the whole world" is ordered to be inscribed,

they do not seem to be affected.

Doubtless they have registered, as Joseph and Mary will register,
but they remain outside the agitation, and untouched by the vast movement,
the massing of hundreds and thousands of people everywhere in the towns and cities.

They are therefore quite otherwise signed.

They are designated, surrounded by a great light,

they receive the message of the Great Joy, and they believe it with joy.
They see the Shekinah over them,

recognize themselves for what they are.

They are the remnant, the people of no account,

who are therefore chosen - the anawim.

And they obey the light.

Nor was anything else asked of them.

They go and see not a prophet, not a spirit,
but the Flesh in which the glory of the Lord will be revealed and by which all men will be delivered from the power that is in the world, the power that seeks to destroy the world because the world is God's creation, the power that mimics creation,
and in doing so, pillages and exhausts the resources
of a bounteous God-given earth.

We live in the time of no room, which is the time of the end.

The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time,
lack of space, with saving time, conquering space,
projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity,
speed, number, price, power and acceleration.
.
The primordial blessing, "increase and multiply,"
has suddenly become a hemorrhage of terror.
We are numbered in billions, and massed together,
marshalled, numbered, marched here and there, taxed, drilled,
armed, worked to the point of insensibility, dazed by information, drugged by entertainment, surfeited with everything, nauseated with the human race and with ourselves, nauseated with life.
.
As the end approaches, there is no room for nature.
The cities crowd it off the face of the earth.
As the end approaches, there is no room for quiet. There is no room for solitude. There is no room for thought.
There is no room for attention, for the awareness of our state.
.

.
The time of the end is the time of demons who occupy the heart (pretending to be gods) so that man himself finds no room for himself in himself. He finds no space to rest in his own heart, not because it is full, but because it is void. If only he knew that the void itself, when hovered over by the Spirit, is an abyss of creativity...yet he cannot believe it. There is no room for belief. In the time of the end there is no longer room for the desire to go on living. The time of the end is the time when men call upon the mountains to fall upon them, because they wish they did not exist.
.
Why? Because they are part of a proliferation of life that is not fully alive, it is programmed for death. A life that has not been chosen, and can hardly be accepted, has no more room for hope.
Yet it must pretend to go on hoping. It is haunted by the demon of emptiness. And out of this unutterable void come the armies, the missiles, the weapons, the bombs, the concentration camps, the race riots, the racist murders, and all the other crimes of mass society.
.

.
Is this pessimism? Is this the unforgivable sin of admitting
what everybody really feels? Is it pessimism to diagnose cancer as cancer? Or should one simply go on pretending that everything is getting better every day, because the time of the end is also - for some at any rate - the time of great prosperity?
"The kings of the earth have joined in her idolatry,
and the traders of the earth have grown rich
from her excessive luxury" (Revelation 18:3).
.

.
Into this world, this demented inn,
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it - because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it - his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.
He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be
nothing but the world at its worst. For them, there is no escape even in imagination.
They cannot identify with the power structure of a crowded humanity which seeks to project itself outward, anywhere, in a centrifugal flight into the void, to get out there where there is no God, no man, no name, no identity, no weight, no self, nothing but the bright, self-directed, perfectly obedient and infinitely expensive machine.
.
For those who are stubborn enough, devoted enough to power,
there remains this last apocalyptic myth of machinery propagating its own kind in the eschatological wilderness of space - while on earth the bombs make room!
.

.
But the others: they remain imprisoned in other hopes,
and in more pedestrian despairs, despairs and hopes which are held down to earth, down to street level, and to the pavement only: desire to be at least half-human, to taste a little human joy, to do a fairly decent job of productive work, to come home to the family...desires for which there is no room. It is in these that He hides himself, for whom there is no room.
.The time of the end? All right: when?
.
That is not the question.
.
To say that it is the time of the end is to answer all the questions, for if it is the time of the end, and of great tribulation,
then it is certainly and above all the time of the Great Joy.
It is the time to "lift up your heads for your redemption is at hand."
It is the time when the promise will be manifestly fulfilled,
and no longer kept secret from anyone. It is the time for the joy that is given not as the world gives, and that no man can take away.
.
Thomas Merton, 1915-1968
Trappist monk and author
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MATERIALISM & CHRISTMAS - THE SECULAR & THE SACRED

2011-12-15T16:55:00.008-07:00

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From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist
it would be necessary to invent it.
.
Katharine Whitehorn
.

"The Materialism of Christmas"
by Richard Hall, a Methodist Minister from Wales
.

At this time of year it is common to hear the complaint, “The trouble with Christmas is, it’s too materialistic these days.” Christians up and down the land go even further, “It’s all very well celebrating, but what about the spiritual spects of Christmas?” And there is no shortage of evidence for the truth of these complaints. Christmas has become a riot of spending and gluttony. The rule seems to be, if it can be indulged, it must be over-indulged. You haven’t had enough to eat if you can still move. You hven’t had enough to drink if you can still stand. You haven’t spent enough if there is still credit on your VISA card. More! More! More!
.

Every Christian I know complains about it, and of course they’re right to do so, Right?
.

The commercialism and materialism of Christmas is such a soft target, I almost wonder why we bother. If everyone agrees it’s wrong (At last! Something the whole church can agree about!) why do we bother talking about it? I want to suggest that even in the materialism of a modern Christmas, there’s a lesson for God’s people if we are willing to hear it.
.

Christmas is a supremely materialistic festival. We celebrate the fact that God took human flesh — became incarnate — and lived among his people. He did not enter the world as a glorious heavenly being. He came as a baby, doing all the things that babies do. Forget the sentimental carols and Christmas cards. If the Christian gospel means anything at all, it is that “God is with us”. Through the incarnation, God takes fallen human flesh and makes it holy. I think it was Irenaeus who put it this way: “He became what we are, that we might become what he is.” So if ever there was a time to celebrate our flesh with eating, merrymaking and music — this is it! Christians should not be on the sidelines looking po-faced. We should be showing the world how to party!
.

The real trouble is not with Christmas, but with the rest of the year. In the west we live every day as though it were a party. The reason we over-indulge to such excess at Christmas is that we over-indulge the rest of the year. The target of the church’s complaint should not be the materialism of Christmas, but the materialism of a lifestyle in which excess is not only lauded, it is practically compulsory. Johann Hari got that much right in his column today:
.

This year, the first to utter this cry has been Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, warning “the spiritual values that many people rightly acknowledge at the heart of Christmas are [now] subjected to an assault of materialism”. Many of us nod solemnly at this thought, before guiltily dashing out to Brent Cross to buy another DVD player, remote-control dinosaur and pair of Heelys for the kids.
.

But, of course, it is much harder to address an overindulgent way of life than it is to “Bah! Humbug!” about a short time of celebration. We complain about the splinter in our brother’s eye but don’t notice the plank in our own.
.

Merry Christmas.
.

.
To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year..

.
E. B. White

.
From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part IV, 195, 8
.
At the time of this revelation, the prevailing intellectual and philosophical climate of both European and American life is decidedly secular — humanistic. For three hundred years Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists.
.
It required a great power, a mighty influence, to free the thinking and living of the Western peoples from the withering grasp of a totalitarian ecclesiastical domination. Secularism did break the bonds of church control, and now in turn it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. The tyrannical and dictatorial political state is the direct offspring of scientific materialism and philosophic secularism. Secularism no sooner frees man from the domination of the institutionalized church than it sells him into slavish bondage to the totalitarian state. Secularism frees man from ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and economic slavery.
.
Materialism denies God, secularism simply ignores him; at least that was the earlier attitude. More recently, secularism has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster.
.
Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society. But mark you well! do not be quick to surrender the beneficent gains of the secular revolt from ecclesiastical totalitarianism. Western civilization today enjoys many liberties and satisfactions as a result of the secular revolt. The great mistake of secularism was this: In revolting against the almost total control of life by religious authority, and after attaining the liberation from such ecclesiastical tyranny, the secularists went on to institute a revolt against God himself, sometimes tacitly and sometimes openly.
.
To the secularistic revolt you owe the amazing creativity of American industrialism and the unprecedented material progress of Western civilization. And because the secularistic revolt went too far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness.
.
It is not necessary to sacrifice faith in God in order to enjoy the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties. It was not necessary for the secularists to antagonize true religion in order to promote science and to advance education.
.