THE CROSSES OFF HIGHWAY 107

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  "The cross is that high symbol of sacred service, the devotion of one's life to the welfare and salvation of one's fellows. The cross is not the symbol of the sacrifice of the innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners and in order to appease the wrath of an offended God, but it does stand forever, on earth and throughout a vast universe, as a sacred symbol of the good bestowing themselves upon the evil and thereby saving them by this very devotion of love."

THE URANTIA BOOK 

P2019:1   188:5.9 

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This post will take a while to complete - it's mainly images from a large collection of crosses interspersed with quotes from a number of sources about "the cross."
The collection will be on exhibit weekends this summer at a
 large home in the Magdalena, New Mexico area, and
 open by appointment after the first of the year.
Postscript - The exhibit/sale went on, off and on, through

the whole year, and ended on the Feast of St. James

(Santiago), July 25.  
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 “It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master:
no path of redemption can make a detour around it.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar
  Unless You Become Like This Child

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 “Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker.”
  St. Athanasius

  On the Incarnation

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"Although Jesus did not die this death on the cross to atone for the racial guilt of mortal man nor to provide some sort of effective approach to an otherwise offended and unforgiving God; even though the Son of Man did not offer himself as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and to open the way for sinful man to obtain salvation; notwithstanding that these ideas of atonement and propitiation are erroneous, nonetheless, there are significances attached to this death of Jesus on the cross which should not be overlooked. It is a fact that Urantia has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the 'World of the Cross.'"
The Urantia Book
^{P2016:6, 188:4.1}  

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When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly. We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord. Pope Francis
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pope_francis_521203?src=t_cross

"When we walk without the cross, when we
build without the cross and when we proclaim
Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of
the Lord. We are worldly. We may be bishops,

 priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are
not disciples of the Lord."

Pope Francis

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“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community 

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“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history."
 Letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816”
― John Adams

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The exhibit is too big to let fade, so we're
 opening for three weeks during the holiday
 period - from Nov 22 to Dec 15, 11 till 5 daily,
including Thanksgiving Day.
We're working on a video about all of this,
and in time will post it on our Youtube channel.
It's an interesting subject to say the least,
and for many, a sacred and often highly personal
element of faith and worldview.
  I hope we can do it justice. 
Feb 24 - Have the first 2:38 of the video done -
see it here:
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From THE URANTIA BOOK

On millions of inhabited worlds, tens of trillions of evolving creatures who may have been tempted to give up the moral struggle and abandon the good fight of faith, have taken one more look at Jesus on the cross and then have forged on ahead, inspired by the sight of God's laying down his incarnate life in devotion to 
the unselfish service of man.

The triumph of the death on the cross is all summed up in the spirit of Jesus' attitude toward those who assailed him. He made the cross an eternal symbol of the triumph of love over hate and the victory of truth over evil when he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That devotion of love was contagious throughout a vast universe; the disciples caught it from their Master. The very first teacher of his gospel who was called upon to lay down his life in this service, said, as they stoned him to death, "Lay not this sin to their charge."

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PLEASE come see the exhibit if you're in our
neck of the woods. We'd be happy to open up
if we're around, and of course there's no charge,
nor do you need to feel obligated to buy anything.
And we even have some freebies, for all.
The home is on the market, so this is a
"limited run" for the exhibit. But we'll keep it up
until it's time to get ready for a new owner,
and we're continuing to add new elements.
Call or e-mail info is on the poster above.
The more lead time you can give me the better,
but if you're just passing through town give it a try.
Hasta la vista!

Postscript - The exhibit/sale went on till July 25,

the Feast of St. James (Santiago).  The home was sold.  Here's a "wrap-up" from my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/matt.middleton.50746

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ANOTHER JOHN THE BAPTIST

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Sooner or later another and greater John the Baptist is due to arise proclaiming “the kingdom of God is at hand” — meaning a return to the high spiritual concept of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer — and doing all this without in any way referring either to the visible church on earth or to the anticipated second coming of Christ. There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, such a restatement as will undo the work of his early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael’s sojourn on earth. In a short time the teaching of this story about Jesus nearly supplanted the preaching of Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom. In this way a historical religion displaced that teaching in which Jesus had blended man’s highest moral ideas and spiritual ideals with man’s most sublime hope for the future — eternal life.
 And that was the gospel of the kingdom.
THE URANTIA BOOK
^{170:5.19 (1866.2)}

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THE WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

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From Wikipedia

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The Woman of the Apocalypse or Woman clothed in the Sun,  is a figure from 
Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation  (written ca. AD 95). 
In this narrative the woman gives birth to a male child that is attacked by the Dragon identified as the Devil and Satan. When the child is taken to heaven, the woman flees into the wilderness leading to "War in Heaven" in which the angels cast out the Dragon. The Dragon then attacks the woman who is given wings to escape, and then the dragon proceeds to attack her with a flood of water from his mouth, which is subsequently swallowed by the earth. Frustrated, the dragon initiates war on "the remnant of her seed" identified as the righteous followers of Christ.

The Woman of the Apocalypse is widely identified as the Virgin Mary. This interpretation is held by the ancient Church as well as in the medieval and modern Roman Catholic Church.

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 Both Marian veneration and the interpretation of the Woman of the Apocalypse are recorded since at least the 4th century, but the specific veneration of Mary in this form becomes tangible only in the medieval period. Iconographically, Marian figures associated with the Revelations narrative are recognizable by the astronomical attributes, specifically her standing on a crescent moon, and the crown of twelve stars (while the description "clothed with the sun" is sometimes rendered by rays emanating from her figure). Association of Mary with a single star is recorded from the early medieval period, in the hymn Ave Maris Stella.

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 Many depictions of Mary from the Gothic period (14th to 16th century) show her standing on a crescent moon inspired by the association of Mary with the woman of the Apocalypse. The motif became so popular in 15th-century Germany that pre-existing Madonna figures were refitted with a crescent (e.g. Madonna of Bad Doberan, c. 1300, refitted in the 15tMh century). The Virgin of Guadalupe was depicted as the Madonna of the Apocalypse since at least the 16th century. 

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The Catholic Church recognizes the 'woman' as Mary the Mother of the Christ and the Church. The Church acknowledges what it considers an invitation in the holy verses for the reader to ponder the mysteries between The Mother of God and the Mother of the Church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also interprets the woman to be the Church, and the man-child to be the political kingdom that will grow out of the Church prior to or during the Second Coming of Christ; this interpretation is made clear by Joseph Smith's translation of the

 twelfth chapter of Revelation.

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THERE'S LOTS OF WAYS TO SAY THANKS

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Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,
O Lord our God and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties

 which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.

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From the Hebrew Prayer Book 

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For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends. 

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 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

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Our Father in Heaven,
We give thanks for the pleasure
Of gathering together for this occasion.
We give thanks for this food
Prepared by loving hands.
We give thanks for life,
The freedom to enjoy it all
And all other blessings.
As we partake of this food,
We pray for health and strength
To carry on and try to live as You would have us.
This we ask in the name of Christ,
Our Heavenly Father.

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Harry Jewell

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Below, a video meditation on being grateful.

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