I have a couple things to say over the next few days-hopefully I will have time to write them. It is amazing how a little peace and quiet can generate thoughtful thoughts...
TS has done it again! I had "Strange but True Football Stories" as a kid(it may even be somewhere in the bookcase downstairs.) The other ones also look familiar. I used to collect football cards and baseball cards. One day in the early '70's, my mother came to me with two packs of unopened 1963 football cards. She had bought them for my older brothers and forgotten about them. Among the cards were football greats Sam Huff, Y.A. Tittle, Paul Horning, Gerry Kramer, and a young Mick Tinglehoff (I had a '70's card of him also. These were all passed to my younger brother. He probably sold them for Carl Yastrzemski baseball cards). And yes, Sam "the Bam" Cunningham played for the New England Patriots when I was a kid. He actually wasn't all that good-but was the best we had at the time.
***************************
It looks like it is really good-bye this time at Hallowed Ground. Hopefully Mr. Culbreath will check in from time to time (or grace us with his essays again in some new form.)
*******************
As Advent approaches and the Protestant/American Christmas season has already blown in, this article at Catholicexchange seems appropriate.
Here at Bethany, we have several times panicked during the last week of Advent to find a tree. (It seems they are either in over-abundance or gone by the 2nd week of Advent.) Thus the Greencastle solution may be best:
"We haven't decorated it (the Christmas tree)yet. So that counts for
something, right?"
***********************
Finally, I am sure Pope Benedict's visit to the mosque is causing much consternation in certain quarters. Yet I would remind everyone that our goal should be to pray always (at all times-even in mosques-and even when facing Mecca). His presence at a mosque doesn't endorse Islam or give it equal footing with Christianity-and any Catholic or anyone else who gets that impression is an idiot.
5 comments:
Starting tomorrow, First Sunday of Advent, we light the first candle and put out a homemade crib for the Baby Jesus. During Advent our children get to put a piece of yarn in the empty crib everytime they do a good deed or give something up so that by Christmas the Baby Jesus (a small doll) is laid upon the soft, bed of yarn, the childrens' good deeds.
THE WAIT
November ends,
Winter pretends
She's harsher than
We think.
She blows us to Mass,
Where ringed in green grass,
Are purple
And one candle, pink.
Purple is lit,
We kneel then we sit.
The waiting has now
Just begun.
Four weeks, we will fast,
'Till waiting is past
And winter will
Dress for the Son.
A ball gown of white
To all our delight
And trimmed
With an evergreen fir.
Holly with berries.
Her lips like red cherries.
All mens' eyes will
Fall upon her.
But winter December
Remembers November,
When harsh, she
Blew us to Mass.
Where purple and pink,
Recalled us to think
Of the Hope
In their colored green grass.
So winter's gown blows
In the wind, driven snows,
Piling high,
Making paths between drifts.
She'll seduce us to go,
Midnight Mass,
In the snow,
All dressed for the Son and His gifts!
Dear Long-Skirts: Same tradition in the Curley house...
Ha, I knew someone out there could relate. I just found a $3 internet copy of "Strange but True Baseball Stories" and had to get it. I think I'll give it to my 9-year old nephew for Christmas.
Mom threw away my football cards. I had a rookie OJ Simpson, now worth a lot I suppose, though for all the wrong reasons.
We're in the same situation regarding Christmas tree. That sounds like a reasonable compromise. I put up the tree and lights only on Saturday (no bulbs or ornaments). I have mixed emotions. I don't relish shrinking Christmas, as it "feels" like we'd be doing with an unadorned tree for Advent. (We leave the tree up for whole 12 days of Christmas, but on the 26th it feels anti-climactic.)
Usually we buy our tree on Christmas Eve (a couple times we almost didn't get one) but this year we decided to do a Jesse tree for Christmas and now we can't find a "small" tree that's big enough for 24 home-painted jesse tree ornaments, so we may buy a big tree but only put the Jesse tree ornaments on during Advent, one a day. (Wow, that was a long sentence!)
We didn't do a jesse tree as children but I thought it might help our family meditate on all the years that mankind had to wait for Christ's coming, and all the types of Christ in the Old Testament.
Mrs. Curley has talked about doing a Jesse tree for a few years now, but we never actually get to it. Maybe next year as Advent is particularly short this year.
Post a Comment