Season of Light

art, Astrology, Christmas, Civil War, Faith, Family, Hanukkah, holidays, hope, Israel, Light of the World, Love, Saturnalia, Spirituality, Ukraine

The damaged Drobytsky Yar memorial near Kharkiv, Ukraine after reportedly being hit by Russian artillery fire, on March 26, 2022

As the days grow shorter and the nights lengthen, the chill air adds to the darkness of our world. We can give into this dour outlook, especially this year with devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or we can light a candle against the gathering gloom. Cultures across history have seen the time before year end as an opportunity for reflection, concern, or fear. Others have found reasons to rejoice.

Hanukkah (inauguration) is the eight-day Festival of Lights, which occurs in 2023 from sunset December 7 to December 15. It’s a moveable festival, for in 2024 the holiday will occur from December 25 to January 2. The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, not a solar calendar. This holiday celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Greeks in 164 BCE. On discovering in the temple a vial of unpolluted oil, with only enough to light the candle for one day, this oil kept the candle burning for eight days. To commemorate this miracle, faithful Jews now light a special menorah with nine candles. The ninth candle is called the “helper” or “shammash” candle. The root word is from the Hebrew for “servant.”

While not everyone is Jewish, all persons can learn from the menorah and the shammash candle. We may have only a little to give, but with God’s help it can be multiplied many times over. We can all be a helper candle, and bring a light to the candles who need a light. Many in this season experience a loss of some kind. Some are mourning a loved one, others have broken relationships, or have lost jobs or status. We are not our jobs and we aren’t our paychecks, but we are the beloved children of God. God will love us when everyone else turns aside. God will remember us when others forget we are alive.

Perhaps these darkening days at the end of the year are why people in all parts of the world have brought fire and light to this time of the year. The Yule Festival in German and Scandinavian countries was part of the pagan festival incorporated into Christianity’s Christmas celebrations. It likely began as a winter solstice or year-end celebration. “Yule” became a name for Christmas about the 9th century, and in many languages yule and its cognates are still used to describe that holiday.

The burning in a giant fireplace of a large Yule log until it’s reduced to cinders is one of my favorite mythic memories of the season. Alas, growing up in the Deep South, gas logs were the closest fireplace equivalent, and these were the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We rarely turned on the flickering colors of these blue flames because cold nights were few and far between.

By 336 CE, the Christian church in Rome celebrated Christmas on December 25, which coincided with the Roman winter equinox festival of Saturnalia. In medieval England, Christmas was a 12-day festival involving all kinds of revelry, from plays to wild feasts to pageants celebrating Jesus’ birth. Music, gift giving, and decorations all became the norm. Anyone who’s been in a choir singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with its repetitive “and a partridge in a pear tree” has those ancestors of ours to thank. Some traditions never die!

Our family stitched and sequined one exactly like this.

Christmas is better known for decorated trees, however. The use of evergreen trees and wreaths in religious ceremonies dates from ancient Roman times, if not earlier. However, the first documented use of a tree in a winter Christmas celebration wasn’t until 1510. In that year, members of a merchant’s guild in Riga, Latvia, placed a tree in the town square. They decorated it with flowers, ribbons, and dried fruit. After the festivities—which included the singing of songs and dancing—were concluded, they burned the tree as a great bonfire to close out the celebrations.

The Grinch Torches Whoville’s Christmas Tree into a Bonfire

Christmas trees gained popularity in Germany and other parts of northern Europe by the 1700s, but the practice of decorating a pine or fir tree during the holiday season remained virtually unknown in the English-speaking world prior to the 19th century. When Queen Victoria married her German cousin Prince Albert in 1840, the Christmas tree became widely accepted and practiced throughout the British Isles.

1836 edition of The Stranger’s Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present

In the United States, the practice of placing a decorated tree inside the family home was most likely introduced by German immigrants who arrived soon after the Revolution. The otherwise unassuming volume seen above, the 1836 edition of The Stranger’s Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present, is significant for it’s the first book printed in the Americas containing an image of a Christmas tree. Franklin Pierce in 1856 was the first president to erect a tree in the White House. In the United States, Christmas wasn’t celebrated with much gusto until after the Civil War, which reinforced for many the importance of home and family. In 1870, after the war’s end, Congress made Christmas one of nation’s first federal holidays.

Franklin Pierce in 1856 was the first president to erect a tree in the White House.

Light has always been a part of winter festivals, with their signature long, dark nights. Electric Christmas lights are a modern spin-off of the old-fashioned candles that Germans and Scandinavians placed on their trees. Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, also invented the first strand of lights and hung them outside his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory in 1880. In 1882 his business partner, Edward H. Johnson, created the first Christmas tree illuminated with colored lights. In 1895, President Grover Cleveland placed multi-colored electric lights on the White House tree. Since electricity wasn’t available except to the wealthy, most people didn’t have electric lights on their trees at home. Not until the end of the 1920s were electric lights affordable for the average family.

Fast forward to the 1950’s and the postwar period of rural electrification and large family gatherings, colored electric lights of every kind were readily available to the middle classes, not just the wealthy. This was the era of big bulbs and bubble lights, but in a few years, inexpensive miniature colored and white lights imported from China would become popular. Now even single parent households could decorate both the house and tree to their hearts’ content.

Untitled (Lux in tenebris inest—Light in the darkness)
Elisa Sighicelli 2003/2003

The lights bring out our hope of what’s good and wonderful in this world. Christmas and Hanukkah are times when the light burns bright, even when the days are dark. If these holidays didn’t exist, we would need to invent them, for we need the reminders of what is light and good in the world. As Baruch prophesied (5:9):

“For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”

While we don’t know exactly what the Christmas star was, one theory is it was a conjunction of Jupiter, Regulus and Venus. Another possibility includes a set of conjunctions of the planets Jupiter and Venus, and the bright star Regulus. In this case, the mythologies associated with the objects become important. Jupiter in Hebrew is known as ‘Sedeq’, which is often translated as meaning righteousness. Jupiter is also often viewed as being the ‘king’ of the planets. Regulus is Latin for ‘prince’ or ‘little king’, and Venus is often viewed as a symbol of love, fertility and birth. Therefore, the combination of these objects close in the sky could have led to the interpretation of the birth of the ‘King of Kings.’ We do know Matthew records the visit to King Herod:

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
(2:1-2 NIV)

Gerrit Dou: Astronomer by Candlelight, oil, late 1650s, J. Paul Getty Museum

The magi were astrologers, those who studied the heavens for the star signs of rising and falling influences in the ancient world. Herod died soon after their visit, but not before he tried to consolidate his power. He meant his dire deeds to benefit himself, but God spared his son by sending a message to Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. The magi were warned not to return to Herod also.
This one who John wrote about in the opening chapter of his gospel (1:5):

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Gerardo Dottori: Nativity, 1930/1930, Museum of modern art

As we celebrate the holidays of light this year, remember to be a “shammash”, or a servant of light, and don’t let this present darkness overwhelm you. Your one light shining may be the brightness that brings someone safely home. Today I wore my bright pink exercise pants, even though I’m sinusy and achy all over. I made at least one person’s day when I said, “They’re stretchy, so I can eat more Christmas cookies!” We spread the joy even when the Grinch has stolen ours. This is a way of taking the darkness back, by making others feel better.

God bless and shine 🕯️on,

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Jewish Festivals |Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jewish-festivals

Shammash | Judaism | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/shammash

Yule Festival | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yule-festival

O Tannenbaum: Or, a Brief History of the Christmas Tree | The New York Public Library
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/12/12/christmas-trees-arrival

Who Invented Electric Christmas Lights |
https://www.eei.org/en/delivering-the-future/articles/who-invented-electric-christmas-lights

A Look Back: 100 Years of Christmas Tree Trends

https://www.bhg.com/100-years-christmas-trees-6751023

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to December 2023

Apocalypse, architecture, art, Bethlehem, Christmas, Civil War, Faith, Family, Healing, holidays, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, Israel, Light of the World, Love, Ministry, poverty, rabbits, shame, Spirituality, Stress, trees

“Gloom begets gloom,” my daddy always said, “so if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s best to go back and get out on the other side.” Some folks today don’t have much of the Christmas or holiday spirit, for they’re only looking at the dark side of world events or at the shrinking purchasing power of their dollar.

Unemployed people sold apples on the street corner in the Great Depression

Since the Civil War, the United States has endured thirteen depressions or recessions large enough to get noticed by those who study such things (see list below). This is an average of one about every dozen years. Of course, those of us who experience these events don’t have to study them, for we directly participate in the event. As the old saying goes, “If my neighbor loses his job, it’s a recession, but if I lose my job, we’re in a depression.” Instead, we plan for them and expect the good times won’t last forever.

Because we human beings are wont to think “our situation is unique,” we’re also great at forgetting the lessons of history. The first lesson is life is cyclical and what goes up will come down. The second lesson is what goes down will eventually go back up. My long experience suggests when folks are in the “down cycle,” they forget upward progress is possible. In college we used to joke, “been down so long, it looks like up to me!”

Some say recessions are “necessary” in economic cycles to remove excess, reprice assets, and tame risky behavior. None of these negative factors would exist except for human greed. When Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to register for the census, they were also enrolling for the purpose of taxation. The Romans practiced tax farming in their provinces. Whoever had the account had to raise a certain amount for the empire, but could keep whatever excess they raised for themselves. Excessive taxation on the conquered land and people stoked their hopes for a messiah to rid them of this evil. No wonder the signs and wonders attending the birth of Jesus were fulfilling the ancient prophecies, as Matthew wrote (2:6):

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem. Star over the Grotto

In the times of darkness, we always look to the light as a reason to hope. As the magi saw a star rising in the east and believed an important person would arise in the land of Israel, we today look for glimmers of light to give us hope for the day to come. Some people see the wars, earthquakes, and crookedness of people and think we’re entering the end times. Churches and radio preachers are making hay with the Book of Revelation, forgetting it was a specific book written for a unique audience and time. We have been in the “end times” since Christ arose from the dead. As Matthew (28:20) records his words to the disciples in Galilee:

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Since we’re always with Christ, we will always have his light, as Zechariah prophesied in Luke 1:78-79–

“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The famous Banksy’s Armored Dove of Peace, the painting of a peace dove wearing a flak jacket. The dove is painted on a wall near the separation wall between Bethlehem (Palestinian Territories) and Israel. Nov. 18, 2023.

In the midst of wars in the Ukraine and in Gaza, where people are suffering and dying, we can lose sight of the vision of light and peace, while we focus on darkness and death. The Christian community in Palestine, which usually hosts hordes of Christmas pilgrims in Bethlehem Square, won’t be celebrating this holy season this year in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Instead, they’ll set up a small nativity scene covered with rubble. It’s a reminder when the Christ child came into a suffering world over two thousand years ago, his birth was a hope for the oppressed and the poor. Every Christmas we have the opportunity to care for those who struggle to make ends meet.

In the Great Depression, families lost homes, farms, and lived in shantytowns called Hoovervilles. President Hoover spoke of a childhood Christmas memory:

“I do vividly recollect a Christmas upon that farm when the sole resources of joy were popcorn balls, sorghum, and hickory nuts; when for a flock of disappointed children there were no store toys, no store clothes; when it was carefully explained that because of the hard times everything must be saved for the mortgage. The word ‘mortgage’ became for me a dreaded and haunting fear from that day to this.”

1950’s Christmas Tree: we kids were Team Tinsel, but the folks were Team Ornaments. Our tree never looked like this!

I have some ancient memories of the cyclic hard times experienced by my family. I recall the late 50’s Eisenhower influenza recession dimly because it was the only time I ever saw my daddy cry. We had a brand-new Ford station wagon, but couldn’t afford to drive it except on Sundays. My dad brought money home daily from his office, so mother and we kids would walk to the local grocery to buy food the next day. He cried because he kept his office full of patients, but half of them couldn’t pay for his services. Mother was very practical and reminded him, “This too would pass. Trouble is only temporary.” In the fall, she took a schoolteacher position to help out. That Christmas we hand decorated sequins on felt shapes the “Twelve Days of Christmas” for a tree skirt. I passed this extravagance on to a nephew when I downsized my home.

We decorated the early days more than the later days. Time management wasn’t our best gift, but we had a great time doing this together.

I also remember the 1970’s economic slowdown very well. I got married during this time. After my husband and I bought our silver wedding rings, we had $16 left in our pocket. I was certain we had jumped off a height with no parachute, but we somehow managed day to day. To keep up “appearances,” we gave away some of our wedding gifts as Christmas gifts to other family members. I thought it was wrong, but now I realize I don’t care about those items today. I was more concerned about “saving face,” since someone might recognize we were regifting. We managed with food from our organic garden and meat from a deer my husband harvested in the autumn. But I no longer eat tuna casserole, having lost my taste for this staple of my poverty years. Gifts aren’t important, but people are.

The 1980’s had a slump related to the oil embargo. When oil money dries up, art teachers lose their jobs, as do all the other “frivolous employees” elsewhere. I got an insurance sales position, with a guaranteed six-week paycheck. I was amazed I had a talent for sales, but I was good at discovering needs and matching products to people’s ability to pay. My best sales close was, “If you’re not here to provide for your family, how will they be able to keep their current lifestyle?”

Having a simpler Christmas this year? Consider an alternative tree…

I lost my house to foreclosure during the 1990’s subprime mortgage crisis. I lost my credit cards and almost lost my daughter to suicide. I learned some things are more important than achievements or possessions. In the depths of the worst of times, gifts aren’t necessary. Being a light for others, helping others, giving yourself to those who need hope in these seemingly hopeless times is important. During this time, I drew hope from God’s words to Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:5-6—

“Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.” I drew hope, for if God didn’t need a permanent home, but stayed with God’s people, then if I had no home title, God would still go with me wherever I laid my head.

As a people, we always want to tie God to a place or to locate the Spirit to a site, but God is always bigger than our imagination and our attempts to circumscribe God’s existence. We want to restrict God’s love to a few, but God insists on loving those from whom we look away and exclude. In the midst of the chaos of my losses and suffering, I discovered God was calling me to the ministry.

Gislebertus: Flight into Egypt, 1120-1130, Stone Capitals at St Lazare, Autun, France.

Why does God call the least, the last, or the losers to God’s work? God wants to be glorified, not the person who does the work. God needs people who understand suffering and have been seasoned by it, rather than hardened by it. The wounded know the wounds of others, but they also know the path to healing. This is why we find the Christ child in a stable, not in a palace; and have shepherds and foreigners come to visit, but not his family or friends. It’s also why the Holy Family flees to Egypt as refugees to avoid Herod’s death sentence for the Jewish newborns. If we’re having a less than “perfect” holiday this year, perhaps we’re only having a bad hair day in comparison to the suffering of that first Christmas.

When I get to struggling, for the aches and pains of age are catching up to me, I can get in a low mood thinking, “I used to pop out of bed and do 12 things before lunch.” Now I need six cups of coffee to get my lunch going! Of course, I’m past my platinum anniversary and my hair color matches my age. On days like this, I look to Paul’s admonition in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, which rings across the ages as a clarion call:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year. I plan to take a sabbatical from my Rabbit-Rabbit series in 2024, since I’ve neglected my sci-fi blog and my pandemic project quilt needs stitching together. I’m going to work on my art more and write about the spiritual intersections of the creative life.

Joy and Peace,
Cornelia

You can keep up with my other writing and thoughts:

SOULJOURNIES: sci-fi spiritual formation blog
https://souljournieswordpress.wordpress.com/author/artandicon/

ARTANDICON: blog on the intersection of art and faith
Www.Artandicon.com

CORNIE’S KITCHEN: blog on healthy eating and spirituality
http://www.cornieskitchen.wordpress.com

List of depressions and recessions since the Civil War:

the Panic of 1873,
the Great Depression when 13 million people were out of work,
a recession after WWII,
another after the Korean War,
the Eisenhower influenza recession in 1957-58,
a recession in the auto industry in 1960-61,
and another year long recession in 1970-71 under Nixon.
In 1973, OPEC quadrupled oil prices, and that shock along with the stock market crash sent the world economy into recession.
In 1980, energy prices continued to rise, so when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to curb rising prices, the economy contracted. Once again, unemployment rose to 11% and business output suffered.
We had a recession in the Gulf War from 1990-91, and then maintained the longest period of economic growth in American history up until
the Dot Com Bubble in 2001. The tech-heavy NASDAQ ended up losing nearly 77% of its value and took over 15 years to recover its losses. September 11, 2001 wasn’t a sunny day for the stock market or for America. Many people have had a pessimistic outlook on life from this date forward. It changed how we see ourselves.
In 2008-2009 another recession hit hard, making it the longest economic downturn since World War II and the deepest prior to
the following COVID-19 Recession of 2020. The former was triggered by the subprime mortgage market collapse, while the latter was the quickest and steepest of them all. While more than 24 million people lost their jobs in the US the first three weeks of April 2020, this shock was quickly ameliorated by government interventions, such as zero interest, income payments and other supplements.

Christmas During the First “Great Depression” – Hoover Heads
https://hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2020/12/16/christmas-during-the-first-great-depression/

Milestones: 1921–1936 – Office of the Historian
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/great-depression#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20stock%20market%20crash,cause%20a%20global%20financial%20crisis.

Understanding America’s Labor Shortage | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage

Major Financial Crisis History
https://nationalarchives.nic.in/sites/default/files/new/Final_Major_Financial_Crisis-i_0.pdf

A Brief History of U.S. Recessions – Weatherly Asset Management
https://www.weatherlyassetmgt.com/a-brief-history-of-u-s-recessions/

How One of the World’s Biggest Ships Jammed the Suez Canal – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/world/middleeast/suez-canal-stuck-ship-ever-given.html

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to November

Abraham Lincoln, All Saints Day, Altars, art, change, chocolate, Civil War, Constitution, Day of the Dead, exercise, Faith, Family, Food, generosity, Habits, Health, holidays, inspiration, Love, nature, poverty, pre-diabetes, pumpkins, rabbits, Thanksgiving, trees, Ukraine, Uncategorized, US Constitution, Van Gogh

My parents would often say, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” If this is so, I’ve had a one whale of a time in 2023. I don’t know where the time has gone, for I’d swear I just woke up in the bright new year of 2023, and now this year has grown a beard of some length. Indeed, the ground was bare, awaiting the warm breath of spring, and now it has experienced its first freeze.

Autumn is a time of transitions. Not only do the trees change colors, and then lose their wardrobe altogether, but we rabbits go from Halloween’s sugar high on October 31^st to overstuffing ourselves and the roast beast at the Thanksgiving feast on the Fourth Thursday of this new month. Then we segue into Christmas somnolence with yet more cookies and egg nog (spiked and plain). On occasion we tramp out to decorate the house or scour the woods for greenery, but those days are long gone for most urban dwellers. We’re going to buy from local providers or have it delivered online.

Some of us on the first day of November will still have some of the 35 million pounds of candy corn which are still produced each year. That’s about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth. As far as this bunny is concerned, this is 8,999,999,999 pieces of candy corn too many. I’m not a lover of this form of sugar; give me dark chocolate any day. Fortune reported the “dangerous” amount of sugar consumed by kids on Halloween — three cups of sugar in 7,000 calories of candy. For context: That’s 675 grams of sugar, or the same as chomping down almost 169 standard sugar cubes, according to a Fortune article published in 2017.

When I was a young bunny, sugar was so restricted in our home, my friends and I would escape our parents’ notice during fellowship time at church to go to the empty adult Sunday school classrooms. We knew where they kept the wonderful Domino Pure Cane sugar cubes for the coffee the grownups drank. We didn’t care for coffee, which was already gone, but the sugar we fell upon like pirates on buried treasure. We didn’t ever consume 169 cubes at once, since that would’ve destroyed the entire stash.

If these had been the 35 million pounds of candy corn, which are still produced each year for Halloween, neither I nor my bunny friend would have ever touched them. The idea about 9 billion pieces — over a billion more than there are people on Earth—are still produced today is incomprehensible to my bunny brain. I think the texture of corn syrup and gelatin isn’t my first choice.

Of course, when the weather turns colder, our bunny bodies sense the need to stoke our internal fires. We do this by consuming more calories, especially the quick acting carbohydrates we find in the sugars and starches that provide the instant “heat” boost our bodies crave. Actually, any food will heat us up, but fruits and vegetables don’t have the same appeal as warm, savory, and fatty foods do in colder weather. The shorter days and the decrease of light in the winter cause problems with our body’s biological clock and lower the levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Plus, many of us reduce our physical activity, so our exercise induced levels of serotonins drop.

We can overcome this loss by planning to be outside during the daytime and making sure to exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Having protein rich snacks and fiber rich soups with complex carbohydrates will help control our hunger spikes. Perhaps this transition time into longer nights and shorter days is why the First Wednesday in November is always National Eating Healthy Day (November 1). If we do only one new healthy choice per week, and add a new healthy option each week thereafter, we can transition our lifestyle into “Eating Healthy.” As a bunny, I remind my friends, it’s also National Vinegar Day—have compassion on yourself and on others. We can love ourselves and others into a better life with kindness rather than harshness. As my grandfather Bunny always said, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos both are celebrated on November 1. Both recognize the departed loved ones. All Saints recognizes both those who have worked miracles as well as those ordinary saints who have lived among us and given quiet witness to their faith. Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a three-day festival to remember the ancestors and friends who predeceased us. People decorate altars with marigold flowers, photos, and skulls in memory of the dead. They make special food offerings in their honor also.

All Soul’s Day on November 2 is a Catholic holiday to pray for the souls which aren’t yet in heaven, but are in purgatory. Protestants don’t believe in purgatory, so we don’t attend upon this day as holy.

Many of us do celebrate Cookie Monster Day on November 2, because who doesn’t like cookies?! The same goes for National Sandwich Day on November 3, for hot or cold, almost anything can be slapped between two slices of bread and get slathered with avocado or mayonnaise, and it’s good to go.

Sandwiches first appeared in American cookbooks in 1816. The fillings were no longer limited to cold meat, but the recipes called for a variety of things: cheese, fruit, shellfish, nuts and mushrooms. After the Civil War sandwich consumption increased and were sold both in high-class lunch rooms and in working-class taverns. A typical turkey sandwich in the 1980s contained about 320 calories, according to a report from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Twenty years later, a turkey sandwich contained about 820 calories. Choose whole grain bread if possible.

We seniors have more than time on our hand

“Fall Back” on Sunday, November 5, when Daylight Savings Time Ends. We get another hour of sleep on this day when the clocks go back 1 hour at 2 am. I won’t be awake to notice it, but I suggest those of you who aren’t good sleepers begin to look at your evening routines. Set a wind down time on your clock, watch, or mobile device. Let it remind you to turn on quiet music, read inspirational books, or begin your bedtime routine. Sometimes taking off our outside clothes and wearing our “at home” clothes is a signal to our mind to let go of the cares of the world.

Fighting over Van Gogh Pokémon Gifts at the Museum

Go to an Art Museum Today Day and National Chaos Never Dies Day are both celebrated on November 9 this year. I don’t normally consider chaos and art museums as being in the same category, but Disney has made several Night at the Museum movies that revolve around the trope of ancient Egyptian gods awakening to cause havoc. Actual chaos recently erupted at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam when visitors realized the gift shop had already sold out of the Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promo card, which was modeled on the Vincent self-portrait. Evidently a small group of fans descended on the gift shop, causing a ruckus, and buying out the merchandise. It’s now for sale on eBay.

Armistice Day marks the November 11,1918 anniversary of World War I, a war which began in August 1914, that few expected to last beyond Christmas. In 1921, an unknown soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This First World War was “the war to end all wars,” but we’re an overly optimistic nation. We’ve had a Second World War since then, plus many a regional conflict. Every time our battle ships show the flag somewhere, people think it’s going to be WWIII. Fear mongering doesn’t help the nation. We’re better and stronger than that. Plus, we have the moral duty of leadership: our country needs to show the world there’s a better way.

As I recall, both the North and the South expected the great Civil War to last just a short while, just as Putin entered Ukraine believing his army would roll into Kiev in mere weeks. Yet WWI lasted four years, WWII was six years (the US was involved only the four years from 1941-1945), and our Civil War was another 4-year slog. Wars aren’t so much “won” as lost by attrition: one side loses more men, materiel, and willpower so they surrender to the other. War is the most brutal way to settle our differences.

Armistice Day now is Veterans’ Day, November 11, but observed a day earlier (10^th) this year. We celebrate our veterans who do the difficult and challenging work of using judicious force against enemy combatants, rather than civilian populations. All of our enlisted personnel take the same oath to protect and to defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic:

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God).”

We are an unusual people, we Americans, for our loyalty isn’t to a party, a president, or a person. We are loyal to the constitution, which protects our democratic institutions, values, and freedoms. We can be thankful for those who were inspired to write it, heard the prophetic call to amend it, and have the wisdom to keep us on the straight and narrow.

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week is November 11-19 this year. While the economy is recovering, the loss of pandemic assistance funds Is hurting lower income households. They are making hard choices: food or rent, medicine or food. The number of homeless veterans has decreased, but so has the overall population of veterans. The bad news is veterans are still overrepresented in the homeless population. As you prepare for your own feast this year, I hope you remember the hungry in your community. The best way to help is with a financial donation to the local food bank. The bank can purchase food from the warehouse food bank at greatly reduced prices, thereby providing more food per dollar than individuals can purchase on their own.

World Diabetes Day is November 14. Diabetes is a disease on the increase in the world today. In the US alone, over 37 million people have this disease and over 8.5 million have it but are undiagnosed. Over 96 million US adults have prediabetes, a condition in which their insulin doesn’t take the sugar out of the bloodstream well. Switching to whole grains, less processed foods, and adding more fiber to the diet usually helps lower the blood sugar. So does daily moderate exercise.

National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day is November 15. This is a good day to practice this task, since you’ll be filling it up with excess foods if you’re hosting the feast, or you’ll be traveling away from home. If the latter, you don’t want to return home to spoiled food if the power goes off for any length of time. Ugh: I won’t regale you with the story of stench of the refrigerator in the garage which didn’t power back on after a power outage. Those outlets need to be reset manually because they’re in a “might get wet” zone. The refrigerator inside will come back on automatically. (This turned out to be a get rid of the refrigerator day.)

National Stuffing Day is November 21. If you bake your bread mixture outside of the great bird, it’s called dressing, but if you cram it into the bird, it’s stuffing. It’s safer to cook the bird without stuffing, also quicker. When baking stuffing inside a turkey, it can get get wet and mushy. If you make a flavorful stock from the turkey neck and giblets, you can make your stuffing moist and flavorful without turning it into mush.

If you live in a giant pumpkin, buy a smaller pumpkin for your pie

Pumpkin Pie Day is also November 21, so you can prepare this ahead of time if you wish. You can make a handmade crust or use a store-bought crust from the grocery. Pre bake it and fill it with the pumpkin mixture.

National Cranberry Relish Day is November 22. You can easily make your own with the juice of an orange, some sugar to taste, and cinnamon combined with a package of rinsed cranberries. Heat over medium in a saucepan, stirring frequently to keep from sticking. When the berries burst, reduce heat to simmer and reduce the liquid. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Take off the heat and put into container for icebox. Chill overnight to let seasonings combine. Serve cold as side dish.

Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, November 23. You’ve baked the turkey, and it smells amazing! Let me introduce you to pan gravy from the drippings. You need a little flour, about 2 Tbs; some pepper, about ½ cup of drippings, and 1 cup of hot water. Put the drippings in a heavy saucepan or skillet, add the flour, stirring constantly over medium high heat until flour turns caramel color. This is a medium roux. Slowly add hot water, stirring so no lumps form. Keep stirring till smooth, reducing heat. Add more water slowly if gravy thickens too much. Pepper and salt if necessary.

The idea of “thanksgiving” for the harvest is as old as time, with records from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Native Americans in North America celebrated harvest festivals for centuries long before Europeans appeared on their soil and before Thanksgiving was formally established in the United States.

In the 1600s, settlers in Massachusetts and Virginia had feasts to thank for surviving, fertile fields, and their faith. The Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, had their infamous Thanksgiving feast in 1621 with the Wampanoag Native Americans. The three-day feast consisted mainly of meat: wild fowl procured by the colonists and five deer brought to the feast by the Wampanoag. A a stew called sobaheg was most likely served as a side dish to the main course. It was an easy way to make use of seasonal ingredients, for the stew often included a mixture of beans, corn, poultry, squash, nuts and clam juice. All are used in the traditional dish today, and all would have been available in 1621.

Potatoes weren’t around in 17th-century New England, but corn was plentiful. Natalija Sahraj

Corn and cornmeal were the main carbohydrates on the first thanksgiving meal. The first New England crop of potatoes was grown in Derry, New Hampshire in 1722, so no mashed potatoes were on the menu. Corn bread, corn mush, and corn puddings abounded, since the Native Tribes had shown the colonists how to plant beans, squash, and corn together to maximize growth of all three. The harvest of 1621 likely included beans, squash, onions, turnips and greens such as spinach and chard. All could have been cooked at length to create a green, pulpy sauce that later became a staple in early New England homes. Sweet dishes concocted from sugar or maple syrup weren’t on the menu, nor were honey sweetened deserts. At least, the Pilgrims didn’t have to save room for pie.

After the Pilgrims, for more than two centuries, individual colonies and states celebrated days of thanksgiving. The first national celebration of Thanksgiving was observed for a slightly different reason than a celebration of the harvest—it was in honor of the creation of the new United States Constitution! In 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation designating November 26 of that year as a ”Day of Publick Thanksgivin” to recognize the role of providence in creating the new United States and the new federal Constitution. During the Civil War, President Lincoln called for a national Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday of November after the Battle of Gettysburg. In the Great Depression President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day to the next to last Thursday in November. After two years of public unhappiness, Congress passed a law in 1941 setting Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving, 1858, by Winslow Homer, Boston Public Library

During the week of Thanksgiving, from November 19-25 or 26, we have the holidays of Church/State Separation Week and National Bible Week. If you haven’t been giving thanks for your blessings up to this time, take a break, breathe, and rejoice that you are alive. Give thanks for your hands, your food, your breath, and your heart of love. Share this thanksgiving with someone else. If each of us gives a bit of hope to someone else, we can help others have something to be thankful about.

After the rush of Thanksgiving, some of us bunnies may need medicinal chocolate. November 29 is Chocolate Day. Depending on your personality, you can buy fancy chocolate to share, or you can enjoy it by yourself along with a good book and some lavender tea. If Thanksgiving Day was really overwhelming, National Personal Space Day on November 30 might be calling your name. We all have times in our lives when we don’t need hugs, either because of physical or emotional distress. Besides, we bunnies need to catch our breath before we dash into the Christmas season.

I’m thankful for each of you who read and share my stories.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Thanksgiving Pan Gravy From Scratch

2023 November Holidays Information from Holidays and Observances

http://www.holidays-and-observances.com/november-holidays.html

15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Halloween Candy Consumption in the US

https://www.businessinsider.com/halloween-candy-consumption-usa-facts-statistics-2019-10

Control Your Winter Appetite

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/control-your-winter-appetite

History of Thanksgiving in America | The Old Farmer’s Almanac

https://www.almanac.com/www.almanac.com/content/when-thanksgiving-day

What the first Thanksgiving dinner actually looked like

https://theconversation.com/what-the-first-thanksgiving-dinner-actually-looked-like-85714

Is Stuffing Your Turkey Safe?

https://www.marthastewart.com/8163046/is-it-safe-stuff-turkey

Wall Street Journal: The American Diet Has a Sandwich Problem – Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE)

https://chibe.upenn.edu/news/wall-street-journal-the-american-diet-has-a-sandwich-problem/

History of the Sandwich | The History Kitchen Blog | PBS Food

https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-sandwich/

Van Gogh Museum pulls its Pokémon promo card after opening day chaos

https://www.engadget.com/van-gogh-museum-pulls-its-pokemon-promo-card-after-opening-day-chaos-083349757.html

The Persistence of Effort

adult learning, Altars, art, Attitudes, beauty, brain plasticity, Children, cognitive decline, Creativity, exercise, Food, Habits, Health, Holy Spirit, inspiration, knitting, Love, Ministry, mystery, nature, Painting, Prayer, pumpkins, purpose, rabbits, renewal, Right Brain, sleep, Van Gogh, vision

I was reading an article in the New York Times the other day. In “How I Learned to Love Finishing Last,” the author wrote about her slow pace as a runner. As one who regularly finishes last in my age group in the annual Spa 5K Walk each November, I’m optimistic one day I might get old enough to be in a nonagenarian age group all on my own. Perhaps if I’m 90 and still doing a 5K, they’ll give me a ribbon just for participating! “The last will be first and the first will be last,” especially if there’s only one of us in the race!

“When we compare ourselves to others,” said Dr. Justin Ross, a clinical psychologist in Denver who specializes in athlete mental health and performance, “we set ourselves up to suffer. Instead, the real psychological benefits come from enjoying what your body can do.”

Portrait of Yayoi Kusama in costume in front of pumpkin painting, photo: Noriko Takasugi

Suffering physically isn’t what art class is about, although we may suffer indignities to our egos, but this shouldn’t hold us back from doing our art works. The case of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is evidence even hallucinations of voices and images can’t keep an artist from creating. If our daily efforts don’t measure up to what we imagined in our mind, it’s merely because our inner eye sees better than our hands can execute our vision. Sometimes our eye forgets what it once learned, for we haven’t used our skill of looking in a while. A runner doesn’t leap off the couch and immediately run a marathon or even a 5K. The smart athlete takes the time to train progressively for the distance beforehand. Also, they get new shoes.

Kroger Run: Two ghost pumpkins and a small pie pumpkin

Sometimes the coach has slept over the summer also. Just as students in school need a time to relearn last year’s lessons, as a coach in art class I sometimes forget the lessons, which are second nature to me because they’ve been inculcated by multiple teachers since I was eight years old, aren’t as ingrained to my own students. I also forget I’m always observing everything around me: cloud patterns, changing colors on trees, sunlight dappling on tree branches, shadows on the ground, and reflections in windows. I think about these patterns rather than about what I need to do next or next week. My calendar will remind me of these things in due time. I’ll be wrapping this up soon so I can work on my monthly Rabbit blog.

A National Institute on Aging study found five healthy lifestyle factors — physical activity, not smoking, not drinking heavily, following the Mediterranean-style diet, and engaging in mentally stimulating activities — can have important benefits. People who engaged in four or five of these behaviors had a 60% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to those who only followed one or none. People who followed two or three of the activities had a 37% lower risk. This is your free wellness plan from Dr. Cornie, who has no medical degree, but did stay in a Holiday Inn once.

Debunking the Myth of the Split Brain Theory

Although we commonly think art is a “right brained” activity, in 2013 a group of researchers at the University of Utah discovered people actually use both sides of their brains equally. Back in the 1970’s when I was seeking employment after graduate school, the “Art is a right brain myth” ruled the creative work world. I once suggested I’d be a good candidate for a museum position because I understood both the artistic and the logical mind. I was not hired. Intuitive understanding of the brain a half century ahead of time doesn’t exactly open the doors to a fancy job.

As I recall, I got a checker’s job in a grocery store and ended up counting the teller trays and preparing the bank deposits for that store. The good news is creating works of art is a multi-process activity, one that depends on several brain regions and on redundancy of art-related functional representation rather than on a single cerebral hemisphere, region or pathway. This means even when we lose our ability to form words (typically a left hemisphere activity) our ability to create art still exists. We can still express our inner feelings and thoughts. This is good news for the aging and those who love them.

Yayoi Kusama – *Pumpkin*, 2014, installation view, Donum Estate, California, photo: Robert Berg

One one the great sadnesses in my ministry is being with young people who desperately want to have their old one’s memories recorded, but waited too late to ask them or were too busy with their own lives to sit and listen to these stories of the olden days. Once their old person has a stroke and loses the ability to form words, the opportunity has passed. Those stories will be locked in their minds due to aphasia, and no one or no amount of time will pull them out. We always tell young parents their babies need to be enjoyed while they’re still young, but we should also tell families to get the stories of their elders while they still can. “Strike while the iron is still hot” will take on a new meaning one day.

Gail and I were the only ones in class today. Lauralei showed up to gift us chocolate cake and keep us company. Tim and Mike were out of town. Gail and I both repainted old canvases. I showed some of the unusual ways pumpkins have been decorated by various artists, but none of them sparked any interest. We got down to work by covering our old canvas with a base of titanium white paint. Then I located all three of the pumpkins with circles and drew a baseline for the object on which they sat. I didn’t look over at Gail’s work for a while, but then I noticed she’d almost completely finished one pumpkin without roughing in the shapes of the others.

“Did you plan on finishing that one pumpkin before drawing the other two?” I asked.

Gail gave me a “needs more caffeine” stare.

“That’s what I thought. Maybe next time draw in the rough shapes so you get everything located in space relevant to each other.”

We kept on painting until clean up time. I often say “I’ve slept since then.” It’s my all purpose excuse for forgetfulness or just plain airheadedness. Sometimes I have my mind on other things and I’m not focused on what’s in front of me. I forget about the wisdom of Brother Lawrence, who said “many do not advance in the Christian progress because they stick in penances and particular exercises while they neglect the love of God which is the end. This appeared plainly by their works and was the reason why we see so little solid virtue.” He also said, “there needed neither art nor science for going to God, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him and to love Him only.”

We know Brother Lawrence from the classic text, The Practice of the Presence of God. Although it dates from the late 17^th century, his lessons on living life in joy in the present moment, all for the love of God are invaluable for us modern folks who tend to live for our 15 minutes of personal fame, social media clicks, or self interest. We aren’t used to the monastic life today, or to the discipline of that lifestyle. We live in a Burger King world, in which each individual gets his or her own way to every extent possible. Unfortunately, the Christian lifestyle is one of discipline, but not harsh punishment:

“Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” ~~ Hebrews 12:11

In art class we focus on the disciplines, just as the guild artists taught the apprentices back in the day. These disciplines are not only for safety, for some of our art tools are dangerous, but also some of our techniques are proven to yield better results than others. This is why carpenters measure twice and cut once. They also cut on the outside of the line, rather than the inside. They can shave down a piece easier than adding to it. Murphy’s Law recognizes this: “A wire cut to length will be too short.”

Zen Tangle drawing of pumpkins: exercise in texture

Art class has no mysteries, but we can forget the “secret gnostic knowledge passed down by word of mouth” from our previous classes. I often use the excuse “I’ve slept since then.” Another good excuse is “My mind has gone to Pluto.” I share these with you all, for they’ve always worked for me. Of course it helps to be a natural blonde. Then again, I’m very organized, but I’m also very active, so sometimes my calendar gets overwhelmed, and I pull out the “OOPS! Card.” Even in retirement I’m still creating and sharing my faith through art and writing. It’s my way of exercising those brain cells to keep them from dying off. We old folks can still learn new things, even if it takes longer. This is what we call the persistence of effort. Those who keep using their skills won’t be losing those skills.

The same goes for learning a new skill. It’s all a matter of repetition. We can’t get frustrated if we don’t get it on the first try. We won’t be a good role model for the young if we have that attitude. We need to lower our expectations. I used to think I couldn’t knit, but only crochet. After my mom, who was a stellar knitter passed on, a friend taught me to knit in an afternoon! Where this sudden bilateral coordination came from I have no idea, but it was so welcome. Perhaps I needed to be in the right frame of mind, or I wanted to be able to carry on my mom’s memory, but I was definitely receptive to her teaching.

Letter to Theo Van Gogh, September 18, 1888

It’s never too late to learn and we’re never too old to start learning. Art isn’t just good for the brain, but it’s good for the soul. Art is our attempt to represent truth, beauty, and nature in media that can be accessible to others. By doing this, we bear witness to the creation and the Creator. We only need give our best efforts, and let God’s Spirit guide our growth.

Joy, peace, and perseverance,

Cornelia

We have pumpkins galore on the autumn altar.

How I Learned to Love Finishing Last

How the Aging Brain Affects Thinking | National Institute on Aging

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-aging-brain-affects-thinking

The creative-right vs analytical-left brain myth: debunked! – Dr Sarah McKay https://drsarahmckay.com/left-brain-right-brain-myth/

Art and brain: insights from neuropsychology, biology and evolution – PMC

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815940/

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother of the Resurrection Lawrence (free ebook)

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5657/pg5657.html

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11th

9/1/11, 911, Altars, art, Attitudes, Christmas, Easter, Faith, Forgiveness, grief, Healing, hope, Icons, inspiration, Ministry, Painting, renewal, Spirituality

Looking up at the night sky, I think of the Eskimo Proverb which says, “ Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” The fatal September 2001 event at 7:14 am CDT impressed its significance on the nation to such a great extent that 93% of American adults 30 years old or greater can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard about the attacks. Only 42% of those 25 and younger can do the same.

NGC 3603: From Beginning To End
Credit: Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel (U. Wash.), You-Hua Chu (UIUC), NASA

I remember my church was fuller than for Easter or Christmas on the Sunday after the devastation of the Twin Towers, the collapse of the Pentagon, and the crash of the airplane in which the terrorists had hoped to hit the White House. Only those brave passengers of Flight 93 stood between the terrorists achieving a psychological victory and their ultimate ignoble demise. As I recall, people were eager to hear “What is the Christian Response to Violence?” If they hoped to hear the one and only response, as the THE implies in the sermon title, the air was let out of their balloons.

A photo taken on September 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department as the North Tower collapses, engulfing lower Manhattan in smoke and ash.

Of course, Christians across the centuries have had three major responses to violence. The first is “turning the other cheek” or nonviolence. We see this in the Biblical witness, for Jesus admonishes his followers in Matthew 5:38-42—

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

Il Tintoretto: Christ before Pilate, Museum Scuola di San Rocco, Venice

Jesus himself practiced a non-violence response to violence when he appeared before Pilate after his arrest. Pilate questioned Jesus in Matthew 27:11-14—

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

Unknown German artist: Aquamanile in the Form of a Mounted Knight, Copper alloy, ca. 1250, used to pour water over hands at the altar or at dinner table, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

The opposite of non-violence is the Crusade mindset. In this response, the infidel is “othered” to the point of inhumanity. Because the unbelievers don’t share the same god, purging them from the living is a good deed, worthy of merit for salvation or for forgiveness of past sins. As you can imagine, this makes people who believe in other gods “less than human,” so what we modern people would consider war crimes would be easy to commit for a person in Crusade mentality. We still hear vestiges of this dualist mindset in the vocabulary of people who talk about “weaponizing government” or those who feel the need to “hit the ground running.” If we’re always in “attack mode” at work, we need to question how we think about others if we believe we’re in a hostile environment or in enemy territory.

If the Christian has both a head and a heart, both of which are being conformed to the love, mercy, and justice of God, then we must have a middle way between passive nonviolence and crusade extremism. This golden mean is the Just War Theory. It’s taught in all our military academies and has its beginnings in Christian theology. The saints Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas developed the primary ideas:

Make war only for a just cause
Be sure your intentions are right
Only legitimate authority can make war
Use just proportionally in the war, nothing to excess
Go to war as a last resort
During war only attack military targets, not civilians
Following unjust orders isn’t a legal defense for unjust actions
Punish war crimes, compensate victims
Peace treaties must be fair and just to all, even the warmongers

Psalter Saint Louis et Blanche de Castile, MS 1186, BnF, folio 11b

Those of us who struggle with conflict—if we have a family, we have conflict or if we live in a community, we have conflict—yes, I’m starting to meddle now. You knew I’d get around to it. After all, God the Father had Adam and Eve, and God tossed those two kids out of the House. They had everything, and still wouldn’t follow the one rule (Don’t eat from that one tree). Just one rule. How hard could that be? It was downhill from there.

I always take comfort, knowing God had troublesome children. It means perfect parents can still have conflict at home. This gives hope to us less than perfect folks. The Bible reminds us always how God still loves the human race and hasn’t give up on us, so we don’t give up on those we have fusses with. We don’t roll over and play dead, yet we don’t set out on a crusade against unruly kids or others with whom we have conflicts. As Micah 7:18 reminds us about God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love:

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.

Maybe we should look at the just war thoughts and modify our attitudes and behaviors. We can come to a peace, even if others cannot. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:9—

“Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.”

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11 | Pew Research Center

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

Just War Theory – The Ethics Centre Ethics Explainer
https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-just-war/

I See the Icon—The Icon Sees Me

art, beauty, Faith, Holy Spirit, Icons, Imagination, incarnation, inspiration, Love, Mandylion, mystery, Painting, Pantocrator, Plato, renewal, salvation, St. Athanasius, vision

The icons of Christ radiate a sense of calm, a spiritual experience created countless times by various artists over the ages. Each one channels the spiritual force which lies outside of language, mystery, and mysticism. Over the years, we’ve come to understand the icon serves as a window into the world beyond our own. In this world we think of dualities: good and evil, winning and losing, ours and theirs. In the world beyond ours, everything belongs to God, we are all one, and no one lacks for anything. The heavenly banquet table is a never ending feast for everyone and no one is reduced to begging for the crumbs that fall from it. No one hungers or thirsts in this land of the unclouded sky.

The icon represents to us the world we yearn to be. In this respect, it’s a “wormhole” from the fully perfected world to this world, which is still going onto perfection. The New Heaven and the New Earth promised in Revelation 21:1-4 speaks to this very event:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

Until that time comes, we have the icons gazing upon us to remind us of this promise, as well as of our calling to be coworkers with God in bringing this world into fruition. If we see with spiritual eyes, we’ll be able to look beyond the paint and canvas, beyond the image and likeness, and beyond material truth to see the spiritual truth of the icon before us.

To understand the icon better,we ought to take a trip in the WayBack machine to Ancient Greece to visit Plato and study up on his philosophy. This is important because whether they know it or not, artists of every stripe and measure participate in this “not yet, but yearning for a better world” as they make their art. In the 4^th C BCE, Plato believed the true reality was in the ideal forms which existed in a world outside of this one which we daily experience. Every form we see on earth is merely a copy of the ideal form, but not the “truth.” Plato’s truth existed in this realm of ideas, rather than in the senses. This is the opposite of how most modern people look for “truth,” especially scientific or observational evidence based truths.

For Plato, the ideals of good and truth had to exist as a form in the eternal world so we could recognize them in our transitory world. All things, even virtue, justice, love, and beauty, must have an ideal form in this realm beyond our sensibilities. Where we get into trouble is believing this world’s representations of the ideal forms must follow the pattern exactly. The examples we consider beautiful can change over the centuries, but the idea of beauty as the highest ideal of loveliness never changes. This is why we don’t keep repeating Greek and Roman Classical themes for our public buildings in the modern era.

James 1:17 says of God: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

When we say “God doesn’t change,” we mean God never quits loving us, always wants to save us, and always wants to work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to God’s purposes. God does change God’s mind when we give up our wayward ways and return to godly ways. The Old Testament is full of times God had a change of heart. Maybe some of these events were the people having a heart change and coming back to God. God does seem absent when we turn away, while God seems near when we turn towards God.

But I digress, and I plead the hot weather. Plato’s perfect forms are the subject, especially the form of the Good. For Plato, only the soul or the mind can know the true forms, while the sensible body is suspect. Plato’s philosophy is a form of dualism, which elevates the spiritual over the physical. This is an important concept for early Christianity, since they had to hash out an understanding of the incarnation of Christ. For some, Jesus was purely divine, while for others he was purely human.

Variation on the Christ Not Made by Hands Icon

The traditional interpretation of Jesus Christ is he is both fully human and fully divine, as Athanasius so succinctly said in his treatise On the Incarnation: “for God became man so that man might become god” (54:3). This theology of theosis, or perfection in love, always boggles the mind of those of us who are used to 1 + 1 = 2, or the sensible and mathematic physical reality of this world. One of the rallying cries back in those days was “There never was a time when the Son wasn’t the Son.” People marched in the streets to proclaim this belief: the Son of God never gave up his divinity even when he became human for the sake of our salvation. It was necessary for him to become human to save all of us and only if he were completely God would he be able to save us entirely.

For the icon painters, Athanasius also is informative when he writes about the Incarnation: “and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”

As Jesus says in John 14:7, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Like Phillip, we can only believe in what we’ve seen. Many of us are doubting Thomases, who need to touch and hold onto physical proof before we can be convinced. The icons remind us that Jesus is

“the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15-16).

What image is the Christ icon? That depends on the time and place where the icon was created, but all images share certain qualities. The eyes are prominent, the mouth is small, the forehead is broad, and the lower jaw is small. Most of the icons of Christ look like a philosopher, rather than a warrior king, which was the original meaning of the Jewish messiah. All icons have at least one ear visible to hear the prayers of the faithful.

These letters form the present participle, ὤν, of the Greek verb to be, with a masculine singular definite article, ὁ. A literal translation of Ὁ ὬΝ would be “the being one,” which does not mean much. “He who is” is a better translation

The backgrounds are gold and represent a timeless, eternal spiritual space. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow are all the same for God, who is known by the name I AM. In John 8:58, Jesus got into an argument with some of the Pharisees over who were the true children of Abraham. When he told them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am,” they were ready to stone him for claiming to be god. Moreover, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).

Roman Icon, 12th CE, oil on wood panel, Vatican Museum

The icon itself isn’t holy, but the image it represents is holy. This is why icons are venerated , while Christ is worshipped. The image isn’t holy, but the person represented is holy. In this sense, every icon points to the ideal form of Christ in the spiritual world beyond us and the icon acts as a window or a wormhole opening so that spiritual world can enter into our sensible and material world here. The more we live with an icon, the more our hearts and minds are tuned to the silent harmonics of the hymns of joy, peace, love, beauty, generosity, and compassion. This is because we become open to the truth of Christ in a mystical way which supersedes our own personal beliefs and experiences. We lose our attachment to the world of dualisms and enter into the world of union with the divine. We are undergoing theosis. Theosis is more than just salvation and divine pardon, but is rather the process of spiritual transformation that culminates in mystical union with God. It is a cooperative work of the Holy Spirit and the believer that results in this union.

Art has a way of affecting the energies of a human being. It’s well known how certain colors affect mood, so designers use these techniques to create appropriate spaces in buildings. Public art adds to the charm of a city and likewise, destroying green spaces can render a city to grimness. Having art in one’s home or office elevates it above the ordinary.

Even artists who aren’t painting icons, but are making landscapes or abstractions can be said to be seeking a platonic form, one which only they may see in their own mind’s eye. We keep looking for the next challenge, the creation which comes closest to our imagination. We artists keep on going, however, for each new work not only refines our imagination, but it also moves us closer to our desired goal. We’re like long distance runners who always seek a new personal best!

The icon makes a claim on our lives as we return its gaze. In the silence, Christ asks, “Are you going onto perfection in the love of God and neighbor?” We take a silent stock of our lives and our interactions in prayer. Most days we agree with the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians (3:12):

“Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected— but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me (NET).”

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Plato
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/classical/platonic%20idealism.htm

Early Christian Heresies
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/heresies.html

CHURCH FATHERS: On the Incarnation of the Word (Athanasius) 54:3. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to May!

art, beauty, Civil War, inspiration, King Charles of England Coronation, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Memorial Day, Mother’s Day, Painting

If April showers bring May flowers, your bunny buddy now lives in a blooming greenhouse. Yes, record rainfall and stupendous snowfall are causing even the deserts to bloom. For years, the long-term drought in California has caused a lack of wildflowers. With the recent floods and deep snow in the mountains, the full extent of this year’s super bloom in California won’t be clear until peak bloom hits places like Lassen Volcanic National Park in the northern part of the state. Peak bloom is expected there in June or July, after all the snow there has thawed.

However, the second week of May is National Wildflower Week. The wildflowers growing by the side of public roads and in national parks are protected. Don’t pick wildflowers or their seed heads there. On private property, ask permission before picking them. Obtain seeds from reliable sources that cultivated the flowers for their seeds. When choosing flowering plants that aren’t wild or naturalized in your area, mimic their growing conditions. You may have to supplement rainfall with occasional watering and/or fertilizing. While we’ve had a good rain this year, xeriscaping or planting your lawn with wildflowers or local plants is a great way to save on water. It won’t look like a manicured carpet, however. Maybe your flowerbeds can get wider each year until the carpet is gone.

I visited the Lassen Volcanic National Park last October when I journeyed out west to visit the grand rabbits. While I could have flown over all this great land we call America, I decided to travel by car. We have too many beautiful natural treasures which we protect and conserve in our national parks. Also, after several years of confinement due to the pandemic, I had some pent up travelling in my blood. The park is 166 square miles large and contains the world’s largest plug volcano, which was first active 27,000 years ago. It last erupted in 1917 when the park was set aside.

DeLee: Great Dixie Fire, mixed media and acrylic paint

This is also the site of the great 2021 Dixie Fire, which started on July 13, and burned for 104 days. Five California counties and 963,276 acres burned. Why would anyone outside of the immediate area care about this? The forests in Lassen Volcanic National Park can store almost as much carbon as 600,000 Americans emit in one year. Unfortunately, park forests are dying from a combination of threats: increased drought, wildfire, and pathogens like beetles and blister rust. Lassen Volcanic Park rangers are working to protect vulnerable tree species through monitoring, research, and management actions whenever necessary and appropriate.

As a rabbit of faith, I live on this earth, and as long as I live here, I’m called to care for it, to do no harm to it, and to heal it where it’s hurting. This is the same calling I have for our fellow creatures, for the same God created us all and cares for us all equally. I love the wildflowers so much, I even stop on the roadside to take a selfie among them. The Highway Patrol in Liberty, North Carolina doesn’t take kindly to strangers taking selfies among their precious poppies. I was “checked out” and asked to “move along.” Perhaps they’re not used to rabbits with cameras? I do seem to attract the attention of the local law whenever I’m out photographing.

Other weekly celebrations we rabbits can enjoy in May are:

Week One—Be Kind to Animals Week and Nurse’s Week
Week Three—National Bike Week and National Police Week
Week Four—Emergency Medical Services Week

Some celebrations get the entire month of May. Among them are:

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Older Americans and Foster Care Month
Gifts from the Garden and National Salad Month
Lupus Awareness and National Blood Pressure Month
National Barbecue and National Hamburger Month
Date Your Mate and National Photograph Month
National Bike Month

May 3–World Press Freedom Day Rabbit Writer

In 1993, the UN General Assembly proclaimed May 3rd each year to be World Press Freedom Day. This is a UN Sponsored annual event. A free press is a bedrock necessity for democracy to thrive. When ruling powers control the messages which the rabbit population gets to hear, we rabbits only hear one side of the story. This discourages freedoms of thought and expression of opinion. While democracy sometimes seems messy, the voices of the majority will ultimately prevail. Yet the voices of the marginalized must be recognized and respected, for their rights can’t be curtailed to please the majority. A free press brings both voices to light.

May 4–The National Day of Prayer always happens on the first Thursday of May. This year it coincides with “May the Fourth Be with You” day. Each of these celebrations speaks to the deep need within the rabbit heart for a connection to a power greater than ourselves. At some point in time, each one of us will realize our ego self is really a false self or mask of bravado and competence. When we cast off this mask, we might feel naked toward the world, but God or the Force can finally fill our emptiness. Most rabbits will never take off this false mask, however, for being naked in God’s or the Force’s presence is unimaginable to us.

“Rabbit Handstand” wood sculpture by Teresita Gonzalez

May 5–Cinco de Mayo is always on May 5th. I was playing cards with some rabbit friends the other night. One has a grand baby born on Cinco de Mayo. “What day is Cinco de Mayo?” he asked. “It’s always May 5th, silly.”

“Why is that?” All the card players answered, “Because Cinco de Mayo is a date, like Christmas is a date, when something important happened.”

This is a group of white rabbits, as you may have gathered, but some of us have spent time in Hispanic communities. The Mexican army defeated the French army at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. This single military battle signified the defeat of a European colonial power, a victory for the Mexican people, and is the root of Cinco de Mayo. Mexican Independence Day is September 15th. We can celebrate along with our brother and sister rabbits by sharing Mexican food and drink, enjoying music, and dancing. And what rabbit doesn’t love the excuse for a party?

St. Edward crown for May 6–Coronation of King Charles of England has over $4.5B worth of jewels in it.

While we American rabbits cast off our colonial bonds back in the 18th century, some of us have never lost our fascination with the royal family and their sagas. Plus we’re always up for a celebration if it means drink and cake. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, her son Charles became King of England. His official coronation ceremony will be smaller in many respects than Elizabeth’s: only 2,000 guests rather than 8,000 and business or military attire will be worn, but no tiaras or ermines allowed.

Since 1066, Westminster Abbey has been the site for regal coronations , beginning with William the Conqueror on Christmas Day. The St. Edwards Crown weighs in at 5 pounds, so the new monarch will live out the saying, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” (Shakespeare, Henry IV. Part II, 1597). While the Crown Jewels are considered priceless, a 2019 study found in total, the coronation crown would cost $4, 519, 719. That would buy a bunch of carrots and then some!

Coronation chair with the Stone of Scone

The Stone of Destiny (also known as the Stone of Scone) is an ancient sandstone block weighing 336 pounds, which was used for centuries in the coronation of Scottish kings before being seized in 1296 by King Edward I, who had it built into a throne at Westminster Abbey. There it lay until Christmas Day 1950, when, in an audacious caper, four Scottish nationalist students tried to steal it and take it back north of the border. Eventually, in 1996, the stone was returned to Scotland. Now, top-secret and high-security preparations are being made to take it back down to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.

King Bugs Bunny wears Ermine and a Crown

If the rabbit ears on your Telly are angled just right, and your alarm clock goes off in time, you can watch special coverage from Saturday, May 6, from 5 to 10 a.m. ET on your local ABC station. If you have a BBC streaming service, they’ll definitely carry the public events, including the concert on the day after. This will be a public holiday in Great Britain, of course. Both Apple and Spotify have official playlists (link below).

Secretariat Wins Triple Crown, Jockey Ron Turcotte Looks Back at 31 Length Victory in 1973 Belmont Stakes

After the early morning British crowd, if you’ve swilled enough caffeine and nibbled enough scones (the pastry kind, not the stones) you can chill with a mint julep and the Kentucky Horse Royalty congregating at the Derby’s 149th Run for the Roses. This year, of the twenty horses lined up for the opening bell, eight have a pedigree traced to the Triple Crown winner of 50 years ago, Secretariat. No horse has ever matched his magnificence or personality. To watch him pull away from the pack and leave them in his dust was a wonder to behold. He’d be waiting for those stragglers in the winner’s circle when they finally crossed the finish line, and be looking at their sweating, huffing hulks, as if he were thinking, “What took you guys so long?” One of a kind, Secretariat won the 1973 Derby, coming from last to first, and five decades later, he’s still the Derby record holder at 1:59 2/5.

If you attend in person, the dress code is “Business Casual:” Jackets and blazers, vests, shirts with collars, sweaters, dresses, pantsuits, slacks and capri pants are appropriate. Hats are expected. If watching from your rabbit den, anything goes. Coverage is on NBC from 12 noon to 7:30 pm ET. The race itself goes off at 6:57 pm ET. That’s a lot of mint juleps, so pace your imbibing or you’ll miss the actual race itself.

On May 8, 1908 the US Senate voted against Mother’s Day! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Afterall, at that time, only men could vote and all the holidays honored men. Maybe those senators realized what side their bread was buttered on. A day to honor the Grandpaws might have passed with votes to spare. The women behind this cause weren’t to be denied. Even before the ratification of the 19th ammendment giving them the right to vote in August of 1920, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as a perpetual memorial day of honor to mothers everywhere.

We rabbits today can’t even imagine any of our elected officials treating us as less than our brothers before the law, disrespecting the 14th Amendment of our Constitution:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Today some of our legislators seem to live in a distant century, having traveled there with the cartoon Sherman in Mr. Peabody’s WABAC (way-back) machine. I sometimes wish this way-back machine had enough power to transport its passengers back to the earliest days of creation. Maybe having a front row seat and hearing God’s voice in God’s act of creating the first human beings would work a mighty change in their hearts and minds:

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
~~ Genesis 1:27

May 25–Carry a Towel Day. If you are at loss to understand this holiday, please read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Understanding The Galaxy. When the earth is moments away from demolition by aliens so they can construct an intergalactic highway, Ford Perfect saves young Arthur Dent. Together they travel across space and time to find the meaning of the universe and return to save earth. If you aren’t into this holiday, the good news is it’s also National Wine Day. Splurge on a fine vintage, invite a friend or two over to share the conversation and discuss the meaning of life.

Memorial Day Celebration rooted in memories of our Civil War

Memorial Day will be celebrated on Monday, May 29, for the 3 day federal and state holiday. The banks will also close. Some of my Southern rabbit cousins still refuse to recognize Monday as Memorial, because “It ought to be on the 31st, like it was in granddaddy’s day.” I note they still attend the family picnics and shoot off firecrackers over the weekend. They are old bunnies and have gotten somewhat crotchety as the years have put a kink in their hop. I find myself getting older also, but I keep reminding myself each new day is a blessing and an opportunity for growth. I try to keep learning new things so my brain will keep adjusting to new challenges.

As the calendar passes from May to June, the weather will beckon us to spend more time outdoors, so let’s remember these words written in 1848 from the Rev. Charles Kingsley, also known as Parson Lott:

Attributed to Henry Peacham: Tinted drawing of Book 2, Emblem X: Cum severitate lenitas (Severity with Mercy), British Library, London.

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God’s hand-writing—a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank for it Him, the fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and earnestly, with all your eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.”

Or as the ancient manuscript illuminator wrote, Cum severitate lenitas (Even in harshness, there is mercy.).

Until June, I leave you with joy, peace, and rainbows,

Cornelia

King Charles Coronation Playlist https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a43399168/king-charles-coronation-playlist-spotify/

More May Holidays
https://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/may.htm

Dixie Fire Statistics
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2021/7/13/dixie-fire/

Lassen Volcano National Park
https://www.nps.gov/lavo/learn/nature/climate-change.htm

Westminster Abbey Stone of Scone
https://www.westminster-abbey.org/about-the-abbey/history/the-coronation-chair

A Coronation F.A.Q.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/style/king-charles-coronation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2023 Kentucky Derby
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/horses/kentucky-derby/2023/04/27/secretariat-descendants-2023-kentucky-derby-field-at-churchill-downs/69992169007/

Beauty is God’s Handwriting
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/21/beauty/

How Much is the British Coronation Crown Worth? https://britishheritage.com/history/edwards-coronation-crown-worth

Rabbit! Rabbit!

arkansas, art, chocolate, Easter, Faith, Food, Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, holidays, Holy Thursday, john wesley, Love, Painting, photography, rabbits, Salvador Dali, Spirituality, Spring Equinox, United Methodist Church

Welcome to April 2023

April Fool! Caught you! Were you the prankster or the pranked? Even an institution as stuffy as the British Broadcasting Corporation isn’t above pranking the public on the first day of April. If a fool and his money are soon parted, then whatever the BBC was selling, they were having a jolly good time in their advertising department. You can watch their mini documentary on Flying Penguins below:

When I was at Perkins Seminary, we editors of the weekly newsletter had a tradition of an April Surprise. This followed the practice of the former Babylonian Schismatic, which was an alternative, satirical student newsletter published occasionally between 1981 and 1988.

One year, when I was coeditor, it was more of an April Debacle. My partner in crime and I were sure the beach ball bouncing off the usual chapel steeple logo would be enough to clue our community into the prank. However, we failed to realize how little sleep our fellow students actually got during school weeks, how seriously they took the printed word, and worst of all, that our newsletter also went to bishops’ widows in faraway places. This last was what got us into the real trouble.

Our faux reports of Perkins losing its accreditation due to shenanigans of prior graduates, who were in the news at the time, had graduate students storming the dean’s office. Even worse, the bishop’s widows were calling him to inquire what kind of school he was overseeing. The fact schools can only lose accreditation for their own failures (and not the trespasses of former students or faculty) never crossed anyone’s mind in the ensuing uproar. So of course, we criminals wrote handwritten letters of apology to the widows and printed retractions in the next newsletter for the students. I now understand why my mother said I sometimes take things too seriously. Still, I’ve have found others who make me look like a giggle queen.

Speaking of giggles, although the historical roots of April Fool’s Day are shrouded in mystery, the British, who are mostly known for their dry wit and stiff upper lip, seem to enjoy this holiday to excess. Especially at the BBC, which back in 1957, produced a fascinating prank documentary on the Swiss Artisanal Spaghetti Industry. They showed a Swiss family harvesting ripe spaghetti strands from their spaghetti bushes. At the time because of rationing, spaghetti wasn’t widely available. After 1956 in the British Isles, Italian companies opened spaghetti factories and Italian immigrants opened restaurants. The British developed a taste for this food. As a result, some British families were so enthusiastic, they wanted to purchase their own spaghetti bushes for a home garden. Others were unhappy to be pranked. This may be one of the first times the medium of television was used to stage an April Fool’s Day hoax.

Moveable Feasts: Passover and Easter

Israel was an ancient agricultural culture and followed a lunar calendar, so sighting the full moon was important. Passover is always pegged to the Hebrew calendar, which is based on the lunar cycle. It starts in the middle of the month of Nisan, when the moon is full, typically falling in March or April of the modern Gregorian calendar. As a result, Passover typically begins very close to Easter. Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. However, due to the shorter Hebrew calendar, sometimes it gets a leap month to keep it in tune with the seasons. In 2024, when the leap month plays a part, we’ll have an early Easter on March 21st, but Passover won’t start until April 22nd.

These religious holidays are forever entertwined because of the historical events of the Last Supper, which we assume was a ritual meal or Seder, and the crucifixion on a Friday, which required Christ’s body to be taken down from the cross due to the beginning of Passover at sunset.The Last Supper took place on a Thursday night, even though the actual Passover didn’t begin until Friday night.

Dali: The Sacrament of the Last Supper, 1955, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

As Wesley’s Notes on The New Testament observe, “Jesus took the bread—the bread or cake, which the master of the family used to divide among them, after they had eaten the passover. The custom our Lord now transferred to a nobler use. This bread is, that is, signifies or represents my body, according to the style of the sacred writers.”

We know this because Jesus was arrested in Gesthemane after this meal and then taken to the Roman Governor Pilate on Friday morning, the day of Preparation for the Passover. John 18:28 reminds us how the temple priests “…took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.”

Early Handdrawn Valentine, 1814, writing in an unending circle

The Jews in the first century kept faithfulness according to laws of separation and purity, so they kept away from unbelievers on holy days. This was the biblical practice of the time. Early Christians continued this practice until Paul began his outreach to the Greek and Roman citizens of the world. When in the later gospel of John (14:15) Christ says, “if ye love me, keep my commandments, Wesley’s commentary understands this to mean: “Immediately after faith he exhorts to love and good works.” This is why we United Methodists practice an open table at Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, for all who love the Lord and desire to be in love and fellowship with their neighbors are welcome at his table. We don’t exclude anyone, for God includes all people into the circle of God’s love.

Since Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, this makes Easter a “moveable feast.” Unlike a picnic, for which we tote our fixings from our kitchen to a park or to the countryside, or unlike a house to house “progressive dinner,” Easter is called “moveable” because it’s not on a fixed date like Christmas or New Year’s Day.

Baked Ham with Canned Pineapple Rings and Cloves

My family’s Easter feast always centered about a baked ham, often covered with canned pineapple rings and studded with cloves. We were a modern American 1950-60’s family and Betty Crocker reigned in my mother’s kitchen. Just this week I saw a tv advertisement of a family feast with this very same baked ham. I suppose when the economy gets dicey, people pull out old familiar recipes from the great-great-grandmother’s kitchen. Since I have a new great-grandchild on the way, and a knitting project started, I can safely say, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I’ve seen the sonogram images!

2012-2022 Top Ten Cities for Extreme Weather Warnings issued by National Weather Service

“April showers bring May flowers” is an ancient rhyme. Unfortunately, these showers also bring pollens of every kind, since trees and flowers both acquire crowns of glory. The Old Farmer’s’ Almanac notes while November has a bit more rain in store for Arkansas than April usually brings, this month’s warmer weather favors conditions for flowers to bloom and trees to bud. While we might tire of the storms and the havoc they wrack upon the populace, we’re always thankful if they only cause damage to property and don’t take human lives.

Across North America, the pollen season has lengthened by 20 days since 1990. Pollen concentrations have also increased by 21 percent over the past three decades. This means some of us have been doctoring ourselves or visiting the RD—real doctor—since February. The stubbornest of us waited until almost April because we were convinced we could heal ourselves. If you still have no energy and are grumpy to boot after a month, you too need a RD. Better living through chemistry with put a perk back into your bunny hop.

Speaking of the weather, I have seen many years now of Easter sunrise services, and even more later noontime Easter feasts. One thing ties them all together: no matter how cute my spring outfit is, no one ever sees it because I’m always wearing a raincoat or a winter coat over it. My guess is rain and cool weather will come and our egg hunts will likely be inside. As long as there’s a dark chocolate Easter rabbit for my personal gratification, I’ll be happy. I discovered last year’s version stored in the cabinet, so I’d better make some chocolate chip cookies soon.

There’s plenty of silly or merchandising holidays in April, but you can read about them at the link below my name. Until May, I remain your April Fool…

Joy, peace, and chocolate rabbits for everyone,

Cornelia

April Daily Holidays, National, International. Holiday Insights.
https://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/april.htm

Why Easter and Passover are observed on different dates each year
https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/2018/03/28/why-easter-and-passover-have-different-dates-each-year/466341002/

The worst cities in the U.S. for allergies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/16/allergy-season-pollen-count-climate/

BBC Flying Penguin Documentary April Fool Prank
https://youtu.be/9dfWzp7rYR4

BBC 1957 Spaghetti Documentary April Fool Prank
https://youtu.be/8scpGwbvxvI

BBC ON THIS DAY | 1 | 1957: BBC fools the nation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm

No spuds please, we’re British
https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,371547,00.html

Is April Really The Month of Showers? – Farmers’ Almanac
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/april-showers-bring-may-flowers-34814

Where the Most Weather Warnings Are Issued in the U.S. | Weather Underground
https://www.wunderground.com/article/safety/thunderstorms/news/2022-03-18-most-national-weather-service-warnings-us

Radical Love

art, Attitudes, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, holidays, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, Love, Martin Luther Ling, Ministry, Reflection, silkscreen, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is all about love. Television advertisements push candies, dipped gold “eternal” roses, gaudy jewelry—a price for every pocketbook—and the dating apps have been in full swing since the new year.

“Everybody needs somebody to love,” the old song goes. The Blues Brothers sing this oldie before their mad escape from the Illinois Law Enforcement Community. Solomon Burkes treats it with his indigenous soul blues from his lived experience and The Rolling Stones give it their percussive upbeat treatment. Wilson Picket has a good cover, but I don’t recommend the explicit version of Rod Wave’s Sneaky Links. Fitz and the Tantrums was interesting. My “old person “ is probably showing about the edges here.

We all can love our friends or sweethearts, especially in mid February. After all, February is “for lovers.” The bigger question is, How do we love our enemies? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his book, A Gift of Love, writes:

“First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. (The one) who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us.”

Well, how can I forgive the person who hurt me, my child, my family, my tribe, or my community? We all want that person to come crawling to us and ask for forgiveness, but that’s not how radical love works. We want the wrong doer to show remorse and ask us for mercy and forgiveness. This puts them in a subordinate position and us in a position of power. But that’s not how radical love works. Radical love initiates forgiveness, even if the wrongdoer never shows contrition.

Dr. King goes on to say:

“It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression.”

Sir Terry Frost: Sun Tree, 2003, Silkscreen on Paper with 9 collage elements. Frost was a prisoner of war in WWII with Adrian Heath, who taught him to paint. They were both imprisoned in Stalag 383, in Germany.

Why must the wronged take on the indignity of offering forgiveness to unrepentant wrongdoers? In this act, we become most like Christ on the cross, who in his final moments, forgave not only the thief who asked for forgiveness, but also all those who crucified him, who had no intention of repenting. Our problem is we enjoy being like the risen Christ, the one with the “name above all names,” but most of us don’t want to “pick up our cross and follow” Jesus, especially if it leads to an ignominious death on that very cross.

Sir Terry Frost: Blue Love Tree, 2003, Silkscreen on Paper

As Dr. King wrote,

“The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.”

The injured one, whose heart has been broken and wounded by someone else’s words or deeds, is the only one who can heal the broken rift between them. This is why the deepest lovers of Christ are most often the wounded ones who’ve been healed by God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness. The woman with the alabaster jar of ointment anointed Jesus’ feet in the house of the Pharisee, but the host had failed at the minimum hospitality for his guest, so Jesus reminded him (Luke 7:47):

“Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

Mending Broken Hearts, silkscreen, artist unknown

If we would be healers in our broken and fragmented world, we need to first address our own woundedness. Each of us has a hidden pain or suffering, for this is the human condition. If we give this to God, our healing makes us into vessels where our cracks are filled with precious gold. We can offer more love, more forgiveness, and more hope to people who have been sitting in darkness and despair. People are waiting for joy and love to flow out in abundance from God’s heart into our hearts and into their world. Then we can be the light in the darkness for them, the holy fire that lights the embers of hope in their hearts, not just on St. Valentine’s Day, but every day.

Joy, Peace, and Love,

Cornelia

Excerpt from A Gift of Love | Penguin Random House Canada
By Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chapter 5, Loving Your Enemies

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/212014/a-gift-of-love-by-martin-luther-king-jr/9780807000632/excerpt

From the Shadows to the Light

architecture, art, Carl Jung, change, Faith, Family, Fear, Food, greek myths, hope, inspiration, mystery, nature, New Year, purpose, rabbits, renewal, Roman Forum, shadows, Spirituality, Temple of Janus, Zeitgeist

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to 2023! This old bunny may not see the clock strike midnight, but I’m recovering from a bad cold. Rest is more important than ringing in the New Year. Every year has its own character.

Live with Optimism, even when the nights are long.

Zeitgeist is a word that comes straight from German — zeit means “time” and geist means spirit, so the “spirit of the time” is what’s going on culturally, religiously, or intellectually during a certain period. When it comes to the turn of the New Year, we bunnies wonder if our new broom will sweep clean or if the old broom will leave the same mess as always in our cozy rabbit dens.

Always use a New Broom on the New Year for Good Luck.

Are we filled with hope or with foreboding? Do these dark days and deep nights of winter fill us with a gloomy spirit? Or do the imperceptibly lengthening minutes of daytime give hope to the shadows the cold of winter has left in the depths of our souls? Or have the coastal grandmother bunnies among us learned to ignore all this stum and drang by blending their afternoon tea time into early evening wine tasting?

Everything a culture considers taboo, evil, or immoral typically ends up being proscribed or “consigned to the outer darkness.” From there it ends up inside us in what Carl Jung called “the Shadow,” or our inner “Satan,” as it were. Repressed and inhibited, it festers and rages in the darkness of our “unconscious.” Even in extreme cases, it takes on a quasi-autonomous existence of its own, occasionally intruding as the famous “voices in the head” or even as a multiple personality.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde is a famous light and dark shadow character from fiction, but too often in real life we rabbits point out our own dark shadows in the lives of those we so easily demonize. As my wise old granddaddy rabbit would reprimand me, “When you point out the faults of others, you have three fingers pointing back at you.”

Luke 6:41
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

I always find life more refreshing on the first day of the year, perhaps because I don’t over indulge in strong drink as I once did in my wayward bunny youth. We bunnies all have a wayward youth, for how else would we know what the immature among us are getting into? My old daddy rabbit believed, “Experience was the greatest teacher of all time, as well as its most costly tutor.” Indeed, we remember the costliest lessons best of all. The young ones today say, “Go big or go home.” My grannie would say, “If you’re in for a penny, you might as well be in for a pound.” After all, everyone who participated, either in a small or large way, would be held accountable.

Janus: Bloodstone intaglio of Roman god of transition, passages, and new beginnings.

As I look back on old 2022, grizzled and worn out by conflicts both at home and abroad, I can understand why the ancients thought of Janus, for whom January’s named, as a two faced god. One face, which looked backwards, was lined, bearded, and craggy featured, while the forward looking face of the new year was youthful, smooth, and clean shaven. Every new year is fresh and clean as a beardless youth’s face, as well as untroubled by any recollection of pains or past memories. Most of us bunnies also have short memories, for we tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Rabbits have short term memories of around 4 minutes, but can remember bad experiences for longer periods, just as humans can.

Unknown Roman Artisan: Soldier’s Brooch in the Form of a Rabbit, 100–300 CE, Copper alloy with champlevé enamel, found in Britain, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

In Ancient Rome, as the poets Ovid and Horace recount, Janus was the god of war and peace. They differ as to whether the Temple of Janus was a prison for peace or war, but they both agree the prison was meant to maintain PAX ROMANA, or the great Roman Peace. If peace were impounded, peace would be guaranteed to the nation. If war were imprisoned, it wouldn’t rampage about to destroy the countryside. Just as Janus had two faces, Roman religion was open to multiple interpretations and meanings. Perhaps today, they’d be known as “freethinkers,” as opposed to “literalists” or “strict constructionists” in their interpretation of their ancient stories.

Seeing the Night Skies through Bunny Eyes

Maybe in 2023 we bunnies might want to look at different ways of thinking, instead of one fixed way. There’s a difference between a straight and narrow path and a rut. On the path we can still see other twists and turns, which might change the outcome of our experience and existence. In a rut we’re stuck for life, with no where out, until it becomes our grave. If the world is changing more quickly than is comfortable for us, I give the example of my old granddaddy again. He pushed a button to turn on one of the first electric lights in his home town and lived to see men walk on the moon. Be resilient, be adaptable, and embrace change. After all, we’re always changing, so the option of never changing is death.

Ancient Greek Black Figure Vase, Wasps Attacking Men Robbing Zeus’ Bee Hives for Honey, c. 540 BCE, British Museum, London.

Romans would celebrate January 1 by giving offerings to Janus in the hope of gaining good fortune for the new year. They believed their acts set the stage for the coming year, so it was a common practice to make a positive start to the year. Not only did they exchange well wishes and sweet gifts of figs and honey with one another, but according to the poet Ovid, most Romans also chose to work for at least part of New Year’s Day because they saw idleness as a bad omen for the rest of the year. If 1st century Romans were to drop into some of our 21st century celebrations by means of Dr. Who’s traveling blue Police Box, they would wonder how the barbarians, who sacked Rome in 455 CE, had managed to take over our modern New Year.

Some days I need to be in two places at once.

We toga wearing bunnies, who are long of tooth, know from experience the barbarians are always at the gate of our safe little gardens. Sometimes they’re even inside the gardens of delight, as Peter Rabbit and his Cottontail friends perpetually discover when Mr. McGregror chases them with a rake. If we cast a look back on 2022 with our rheumy eyes, we saw Russia attack Ukraine, an outrageous act which sent millions of people to emigrate from their the destroyed cities and ravaged countryside, with the hope of finding safe haven in another European country.

Mr. McGregor thinks Peter is a Barbarian, who has slipped through his impenetrable garden gate.

Across the pond, on our southern border, thousands of migrants have fled disaster and violence in their homelands, but even though the US economy is hurting for workers in our entry level jobs, they have difficulty getting in. Are these people actually “barbarians at the gate?” Or have we projected our Shadow Fears upon them because they are foreigners? We did this with the Japanese, who m we placed into Internment Camps in World War II, much to our disgrace. This bunny asks us to search our hearts in 2023 to see if our three fingers are pointing back at our own selves.

Think about how Woodstock symbolized the 1960s: Woodstock was part of the Zeitgeist of the 1960s. Whatever seems particular to or symbolic of a certain time is likely part of its Zeitgeist. I came home from college one Christmas wearing a necklace of tiny black and white seed beads, only to be greeted by my old fashioned daddy, “Are you a hippy now?” For him, any one thing represented the whole, for he grew up with the ancient bunny wisdom, “One bad apple spoils the bushel.” We were only reconciled when he realized I hadn’t lost my fondness for his beloved Cowboys football team.

If we can find one common interest in this strange and fraught world with those with whom we would be at war, then we might be able to come to peace with them. If we insist on all or nothing, no bunny will get anything. We all want to have endless days of peace and joy, but the life of a bunny also has days of struggle and sorrow.

Carl Jung, the great psychologist once said, “There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

We also have this promise from 1 Corinthians 10:13—

“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Many of my southern bunny kinfolks will eat a variety of this New Year’s Day meal: black eyed peas, ham, greens, and cornbread. We think every pea consumed equals another day of good luck. Of course, we’re not the only superstitious clan.

Our cousins in Japan, celebrating Ōmisoka, or New Year’s Eve, gather together to eat long noodles to cross over from one year to the next. At midnight, many visit shrines or temples for Hatsumōde. Shinto shrines prepare amazake, a sweet low alcohol drink, to pass out to crowds and most Buddhist temples have large cast bells that are struck once for each of the 108 earthly desires believed to cause human suffering.

I found some interesting New Year’s good luck traditions, which are practiced around the world. In Greece, folks hang onions outside on their front doors to ward off evil. On New Year’s Eve, Colombian households have a tradition, called agüero, of placing three potatoes under each family member’s bed—one peeled, one not, and the last one only partially. At midnight each person, with eyes closed, grabs for one. Depending on the potato they select, they can either expect a year of good fortune, financial struggle, or a mix of both.

Ruined House (suspected fruitcake damage)

In Ireland, people bang Christmas bread against the walls of their house for good luck. If any of you bunnies have a Christmas fruitcake still lying around, please choose another loaf to prevent damage to your walls. Good contractors are backed up and hard to find, especially around the holidays.

The Danes chunk plates at their friends’ doorsteps for good luck on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps all that darkness from the winter solstice makes my northern relatives harebrained, but we love them just the same. I suppose every bunny has some weird relatives.

Old bunny weather lore says, “The first 12 days of January foretell the weather for each month of the year.” Another way to forecast the weather for the coming year depends on the wind. The old bunnies are at odds as to when this poem should be recited, with some advocating for sunset on New Year’s Eve and others at the break of dawn on New Year’s Day. This bunny notes the poem mentions New Year’s Eve, and since none of our ancient bunnies had time traveling abilities, I’d think we are safe to practice this on the Eve at sunset, then go out to do our responsible reveling.

If New Year’s Eve the wind blows south
It betokens warmth and growth.
If west, much milk and fish in the sea.
If north, cold and storms there will be.
If east, the trees will bear much fruit.
If north east, then flee it, man and brute. Then throw your new year wishes to the wind!

My New Year’s wish for 2023 is for each and every one of my bunny friends to have a better year than last year. And especially to know deep in your hearts, each of you are God’s own beloved children. Remember this good word from Romans 8:28—

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

Joy, peace, and love each and every day in 2023,

CORNELIA

Multiple Interpretation of the Opening and Closing of the Temple of Janus:
A Misunderstanding of Ovid “Fasti” by S.J. Green, 1.281 on JSTOR
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4433099

5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations – HISTORY
https://www.history.com/news/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations

15 New Year’s Traditions From Around the World | Glamour
https://www.glamour.com/story/new-years-eve-day-traditions

New Year’s Weather Folklore: Predicting Weather in the New Year | The Old Farmer’s Almanac
https://www.almanac.com/new-years-day-weather-folklore

The Zeitgeist and the Shadow | The Chrysalis https://longsworde.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-zeitgeist-and-the-shadow/

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