It seems like we just cleaned up from Christmas. It’s St. Patrick’s Day for heaven’s sake. Well, the reason goes all the way back to one of the first Church Councils in a place called Nicaea. It figures that a committee must have thought this up.
Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov.
Looking for some info on Hanukkah? Here is a little bit of content, including prayers for lighting of the candles. Hanukkah, (Chanukka), is also known as the Festival of Lights. It’s an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt in the 2nd Century BCE.
ONE members care. We care about the child orphaned by HIV/AIDS. We care about the village that lacks access to clean water. And we care about the millions of people throughout the developing world who will go to bed hungry tonight. For many of us, that caring is borne of our faith.
In the Torah, the name of God represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature. The various Jewish names of God represent God, and His divine attributes.* Focusing on seventy two visual representations of aspects of God, as a tool to meditate on and visualize is an interesting idea, and one with very old origins.
Life can leave us fragmented and without cohesion. Society often has communicated a not-so-subtle message that we have multiple selves; there’s the self we are at home, the self we are at work, the self we are with friends, the self we are at the gym, and even the self we are at church, the temple, the mosque, and so forth.Joyful living is more likely found when we embrace a holistic, multi-dimensional approach to each of our endeavors and responsibilities. Much of what wears us down across a busy week relates to the effort we put toward not just wearing various hats but various identities—attempting to be one person in a certain set of circumstances, and someone else in another context. It gets exhausting.
Recently, a few weeks after my father Frank’s passing, I spent time with my mother Flora going through some of his things. He didn’t leave much behind, being a simple man with simple tastes. There were a few clothes; some medals from World War II; a few service pins; several books; a 1980 appointment calendar in which he had scribbled dozens of motivational sayings; and a strange piece of metal we found lying in a drawer.
Good Christian men are supposed to be meek, timid creatures that come to church every Sunday and lead lives of quiet contemplation, right? John Eldredge doesn’t think so–and I agree. His book, Wild at Heart, is a powerful personal account that shows that the Creator made us with a completely different image in mind.
John Eldredge is one of my favorite contemporary authors. His books take me deeper into my faith. Like hiking up an arduous mountain path, I discover the reward at the end, a scenic view giving perspective to my life. Reading Waking the Dead
John Eldridge is one of my favorite contemporary authors. His books take me deeper into my faith. Like hiking up an arduous mountain path, I discover the reward at the end, a scenic view giving perspective to my life. Reading Waking the Dead
This poem invokes God’s protection on a journey (either literal or the metaphorical “journey of life”) against all manner of evils, including “the spells of women and smiths and druids”. It dates from the 8th century and is traditionally attributed to St. Patrick. It is composed in the same style as pagan protection charms from Ireland, but with clearly Christian content. It was translated into English by Cecil Frances Alexander as the popular Victorian hymn “I bind unto myself to-day”.
Hear Oh Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
The Sh’ma (”Hear!”) is called the cornerstone of the Jewish faith and is relevant to Christians as well. It comes from three sections from the Torah (Old Testament). The Sh’ma has been described as the “first and greatest commandment.” Mark 12:28-30
The Zohar is widely considered the most important work of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. It is a mystical commentary on the Torah (the five books of Moses), written in medieval Aramaic and medieval Hebrew. It contains a mystical discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, sin, redemption, good and evil, and related topics.*
A recent message circulated throughout the internet shows us, “A Sign From God After a Florida Hurricane”. Now normally my spam filter would keep me from ever seeing this, but for some reason, this one caught my eye.
We all have a finite amount of purity—innocence lost. Every time we are intimate we give some away. Like the force George Lucas shows us in the Star Wars universe, our actions effect who we are. We do something good, we shift ever so slightly to the light. And the reverse is also true. Whether it is Anakin slaying a village of sand people or going too far on a first date, our actions have consequences.
I just had a grapefruit. The saying goes: the devil is in the details, but I tell you, God is in the details. Fast food, processed food, is killing me. Every day, I need to eat lunch. Every day the fast food corporations try and provide that food — and they are killing us. Yesterday, instead of going to McDonald’s or Wendy’s or even Subway, I went to a local health food grocery. Every day I drive past it; Venturing in, just seemed unnatural. Who would be inside there? The fear of that place kept me driving right on past even though I knew the alternatives we slowly, habitually clogging my arteries.