Take any good excuse for a party. The Seventh Day of Christmas also brings the “new year” as we flip our calendars. The “new year” is a belated blessing. We entered new liturgical time on September 1 as the cycle leading up to the Nativity and eventually Pascha began in earnest. The numbers in the common era, finding roots in attempts to date the birth of Jesus, will flip from 2020 to 2021. As a way of predicting the future, numerology is both... Read more
We are cracked, but beautiful. Our restoration is coming. From my chair, right now, I see the calm image of Saint Anne through the Christmas tree.* This piece of nineteenth century stained glass, surrounded by more hideous twentieth century blue glass, is no longer valuable. The Church that removed it shipped it to me in such a way that hairline breaks run throughout. As a result, I paid nothing for this window. This is good. Some things are too precious... Read more
All was transformed, each culture, every thought, by Christmas. Each good from every time was kept in safety for all time as itself. One can see an example in the metamorphosis of mere Hellenism to the glories of Hellenic, classical, Christian society. Nothing of the old pagan, philosophical tradition was (intentionally) lost. All was kept in context, the good and the bad, yet the Gospel written in Greek soon made all of Greek part of the divine order. There was no force needed. Why? The process... Read more
“Beauty,” he said to me, “will save the world.” I knew what he meant and as far as his intention went there was truth there. He was urging us to make beauty and that beauty mattered. A warning sign of a bad cause is when it comes wrapped in aesthetic ugliness. This is not certain, something can appear beautiful, but be disguised falsehood or evil. Overtime, however, this cannot last. Fundamentally there is in truth beauty. Stay in a plantation house as a guest long... Read more
Let us live in peace, so far as is possible, in the Kingdom born before the foundation of the Earth, but fully revealed in the Nativity of the King. Do not cease from mental fight, but in hard times first turn to self-examination: the spiritual warfare that Scripture commends. Only then can we, first doing no harm, seek justice with mercy in our communities. We pray, as Jesus taught us: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in Earth as... Read more
Some things seem so bad, they can ruin the thing they are a bit like if we are not careful or if we are too crabby. We have a dancing Santa, whose belly lights up as he inexplicably twirls two gold rings, shouldn’t there be at least five? The base loudly plays “You better watch out. . . “ in a “Southern” accent so offensively camp that it should be reported to some campus human resource manger. This object is... Read more
Forty-five minutes until the Twelve Days of Christmas begin. We have had some pain this year. Plans have been rearranged. Old customs have been changed to fit new times. Media keep telling us we live in perilous times and while media is often wrong, this is always true: a world that contains death always is perilous. Yet if I stop and listen to the words of the Mother of God: “Let it be done unto Me. . .”, then I... Read more
How does one best find the joy of a holiday? There are seasons to Christmas: one adapts to the times while keeping the old traditions best one can. Some years, in some places, there is plenty and the feasting is unrestrained. Other times, the faithful cannot even go to Bethlehem and those there must celebrate alone, keeping the customs best they can. Every year is as the year is and we adapt to the limits, adopt new jollities when they... Read more
Mighty Athena looks over the castle each Christmas night. Athena is our cat, making twenty years look hard, but still a mighty hunter before the Lord. She has Nessie the Wonder Dog, fifty pounds her superior, quite cowed. If she is not longer lovable, being quite crabby, she is still loved. Almost two decades of ratting, snuggling, and purring encourage toleration of a few years of yowling. One of the most magical Christmas gifts of childhood was a castle my... Read more
Last night I went out with my binoculars, a star chart on my mobile, and saw a marvel. Jupiter and Saturn were close enough together from our earthly vantage point that to my very bad eyes they appeared one light. The binoculars gave me some detail and going online showed me more of the wonder of creation. For millennia men have been able to calculate the motions of the stars, sun, moon, and planets and so predict such sights. The orderly... Read more
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