To those for whom the New Year is difficult

Special warm wishes to those for whom New Year's Eve and Day are difficult. May you discover hope and consolation in the struggle; may regret and resentment melt away as time goes by; may peace of mind and heart and body visit you and dwell in you; if grief is your companion, may its company be gentle; if you are in recovery from addiction, may you find strength to persevere; may you know true friendship, human and divine.


I just posted these words on Facebook. I have decided there is nothing wrong with duplicating posts here.

Photo: Jane Redmont

December 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents

A.k.a. Childermas to you high-church C of E types.


In addition to the best-known paintings of the Massacre of the Innocents by Giotto di Bondone (above) and Pieter Brueg[h]el the Elder (below), I am posting some other depictions of the killing of the innocents. But first, a biblical reminder.

When the wise men had departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

"A voice was heard in Ramah,

wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."

Matthew 2:13-18

Fra Angelico


Matteo di Giovanni

Giovanni Pisano

Why the attraction of the subject matter? The drama of course; the sheer injustice; the terror; the worst loss a mother can ever endure: the killing of her child -- multiplied by the hundreds and thousands. Mary and Joseph save their baby from death, but later Mary will endure the loss of her son as an adult and be helpless to protect him, as are the mothers in this scene. As are so many mothers.

In last year's December 28 post, I posted pictures of children much closer to our time as well as information about agencies helping children. Remember them. Care for the vulnerable. Holy Innocents, pray for us, and in your blood and the suffering of your mothers remind us to prevent more pain, more deaths, more tears, and to weep in solidarity with those who mourn. In Christ's name, Amen.


Giovanni Pisano, Pistoia Pulpit, detail

Click on photo to enlarge and see detail.

December 27: John, Evangelist - this year's icon and blog flashback

This year's icon: St. John by William Hart McNichols, S.J. Part of a triptych of Mary, Jesus, and John (remember the scene of Mary and "the disciple whom Jesus loved" at the foot of the cross before Jesus' death) so there is more sadness than glory in this representation.

Last year's icon: St. John, by El Greco. At last year's blog post for December 27.

Cross country skiing in Greensboro

I must be one of the few Greensboro residents who keeps cross country skis by the front door. I live in hope. Also, I don't have enough storage space.

I used the skis early last March when we had a good snow, and today I used them again. Yesterday the sky was grey-white and heavy. Today the sun was bright and the sky clear. Perfect for skiing, though cold.

At last the huge plot of land here is good for something. On Facebook I referred to it all summer as the Humongous Lawn and I was forever mowing it --and suffering from the mosquitos, who love me, and from wasp stings, because we had an infestation. Today I made trails and got quite the little workout.

I love the smell of snow. To me it is the smell of winter vacation. This isn't the Alps, but even in this semi-suburban neighborhood the smell reminds me of ski trips and crisp air at high altitude.








Taking the skis off...

White Christmas

It snowed yesterday. It snowed today. We have over six inches of snow here in Greensboro.


Trees near house, white sky, late afternoon, December 26.

White on white, front lawn.

Snow on leaves, December 26.

Torn leaf, snow.

Some large evergreen limbs tore off and fell in the storm. Not to worry, the tree is nowhere near the house. No repeats of the Great Tree Disaster. By the way, the house you see in the background is a neighbor's house, not mine.

+Maya Pavlova, indoors looking out. I took the photo from outside and you can see both +Maya looking out and the snowy landscape reflected in the window.

Heavily laden branches.

Consider the fig tree...

Cat on flannel sheets on a cold night.

Click on each photo to enlarge slightly and see more detail.
All photos taken with my BlackBerry camera.

December 26: St. Stephen's Day - blog flashback

Well, the Episcopal Church has transferred the feast of Stephen till tomorrow, today being a Sunday (you can't liturgically celebrate a Sunday and a saint's day on the same day, or rather you can, but you may not).

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church --or at least the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops-- has bagged Stephen entirely, because the 26th is not only a Sunday but the first Sunday after Christmas, which in the Catholic Church is the Feast of the Holy Family.

Since I have no liturgical celebrations to attend or at which to preach or officiate, I'm sticking to the original calendar. Today is the feast of Stephen, so there.


No energy, or rather, still hardly any words. Writer's block or something. Here is last year's post on Stephen, which itself has a flashback to two years before that and a feast of St. Stephen poem. Gentle readers, you have probably forgotten both posts anyway, so enjoy the (re-) read.

And thank you for bearing with me. I am well but in a bit of an odd relationship to words. Trying to find a voice again. My job tends to destroy it and I recently spent two or three weeks correcting final papers in other people's voices, many of them with bad grammar, syntax, and usage. Lord, have mercy on your indentured servants in the academy.

Posted on December 27, dated December 26.

Orthodox icon: Stephen the Protomartyr

Christmas 2010: the first day of Christmas

Joyous Christmas, all.

I am going to try to start blogging again. Today I do not have words of my own, except for the ones I wrote yesterday on Facebook (where you can find me if you miss me here, though it is a very different kind of writing and presence) and which are below in blue. I have also posted a Nativity image (scroll down a couple of posts), a song, and a link to last year's Christmas post.

Greetings to my friends
who are Jewish, Muslim,
Buddhist, Humanist
and
of many other traditions.
As Christians celebrate these holy days
(in my tradition Christmas is 12 days long),
I remember
that we often have wounded
and killed,
physically and otherwise,
in the name of the one we call
Prince of Peace.
May we in celebrating him
also honor you
and your integrity
and remember that you too
walk in paths of wisdom and truth.

Christmas, a year ago

I have been reading a lot of Merton during Advent.

Coincidentally (or not), I put together this post exactly a year ago. My friend Ann Fontaine just posted the same quotation* on Facebook tonight. Friends think alike.

*Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited... [More at the link "this post" above.]

Nativity

Nativity
Hiroshi Tabata

As Christmas approaches...

... I think back to France, where I lived when I was growing up. I had hoped to be there for these holidays, but for a variety of reasons I could not go. Perhaps just as well since airport and other traffic in Northern Europe have been in a snarl due to snow. I hear from a friend, though, that things are lovely in Southern France.

Here is "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle," which some of you will know as "Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella." This is the way it is supposed to sound.

The Massacre of the Holy Innocents in European Art

European artists of the late Middle Ages painted the Massacre of the Holy Innocents in the landscape and clothing of their location and era. Giotto's painting, below, is one of the two best known.


The other well-known one is by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.



I just discovered a third which doesn't get as much exposure (at least to my knowledge) but is well worth a look. It is by Duccio di Buoninsegna.


(The Innocents, all boys according to the biblical story, seem to have no genitals. Also, the mothers are as important as the babies in this picture.)

This one is part of a much larger multi-paneled work now known as the Maestà, a panel for the Siena cathedral's high altar. The term Maestà usually indicates a representation of Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Madonna, seated with the child and surrounded by angels, and there was in fact such a representation on the panel.

Written Dec. 28, posted Jan. 1 once the image insert function started working again. Click on the images to enlarge them and see more detail.

December 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents

The Feast of the Holy Innocents commemorates the boy-children under the age of two whose slaughter King Herod is said to have ordered around the time of the birth of Jesus. (See the Gospel according to Matthew, 2:16-18.)

It is a good day to remember the children of the world, many of whose lives are threatened by violence, lack of clean water, inadequate health care, and hunger.



Photo: Refugees who fled the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region run for shelter during a dust storm at Djabal camp near Gos Beida in eastern Chad June 19, 2008. Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly, Reuters. Nicked from here.

Resources and information in next post.

December 27: Feast of John, Evangelist

El Greco, Saint John the Evangelist (ca. 1600)

Santo Stefano

It is the Feast of St. Stephen, but also Boxing Day, and I am celebrating the latter more than the former by feasting with friends, but here is an icon for our contemplation of the martyrdom of Stephen. Do we remember his life as much as his death?

Two years ago I posted a poem I had written about the Feast of St. Stephen many years ago (in the early 1980s -- yes, I am that old). Here is the link to it.

May we who believe the Gospel take risks for it.

Chiesa di Santo Stefano del Cacco, Rome

With those for whom there is no room

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.

Thomas Merton
"The Time of the End Is the Time of No Room"
from Raids on the Unspeakable

The paragraph continues: For them, there is no escape even in imagination. They cannot identify with the power structure of a crowded humanity which seeks to project itself outward, anywhere, in a centrifugal flight into the void, to get out there where there is no God, no man, no name, no identity, no weight, no self, nothing but the bright, self-directed, perfectly obedient and infinitely expensive machine. This is part of a much longer Christmas essay of Merton's on eschatology, fear, and joy.

Thanks to Charlie Hawes, who began a Christmas sermon with this passage a few years ago and fixed it in my mind.

Photographs by Mev Puleo (1963-1996). These and other photographs by Mev visible here are available for purchase. Please contact Mark Chmiel at MarkJChmiel@gmail.com for further information.

For those living a difficult Christmas

Special thoughts and prayers for those who on this Christmas Eve are grieving, sad, lonely, brokenhearted, or depressed. Prayers and thoughts also for all those who live with addictions and for whom this is a particularly challenging season. May peace be with you all.

Coptic Nativity

Cross-posted on Facebook

+Rowan writes! A note from +Maya Pavlova

Dear +Rowan, Bishop of Playing,


We don't have fancy equipment like Fran, just our computer, but we wanted to tell you right away that we got your calendar and we are all excited. It looks just like the one Fran showed everyone here. The Canon to the Extraordinary brought it in from the mailbox, called me, and as soon as I saw the calendar in her hand (she had taken it out of the envelope when she was still outdoors) I sniffed it and meowed!

Thank you, dear brother bishop. My Jane and I are thrilled to have your photo and so proud to be your friends. We will remember the motto on the calendar, "Play Hard." Hooray for you! You are a beautiful and wise bishop, and we need your message of playing.

Love,

The Right Reverend and Right Honorable Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extroardinaire

"Incarnation and Suffering" essay at Episcopal Café

My latest essay for the Episcopal Café is up today. It is called "Incarnation and Suffering".

The Café welcomes your comments. So do I -- both at the Café site, below the essay, and here. (If you only have time for one place, do comment at the Café.)

I hope that the essay speaks to you.


P.S. That's today's Café, and in yesterday's, you can read fine quotes on The Current Unpleasantness by MadPriest and Tobias Haller as well as a piece of the moving conversation about homeless and poor persons and our response by Wormwood's Doxy and Under There. Thank you, friends, and congratulations.

From last year: an old Epiphany sermon

While the Canon to the Extraordinary is on blog break, I, Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire, bring you some bloggy flashbacks. This one is from last year at Epiphany. It is an old sermon, but not too old. Have a look.

Or have a nap.

Friday cat blogging: Christmas cat

The feline bishop in her Christmas red -- a little sleepy in some photos, more alert in others.

Click to enlarge and see detail.