It appears that we are in that time when the season of Christmas in America lasts for a solid month, beginning with Thanksgiving. One thing I find interesting is that in the Catholic Church [I’m not], the Season of Advent begins December 2nd, and the Season of Christmas begins on Christmas Day. No Christmas carols before Christmas. Advent music, yes; Christmas carols, no.
When I worked for the City of Portland, I took my lunch to an atrium on the 5thfloor of a nearby office building, and often listened to KBVM, the local Catholic radio station. On KVBM I could listen to peace-restoring music that WASN’T Christmas songs. Advent, the time of waiting for the Savior to appear, precedes Christmas. For me, Advent is largely all year.
Those who know me well [a relatively small number], know that I really dislike this time of year. The celebration of Christmas is ostensibly about the Creator entering Time and Space in the form of a single cell embedded into the womb of a teen-aged girl, the first InVitro Fertilization in history; in America, the celebration instead glorifies the Having of Stuff, More Stuff, and Stuff you don’t want, but it was on sale…
Consequently, I find this image incredibly appropriate to this Season in America:
Mary, Joseph and the young child Jesus, left Bethlehem and traveled to Egypt [without papers] in order to protect Jesus from Death by Roman Soldier, in what artists have called The Slaughter of the Innocents. King Herod, fearing his being supplanted by the foretold ‘King of the Jews’, prophesied by the Magi who visited him, ordered the murder of every child in the land that was under the age of two years.
Our own Autocrat wants the children stolen from their parents at the border and placed in Foster Care for the rest of their childhood. Our Autocrat readily admits that the idea is to make emigrating to America completely undesirable.“America is closed” for immigration business…
My take on a not-original idea that floated around Fb recently:
My forebears arrived by boat, from Scandinavia. My Mom became an American citizen when she married my Dad.
Too few Americans are aware that the notions held by our current President regarding immigration do not match the provisions of our Constitution. It is not illegal to enter our country at someplace other than an Immigration station. It is not illegal to enter our country without a Visa or even a Passport. Our Constitution guarantees the right of refugees to enter our country from anywhere on our borders, in order to seek asylum. It is merely inconvenient for thousands of immigrants to seek asylum en masse at one location.
The little-known nebula IRAS 05437+2502 an Enigmatic Cloud
Madonna with Protective Cloak
The image of the Madonna of Mercy first emerged in a collection of saints’ lives written in the 1230s by the Cistercian hagiographer Caesarius of Heisterback. Marian devotion was starting to include the idea that Jesus’ mother shared some of her son’s powers to protect and even redeem sinners. Caesarius wrote dozens of tales about Mary protecting priests, nuns and monks from thunderstorms and devilish temptation, and then closed the collection with a Cistercian monk’s vision of the Virgin Mary surrounded by many high clerics. the monk was disturbed when he could see no Cistercians, but when she was asked why, she threw open her cloak to reveal a host of Cistercians in a privileged place under her mantle. This proved an extraordinary compelling image, and clergy in particular competed for that favoured place under the Virgin’s protective cloak. Many late frescoes and paintings show Franciscan and Dominican nuns or friars under the mantle…
The Misericordia [Mercy] image spread rapidly through the fourteenth century, when plagues like the Black Death in 1348 drove Christians to seek shelter under Mary’s cloak. By the end of the century, recurring plagues, a widening split in the church, and growing fears of the devil’s work on earth made many fear that final Judgement Day was coming.
Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation
Nicholas Terpstra
On this Third Sunday in Advent, I read the following headlines and summaries:
Mounting legal threats surround Trump as nearly every organization he has led is under criminal investigation.
The Atlantic reported last week that the Trump administration is renewing its early efforts to deport thousands of Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades — many of them having fled the country while at risk of becoming political prisoners during the Vietnam War.
7-year-old immigrant girl dies after Border Patrol arrest. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox had criticized Trump for the death of a seven-year-old migrant girl and for his handling of the migrant caravan.
More than three years into Yemen’s civil war, more than 16,000 civilians have been killed and injured, the vast majority by airstrikes, the U.N. human rights office estimates, adding that the figures are likely to be far higher…the United States is playing an essential role in the war, supporting the coalition with intelligence, refueling, technical assistance and billions of dollars in bombs and other weaponry…Despite the concern, President Trump announced $110 billion in new arms sales last year to the kingdom, weapons that most analysts expect will be used in Yemen.U.S.-made munitions, including banned cluster bombs and Paveway bombs, have been used in attacks that have killed and injured civilians.
Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is considered the worst in the world. With more than 3 million people displaced by war, and with the economy besieged and in ruins, the United Nations says the risk of famine could imperil 22 million people – about three-quarters of the population.
At least 1 million Yemenis have contracted cholera in the largest outbreak of the disease in history and pose a threat of an international epidemic.
I especially find the legend of Santa Claus, center-stage of everything Xmas in America, to be especially inappropriate this year. Before you complain about how children need the Christmas story, think about 22 Million Yemeni children,women and men dying from famine or cholera.
The US Senate has voted to stop funding the Arab war against Yemen. The Speaker of the House refused to allow the legislation to be presented to the House of Representatives; and it is likely that the President would veto the legislation—he’s a big fan of the $110 Billion arms sale. He does a lot of business with the Saudi government.
While I do not consider Mary to be the Third Person of the Trinity, I do, in my illustrator-brain, think of Mary as a vehicle for the work of the Spirit of the Creator. The Greek word used to speak of the Spirit of the Creator is a feminine noun.
Our broken world needs the Protective Cloak of the Madonna.
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Tags: artist, Christianity, depression, faith, freelance, freelance illustration, hope, Jesus, material poverty, mental-health, Nerve Pain, Neuropathy, pain, persistence, personal excellence, Polyneuropathy
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 