Category Archives: Faith

Yesterday

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My day yesterday…

0830: Get up and make fruit tray. Ask Freya how many paws she is allowed on the table before telling her to get off.Â? Have lovely breakfast of leftover fruit and peanut butter to stop hiccups. Explain to Edda that black cats don’t eat peanut butter. Get dressed.
0915: Arrive at Church #1 with Jon. Watch kids put on Christmas program. (It was cute.)
1000: Brunch! Socialize with daughter of parishioners who has a 6 week old baby. Find my fruit tray decimated when I finally get up to the food. I guess it was popular? Socialize with people and eat some ham (OK… quite a bit actually but I wasn’t getting dinner until 6:30), fruit, and half a cinnamon roll.
1230: Get home and shower. Convince Jon to eat some lunch. Do hair and make-up and dress for performances in town. Realize that blouse isn’t going to work. Toss on wine-colored Old Navy stretchy shirt instead.
1400: Nursing home service. I drop Jon off and go to Pamida to find something to wear over my shirt. Find weird sweater thing. Get lipstick too and apply it in bathroom at nursing home.
1500: Arrive at church in town. Find that lipstick job is crappy. Re-apply and check with conductor to see if I should just take it off. Wait for things to start.
1600: First performance of “Carols Round the Table”. All goes well until I jump the gun on my reading. Oops! Pregnant silence while we figure out where we are. (Oh yes… the candle also refused to light.)
1700: Help serve food. Apologize to conductor who laughs off my mistake. Help clean up after people leave.
1820: FINALLY get to eat. Have bowl of chicken soup and a roll with some punch. Someone gives the choir people some “cherries in the snow”. Quite good.
1900: Second performance. All goes well with the music and my reading. Plum pudding refuses to stay lit, causing the pastor to joke that “we’re out of fuel”.
2000: Conductor tells me to sit down and eat with Jon (who came to see me sing). Help clean up while Jon socializes.
2100: Head home. Arrive home and jump in the shower to unshellac my hair and get the make-up off.
2200: Check email and have IM conversation with best friend from childhood even though I want to go to bed.
2230: Tune into COPS and curl up on the futon where I try to convince Edda that Mommy needs her panther. Fall asleep while cats are playing tag.

The Supposed “War on Christmas”

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OK… let’s get a couple things straight here.

[-] There is not a vast left-wing conspiracy to secularize Christmas.Â? At least, there isn’t a conspiracy to secularize it any more than it already is.
[-] Not every person on this planet celebrates Christmas.Â? Thus, “Happy Holidays” is sometimes the better choice, especially since you normally can’t tell who is Jewish or Wiccan at this time of year.
[-] There is no religious significance to a Christmas tree.Â? There is nothing Scriptural about it.Â? It’s a pagan custom that was integrated into Christianity and is now a secular part of the holidays.Â? Ditto with the yule log, miseltoe, and holly.

Having said that, I’d like to tell my fundie Christian and Orthodox Jewish blogging friends who are up in arms over the holiday trees being taken down at Sea-Tac to CALM DOWN.Â? Sea-Tac was *not* trying to discriminate against the Chabad rabbi who requested permission to put up an electric menorah.Â? Likewise, taking the trees down was not an assault on Christmas — rather, it was trying to neutralize the situation because there was a lawsuit being threatened.

To the rabbi who started this mess: your timing was not good.Â? With the increased holiday traffic going through Sea-Tac, getting the menorah up would have been a logistical nightmare.Â? If you had gone to them in October and asked, I think the board of directors would have been more than happy to accomodate you.

Sea-Tac has actually said that they will start figuring out a way to exhibit holiday symbols for all religions celebrating December holidays next year.Â? Maybe the rabbi could work with the board on that, maybe donate a small menorah so that there could be a display that includes a creche, an Advent wreath, a menorah, some kinte cloth, and a yule log or something?

Or… perhaps we could find some neutral decorations like a wreath in a peace sign with candles since this is a season where we’re all praying for peace.

Let’s just please not make this a season of lawsuits and backbiting over whether it’s more appropriate to say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”.

All I Want For Christmas Is Some Sheep!

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OK… a few people have asked what I want for Christmas. My answer: I’d really like a lamb or sheep donated to the Heifer Project. They’re an awesome organization and I’d love it if people would support them in my honor this year at Christmas.

My Heifer.Org registry is here. Choose “Sheep” and donate as many shares of a sheep as you want. Just please send me an e-card so that I know what’s been done, OK?Â? The address is jen-at-grace-filled-dot-net.

Thanksgiving Prayer

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Almighty God our Father, your generous goodness comes to us new every day.Â? By the work of your Spirit lead us to acknowledge your goodness, give thanks for your benefits, and serve you in willing obedience; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.Â? Amen.

Freezing Body Parts Off

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We had serious frost yesterday morning so I had to go scrape the car off while Jon was doing the 8:00 service.Â? This is a tip: do not scrape ice off a car with an expired credit card unless you have mittens on.Â? My fingers were not happy with me.

After two worship services, I went to the local prison and worshipped with Jon.Â? It was interesting going into the prison after seeing all the MSNBC shows.Â? Chapel started late because the count was late but it was awesome.Â? Probably 30-40 guys showed up and we all had a great worship time despite not having musicians and having to sing acapella.Â? I’m going through training in November to be a religious volunteer.

I had a dream about going to Nebraska for some strange reason last night.Â? I think I’ve been listening to too much Lime n’ Violet.

My Theological Worldview

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You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
 
89%
Neo orthodox
 
86%
Roman Catholic
 
71%
Reformed Evangelical
 
57%
Emergent/Postmodern
 
50%
Fundamentalist
 
46%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
 
36%
Classical Liberal
 
7%
Modern Liberal
 
7%

What’s your theological worldview?
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(ganked from Pisco)