We made a list of goals for the year as a family (I should probably go check it again...) and we made s'mores!
It's been a good year so far, but I think it's going to get a lot better as it goes! I'm excited for February!
Friday, January 31, 2014
Happy 2014!
We made a list of goals for the year as a family (I should probably go check it again...) and we made s'mores!
It's been a good year so far, but I think it's going to get a lot better as it goes! I'm excited for February!
Monday, January 27, 2014
Christmas Week 2013
Just a few memories of the good times we had...
Andrea and I got to see Michael O'Brien in concert on the Saturday before Christmas. He has an admirable knack for writing contemporary Christmas songs that still sound "Christmas-y". "Gloria" and "With Us" are my two favorites. A lot of his lyrics, and some of his tunes, feel borrowed, but I still like his arrangements better than the other songs they reminded me of. All of his Christmas music is about Christ- no "winter" stuff thrown in there, so it's perfect for Advent! And he has a voice like an angel. His rendition of "Oh Holy Night" (which is not even on his album, boo-hoo) is celestial. Andrea bought his Christmas album (The title of it actually is Christ` Mas). We listened to it during our Sunday Advent devotions- and several times afterwards!
On Sunday afternoon Kayley and I had a tag-making party. We set the mood in my bedroom with Christmas music, Christmas candles, twinkle lights, and a YouTube fireplace! I made a bunch of feather gift toppers that I was just crazy about!
Later in the afternoon we had a Charlie Brown party (I call everything a party.) We ate fudge and salsa trail mix and cookies- all those Christmas goodies Andrea and I get for being preschool teachers. Andrea says A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of those Christmas traditions she pretends to like, but I really do like it. It can't be Christmas without Charlie Brown!
Christmas Eve morning had a sweet start: my sisters, dad, and I all went to Starbucks for some morning coffee, a rare treat for us. I got an eggnog latte. It's more spicy than sweet, but I liked it more and more as I drank it. (I think that means all the sugar went to the bottom and I didn't stir it enough.)
Christmas Eve we went to the 5:00 service at our church. If it were up to me, we'd celebrate with a midnight service, but my family won't hear of it.
We came home and ate tamales made fresh from HEB. Then it was time for a wood fire, pumpkin cookies, and more fudge.
My sisters and I like to bring our presents downstairs and place them under the tree together- but we don't check the names on the tags until the next morning!
Heather and I were the Christmas Breakfast Team, so we were up with the sun, cooking. So was Momma, of course!
I'm working on another post with the recipes we used. The main dish was baked French toast with built-in syrup, and we had broiled grapefruit and berries to balance out the sugar with a little tartness. We eat in the living room!
How to give money as a gift. She liked it :)
Kayley with the half-done apron I sewed her (I finished the next day:) I had her pick out the fabric, but I didn't tell her what it was for. She guessed it was a lamp shade. Luckily the fabric worked nicely as a vintage country style apron too.
Someone else gave her a lamp too!
Here are some of the presents I got: short brown leather gloves with bows at the wrist, ear piercing, organic cotton sheets, a pillow, a tote bag with a Scottie dog print, beaded hair elastics that double as cute bracelets, tiny hair clips, a waterfalls calendar, The Sign of the Beaver DVD, candy, amaretto cookie hot chocolate mix, Starbucks cards and restaurant gift cards, and some more money that I haven't spent yet. It will probably go to earrings as soon as I can take out my studs. Andrea got us some paperback classics as a family present.
Grandma gave each of us an Egyptian glass bell ornament this year.
My dad got Settlers of Catan, the board game, and it's my new favorite game!
For dinner, Mama added two new vegetables to the meal: artichokes and marinated broccoli. I made a balsamic vinegar/mayonnaise dipping sauce for my artichoke, but they were even better dipped in the broccoli marinade.
This was the first year my sisters and I got stem glasses. Because I saw them for $1 apiece at HEB the day before Christmas Eve and snatched them up. The same day I found these red tapered candles at Joann for 70% off (The store employees were actually in the process of setting up the Valentine's Day décor). That is a great day to go shopping.
After we opened presents we put together a puzzle that was another family present, and in the evening we went to another subdivision to look at their famous Christmas lights. Nothing show-stopping, but they were pretty good as far as lights go these days.
Andrea and Kayley baked a tiramisu cheesecake. Scrumptious isn't good enough of a word for it.
That's about it for this Christmas!
Friday, January 24, 2014
My five favorite methods for studying the Bible
Make running lists on themes that run through the Bible. I've made several... "The Lord Is..." "What is the Lord doing?" "Who am I?" "What pleases the Lord?" "What does the Lord hate?" "What does the Bible say about my words?" "What does the Bible say about my time?" etc. My favorite is "The Lord Is..." Whenever I come across another name for God or a character trait of His, I add it to the list with the verse reference. I don't embellish it with any of my own words, just a short phrase straight from the Bible. It's a long list, with entries from all over the Bible, and it is really amazing to just read straight through it.
Get to know the original Greek or Hebrew words. Pick a key word in the Bible that will really help You get to know God better or live a better life as a Christian if you were to deeply understand what it means. I suggest something like "grace" or "faith" or maybe a virtue such as one of the fruits of the Spirit, which is what I'm doing right now. Then find out the original Greek and/or Hebrew words that are translated into your chosen word and start studying those, one at a time. (For example, if you want to learn about gentleness, and there are two different Greek words that mean "gentleness," start with one. When you finish, then study the other. They might have slightly different nuances of meaning.) From this point on, you're studying the original words, not the English translations. Try to ignore definitions you've heard before, and let the Bible explain itself. Look up the Bible verses that contain your word and try to pick up from the context every bit of information about your word topic- a definition, an opposite, a practical application, what the results are, where it comes from, etc. Write it all down of course. I usually get through only two or three verses at one time. It's slow-going, but it's really helpful in grasping spiritual ideas that are often so fuzzy in our minds.
Read through different sections of the Bible at the same time. It's amazing to see how often what you read in one part directly relates to another part. It's also a helpful technique if you want to read a lot of Scripture at once but want to keep your attention span. There are a lot of one-year Bible reading plans that combine a Psalm, a section of Proverbs, another Old Testament passage, and a New Testament passage for each day. I made a plan of my own with six parts: Law, Old Testament History, Poetry, Old Testament Prophecy, New Testament History, and Epistles. I did it this way because I thought it gave some of the lesser-known sections of the Bible equal treatment. I spent more time reading things that were semi-new to me (The book of Isaiah? I had no idea it was so hopeful and encouraging!). The sections aren't equal in length, but when I came to the end of one section, I just started it over again.
Memorize passages that encourage/enlighten/convict you. Just pick one you like; if it speaks to you, then you'll be more motivated to finish. When you memorize something, you end up spending a lot of time thinking about it, and thinking more deeply about it. Every single word starts to be important, and your understanding of what the passage is really saying grows. If your mind tends to wander when you sit down to meditate (Mine does...) memorization gives you something to concentrate on, and if there's something there worth meditating on, it will just happen naturally.
Start a private devotional blog. With all the note-taking you have to (or want to!) do, a blog eliminates all the paper and notebooks you'd have to find space for the old-fashioned way. It makes it easy to add, change, and rearrange your information over time, for example, when you make lists. You can also do that easily in Word, and organize all of your devotional documents in the folder system. It's probably safer in terms of privacy, since devotions are really personal. If you have a blog, though, you can tag all your posts by topic, book of the Bible, even verse if you want to; when you've been studying the Bible for a while, it's a helpful tool if you want to review what you've learned before. You can also link to devotionals or other articles you've read online that relate to your study, and upload your own videos or pictures if you're a multimedia kind of person. And of course, you can make it an inviting little space where you want to be. It makes it easy to come back to your devotions if you've lost the habit.
Get to know the original Greek or Hebrew words. Pick a key word in the Bible that will really help You get to know God better or live a better life as a Christian if you were to deeply understand what it means. I suggest something like "grace" or "faith" or maybe a virtue such as one of the fruits of the Spirit, which is what I'm doing right now. Then find out the original Greek and/or Hebrew words that are translated into your chosen word and start studying those, one at a time. (For example, if you want to learn about gentleness, and there are two different Greek words that mean "gentleness," start with one. When you finish, then study the other. They might have slightly different nuances of meaning.) From this point on, you're studying the original words, not the English translations. Try to ignore definitions you've heard before, and let the Bible explain itself. Look up the Bible verses that contain your word and try to pick up from the context every bit of information about your word topic- a definition, an opposite, a practical application, what the results are, where it comes from, etc. Write it all down of course. I usually get through only two or three verses at one time. It's slow-going, but it's really helpful in grasping spiritual ideas that are often so fuzzy in our minds.
Read through different sections of the Bible at the same time. It's amazing to see how often what you read in one part directly relates to another part. It's also a helpful technique if you want to read a lot of Scripture at once but want to keep your attention span. There are a lot of one-year Bible reading plans that combine a Psalm, a section of Proverbs, another Old Testament passage, and a New Testament passage for each day. I made a plan of my own with six parts: Law, Old Testament History, Poetry, Old Testament Prophecy, New Testament History, and Epistles. I did it this way because I thought it gave some of the lesser-known sections of the Bible equal treatment. I spent more time reading things that were semi-new to me (The book of Isaiah? I had no idea it was so hopeful and encouraging!). The sections aren't equal in length, but when I came to the end of one section, I just started it over again.
Memorize passages that encourage/enlighten/convict you. Just pick one you like; if it speaks to you, then you'll be more motivated to finish. When you memorize something, you end up spending a lot of time thinking about it, and thinking more deeply about it. Every single word starts to be important, and your understanding of what the passage is really saying grows. If your mind tends to wander when you sit down to meditate (Mine does...) memorization gives you something to concentrate on, and if there's something there worth meditating on, it will just happen naturally.
Start a private devotional blog. With all the note-taking you have to (or want to!) do, a blog eliminates all the paper and notebooks you'd have to find space for the old-fashioned way. It makes it easy to add, change, and rearrange your information over time, for example, when you make lists. You can also do that easily in Word, and organize all of your devotional documents in the folder system. It's probably safer in terms of privacy, since devotions are really personal. If you have a blog, though, you can tag all your posts by topic, book of the Bible, even verse if you want to; when you've been studying the Bible for a while, it's a helpful tool if you want to review what you've learned before. You can also link to devotionals or other articles you've read online that relate to your study, and upload your own videos or pictures if you're a multimedia kind of person. And of course, you can make it an inviting little space where you want to be. It makes it easy to come back to your devotions if you've lost the habit.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Decorating for Christmas
I'm still thinking about Christmas!
Last Christmas my mom gave my youngest sister Kayley, who has a homemaker's heart and loves to decorate, the job of placing the last of our Christmas decorations out. I joined her, and I got a sudden burst of inspiration. I used the pieces to one of our Nativity sets to tell the story of Jesus' arrival on earth as Advent season progressed. The purpose of a Nativity scene is to be a memory hook to turn the viewer's thoughts toward God. They're so overused, however, that they're often nothing more than another tacky knick knack that we ignore when we walk by. I hope that mine, with its unconventional arrangement and frequently changing scenes, is a gentle memory jolt.
I only took pictures the first week, but you get the idea.
I used the other Nativity figure on the dining room table for basically the same reason; we've always kept it on the Advent wreath table, right next to the other Nativity! I really don't think double the Nativity scenes equates double the impact. Just like Christmas shouldn't be confined to one time of year, it shouldn't be confined to one part of the house either. I kept the Thanksgiving leaves, pine cones, and pumpkin for a while because they make the Nativity more decorative and intentional.
We had a festive bathroom, too! Daddy's cousin made these. I think the outhouse is hilarious.
Last Christmas my mom gave my youngest sister Kayley, who has a homemaker's heart and loves to decorate, the job of placing the last of our Christmas decorations out. I joined her, and I got a sudden burst of inspiration. I used the pieces to one of our Nativity sets to tell the story of Jesus' arrival on earth as Advent season progressed. The purpose of a Nativity scene is to be a memory hook to turn the viewer's thoughts toward God. They're so overused, however, that they're often nothing more than another tacky knick knack that we ignore when we walk by. I hope that mine, with its unconventional arrangement and frequently changing scenes, is a gentle memory jolt.
I only took pictures the first week, but you get the idea.
I used the other Nativity figure on the dining room table for basically the same reason; we've always kept it on the Advent wreath table, right next to the other Nativity! I really don't think double the Nativity scenes equates double the impact. Just like Christmas shouldn't be confined to one time of year, it shouldn't be confined to one part of the house either. I kept the Thanksgiving leaves, pine cones, and pumpkin for a while because they make the Nativity more decorative and intentional.
We had a festive bathroom, too! Daddy's cousin made these. I think the outhouse is hilarious.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Thanksgiving 2013
I feel that our Thanksgiving celebrations get better and better every year. Or perhaps my expectations for holidays have changed from a childish hope for "excitement" to a more mature appreciation of simply bonding with my family.
Here's our Thanksgiving menu:
Dill pickles, sweet pickles, artichoke hearts, and olives for appetizers
Roasted turkey
Breadcrumb stuffing
Whole berry cranberry sauce
Cornbread
Green bean casserole
Cheddar cheese and bacon sweet potato boats
Layered jello salad filled with cream cheese balls and fruit
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
We make almost everything from scratch with the exception of the stuffing, the green bean casserole (you just can't replace that processed food deliciousness) and the jello salad. But the cranberry sauce- that's from scratch. The corn bread is from scratch. The pie crusts, from scratch. Take a look at that scrumptious-looking pecan pie. Kayley made it with natural maple syrup, lots of maple syrup! If anyone is looking for a dessert for their last meal on earth, I suggest that one!
I got to participate in the cooking this year, the first time in five years that I haven't had to be either at school or at work the day before Thanksgiving (or the day after!) I made the pie crusts. I don't know when the last time was I did that! They looked flaky, but were a bit tough and we had trouble cutting through them. Still, not bad considering how little practice I've had.
After dinner, we made a Thankful wreath together. We each took a few leaves and wrote the names of things we're thankful for (of course). We didn't share what we wrote out loud, but as we tucked all the leaves into the wreath, we each definitely took a look at everyone else's leaves. For my family, that's just a more natural and less awkward way of doing things.
Then we looked at photographs of our recent trip to Tennessee. That took like two hours, since we all fancy ourselves to be photographers, and anytime there's something to snap a photo of, we each need to do it on our own camera!
I have a list of Thanksgiving songs that I listened to in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, to put me in the right attitude. Some of these my family sang together on Thanksgiving evening, with the beautiful YouTube videos to provide the back-up (That would be the Thanksgiving Medley, Let All Things Now Living, and Thanks to God- those have lyrics and pretty fall scenes in the background, but all of these are good corporate worship songs and hymns that focus on how good God is to us).
Thanksgiving Worship Songs and Hymns
Now Thank We All Our God
We Gather Together
Come Ye Thankful People
Enough
For the Beauty of the Earth
All Creatures of Our God and King
Celtic Thanksgiving Song
My Heart is Filled with Thankfulness
Give Thanks
10,000 Reasons
Count Your Blessings
Thanks to God
Thanksgiving Medley
Thank You, Lord!
Forever Grateful
I Will Enter His Gates
Tribute Medley
Thankful Heart
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
It Is Well With My Soul
Everything That's Beautiful
Thank You
Let All Things Now Living
One of my Fall goals was to discover and listen to Thanksgiving music. It has been accomplished! About one-third of these songs I had never heard prior to my Thanksgiving music quest. I think I'll listen to this playlist year-round.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
The Forger's Spell: My Thoughts
When I first picked up The Forger's Spell, I was expecting to find a far-fetched novel spun around an artist or painting, sort of like The Da Vinci Code. It turned out to be an historical non-fiction account of a twentieth-century art forger who made millions of dollars and made fools of the art experts of his time; it's such a fascinating series of events that it's just as entertaining to read as a novel.
The Basics:
Title: The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2008
Content:
The book is divided into five sections that follow a topical sequence rather than a strictly chronological line. I've written the chronological story here more or less as I pulled it from different sections of the book. At the end I add some theoretical points the author made.
Han Van Meegeren, a mediocre Dutch painter who began his career in the early twentieth century, wanted more than anything to be recognized as a genius. That was not to be; his work lacked originality and depth, and the art community snubbed him. Out of bitterness he hatched a plan to sell his work under the name of the old 17th-century master Johannes Vermeer, guessing that then they would see his paintings as brilliant. Van Meegeren may not have been a genius of an artist, but it turned out he was a genius of a forger.
Johannes Vermeer was a smart choice to imitate. Vermeer lived in Holland in the seventeenth century and is most famous for his realistic and peaceful domestic scenes. He was almost everyone's favorite artist in the 1930s. We only have about three dozen authentic Vermeers today, and several of those had been found recently when Van Meegeren began his hoax. Some Dutch art connoisseurs wondered and hoped- and predicted- that more would turn up. Van Meegeren hand-picked certain experts he thought most likely to declare his forgeries to be authentic Vermeers. The connoisseur who saw his very first forgery was Abraham Bredius. This man had discovered a few Vermeers when he was young; he wanted nothing more than to end his career with one more, and he did indeed fall for the forgery. Very little is known of Vermeer, so Van Meegeren had a clean slate to work with. Since Van Meegeren's trial runs of domestic scenes looked inferior next to Vermeer's beautiful ones, the forger switched gears and painted Biblical "Vermeers" the way he thought the old master would have done them.
What Van Meegeren lacked artistically, he made up for technically. For his first forgery, he found an old painting by a contemporary of Vermeer, scraped the painting off the canvas, removed the canvas from the wooden stretcher, cut both smaller (because Vermeer painted small-scale works), and nailed them together again, using the original nails. Most impressive, he invented his own paint made of plastic. It looked just like oil when brushed onto the canvas, but it hardened much more quickly (in the oven) and could pass the typical tests. This paint even cracked in the same pattern as authentic seventeenth-century oils when the forger cracked it over his knee. He used India ink for grime in the cracks. No one even bothered with tests though! For good measure, he ripped the canvas in a couple places and then crudely patched it up.
The timing was excellent for a successful art hoax. The new American millionaires were buying art as if it were a sport, and the Dutch became very protective of their national treasures. They didn't want to risk any Dutch masterpiece, especially a Vermeer, falling into American hands. Then the Nazis conquered Holland, and as food and energy shortages hit, Dutch families searched their attics for forgotten old art and other valuables to "sell" to the Nazis. It was plausible that a new Vermeer could be discovered. Both Adolf Hitler and his second-in-command, a man named Hermann Goering, were looting as much of Europe's art as they could, although they "paid" the owners a fraction of the art's value (provided those owners were not Jewish, Slavic, or other ethnicity that the Nazis despised). Some prizes were more special than others; Goering was especially greedy for a Vermeer.
Van Meegeren's first forgery to take off was Emmaus, a painting of Jesus the moment before he revealed his identity to two disciples after His resurrection. After coming to believe that it was an early work of Vermeer, Abraham Bredius become a champion for the painting. He strongly urged the curator of an art museum in Rotterdam to buy the painting for Holland, especially because it would elevate the prestige of that museum, which had always played second fiddle to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Van Meegeren's dealer asked a price that is today's equivalent of several million dollars, and the museum raised the funds just in time. Bredius wrote many letters and articles about the painting, creating a lot of publicity about the new Vermeer. Most of the other experts echoed his praise of the painting. It was even deemed Vermeer's best work ever. Emmaus was unveiled to an already-smitten public, and Van Meegeren himself attended the party, quietly savoring the success.
Van Meegeren wasn't content to stop there though. He painted seven (?) Vermeers, each getting uglier and uglier and sloppier and sloppier. Emmaus was the new standard that they had to measure up to, and that was easy. They all went for high prices and all were bought by Dutch art collectors, except for one, which was sold to none other than Hermann Goering. Ironically, Goering paid with 137 other paintings that were already in his collection.
Only two weeks after the war ended in Europe, while Holland's government was still in disarray, a policeman named Joop Piller set out independently to find Dutch traitors who had collaborated with the Nazis during the war. Because he had sold a painting to Goering without a middleman, Van Meegeren's name came up on a list of Dutch people who had had business transactions with the Germans. Van Meegeren clearly had a lot of money at a time when the average Dutch man was starving. Piller took him into custody, and fearing charges of treason, Van Meegeren declared that Goering's painting was a fake. He helped the investigation as much as possible, even painting one more "Vermeer" while he was in custody. At the trial he pled guilty for forgery and received a penalty of just one year in prison. All of this was reported in the media, and finally Van Meegeren enjoyed the fame he craved. Most people found the truth easy to believe- and also quite amusing. For having cheated the Nazis out of millions of dollars, Van Meegeren became a hero of sorts for the Dutch.
The author explains the psychology behind the way an expert who really knows his stuff can fall for a hoax. For one thing, experts' professional reputations are at stake. They walk a fine line between failing to see a forgery and failing to see a masterpiece, both of which are devastating to their prestige among their peers. It's not really possible for them to have no opinion; they're forced to go one way or the other, and it's published for all to see. Another factor is their trust in their own judgment. They know that it's possible for other experts to be wrong, and they expect it. The result is that an expert, once he has declared his position, will stand by that statement no matter what, even if doubts sneak in later. The author also suggests that when an expert knows everything that there is to know about art, he can be led astray by rabbit trails of his own devising. Perhaps, when it comes to judging a contemporary forgery, an art critic's worst enemy is his cultural blind spots, those assumptions common to his time and place, which are shared by both the forger and the critic and they both are unaware of. In this case, the Dutch were somewhat religious, but their belief about Jesus was that He was just a man who endured a lot of misery. Van Meegeren's pathetic-looking Jesus resonated with them of course, because he shared that view. They failed to consider that in Vermeer's time, Europeans still thought of Jesus as divine and powerful. It's interesting to note that a pair of American art dealers came to see Emmaus before the museum bought it, and they instantly, without hesitation, declared it a "rotten fake." It's probably safe to say that the religious climate they were coming from was quite different from that in Europe, and that might account for their different reaction.
The author gets into the psychology of a forger too. There are three reasons why someone chooses to forge art: greed, fame, and revenge. All were ingredients in Van Meegeren's case, but he was motivated the most by the latter. As each forgery he churned out deviated more and more from Vermeer's work, I can't help but think he was doing it for revenge, not money. I think he wanted them to fall for the worst painting possible. Strangely enough, Van Meegeren achieved riches, fame, and revenge. The only thing he never got was honor.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Advent 2013
Every Sunday night during Advent my family lights the Advent wreath and listens to Christmas music. A pretty simple tradition, and one I always looked forward to, even as a child. A couple years ago, I researched the meaning of the candles and discovered that in churches that celebrate the "church year," each week of Advent has a different theme. It begins with hope for Christ's coming, then proceeds to peace at the promise of His imminent arrival, joy at His appearing, and love for Him for eternity. This year, with my parents' permission, I embellished our normal Sunday evenings with Scriptures that we took turns reading, and I carefully selected playlists of Christmas songs that best fit the night's theme. It wasn't a perfect program, but here's what we actually did. I already have a lot of ideas for next year!
Songs for the first week of Advent are hard to find. A lot of Christmas carols actually proceed through the entire story from Old Testament prophecy to the joy of Jesus' birth. That's good because the Messiah has come; as a Christian it's hard to write a song about the waiting and leave it at that. So a lot of the songs I picked, even if they tell the whole story, celebrate how Jesus fulfilled the prophecy. I also included some worship songs that make us consider how much we need God and how our Messiah is going to return for us one more time, and are still beautiful enough to blend in with the "real" Christmas music.
This is when God finally revealed to people that it was the time for the Christ to arrive. We have peace because we realize that God kept His promises before, and He will again. We don't know when He will return. He's right outside the door! I chose songs that Mary and Joseph and we today can all identify with. And songs that repeat the word "peace" enough times. *grin*
Jesus is born! We have a Savior! We can celebrate because we know everything will be made right!
Almost any song written as a "Christmas" song is fitting, but I listed a few of the obvious ones below. We listened to these on CDs that my family has, so I didn't make a playlist this time.
Advent Week 1 : Prophecy/Hope
Songs for the first week of Advent are hard to find. A lot of Christmas carols actually proceed through the entire story from Old Testament prophecy to the joy of Jesus' birth. That's good because the Messiah has come; as a Christian it's hard to write a song about the waiting and leave it at that. So a lot of the songs I picked, even if they tell the whole story, celebrate how Jesus fulfilled the prophecy. I also included some worship songs that make us consider how much we need God and how our Messiah is going to return for us one more time, and are still beautiful enough to blend in with the "real" Christmas music.
Advent Worship Songs and Carols, Week 1
Advent Scripture Readings, Week 1
Genesis 3:14,15 The first promise of a Messiah
Genesis 26:2-5 The Messiah a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Genesis 49:8-11 The Messiah a descendant of Judah
Exodus 12:21-27 The Passover Lamb
2 Samuel 7:10-16 The Messiah a descendant of David
Isaiah 40:3-5 A voice crying out, John the Baptist
Micah 5:2 The Messiah to be born in Bethlehem
Isaiah 7:14 The virgin birth
Hosea 11:1 Coming out of Egypt
Isaiah 9:1-7 The Messiah to be from Galilee, and the famous passage including His beautiful Names
Isaiah 11:1-5 The Righteous Judge
Isaiah 61:1-3 The Messiah's ministry
Isaiah 53:3-12 The Messiah's death
Isaiah 59:16-20 The Redeemer
Advent Week 2: Preparation for Christ/ Peace
This is when God finally revealed to people that it was the time for the Christ to arrive. We have peace because we realize that God kept His promises before, and He will again. We don't know when He will return. He's right outside the door! I chose songs that Mary and Joseph and we today can all identify with. And songs that repeat the word "peace" enough times. *grin*
Advent Worship Songs and Carols, Week 2
Advent Scripture Readings, Week 2
Luke 1:5-79
Matthew 1:18-25
2 Peter 3:13-15a
Ephesians 2:11-16
Romans 5:1
Advent Week 3: Jesus' Birth/ Joy
Jesus is born! We have a Savior! We can celebrate because we know everything will be made right!
Almost any song written as a "Christmas" song is fitting, but I listed a few of the obvious ones below. We listened to these on CDs that my family has, so I didn't make a playlist this time.
Advent Worship Songs and Carols, Week 3
Joy to the World
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Angels We Have Heard on High
Good Christian Men Rejoice
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Anthem for Christmas- Michael W. Smith
Advent Scripture Readings, Week 3
Luke 2:1-7
Luke 2:8-14
Luke 2:15-20
Luke 2:21-27
Luke 2:28-33
Luke 2:34-39
Advent Week 4: Life with Christ/ Love
This is when we give Christ our adoration and our lives.
Advent Worship Songs and Carols, Week 4
We listened to Michael O'Brien's album Christ` Mas, so I didn't try too hard to find songs.
Advent Scripture Readings, Week 4
Matthew 2
Friday, January 10, 2014
Nativity Scenes
Once I saw a Renaissance painting of Jesus' birth in a museum. Jesus and his earthly parents were positioned under an elaborate stone architectural structure, and they and all of their visitors were richly and stylishly clothed. It looked to me as though the artist didn't realize that Jesus wasn't born in 16th century Italy.
Jesus' birth isn't a common subject for today's artists, even the Christian ones, but we still are familiar with a far-removed relative of that Medieval and Renaissance religious outlook, and that is the Nativity scene. Most of the American Nativity sets portray Jesus, his parents, and all of their visitors (with the occasional exception of a Magi or two) as white. Their clothes are often bright and colorful, though the era is ambiguous. Every once in a while you'll find a Nativity set that portrays Jesus and everyone else as black. And then at a craft show I saw a beautiful wooden Mexican-made Nativity set in which all the characters wore festive Mexican folk costumes.
I start to feel that Nativity scenes have nothing to do with the real Jesus and are made by people who don't really know Him. An empty tradition that does more harm than good, as it makes Christians look quite ignorant, not to mention racially divided. For the record, Jesus was Middle Eastern, dirt poor, and lived in the first century!
OK, not exactly.
Jesus is the Son of God, the Word become flesh, and He was in the beginning with God, before humankind even existed and before we had been inbred and developed the physiological characteristics we associate with different ethnicities today. Jesus is God, but He wore the body of a man for a little while. What that man looked like is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Jesus left behind the glory that was His in heaven and stepped down into our dirty, poor, sinful world. He didn't ask us to change a thing before He would touch us. Instead, He came as we were. Jesus stepped into the world of a Jewish carpenter and his fiancée who knew nothing but oppression and exploitation, but who had faith to follow God's plan. He stepped into the world of Renaissance noblemen who knew nothing but palaces and luxury, but who realized that Jesus was worthy of their worship. He stepped into my world, my quiet, insignificant middle-class American life, to save me and do what He wants with my life. Jesus meets us where we are. He is present in every Christian's life, no matter what their temporary body looks like or what sins they've committed or what condition their neighborhood is in.
After I had looked at the museum Nativity painting for a moment, I read the museum curator's notes on the placard next to it. It mentioned that the wealthy patron who had commissioned the painting was depicted in the painting, along with his family, bowing before Christ at His birth. The artist had not been trying at all to paint the historical birth of Jesus. This was an image of Jesus being born in the hearts of specific people with a unique life. They wanted to be able to look at this painting and be reminded that Christ came for their family, that He was their king, that their family should be worshipping Him.
Picture any Nativity you've ever seen. Christ came for people who look like that, whose lives looked like that. But there's more. There are Nativity scenes that have never been made that show how Jesus was born in caves, in apartment buildings, in mud huts, in castles, in cottages, in skyscrapers, in two-story suburban homes. The people worshipping at the manger are dark and pale and in-between. And they're all accurate. Jesus is here.
Jesus' birth isn't a common subject for today's artists, even the Christian ones, but we still are familiar with a far-removed relative of that Medieval and Renaissance religious outlook, and that is the Nativity scene. Most of the American Nativity sets portray Jesus, his parents, and all of their visitors (with the occasional exception of a Magi or two) as white. Their clothes are often bright and colorful, though the era is ambiguous. Every once in a while you'll find a Nativity set that portrays Jesus and everyone else as black. And then at a craft show I saw a beautiful wooden Mexican-made Nativity set in which all the characters wore festive Mexican folk costumes.
I start to feel that Nativity scenes have nothing to do with the real Jesus and are made by people who don't really know Him. An empty tradition that does more harm than good, as it makes Christians look quite ignorant, not to mention racially divided. For the record, Jesus was Middle Eastern, dirt poor, and lived in the first century!
OK, not exactly.
Jesus is the Son of God, the Word become flesh, and He was in the beginning with God, before humankind even existed and before we had been inbred and developed the physiological characteristics we associate with different ethnicities today. Jesus is God, but He wore the body of a man for a little while. What that man looked like is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Jesus left behind the glory that was His in heaven and stepped down into our dirty, poor, sinful world. He didn't ask us to change a thing before He would touch us. Instead, He came as we were. Jesus stepped into the world of a Jewish carpenter and his fiancée who knew nothing but oppression and exploitation, but who had faith to follow God's plan. He stepped into the world of Renaissance noblemen who knew nothing but palaces and luxury, but who realized that Jesus was worthy of their worship. He stepped into my world, my quiet, insignificant middle-class American life, to save me and do what He wants with my life. Jesus meets us where we are. He is present in every Christian's life, no matter what their temporary body looks like or what sins they've committed or what condition their neighborhood is in.
After I had looked at the museum Nativity painting for a moment, I read the museum curator's notes on the placard next to it. It mentioned that the wealthy patron who had commissioned the painting was depicted in the painting, along with his family, bowing before Christ at His birth. The artist had not been trying at all to paint the historical birth of Jesus. This was an image of Jesus being born in the hearts of specific people with a unique life. They wanted to be able to look at this painting and be reminded that Christ came for their family, that He was their king, that their family should be worshipping Him.
Picture any Nativity you've ever seen. Christ came for people who look like that, whose lives looked like that. But there's more. There are Nativity scenes that have never been made that show how Jesus was born in caves, in apartment buildings, in mud huts, in castles, in cottages, in skyscrapers, in two-story suburban homes. The people worshipping at the manger are dark and pale and in-between. And they're all accurate. Jesus is here.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Gift Package Embellishments
These dazzling little gift toppers were so easy to make- and since I assembled them ahead of time, my Christmas Eve gift wrapping frenzy was (almost) stress-free. No ribbons and bows necessary!
I finished my Christmas present shopping on Christmas Eve, by the way. I always do. Life on the edge!*
The Sunday before Christmas my youngest sister Kayley and I had a spontaneous tag-making party. (Um, it would seem "tag" means a bit more to me than it does to some people.) We sat in my bedroom with all of our craft supplies, my twinkle lights sparkling, Michael O'Brien's Christmas music playing, a YouTube fire place blazing, and a real-life candle or two- the scented kind that fill the air with cinnamon and vanilla... I like the trappings of Christmas, but it's stuff I would like anyway!
* The Christmas I was 13 I had a really careless attitude toward presents- and everything else in life. That year was probably the closest I ever got to being a rebellious teenager. Anyway, this was before I had money to buy presents for my family, so usually I made them things. But for some reason Christmas Eve rolled around and I had only made a gift for my mom (It was a set of clothespin photo stands embellished with wooden snowflakes.) At some point the day before Christmas I realized that I needed to get some presents, so I quickly threw a craft or two together and then dug through my closet and drawers trying to find things for my sisters that they would like and that wouldn't be a really lame present. They were all really lame presents, and I didn't even have time to wrap them before I had to get ready for the Christmas Eve service. And then was supper and family time... and I didn't want to tell them that I still had to wrap presents. So I placed my presents and gift wrapping supplies where I could get them easily, set my alarm for 2 am, placed it under my pillow and went to sleep. Here the story could take a turn for the worse, but it didn't. I got up the instant the alarm went off, carried all my things into the bathroom (well, where else could I turn on a light and rumple wrapping paper around and not wake everybody up? I shared a room with Andrea) and wrapped my presents. Then I scooped up a bunch of stuff in my arms, turned off the light, opened the door wide- and dropped my scissors on the tile floor. To me it sounded like a whole bookshelf had toppled. I thought they would all come into the hall and fin me. My family are light sleepers. I still don't know how they didn't wake up- but none of them did.
I wish I could say I've changed my ways. I do care about my family much more now, and I think about presents well in advance of the holiday. But I'm still a procrastinator!
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