We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Many of us think of Christianity as a “cheerful” religion, but Andrew Klavan, who is a convert to Christianity, wrote that “for me, one of Christianity’s central assets is that it’s a tragic religion — which is to say, a realistic one. The son of God prayed for release from a dreadful death and his prayer went unfulfilled. That tells you something, something you need to know in order to live with patience and wisdom.”
But I think it is not so much a tragic as one determined not flinch before tragedy; committed to patching up a bunny even though it may be eaten the next moment; or save an unknown woman in Calcutta if only for a while and to see in that no futility whatsoever, no cause for despair. And as to the terror, horror, beauty and wonder of life — why that is what God — or the universe as a synonym for God — is supposed to be like. The Old Testament warned Moses that he could not see the Face of God and live. We know the familiar lines from Exodus:
Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
To “see God”; to “know the truth” is asking for trouble. Are we sure we want do that?
What the pope was really saying was that the Roman Catholic Church must not allow its critics to continue to portray it successfully and falsely as obsessed with the vagaries of people’s sex lives, and as fanatically and principally preoccupied with such matters; that it must be clear that all human life is sacred, that all people are souls to be cared for and respected, and that it is a reasonable surmise that any plausible characterization of God would not be a deity who approved the creation of life that was condemned to be irredeemably evil from the start and would not be deserving of any consideration. At the same time, the Church must be seen by all, despite these efforts to smear it as a neurotic gaggle of prurient scolds and hypocrites, as really in the business of caring for and about everybody. This is not a new interpretation: It is a new counterattack on those who have said or implied that Roman Catholicism was incompatible with anything except the personal life of eunuchs, and eunuchs who kept their hands to themselves.
I sympathize with the Pope's traditional attitude of "love the sinner, not the sin," but the idea that all souls should get my care and love is utterly beyond my capacity. I steer clear of malignant things in the same way that I avoid rocks on a boat.
...no one can be born a Christian in evangelical belief: everyone must come to Jesus individually of his own volition, making a profession of faith based on a genuine conviction of the truth of Jesus’ messiahship. This also explains why, more so than the members of almost any other branch of Christianity, evangelicals share a profound attachment to the textual world of the Bible. For the evangelical, the Bible is more than just a “good book”; it is the literal and inspired word of God, written by prophets who were moved by the holy spirit and preserved through the ages by the hand of divine providence. To evangelicals, the Bible is the blueprint of the cosmos, the framework of history, and the answer to all of life’s mysteries. Only the Bible—not a priesthood or a church hierarchy—can assert authority over the Christian.
Some might term me an Evangelical and some might not. Either way, I learned some things from the essay.
The Jewish High Holy Days begin this evening with Rosh Hashanah.
One of the traditional Rosh Hashanah greetings is Shana Tovah, which literally means have a good year. The meaning goes deeper. To have a good year is to have sincerely repented one's transgressions and set yourself on a better acting and thinking path.
The eve of Rosh Hashanah, and the concluding of Yom Kippur in the evening 10-days later when our fate is sealed by G-d, is a period of especially intense inspection of self and correction of self. It is Jews' most solemn holiday period (read, Holy Days).
It is also a time to come together with loved ones as well as to find ways to come together with former adversaries. It is a time to enjoy our customs, especially the blowing of the ram's horn (shofar), especially at Rosh Hashanah, to literally "come awake" to ourselves, our relationships with others and with G-d. And, it is a time to enjoy apples and honey, to symbolize our hopes for a sweet new year. It is a time of long days of prayer. For me, the longer the better, as it is not the words so much that are important as entering a sense of transcendence in which I rise above ordinary thoughts to reach new breakthroughs, understandings, and ways to become better.
Like for other Jewish occasions, Rosh Hashanah has become a time for our modern youth to create new music, to bring new verve into our traditional ways. Enjoy this one. (I'm not getting it to embed, so please click through to YouTube.) P.S.: In the video, the tossing of bread into moving waters (tashlich) is to symbolize casting off our sins.
Here's a snippet of the verses: "Atonement's what I'm after; It's a new year, now we gotta do something"
The Jewish High Holy Days, and the Hebrew month of Elul's introspection preceding them, require of each of us to "do something", at the very least, to create a better self and world. Our custom has been adapted into Christianity with Lent, and into Islam with Ramadan. May we all earnestly work to be better. We all need to and we all need it.
Well, as close to an angel as I have ever identified.
Like most angels, she just looked like an ordinary middle-aged person. Unremarkable, unmemorable. Angels are simply messengers, aren't they? They aren't gods, and they don't have wings. The wings in angel images are symbols.
Tuesday morning at 10:30 I was sitting in the Maggie's HQ between meetings and conferences, with all doors and windows open to the soft summer breeze and enjoying a nice Partagas - I'm the boss so I do what I want - when I hear a knock on the open outside door. "Hello."
"Come on in," I say. "Pardon my cigar smoke. What can I do for you?"
"Nothing," she said tentatively. "I've never done anything like this before, but I felt had to. Are you (my name)? "Yes, I am. Who are you?" She gave her name to me.
I was pleasant, she was too. She said she hoped I did not mind, but the Lord had asked her twice, in prayer, to pray for me by name and to remind me that God loved me. She had no idea who I was, but googled my name, located me, and walked in my open door on the chance I would be there.
I told her that, far from intruding on me, she was like an angelic apparition. She had driven 20 miles to deliver me a message. I told her that I had lost both of my parents in the past few months, was grieving in my various ways but was not feeling disconnected from God.
She gave me a light hug, said "The Lord wants you to know that he loves you", and walked back out to her car. A silver Camry.
I told Mrs. BD that I had had a visitation from an angel. No, I am not insane. As I thought about it over the past couple of days, I began to realize that grief had indeed distanced me from God - not out of anger or anything stupid like that, but just by preoccupation with my own feelings, self-involvement.
He called Keller a prophet. (He refers to anyone who speaks difficult, deep Truths as "speaking prophetically.") On the subject of even good things becoming false idols, he used these Keller quotes which I took from an Amazon review:
"The human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them." Thus anything can be an idol and, really, everything has been an idol to one person or another. The great deception of idols is we are prone to think that idols are only bad things. But evil is far more subtle than this. "We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life."
If you happen to be in NYC on a Sunday, you could do worse than to visit his Redeemer Presbyterian Church. (It's a church, ie not a fancy building but a congregation of God-seekers and worshippers.) They have five worship locations in Manhattan.
Pastor Keller usually preaches at their 6 pm service at the Hunter College auditorium.
6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 6:4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I stumbled into this interesting, somewhat scholarly essay: WHAT IS RELIGION? by Prof. Thomas A. Idinopulos. A quote:
...take the case of Theravada Buddhism. Here is a something called "religion" which is not a religion. Although Theravada Buddhism is usually included in any book on the world's religions, it is not theistic, recognizes no sacred being or beings, and does not officially encourage worship of Buddha or any "higher being" (despite popular veneration of the Buddha-ideal). Theravada Buddhism appears to be a technique or program for human self-purification or self-fulfillment or self-negation. If the word religion is attached to Theravada Buddhism, it must be done so loosely as to allow the differences from other religions to prevail.
What then are we to do about the books like those of the late Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, and more recently Huston Smith, that stress the similarities of religion? Such works will always be in demand because human beings want to believe that there is an inner core of common religious meaning that provides an intelligible unifying structure of meaning to the bewildering multiplicity of world religions. No matter how much we stress the differences among religions, the public desire for assurance about religious unity will inspire authors to continue to invent overarching pseudo-philosophical categories like "Eternal Wisdom," "Universal Spirit," or "Cosmic Soul," and promote them as the "truth" to which the various religions point. Perhaps there is a universal religious truth and perhaps there is not. If there is, however, I believe we should look for it not in what a religion asserts as truth but in how it asserts its truth. As we shall see in discussing W. C. Smith's ideas, it is form not content that religions have in common.
There are other problems in comparing religions...
This season, which pulsates with nostalgia, memory, sadness as well as with a deep and abiding sense of profound joy and human meaning – and does it all at once – is a season prompted by the very Incarnation of God’s Love, a love that goes beyond words, but rather is a Word – the Logos – that became flesh.
It is for this very reason that the Christian faith which emerges from this proclamation about God’s entrance into the human condition, could build institutions and cultures aimed at concretely reverencing each and every human person from the very first moment of their existence in the womb, in all their vulnerability and potential, without regard to their ethnicity or some other accidental factor. It is the belief stipulated in that memorable passage from Ecclesiastes (3:11): “He has … set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
I have attempted to lure readers with some Christmastime totty ( I just do not have it in me to post any half-nude hunky guys in Christmas outfits for our gal readers), but I would suppose that most Christians are now either frantic with last-minute gift- or food-shopping, or preparing for evening church services.
The B team will be out of range, skiing and cavorting in beautiful snow and invigorationg cold for a week after Christmas, but I have pre-posted mostly to keep my generous paycheck coming from Maggie's.
So perhaps only our Jewish, Hindu, Ba'hai, Buddhist, and Muslim friends will be reading this post, but that's fine with me.
Top pic of global warming is via Pirate. Pic of the super-special Christmas present below is probably from Theo but I am not sure.
In my view, the Christmas Eve candlelight service is not to be missed, even though I do not think of Christmastime as a particularly holy day in the church calendar. Christmas is a magical, miracle, beautiful time, but not too holy really, as least in the Protestant tradition.
The prayer: Be born in us today.
Our family doesn't do gifts, but we will assemble to church tonight to squeeze in, and will host a fine Christmas feast for 32 tomorrow at the Barrister homestead. The feast is the gift, bringing home-made foods are the gifts to eachother. Family, friends, and neighbors, coat and tie dress code including the youth, plenty of eggnog and good wines but no Festivus Pole.
Non-Christians, including the 5% of Americans who adhere to a non-Christian religion and the 18% who either claimed no religion at all or chose not to answer the pollsters, need to know about Christianity too. Religious education has pretty much fallen by the wayside in American life today. That’s a problem in more ways than one; I see the consequences all the time when students I teach – and policy makers and journalists I know – simply do not comprehend the cultural foundations of American politics and cannot understand the ways that so many people here and around the world are moved by religious values and ideas. I have taught a course on the relationship of American religious ideas to American foreign policy in some of our leading colleges, and I have had smart, well traveled and otherwise well-read students in that course who have never opened a Bible (or any other holy book) in their lives and simply had no idea why so many other people read and study it every day of their lives.
Indeed. FYI, Prof, I may be an older Ivy-Leaguer but I read a Bible verse each morning, contemplate it, and pray. Before the morning coffee. As I always say, it has never harmed me to follow that discipline. Find a church tonight, you agnostics and atheists and unbelievers, etc. It won't hurt you at all.
The Lord never promised us a rose garden. From Dr. Bob's post on Healing Faith:
We live in a time when our expectations of health, of prosperity, of a pain-free life are increasingly met in the physical realm, while we progressively become sickly, impoverished, and empty in the realm of the spirit. Despite our longer lives, we live in dread of death; despite our greater health, we obsess about our ills; despite our comfortable lives, we ache from an aimlessness and purposelessness which eats at our souls and deadens our spirits. Though we have at our command the means to kill our pain–to a degree never before seen in the history of the world–yet we have bargained away our peace in pursuit of our pleasure. The problem of pain has never been an easy one; in our day, it has not been solved, but rather worsened, by our delusions of perpetual comfort and expectations of a trouble-free life.
Until we come to terms with suffering, we will not have comfort; until we embrace our pain, peace will never be ours.
Tuesday night Tonight, Sunday, was the first night of the Hebrew month of Elul. This month is special in preparation for the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We search ourselves for our failings, commit to cease them, sincerely apologize to those we've harmed, and create new ways of behavior. The process is called Teshuvah, or return. This doesn't mean we have come all the way or achieved perfection, but rather we have made the sincere and real efforts to come closer to being and acting as we understand G-d desires for us.
When Moses ascended Mount Sinai for forty days to receive the Ten Commandments, G-d's Law, the Hebrews were fearful he wouldn't return and created a Golden Calf to worship and party. When Moses descended, in anger he smashed the tablets. G-d has not decided 'what to do with you,' and requires the Hebrews to abandon their former ways and corruptions of living as slaves in Egypt. G-d instructed Moses to again climb Mount Sinai to receive a replacement. Forty days later, during which time Moses asked of G-d to forgive the Hebrews' sin he was instructed that the Israelites repent of their weakness and faithfully observe certain holy days. Moses returned with the Ten Commandments and G-d's forgiveness.
The first day of Elul is the second time Moses went up on Mount Sinai, and 40-days later, when Moses returns, Yom Kippur, is when our fate is sealed based upon our acts.
It is not our sins toward G-d that most matters but our sins toward each other. A central reading during Yom Kippur is from Isaiah in which it is not our pieties that earn us G-d's favor but how we treat each other, particularly those more in need. Before our sins toward G-d can be forgiven, we must first earnestly strive for the fine balance of G-d's earthly standards of justice and mercy.
As distinct from holy days, like the Sabbath, during Elul we do not cease the work that can distract from our focus on G-d's way, or dress up to enter a sanctuary and pray our devotions as we would in entering the Lord's palace. We continue our mundane activities while our Lord is consciously invited into our fields to see how we daily live, correct and improve ourselves.
They are dying, and not very slowly. We have often posted on this topic. The reason is obvious: these churches have been co-opted, captured by soft or firm Lefties who have replaced the search for Truth for political attitudes. People want God, but they are delivering pet funerals.
I suppose you could call that one aspect of "the long march through the institutions." Non-profits and other sorts of do-gooder organizations are vulnerable to being corrupted by that sort of activism because they often attract a certain sort of person.
My Protestant church is bursting at the seams with tons of young couples and tons of little kids. I know our pastors pretty well, but have no idea what they think about any political or otherwise controversial topic. Nor do I care, because they view their job as one of saving souls through Christ and that's what they do. Lots of people hunger for that.
There are many reasons people take two hours on Sunday morning to go to church, but politics and trendy silliness are not among them.
Today... the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.
Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.
From Akasie: What Ails the Episcopalians - Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful:
General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order bottles of the finest wines.
During the day, legislators in the lower chamber, the House of Deputies, and the upper chamber, the House of Bishops, discussed such weighty topics as whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats, and whether to ratify resolutions condemning genetically modified foods. Both were approved by a vote, along with a resolution to "dismantle the effects of the doctrine of discovery," in effect an apology to Native Americans for exposing them to Christianity.
Re the latter, so much for mission work, I guess. "Gee, I'm sorry we told you about Jesus"! My view of ministry is simple. Preach the Word to all, visit the sick, inspire the marrying and comfort the bereaved. Mostly, preach the Word of God. What people decide to do with the lessons should be no concern of churches.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
(Photos tear at emotions. I purposely do not include any images in this post as emotions are far from enough to convey the individual stories or the brutalities.)
At sundown today begins the annual observance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. There are many museums, plaques, books that let today’s visitors get a glimpse of the horrors and the heroes of that time. As one passes through and on, what is often missed is the individual stories, the lost hopes and potentials, the personal exertions, the evils that were so common among men and women of many nationalities. The Nazis could not have killed so many without the work of those in conquered countries, some coerced, some bribed, some for their own salvation, many because of rife anti-Semitism. The Yad Veshem museum and memorials, including to Righteous Gentiles, outside Jerusalem, is a major repository of these individual stories. Visit the website.
The Holocaust needs to be remembered and restudied in every generation just because of its scale, and because of what it says about the thin veneer that separates now from then and now from recurrence. (It is not by coincidence that the week after Yom Hashoah is the celebration of Israel's Independence Day, Yom Ha'atzmaut.)
Below is a piece I wrote in 2006 that includes first-person accounts of what happened in a village near where much of my family perished.
"Central to the Pesach seder is the recounting of the ten plagues. As moderns educated in natural science, the story strikes us as childish, as primitive, as mythological. Yet we may be missing the point of these extraordinary events if we understand it as an ancient superstition. Instead the miracle is a symbol of the spontaneity in history, a faith in the changeability of oppressive regimes. What appears as a historical necessity, a small people subject to a great empire, is revealed as an illusion. God's miraculous intervention in Egypt presents history as an open-textured drama. There is an unpredictable Power present in the universe, the God of surprise.
"Belief in miracle is the basis of the "hope model" of Judaism. Exodus becomes a call to revolutionary hope regardless of the conditions of history. Out of this memory of redemption, they can defy the given conditions. The act of protest against their environment can occur because the Jews possess a memory of the impossible that became possible. The order that people observe in the cosmos and in history, is not irreversible. Tomorrow will not necessarily be like today."
So we repeat:
"In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt. Just as it says, 'You shall tell your child on that very day, It's because of this that God did for me when I went out from Egypt.' " (Exodus 13:8)
Is a life without some form of spiritual (I hate that word) communion a half-dead, or dead, life? Many who partake of it would say that it is. Christ offered "life in abundance" (John 10:10) - and he did not mean toys, money, entertainment, comforts, food, or trinkets.
We got on this topic of communion at my men's Bible group on Friday (we were reading Mark 14 - a key chapter in the NT).
I thought I had recalled that the communion had first been a reference to the communal meal at the end of the early house churchs' worships, of which, of course, bread and wine were part. A "love feast." A communion with Christ, or with brethren? Both, I'd suppose. It's all the same.
The Eucharist ("Thanksgiving") as a formal church ceremony and a sacrament to the Catholics emerged hundreds of years later. The communal, celebratory meal became a symbolic meal and then, in the Catholic Church, a miraculous meal as was made official dogma at the Council of Trent in the 1500s.
(In my Protestant church we do both the symbolic meal and a serious, carb-packed breakfast spread afterwards which I term "the cocktail party." No vino, however - because it's too early in the day for most of us.)
Christ's simple instructions, followed by the "Do this in remembrance of me" at the last supper (Passover) were altered versions of the Passover traditions, in which, in claiming His New Covenant of salvation and anticipating his death and resurrection, Christ related it to himself (I will not get into the topic of the Trinity because it's over my head, nor will I get into the symbolic cannibalistic imagery).
So a question we had in mind was whether the remembrance is for every meal, for communal meals, for special times like Passover (which my church celebrates with a traditional Passover meal, in silence), for church ceremonies - or even whether it might apply to our Bible study's coffee - but not to confuse Dunkin' Donuts with the church's Welch's Grape Juice. We also wondered whether the tone is best solemn, or celebratory (our church does the solemn).
As a Protestant, I tend to think Christ was asking to be remembered at every meal with brethren. However, I have been wrong often. I'd welcome any enlightenment on these topics from readers because I am probably wrong about much of this.
Most Protestants use these words, quoting Paul:
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again."
Image is Duccio's (Sienese, 1255-1319) Christ Entering Jerusalem. The piece below stolen in its entirety from our friend The Anchoress a few years ago:
Days that Shook the World, by Greg Kandra
April 9, 2006: Seven Days that Shook the World
After spending the last few weeks in the desert of Lent, suddenly we find ourselves in an oasis, clutching long leaves of palms.
But like so many things you see after being in the desert, it's a mirage. What we see, or think we see, is about to shift before our eyes.
Soon enough, the palms will be whips. The leaves will be thorns. Jubilation will become jeers. That is the paradox and the mystery of Holy Week.
The liturgies of this week are powerful and primal. In the days to come, there is silence and smoke, fire and water, shadow and light. We are a part of something both ancient and new, and what we do this week reminds us of that. The altar will be stripped. The cross will be venerated. The tabernacle will be emptied. The Blessed Sacrament will be moved. Bells will be stilled.
And yet here we stand, at the gates to Jerusalem, palms in our hands and hosannas on our lips, beginning the arduous trek to Calvary.
It is easy to be distracted by the events of the world, and not really pay attention to what we will do this week. Somewhere, wars are raging, and politicians are squabbling. Somewhere, Easter eggs are being sold, and chocolate is being inventoried, and plastic grass is lining wicker baskets.
But not here. Not now. Not yet.
This week, take the time to wonder about what we are doing, and what we are remembering.
For close to two thousand years, we have gathered like this, in places like this, to light candles and chant prayers and read again the ancient stories of our deliverance and redemption.
But are we aware of what we are doing? Do we understand what it means? Do we realize the price that was paid? A proper accounting is impossible. The ledger His life, for our souls seems woefully unbalanced.
So try this. This week, take a moment in each day that passes to wonder: What was He doing during this time of that one week all those centuries ago? What was crossing His mind on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday? What sort of anguish? What kind of dread?
Has anything we have ever worried about, or lost sleep over, or agonized about, even come close?
He was a man like us in all things but sin. He must have been terrified, His mind buzzing with questions. Long after the others had drifted off to sleep, did He stay awake and worry? Maybe He sat up alone, late at night, whittling a piece of wood, the way His father had taught Him, until a splinter sliced His skin, drawing a rivulet of blood. He might have flinched and thought: Well, this is nothing. And still it stings. How intense would the pain of death become? How long would it last? How much humiliation would He be forced to endure, stripped and bleeding? And: What about His mother? Is there anything He could do to spare her from this?
As you shop for Easter baskets and dye, think of this. Ponder this. Wonder about it. Make it a kind of prayer.
And then, remember what we are doing, and why.
Because, of all the calendars in all of human history, this is the week that changed the world.
From Part 5 of Takuan Seiyo's The Bee and the Lamb, a rambling but interesting essay at Gates:
What emanates now from important Christian leaders, not to speak of such bona fide faithful as the Johnson, Carter, Kennedy, Bush, Blair, Brown and Atlee names adduced in a previous chapter, is something entirely different: it is secular solipsism and utopian eschatology masquerading as enlightened Christianity. It harks back to 2nd century Gnostics and not to the great Christian thinkers of the Renaissance or Enlightenment. It’s the lamb lying down with the lion that’s still a lion. It’s redistributive socialism and minorities-exalting Progressive doctrine that has nothing to do with the recognition of God’s presence on Earth.
and
The glow of Jesus has come to us distorted by the distance light has to traverse over 2000 years to reach the here and now, bounced along the way off such cracked mirrors, bent copper pans and dented silver chalices that the Gospel writers and Church leaders have been, and all men are. It’s miraculous that unknown outside a little sliver of a remote, benighted province at its inception, and multiplexed with great noise as it has been since, the transmission has reached us at all. Admitting that we don’t know where the noise ends and the transcendent music begins could rebuild a stout foundation for a new Christian spirituality. “There lives more faith in an honest doubt,“ wrote one of the great 10-percenters of the 19th century, Alfred Tennyson, “than in half the creeds.”
"God has all the essential characteristics of what we mean by a “person,” in particular conscious awareness, the ability to recognize and the ability to love. In that sense he is someone who can speak and who can listen. That, I think, is what is essential about God. Nature can be marvelous. The starry heaven is stupendous. But my reaction to that remains no more than an impersonal wonder, because that, in the end, means that I am myself no more than a tiny part of an enormous machine. The real God, however, is more than that. He is not just nature, but the One who came before it and who sustains it. And the whole of God, so faith tells us, is the act of relating. That is what we mean when we say that he is a Trinity, that he is threefold. Because he is in himself a complex of relationships, he can also make other beings who are grounded in relationships and who may relate to him, because he has related them to himself."
I have attempted to lure readers with some Christmastime totty ( I just do not have it in me to post any half-nude hunky guys in Christmas outfits for our gal readers), but I would suppose that most Christians are now either frantic with last-minute gift- or food-shopping, or preparing for evening church services. 
The entirety of 
Tonight is the first night of Passover, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 also began on Passover.
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
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What emanates now from important Christian leaders, not to speak of such bona fide faithful as the Johnson, Carter, Kennedy, Bush, Blair, Brown and Atlee names adduced in a previous chapter, is something entirely different: it is secular solipsism and utopian eschatology masquerading as enlightened Christianity. It harks back to 2nd century Gnostics and not to the great Christian thinkers of the Renaissance or Enlightenment. It’s the lamb lying down with the lion that’s still a lion. It’s redistributive socialism and minorities-exalting Progressive doctrine that has nothing to do with the recognition of God’s presence on Earth.