The Obama Family didn't go to church on Christmas. So what?

A Very Glee Christmas!

What?

The 4th Day of Christmas and people are getting bitchy again.

I live across the street from an old Lutheran church which is now a Seventh Day Adventist church.  Seventh Day Adventists, and some other Protestant denominations that do not have liturgical worship do not always celebrate Christmas.  Seventh Day Adventists do not decorate for Christmas nor do they have services on Christmas.

Obama is a Protestant and hardly ever goes to church.  My point is that many non-liturgical Protestants do not go to church on Christmas - even when their church celebrates Christmas.  And just remember, the Reagan's* rarely went to church.  Therefore all the criticism of Obama is little more than angry rants.

I think this is despicable. It also shows what is happening under the godless Obama Administration… who did not go to Church on Christmas, even though last week he (hypocritically?) said we should remember the religious dimension of Christmas.  BAH!

That was in reaction to a VA Hospital banning religious Christmas Carols.

If they tell you not to sing religious Christmas carols, sing non-religious Christmas songs -  it's Christmas.  No one is saying you can't celebrate Christmas.  Still a problem?

Then sing The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Religious people claim that is what they did in England when Christmas was suppressed.**

Anyway.  I've been in hospital situations when Carolers come through.  It's nice ... But sing something else Christmassy if those are the rules.  Don't make trouble at Christmas - it kind of cancels out the joy.

Have another drink Faddah. 


* President Reagan was the darling of the religious right, yet he never went to church, except for funerals, and regularly consulted and followed the advice of astrologers. (Source)


** Maybe not.  "In 1979, a Canadian hymnologist, Hugh D. McKellar, published an article, "How to Decode the Twelve Days of Christmas", claiming that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" lyrics were intended as a catechism song to help young Catholics learn their faith, at a time when practising Catholicism was criminalized in England (1558 until 1829). McKellar offered no evidence for his claim and subsequently admitted that the purported associations were his own invention.  The idea was further popularized by a Catholic priest, Fr. Hal Stockert, in an article he wrote in 1982 and posted online in 1995.  In 1987 and 1992, Fr. James Gilhooley, chaplain of Mount Saint Mary College of Newburgh, New York repeated these claims. None of the enumerated items would distinguish Catholics from Protestants, and so would hardly need to be secretly encoded."

The good old days!

Remember how religious the

Bob Hope Christmas Specials 

used to be?  He'd never fail to

entertain the troops

with religious sermons

and Christmas carols.

What?

 

 

A & E caves? Welcomes Phil Robertson back?

Not.

He was never gone.  It was all about marketing.

The network and the Robertson family announced Friday that Phil will still be part of the series -- and since he didn't miss any filming, his temporary suspension will have no effect on the upcoming fifth season. - Source

A & E knows how to spike ratings. 

Bloggers we've lost in 2013: A look back ...

 

Oh - and those readers I've lost or who dropped me from their sidebar.

 

Nelson's List.

I will list the names and the reason why they rejected, dropped, turned on me.  I want them all to know I don't blame them.



Larry D at Ax of the Apostasy

Stopped blogging, commenting, dropped off the face of the earth.

Cathy at Recovering Dissident

Never heard from again after I accused her of conspiring to abduct me.

Fr. Mark of Downtown Meath Abbey

I think it may have been something I said.

Doughboy

God only knows.

Kat of Crescat Prickly Pines blog

Bad ads made her crazy and she attacked me.

Fr. @ WDTPRS

I may never know.  What?

Fr. Frank

Not sure.  I think it was a photo-shoot I set up on apparitions after a storm.

Fr. Joe

Not a clue.

Random Friar

I have no idea.

Badger Catholic

Jealous.  Envious.

Adoro Te Devote

I was always wrong about something.

Dymphna

Just didn't like me.

Michael R.

Died.

Shadowlands

Died.

Jeffrey

Not black enough.

Maria B.

Just showed up in the combox.

Frank of San Francisco

Not gay enough.

Anonymous blogger(s)

Too gay. 

Bill B.

The intellectual quality of my writing has slipped.

Suburban Blogger

Unsuitable and creepy.

Kitty Bauble

Too black. 

Paul S.

Does not want to be associated with this blog.

Owen S.

Not interested.

Heather King

Not her style.

Enbrethiliel

Much too illiterate for her.

Affluent Bloggers of Style

Much too low-class and homophobic. 

Tonto

Blackballed. Blackballed. Blackballed.

Ace

Doesn't like my commenters.

Mack

Doesn't like the attitude.

David S.

I think I know.

Michael Bayly

He's on hiatus.

Ray M.

Doesn't want to be associated with this blog.

Puppy and Kitty

I'm just not sure.

John Corapi

He dropped everybody.

Cathy from Chicago

I'm not sure.

Henry

Bored.

Truman

Hates me.

Leona Whittie

Not traditional enough.

Joan and Company

Were not happy to read about themselves on my blog.  

. . . 

The list goes on...

I was reading my archives hoping to reuse some old posts and couldn't help notice some of the commenters no longer come around.  I wonder what happened to them?  Not that I expect them to still be reading this blog, much less leave comments, I couldn't help but think about the many people I have met over the years - friendships won and lost.  I could post more names and reasons why I think they dropped me - or me them - but I don't want to get anyone upset. 

I really only did this list just for fun, not to start anything.  It could be a very funny post if I listed more sites and bloggers with the real reasons I think they had for dropping me.  Leaving well enough alone, if I left anyone out, my apologies. 

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently …” — Steve Jobs 

So yeah - crazy people make better bloggers.

Happy Christmas!

Art: Michael Sowa

Maybe you're mental.

What?


Is it just me, or are people kinda nuts?

Online.

People online.

I mean blogger types. 

You know - religious fanatics who blog.

Anyway.

I crack up when people say 'mental'.

As an adult, Ed Grimley revived my love for the term.

"Makes me completely mental."

Or,

"Don't you know."


Now laugh like Lola Heatherton.

View Lola's Christmas Special here!

 

 

 

Okay.

Now ask yourself this:  "Do you blog to live?  Or do you live to blog?"

Either way, it's kind of sad, huh? 

There is no right answer.

What?

Catalan Art and thoughts about that ...

Catalan Nativity

 

Paysage Catalan - Miro

 

Altar Screen, Las Trampas, New Mexico

 

 

 

I love Catalan art.

 

I see a continuity between the early religious iconography with modern artists such as Joan Miro.  I also see a connection with the early Catalan iconography and our Native American religious iconography as found in the Southwest United States. 

 

At one point in history, Church officials tried to get rid of the simple retablo style in churches in New Mexico, but the people never let it go and the form has been revived and greatly admired.  It is truly an authentic American art form.

 

I included the Miro because of the simplicity of line and color.  I also wanted to mention something I noticed this winter.  My storm windows frost up when it gets especially cold, -0.  Curiously, some of the windows formed crystal patterns similar to the work of Joan Miro - circles, straight lines, check marks, and other geometric shapes.  I like to study the frost patterns on windows, especially when they are opulent floral and fauna patterns, but the geometric shapes surprised me this year.  All of the shapes and lines were composed fractals - each line possessed minuscule fractal 'fringe' - but from a short distance, they appeared to be clean straight lines.

 

I think it is very good to study nature very closely, minutely, even microscopically, it is so beautiful.  You can get lost in wonder.  I think that is what it means to 'stop and smell the flowers'.  You can see the cosmos, the entire creation reflected in the smallest ice crystal. 

 

I think that we can understand many things in modern art or primitive art, using nature as a reference.

 

Not long ago I saw a news story about a horse who paints.  The horse's paintings look amazingly similar to a local artist's work I viewed at Saachi Online.  I have to admit I preferred the horse's work to the artist's work.  That said, thanks to the horse, I understood the artist's work better.

 

 

A horse who paints.

 

Christmas truce...

Peace online.

Christmastime means it's quiet online.  Not many people are online - probably because many are off work Christmas week, and they have a lot going on.  That's good, because it makes for a sort of truce - no com box fights because there are fewer contentious posts.  Things should pick up after the weekend, or at least after New Year's.

I was wondering last night why we get so upset over what people write on their blogs?

 

Third day of Christmas

What is it?

My apologies - I missed Festivus.and I didn't want to screw this one up too.

What?

Boxing Day!

Tired of being told how you should celebrate Christmas?  Or what Christmas is all about?  Or 10 things you should know about nothing? 

What?

"I beg your pardon!

Why that is not what Boxing Day

means at all!"

 

The Feast of Stephen

 

 

 

St. Stephen the Deacon

Ulisse Sartini

 

 

The second day of Christmas.

I have not had to run into burning schools or put my life at risk, and my complaints about ill treatment are generally little more than privileged whines. Nor do I want to be a martyr, if it can be at all avoided. The point, though, is not whether we die for Christ but whether we are willing to die for Christ. If it’s love, it’s total. There’s no middle way when it comes to the romance of faith. - Read the rest at Christmas, Suffering and the Cross

 

Christmas Day

 

Oh, that you were my brother, 

nursed at my mother's breasts!

If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you

and none would taunt me.

  

I would lead you, bring you in

 to the home of my mother.

 There you would teach me to give you

 spiced wine to drink and pomegranate juice. - Song of Songs 8

 

 

Art:  Virgin de la Leche with Infant Jesus and St. Bernard, Peru c. 1680, Peyton-Wright

What pilgrims and beggars and shepherds do on Christmas Eve ...

 

 

Shepherds, you who go

up through the sheepfolds to the hill,

if by chance you see

him I love most,

 tell him I am sick, I suffer, and I die.

- St. John of the Cross

I love the anticipation of Christmas Eve - nothing can restrain love!

"When peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven's royal throne bounded...  And as he alighted... he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth." - Wisdom 18: 14-16 

Wishing all of my readers and friends a very blessed Christmas...  happy and merry!  Thank you for all of your kindness and generosity towards me.  I pray the Little Jesus grant you every grace and blessing.  

Christmas Novena: Day 8

“'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad ...'"


Everything is mine... Christ is mine.  The Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph and all the angels and saints are mine.  Mine are the heavens and all the earth and everything created, 'God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is all mine and all for me'. - John of the Cross

Nothing else matters.

 

Christmas Novena: Day 7

Some people really dread Christmas.

For some it is really hard.

Some desperately seek shelter

from all the happiness ...

Prayer*

O Jesus, Who has said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened," through the intercession of Mary, Your Most Holy Mother, I knock, I seek, I ask that my prayer be granted.   O Jesus, Who has said, "All that you ask of the Father in My Name, He will grant you," through the intercession of Mary Your Most Holy Mother, I humbly and urgently ask your Father in your name that my prayer will be granted.   O Jesus, Who has said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away but My word shall not pass away," through the intercession of Mary Your Most Holy Mother, I feel confident that my prayer will be granted.

*Popularly known as the 9 hour emergency novena, particular requests are made after each invocation.


Art: Joseph and Mary, Arrival at Bethlehem. Olivier L. Merson

What the Angel told St. Joseph...

Virgin of the Sign

Behold a virgin shall conceive,

and bear a son,

and his name shall be called...

Emmanuel. - Is. 7:14

Is the same as what the Angel said to Ahaz.