Happy New Year with - ABBA?

I promise this will be the only ABBA song in 2009.

Silent Night (Christmas Music)

It seems Fred and I have the same favorite Christmas song. This lovely arrangement is in both English and German. Enjoy, and a blessed Christmas to all.

Lynn K. & Fred S.

Christmas And Children

Have you ever shared a hospital emergency room with a child?  Ever visited a foreign country like Viet Nam or Laos or Cambodia or Nigeria or India where children suffer from malnourishment?  Were you aware that each and every day between 20,000 and 27,000 children die from hunger each and every day?  When was the last time you went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet?  Sounds pretty basic but when you did that two miracles happened!  Your plumbing swept away about 40 diseases and incubation problems and it was done with running water!  Both of those luxuries most people in the world DO NOT enjoy.  So guess what, we have three basic needs met (food, water and health) and most of the time we do not even think about them.  

Your thinking to yourself, well what is this crazy person trying to do?  Ruin my Christmas?  After all it is Christmas and I am trying to get ready with and for my family.  How is it that someone is trying to intrude on my Christmas with all this depressing talk of hunger and death?  And, you ask yourself, how is this my concern?  Well, first, Matthew 25 tells us it is our concern.  And yes, statistics show that the wealthiest 4,000 people of the United States could wipe out hunger almost over night, if they chose to do so.  But they do not and so we, as the Good Samaritan are the next best thing, maybe the only next thing.  

And, yes, it is Christmas!

Yes, there was no room at the inn when Mary and Joseph arrived and so the innkeeper shared a stable with them.  You are busy and we all know it.  Certainly you cannot change the fact there was no room at the inn but you can, today, make room in your heart.  You can dedicate a small piece of your heart to the Christ.  (Suffer the little children).  And now you ask how can I do that?  Well there are many organizations all over the globe but I am going to suggest just one.  http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/about/who-we-are?OpenDocument&lpos=top_drp_AboutUs_WhoWeAre  Yep, it is World Vision  Adopt a child or give a goat but this Christmas add to your wish list the ending of world hunger -- and then adopt a child.  Don't like this one, find one you do like and support it.   Don't let another child go to bed crying from hunger.  Let's make this a Christmas to remember!

Fourth Sunday Music

The mellow voice of Josh Groban singing My Confession, with scenes from The Nativity.

Second Class Citizens

It has been a month since Proposition 8 passed.  I do not know about you but I am unwilling to go back to the way it was.  In fact, the word on the street is that the "suspicious church burning" in Wasilla (Sarah Palin's hometown) had something to do with the LGBT community.  What an incredible assumption! So, as you can see, some think we are back to status quo.   Until full rights are guaranteed to all classes of people we need to do what we can to move the discussion to that point.

I looked for this song in video format and I am disappointed to say I could not find it.  If someone can locate it for me please let me know.  In the meantime:  Thank you Peter, Paul and Mary.

Jesus is on the Wire

JESUS IS ON THE WIRE
(Thea Hopkins)

Run down church
Red clay
River covered
In a smoky haze

Sunday morning
The fire is out
Sunday morning
No one about


The earth is soft
This time of year
Boots get caked
From there to here

Down the road
Route 25
They found this boy
He was barely alive

Jesus is on the wire
So far away, higher and higher
Jesus is on the wire

They took him down
Off the fence
Cold as ice
Almost dead
They said that he
That he slept with guys
They said that he
Deserved to die

Jesus is on the wire
So far away, higher and higher
Jesus is on the wire

Come Holy Ghost (Sunday Music)

An interesting twist on Martin Luther's hymn, "Come Holy Ghost, Come God and Lord," by Paula Best and Tara Ward. From the Church of the Beloved, Edmond, WA.

Follow the link...it will open in a new window. Hope for a Tree Cut Down

God sent me an Episcopal priest*

My friend Lee is dying: dying of end-stage, decompensated cirrhosis of the liver. Impending death always tears at your heart, but this one is a bit too close to mine. My late ex - Chuck - died the same way, and I suppose it could have happened to me, too.

I didn't want to go to the hospital today, but I had to go for him and his wonderful Lady M. There were a lot of things the lovely M. needed to know - most of all that she didn't have the power to stop the lure of the bottle, and that no love is strong enough to save someone driving 75 on the 55 MPH path of self-destruction.

So I called a friend for an update on Lee's condition, and took the long way to the hospital. I know that hospital, all too well. But when I walked into Lee's room to say hello, there sat a man in a clerical collar - chatting with my atheist friend. This man was a stranger to me, visiting after work as a neighbor and friend of the family. "What denomination," I asked, and it just so happens the answer was "Episcopalian." Things do just happen, at exactly the right time, every now and again.

My time with that priest was a very small bit of my visit, as a few minutes later he left for home. Before he left, he said a simple prayer for Lee's family and caregivers, and even slipped in a quick word for the patient. Lee chuckled and asked, "I don't know what to say, you slipped that in pretty fast!" I looked at the priest, and then grinned at Lee saying: "The correct response is 'Lord, hear our prayer.'" Sometimes there's nothing like an inside joke to give you a little strength.

As I sit here, I know God managed quite a two-for-one deal in that hospital today, sending a man who could be both neighbor to Lee and priest for me. Perhaps someone was praying for me? So, let us all pray today, to know the small gifts that come our way in troubled times. For life, and for the living, and for all who fight death and despair. For love remembered, and love's gifts yet to come. For inside jokes to keep us laughing along the way.

Lord, hear our prayer.

*Actually, I think this was all Scott's doing. He has this pesky habit of praying for me every time I ask. Thanks, my friend.