December 2024

• The header is my design for the four Sundays of Advent. All of them were in December this year!

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary blog for December

• Friday 06 December :: donut and celestial seasonings tea in the same red cup as October's. Did I mention the Asian-owned Los Amigos Donut Shop? This is Los Angeles!

• Saturday 07 December :: Advent and Christmas decorating, lunch, and games at the West Los Angeles church

• Saturday 14 December :: Christmas Tree Decorating, Lunch, and Concert at Christ the King in Torrance. I'm opening with red poinsettias and a solo Christmas Tree. I wish I'd counted how many trees there were! This is one of the only ones I captured with a fairly clean background.

• They served lunch in the narthex—my fave, build your own sandwich with condiments, etc. We ate at tables around the labyrinth.

• The lovely concert featured two keyboard players on both piano and organ and a vocalist. We had dessert afterwards, and I won a consolation prize of a Nativity ornament in the drawing.

• If you use google photos you may know they provide templates we can use to create collages, and google AI sometimes makes surprise collages using templates not available to the general public (that would be us). This 15-picture arrangement provides a perfect overview of the day.

• Monday 16 December :: Los Angeles has some stunning sunsets, but I'm not often there to see them and I sometimes don't trust my phone camera enough. It was almost the winter solstice when I captured this nearby sky.

• Tuesday 24 December :: Christmas Eve at Mount Olive ELCA in Santa Monica; I was organist for the German service and then I attended the family service with music by the semi-resident jazz band. This is another google AI collage that perfectly expresses the mood around campus.

• Wednesday 25 December :: Christmas Day worship and a sumptuous dinner at LA Bread of Life Foursquare Church in mid city LA. It's an actual storefront!

• Wednesday evening 25 December :: Christmas evening dinner in Inglewood—no pictures

• The First Sunday of Christmas 29 December :: Informal Lessons and Carols and Eucharist in West LA—no pictures

• Monday 30 December the Sixth Day of Christmas :: mid-afternoon lunch with friends; here are two views of our salad

House Five

House Four

House Three

House Two

House One

The First Sunday of Christmas

Here's a talk I gave on the first Sunday of Christmas 2021. I promised myself no edits or additions except for obvious errors, but I've added new illustrations. Because I used notes and not a script, this is approximately what I said. What would i say about Christmas music and food today, three years later? What would you say?

Intro

The pastor asked three of us to share our testimony of Christmas for the proclamation on the Sunday after Christmas: where do we find Jesus, the Christ child?

During this time of the year the northern hemisphere experiences more night than it does day, we first observe the advent season of waiting for, hoping for, and expecting the birth of Jesus, light of the world. We don't know the actual month or day of Jesus' birth, but the early church wisely calendared it at the winter solstice that also coincided with the Mithric Feast of the Unvanquished Sun. Jesus, Son of Righteousness spelled with an "o" also is the Sun of Righteousness spelled with a "u" who is Light of our Lives. After Advent and Nativity, the day and then the season of Epiphany continue with Jesus as light to all.

Martin Luther particularly loved the New Testament book of Titus. The anonymous author tells us, "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all." [Titus 2:11a] Jesus is that light-filled grace, our grace-filled light.

Nativity Prayer

Root of Jesse, Son of Heaven, Mary's Child.
Cradle of Joy, Word in the Manger, Astonishing Gift.
Lord of Creation, Abundant Promise, Dayspring of Peace.
Be with us here in this place;
make us shepherds of your grace.
May our lives season the world with salt;
Nurture our neighbors with leaven;
Light a path to show your way.
In your name we pray—
Amen!

Valley Winter Song – excerpt

You know the summer's coming soon
Though the interstate chokes under salt and dirty sand
And it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
And late December can drag a person down

[While] the snow is falling down
In our New England town
What else is new?
What could I do?

I wrote a Valley Winter Song
To play for you.

by Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger

Christmas in this Valley 1

So sang Fountains of Wayne in a song LL Bean gave lots of airplay to in a commercial during 2008. In these days of endless pandemic in a different valley on the other coast, besides Jesus light of the world and the created lights of sun, moon, and stars, what brightens our days better than music?

Music in church and on the street is a huge part of December's identity and festivities. Even people with no experience of clinical depression typically have a lower mood during the winter months. Have you ever heard a song or a symphony that instantly gave you hope? Today I'll mention two major pieces of music and a recurring event that always bring the grace and hope of Jesus into my world.

Along with a few million others across the centuries, Handel's oratorio The Messiah is a December perennial for me. Especially the opening solo for tenor from Isaiah 40 with its announcement, "Comfort Ye, My People – Every Valley Shall be Exalted." Our God. God's people. My second concert-type composition that takes a trained university or professional choir is the Christmas Cantata by Daniel Pinkham, a Boston area composer and church musician who lived during the mid-twentieth century.

My recurring event is [Scripture] Lessons and Carols that can take many forms. We had a participatory Lessons and Carols here on Christmas Eve; this morning on the first Sunday of Christmas it's Lessons, Testimony, and Carols. When I lived on the east coast, as an undergrad at Boston University I sprung for the free tickets people needed to enjoy Lessons and Carols at Harvard's Memorial Church. I believe they presented it three times each year back then, but it was so popular you still needed a ticket.

Later on when I was a seminarian across the river from Boston University, at Lessons and Carols I often ran into classmates or friends I hadn't seen in a long time due to our schedules and because days and months pass so fast. That became a time we'd resolve to get together first of the new year, which always happened.

Christmas in this Valley 2

Besides music, as we celebrate the nativity with God born in Bethlehem as a baby formed out of created stuff from the earth, what is Christmas without all that special yummy food? What you enjoy depends somewhat on your current place on the planet along with traditional winter holiday foods of your home country or home region, or maybe what your grandparents and great grands considered necessary for Christmas feasts with friends and families.

Food also has got to be the best ever Christmas present because in itself it's a gift of creation. From my perspective, giftable foods ideally are things like home baked cookies or quick breads or homemade jam, preserves, or pickles. Maybe home brew, if there's a brewer in your household. These days supermarkets, specialty shops, and farmer's markets offer a whole lot of tasty food. They're a live option if you won't or don't bake or can or brew.

Outro

What else can we do but sing and play valley winter songs to brighten lives and remind us of Jesus in our midst? We can create and enjoy culinary gifts of creation. Grace has come to the entire world in Jesus; many of us know grace and glory and joy through music and because of edible gifts from the earth.

• What's your favorite Christmas music?

• What Christmas food is an absolute necessity?

Five Minute Friday :: Long

Being lost is worth the coming home.

Other times I've blogged about home include:

• Almost three years ago I said a lot of what I still need to say today

• Nine years ago an October Freewrite about home with quotes from songs about home


• Five Minute Friday :: Long Linkup

• God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

It's been a long time and a long distance. Because I can't stop longing for home. Glancing back, I knew I'd come out in a broad place before long. Did I estimate the length of long? Not out loud, but if you'd asked me, I'd have suggested three or four years.

Three or four years earlier, at the invitation of a long time close friend, I'd made my way from the intermountain west to the east coast. After our phone conversations, I believed I'd be starting life over near her. Well, that didn't work out for even a few minutes, but I wistfully remember the feeling of heading for home I had as I drove across prairies and cities and hilly places.

The home we long for can mean returning to a previous town, city, or dwelling, or journeying toward somewhere for the first time ever. Will I know if I'm there? It feels to me that home must include a physical house or apartment, a roof overhead. But isn't homecoming what we really and truly long for? I mean, people who quote Phillip Phillips' song Home, "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home."

Deep in our hearts, we long for the hugs and the smiles. The shared meals. Affirmations of our dreams, our calling, our gifts and preparation. Encouragement for our longing to use our talents and abilities. We long for and we need somewhere and someone to come home to at the end of the day, whether the day has been disappointingly short or agonizingly long.

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me. # # #

Five Minute Friday :: Stuff

• Five Minute Friday :: Stuff Linkup

The snow duck is so cute!

My first take on this week's prompt was memories of cultural anthropology professor Tim searching for the proper word and finally coming up with "stuff" for the topic under discussion. Stuff encompasses a whole lot of tangibles and intangibles. I even have a "life stuff" label or tag for this blog.

Ya know what? I really really enjoy much of life's stuff that tends to collect and pile up (on its own and by itself of course). Some of that stuff, those things, are helpful or utilitarian, but usefulness aside, pieces that excite me tend to be colorful and/or visually appealing. That means quilts, dishes, paintings and other wall art. It means clothes I wear every day or only occasionally. Sweaters, dresses, scarves!

What's my pleasure for blogging today's stuff? Notice my header image features imperfect flowers and the font for STUFF is eroded. But what stuff will I write about? Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected, open-ended futures.

We're again into the quiet season of Advent. Advent in the global North happens as winter moves in, as we anticipate the shortest day, longest night. As we anticipate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, the light of the world. First-born from the dead.

Jesus' eventual followers never imagined the type of Savior he would be. Religious higher-ups couldn't cope with his faithfulness to Torah that yet turned upside down their stilted interpretations. He confounded governmental leaders. But Jesus' earthly ministry was only the beginning. At least in their heads, most knew the thread of death and resurrection that weaves through the Hebrew scriptures, but the lived reality of new life, revitalized stuff of every kind from the ashes of the old? Memories are short. Comprehension not exactly comprehensive.

Doesn't that sound like us? This isn't the way it needs to be. This isn't how it always will be. Did you know winter is necessary for some flowers to bloom? So necessary that if winter isn't cool enough or dark enough in that location, you need to imitate colder darker days for newness ever to be.

Flowers and veggies and fruits, yes! What about communities, countries, individuals, movements, ideas that need to winter before they spring to life?

Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected futures!

Are you letting the stuff of your hopes and dreams hibernate so it can blossom and bloom? Is your future stuff worth letting this present winter for a while? Whether it's material like quilts and clothing, spiritual like closer connections to the Spirit, career-related like increased opportunities for service and change, all that stuff sometimes needs to be ignored for a season for unexpected, open-ended futures. Wintering is part of practicing resurrection! Really!

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November and Autumn 2024

• September 2024 Summary

• October Rundown

• Urban Wilderness City Paradise Lectionary Blog for November

• As you can see, I'm still blogging some of my favorite art and design here. I like the idea of simplifying, though it's not exactly one single place for everything because I still have the separate lectionary blog and I'll always have design and music websites.

• A lively autumn bouquet from All Saints Sunday at Christ the King in Torrance

• Tuesday 05 November and voting was…well, we're losing the free press but we still have the secret ballot. At least I need to trust we do.

• A few more Sunday trips to West LA; these pictures are from 10 and 17 November.

• Although I joined in spring 2023 with the phone before my current one, I've been getting more active on BlueSky.

• A spectacular bouquet of posies on the kitchen table

• Again this year (as in 2021) I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Mount Olive in Santa Monica; here's a greenery group from the venue.

• A thanksgiving dinner on Monday
• A surprise thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday! (first picture)
• Another on Wednesday! (second picture – leftovers from Monday)
• Last picture is from the actual Day of Giving Thanks

• Each table had a bouquet of pink roses and small sunflowers that didn't photograph well because of background noise. But here they are gathered together afterwards!

Five Minute Friday :: Trade

Star of India moored in San Diego Bay

• Five Minute Friday :: Trade Linkup

Trade implies a degree of exchange or reciprocity between parties. I frequently consider how critical free trade is to both global and local economies, yet most of the time we live at the micro level, where we cannot survive unless we can trade services for goods, or maybe use cash or a card to get what we need. (All of this fascinates me (undergrad economics major))!

As of this blogging, the Customs and Border Patrol agency of my country, the USA, has fourteen free trade agreements. USMCA has replaced the easier to pronounce NAFTA arrangement that's central to the ongoing overall friendship amongst Canada, USA, and Mexico.

The European Union has dozens of free trade agreements in place or being negotiated—along with a few on hold for now. Notice the word free or unimpeded, because those covenants have no teeth without some way to transport and receive products or commodities. In addition, excessive tariffs lessen the utility of the agreements. Dockworker strikes interfere with off- and on-loading. When truckers and railroad employees strike, when weather doesn't cooperate, if for any reason that first mile and beyond from the container ship goes on hold, trade slows and sometimes stops.

…they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan Genesis 11:31

Ever since Abram and Sarai left Ur of the Chaldees to pursue God's promise of land and progeny, dissemination of people and goods (and some bads—opium trade? cross border fentanyl crisis?) with the ability to engage outside producers and their products has helped grow civilization in general and been instrumental to achieving higher living standards.

Even in this twenty-first century, even more than rail, air, or roads, ships remain primary to getting the goods where they need to go. But ships – or the people on them – especially trade ideas! Exchange languages. Move people with their embedded cultures from an original or inbetween place to a new location. As delightful as that new goodie from IKEA can be, as much as our work and play require a particular up to date electronic device, learning our neighbors' way of life, their manner of speaking, their culinary delights – as they learn ours – is one of the best ways we connect, become community, and ultimately become friends—not strangers! What a trade!

What's your take on trade today?

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Five Minute Friday :: Fight

• Five Minute Friday :: Fight Linkup

I have fought the good fight
I have finished the race
I have kept the faith

Henceforth there is reserved for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me at that day:
and not to me only, but unto all who have loved his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8

Summer of Y2K and I'd be returning to the West Coast after another sojourn on the East Coast. At my request, Pastor-Missioner Mike wrote a letter of reference for me. I suggested to him it was a "bit much" (of course I didn't deny any of his accolades) and it might overwhelm strangers reading it and considering my employment or other participation, so he helpfully updated it. I still have that letter grouped with some others from that time period. I haven't looked at any of them for a long while and I don't remember much of what anyone said, but I do remember and I can tell you Mike described me as "faithful." Wow! And by grace I have been faithful.

The crown of righteousness sounds beautiful. My illustration is gold, but I'm thinking instead of precious metal it really will be intertwined fresh green laurel leaves, maybe with accents of colorful wild flowers. All of that possible because humans have been faithfully caring for creation. And those who will receive one alongside me, those I'll join in community?

You probably know the love described as agape that's unconditional, inclusive, divine love, like the love of God. The end of my scripture selection from 2 Timothy is about people who have agape-ed or loved (and longed for and welcomed) Jesus' appearing – the Greek says his epiphany! – with the kind of love we find in the heart of God. As my concluding song stanza says, they will have followed the word and followed the Word because they know all humanity claims kinship of being created in the divine image.

Well, one day soon we all will stand
God's word will be heeded in all the land
All shall know and all shall see
We all are kindred and we all are free
Humankind was made of clay
Each of us in the very same way
Get ready, people, for that day!

Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow

Today's "fight" prompt is a good fit for what I wrote on my scripture blog this week:

• Reign of Christ 2024