Glad Mary did not live in Ohio during her journey. Temperature this orning was -4 and wind chill of -33! None of the Gospels state that Mary rode a donkey on the way to Bethlehem.
We do know the journey was about 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We also know that most people tended to travel together in groups to provide more protection against robbers, bandits, and wild animals. We also know that Mary very shortly after they arrived which means she was heavily pregnant, and Jesus was full term. Every expecting parent knows the last two months of pregnancy are the hardest on women. Their backs ache, their joints hurt, as do their feet. Any task like rolling over in bed, putting on shoes, or walking can be tough to maneuver. Especially when you can’t even see your feet. It’s likely she didn’t walk the entire way. Aside from walking, other common modes of transportation would have included horses, camels, donkeys, or some sort of cart drawn by a horse. However, Joseph was not a rich man which means he did not have the means to purchase horses or camels. He likely had his own donkey or may have even borrowed a donkey for Mary to ride upon during the journey to Bethlehem.
As we sit in the comfort of our well heated homes, surrounded by gifts and foods, friends and relatives, I pray we remember it was not so for the mother of our Lord. Getting to Bethlehem would have been an arduous journey at that stage in her pregnancy. His birth occurred in the humblest of surroundings.
What have you prepared for Jesus? Does He have a place of prominence in your heart and home? Do you honor Him in your very life? Is there an altar of worship in you heart?
Seeing this humorous story, I was glad that Mary had a larger donkey than this to ride!
As we celebrate the birth of Christ I would love for you to listen to this wonderful song by Andrew Peterson!
No one told this Dad to never, ever wake a sleeping baby!
We are about to celebrate a baby coming into the world. He is the Savior of the world. He will come again in glory as our Judge. He was born in a dirty, messy stable to a young girl.
Here is a photo of Emily meeting Jeff for the first time. Wish now it was a video!
She was delighted to have real live baby!
These videos are American births in sterile hospitals. Not at all like His birth. Yet there is something about babies that melt most our hearts. These funny videos of big sisters and big brothers meeting their new babies for the first time. If you need a laugh and a little refreshment this week, these 10 minutes are for you!
Love Peterson’s song “Not a Silent Night.” It was not a lovely place to be born. Saint Francis created the creche scene to teach about the birth of Christ. In what ever way you picture it, may you adore Him and make room in your heart for Him to rule and reign until He returns to take us home!
The city of Corrales, New Mexico had their 34th annual juried craft show on Saturday morning at the historic Old San Ysidro church which has been decommissioned. Dan and Bob dropped Betty and me off to browse the show and shop while they went to get coffee and chat together.
There was handmade jewelry, hand painted silk shawls, paintings, ceramics, porcelain dishes, amazing photographs, gourd art, icons, jams, notecards, wood work, creations made with old sewing machine parts, fold art quilted hangings, metal outdoor sculptures and more.It was amazing.
I found this tumbler made by Jenn Noel. I hemmed and hawed. I wanted the smaller design, but the only one on display had hand pinched places. I talked myself out of the tumbler. We left the show.
And then I thought about the glaze all evening. And I could not forget it. I searched for her work on line. And drooled again over that amazing “sunset” glaze.
To indulge me, Bob said we could return to the craft show after church the next day and see if the item I liked was still available. It certainly was! I walked up to Jenn, the artist, and told her I thought about her work all night and especially that glaze. The piece I admired was still there!! Sold! Next challenge is to get it home in one piece!If you are still Christmas shopping, the good news is Jenn has free shipping for the few weeks left building up to Christmas. Click on https://temperedearthfarms.com/collections/all/handmade-pottery?sort_by=manual
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
The older I get the more lessons I learn about growing old. Case in point, I recently had to fill my evening pillbox in the bathroom at bedtime. I use 4 pillboxes daily, (breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime). Somehow I had run out of evening medication before it was time to fill all the pillboxes at once. I hauled out the medication and prepared to fill the box for a one week supply.
When I got to the Losartan, described as ‘elliptical green tablet’, the open bottle slipped from my hand and spilled all over the bathroom floor. I closed the door to keep Lucky out while I scooped up tablets. I amused myself thinking, “If the Losartan seems hairy in your mouth it is likely due to dog shedding and Molly shedding!” I wanted to be careful to get all of them lest the dog get one and eat it. Her blood pressure has not been an issue so she does not need the medication! I am grateful that the medication regulates my blood pressure so it is not an issue for me either!
As I continued to get ready for bed I realized the lump in the new shag rug was yet another tablet, and another tablet. Pharmaceuticals can camouflage! Who knew? The color of the rug is actually more lovely than this image of the pill. I finally shook the rug in the shower stall in an attempt to retrieve all of them. In case you are too young to know, the insurance company keeps track of how many pills are dispensed by the pharmacy and will not cover the cost of extras if you lose a few to the bathroom floor.
A few days later I had cause to mop the bathroom floor. I took up the rug and began to sweep up any loose hair or dirt. Voila! There were 3 more tablets against the edge of the cabinet that I had missed. Yikes. Glad the dog did not find them or find them tasty. “Hairy blood pressure regulator.” Never saw that from a Doc!
Senior citizen with hands that sometimes do not grasp, spilled pills, likely missed more than a few on the first pass, and second pass! The lessons go on and on for me!
This is copied from The Cincinnati Enquirer regarding a recent Northern Kentucky election. Trying to bring you this humorous news there were many typos created from copy and pasting. I hope I caught all of them!
Mon 11/21/2022 Jolene Almendarez, Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
How this NKY city forgot all about an election MENTOR, Ky. – The election in this city earlier this month featured no negative ads, no spam texts – not even any candidates on the ballot. In this city of fewer than 200 residents, every elected official forgot to submit their names in time to run for office again. So, on Election Day, voters had to write in candidates. Mentor City Commissioner Maggie Gosney didn’t even know she won the election until three days after the polls closed. When an Enquirer reporter told her she likely did win based on unofficial election results, she shrugged. “We just got wrapped up in our lives and it slipped past us,” she said about missing the deadline to run for office. “And we knew about it, because the city clerk kept saying we have to get our names in by a certain date. … We just forgot and we were like, ‘Oh, yeah, we were supposed to do that, weren’t we?’ ” Run by a mayor and four-person city commission, this Campbell County enclave is roughly a mile-long strip on state Route 8 along the Ohio River, about 30 minutes southeast of Cincinnati.
Red Pin is Mentor, KY
The political scene in Mentor seems even further away from the name-calling and election complaints of Northern Kentucky politics this year. Gosney, 55, a lifelong resident of the city, said residents basically take turns holding office. She also clarified that write-in candidates still have to pay a fee to run for office and submit their intent to run as a write-in candidate. City Clerk Carol Dunn asked Gosney to run for office a little over four years ago when another resident gave up the spot. She took up the offer and it didn’t take much campaigning to win back then or for her to win this year’s election, which she did with 30 of the 113 votes cast, according to unofficial election results from the Campbell County Clerk. She says she posted about her candidacy on Facebook the day before the election. Write-in candidates were also mentioned in the city’s one-page newsletter this month, where the election and candidates were given a two sentence mention. More information was given about this year’s Christmas parade where the person with the best float (usually a tractor or a truck) wins a gold painted ceramic turkey and about $15. The parade is the biggest event of the year in Mentor. Last year, float winners won one of three city signs that were being replaced. The city signs say, “Last one out of town, please turn off the light.” Gosney and her family won one of the signs with a “Very Covid Christmas” theme: A tree decorated with toilet paper, masks, and bandages. There are only a handful of businesses, including a dog training facility and a hair salon. And Gosney said that as a city commissioner, there is never any drama or people lined up to speak about issues. City council meets once a month at a nearby house. Meetings used to be held on some church steps, but they changed the location after the church became a residence. At most meetings, she says they take on issues like potholes or snow removal. The city doesn’t have any zoning laws or other restrictions that require permits. Mayor Peggy Fury declined to be interviewed. But she said in a phone call that she’d likely end up being mayor again, though unofficial election results show nobody was written in as mayor of the city. Campbell County Clerk Jim Luersen said a small town with only write-in candidates isn’t unusual. “We have 15 different cities in Campbell County and a couple of them are very, very small. So, sometimes it’s hard to find anyone to pay the $50 filing fee to run,” he said. “It’s not like you get paid for the job or anything.” In fact, when nobody wants to run the local government in a small town, it could lead to dis-incorporation. The Ohio Valley Resource, an online news outlet, reported the eastern Kentucky town of Blackey has been dis-incorporated twice, most recently this summer. It has been years since the city had a government and its infrastructure began crumbling. The Letcher County government absorbed it in June, the news organization reported. But Gosney says she isn’t worried about that happening in Mentor any time soon. “I think we’ll always be a little town. I hope so anyway.”
Mentor is a city in Campbell County, Ky. with a population of about 200 people and a total area of 0..81 square miles..
Once we had a Jewish house guest. I do not remember what we fed him for supper, but our son, Jeff, had hot dogs. Our guest was to sleep on the bottom bunk bed that night. Our son on the top. In the middle of the night our son was ill. He vomited hotdogs all over the side of the bed, splashing our guest below. Yep, I was up in the night cleaning up that horrible sickness, changing sheets and apologizing to our guest, soothing our embarrassed son. One of those yucky nights.
Fast forward 30 or 40 years. I sleep in fleecy socks. Seems I sleep more soundly with socks on? I had purchased new white sheets for our bed. The elastic in the old fitted sheet had burst. The other set never fit this deep mattress correctly. So with new sheets I prepared for bed and grabbed a new pair of socks, too. I also nap daily. I pulled back the sheets the next afternoon for my siesta and there was black fuzz on the sheets. Oh man, I thought. That night I forgot and climbed into bed with the same combination.
Next morning as I made the bed I looked between the sheets and the mess was worse than ever. I simply pulled back top covers and went to get the new Giant Extreme Stick with “extreme results to quickly remove lint, hair and debris.” After I rolled over the black lint, tore off a sheet and was on sheet #6 I realized this called for the attachment sweeper. My bed socks had vomited all over my new white sheets. As I swept and swept I remembered cleaning up that bedroom long ago after hot dogs visited the bunk beds.
Yes, those socks quite literally vomited all over my new sheets. There was black fuzz where I never realized I put my feet at night. Must have been searching for Bob’s warmth? I swept top and bottom sheets and then threw them in the washer using extra water in the cycle. Separately I washed the socks and put them in Goodwill donation box. Someone else might like black house socks.
The really bad part, I had bought my Grandgirls the same socks for Christmas. So now I had to go back to the store and exchange for a different color! The clerk said I could not simply exchange them. Did not realize until the young man had made the return and new purchase that the original discount was not applied. Geez!
I know now that I should have taken a photo for you. Unbelievable how far black fuzz can travel on a white sheet! Grateful fuzz was not as stinky as regurgitated hot dogs!
The snow collected upon the canopies and had to be cleaned off lest the canopies collapse under the weight! So the folk lore begs the question, since it snowed on November 12 will we have 12 snowfalls this season?
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding,
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. And he has raised up for his people a horn the praise of all his faithful servants, of Israel, the people close to his heart.
I am so excited to do this! It seems like just the thing I need after the distress of the past week. Hoping you can join me and others worldwide to celebrate joy! The book by Bishop Tutu and the Dali Lama was tremendous. This summit ought to be on your To-Do list big time!! https://www.globaljoysummit.org
Feeling the pain of the world and recognizing how many are struggling with isolation and despair, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu met one last time before Arch’s passing to create a final gift for us all – poignant, practical, and often humorous teachings on how we can live with more Joy, even during deeply troubled times.
I loved and shared the book with many!
How could you resist this sort of joy?
There is evidently a video which I intend to watch very soon!
From what I can gather the video is presented by YouTube in short sections. Still, these guys are some of the greatest teachers on earth.
I first read this quote by Rainer Marie Rilke in the book by Ben Palpant entitled “Letters from the Mountain.”
“Most experiences are unsayable.” There are mysterious existences whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.
Rilke and Ben Palpant
There is a sound of leaves falling upon leaves that is so indescribable. I cannot imagine being able to mimic that sound. More than just a rustling, shifting, crunching. Nary a squirrel can approach our deck undetected right now! Our once green grass is now a carpet of yellow, orange, brown and red.
I used the blower to clear off the deck. 24 hours later it looked like this!
Can you see the carpet of leaves on the lawn?
How could I possibly capture the sound of dry leaves upon dry leaves with only words? How would you say it?
Below is a mighty sweet gum tree growing in the woods of Eastfork State Park.
And then there was this artsy photo of sun through a sweet gum leaf which the mighty beagle messed up by walking in front of the camera.
Silly Lucky, no artistic sense!
You crown the year with Your goodness, And Your paths drip with abundance. They drop on the pastures of the wilderness, And the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; The valleys also are covered with grain; They shout for joy, they also sing.
We sometimes listen to TED talks. We recently heard “Why Having Fun is The Secret to A Healthier Life,” (link is below). I found the transcript and included a few thoughts from Catherine Price for your consideration. It also touches upon our Small Group study delving into a better definition of joy.
That first photo shows Lucky having fun with Lizzie’s cat while she stayed at their house during our absence.
“The color of fun is sunshine, (said her daughter.) It involves “playfulness, connection and joy.” By playfulness I just mean having a lighthearted attitude of doing things for the sake of doing them and not caring too much about the outcome. Letting go of perfectionism. When we have fun, our guard is down, and we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.
“Connection refers to the feeling of having a special, shared experience. And then flow is the state where we are so engaged and focused on whatever we’re doing that we can even lose track of time.
“The most effective thing you can do to have more fun is to focus on its ingredients, by which I mean, do everything you can to fill your life with more moments of playfulness, connection and flow. So here are some ideas for how to do so. To start with, reduce distractions in order to increase flow. Anything that distracts you is going to kick you out of flow and prevent you from having fun
“And you say “Hello.” And if that goes well, you can introduce yourself. And if that goes well, maybe you can ask them a question, something that’s thought-provoking, but not overly personal or threatening, like “What’s something that fascinates you?” Or “What’s one thing that delighted you today?” And you might be amazed by how good just one little moment of connection can make you feel.
“And if you do find someone to connect with, maybe ask them to join you in trying my third suggestion, which is to increase playfulness by finding opportunities to rebel. Now I am not talking about James Dean-level of rebellion. I’m talking about playful deviance. I’m talking about finding ways to break the rules of responsible adulthood, and giving yourself permission to get a kick out of your own life.
“Make fun a priority. If you know there’s an activity that really does often generate playful connected flow for you, carve out time for it in your schedule. Treat fun as if it is important. Because it is. I’ve been doing this myself for a couple of years now, and it’s amazing to see how many areas of my life fun has touched. I’m more creative and more productive, I’m more resilient. I laugh more. Making sure that I’m having enough fun has made me a better partner, a better parent and a better friend. And it has convinced me of something that I very much hope I can convince you of as well, which is that my daughter was right. Fun is sunshine. It’s a distillation of life’s energy. And the more often we experience it, the more we will feel like we’re actually alive.
Sunshine capture in blossoms!
Yes, a major source of fun for me!
Bob recently had his first cataract surgery. The night before we were in bed saying good night. We both had been a little tense about this as neither of us had experienced it before. Trying to lighten things up a bit I said on the next day I would be asking him “Can you see me now?” Drawing upon his bad joke about Helen Keller I placed his hand on one of my body parts. I was laughing so hard I almost could not say the joke line. “Here, find out if you can see me from memory!” Old folks gotta make fun! “Here, try again, do you see me now?” We were gasping for breath as we laughed and laughed. Sometimes fun is just spontaneous. If it is not spontaneous for you today, follow Catherine’s advice and make some fun.
Great Nephew Levie
We gifted Levie a Teddy Bear when we met him for the first time. I made the Teddy a scarf. Levie fell in love with that Teddy. He had never named one of his stuffed animals before, but decided this one’s name was “Two.” (Levie is also two years old.) He was swinging Two around by the scarf. Occasionally kissing that Teddy. The next day he took Two Bear to Nursery School to teach him how to go down the slide. That is fun!!
Where can you find godly joy, pleasure and delight today? Can you create it in your midst?
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 