Saturday, October 1, 2011
About Bishop Steven Charleston
Former Bishop of Alaska, and former Dean of Episcopal Divinity School, in New York City, Bishop Charleston is currently serving as the interim Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City, OK. (Which is kind of neat for a member of the Choctaw Nation.)
More biography and links to sermons are at: http://day1.org/328-the_rt_rev_steven_charleston
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Our Prayer of the Day
I very much appreciate the wise counsel of Bishop Steven
Charleston this morning: "Beware of any generation that
seems
lost without a leader. That search may become a dangerous
thing to do. A society that is fearful, money worried, anxious
for
order, hungry for law, a nation of wall builders, accustomed
to war, watching enemies without and enemies within, afraid
its glory will fade. Longing for the strong man grows, ever so
quietly, while people look the other way.
Help us, O God, not to flirt with forces so ancient and so
evil, but rather to put our trust in you, that justice never
bends to fear nor freedom to the false gods of power."
Thanks to Louie Crew for this tidbit
Charleston this morning: "Beware of any generation that
seems
lost without a leader. That search may become a dangerous
thing to do. A society that is fearful, money worried, anxious
for
order, hungry for law, a nation of wall builders, accustomed
to war, watching enemies without and enemies within, afraid
its glory will fade. Longing for the strong man grows, ever so
quietly, while people look the other way.
Help us, O God, not to flirt with forces so ancient and so
evil, but rather to put our trust in you, that justice never
bends to fear nor freedom to the false gods of power."
Thanks to Louie Crew for this tidbit
Friday, September 23, 2011
a poem from wandering the Organ Mountains...
Violent Night
Stars shout in the stillness,
Of a cold mountain night
A soft breeze stumbles down
the erratic, rocky gorge
and ruffles the browning grass
at my feet
Just above the jagged crest
the harvest moon pushes aside
the glowering black and bursts
the air with creamy light
Photo Credit: Michelle Stump is the artist who created the accompanying photograph, entitled:
Mountain Night - Purple Wind. See more of her spiritual works at www.harpofthespirit.com
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Psalm of New Mexico
Behold the mountains of the Lord,
Gaze upon the majesty of His hills;
Look down at the verdant river valley,
See the dwelling place of our greenery.
View the Jornada and its sere sands,
The eye hears a symphony of tan and brown.
Tread quietly amid the Mesilla pecans,
Walk softly in their cathedral of shade.
This is the land the Lord has given us,
The varied earth He has bestowed on us.
This is the land He gave us to care for,
The earth for us to nurture.
by Jim Macey, Los Lunas, NM
A psalm is a special form of poetry, rarely found outside of the religious setting, and its rhythms are due to calculated repititions of the poetic thought. It's a difficult format to work with for the poet, forcing you to think and rethink your utterances. I find the psalm lending itself to nature poetry by bringing the cadences of the worship service to the mundane viewing of a landscape.
For further reading: Really good poetry can be found in any work by Billy Collins, our former Poet Laureate.
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For further reading: Really good poetry can be found in any work by Billy Collins, our former Poet Laureate.
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
Names - A Light Moment
Naming is probably one of the biggest problems for the genealogist and also for the persons transcribing documents of genealogical interest. The spellings of our ancestor's names drives us up walls; the meanings of names escapes our ken; the audio aspect - how a name sounds- is often pure conjecture.
Here's a good example:
"Sexauer is an ordinary German name referring to one who came from Sexau, in Germany. Looking for a Mr. Sexauer, a man in Washington called at the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Helping him, a girl employee called the Banking and Currency Committee by telephone to check, and inquired politely, ‘Do you have a Sexauer over there?’ ‘Listen,’ the girl switchboard operator snapped, ‘We don’t even have a ten-minute coffee break anymore.’ " – Elsdon Coles Smith, Treasury of Name Lore, 1967
For further reading: any of E. C. Smith's vast works on names.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Genealogy: An Activity of Ecstasy & Grief
It’s been a good week, for Faith Hope Macey, and it’s been a momentarily disastrous week, in her ongoing family research.
The thrill of a new document found by happenstance – that act sets off tremors through the body of a genuine genealogist. Faith found several. ”Oh, boy – look I’ve got two new cousins!”
Sure enough, there they are: and look – as they are tracked through recent history, they lived in some of the same areas where Faith lived. More research: ”Oh my God – one lived 10 blocks away from me in 1986.” ”Jim, see if you can google and find an e-mail address for them”
Well, as some of you can surmise, further research led to the SSDI: both cousins had died in the last few years. And now they must remain unmet, un-talked with, un-hugged. There would be no sharing of stories, no questions answered, no offspring introduced to each other.
Genealogists all know this facet of our endeavor: where we are literally beside ourselves one minute and crushed with disappointment in the next. And we recognize that it is our very nature to feel the joy of discovery and the tears over the what-could-have-been. The moral of the story: don’t lose touch and keep searching…
- In Memoriam: Joyce Elaine Schaefer Adams, 1933 – 2010
- Robert E Schaefer, 1926 – 2010
Further reading: the books of Boyd Magers on westerns, serials, and Gene Autry give insight into the life of Armand Schaefer, father and uncle to the cousins above. Armand was the number two man in the Flying A Productions, and was a minority owner in the Angels baseball team.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Welcome (...sung to the tune of the William Tell Overture)
In the heart of the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico comes the thundering hoofbeats of meandering, swirling, coalescing thoughts from the proudly parabolic mindstream of a blue-eyed, Norman-blooded bard of deep Celtic origins in the wild black forests of far-gone history. And these writings are his story and your story, so sit back and enjoy the history of both of us...
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