Presby-Musings

Today is the twelfth and last day of Christmas. So, for all of us who decided to leave our Christmas decorations up until Epiphany (which starts tomorrow), light those lights, enjoy the decorations and the tree one last day.   According to medieval tradition, all decor should be removed on the Twelfth Night of Christmas so as not bring bad luck upon the household.  It's a good thing I don't believe in medieval tradition because I won't be getting to my decorations until this weekend.    For centuries, the Twelfth Day of Christmas was a time of revelry, a day when the social order was turned upside down.  Masters dressed as servants, servants as masters.   The essential meaning behind the topsy-turvy celebrations on the Twelfth Day of Christmas was that through Jesus, God had taken on the form of a servant, and come to live among us---or "moved into our neighborhood," as Eugene Peterson put it in The Message.   My New Testament reading for th...

In St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin there is one particular memorial stone in the floor that stands out above all the others--a stone dedicated to Jonathan Swift.  Jonathan Swift was a 17th century author, essayist, political satirist and also a clergyman. Swift is perhaps most famous for writing the satirical travelogue  Gulliver's Travels. He also  served as the Dean of St. Patrick's, where he is memorialized by the aforementioned stone, a stained glass window, statues and the like.   When I stumbled upon his memorial stone during a visit to the cathedral a couple of years ago, I was elated to find a familiar name in the floor.  You see, all of the memorials that surrounded me, the altars, niches, paintings, statuary, marble slabs and the like were honoring people I'd never heard of before.  In fact, MOST of the hundreds of memorials in the church were of people who'd been long forgotten--their names shuffled over and smoothed out by centuries o...

I was dead asleep this morning and somehow heard the sound of the trash truck laboring up my street.  In a moment I was wide awake, shocked by this one terrifying thought: I FORGOT TO PUT THE GARBAGE OUT! I pulled on some pants and rushed out to the garage, followed by Merideth's sleepy, "What are you doing!!?"  I discovered to my dismay that I'd missed the trash truck by mere moments.  I decided to go ahead and put out the recycling and yard waste, and while I was in the middle of dragging everything out, the guys in the trash truck pulled up.   "Put it on the other side of the street, so I can get it," the drive told me.  "We just went by your side." After I'd done just that, he emptied everything into his truck and waved out the window.  "Merry Christmas," he said as he drove off.  "It really is still Christmas," I thought to myself.  "At least for another twelve days."  I'm not taking my Christm...