Circling Through This Life

Sometimes children say the most profound and beautiful things. This afternoon Supergirl and were hanging out with my kindle.  She was chattering away and I was flipping through recipes.  Suddenly she was quiet.  She looked up at the Nativity Scene and said,  “Jesus is a baby.”  I nodded and replied yes this is the time of year when we remember Jesus as a baby. She pondered a moment longer and declared “Mama, our God is a baby!”  That stopped me.  I mean it isn’t new information but I had never quite thought about it in that light. Never took the time to think how amazing it is that God was a baby.  Most of the time when we hear “God” we think of God the Father.  Jesus is the Son.  But Supergirl is spot on.  Jesus is God so that means that our God is a baby. This little chatterbox was not finished yet with wisdom proclamations. She had one more for me today:  “He had to be our Savior.”   So often I wonder if she und...

Marcy from Ben and Me has retired from hosting Blogging Through The Alphabet. She did five rounds. Five! So my friend Kristi  from A Potter’s Hand Academy   has taken up the baton and is now hosting a new round of Blogging Through The Alphabet. She started last week. I missed the memo. But that’s ok. I’ll just start now and I’ll start from the beginning with the Letter A. The first thing that came to mind was Advent or in the Orthodox world, Nativity Fast or little lent. Since my post for the letter B is about the books I want to read during Advent, I’m going to combine the two letters. For many Orthodox Christians in the USA, the Nativity Fast will start on Saturday November 15. Well, actually for all Orthodox Christians the fast will begin on November 15 but one is November 15 on the Revised Julian Calendar (New) Calendar which currently follows the civil Gregorian calendar that we are all familiar with.  The other calendar is the Julian Calendar (Old) and currently...

Yes I missed last weekend.  I’ll just blame it on Thanksgiving Weekend.  I um ate too much great food and couldn’t bring myself to have enough energy to type?  Yes that must be it!  Hope you had a great week! 1. Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Most of the traditions I have seen involve children putting out their shoes and St. Nick fills them with treats.  Chocolate Coins are very traditional as they represent the coins that St. Nicholas gave to the sisters for their dowry.  Wonder what I am talking about?  Here’s a couple of links.  This first one from Alex Riggle is quite humorous:  St. Nicholas of Myra .  This second one is far more educational based and is a website with lots of links: St. Nicholas Center . 2.  We don’t do the shoes.  We do stockings hung by the  fire. It just seems to connect more for me with story that we hear every year at church.  St. Nicholas flung a bag of coins through a chimney...

I know for many many people Christmas seems to begin on the evening of Thanksgiving and ends on the evening of Christmas.  If I started celebrating Christmas that early, I’d be way past done with it, too! What amazes me though is that so many people seem to think that the 12 days of Christmas begin 12 days before December 25 and end on December 25.  Nope.  Lots of people do Christmas countdowns (we do!) but the actual 12 days of Christmas begins on December 25 and ends on January 5 and Theophany (Epiphany) is on January 6th. When I was growing up we put the Christmas tree up a week to 10 days before Christmas and it stayed up at least until the Saturday after New Year’s Day.  We didn’t exactly celebrate for 12 days but there was the acknowledgement that this wonderful feast was longer than just 1 day and that it didn’t begin until December 25.  (Though I will point out that liturgically it begins at Vespers, the evening service, on December 24 because liturgic...

I love the Royal Hours service that is given on the morning of Christmas Eve.  In our parish the youth are the choir.  This is from last year.  I’m looking forward to hearing them this morning.   The songs of the day for this service speak from Joseph’s point of view.  He moves from disbelief and anger at Mary for “doing this to him” to Joseph declaring that he is convinced that Mary will give birth to God. Tone 8 Joseph said to the virgin: What has happened to you, O Mary? I am troubled; what can I say to you? Doubt clouds my mind; depart from me! What has happened to you, O Mary? Instead of honor, you bring me shame. Instead of joy, you fill me with grief Men who praised me will blame me. I cannot bear condemnation from every side. I received you, a pure virgin in the sight of the Lord. What is this I now see? The Kontakion (short hymn honor a saint or event) for the day is in tone 3. We’ll sing this repeatedly this morning: Today the virgin comes to the...

This week we’ve set aside school to focus on preparing for the Christmas Season celebrations.  As I’ve mentioned before, we celebrate the 12 days.  Christmas Eve becomes ripe with anticipation and December 25th marks the Feast of the Nativity of Lord and Savior.  That feasting will continue through Jan 6th.  Ok ok.  There’ll be a short break from the feasting on January 5th for the preparation for the great feast of Theophany. It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of these preparations.  I’ve got Christmas crafts/gifts to complete, cookies to bake, menus to plan, and cleaning to do.  I also have to get the Christmas cards sent, and the presents wrapped. This week I’m making an effort to include a slow-down-and-enjoy-the-season memory making activity each day.  I don’t want the holidays to be so busy that we’re stressed out.  And I don’t want us to be so busy with preparations and cleaning that we forgot *why* we are celebrati...

The “Christmas Season” is upon us.  I put “Christmas Season” is quotation marks because Christmas begins on December 25 and ends on January 5th, the eve of Theophany.   We celebrate the 12 days of Christmas here. Right now as I type this we’re deep into Advent.  Advent means “coming”.  Advent is the time of preparing for the coming of the Lord.  We’re waiting and preparing for Emmanuel.   In the Orthodox Church it is known as “little lent”.   Great Lent is the time of preparation for the joyous Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior. I love advent.  I love the idea of preparing my heart to receive this great gift from God: the gift of Himself: God made flesh.  One thing that we’ve done in the past is an advent chain.  This chain has 40 links and each link contains a bible passage that points to the coming of the Lord.   Weeks are noted by alternating red and green rings.  Feast days are noted by purple links ...