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Sunday Inspiration: The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
—Howard Thurman
Sunday Inspiration: Tears
“You tried to give us the slip once before and failed, Frodo,” [Pippin] said. “This time you have nearly succeeded, but you have failed again. It was not Sam, though, that gave you away this time, but Gandalf himself!”
“Yes,” said Gandalf; “for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone. Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-Earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
—J. R. R. Tolkien
Have Yourself a Ghostly Little Christmas
Did you know that telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve is a long-standing English tradition?
“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” wrote British humorist Jerome K. Jerome as part of his introduction to an anthology of Christmas ghost stories titled “Told After Supper“ in 1891. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.”
The practice of gathering around the fire on Christmas Eve to tell ghost stories was as much a part of Christmas for the Victorian English as Santa Claus is for us.
Formations for Youth
Well, this looks interesting:
This January, we are proud to announce a new addition to the Formations line of curriculum resources. Available as a digital download, Formations for Youth is an engaging, low-prep curriculum resource for Middle and High School youth groups. The lessons in this resource begin with activities that ask youth to consider a common theme in their relationship with God and their everyday lives. Then questions help youth explore those themes more deeply in discussion.
I’m proud of Michelle Meredith, the editor of this new offering from NextSunday Resources, and of all the great work she has put into making Formations for Youth happen!
Fantastic Beasts Trailer
I’m hoping Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will reflect the whimsy and lightheartedness of the book on which it’s based. I have nothing against the later, darker Harry Potter books and movies, but I still love the earlier, lighter stuff just as much. Fantastic Beasts ought to be a good place to recapture some of that.
Quirinius’s Census
Ian Paul offers an interesting line of defense of Luke’s general historicity with regard to the census in Luke’s birth narrative. Commenting on the historiographical tendencies of both Luke and Josephus, he suggests an alternative translation of Luke 2:2 that seems to account for the historical and linguistic peculiarities of the text:
Marshall notes that ‘the form of the sentence is in any case odd’ (p 104); why say something was ‘first’ when there is nothing to compare it with? Stephen Carlson has looked even more closely, and also noted that the verb egeneto also seems strange; why suggest the census ‘became’ something, rather than that it simply ‘was’? Carlson suggests that prote, rather than ‘first’ numerically, should be read as ‘of most importance’—much as we might say ‘so-and-so is Arsenal’s Number One player.’ This would then give the translation as:
This registration became most prominent when Quirinius was governing Syria.
or
This [decree to get registered] became the/a most important registration when Quirinius was governing Syria.
In the end, the mystery of the conflict between Luke and Josephus remains unsolved and (as Marshall puts it) ‘can hardly be solved without the discovery of fresh evidence.’ But these arguments at least offer a plausible explanation—and when considering questions of history, proof is rarely possible, but plausibility is an important measure. It certainly offers no grounds to write off Luke’s account, think it unhistorical or a fabrication, or see it as in conflict with Matthew.
Sunday Inspiration: Loving Others
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
—Thomas Merton
Oak, Ash, and Thorn Is LIVE!
Oak, Ash, and Thorn is now available through Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions! My beta team worked extra hard on this one, and my design guy worked even harder not only to beat my self-imposed February 2 deadline but to smash it to smithereens! Thanks, everybody!
For now, the paperback is available for $8.99. After Christmas, I’m going to experiment with opening up additional distribution channels, which will necessarily (and unfortunately) boost the price a few dollars. I think the price will still be reasonable, but if you know you want a hard copy, let me suggest you get it now at a better price than you’ll find next month.
The Sídhe in Fantasy
Excellent post today from Leo Elijah Cristea about the nobles of the Gaelic supernatural realm, the sídhe.
If you’re not convinced you’re about to see the fae make a slow and distinguished comeback, think about elves: everyone said they were dead. Well, the elf is dead; long live the elf. I raise you Dwenda, Shict, and Chris Evans’ revamped “Iron Elves”. If we really want to split hairs, I raise you the elves from the Dragon Age games, where the once-regal race has been given a bit of a different approach.
But, we’re not here to talk about elves: we’re here to talk about my other love. Yes, I happen to love fae. The potential with fae is nearly infinite: such an underdone, unsung, untouched race, one brimming with potential and plenty of fresh ground to dig your heels into.
Of course, the daoine sídhe figure quite prominently in my Into the Wonder Series (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3), which you are of course at liberty to check out for yourselves. 🙂
The Yule Lads
Iceland’s Yule Lads get the VIP treatment in an excellent article over at Atlas Obscura introducing a new book on the subject:
Not every beloved holiday tradition escapes its native land. “Unless you are lucky enough to have been born an Icelander, or have lived in Iceland through a Christmas season, you probably won’t have heard of the Yule Lads,” reads The 13 Yule Lads of Iceland, a children’s book by Brian Plinkington, presumably for non-Icelandic kids to learn about the holiday myth.
Here’s something I wrote about the Yule Lads, complete with a video.
Darrell J. Pursiful 