December

Oh, there's so much going on this month!!! Here's a list of days that we think about (at least in my family):

December 6-St. Nicholas's Day
December 7-Pearl Harbor Day
December 13- St. Lucy's Day
December 25-Christmas (duh!!!)
December 26-St. Stephen's Day

I'll tell you a little bit about each day. I was just thinking about them and what a great post this would make!!!

  St. Nicholas's Day

  St. Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek bishop, in what is modern-day Turkey. He was also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, becoming the model for our Santa Claus (really??!!). He is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, and students in a bunch of different countries.
  He was born in Asia Minor to loaded Christian parents. They both died in an epidemic when he was young, and then he lived with his uncle (also named Nicholas) and was trained to be a reader and later became a priest.
   In his most famous story (and I'm taking this from wikipedia, so if you don't agree, it's what I found), a poor man had three daughters but couldn't afford a dowry for them. This meant that they would have to stay unmarried, and most likely, for lack of a better field of employment, become prostitutes. Yeah, I'm glad I was born in 1996 instead of 296. Anyway, he heard about the situation, and either being to modest to help the guy in public, or not wanting to embarrass him by offering the guy charity, Good St. Nick went to his house at night and threw three purses of  gold coins (one for each daughter) into the window. Another version has him throwing the purses in on three different nights (on the eve of when the daughter would be of marriageable age). Apparently, in the latter version, the father gets suspicious the last time and waits for St. Nick. Apparently, St. Nick found out and dropped the purse down the chimney instead, where the daughter had hung her stockings to dry, perhaps how we got hanging our stockings up on the mantel of the fireplace.

  Pearl Harbor Day

  December 7, 1941--A day that will live forever in infamy. The action that really set the course of world history. The United States of America finally joined the war, after, like, two or three years. This is what happened:
  The air portion of the attack began at 7:48 Hawaiian Time. A total of 353 Japanese airplanes in two waves reached Oahu. Planes were destroyed, battleships and  carriers were sunk, airfields were strafed, and a total of 2,459 civilians and servicemen were killed and 1,282 civilians and servicemen were wounded. It was a vicious and unprecedented attack on innocent people.
  That maybe sounds a little harsh. At the time everyone agreed. And I know there's a huge controversy over Hiroshima and the A-bomb. And I don't mean to be judgemental. Not at all. I don't blame the Japanese people for that anymore than they should blame me and everyone else for dropping the bomb. It's not their fault. And I can't really say that I blame the kamikazes or the battleships, because they thought what they were doing was right. What I'm trying to focus on is the people who died in that attack and the rest of the almost five years after that in the biggest war the world has ever seen. They deserve to be remembered. Because they died for us.
  In a way, the attack on Pearl Harbor is like the attack on the world trade center. Innocent people were attacked just doing what they do. It's tragic. The spirit that brought the American people together after that kept them going throughout the remainder of the war. I heard a politician say that the 9/11 attacks brought us closer together as a country than anything else in our history, which I can find no evidence of. Anyway, just remember those people who were stuck in the Arizona with no way to get out, dying a slow, agonizing death from starvation, or drowning, or what ever it was they died of. And those people who died in their planes trying to defend the navy of their country. Or the people who didn't even get their chance to get their planes off the ground.

  St. Lucy's Day

  St. Lucy is my church's saint. Yup. She's really cool, too. Saint Lucy (or Lucia) was a young Christian martyr. She is the patron saint of the blind, because her name is translated to mean "light". She was a Christian during the Diocletian Persecution. Her father died when she was young. Her mother had her betrothed to a pagan. She encouraged her mother to spend her dowry as alms for the poor, so she could pledge her virginity to God. When her betrothed heard about this, he was angry and told the governor that Lucy was a Christian, and the governor ordered her to burn a sacrifice to the Roman emperor.
When she refused she was sentenced to be a prostitute. When the guards came to take her, she was stiff and heavy as a mountain, and could not be moved until she was hooked to a team of oxen. She was stabbed in the neck with a dagger, but still prophesied against her persecutor. Her eyes were plucked out. Her persecutors then tried to kill her in various ways, none of which worked until they drove a spike through her skull.
  According to legend, she brought food to persecuted Christians who were hiding in caves, wearing a hat with candles on it so she could see and carry food in both hands. In some Scandinavian countries, tradition is that on St. Lucy's day the youngest girl in the house dresses up as St. Lucy and brings food to the other family members.

  You all know about Christmas so I don't have to go into that unless I have a request to do so.

  St. Stephen's Day

  St. Stephen is the Protomartyr, (usually the first Christian martyr of a country, or, in this case, the first Christian martyr) of the Christian church. He was a Deacon. His name means "crown". He is the patron saint of casket makers, deacons, altar servers, headaches, horses, masons, and Serbia. He was tried by the Sanhedrin for blasphemy against Moses and God, and was stoned to death by an infuriated mob who was encouraged by Saul of Tarsus.

Okay, so that's it. Hope you guys have a good Advent and Christmas. Oh, I just thought of this, too. The themes for the four weeks or Advent are: Week 1, Death, Week 2, Judgement, Week 3, Heaven, Week 4 Hell. Just so you know, 'cause I always forget.

In Christ,

Em xoxoxo
   




    

Something to Remember

    Today's Independence Day. I absolutely love this time of year; I love to get out and see people and watch parades and go to barbeques. I love to do those things. But on this day, and a few others, (Memorial Day, Veterans' Day) we shouldn't just get excited and have fun with the things I mentioned above.
    Think for a minute about why these days were made national holidays, set aside. Why? For two select, related, reasons.
    To remember. To be thankful.
    To remember what? This is one that makes my grandma mad. "How," she rants, "did we get sunk so low in this pit of laziness, that we forget, or don't even know at all, what we're supposed to remember on these days?"
    I actually have to agree with her. But that isn't for this post. At least not directly.
    On Independence Day, we're supposed to remember what happened. So, you say, they signed the Declaration of Independence. So what?
    So they signed it. Most of the world had no idea what power of force Britain was soon to be engaged in war against. King George III himself wrote in his diary on July 4, 1776, "Nothing of importance happened today."
    Seriously?! I mean, really?! He must've thought he was pretty stupid afterwards, huh?
    His military, the British military, robbed a good many of the brave men who signed that precious document of everything that they had in life, some even their life. Here's an excerpt from God is Still My Co-Pilot by Robert L. Scott:

   

Well, let's go back to wonder why it has been glossed over that we were the first successful revolutionaries. Why, further along, has it been implied at least that any revolution is wrong? And that even our forefathers who dared to sign that priceless document, The Declaration of Independence, lived happily ever after? If you think that, then we are permitting this generation to grow up thinking wrongly and we are responsible for the actions of all the irresponsible Americans as well as for indolence in allowing our Supreme Court to run rough-shod over all our freedoms, one-by-one.

    I don't know why it is that right in the front of every American history book there does not appear in Bold, Black Letters that far, far different things happened to most of the fifty-six brave Americans who signed the Declaration of Independence and that they did not live happily ever afterwards. They pledged their lives along with their fortunes and their sacred honor. Instead, it has grown to a sort of out-dated habit to talk of patriotism in too many places here in America much less tell the truth about what those fifty-six men risked when they signed, for they risked those things for all of us.

    Let me refresh your minds and you, please, pass it on before it is too late. We are all quite familiar with that big, scrawled signature of John Hancock, which has become a synonym for the word signature; he perhaps got along all right as did Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and a few others. But after learning what I had to dig up I am almost convinced that only those who lived in certain places in the Colonies, among friendly compatriots, were really safe from harm for their "dastardly" deed of daring to confront the greatest nation in the world with a revolutionary declaration of freedom.

For instance, five signers were captured by the British and tortured until they died. Twelve others had their homes ransacked and burned. Nine had to flee to the only place there was sanctuary: into general Washington's Revolutionary Army. Just imagine! Just suppose today that the only sanctuary a compatriot had was to flee into our Army, Navy, or Air Force and go to Veitnam and fight. These nine fought and died from wounds and hardships of the Revolutinary War and now modern educational brainwashers appear to be trying to disown them.

These twenty-six men were not all the unfortunate ones, there were worse things that happened. But first, what kind of men were these? Were they some kind of radicals in 1776, right-wingers caught up like splinter groups today, swept away with the delusions of grandeur about being noticed and "way out, men" just determined to express themselves before the big bomb falls? They were not! They were good solid Americans, our First Americans, our ancestors! Twenty-four of them were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants, ten were farmers and plantation owners; men of means, well educated! They had everything but LIBERTY! They signed because they wanted liberty above all else. They signed though they knew their signatures could be their death warrants if they were caught. And so they really did pledge their sacred honor, their fortunes, and their lives.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the sea by the British Navy. He sold his home to pay his debts and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the Tories (his neighbors) that he was forced to move his family constantly. Nevertheless, he served in Congress without pay and kept his family in hiding. His possessions were confiscated by the crown and poverty was his only reward.

Vandal Tories, formerly neighbors, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Walton, Guinnett, Rutledge and Middleton.

At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., being told that the British General Cornwallis had commandeered his home for headquarters, nevertheless, he quietly urged General Washington to open fire. This was done, and his home was destroyed as he had requested. He died bankrupt!

Francis Lewis also had his home destroyed. The enemy could not catch him so they jailed his wife and she died in a dungeon within a few months.

John Hart's wife was dying when he signed and when he hastened home to be at her bedisde he found the British had arrived first and he was driven into the nearby forest. He lived there with his eleven children in hiding and watched the British destroy his fields and grist mills. He lived for more than a year in caves in the forest. He never saw his wife again; never saw his home again, either. Yet, at almost seventy years of age he joined Washington's Continental Army as a private where he died...a soldier of the Revolution.

Lewis Morris was about to sign when word was sent by the British, who were at the gates of his Long Island home, that his property would be spared if he would with-hold his signature for liberty. "There are other homes," he said and signed. He added, "There is but one Country!"

The wonder is not that we had so many real patriots in 1776, but our sin is that we do not admit it today and still shout it from the roof tops. You, the priceless youth of this land, must know every instant of your lives that you are all entrusted with the sacred mission that each of you must do your part, whatever the cost, to see that liberty does not fade out and die!

   
    The story of Abraham Clark is a remarkable one. He signed the Declaration of Independence. His two oldest sons were in the Continental Army. Because he signed the Declaration, he was considered a traitor by the British.
    You can probably guess what's coming. His sons were taken prisoner, and word was sent to Abraham Clark that if he did not renounce his signature, his sons would be starved to death. If you don't say, "No, I didn't really mean it, my signing it," you'll never see your sons again. They'll starve. It will be your fault. If you don't take it back.
    He didn't renounce his signature. He begged them; he told the British they could have all his money; he'd sell his house. Anything but take his signature off that document. They told him there was no other way. So his sons died.
    "My sacred honor," he said, "is something I cannot take back." I admire him greatly for that.

    Imagine. never being able to see your wife again. Never. Or knowing that your sons are slowy dying an agonizing death, somewhere on a ship out a sea, and there is nothing that your conscience will permit you to do about it. And yet they lived on, and did what they knew they had to, for us. For US. Don't you think that deserves a few minutes of quiet meditation and prayer?
    To sacrifice your sons, for you and me. Isn't that very similar to what another greater Being did for us so many years ago? Then why should we throw that to the wind? 235 years from now, would you like someone to pick up a copy of an important document, casually look over the list of names scrawled across the bottom, and say, "Huh. Cool name!" and leave it at that? Not even acutely know the suffering and agony and sacrifice and blood that weaved that name into the fabric of history, or cemented it into the foundation of time? How would you feel if that was your name?
    Don't you think that those who gave everything that was theirs deserve to be remembered? The names aren't so much important as what they stood for, what they fought for. We all ought to fall on our knees and thank God for brave men such as these, for if it weren't for them, none of us would be here to so carelessly enjoy the freedoms and liberties that we do; the freedoms and liberties that are fast slipping out of our fingers.
    How long was the Revolutionary War? It was physically eight years long. But the Revolution is still going on. It never ended. We are the soldiers, the ones who must keep fighting for what is right. We must be ever vigilant, for liberty is more valuable than diamonds, and much, much, easier to steal away from those who have it.
    So, on this day, we ought to remember those who have given so much, if not all, for us, and be thankful to God for such great men as these. And then, go out and have fun. Go to the parade, the barbeque at your friend's house. And, just in case, remind them to remember and be thankful.

In Christ,

Em xoxoxo