Published December 25, 2002 | 
Enter your password to view comments.Published December 24, 2002 | Christmas Eve
May the blessings of God flow out upon you all: love of every kind, God and friends and family and romance; the home you need; a loving community; health and strength and growth; fulfilling work and a sense of your purpose in life; the chance to do something silly and joyful once in a while.
With very much love,
Lynn
Published December 24, 2002 | Published December 23, 2002 | Published December 23, 2002 | About Books
These quotations appeared in my e-mail this morning. Since I tend to give books as gifts (and many of the best gifts I’ve ever received were books), it’s a good time to think about them.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
— Italo Calvino
When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.
— Clifton Fadiman
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
— C.S. Lewis
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if there is any left I buy food and clothes.
— Desiderius Erasmus
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
— John Witherspoon
Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of the day makes that day happier.
— Kathleen Norris
Published December 23, 2002 | Quilting for Peace
A Mennonite congregation in Salford, PA (between Norristown and Quakertown), is stitching a pair of peace quilts: one for Saddam Hussein, the other for our current president.
“I thought about how Saddam Hussein and George Bush both go to bed at night,” Pfister said.
“I wondered what they think about when they pull the covers up and begin to drift off. Do they think about how they’re affecting the lives of people around the world?… Are they thinking about killing each other?”
That’s when he got the idea for the peace quilts the men and women and children of Salford Mennonite Church have been working on ever since.
The ones they hope to somehow get to Hussein in Iraq and Bush in Washington.
Maybe — just maybe — something in the design, with its dove of peace perched in the tree of life, would move the two men.
Or something in the message on the back: “… each stitch represents our individual and collective fervent prayers for peace.”
Or perhaps just the fact that so many people (about 400) cared enough to participate.
Each quilt is almost a mirror image. When they are placed side by side, the tree branches seem to intertwine. The two doves face each other, eye to eye.
Naive? Unworldly? Sure. But powerful. I don’t think a peace quilt can fix the world, but symbols can gather power, can begin to help and heal. Then there’s the change in the lives of the people who make the quilts. Focusing your attention and prayer changes you, yourself, and doing it in community can build strong bonds.
We have to start somewhere.
Published December 23, 2002 | Christmas, 1 Corinthians 13 Style
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the
choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way.
Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust. But giving the gift of love will endure.
—Author Unknown
Published December 22, 2002 | Published December 22, 2002 | Published December 21, 2002 |