Twas the month before Christmas
Being passed around the e-mails:
Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas – no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a ‘ Holiday ‘.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Obama, Now Biden, Now Sharpton, and Jackson
On Boxer, on Rather, on Ried, and Pelosi !
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter..
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday !
Jesus is the reason for the season!
(Author unknown)
Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She wrote, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.” The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.”
According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.
Don’t know if anybody noticed…
Last Friday I decided I wanted to change my picture. I was a little tired of Oliver Hardy, and I thought I wanted a picture of a cup of coffee, or a cup alongside a Bible, or a cup, a Bible, and a laptop. The main thing was that cup of coffee, and while I found examples of all three of those, I settled on a line drawing of a cup of coffee with the steam coming off the top.
So I set that up as my picture.
Then over the weekend I started feeling kind of funny about it. I didn’t want my image to just be a cup of coffee all around the blogosphere. I wanted something with a face. I wanted to put a face on my blog.
So this morning I’m back with Oliver Hardy. I don’t know if that cup of coffee will show up any more, but I’m trying to get it all back to Ollie.
Laurel & Hardy are my favorite comedy team, and Ollie looks a lot more like me than Stan does, so Ollie it is!
A New Friend Revived!
I’ve been kind of down-in-the-dumps since my TNIV Reference Bible fell apart the other day, but even though I had switched to my TNIV XL, it was still on my mind. I had really fallen in love with the format of this special Bible, and I was still thinking about what I could do to fix it. It seems that’s often the way I am. When I am presented with a problem, I sometimes have to churn over it for a period of time, sometimes days or weeks, before the solution finally hits me.
Well, Sunday afternoon I remembered that my wife and I had recently bought a roll of Scotch Tough Tape transparent duct tape to use in our winterizing projects around our mobile home. So I went and got out my recently-retired TNIV RB. I simply opened it up to the place where the cover had come loose, cut off about 8 inches or so of the tape, held the two parts together and applied the tape to the length of the split.
Really tough to come up with that solution, wasn’t it?
What I ended up with is a Bible that is stronger and more solid than it was when I got it. I only question how long that tape will stick well, and if I know anything about such tape, it will probably last for the usable life of the Bible.
So I’m going to start once again to use my TNIV RB as my #1 everyday “carrying and using” Bible.
It’s so nice to get my new friend back!
The Manhattan Declaration
From the website at http://manhattandeclaration.org/
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.
Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
I urge you.
Do it! Do it! Do it!
The news has it that Senator Tom Coburn (R.-Oklahoma) is considering the forcing of the reading of the Senate health refom bill on the floor of the Senate before it can be debated.
I love the idea! They should do it three times! Then they can’t say nobody ever read it! (And they should do it for every bill!)
A Sadness to Report
I have a sad thing to report this morning. The first TNIV Reference Bible many of us probably ever saw is being retired from active duty.
If you’re like me and have been reading the biblioblogs for several years, you probably first saw a real TNIV Reference Bible on Rick Mansfield’s “This Lamp” blog (which he now calls the “Classic This Lamp”) in this post. You see that picture of an open TNIV RB at the top? That is the one I am referring to.
Rick was very pleased with the TNIV RB, and used the one pictured quite heavily for a good year or more in his teaching job and at church. When Zondervan came out with the same Bible with the Renaissance Fine Leather cover, he ordered one for himself, and when it arrived he e-mailed yours truly and asked if I would be interested in having his original bonded-leather version for my very own. And of course I couldn’t pass it up, even though I could have bought a brand new one for about $25.
When it arrived at my home, I could see it had been used. I had no illusions that it would be in like-new condition. I was just pleased and honored that Rick thought of me when he was looking for a home for what had been arguably his #1 Bible for quite a while. Rick kind of apologized for his notes that he likes to write in his Bibles, probably knowing that I almost never write in my Bibles. But it took me quite a while before I found one, and really I have only seen a handful of notes in this Bible during the year or so that I have owned it. The Bible appeared used, but was really in pretty good condition. I figured I would be able to use it for several years of average use.
In recent months I have tried to use it more, to see if I could get used to the slightly smallish font and the odd (to my eyes at the time) single column format. Well, my eyes did get used to both, and I recently have found myself really enjoying using this Bible. In fact, you will notice that in my previous post about my struggle with the WordPress themes, I praised this theme because it reminds me of the inside of the TNIV RB!
I noticed when I examined this Bible when it first arrived, that it appeared to have been dropped, probably accidentally, either sometime while Rick had it, or had been roughly handled by the Postal Employees. The text block was kind of hanging down, not properly aligned with the cover the way it should have been. But it was still certainly usable. I should also add that I also accidentally dropped it a couple times, and noticed a bit of deterioration each time it happened. (Please be careful. Dropping Bibles just isn’t good for them!)
Well, last night as I was preparing for bed, I had been reading from this Bible; I had finished Romans and had read 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and I laid the Bible on the bed while I put on my pajamas. When I picked it up again to put it in its place for the night, I felt something give way, and I looked and saw that the text block had fallen away completely, along the front of the Bible where it attaches to the cover. It was then that I knew I could no longer use this Bible regularly as I had been doing.
So I have decided that this first TNIV Reference Bible that I had ever seen must now be retired from active duty.
At least I also have a TNIV XL which also was graciously given to me by another blogger, so I am not TNIV-less! Unfortunately the XL is a thinline, with red-letter and thumb indexing. But I can certainly live with that if I have to. It’s better than having no TNIV!
I keep hoping that someone will run a big sale on the Renaissance Leather TNIV RB so I can get one for next-to-nothing. 
Or I may just go with my TNIV XL until the start of publication of the new NIV 2011. And when they come out with that Bible, I hope Zondervan will seriously consider making one very much like the TNIV RB! It’s a good one!
My Struggle with Themes
If you’re a regular, or maybe even not-so-regular reader of the Sundry Times, you will already have noticed a change here.
I’ve changed themes again! That big banner is gone!
You know, I really love that picture of Jesus and two disciples on the road to Emmaus the afternoon of that Resurrection Sunday (that real Resurrection Sunday!), where Jesus is explaining to them from all the prophets, talking with them about how the Messiah had to be killed, and then resurrected on the third day, and at that point they didn’t even know who he was, but their hearts burned within them! What a wonderful picture!
But it was just too big and distracting. I get tired of seeing that same old stuff all the time. I wanted something clean and easy to read, yet professional in appearance. And among all the themes available to us on WordPress.com, I think this one fits the bill the best. (It kind of reminds me of the inside of my TNIV Reference Bible!)
So if you like this, enjoy! If you don’t like it, well just stick around a while, I’ll probably change it soon.
A Few More CEB Oddities
I have now completed reading through the Matthew sampler of the CEB, and there are a few more odd renderings I would like to mention.
Matthew 26:53 “Or do you think that I’m not able to ask my Father and he’ll send to me more than twelve battle groups of angels right away?”
Comment: Battle groups? I suppose it’s fresh, but battle groups? Whatever.
Matthew 26:65 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He’s insulting God!…”
Comment: Well, who even understands what blaspheming is nowadays, anyway? Maybe this will be more understandable. But in my mind I can’t help but think, “Can’t God take a little insult? What’s so bad about that?” Maybe insult just isn’t strong enough.
Matthew 27:28 “They stripped him and put a red military coat on him.”
Comment: It seems a bit odd – I think it’s traditionally translated as a robe – but perhaps this is more accurate, and will make it easier to understand exactly what this garment was that they put on Jesus.
Matthew 27:29 “Then they bowed down in front of him and mocked him, saying, “Greetings, King of the Jews.”"
Comment: Greetings just doesn’t cut it for me. They’re not saying “Hi there.” They’re mocking him, saying “HAIL, KING OF THE JEWS!”
Matthew 27:51 and throughout “Look” traditionally translated as “Behold!”
Comment: Nearly every instance of this in Matthew is simply not the way people talk. If they can’t handle using the expression “behold”, maybe they just shouldn’t translate it at all.
The translators of the CEB appear to have come up with a very fine, smooth-reading Bible, with many “fresh” renderings, if Matthew is any indication. The real question I have is whether or not even mainliners will find it acceptable. Much of it will be enough to jar people’s traditionalist sensibilities. But I think it’s going to be seen as a very easy-reading translation that will make it easier for people to actually understand what they’re reading.
But will it be enough to make them give up their NIV/TNIV/ESV/NRSV/NKJV/KJV or what have you? I remain unconvinced.
“One Soldier’s Story”
Click on the image for printable pdf file.
Click on the image for website and free download of Matthew sampler.A Friend of the TNIV
For foster and adoptive parents everywhere
Local Conditions
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
It’s now Wednesday afternoon, and I have three more jobs to do today, which will take up most of the afternoon. Then, I won’t be back online probably until next Monday.
So I want to take this opportunity to wish all my friends and fellow bloggers out there a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving holiday!
And please remember, it’s not Turkey Day, it’s Thanksgiving!