Parts of Speaking Publishing

 I am writing this on the morning of December 16.  24/7 news coverage gets in the way of Christmas bliss, which can be based on ignorance and wrong expectations.  I am stuck in the slough of the weekend's violence in Rhode Island, Syria, Los Angeles, and of course, Australia, where we cannot call it anything but attempted genocide. The perpetrators went to a place where as many Jews as could be expected would be gathered in a public, outdoor place. In a synagogue, there is security; we Gentiles do not understand how much security Jews have to maintain. The killers could have murdered many others, and from reports, it sounds like the police were not that effective. Granted, probably blindsided; "the citizens aren't supposed to have guns like that!" But they did, and more, they wanted to kill people against whom they have an unyielding hatred because of a small piece of land in the Middle East and a sixth century warring chieftain who controls the thoughts of a billion ...

  In sending his only Son Jesus, God “showed his love among us,” it says in verse 9. In Advent, we anticipate that coming: the Word made flesh. Embodied. Incarnational. Not God in a spiritual or digital form, but God who sits at the table and laughs with you. God at a coffee shop, if you will. (Carrie McKean, Christianity Today  article) She wrote this in a series of books about educational technology and its failure in the school system. I am reading The Digital Delusion by Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist at Harvard. It is a bit dumbed down for my taste (no in-text sources, either), but otherwise it's quite good.  My area of study includes digital v. embodied communication and oral v written communication. A source I was reading yesterday recommended Walter Ong; Ong changed my life. Orality and Literacy should be required reading. Enough of that. We are supposed to live in our bodies. We are not just in bodies; our existence is embodied and we are our bodies. Du...

  …   I'm sure he must have been surprised At where this road had taken him Cause never in a million lives Would he have dreamed of Bethlehem …  And standing at the manger He saw with his own eyes The message from the angel come to life And Joseph said …  Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade Why Him with all the rulers in the world Why here inside this stable filled with hay Why her, she's just an ordinary girl Now I'm not one to second guess What angels have to say But this is such a strange way to save the world …  To think of how it could have been If Jesus had come as He deserved There would have been no Bethlehem No lowly shepherds at His birth …  But Joseph knew the reason Love had to reach so far And as he held the Savior in his arms He must have thought …  Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade Why Him with all the rulers in the world Why here inside this stable filled with hay Why her, she's just an ordinary girl Now I'm not one to second gu...

From the Anteroom of Christmas, by Lanier Ivester.  I am learning, to embrace the stark solemnity of the great universal waiting for the Messiah and to find a parable of it in my own desires.   Advent is the place for you. Advent is where the “now” of God’s active and present love for us meets the “not yet” of our unfulfilled longings, and it is specifically set apart for the wounded and the waiting, the weary and the jaded.  https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/11/the-anteroom-of-christmas-advent-reflection/ Several years ago, I found myself hating December. The darkness, the disruption, the expenses. I have bad memories of Christmas as a child, ones I don't need to go into here and have never really talked about.  But now, ending my seventh decade, I see that December should be overshadowed and conquered by Advent, with its promise, its journey, its outcome, and yes, its longing.  Plus, after Christmas the days start getting longer again--something my Scandi...

 I recently was sent to these words from the daughter of John Wesley, about his death.  “…some of those who were most used to hear our dear Father’s dying voice would be able to interpret his meaning; but though he strove to speak we were still unsuccessful: finding we could not understand what he said, he paused a little, and then with all the remaining strength he had, cried out, ‘ The best of all is, God is with us” ; and then, as if to assert the faithfulness of our promise-keeping Jehovah and comfort the hearts of his weeping friends, lifting up his dying arm in token of victory and raising his feeble voice with a holy triumph not to be xpressed, again repeated the heart-reviving words, “The best of all is, God is with us!”   The Journal of John Wesley , ed., Percy Livingstone Parker, (Chicago, IL: Moody Press), 419. Yes, the best of all is Immanuel, God with us.  That is the message of Christmas.  From Matthew 1 18  Now the birth of Jesus Christ ...

In these daily posts, I (somewhat) respond to readings, songs, or experiences that are happening as we journey toward Christmas the way Mary and Joseph journeyed toward Bethlehem.  The William Butler Yeats poem gets quoted a lot nowadays, which gives punditry an apocalyptic feel: Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst    Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out    When a vast image out of  Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,    A...