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Our Daily Thread 1-2-15

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!!!

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On this day in 1492 the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. 

In 1788 Georgia became the 4th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. 

In 1890 Alice Sanger became the first female White House staffer.  

And in 1960 Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

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Quote of the Day

“Music is a performance and needs the audience.”

Michael Tippett

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 Today is Roger Miller’s birthday.

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Anyone have a QoD?

58 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-2-15”

  8. Working on my last Advent b
    Of post–this one about the Wise Men. Do you know anything surprising about them? We’re they duplicitous when they snuck out of Bethlehem without reporting in to Herod? 🙂

    And for next week– any thoughts on Jesus as a child?

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  9. Good day that the Lord made to rejoice and be filled with gladness!

    Yesterday Karen O asked about my computer situation. I do not have internet at home although I do have my own laptop. We have had both AOL and CLEAR at home but they gave us issues, too. Now I have access to the internet when I go to the office, but I have not been much lately as it is the really off season toward the end of the year. The phone works fine for posting if it is not burdened or infected by what I call “Grems.” The phone is suppose to anticipate the words you are going to type based on the beginning letters of a word. It has a mini listing that you can choose from to select your word so posting can be quick and efficient. You can also use a stylus to help with hitting the right keys if that is an issue. I have just not had a good opportunity to get back to the T-MOBILE store with our phones to try to get kinks worked out. My phone is working properly as I am typing this. Maybe the Grems made a resolution to stop bothering me. 🙂 I also have an hour a day access to the internet at a nearby library.

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  10. Mumsee, last night I dreamed about you and your family.

    My husband and I had moved to live fairly close to you. I wasn’t sure how close, since I hadn’t thought to check the mileage, but I thought it was close enough to stop by every couple of weeks. In the dream I had interacted with several of your children, but at the end I was sitting and reading with a 15-year-old boy. (Why, I don’t know, since teens are the group I find hardest to connect with of all age groups, but then, my sister’s older kids are now teen boys, and if I’ve known them for years then I’m fine with them.)

    And then you and I hugged and chatted a bit, and I told you I really wanted to get to know your family better.

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  11. Re: The Wise Men
    People call them astrologers but it was more than that.
    Think of men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
    They were evidently rich and powerful men.
    We shouldn’t think that just three men traveled from Babylon of Persia without an entourage. It was a big deal.

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  12. Extending what Chas wrote: The term “astrologer” had a different connotation in ancient times. We would not call them “astronomers” or “astrologers”now-a-days, but something combining the study of the stars and the interpreting of signs in the stars. For you Narnia fans, the magi would be someone like the centaur prophets who read the stars to determine it was time for Aslan or the “Sons of Adam” to come.

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  13. Finished my Bible reading for Day 2 (Gen. 2, Matt. 2, Ezra 2 & Acts 2). So far, so good. … But I was up extra early, I went to bed at 9 p.m. so by 6 a.m. was ready to go. Only 53 in the house this morning, but that’s better than yesterday — when it was 52. 🙂 I did give in and flip the heater on this morning, though.

    It’s back to work for me today, I’m doing a story on the February opening of a new wing of the Kaiser hospital, so photographer & I are getting a 2 p.m. tour (although I’m hoping to write most of the story before that using our previous beginning-of-construction story & their news release — hoping to wrap up early today if at all possible).

    No trash pickup today because of the holiday week, I’ll have a lot to haul out for tomorrow, though.

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  14. And before Chas gets worried, here are ,a href=http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/>the Friday Funnies.

    It’s been since last year that I’ve done this, so I almost forgot how. 😉

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  15. What kinds song is that to get on your mind?
    I’d never heard it before.
    I can’t understand why the women went for Elvis so much.
    But most of you can. 🙂

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  18. It works now Chas. At least I have a good excuse for messing up. I’m holding a fussy 3 month old while his mommy does things for the other grandchildren.

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  19. Paul David Tripp @PaulTripp
    Our faith is up and down, here and there, but the faithfulness of God is unbroken, unceasing and eternal. Hope! … As you start this year resolve to keep your eyes on Jesus, the Initiator and Completer of you faith and not on yourself.

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  20. oh, click “Try again” in the post above.

    In looking at them, I think I missed last week, as there are a lot to do with Christmas and last week’s news I hadn’t seen before.

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  21. I’d never heard that Elvis song before, either.

    I wasn’t really a fan of his, by the time we were teens it was all about the Brits & the Beatles — Elvis was pretty “old” and not considered very hip by then, especially with all those jumpsuits, capes & glitter. He’d kind of gone ‘Vegas,’ or something.

    But I can see how he would have been appealing in his younger, edgier days.

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  26. i tried to post yesterday about liking the Mouse picture, but the post got lost .Miss Bosley would enjoy playing with all those toys and chasing a Mouse around the house. 🙂

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  30. Everyone has gone home – the last left this morning. The house seems quiet and empty 😦

    Michelle, on the wise men (Magi): They definitely weren’t duplicitous, since they were acting in obedience to God who warned them in a dream not to return. After all, they owed Herod nothing and weren’t even his subjects.
    One thing, which I have never heard in a sermon, is that their coming seems to have been in fulfillment of a prophecy. I love to read Isaiah during the Advent season, and I always notice Isaiah 60, which begins, “Arise, shine, for thy light is come”, especially verse 6:

    The multitude of camels shall cover thee,
    the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
    all they from Sheba shall come:
    they shall bring gold and incense;
    and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.

    Chas has already mentioned the connection of their title to the position which Daniel and his friends held in Babylon, although it should be pointed out that the wise men of Babylon were not necessarily from Babylon, as the custom of great eastern emperors was always to gather the best of every nation to serve in the palace. G. K. Chesterton suggested, in The Everlasting Man, that the Magi represented the subjection of pagan philosophy to Christ. They also seem to symbolize both the fulfillment and the foreshadowing of the prophecy that the Gentiles would be saved through the Messiah. Listed as a cross-reference for Isaiah 60:6 is Psalm 72:10, “…the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts”, so perhaps the title of “We Three Kings” is more accurate than we give it credit for being 🙂

    BTW, Chas, I wouldn’t call Elvis at all attractive. I can see how some might think he was handsome, but he ain’t my type at all 😛

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  32. One further note about the Magi: Marco Polo apparently inquired about the Magi when he traveled through Persia, as related in The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian:

    “Of the Great Country of Persia; With Some Account of the Three Kings.”
    Persia is a great country, which was in old times very illustrious and powerful; but now the Tartars have wasted and destroyed it.
    In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out when they went to worship Jesus Christ; and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, carefully kept. The bodies are still entire, with the hair and beard remaining. One of these was called Jaspar, the second Melchior, and the third Balthasar. Messer Marco Polo asked a great many questions of the people of that city as to those Three Magi, but never one could he find that knew aught of the matter, except that these were three kings who were buried there in days of old. However, at a place three days’ journey distant he heard of what I am going to tell you. He found a village there which goes by the name of Cala Ataperistan, which is as much as to say, “The Castle of the Fire-worshippers.” And the name is rightly applied, for the people there do worship fire, and I will tell you why.
    They relate that in old times three kings of that country went away to worship a Prophet that was born, and they carried with them three manner of offerings, Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh; in order to ascertain whether that Prophet were God, or an earthly King, or a Physician. For, said they, if he take the Gold, then he is an earthly King; if he take the Incense he is God; if he take the Myrrh he is a Physician.
    So it came to pass when they had come to the place where the Child was born, the youngest of the Three Kings went in first, and found the Child apparently just of his own age; so he went forth again marvelling greatly. The middle one entered next, and like the first he found the Child seemingly of his own age; so he also went forth again and marvelled greatly. Lastly, the eldest went in, and as it had befallen the other two, so it befell him. And he went forth very pensive. And when the three had rejoined one another, each told what he had seen; and then they all marvelled the more. So they agreed to go in all three together, and on doing so they beheld the Child with the appearance of its actual age, to wit, some thirteen days. Then they adored, and presented their Gold and Incense and Myrrh. And the Child took all the three offerings, and then gave them a small closed box; whereupon the Kings departed to return into their own land.

    “How the Three Kings Returned to their Own Country”
    And when they had ridden many days they said they would see what the Child had given them. So they opened the little box, and inside it they found a stone. On seeing this they began to wonder what this might be that the Child had given them, and what was the import thereof. Now the signification was this: when they presented their offerings, the Child had accepted all three, and when they saw that they had said within themselves that He was the True God, and the True King, and the True Physician. And what the gift of the stone implied was that this Faith which had begun in them should abide firm as a rock. For He well knew what was in their thoughts. Howbeit, they had no understanding at all of this signification of the gift of the stone; so they cast it into a well. Then straightway a fire from Heaven descended into that well wherein the stone had been cast.
    And when the Three Kings beheld this marvel they were sore amazed, and it greatly repented them that they had cast away the stone; for well they then perceived that it had a great and holy meaning. So they took of that fire, and carried it into their own country, and placed it in a rich and beautiful church. And there the people keep it continually burning, and worship it as a god, and all the sacrifices they offer are kindled with that fire. And if ever the fire becomes extinct they go to other cities round about where the same faith is held, and obtain of that fire from them, and carry it to the church. And this is the reason why the people of this country worship fire. They will often go ten days’ journey to get of that fire.
    Such then was the story told by the people of that Castle to Messer Marco Polo; they declared to him for a truth that such was their history, and that one of the three kings was of the city called Saba, and the second of Ava, and the third of that very Castle where they still worship fire, with the people of all the country round about.

    Having related this story, I will now tell you of the different provinces of Persia, and their peculiarities.

    Links: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Book_1/Chapter_13,
    http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Book_1/Chapter_14

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  40. No newsletter.

    Thank you, Phos, Chas and Peter. I’m about to post my blog, but it’s already close to 1000 words, if I add Phos’ interesting bit from Marco Polo . . . yikes. Thanks for including the link, Phos; I’ll figure out something–too interesting to miss. 🙂

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  41. Michelle, I have a book called “Mary’s Treasure Box” that is the story of Mary as a grandmother showing her granddaughter all the mementos of Jesus’ boyhood. “…and all these things Mary treasured in her heart”. I think Jesus was a typical little boy until he reached the age of accountability in the Jewish faith. He was made man so that he would know what it was like to be human. If I can easily find the book I will write it out in an email to you.

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  47. Cheryl, I think our modern concept of kings sometimes gets in our way of understanding the position of ancient kings. In studying the history of the Gambia region, I found that there were about sixteen different Mandinka kingdoms or states in the tiny space of what is now The Gambia. Kings were often just localized leaders, perhaps of a single city, like the king of Salem or the king of Sodom. Sometimes, a collection of related kingdoms would be in allegiance to a central leader, as in ancient Ireland, where local kings were under a High King. In Middle Eastern culture, it was not uncommon that a central authority would appoint members of his court, like eunuchs or even slaves, to rule over cities or states. In the non-fiction account Arabian Sands, the writer tells of meeting an emir (prince) of an Arabian town who was a slave – and this was in the late 1940s! So it was quite possible for the Magi to be both kings and wise men.

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  48. Thanks, Chas, makes sense it was on last night.

    I got the newsletter, Jo, loved it! 🙂

    So a photographer & I got a personal tour of the new Kaiser hospital opening next month, very nice. Lots of soothing pastels, spacious single rooms for all the patients, images of waves, sand and other beach scenes on the walls, a real chef who will cook the food (which is available on a “room service” basis, anytime patients want to eat).

    Lots of high tech, too. Apparently the seismic requirements for hospitals was tightened a few years back so they had to decide whether to retrofit or rebuild. Since the old hospital went up in the 1950s, the choice was pretty simple.

    At least it gave me a story to turn in for the weekend, so my editor was happy. This is truly one of the slowest news weeks for us every year, and all our regular sources are out. I was very appreciative to the hospital folks for rounding a couple officials up for this tour, it was a day off for them, too.

    I filed early so got to take the dogs to the dog park — where it was still very cold.

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  55. I only have email for a few of you. Several were on my list, but someone didn’t get it. Not sure what is happening.
    Aj if you want to send me Peter’s address, I will add him. And I don’t think that I have an address for Mumsee

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  58. Roscuro, I replied briefly earlier, but I see it didn’t post (stupid internet connection issues). Yes, the Old Testament also has a lot of references to kings that would in our day be considered mayors at the most, the territory they ruled was so small.

    My point was more that our Western “mythology” has songs such as “We Three Kings” when we really have no idea how many men there were (probably more than three); Scripture only tells us how many gifts they brought, and culturally we assume “one gift for each person who came to the party.” Nor does Scripture tell us they were kings.

    And it’s interesting that Persian mythology comes up with the same sorts of specificity to their version of the story (albeit with more a Roman Catholic / mystical feel to it than westerners would add). Their story does have a bit of the same “touch” as Ali Babba and the like.

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