Lift Up Your Hearts!

I watched us lose the abortion war, and it's happening again.

In my late teens it became inevitable that America would broaden the situations in which abortions could be legally performed, and at that critical juncture the pro-life side made a wrong turn. Many Americans wanted the restrictions loosened a bit, but still recognized the terrible consequences of taking an innocent human life.  Even the pro-choice side wanted abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" (emphasis mine). Many who would have supported laws that eased restrictions on early-term abortions and extreme situations (such as where the baby would die soon after being born) still opposed abortion for sex selection, for the elimination of children with medical challenges, or as backup birth control.  And they were horrified by the idea of late-term abortion.

But we made a fatal mistake: we refused to compromise. Politics is the art of compromise, and we were naïve. To be fair, if you believe that abortion is the deliberate choice to destroy a human life, it's hard to accept it at all. But I'm certain that if we had not been so absolutist at that point, we would ultimately have saved many millions of lives with the restrictions that then could have been put in place. Instead, we facilitated the culture of abortion in which we now live. You can't always get what you want.

I tell this story because I see the same thing happening today. Many people who voted for President Trump are so disappointed by what he has not been able to accomplish that they plan to turn their backs on this election and not vote. This is a serious mistake. America is in a precarious situation and we need to take a larger view. Now is not the time to give up just because we can't get all we'd hoped for. We've slipped into this peril slowly, and hoping to get out of it quickly is like expecting that the pounds we gained over the past 20 years can be lost in a month.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
Well, you just might find
You get what you need

I posted this back in May, but it's time for a reprise.

President Trump is trying to make Daylight Saving Time permanent!  If you're against him and everything he believes in, then I'm counting on you.  I'm COUNTING ON YOU to rise up against this affront to nature.  Tell your senators, tell your representatives, tell your state and local leaders.  (Don't tell Trump himself; that might have the opposite effect.)

IT'S TIME to take a stand against this unnatural practice!

(And if you're not against President Trump, I'm counting on YOU, too.)

If you were reading Lift Up Your Hearts! regularly back in 2020, thank you. The following may consequently sound familiar, but it's worth reprising. C. S. Lewis is well-known, and classic. George MacDonald is much less so, though he has enjoyed somewhat of a revival thanks to renewed availability of his writings. What is worth bearing in mind is that he was Lewis's mentor, though they never met; it was his writings—and the character they revealed—that influenced Lewis so greatly. Lewis put it clearly and boldly:

I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.... I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.

C. S. Lewis showed me a God who made sense of the world; George MacDonald showed me a God I could wholeheartedly love.

As I neared the end of my C. S. Lewis retrospective—reading (mostly re-reading) all the books we own by or about the prolific author—I was challenged by my friend, The Occasional CEO, to relate a few of the most significant things I have learned from Lewis. I began with the idea of trying to distill a Top Five from his many areas of influence in my life.

It soon became clear that of everything I have learned from Lewis—from faith to literature to history to the changing meaning of words to the critical importance of one's model of the universe—two stood out, orders of magnitude greater than the rest. 

All is gift. I am Oyarsa not by His gift alone but by our foster mother’s, not by hers alone but by yours, not by yours alone but my wife’s—nay, in some sort, by gift of the very beasts and birds. Through many hands, enriched with many different kinds of love and labor, the gift comes to me. It is the Law. The best fruits are plucked for each by some hand that is not his own. [from Perelandra]

The first gift I received from C. S. Lewis was his Narnia stories. I was introduced to them in mid-elementary school: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a gift from my mother, who brought it to me in a stack of books from the library when I was sick in bed. The remainder of the series came about two years later, a gift from a neighbor, who owned all seven and shared them around our group of friends. I was delighted, enthralled. However, my attempt to find similar delight in his other fiction was at the time unsuccessful. I tried the first of his Space Trilogy, but I was a hard-core science fiction fan—Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke—and Out of the Silent Planet was not sufficiently science-based for me. One of Lewis's earliest books, it lacks the beauty and enchantment of the Narnia stories, and was intended for an adult audience. I have since come to enjoy it, but I wasn't ready then.

I rediscovered Narnia in college, thanks to the University of Rochester's Education Library, which was well-stocked with children's books. There I also first encountered Mere Christianity: the gift of my roommate, and my introduction to Lewis's nonfiction. To my shock, there I discovered that all the delight—the goodness, truth, and beauty—that I had encountered in Narnia was for Lewis an expression of reality, a reality far greater than he could depict, even in fantasy. I came later to respect the background in Christianity I had received in my childhood, but it was through Lewis and Narnia that the reality of God began to make sense to me.

This is the first and great gift, and the second is like unto it.

I went on to read more of Lewis's non-fiction, and to gain from it, but his next pivotal gift came many years later, through a friend—all is gift—who shared with me Lewis's George MacDonald: An Anthology.

If Narnia had shown me a God who made sense of the world, MacDonald showed me a God I could love.

George MacDonald is another author I had met before—as a child through his Curdie books and At the Back of the North Wind—but I'd never followed through to find what else he might have written. To be fair to myself, his other books weren't easy to find back then.

Of MacDonald, Lewis wrote,

In making these extracts I have been concerned with MacDonald not as a writer but as a Christian teacher. If I were to deal with him as a writer, a man of letters, I should be faced with a difficult critical problem. If we define Literature as an art whose medium is words, then certainly MacDonald has no place in its first rank—perhaps not even in its second. There are indeed passages, many of them in this collection, where the wisdom and (I would dare to call it) the holiness that are in him triumph over and even burn away the baser elements in his style: the expression becomes precise, weighty, economic; acquires a cutting edge. But he does not maintain this level for long. The texture of his writing as a whole is undistinguished, at times fumbling. Bad pulpit traditions cling to it; there is sometimes a nonconformist verbosity, sometimes an old Scotch weakness for florid ornament (it runs right through them from Dunbar to the Waverly Novels), sometimes an oversweetness picked up from Novalis. But this does not quite dispose of him even for the literary critic. What he does best is fantasy—fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopoeic. And this, in my opinion, he does better than any man.

(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from Lewis's preface to George MacDonald, An Anthology.}

MacDonald's works can be divided roughly into three parts, though they overlap: the fantasy that so impressed Lewis; books of sermons; and his many adult novels—the craft of which left Lewis so unimpressed—which served both to feed his family of thirteen and as vehicles for reaching a wider audience with his preaching. The last sounds dreary, but in reality the preaching is what makes his novels shine. (Those who know my lack of appreciation for most sermons will recognize the peculiarity of such a statement coming from me.)

Having been reawakened to MacDonald by Lewis's Anthology, I looked around for more, and the best I could find were modern re-workings of his novels, some by Michael R. Phillips and some by Dan Hamilton. I give credit to both authors for their obvious respect for MacDonald, and their faithfulness to his ideas, even though in their efforts they exaggerated the parts I like least from the originals (the Romantic elements) and reduced the best (the preaching). The library had most of them, and I wolfed them down.

Most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another.

The next contributor to my journey was a church secretary who had obtained photocopies of all three Unspoken Sermons books, which she graciously shared. I wonder if the generations who grew up with easy access to a universe of electronic resources can even imagine how valuable bound photocopies could be. Or what an incredible gift it was to the world when, in the 1990's, Johannesen began republishing all of MacDonald's works, in beautifully-crafted sets. All of these treasures were given to me, over several years of birthdays and Christmases, by my father. He himself had no particular appreciation of MacDonald—I doubt he read any of the books—but a great deal of love for his children and grandchildren, for whom I consider the collection a legacy. Now, Kindle versions of almost all of MacDonald's works are available at no or very little cost.

I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. 

Lewis is not exaggerating the frequency of MacDonald's influence on his own works. Having tackled my MacDonald retrospective first, I easily recognized his ideas and often his words when I encountered them in Lewis.

I know nothing that gives me such a feeling of spiritual healing, of being washed, as to read George MacDonald. (from a letter of Lewis to Arthur Greeves)

I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.

What greater endorsement could there be?

Lewis was puzzled as to how people could idolize him and ignore MacDonald. I have some ideas. MacDonald's books were old, even then—he had died before Lewis turned seven—and our society's "chronological snobbery" was well established. Although full of gold, many of his books are difficult to read, even those not laden with Scottish dialect. I can now say that it's well worth the effort, and the reading and understanding get much easier with practice. But I can't forget that I had actually encountered MacDonald's novels years before, deep in the stacks of our main college library. But apparently this, too, had to wait to be a gift rather than my own choice: to my everlasting embarrassment, I turned aside from those unattractive, ancient, brown, and dusty tomes. Perhaps it was the library's revenge that I later became a genealogist, whose blood now quickens at the mere scent of such books.

Then, too, from the beginning MacDonald was plagued by charges of heresy and branded "Universalist" for his belief that, in the end, God's love would triumph. Lewis did not see him that way, but it led (and still leads) some to dismiss MacDonald out of hand.

Reaction against early [strict Scottish Calvinist] teachings might ... have very easily driven him into a shallow liberalism. But it does not. He hopes, indeed, that all men will be saved; but that is because he hopes that all will repent.

Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined.

Inexorability—but never the inexorability of anything less than love—runs through [MacDonald's thought] like a refrain; "escape is hopeless"—"agree quickly with your adversary"—"compulsion waits behind"—"the uttermost farthing will be exacted." Yet this urgency never becomes shrill. All the sermons are suffused with a spirit of love and wonder which prevents it from doing so. MacDonald shows God threatening, but (as Jeremy Taylor says) "He threatens terrible things if we will not be happy."

The effect of C. S. Lewis's writings on my thinking is incalculable, and not just from his most popular books. Who would have guessed, for example, that I would give a five-star rating to Studies in Words—a book on philology, addressed to scholars, of which I understood less than half? But I was fascinated, and my eyes were opened to the pernicious habit (especially common among both literary critics and high school English teachers) of simply seeking meaning in what we read, instead of seeking what the author meant by his words and what his contemporary audience understood him to be saying.

There's no doubt that Lewis was quirky, humble, and absolutely brilliant—all the more brilliant that so many of his writings were written to be accessible to the ordinary British public, yet there's no hint of condescension. I could start my Lewis retrospective over again from the beginning and learn a lot more.

But for all that, Lewis's greatest influence on my life came less through my mind than through my spirit. Lewis said that reading MacDonald's Phantastes "baptized his imagination." The Narnia books first, and then George MacDonald directly, did the same for me.

This surprising realization came nearly sixty years after my first encounter with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and was itself a gift—thanks to my friend's challenge.

It hurts to have your name stolen.

I'm not talking about identity theft, horrific as that is, but something deeper, more personal. I think of all the Kevins in Europe, where "Kevin isn't a name; it's a diagnosis." All the women whose parents innocently named them "Alexa." My own husband, Porter, whose name precludes calling for him in an airport or train station.

And heaven help the many lovely people I know named "Karen."

Recently, heaven got a little assistance from Mikayla Hedrick, in her article "Get me the manager: In defense of Karens." Well worth the short read, and maybe sending the article to a beleaguered Karen you know.

The Millennial and Gen Z generations who adopted the term grew up with a “Karen” as their elementary school teacher, or the mom down the block, or, like me, as their aunt. Now, those Karens are middle-aged women, a thankless season in the lives of females everywhere, and the pejorative is hurled upon them ceaselessly.

They’ve been accused of racism, of being too quick to call the police, of caring too much about their neighbor’s lawn, and of being a causeless nag at a perfectly good restaurant.

And because I was not a Karen...I said nothing.

No one came to defend our mothers, aunts, or middle-school teachers. They were early victims of rising wokeness, and most of us fed them to the wolves without thinking twice. Conservatives who would later reject the labels of DEI culture said nothing while their wives subliminally imbibed the idea that to be a middle-aged woman who cared enough to join the PTA may subject them to internet bullying and character defamation: all hidden behind the label “Karen.”

That ends now.

Rather than perpetuating the stereotype that a “Karen” is a nuisance whose behavior should be avoided, it’s time to admit that it’s Karens who make the world go round.

While working diligently to resurrect a sense of perpetual racial tension, the label “Karen” has cunningly inflamed prejudice, not against women of a certain race, but against all women of a certain age.

It’s the rightful role of the middle-aged woman to guard her community — to ensure its safety, cleanliness, and standards. But standards aren’t cool anymore. If you care too much about such things, you’re mocked with the air of a middle-school bully taunting you for doing your homework.

And the middle-aged woman is the personification of standards.

She is the mother who has known you since birth and can tell you’re slacking off, even when no one else can. She is the neighbor who is tired of you driving into the cul-de-sac blasting loud music when you know good and well that the babies are sleeping.

She is no longer the gullible maiden you can charm with sweet words. She is a matriarch in training and can see right through your BS.

That’s her job in the neighborhood, and that’s her role in the country.

Don’t try to push Democratic Socialism on a real Karen. She will remind you that you still haven’t paid her back for that window you broke as a kid. Don’t expect her to toe the line on your new pronouns. And definitely don’t let her catch you looting a Walgreens in the name of “justice,” because she will personally escort your butt to prison.

She’s not here to play.

And that’s why she’s demeaned. Because she is a vanguard in a culture that wants to get away with everything.

No thank you.

I’ll take safe streets, good service, and the ladies keeping it all together for the rest of us.

Although we occasionally checked in with the home front while we were overseas, for three weeks we had very little exposure to news headlines and social media.  I'm not saying that was a bad thing, but it meant we were met with some surprises when we returned home.  One very encouraging surprise was that the Internet had been flooded with reports and stories from international visitors who had come to the United States on the occasion of the World Cup and had had their stereotypes of America and Americans overwhelmed by reality.

For the last 20 years or so I have experienced a lot more foreign travel than I ever imagined, and one thing I have noticed is that very few people have any idea of how vast and how diverse America is.  Looking at a map of Texas alone, superimposed on a map of Europe, I see that it covers all or part of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland!  That kind of vastness is hard for many Europeans to imagine.

As for culture, even Americans get their impressions of our country from Hollywood and whatever highly-curated news filters their way—how much more so those who don't live here?  I've learned the futility of trying to convince Europeans that their conception of America does not reflect the reality of America, but where I failed, the World Cup succeeded.  Visitor after visitor reported, with amazement, "Everything I was told about the United States was wrong!"  They were astounded by what they found, so different from what they had expected, everything from the flavor of ranch dressing to the kindness and warm welcome they experienced in the Deep South—from the people they had been taught to hate.  (Indeed, I had to unlearn that low opinion of the American South myself, having grown up in the Northeast.)  Americans, trapped in self-flagellation because we allow our flaws to mask our strengths, need to see our country through such eyes!

Why is this relevant to our trip?  Because these happy stories mirror ours, both on this trip and indeed on all the trips we've taken to foreign parts.  "Everyone said" that the French, especially Parisians, are rude and hate Americans, but our experience was exactly the opposite.  We met one, just one rude cab driver in Paris; everyone else was friendly and kind and patient with my very broken French.  In our experience—which can't be the same as someone else's but is the only experience by which we can truly judge—people in Europe, and Japan, and Brazil, and The Gambia are as kind and friendly as people anywhere, and do not universally hate Americans.  My greatest surprise on this trip was the respect and even admiration we heard expressed for American leadership; I had expected dismay and contempt.  Fear-mongering reports flow both ways across the Atlantic!

But we rarely talked politics, at least not directly; ordinary stories about our own lives and all that we have in common were what everyone delighted in sharing.  We spoke with people from all over the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Norway, Sweden, France, Portugal, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Germany, Turkey, and more—and found nearly everyone to be interesting, friendly, polite, kind, and sometimes above-and-beyond helpful.

Not everyone can, or should, take a Mediterranean cruise or travel far to see World Cup soccer in person, but surely the world would be better off if we spent less time listening to stories that make us angry and more time experiencing the humanity of our neighbors.

The flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away.

You know you're aging as fast as the country when you tell people you were almost a quarter of a century old when America celebrated her 200th birthday, and they say, "Oh, wow...." But I remember celebrating the Bicentennial in Philadelphia, and hearing President Ford speak there.

I approached this post feeling entirely inadequate to write about America's 250th birthday. It demands something more profound, more intense than I can give at the moment, despite my deep feelings. I love our country now more than I ever have, perhaps because never in all my decades as an American have I felt our freedom to be in more danger, and the number of those attempting to take it away—or give it away—to be so overwhelming. But the flag still stands for freedom.

Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA was from my children's era, not mine, and it doesn't often come to mind when I think about patriotic songs. But the other day I heard it, unexpectedly, and it equally unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes. I paused and stood taller as if I were hearing our national anthem. It's a fitting tribute to a great country.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I'd thank my lucky stars
To be living here today
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can't take that away

And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

From the lakes of Minnesota
To the hills of Tennessee
Across the plains of Texas
From sea to shining sea
From Detroit down to Houston
And New York to L.A
Well there's pride in every American heart
And it's time we stand and say

That I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

It was a small gesture, but it felt so good.

The government gave us these for free, and they've been stashed in our closet ever since. The last time I used one was ages ago, in order to be able to assure members of our choir that my symptoms were seasonal allergies, not covid. They are now three years past their putative expiration dates, and I needed the space in the closet—and in my mind.

Tossing these boxes into the trash did nothing to undo the harm that was done during the covid era, nor to erase the shame I carry for my own behavior in that time of mass delusion and conformity.

But it still felt really good.

As promised in a previous post, here's a follow-up to my dad's thoughts about happiness, during a 1993 Elderhostel lecture in Uruguay.

An event on the same day inspired similar thoughts on fun.

The same thing happened later that night. A friend of one of the speakers joined us at dinner and he sat across from the man next to me. At one time he asked my neighbor "Which of your activities so far has been the most fun?" My answer would have been that none has been fun. "Fun" describes a roller coaster ride (at least if you are much younger than I). "Fun" describes a short-term activity that has a lot of action with it. Our activities were interesting and/or educational but they were not fun. If you are not happy, you are not necessarily unhappy; if you are not having fun, you are not necessarily bored. Or at least that is the world as I see it. But I think I have the wisdom not to argue about it with anyone.

Living in the land of high-speed theme park thrill rides, at my age I no longer find most roller coasters pleasant, let alone fun. Research, writing, and the process of creation are usually quite enough action for me, and a sufficient response when someone asks, "But what do you do for fun?" Even if they then think I'm crazy.

I agree with my father, even if I generally lack the wisom in his final line.

This was my father's comment, from a 1993 letter, on the prevalence of creative wedding vows. I think that trend started in the 1960's.

I think the standard words are just fine if people would only listen while they repeat the marriage vows.

I have created my first, and I hope only, anti-Trump political cartoon. I usually give the president grace for decisions he makes that I disagree with, but supporting year-round Daylight Saving Time is a bridge too far. As most of my readers know, I'd be fine with permanent Standard Time, but being so far out of sync with the sun is just not right. (I'll give you time zones, for practical reasons, but see no such excuse for pretending that noon is one o'clock.)

This work was inspired by a political cartoonist whose name I don't know, who published a cartoon using the blanket-snipping idea back when President Nixon had the same crazy thoughts about permanent DST. I tried to find the cartoon online, but failed. So I decided to create my own, with a little help from Copilot. Okay, a lot of help. It can draw, and I can't.

Copilot may be able to draw, but its rules can be very frustrating, as I've said before. However, there's a certain creative challenge in trying to make one's point within the restrictions; it was actually rather fun.

At first I tried re-creating the old cartoon as I remembered it. My prompts are in italics, Copilot's responses in bold. These are excerpts from a much longer conversation, as we worked through the creation and refinement process. Most the design work was mine, but Copilot made the speech bubbles, and I thought they were great so I left them in.

Please draw a cartoon of President Trump in bed, with a blanket and a pair of scissors. In the first panel, he is snipping off the bottom of the blanket; in the second he is sewing the cut-off part onto the top.

I can help you create a cartoon — but I can’t generate or depict current political candidates or elected officials in new images. That includes drawing President Trump in any scene.

All right, make it President Nixon, then.

I still can’t generate this cartoon, Linda — even with President Nixon — because he is a real political figure, and I’m not allowed to create new images depicting actual politicians, even historical ones, in fabricated scenes.

Hmm. How about if you use a generic man but indicate somehow that he is a U.S. president?

It got a little further, but eventually came back with,

I can’t create this cartoon, Linda. The request was blocked because it still counts as depicting a U.S. president, even a fictionalized one, in a political‑cartoon scenario, which falls under the same safety restriction.

At this point, I changed the scene entirely, keeping the main idea but taking the president out of bed (which looked ridiculous; I don't remember how the original cartoon made it look otherwise) and putting him behind a desk, with a salesman selling the blanket-cutting idea. I added the caption to make it clear that the man was president of a fictional country. That passed! and the rest of the work was just refinements.

Traditionally sung on Palm Sunday, Ride On, Ride On in Majesty is a musical journey through Holy Week, from Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) through his crucifixion (Good Friday) to his glorious Resurrection (Easter).

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
Thy humble beast pursues his road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The angel armies of the sky
look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
awaits his own anointed Son.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy power, and reign.

I can't have a favorite line in such a wonderful hymn, but if I did, it would be "The Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son." Nothing that happened during Holy Week came as a surprise, but was known and expected since the beginning of time. It was not, as a priest tried to tell us one Easter, something that caught Jesus off guard, but rather the very sequence of events for which he was born—and he knew it.

Today is Good Friday. But Easter is coming!

The Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son.

Here's a very short Facebook reel that I have found worthwhile and encouraging. Some of you may pass it by simply because it is Glenn Beck speaking, and I'd be in sympathy with that reaction. There are some people—he's not one, but there certainly are some people—with whom I have a hard time following my own motto, "The wise man recognizes truth in the words of his enemies." If you feel that way about Glenn Beck, don't torture yourself.

But I appreciate hearing wisdom and truth spoken calmly, clearly, and succinctly, facing reality without anger and without fear. I share it for those of my readers who may find it inspiring.

Yesterday, January 6th, was the holy day of Epiphany, celebrating the revelation of God's Light to the Gentiles (the Three Wise Men) and marking the end of the Twelve days of Christmas.  Recently, however, some people have tried to appropriate that day for political purposes—Left and Right alike. 

I will have none of that!

Before dawn yesterday morning, I was up performing the ritual of Chalking the Door, a practice we ran into in Europe before spending a few years in a church that honored that custom.  We still have the chalk which was officially blessed in 2020.  It only gets used once a year, so we're not likely to outlive it.

Lord God of heaven and earth, you revealed your only begotten Son to every nation by the guidance of a star.  Bless this house and all who live here and all who visit.  May we be blessed with health, kindness of heart, gentleness and the keeping of your law.  Fill us with the light of Christ, that our love for each other may go out to all.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Porter had the idea for this image, and I had fun with Copilot on this. It steadfastly refused to make an image of an ostrich with a noose around its neck and a Canadian flag in the background. But it then asked what I was trying to express, and had a number of suggestions for making the point without violating its guidelines. After about 15 minutes of back and forth I was quite pleased with this. Not with the circumstances of course, but with the picture.

Although I read all of the original Harry Potter books when they first came out, I saw only a few of the films. Thanks to a friend's gift, however, we've recently been watching the early ones, and I was able to enjoy them thoroughly because it's been so long since I read the books that I can't whine about the differences.

A few days ago we viewed Goblet of Fire for the first time. You can imagine the powerful impact of the following scene. I knew I had to find it online and share it here.