|
"Faith of the Free"
-- A "grassroots forum" of information, inspiration and ideas...in the spirit and tradition of critically-thinking, broadly inclusive, "liberal religion"...about its rich heritage, intrinsic values, and growing relevance for an ever-shrinking world. --
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
 Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 3:06 pm Post subject: "Holiday/Seasonal Celebrative" Thread |
  |
|
,
-- I'm starting this "permanent thread" to focus upon those times of the year, or events in our lives, that are especially observed with celebration, with reflection and hope. Won't you join me in discussions and in sharing our thoughts about how we religious liberals come together to "celebrate life" on these very special days, in our own special ways? Thanks, in advance...I'm looking forward to it!
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________
Last edited by uufreespirit on Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:31 am; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: "Christmas Always Begins at Midnight" |
|
|
,
-- Since this is our first Christmas together in this online community, I wanted to share with you something that I've posted in previous years at my Yahoo discussion groups. I hope you all will have a joy-filled holiday season, and I'm looking forward to the coming year together.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev. A. Powell Davies
-- The late Reverend Arthur Powell Davies (1902-1957) is, as you will no doubt gather from my other posts here, without a doubt my main hero of organized liberal-religion. He was one of the leading (most outspoken, passionate and influential) Unitarian ministers in America during the 20th century. Born in Wales and raised in Birkenhead near Liverpool, England, this Methodist minister came to the United States in 1928, and within a few years had "gravitated over" to Unitarianism. Dr. Davies' ministry at All Souls church in Washington, DC has been the focus of several books...for his sermons drew overflow audiences of literally thousands of people, his outreach efforts contributed to the start of at least eight other UU congregations in the DC area, his commentaries were carried in national magazines and his opinions reverberated throughout the halls of government in Washingon.
-- As another Christmas Day rapidly approaches, I would like to share with you one of Davies' most popular sermons, from December of 1944. It was so well received---during those bleak days of World War II--that it has been reproduced and published many, many times in newspapers and magazines. As you read it, try to keep in mind the context of wartime uncertainty, suffering and darkness in which it the sermon was delivered. Here it is, courtesy of the Davies Memorial UU Church in Camp Springs, Maryland;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Quote: |
"Christmas Always Begins at Midnight"
-- by A. Powell Davies
Whenever we feel pessimistic concerning the future of humanity upon this troubled planet, we can always remember this: that with all his fears and failings, man has yet somehow managed to put the brightest of his festivals in the darkest part of the year. Not at midsummer but at mid-winter, he celebrates most universally his hope and joy.
The hardihood of this festival, continuing, as it has, through many thousands of years, and rising, stage by stage, from primitive frenzy to pagan jubilation and finally to the symbolism of Christian observance, gives us true cause for confidence and reassurance. When it is darkest, man celebrates the light. When the earth is most desolate, he carols his joy. When the harshest and bleakest of the seasons is upon him, he can turn to gentleness, kindness and forbearance. His courage can rise superior to his circumstances.
Perhaps this is the thought above all others that Christmas can cheer us with this year. It is the inner significance, the spiritual essence of Christmas that can mean most to us, for once. For certainly we shall not find it easy to be spontaneously happy in a world so full of miseries. Nor should we. Anyone who could be truly carefree this Christmas would need to be either inhumanly callous or verging on the imbecilic. If we are to celebrate the ancient festival of light overcoming darkness, it must be in the full knowledge of how dense is the darkness against which the light must shine.
The Yuletide observance goes back, of course, to the festival of joy that primitive man inaugurated to celebrate the passing of the winter solstice; the sun's regaining of his powers, the turning-point after which there would be no more shortening of days. Probably, if we of the modern world could enter into the groping mind of that primitive man, we would come back with an appreciation of the cost of human progress that would astonish us.
That earliest man had no assurance - nothing that he knew for certain -- of the coming back of life to the earth; of spring and summer; of the sureness of the strengthening sun. He had watched the sun grow weaker and the days grow shorter almost with bated breath, and gradually had adopted customs and devices - thousands of them in the end - where by he hoped to arrest the threat of total darkness and help the lifeñreturning cycle to succeed.
Early Man's Christmas Eve...
He rolled wheels of fire down the mountainsides at midnight on what we now call Christmas eve. This was to encourage the sun by example. He kept the yule log burning. containing the life of the sacred tree consumed in the sacred element, fire, from which the sun might be rekindled. He burnt his torches; precursors of our Christmas candles. These and a myriad other things, many of which, in a disguised and softened fashion, still survive as Christmas customs. But in all of them man flung his own desperate courage against the precariousness of his circumstances. Presently, out of the vindication of his faith came his joy, and upon it he built his winter festival.
It would be a mistake to write this off as merely folklore. It is something still living as well as something in the past. Just as in our bodies we inherit all the ages of physical evolution, so in our social heritage we inherit all the ages of spiritual evolution. No one can measure the effort it must have taken to carry these primitive superstitions towards a higher level of belief. Yet it happened. Long before Christianity, it began to happen; and it became, in one religion after another, the struggle of light with darkness, of good with evil, of Ahura Mazda with Ahriman; of God, the Holy Spirit, with the powers of chaos.
And of course it was this, together with a great deal else that belongs to Yuletide, that Christianity gradually took over. Some people feel shocked when they discover that Christmas stories and Christmas customs are so much older than Christianity; but they ought to feel encouraged and enheartened. For means that these stories and usages are deeply rooted -- thousands of years more deeply rooted -- in human experience.
They are part of what mankind dreamed into being out of the most desolate and despairing of seasons, not only seasons of the year but seasons of the human spirit. It was from this same source that prophecy came; the prophecy of a highway in the wilderness and of the desert made glad: of "preparing the way of the Lord." This has all been mixed and mingled together now in the Christian Christmas.
Light in the Darkest Hour...
And it is interesting to notice that in legend upon legend, and story after story, Christmas always begins, not with daybreak and the coming of the morning -- but at midnight. It was at midnight that the primitive observances began -- or as near it as their reckoning could bring them. It was in the darkest hour of the night -- not in the glow of morning -- that the shepherds of the legend heard the angels sing. And of course, the Three Wise Men were guided, not by the sun, but by a star.
The legends have grown both beautiful and fanciful. Yet they have never drifted out of the darkness into a premature daylight. They have stayed quite close to the inner truth from which they draw their substance: the truth that man must find his faith, not in the daylight but in the dark. If he is ever to come to the light of morning, he must carry his own light with him through the night. Yes, and not only so, but he must make his songs in the darkness, too, and sing them first at midnight. He must proclaim in the desert a highway when there is no way at all - not even a path or a trail. He must - and evidently he can.
That is the ground of hope: that he can. Not as a gesture of empty defiance -- that would be only pathetic -- but as an act of assurance; a trumpeting of the soul's final certainty. Here is something goes right back to the beginning, farther than thought can reach, back into the primitive from which we come. Here is something that journeys through the centuries, borne by the faith and courage of the race. Here is omething that beckons to us also from the future, that belongs to the very nature of the human spirit, be cause it belongs to the nature of life itself.
It kindles a light, and no matter how little a light it is, the darkness cannot put it out. It says, 'Be not afraid, the good and the true are stronger than anything that stands against them, and sooner or later, will prevail.' If you doubt it, look backward and trace the path by which we have come; and look around you: in spite of everything, we are still on our way. The darkness is vast truly, but across it there is a path of light - a path of moving light.
It tells a story, a thousand stories gathered up now into the Christmas story. Of an empire that was disdainful and arrogant. Of the privileged and mighty who had sold their souls for the tinsel of a moment's pomp. Of priests and temples where God was a commodity and truth a joke grown stale. They did not see that the very ground beneath their feet was slipping; so much of it was moving, and so fast. It was like the turning of the earthñunnoticed. They saw only what they looked for; things they could measure in the scales of power, and with the reckoning of gain and loss.
But there was something that humbler people could have told them; both of the old that was dying, and of the new that was newly born. For something had sung it at midnight. Something had shone in the darkest hour. A dream had been told and the hearts of men were kindling. Gentleness and brotherhood were waiting for the morning, and already in the nighttime were up and on their way.
And so the empire vanished as the empires of today will also disappear. The thrones of the mighty crumbled and their palaces went up in smoke. The temples fell in ruins and the weeds grew up, covering the sepulchres of apostate priests. While the song swelled into a heavenly chorus, and again and again the darkness shone; and the dream of Jesus won the hearts of men,
Hope is Eternal...
Yes, in the darkest hour, the brightest hope; and at midnight the sound of caroling! It is because in the goodness of God, we have this at our best that we shall never be altogether overtaken by what we are at our worst.
Brotherhood - we betray it, but we cannot forsake it. Love - we disown it, but we cannot renounce it. And the dream? - even in the hour of treason, it reclaims us. For we know that sometime there shall be a world in which man's inhumanity to man is ended. A world of gladness from which all cruelty, is gone, in which the joy of each is the joy of everyone, the sorrow of each the sorrow of all. There shall be such a world because there is a song that sings it at midnight, and because in the darkest hour, there comes a light to those who sit in the darkness, and new hope to those who, in the wilderness, must walk beneath the shadow of death.
Because this is so, let us open our hearts to Christmas. Open them to all the hope that stands against a world that wastes with evil things; open them wide enough for gentleness in a world that is bitter and harsh; for loveliness in a world that is desolate; for faith and its joy and the song of its joy, that sings in the presence of God, and the song of its joy, that sings in the presence of God.
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- More on Davies here...
-- Again, special thanks to the Davies Memorial UU Church, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA, for their permission to post this sermon!
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________
Last edited by uufreespirit on Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:31 am; edited 4 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:04 pm Post subject: Solstice Article |
|
|
| Quote: |
"When Unitarian Universalists celebrate Christmas and the winter holidays, we find ourselves drawing deeply from those ancient celebrations. Our Christmas trees and mistletoe and "Yule logs" are vestiges of the primordial practices of people as varied as the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Persians, Egyptians, Celts, Druids and Norse tribes. The Winter Solstice is a time of celebration and rebirth. We reach the still-point, the shortest day, the longest night. And in that brief moment, as the dark night stretches before us, we feel a certain deepness. No amount of electrical power can breach that profound yearning.
Certainly we know now that it isn't the Sun-god we are luring back upon the horizon when we light our candles. We know the seasons come and go, cycles of planting, growth, harvest and decay continue through the years, even though a quick trip to the supermarket produce section might tell you otherwise! History, science and technology have removed the mystery from the cold and darkness, yet still our hearts are stirred at this time of year. The celebration of the Solstice roots us in a tradition that goes deep into our bones..."
|
-- This op-ed newspaper article, from (UU minister) the Rev. Susan Veronica Rak, appeared in the New Jersey News-Tribune. Sorry, the link is no longer available.
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________
Last edited by uufreespirit on Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:06 pm; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:53 am Post subject: A Tradition of Celebration |
|
|
,
What? UU's celebrate Christmas? But why? But why not?
| Quote: |
"And Wild and Sweet the Words Repeat...
of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."
--- (Unitarian) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
...from the 1864 Christmas carol "I heard the Bells on Christmas Day")
|
-- I've posted elsewhere about Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and how the book reflected a distinctly 19th-Century Unitarian outlook upon civil society and of the celebration of Christmas. I like the 1984 movie version best, by the way...the one with George C. Scott. It seems to be truer to Dickens' writing, especially in its portrayal of rampant poverty and societal indifference, and its related inclusion of the children of doom, "Ignorance" and "Want."
Unitarians and Universalists, although not as inclined to the idol-worshipping aspects of Christmas as some of our more-orthodox cousins, still have long acknowledged and celebrated the "true spirit" of Christmas--its most practical meanings and elements. From Dickens' timeless "Christmas Carol," to Clement Moore's* "Twas the Night Before Christmas," to James Pierpont's "Jingle Bells"...the Reverend Edmund Sears' "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," and Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"... to the artistic works of Nathaniel Currier (of Currier and Ives), and the introduction of the "Christmas tree custom" to New England (from Germany) by the Reverend Charles Follen, and cartoonist Thomas Nast (who first depicted our modern-day Santa Claus), Unitarians and Universalists have been deeply involved in celebration of this "season of the spirit" from its very beginnings in Great Britain and America. Honestly, I see no reason to stop now, do you?
-- Sermon Link: "The Unitarians Who Saved Christmas"...
(*Note: Clement Moore, often listed as a Unitarian, has also been described as a "faithful, practicing Episcopalian," and Dickens, strongly attracted to Unitarians and Unitarianism, also maintained a degree of relationship with the Anglicans. However, some sources, like the sermon linked above, suggest that "...He went to the Unitarian Essex Chapel in London, and he found what he heard there refreshing. In time he joined the Chapel. According to his leading biographers, he became a Unitarian for the rest of his life.")
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________
Last edited by uufreespirit on Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject: The Revolutionary That Saved Christmas |
|
|
,
| Quote: |
The Revolutionary That Saved Christmas
-- by David Glenn Cox
We live in a stoic world, we are a cynical people and who can blame us? Living in a plastic artificial existence, a world of special effects of Penn & Teller, of David Copperfield and such. Blockbuster movies of wizards and goblins, space aliens and talking mechanical monsters. So then, who can blame us for becoming jaded?
Especially at this time of year with the crass commercialism of Santa, Rudolph and any other damn thing they can come up with to sell electric razors, toothpaste or Antonio Banderas cologne and now even boxes of condensed chicken broth. Just to imagine how this product is manufactured is enough to turn the stomach. But boxes of condensed chicken broth make the point exactly. A fraud, an imitation of a life that we are trying to pretend that we live, the microwaved home cooked meals just like mother used to nuke.
Irradiated meat, non-fat margarine with an ingredient list half of which you couldn’t pronounce let alone spell. A virtual smorgasbord of unfathomable chemistry that we use to replace churned cream because we are watching our waistline.
It would be easy enough to point the finger of blame at capitalism but pundits praise the bounty and shout, “Amen let us shout Amen! Hallelujah praise his name!” But what I want to talk to you about today my dear dear friends about is Jesus! I’m not content to just walk the minefields of politics, yes my dear dear friends lets step into the deep doo doo of religion or the lack there of. But before we do, we must prepare ourselves and cleanse ourselves from the heathen religious beliefs that have convinced millions of us that if only we build a grander alter to God then by God its gonna be all right.
Friends! I want the congregation today to open their Bibles and with their Jesus loves you black magic markers pens to begin on the first page. To ask yourselves friends, what would Jesus do? Jesus would start by blacking out everything in the Bible that he didn’t say. Jesus wouldn’t get half way through it before he threw it down as nonsense. Now before you start gassing up them flaming crosses let me explain.
Try and use your stoic side, the side that says less filling not the side that says tastes great! And all you atheist out there in the crowd to stop rolling your eyes, for brothers and sisters I was one with you! I walked among you. I have no intention of trying to proselytize I want you to pretend that this is all part of a made up Hollywood movie in a distant galaxy far far away and the parts of R2D2 and CPO3 will be played by flawed mortal humans.
In the Jewish tradition Rabbi’s (teachers/ Jedi’s) spoke in parables. You told them of your troubles and they answered you with another story about someone else in trouble. To make you understand that your situation wasn’t unique and our common troubles connect us in the human existence.
But these people were under the domination and oppressed by the dark empire. Their cities were occupied and their prophecies foretold of a savior who would come with the circumcised federation and with light sabers and space fighters to destroy the death star. Just like us in our 21st century boxed chicken broth society they were waiting for a Hollywood savior, a savior their corpulent religious leaders told them that was a coming, now open those checkbooks and show Jesus just how much you love him.
Instead they got a parable, instead of a savior to destroy the death star they got a revolutionary, a Che Guevera who came with the sword of truth in hand to destroy not the death star but the religious orthodoxy.
So we begin our story with the young Che disappearing in the big city to be found talking with the Religious elders at the temple. The leaders are taken by his knowledge and his wisdom but what does this say as a parable? That he would listen and hear them out but also that these where the things a child would do and accept. The leaders admired his mind and praised his knowledge only so long as it agreed with their orthodoxy so it was that when they condemned him it would be known that it for his ideas.
We next find our young revolutionary walking the streets preaching that salvation is not found in the temple. But not only that, he was preaching it to non-Jews! Time out; flag on the play that’s not allowed. In the filthy unsanitized biblical world it was considered unpious for a Rabbi to even have contact with these people let alone proselytize to them. Then he goes on and recruits them as his chosen and refers to them as brothers! Greeks, Samaritans being called brothers in the context of times and local traditions it could be considered nothing less than insanity.
Had he stayed there calling non Jews his brothers he could have been laughed off as a harmless nut. But then he went to the temple and despite all his talk of peace and love he goes all rainbow warrior on them. Sacking the merchants and the gift shop, merchants who where just trying to make sure you had all your religious needs available for your salvation at everyday low low prices. This guy goes nuts on them, perhaps they think, this guy is a red sympathizer with communist beliefs.
So with Karl Rove tactics they seek to trip him up, “Say there, Che, should we pay our taxes to the Vader?” In one sentence he blew up the death star, “Render unto Vader the things which are Vader’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” and the crowd said, “Oh, shit he’s done done it now!” A separation between church and state? You mean God doesn’t want my shekels and kopecks and denier? That God doesn’t care what corner of this forsaken mud ball I live on?
So then this left leaning hippie with communist sympathies goes out breaking dietary restrictions. “Say there, Che, you know, you’re not supposed to be eating that right now.” To which our hero replied, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” Gosh that was profound wasn’t it? That’s Bible speak for why don’t you shut up and mind your own business. Clearly heresy and impolite to boot!
It says a lot about our hero it speaks to his character that he had infinite patience for those whom he thought he might could reach but to ideologues in love with religious rules and regulations he says stick it where the pharos can’t reach it. Then when he shows up at the temple, oh what did that scene look like? “Shhh, just ignore him and maybe he will go away.” Then he goes to read to them, “Just ignore him give him his five minutes and then he’s out of here.”
So Che goes up on the alter and says, “Wow! What a great room, this place must have cost you a fortune and all you rich folks got the best seats and skyboxes and everything. I mean wow, what a room but have you noticed that there is a whole world out there? A whole world outside of this great gig you got going on in here people suffering and hungry but man what a room! Would you all do me a favor? Just stay in here because this is where you belong this is where your faith belongs inside this pretty little room.
To say they were angry with him is an understatement even the insurance salesman and stockbrokers in the congregation wouldn’t talk to him. They took his picture down off the new member’s bulletin board and they didn’t even offer him a church bulletin so he could get half off at Denny’s But was our revolutionary smiling when he left the building? I think he was, if not laughing at telling off the stuff shirts the self-righteous.
Then the rich man came to Che and asked, “Dude, this is really cool how can I join you guys?”
Che elbowed John in the ribs and gave Simon Peter a wink and then said unto him, go and talk to Thomas about the paperwork and then go give all your money to poor and then after you’ve done that come on back and we’ll teach you the secret handshake. And they laughed at the rich man all the way down the road to Jerusalem
To lepers and tax collectors and even an adulterous woman at the well he goes not to condemn them but to commune with them. He scoffs at the rich and powerful and when taken before Vader he says you can freeze me into a wall hanging if you like but I’m not backing down to you. Vader then turns him back over to the orthodoxy that are upset at this point because Vader won’t kill him.
Vader explains, “He’s obnoxious enough all right but he’s not threat to my empire. But Vader they implore, we want him dead and we’ve got to make it look like it was your idea otherwise folks might get the idea that we killed him because he was a threat to our phony baloney jobs.”
“I find no fault in him.”
“Vader we can’t kill him, can’t you just make something up? He did make ugly remarks about your voice box you know.”
“Well all right, just this once but you guys owe me!”
So it was that Che was put to death for preaching the gospel of food for the poor and treatment for the sick. Of brotherhood among all peoples and the equality of all mankind. That it was the rich and those whose piety segregated them from the people they claimed to serve that he would rebuke. That war was the ultimate sin against God not sometimes but every time. That his soldiers were in the service of peace, for he would fight for the poor but he wouldn’t allow his followers even to fight for him.
Rather than a leather bound dogma of orthodoxy just one lonely commandment. Love one another as I have loved you. To understand each other’s sufferings and to be compassionate towards them. To remember whom God loves and who God hates. That despite for the most part this revolutionaries message being cloaked and usurped by the church it is still there for us if you look for it.
If you don’t want to believe that Jesus was the Son of God or not it really doesn’t matter. No more than it matters if Luke blows up Vader, as they are both parables. Jesus called himself the son of man, was he the son of man? Did he stand up against all the powers of the earth in the name of justice for the poor? Was he willing to be beat down and murdered rather than renounce them?
Did he inspire the revolutionaries that followed him? In the parable of his crucifixion Christ walks the streets beaten but defiant, dragging a heavy cross to his death. Past hundreds of people, some mocking him, some ignoring him but none save one offering to give him a drink and wipe his brow. A parable of truth, Christian, Muslim, Atheist or Jew that you will make few friends trying to change the world. That only by trying to save each other can we save ourselves. That is the message of the revolutionary that saved Christmas.
Not the boxed ready-made chicken broth religious message that we are served up on a daily basis. Of a poor hungry shivering infant living in squalor two thousand years ago but the poor hungry shivering infant living in squalor tonight. But the orthodox rejoice and say I want to be here when Jesus returns to which I say I don’t think you’ve thought that through clearly enough.
|
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________
Last edited by uufreespirit on Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject: Good Christmas UU Sermon |
|
|
,
-- Rev. Davidson Loehr, of First UU Church of Austin Texas, delivered a good one last Sunday. It's called "The Real Reason for the Season," and here's the link;
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:14 am Post subject: Holiday Videos...with UU Connections |
|
|
,
-- I hope we can compile here a collection of carols, hymns and other artistic contributions that were, to some extent, brought about by Unitarians, Universalists, or "UU's at heart." Here's my first one...the well known Christmas song "O Holy Night";
| Quote: |
The following info is from Wikipedia:
"O Holy Night" ("Cantique de Noël") is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chrétiens" by Placide Cappeau (1808-1877), a wine merchant and poet. Cappeau was asked to write a Christmas poem by a parish priest. It has become a standard modern carol for solo performance with an operatic finish.
In the carol, the singer recalls the birth of Jesus. It was translated into English by Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, editor of Dwight's Journal of Music in 1855, and lyrics also exist in other languages.
On 24 December 1906, Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor, broadcast the first AM radio program, which included him playing "O Holy Night" on the violin. The carol therefore appears to have been the first piece of music to be broadcast on radio. It later appeared in an edition of carols by Josiah Armes, published by Oxford in 1936, subsequently increasing its popularity.
|
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:26 am Post subject: Holiday Videos...with UU Connections...II |
|
|
,
-- Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"...
--- An article titled "Ebenezer Scrooge's Conversion" describes how this Dickens novel reflected central values of 19th Centry Unitarianism. The feature appeared at UU World Online in 2005;
-- Here's a link to the UU Historical Society's "Dictionary of UU Biographies" website, and its entry on Charles Dickens;
-- Finally, I found this to be especially interesting, in connection with the background behind the writing of "The Christmas Carol," in the section titled "Ignorance and Want," and the ones that follow, about "Tiny Tim" Crachit, and about "Sabbatarianism"...
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:12 am Post subject: Holiday Videos...with UU Connections...3 |
|
|
,
-- Thomas Nast, a Unitarian, introduces the "modern-day Santa";
| Quote: | "Thomas Nast “invented” the image popularly recognized as Santa Claus. Nast first drew Santa Claus for the 1862 Christmas season Harper’s Weekly cover and center-fold illustration to memorialize the family sacrifices of the Union during the early and, for the north, darkest days of the Civil War. Nast’s Santa appeared as a kindly figure representing Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. His use of Santa Claus was melancholy, sad for the faltering Union war effort in which Nast so fervently believed, and sad for the separation of soldiers and families. When Nast created his image of Santa Claus he was drawing on his native German tradition of Saint Nicholas, a fourth century bishop known for his kindness and generosity. In the German Christian tradition December 6 was (and is) Saint Nicholas day, a festival day honoring Saint Nicholas and a day of gift giving. Nast combined this tradition of Saint Nicholas with other German folk traditions of elves to draw his Santa in 1862..."
|
More here...
http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/santa_camp.htm
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Original_Santa_Claus.htm
| Quote: |
"The task of depicting this elfin gift-giver who has become so familiar to us fell the political cartoonist and Unitarian, Thomas Nast. Nast was the cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, and he was also the one who drew the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey, as well as Uncle Sam dressed in stars and stripes. President Lincoln once said, “Thomas Nast has been our best recruiting Sergeant,” because his cartoons helped in gaining sympathy for the Union cause. Nast drew many versions of Santa over many years, and his Santa began to look more and more like our modern Santa. But it was not was not until he was asked to draw some of his Santas in color for a children's book, using a newly developed color printing process, that Santa acquired the familiar red suit. Nast had always thought of his pen and ink Santas as wearing a tan suit before, but this wouldn't do for a book featuring bright colors, so he dressed the jolly elf in a red suit with white ermine trim—and voila! We have our modern Santa Claus! It's a bit ironic that old St. Nicholas, the legendary fourth century defender of the Trinity against Unitarian and other heresies, would be given his definitive, and very secular, American appearance by a nineteenth century Unitarian!..."
-- Rev. Joy Atkinson (...from sermon delivered at Santa Barbara, CA, Dec. 7, 2007)
|
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1745
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 9:51 am Post subject: More on UU's and Birth of the Human Jesus |
|
|
,
-- Rev. James Ford, at his "Monkey Mind" blog, posted this item on our UU role in promoting the "natural Jesus" in Christianity...especially our historical emphasis on the birth of a "human Jesus" (and celebration of Christmas) over emphasis on supernatural death and resurrection. Good post...I recommend it to you;
_________________
-- Ron
"Freedom depends on free thinkers." --- Dan Barker
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
____________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Log in
Blogs
