Second Thursday after Pentecost
After my blog last Thursday on the lack of Red in the United Methodist calendar, I decided to make readers aware of significant Saints days and the liturgical color for those days for Episcopalians and Catholics. At least that will allow us to think Red on Red Letter Days. Tomorrow is a Red Letter Day. It is St. Barnabas Day. I'll be seeing Red. Here's how: When I was in the parish, I collected liturgical stoles. I conducted at least three services a week, so I had a lot of opportunity to wear them. I kept them all when I retired. I have seldom used any of them since. The only time I wear an alb and a stole now is for the Christmas Eve service at UUMC, and that's always a white stole. The rest have been hung in my closet for 9 1/2 years (I did give a set away to Mitzi, when she was ordained).
What I started doing just today is taking the appropriate stole and hanging it on the standing lamp that is next to my computer desk. Today it is white for Corpus Christi Day (that's not about the city in Texas. It means "Body of Christ" in Latin). Tomorrow I will have Red on the lamp, and a special Red indeed. My friends from North Wilkesboro, the late Bill Casey and his wife and our very close friend Frances, commissioned a local artist to design and make me a Red stole. I wore it a lot in N. Wilkesboro, since I fashioned my own calendar there for the season after Pentecost. I haven't worn it since. Frances is a reader of this blog, so Frances, I'll send you a picture tomorrow.
Thursday is prayer and worship day on the blog. With our churches not open for services on Sunday, we might do well to pay more attention to visual aids to worship, or I could call them reminders of God, in our homes.
The old 1960's Jesus Freak days proverb is, "If it suddenly became a crime to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" As a slight adaptation of that proverb, my question is, "If someone took a tour of your home, would they find any evidence that you're a Christian? Alas, for too many Christians in the past, the only thing was a coffee table family Bible. For too many in the present, there's nothing.
So, here's my recommendation. Get something Christian for your home. Crosses are the most obvious things, but there are a lot of other things as well, such as books, pictures of your church, or of any other church, fish symbols, icons, other Christian symbols (I'll be talking about some in future blogs).
If you already have something Christian in your home, get more. Your goal might be to have something Christian in every room. I just took a survey of Marianne's and my house. We have six rooms, two bathrooms, and two halls. We have something Christian, mostly crosses in five of the six rooms, one of the two halls, and one of the two bathrooms. I think we can do better. I'll let you know how I progress. You can let me know, either on the comments section of the blog or in an email to me, anything interesting you have or anything new that you're getting.
This is all a part of my wanting us Protestants to get over our anti-visual bias. Seeing is good. Our faith is not just in the auditory.
Last week I forgot that I was to put in the blog a prayer every Thursday. Here's a prayer for today:
"It is our prayer that we may be children of the light, the kind of people for whose coming and ministry the world is waiting."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
2 comments:
Now that you're going by Christian instead of Chris, don't you count as a Christian ornament as you move from room to room?
I have a framed print in our front hall with the scripture “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. In my office I have the doxology and a glass front cabinet that has all of my study books and Bibles and a small icon that I bought in Oxford last year. A basket in my bedroom holds my study Bible and current study books. Not every room but some of my favorite things.
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