The oft-recycled Epiphany sermon (with asides on James Taylor, T.S. Eliot, Sadao Watanabe, and Masao Takanake)

Sadao Watanabe, The Magi's Dream

Bear in mind that I wrote this Epiphany sermon a little over a year after 9/11. It's from eight years ago, Epiphany 2003. I stand by what I said. Click here to read it.

I looked for artistic representations of Herod, since a good deal of the sermon focuses on him. What I found, for the most part, were representations of the consequences of Herod's actions: the slaughter of the innocents; the Magi returning home by another way; the flight into Egypt of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.

Later on of course there is another Herod, Herod Antipas, who is the son of Herod the Great, and it is he who is involved in the deaths of both John the Baptizer and Jesus according to the Gospel stories.

The only scenes in which Herod shows up as a visible protagonist are, once in a while, Herod with the Magi, and, more often (at least in Western art), Herod's feast, but that one is Herod the son. The feast is the one at which which Herod Antipas's stepdaughter Salome dances and asks for the beheading of John.

In painted scenes of Jesus' infancy, even with Herod the Great's presence in the stories, artists tends to focus on the Holy Family, the shepherds, the animals, the angels, and the Magi. Makes sense. "But Herod's always out there. / He's got our cards on file," James Taylor's song notes. And... See the sermon for more.

Of course I also read --or listen to-- the T.S. Eliot poem "Journey of the Magi" every year, but I only cited a line or two of it in that sermon.

The link at the name of the poem will take you to the text of "Journey of the Magi" and to an audio of T.S. Eliot himself reading it. Well worth a listen.

Don't mix "Journey of the Magi" with the sermon though -- very different animals. Read them separately, or just read one or the other.

Note: I never see the work of the Japanese artist Sadao Watanabe (see above) without thinking fondly of Dr. Masao Takanake, who during his time at Harvard introduced me and others to Watanabe's work. Watanabe's art graces the cover of at least one of Takenaka's books, The Bible Through Asian Eyes. A scholar of Christian ethics, Takenaka also wrote God Is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith and other works. He was for many years the President of the Asian Christian Art Association.

Nativity

Nativity
Hiroshi Tabata

Happy Birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi

We do not forget you.

Third U.S. Sikh-Catholic Dialogue Retreat

Really!

I get all kinds of ecumenical and interreligious news in the (e-)mail every day and this was one of the more interesting articles to hit the inbox. No, I don't read them all, but I like to receive them nevertheless. I am a religious news pack-rat.

So here is the article on the Sikh-Catholic retreat.

I knew Francis Tiso, the head of the Catholic delegation to the retreat, because we overlapped at Harvard Divinity School for a year during our M.Div. studies. Back then he went by "Frank" and he wasn't anywhere near getting ordained. He went to a contemplative community with Brother David Steindl-Rast after graduation, not as a monk, but as part of an experiment in contemplative living. Interestingly, he is a priest of an Italian diocese. He also did doctoral work in Buddhist studies.

Francis Tiso and I also overlapped when I was in the Bay Area and I had no idea we did. Sounds like someone with whom to have an interesting conversation.

The BBC has a good overview of the Sikh religion, with resources, here.

To learn more about Sikhism and Sikhs in the United States, go to the Pluralism Project's website, and see the section on Sikhs here.

There were quite a few hate crimes against Sikhs immediately following 9/11 because Sikh men wear a turban and their attackers assumed they were Muslim.

World Malaria Day

ToujoursDan reminded us on Facebook that today is World Malaria Day. I see that he also has a post about this on his blog. Did you know that malaria is the single biggest killer of children under the age of five on the African continent?

Dan also wants everyone to know that for just $10 you can buy a net that will protect an African child from Malaria and save a life. Go here to give.

Note: I went to the site and made a "Spread the Net" donation and noticed that it is the UNICEF Canada site. Nothing wrong at all with that, but I think the $10 are thus Canadian dollars.

Alleluia in blue

He Qi, Women Arriving at the Tomb

Psychedelic fish

Baby Boomers, you'll love this one.

Other generations will enjoy it as well.

Long and interesting caption for the photo here.

January 24: Li Tim Oi

On this day, January 24, we commemorate Li Tim Oi, first woman ordained priest in the Anglican Communion. She was ordained on this day in 1944.

The Episcopal Women's Caucus has an informative essay about her here.

Grandmère Mimi of Wounded Bird has written about her here.

I honor also one of Li Tim Oi's spiritual descendants, who is very much alive, my friend the Rev. Dorothy Lau, Director of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council. Here's an article Dorothy wrote about five years ago for the online arm of the late lamented magazine The Witness.

Monkey Mama

Eleven-year-old orang-utan Sinta holds her baby Natalia at Taman Safari zoo in Pasuruan in Indonesia's East Java province December 25, 2008. Natalia was born early morning on Thursday and 25 orang-utans are currently staying at Taman Safari in Pasuruan.

(Photo: Reuters/Sigit Pamungkas - Indonesia)

Jane will continue to be on blog break (mostly) till at least January 12.

This post brought to you by +Maya Pavlova, FBE, who knows that Jane and her One and Only Sibling loooove simians of all kind. +Maya begs to remind you that we are all for the theory of evolution in this household, but that cats are at the top of the evolution ladder.

Friday critter blogging on Sunday

It counts, 'cause this baby elephant was born on Friday. Look, it's fuzzy.

Tip of the Polartec (tm) hat to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.

Arrupe and the Bomb

Pedro Arrupe, S.J., the deeply prayerful, justice-seeking General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) from 1965 to 1983, was for many years a missionary in Japan. (Arrupe was Basque, just like the founder of the Society, Ignatius of Loyola.)

Fr. Arrupe was working as a missionary in Japan when war broke out with the United States and the Allies. While the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7th in Hawaii, in Japan it was already December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and Arrupe was saying mass when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time. His attitude of profound prayer (he would later describe it as one of his most transforming spiritual periods), his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailors and judges, and was set free in a month. He was appointed Jesuit superior and the master of novices in Japan in 1942.

He was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August of 1945. As a trained doctor he headed the first rescue party to arrive in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. He described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory." He utilized his medical skills in the service of the wounded and the dying, transforming the novitiate into a make-shift hospital for over 200 grievously scarred human remnants. He eventually was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan (1958-65). [Nationmaster.com Encyclopedia]

Nagasaki Day

Nagasaki Day often disappears among our remembrances of the first atomic bombs.

Today is Nagasaki Day.

Grandmere Mimi has a commemoration with heartfelt prayers from Holy Trinity Church in Nagasaki.

Ken has two posts about this day, 1) The saddest of anniversaries, and 2) a creative imagining (a midrash! if one can make midrash about opera) of the sequel to Madama Butterfly, Related to Nagasaki, A Follow-up to "Madama Butterfly".

Beijing business

...Most disgraceful of all is the fact that six of the 12 worldwide Olympic partners are American companies. This has to heart-sicken any patriot. These companies will reap the full exposure of the Summer Games, swathing themselves in the flag, and rationalizing that their business is helping uplift the Chinese people. Don't buy it -- or them. You should know exactly who they are: General Electric (which owns NBC), Coca-Cola, Visa, McDonald's, Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson.
******* Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post

Read more at janinsanfran's place, Happening Here, and see a picture of Beijing's air.

Feast of the Transfiguration / Hiroshima Day

I have been haunted for years by the juxtaposition of these two days on August 6. I cannot hear the Bible passage about Jesus blazing with light without remembering the deadly, blinding light of the Bomb.

Likewise I cannot remember the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima without searching the scriptures, my heart, and the wisdom of others to ask what the story of the Transfiguration has to say to this weapon-infested world, especially in the nuclear age.

The last time I preached on this feast was more than half a dozen years ago at Ghost Ranch, the Presbyterian/ecumenical conference center (history here) near one of Georgia O'Keeffe's homes in Abiquiu, New Mexico, not far from Santa Fe. Rather than leaving you with my words, I offer links to the words of friends and to some of the images they have posted. The image on Padre Rob+'s blog is particularly powerful.

Padre Mickey on the Transfiguration. (Beautiful icons and meditation.)

Grandmère Mimi on the Transfiguration and Hiroshima (with an excerpt from a sermon by Jesuit peace activist John Dear) and on another anniversary.

Padre Rob+ on Hiroshima and the Transfiguration. (Stunning image and poem).

Janinsanfran on Hiroshima Day. (With a Martha's Vineyard perspective.)

Ormonde Plater reminds us of deacons martyred on this day during the persecution of Emperor Valerian in the 3d century C.E.


Images: Transfiguration 2003, Transfiguration 2006. Tip of the summer straw hat to impossibleape at R2E. Not sure who the artist is.

Pentecost

Sadao Watanabe: Pentecost. Stencil, 1979.


Blog flashback: Last year at this (liturgical) time:

Pentecost: Images from India

Pentecost stained glass window, Taizé Community

We love Stringfellow (4): a post for Pentecost (on the Holy Spirit)

Pentecost and Memorial Day: resources, reflections


Pentecost - Mexico. (Author unknown - if you know who wrote this icon, please tell me.)


The images from India and from Taizé are still my favorites -- dynamic and red!

Click on those links to last year to see them.

Miserere: Myanmar

Myanmar businesses gouge as more rain falls. (Los Angeles Times)

Episcopal Relief and Development has an update from the Anglican Church of the Province of Myanmar (CPM), with which communication has been restored.

To help people affected by the cyclone in Myanmar, please make a donation to Episcopal Relief and Development’s “Myanmar & Cyclone Response” online at , or call 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Gifts can be mailed to: Episcopal Relief and Development “Myanmar & Cyclone Response” P.O. Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058.

You can go directly to the online donation form here.

Burma shuns foreign aid workers. (BBC)

In addition to the print story at the BBC site, there is a bit of amateur video in which you can see some of the material damage and, thanks be to Godde, living people. There are also documents offering background information and details on the catastrophe.

The BBC still calls Myanmar "Burma." An anti-dictatorship statement perhaps? (Or just keeping the language of the British Empire?)

Hard to take into one's mind and heart the thousands of deaths and all the displacement and devastation.

Caminante has been posting on Burma regularly since the cyclone hit.

Miserere eis. Miserere nobis.

Speaking of elephants...

I promised you some visuals to keep the blog lively. This is the Indian/Hindu god Ganesh. People invoke him for sustained intellectual effort, among many other things...


Posted May 7 with a May 5 signature.

Dith Pran, RIP

Paul, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian, has posted a tribute to Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, survivor of the killing fields, who died this past weekend.

May we never forget.

Who will roll away the stone?

Who will roll away the stone?

Hanna Cheriyan Varghese - Malaysia

Italy and Turkey and "R and R"

No, not that kind of R&R. Alas. But a very interesting article by my Mediterranean brother, once again a comparative piece on Turkey and Italy. An earlier Turkey-Italy piece is linked here. The latest, just in, is here. Don't blame my brother for the wiggy punctuation, I think they have a bad copyeditor at the Turkish Daily News.


In case you've forgotten where all those Mediterranean countries are, here is a map.

For more instructive and fun geography, visit my buddy Paul, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian.