The Christmas Cow

“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”  Isaiah 1:3

My mother’s nativity set is porcelain.  It was a rather optimistic choice for a family of three curious boys, and the figures received their share of battering over the years.  None of them so much as the cow.  The cow in the Michael family nativity set is missing at least one horn.  The glaze is scuffed off in a few places, and the hindquarter has a long brown seam, carefully mended with adhesive after a precipitous fall.

That was my fault.  When I was four or five I went through a cow stage.  Some boys memorize the starting lineup for their favorite baseball team or the Air Force fighter plane fleet.  But growing up in the country, with two farmers for grandfathers, my obsession was cows.  I knew all the breeds, where they had originated, which local farmers raised which kinds.  I could tell you the strong points of Guernsey milk and Angus steaks, and I knew all about those “hairy coos” in the Scottish highlands.   

And Christmas is the perfect holiday for a little boy drawn to cattle.

Light in Midwinter

Introduction at "Light in Midwinter," St. Francis Church, 12 Feb. 2017

We welcome you to this evening’s presentation, Light in Midwinter.  We gather in the cold, as the sun has nearly run its course, to explore and perhaps to meditate a bit on the design of this space where the people of Saint Francis gather to praise God.  Thanks to the generosity of many of you and the skill and hard work of others of you, this church was renovated during the course of last year. 

Our architect and designer, David Tozer, is also among those who gather here to pray week by week.  He will discuss some of the alterations that were made: their inspirations, purposes, and unified effect in filling this space even more completely with light, color and harmony.

It might be helpful, though, to begin our story many centuries before anyone ever broke ground at this place to build a house of God.  Church architecture, more than most crafts, bears the weight of centuries of tradition and symbolic intention.  David is creative, to be sure, but his is a creativity normed by a deep and respectful awareness of what has come before. 

Many of the world’s oldest and most beloved buildings were designed for religious worship.  Part of their enduring power lies in the message behind their use of balance and proportion, light and shadow. 

For Meditation: The Peculiar Properties of Love

Quoted from St. Francis de Sales in my morning reading, Hughson's With Christ in God:

"These gifts (the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit) are not only inseperable from charity, but they may be called its peculiar properties.  The gift of wisdom is nothing more than love which has discovered by experience how sweet the Lord is.  Understanding is a love which attentively considers the truths of faith, to penetrate the depths of their sweetness, and to fathom the abyss of the divinity, descending afterwards from the knowledge of the Creator to that of His creatures.  The gift of knowledge is a love which we apply to the knowledge of ourselves and creatures, as conducive to the knowledge of the Almighty, and tending to impart a correct idea of the homage due to Him, by the consideration of His perfection and our extreme misery.  The gift of counsel is a species of love by which we vigilantly seek the best means of serving God perfectly.  The gift of fortitude is also the strength which love communicates for the execution of whatever has been suggested by the gift of counsel.  Piety is likewise love which alleviates suffering and labour by inspiring a filial affection, and a joy in performing such actions as are pleasing to our heavenly Father.  Finally, the gift of fear is evidently love, since it urges us to avoid all that is displeasing to God" (310-311).

For Meditation: Eternal life

From my morning reading, Hughson's With Christ in God.

"Eternal life begun consists in knowing by faith--a tender and affectionate knowledge which inclines the soul to love.  Eternal life consummated consists in seeing God openly, face to face."  Bishop Bossuet (111).