is from our night owl
tina~in_ut
~Ash Wednesday in Utah~
~For Zona~
~For Zona~
Growing up in Southern California, I had no concept of what it would be like to live someplace where people didn't understand your beliefs, or at least be somewhat aware of them. The church on the corner nearest our house was Baptist. The next closest church was Presbyterian, followed by Calvary Chapel, and then our Catholic Church. On Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent, our church was packed with all the students in the school and our parents. Some of the other churches had services, some didn't. We would get our Ashes on our foreheads, and of course, compare whose was darkest or biggest or whose looked like a cross or just a smudge. It stayed on until it wore off from rubbing our forehead or until we washed it off at the end of the day. If we went somewhere after school, no one looked at us funny or commented. It's just the way it was!
For those of you not familiar with Ash Wednesday and Lent, here is a little explanation. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the 40 days of Lent, which doesn't include Sundays and ends on Holy Thursday. Lent is a time of new beginnings and is an Old English word for Spring. Catholics believe it is a time to simplify your life, especially by eliminating harmful behaviors and attitudes. We use the time for fasting, prayer, "giving up" something, and, equally important, doing a little extra something for someone. As children, we always, ALWAYS gave up watching television. We were allowed to watch one program once a week during Lent. It was always The Brady Bunch! You have no idea how it killed us to give up TV. We also gave up candy. Back then, on our way home from school, there was a Carnation Ice Cream shop that sold candy for a penny or a nickel…..AND I LOVED IT!!! So giving up candy was hard for me. Oh, I almost forgot…..you aren't supposed to let others see, by the look on your face, or any other way, that what you have given up is causing you any discomfort or stress. Not until I was older did I realize that my mother had a hard time with that part. On Friday's and on Ash Wednesday, we do not eat meat if we are over the age of 14 yrs old, and we are asked to also Fast, meaning that we have only one meal or one regular meal and two small meals. I have to laugh because I remember my mother just whining that she was "so hungry"!
On Ash Wednesday, we go to mass and during the service, the priest uses ashes to make a cross on our foreheads. He uses the leftover palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday which are burned and sometimes mixed with Holy Water. The priest says, "Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." The ashes symbolize repentance and purification. They are a reminder to us that life passes away on Earth.
In 1993, my little family moved to Utah…..just Mr. Tina~, my one year old, and me. Mr. Tina~ went to work for the Catholic Church and I went to work for Delta. One of the first questions people asked us was, "Are you a member of The Church?" My answer was always, "Yes!" Mr. Tina~ had to always correct me and tell them we were Catholic. I just thought it was the craziest question! Mr. Tina~ started telling everyone who he worked for, and that quickly nipped the other question in the bud! Our first Ash Wednesday was hilarious for me…..and it was just a regular day for Mr. Tina~ I went to Church like normal, got my ashes, and went off to work. On my first break, I was walking around and noticed the odd stares. Now I know what you are thinking…..but these stares were even more strange than the ones I normally got!!!! Then, one lone soul decided to be brave and whispered to me that I had dirt on my forehead. Of course I laughed and explained what it was. You would have thought I was from another planet. (be quiet Lynn~) She had no idea what I was talking about. The next year, the same thing happened….and the next….and the next. I don't know if it's the devil in me or what, (again Lynn….shhhhh) but now I make sure the ashes are in the shape of a cross and they are DARK!! It's fun to see who the first person will be to say something to me. I guess I took the diversity for granted in SoCal. It's something that I miss and something I wish my children could experience here.
I'm not going to tell you what I'm giving up for Lent, but I will tell you that it'll benefit me, as well as others. I also want to look for something I can DO to help others. I have found that sometimes that is more important, and hubby and I are trying to teach our children the same.
240 comments:
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hi
FRICK!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IBB You did it!!!!Congrats!
Suuuuuure.....now that your big sis is gone you think you rule the roost!
Yea!!!!
HAPPY DANCE !!! HAPPY DANCE!!!That one was for MEK!!!
whatever.....LOL
Barbara in WA Would you please wipe that expression off your face.
where did Tina go!!???
Did she let us have that!!??
what are you doing in here anyway! it's like 1:30am your time!
I turned around to talk to a co-worker....and what do you people do?~ darn!!!!!!
ibb...i like casey, too~
what expession just_lin?????
It is 1:30 my time... What can I say.. I am a Night Owl!!
Always have been!!
Barbara in WA That big purple blank one.
ahhhhh..you mean my big pink latex uniboob!
IBB~ i would never let anyone HAVE anything...you won fair and square!!! I talked to MEK again~ She cracks me up~ And big ((hugs)) to you, btw~
Barb....swak = sealed with a kiss~
hi j/l~
tina....did you wake up mek again????
Thanks --Just_lin... always fun to win a march!!
Barbara~ nope...but I delayed her walk~ AND....she wasn't drunk yet~ :)~
Tina-- was that before or after she went to the scrapbook store??
How does anyone have time to do this, myspace, and scrapbook?
IBB~ AFTER the scrapbook store....and man that was one loud conversation~ :)~
I do all of that all the time just_lin!
man....it's pouring down rain outside. and a windy. ugh.
I don't really scrapbook...
I just Collect!!! lol...lol...
I have everything you would need to do 100 albums... and really should get to it!!!
i talked to mek on the phone tonight for about an hour. she and mr mek were in their SAWEEEEEET SUITE! and they were drunk! i think!
ok i lied. i dont really "scrapbook" i make cards. although i have made 3 scrapbooks.
Most all the scrapbooks I have made have been gifts... so I have nothing to show that I really have done some...And I am learning about card making ...
I am trying to get MEK to come give me a couple card classes!!
It is really close to 2am.. Need to go to bed..
Wishing all a wonderful night...
Everyone stay safe in the weather tomorrow!!
goodnight IBB~ :)
IBB Good night.
I have tons of scrapbook stuff but I can't seem to get motivated to get back into it.
going to bed too. nite nite
Good night Barbara
Good evening, Owls! Forgive me! I originally wrote a version of this little essay as a comment on Jackie Beat's blog. Since the topic of today is religion, I thought I'd revise it a bit for the nest. Please just scroll by if you dislike long posts!
I have loved reading everybody’s religion stories today! I respect most all religious beliefs, especially those that make people kinder and gentler and more compassionate, and I respect all who hold such beliefs.
My ONLY exception to that statement is in regard to the belief that the nature and history of the universe is contained, in a very literal sense, in a religious text, as opposed to the picture that has emerged from scientific inquiry.
Let’s take the Bible, for example, since it’s the religious text I’m most familiar with. If the Bible is a literal account of both natural and human history, as many believe it is, then I’m afraid God is perpetuating a rather massive fraud.
An almost infinitely clever fraud, one which would raise interesting questions on its own, but a fraud nevertheless.
Let me explain. Many biblical scholars have analyzed the amount of time that’s passed from Genesis to the present day, and I think it adds up to about 3600 years. Not one year older. Not one year younger.
Now, it is well established that light travels at a speed of around 180,000 miles per second, or 6 trillion miles per year. By convention, that distance is a light year. If the universe is only 3600 years old, then light from other places and objects in the universe has had a maximum of 3600 years to travel through space; that's the absolute upper time limit. If there are objects emitting light that are more than 3600 light years away, their light must still be speeding toward us. Since that light hasn’t had time to reach us yet, these objects should still be invisible.
Now, as it happens, light has some fundamental characteristics that relate directly to the distance that the light has had to travel to reach us, or, put another way, the distance from us to the object that emitted the light. Brightness is the most obvious property; objects nearby are brighter than objects further away. There are plenty of stars who are exactly as dim as they should be if they are 3600 light years away. And obviously, there are also millions of stars that are brighter than that, simply because they are closer than 3600 light years away. In fact, the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is so bright that it must be only four light years distant.
So far, there’s no problem. But here's the big rub. In modern telescopes we can see, not millions, but trillions of stars, and billions of galaxies, all so incredibly dim that they have to be further away than 3600 light years. You can’t get around this simple fact. Some stars are so dim that they must be hundreds of thousands of light years away. Others, millions of light years away. Still others, billions of light years away. And the further out you go, the more stars we’re talking about.
How can we be seeing all these stars and galaxies, if the universe is only 3600 years old? Their light should not have been able to reach us yet. But for those who take the bible literally, it gets even worse. Remember my blog on “Rob, the magic elastic”? Another important feature of light, that offers another powerful clue to the distance of the object that emitted it, is how much the light is “stretched out” by the time it reaches a telescope. The further away objects in the universe are, the more their light stretches out while it is traveling towards us. This is because, over time, the universe is itself stretching out, and when the very universe stretches out, everything that’s a part of it (and light is very definitely a part of it) stretches out too.
By measuring how much the light from different objects (like galaxies) is stretched out by the time it gets to us and our telescopes, astronomers can measure the distance to these objects. Just like calculations based on brightness, distances to some objects turn out to be millions of light years, others billions.
The only way to make sense of this “stretching light” evidence is that the light from the most distant objects in the universe has traveled literally billions of trillions of miles, truly epic journeys that have spanned billions of years, growing ever dimmer and more stretched out as the journey progressed.
Could this all be reconciled with a universe that’s only several thousand years old? Yes, but only with the following bizarre scenario. If the universe really is just 3600 years old, then 3600 years ago, the light from all of these billions of billions of objects, that we think are further away than 3600 light years, instead must have originated from the inner surface of a gigantic sphere, centered on the Earth, whose radius is exactly 3600 light years. In other words, the flow of light from these objects must have started their journey from the same inner surface, and covered exactly the same distance, as the light from objects that we think, from analyzing the characteristics of their light, are genuinely 3600 light years away!
But this is an amazing and awesome concept! At the time of the universe’s creation, all the stars that are closer than the surface of this hypothetical sphere had light that wasn’t tinkered with even a little bit. When light from a star, say, 1000 light years away reaches us, it does so with exactly the loss of brightness we’d expect from something 1000 light years away. That goes for everything, right up to and including stars actually 3600 light years away. No “retouching” of their light has occurred.
Not so for all the billions of objects (stars and galaxies) that exhibit qualities consistent with them being farther away. For them, someone or something would have had to very carefully tinker with the characteristics of their light, reducing its brightness and stretching it out, before allowing it to set out on its journey. The net result of this very precise and very select tinkering would be a universe that appeared to be much larger and much older than 3600 light years, but really is not.
Why would God do that? Why would God go to such lengths to trick and mislead us into thinking that the universe is much vaster and older than that? Why would he choose to hide the true nature of the universe behind this colossal facade?
If the Bible is a literal history book, then God is perpetuating a massive fraud, and the joke, my dear owls, is on us!
Do you know what I really love about God? The fact that he gave us all of these wonderful, diverse people to call friends. People that make us think and help us define who we are. People who make us question ourselves and make us better human beings~ Thx Bear~ :)
on a completely different note...my own boss was the first person to tell me that I had dirt in the form of a plus sign on my forehead~ AND DIANNE....he's from Colorado~ :)~
also......I left this little tidbit off my blog cuz it just didn't fit.....one year, I tried to give up sex for Lent, but hubby told me I couldn't cuz we are supposed to give up something we like!!!! (that was for you Lynn D and Goldie~) :)~
TINA: The way you're hanging onto ol' George there...I'd say you like sex just fine. ;)
JODI: Nothing yet, but he owes me plenty!
BEAR: I'll just give you the answer that my mom always gave me when I asked her why God did something, "Because He's God." I didn't like that answer much either! ;) ;)
(delete was me--just a missing word)
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Have a great day!
♥♥♥
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