America's Bad Mood

OK, we are all talking about the rudeness we encounter daily, the ill-tempered people who don't listen, talk over us, step on our toes, blast our ears with noise pollution and cut us off in traffic.  It has become quite fashionable to discuss how rude everyone is - everyone but me, that is - so I will join the discussion here and get in with the in crowd. 

While I do find people less gracious than in times past, the most profound change I have noticed is the moodiness of people and the incredible rarity of finding someone not on some kind of mood altering drug.  Have you noticed that?  I have a news flash for the psychiatric community...the drugs are not working!  Give them cigarettes. 

Recently I had a white light experience I will not share to protect the guilty and the innocent.  I became acutely aware of the fact that an (at the moment) bossy, self-righteous, ill-tempered person had quit smoking and was suffering the agony of withdrawal.  I understand these things as a recovering alcoholic.  I used to throw clothes hangers in the morning when they got tangled.

Don't get me wrong.  I am all in favor of and respect people who tackle their addictions, but I am reminded of the words of Jesus:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Hmmmmm.....

The Dog Whisperer

I love the Dog Whisperer.  The insights are just amazing.  One of my favorite cases involved a little dog named Sugar who had trained the husband and wife owners in a most ill manner.  She was attached to the husband and was so possessive of him and hostile to the wife, the couple had quit sleeping together!  Sugar would bite the woman when she got in the bed and act in all manner of hostility toward her. 

I didn't think one had to be the Dog Whisperer to comprehend that the husband and wife were the culprits.  The wife was a well defined victim, and the husband was a jerk.  The husband made no effort to get this dog under control - why?- because he enjoyed having the dog's attention and being someone's favorite.  Eventually the man revealed that he had always had to share a pet, and he was enjoying having a pet that was his alone.  He and the dog would walk together an hour every day and had bonded in healthy ways, but they had likewise bonded in totally neurotic ways that excluded the wife as part of the pack.  The wife was a victim because she did not demand that the dog be removed from the room, from her bed, for Pete's sake.  Simple solutions were not even on the radar screen for people so caught up in such neurotic needs that they defy logic.       

Humans aren't always bright, or their brightness is dimmed by emotional need.

One of the actions taken by The Dog Whisperer in dealing with Sugar involved his getting on the bed on his knees, towering over the dog and advancing.  Not a word or sound was uttered.  Eventually Sugar started backing up, jumped off the bed and ran to hide under the bed.  He smelled no fear; he was not given hands on a platter to bite as someone tried to pet and calm him down; he felt an advance he could not stop by having a biting, barking fit; he gave up. 

There's something there to be learned about dealing not only with dogs, but humans as well.

Candlemas

Candlemas is a celebration of the Christian Church first recorded to exist in Jeruselem in  approximately the year 390.  The pilgrim nun, Egeria (aka Aetheria), recorded that the event began with a solemn morning procession followed by a sermon on the Gospel text of the day followed by Mass.  In fact this pilgrim's diary provides much of our earliest recorded history of the church. 

This observance marks the presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days following his birth and the purification of Mary, required by Jewish law following childbirth.  Luckily Jesus was a boy requiring Mary to be excluded from the temple for only 40 days; had she bore a female, her impurity would have doubled, requiring exclusion for 80 days. [Sidenote:  and we wonder why today's world finds it hard to stomach a religion growing out of such barbaric customs - alas, thoughts for another time]. 

Since we now celebrate Christ's birth on December 25, Candlemas is observed on February 2, but in earlier times the birth of Christ was celebrated on January 6 (now the Epiphany), and what later came to be known as Candlemas was observed on February 14 .  

The custom developed into a tradition to celebrate the words of Simeon, a man who held the baby Jesus in the temple, and exclaimed to God that now he could die having seen the saviour (Luke 2).  From whence comes our Evening Prayer Song of Simeon/Nunc Dimittis.  What an incredibly beautiful sentiment our dear friend, Simeon, proclaimed.  I wonder at the joy he and all the Saints felt seeing Jesus enter heaven after the Ascension. 

In the West Candlemas was first recorded in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries in the 7th and 8th Centuries and was the time when the church prepared for the coming light of Spring and priests blessed the church candles to be used during the year. 

  Because the procession was instituted as a penitentiary rite with prayers imploring God's mercy, the historical liturgical color for Candlemas is violet .  Some have suggested that this celebration is another of the "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" celebrations in which the church sought to make the spring light festivals into a Christian event.

My parish is planning a Candlemas celebration this year, and, to my knowledge, it is the first time Candlemas will have ever been celebrated at Emmanuel.  What a lovely celebration I imagine it will be.