Jesus and Santa...

Santa lives at the North Pole.

JESUS is everywhere.

Santa rides in a sleigh

JESUS rides on the wind and walks on the water.

Santa comes but once a year

JESUS is an ever present help.

Santa fills your stockings with goodies

JESUS supplies all your needs.

Santa comes down your chimney uninvited

JESUS stands at your door and knocks.. And then enters your heart.

You have to stand in line to see Santa

JESUS is as close as the mention of His name.

Santa lets you sit on his lap

JESUS lets you rest in His arms.

Santa doesn't know your name, all he can say is "Hi little boy or girl, What's your name?"

JESUS knew our name before we did. Not only does He know our name, He knows our address too. He knows our history and future and He even knows how many hairs are on our heads.

Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly

JESUS has a heart full of love.

All Santa can offer is HO HO HO

JESUS offers health, help and hope.

Santa says "You better not cry"

JESUS says "Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.

Santa's little helpers make toys

JESUS makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions.

Santa may make you chuckle but

JESUS gives you joy that is your strength.

While Santa puts gifts under your tree

JESUS became our gift and died on the tree.


It's obvious, for me, there is truly no comparison.

I need to put Christ back in my Christmas.

Jesus is still my reason for the season.


May the Lord Bless and Watch over you and your loved ones this Christmas 2009
And may He prosper and bless the work of your hands in the New Year.

check out our Christmas Events calendar at Living Spirit United Church

and thanks Pat...
later man, jan

One Love | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

Playing For Change

"From the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", comes an incredible rendition of the legendary Bob Marley song "One Love" with Keb' Mo' and Manu Chao. This is the third video from the documentary and a follow up to the classic "Stand By Me" and the incredible "Don't Worry." Released in celebration of Bob Marley's birthday on February 6th, this tribute to the legend is performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.
...
Join the movement to help inspire people from around the world to come together through music."

later man

Heartsick at the news from Uganda

Stephen Harper slams Uganda on anti-gay bill
Harper told reporters he met privately with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during the Commonwealth leaders’ summit to express “Canada’s deep concern and strong opposition to the bill.”

“We deplore these kinds of measures,” Harper said. “We find them inconsistent with any reasonable understanding of human rights.”

Why is Uganda attacking homosexuality?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Human rights groups: Bill would spur a witch hunt of homosexuals in Uganda
* President blames foreign influence in promoting and funding homosexuality
* Media outlets have inflamed sentiments by publicly pointing out gays and lesbians
* Canadian PM tells Ugandan president bill is deplorable, inconsistent with human rights

If Uganda Executes Gays, Will American Christians be Complicit?

..."American Christians who help sow such sentiments may be held liable -- at least morally -- for the results. A Nov. 18 report, "Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia," from the liberal think tank Political Research Associates (PRA), documents how extensive -- and influential -- those contacts are.

"Just as the United States and other northern societies routinely dump our outlawed or expired chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and cultural detritus on African and other Third World countries, we now export a political discourse and public policies our own society has discarded as outdated and dangerous," Tarso Luís Ramos, head of the PRA, says in the foreword to the report. "Africa's anti-gay campaigns are to a substantial degree made in the U.S.A."

Whether those campaigns will succeed is still an open question. Despite wide support for the bill in parliament, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni may seek to stall the legislation for fear of losing international support.

But many Ugandan church leaders have also signaled their support for the broader bill if the death-penalty provision is removed. "I think the death penalty is not acceptable," Anglican Bishop Stanley Ntagali of Masindi-Kitara diocese has said. "I think taking someone to jail for a period of time would be sufficient."

With an estimated 500,000 gays and lesbians among Uganda's 31 million residents, they better start building prisons fast."

What to do, what to do?

Here are links to two petitions where you can add your voice against this bill:
Christian leaders must condemn Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Rick Warren: Please Denounce Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda

For help for myself...
well, some days the news makes it difficult to call myself a Christian... and one of my Jewish heroes, Rabbi Rami, always manages to put me back on track just when I need help the most.

This manifesto was written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro (author of many books including 'The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness')

"An Open Letter to Peoples of Faith
WE BELIEVE God transcends theology; that no idea about God can adequately encompass the reality of God.
WE BELIEVE that revelation is not given to a people, but through a people to the world.
WE BELIEVE that the truth in each scripture is common to all scriptures, calling us toward justice, compassion, humility, dignity, respect, love for both person and planet, and the transcending of self through service to others.
WE RECOGNIZE that filtering divine revelation through human hands allows fear, greed, anger, ignorance, and violence to masquerade as truth.
WE RECOGNIZE that much if not most of the evil plaguing our world is rooted in this masquerade, and the violent image of god that comes from it.
WE COMMIT ourselves to ending this evil by rejecting religious violence and the false god who sanctions it.
WE COMMIT ourselves to separating timeless truth from time bound bias in our respective scriptures; affirming the former and moving beyond the latter.
WE COMMIT ourselves to teaching the God of justice, compassion, love, and respect Who speaks to us through all scriptures, and Who calls us to free ourselves from fear, greed, anger, ignorance, and violence.
WE CALL upon peoples of every faith to liberate the wisdom of God from the xenophobia of tribe and ego, and to free religion from fear and violence by distinguishing the holy from the merely sacred.
WE CALL upon peoples of every faith to share their wisdom with the world, to fearlessly speak out when their faith is kidnapped by evil, and to remind us all that there is no god but God, and that justice and compassion are the way of God for all time and for all people."

To participate in this project please copy
this manifesto and pass it on.

-jan-

Moderator's Advent Message 2009

I wait and try to love and mostly I hope - I am called to "be the change" as Ghandi said. Thank you God for your constant presence, the Source where I live, and move, and have my being.

later man, jan

CALGARY SAYS 'NO' TO HATE

"Such [hateful] acts inspire our deepest fears." -- Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman

Two weeks ago, the Calgary Jewish Community Centre and neighbouring locations, including the Holocaust War Memorial, were defaced with red-paint swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans. In light of what city police are calling "hate crimes," a gathering of support for Calgary's Jewish community will be held at:

The Boyce Theatre
Calgary Stampede Grounds
Thursday, November 26, 2009
5.30 p.m.

Please attend if you are able.

later man, jan

My Paper Boat

The winner of the One Minute To Save the World competition.


The first runner-up in the One Minute To Save the World competition.

Take some time to go to the website and watch some of the others. Our children will inherit whatever we leave behind us. Sad.

later man, jan

Psalm 23

Always John's favourite... Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi tells how he sees the 23rd psalm. I've been following links ever since spending a wonderful weekend listening to Rabbi Rami Shapiro. All the world's religions have so much in common.

here's the video link for the facebook post...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7d5eh8PY5E

later man, jan

Women for a Change ask WHY?

In 1993 The UN passed a resolution which declared:

"States should condemn violence against women and pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating it."

16 years later...
At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

WOMEN FOR A CHANGE ASKS - WHY?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHuN6Kcfi78

later man, jan

LightSail in the News...

I have read many science fiction books in my life. One of the biggest ideas for space travel was to somehow use the light from the sun to propel the craft through space.

My subscription to Planetary News has paid off and revealed to me a quote from the New York Times

"Peter Pan would be so happy.

If the launching of LightSail-1 goes off according to plan next year, humans may soon be solar-sailing, as shown in this illustration. About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars."

cool.
later man, jan

THE CHARTER FOR COMPASSION

this is a *must watch*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wktlwCPDd94

later man, jan