Merry Christmas

Christmas at Greccio

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What better way to prepare for the arrival of the Christ Child than to take a brief journey to Greccio, the spot in central Italy where St. Francis of Assisi created the first Christmas crib in the year 1223.

Francis, recalling a visit he had made years before to Bethlehem, resolved to create the manger he had seen there. The ideal spot was a cave in nearby Greccio. He would find a baby (we’re not sure if it was a live infant or the carved image of a baby), hay upon which to lay him, an ox and an ass to stand beside the manger. Word went out to the people of the town. At the appointed time they arrived carrying torches and candles.

One of the friars began celebrating Mass. Francis himself gave the sermon. His biographer, Thomas of Celano, recalls that Francis “stood before the manger…overcome with love and filled with a wonderful happiness…” For Francis, the simple celebration was meant to recall the hardships Jesus suffered even as an infant, a savior who chose to become poor for our sake, a truly human Jesus.

Tonight, as we pray around the Christmas cribs in our homes, we welcome into our hearts that same Savior.

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

DEAR GOD

Letters from Little Boys to God

Dear God,
Why is Sunday School on Sunday? I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest.
Tom L.

Dear God,
I went to this wedding on Sunday and they kissed right in the church! Is that O.K.?
Neil

Dear God,
If you watch me in church on Sunday, I'll show you my new shoes.
Mickey D.

Dear God,
Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up.
Bruce

Dear God,
If you give me a genie lamp like in Aladdin, I will give you anything you want, except my money or my chess set.
Raphael

Dear God,
Please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now.
Greg

Dear God,
Please send Dennis Clark to another camp this summer.
Peter

Dear God,
You don't have to worry about me. I look both ways.
Dean

Dear God,
Are you really invisible or is that just a trick?
Doug

Dear God,
I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big but not with so much hair.
Sam 

Dear God,
I am American. What are you?
Robert

Dear God,
If you didn't let the dinosaur become extinct, we wouldn't have this country. You did the right thing.
Jonathan

Dear God,
Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.
Larry

Dear God,
I do not think anybody could be a better God. Well, I just want you to know that I am not saying that because you are God already.
Charles

Dear God,
I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Thursday. That was cool!
Eugene

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Listen Up! Mark Holt & his Gibson Banjo in Country Weekly Magazine

Mark Holt, his banjo, and original song “one last dance” featured in Country Weekly.

 

 

 

* Friday January 15^th, 2010:  Mark & Kimberlee @ the One World Café’ in Moscow, Idaho.  8:30pm

* Saturday January 16^th, 2010:  Mark & Kimberlee @ the One World Café’ in Moscow, Idaho.  8:30pm

 

Mark Holt & Kimberlee Holt Tully return too Seattle:

@ Starbucks new’ “stealth hot spot”

15^th Avenue Coffee & Tea on Capital Hill. Seattle, Washington

 

·       Thursday February 11^th:  15^th Avenue Coffee & Tea on Capital Hill “inspired by Starbucks”.  Seattle, Washington.  8:00pm

·       Friday February 12^th:  15^th Avenue Coffee & Tea on Capital Hill  “inspired by Starbucks”.  Seattle, Washington.  8:00pm

·       Saturday February 13^th:   15^th Avenue Coffee & Tea on Capital Hill “inspired by Starbucks”.  Seattle, Washington.  8:00pm

www.streetlevelcoffee.com

www.starbucks.com

 

 

• Friday February 26^th:  Mark Holt @ BB-Q n’ Blues in Clarkston, Washington.  6:00pm
• Saturday February 27^th:  Mark Holt @ BB-Q n’ Blues in Clarkston, Washington.  6:00pm

    

 

 

     Mark Holt was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up on the Yakama Indian Reservation, spending his musical life keeping both feet in multiple genre’s of music, partly out of necessity, and partly out of his love and respect for all types of music.

     Mark has been a featured showcase artist for the International Bluegrass Music Association, the Academy of Western Artist’s, has performed at Seattle’s legendary waterfront Highway 99 Blues Club, and has been a guest on SCAN-TV “Blues to Do” Television.

     Mark has been featured in the pages of Country Weekly, the inside stories on country music’s hottest stars.  Also: Bluegrass Canada Magazine, Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine & American Cowboy the popular western lifestyle magazine. 

     Mark’s Acoustically Native Nashville Sessions were produced by multi-grammy winning Bil VornDick with an all-star cast of bluegrass pickers.

     Mark has opened shows for Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys, Tammy Wynette, Ricky Skaggs, Rhonda Vincent & Hal Ketchum.

 

www.soundclick.com/markholt

 

www.myspace.com/mhkht

 

photo of Mark Holt by:  Sara Gettys

location:  Gilbert Cellars Winery.  Yakima, Washington

 

photo of Mark & Kimberlee by: Sara Gettys

location:  Yakima Train Depot. Yakima, Washington

 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Seattle area live music

VZVB are back in town

The weather outside is snowy... no it's down right cold.  Here are 2 opportunities to get some good coffee and sit in a warm venue with some old freinds.

 

The VZ Valley Boys are all back in town.  Sparky is back from ....censored.... but about to leave for ...censored....,  Phil is back from LA,  Al from his tour of the Mid West and East Coast, and Jette from Snohomish County. 

 

Let's have a party!!!  This Saturday the 4 of us will be playing together at Cutters point from 7-9 PM.  Cutters is located just in front of Fred Meyer off of Highway 18 in Covington.  The address is 16739 SE 272 Covington.  Hope to see you.

 

On Sunday Phil Hansen is back to the solo thing at C&P Coffee in West Seattle.  The address is 5612 California Ave SW.  He hasn't been there since last summer and is looking forward to the trip. 

 

 

Thanks til next week;

Phil, Al, Sparky, Jette

The VZ Valley Boys 

Posted via email from Seattle area live music

breakable

What's Worth Breaking?

There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family Bible to her brother in another part of the country. 

"Is there anything breakable in here?” asked the postal clerk.

"Only the Ten Commandments,” answered the lady.

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came to the West in the eighth century. In the eleventh century it received its present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the eighteenth century it became a feast of the universal Church.

In 1854 Pius IX gave the infallible statement: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stainof original sin.”

It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many Fathersand Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless—either at her conception or throughout her life. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions of Mary as Bernard and Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for this teaching.

Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped develop the theology. They point out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset.

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

Vows

The Wedding Proposal

During the wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the priest with an unusual offer. “Look, I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor, and obey’ and ‘forsaking all others, be faithful to her forever,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.”

He slipped the priest the cash and walked away.

The wedding day arrived. When it came time for the groom’s vows, the priest looked the young man in the eye and said,” Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life and swear eternally before God and your lovely wife that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”

The groom gulped and looked around and then said in a tiny voice, “I do.”

After the ceremony, the groom pulled the priest aside and hissed, “I thought we had a deal.”

The priest slipped the $100 back into the man’s hand and whispered, “The bride’s father made me a much better offer.”

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

St. Nick

St. Nicholas (d. 350?)

The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to St. Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honor him, and it is claimed that, after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet, historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.

As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.

Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast. In the English-speaking countries, St. Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

Utah

The Lord Is on the Phone

A Catholic priest, a Lutheran minister and an Evangelical preacher are arguing about religion one day when the phone rings.

The priest gets up to answer it. After listening for few moments, he says, “Yes, I will pass on the news,” and hangs up.

Turning to the others, he says, “I have good news and bad news.”

"Really? Do tell,” the minister says. 

"My friends,” the priest announces, "that was the Lord Jesus on the phone, and he was calling to say he’s back."

"Glory be!” shouts the preacher. “What could possibly be bad news now?”

"Well,” the priest says, “He was calling from Salt Lake City.”

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous

St. John Damascene (676?-749)

John spent most of his life in the monastery of St. Sabas, near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed, protected by it. He was born in Damascus, received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in a government position under the Arabs. After a few years he resigned and went to the monastery of St. Sabas.

He is famous in three areas. First, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his enemies could not silence him. Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers (of which he became the last). It is said that this book is to Eastern schools what theSumma of Aquinas became to the West. Thirdly, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist. His devotion to the Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known.

Posted via email from scottyr's posterous