Back in the Saddle (more or less)
Trying to get back into the swing of blogging again. This song by the always amazing Idina Menzel is broadly appropriate, I think.
Quote for the Week
The Lenten Blessing — A Franciscan Benediction
May God bless you with Discomfort…
at easy answers,
half–truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with Anger…
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with Tears…
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness…
to believe that you can make a difference in their world, so that you
can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
–St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, in The Parish Newsletter of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (April 2014); courtesy of Wikiquote
Hymns for Lent
Today is the first Friday of Lent. After what seems to have been an entire year of Lent, may this penitential season be beneficial to us.
Quote for the Week
Lenten fasting is not the same thing in those lands where people eat well as is a Lent among our third-world peoples, undernourished as they are, living in a perpetual Lent, always fasting….
Let us observe our Lent thus, giving our sufferings, our bloodshed, our sorrow the same value that Christ gave to his own condition of poverty, oppression, abandonment, and injustice. Let us change all that into the cross of salvation that redeems the world and our people. And with hatred for none, let us be converted and share both joys and material aids, in our poverty, with those who may be even needier.
–Óscar A. Romero, in Let Us Be Today’s Christians”: The Words of Óscar Romero (2 MARCH1980); courtesy of Wikiquote.
Brazilian Carnival Music for the Weekend
Carnival–better known to Americans as “Mardi Gras”–is the Tuesday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year it falls on February 17th–next Tuesday. In the meantime, enjoy some season appropriate music!
The Chequer-board of Nights and Days 