A Comedy of Horrors
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IC CE first gen. I had not posted this shot and while looking at a previous memory disk I saw it and decided to put it up. I can't make out the plate, but if anyone can I would appreciate where this came from.
At his home, Pastor Calvin continues pulling the Isaiah 9 Christmas prophecy into context.
Pastor Calvin: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." We have seen that our Lord, Christ Jesus, is the Wonderful Counselor, that He will perfectly guide us. We have seen that He is God of very God, come to save us in His love. Now, know that He is The Prince of Peace.
The world cannot give you peace. The world and the things of the world are passing away. God has engineered us to desire peace because He is the source of all peace.
Our Lord says in John 14, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."
May we all come to know Him by turning away from our sin, our lives, and turning to Him in absolute trust that He will save us and change us. In coming to know Him, we will come to know His peace. Merry Christmas, friends.
All: Merry Christmas!!
Chip Oakenbrow had decided it was time to leave his home and take part in the epic search for the sword of Karlamac. So, he packed his things and took off through the forest with the agility of a deer. Ever since he was little, Chip's grandfather used to tell him stories of how there was a secret clue hidden at the very heart of the Forest, which would lead the finder to the lost sword of Karlamac. When Chip arrived at the dark, seldom-trodden center of the forest, he began to become discouraged, for he did not see anything that resembled a clue. Just then, he came upon a small pool of clear water, and from the center of the pool rose a small statue. Chip gasped when he saw what was standing atop this stone structure. It was a forest fairy! Chip had heard tales of them when he was a child, but he had never thought that they actually existed. Slowly Chip approached the small creature, and abruptly it took off into the sky, leaving behind it a trail of glowing sparks. Now all Chip had to do was follow the fairy, and it would lead him to the sword.
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This is part of a somewhat rushed entry for the second Global Challenge on LCC. Enjoy!
WIC Peer Counselor Natalia nursing her daughter Lucia at our annual World Breastfeeding Week event. My follow up picture of her nursing this baby, at age 5 months, is also on my Flickr page here: flic.kr/p/qdUvqz
Same mother and baby as another breastfeeding picture I have posted here. In this picture, the baby is 5 months old. Taken at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, FL
I have finally decided to post these photos. I made them for a proposal for--well obviously for this set. Unfortunately, I was not aware that Star Trek is a restricted IP and that Lego would not allow the proposal to go public because of course, what would be the point?
There's no point in keeping the photos and description to myself though, especially with the work that went into them. Description below:
'Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Lego starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no minifigure has gone before.'
Thrown through a spatial anomaly to a universe of modular building bricks, the crew of Starfleet's famous flagship find themselves sitting on your desk! With around 1800 parts, this UCS scaled Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation is lovingly detailed and mounts on an elegant display stand complete with dedication plaque. But the Enterprise-D is hardly the first ship to bear her name. Display the original Constitution class Enterprise from the 1960s TV classic alongside and at the same scale.
And of course, it isn't a Galaxy class starship without a separating saucer. With the secondary display stand--mounted with a Starfleet badge and the nanofigures of the main bridge crews of both the original series and The Next Generation--you can show off both the saucer and the stardrive sections at once! The nanofigures aren't just for display; act out some of your favorite scenes or make up your own story when you remove the saucer plates to access the main bridge.
Features:
-Prepare for saucer separation: When facing a highly dangerous threat, Captain Picard decides to split the saucer off into its own ship. With the secondary stand, you can mount the saucer and display it right alongside the stardrive section. Just swap the saucer for the battle bridge attachment and you suddenly have two ships!
-Control the action yourself: Remove the panel on the saucer section and access the main bridge. With the detailed nanofigures, the bridge crew is ready for anything. Place Data at Ops, Worf at Tactical, and Picard in his Captain's chair and 'Engage' at warp 6!
-Time for a temporal anomaly: Display the Constitution class Enterprise from the original series alongside its successor. Built to the same scale and detailed with a deflector array, impulse engines, and shuttle bay doors; you can command this highly swooshable starship on its five year mission of exploration and adventure.
-Assemble the senior staff: The nanofigures inlcude The Next Generation's Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Lt. Commander La Forge, Lt. Commander Data, Lieutenant Worf, Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troi, and the original series' Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. "Bones" McCoy, Chief Engineer Scotty, Lieutenant Uhura, Lieutenant Sulu, and Ensign Chekov.
Built for play or display, these two starships are sure to be popular with all ages. Whether you are a young fan of great Lego sets, or a nostalgic collector of Star Trek memorabilia, please support this project and help us to bring the knowledge of the galaxy to everyone.
'Make it so!'
Counselor Deanna Troi, as portrayed by Deanna Sirtis.
Prop is nothing, at least for the moment. I consider this build incomplete, as I've not got the full build for her hair done yet. As previously stated, hair is difficult for me on female Brickheadz builds. Will update with final build as soon as I have a better design for her hair.
The most beautiful women in TV and Movie History now become Barbie Collector Dolls created by acclaimed re-paint Artist Donna Brinkley.
Farrah Leni Fawcett is known as the world's Sexiest Star of all time... she will forever be one of Hollywood's greatest Icons. She was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, the younger of two daughters.[3] Her mother, Pauline Alice January 30, 1914 – March 4, 2005), was a homemaker, and her father, James William Fawcett (October 14, 1917 – August 23, 2010), was an oil field contractor. Her sister was Diane Fawcett Walls (October 27, 1938 – October 16, 2001), a graphic artist. She was of Irish, French, English, and Choctaw Native American ancestry. Fawcett once said the name Ferrah was made up by her mother because it went well with their last name.
A Roman Catholic, Fawcett's early education was at the parish school of the church her family attended, St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Corpus Christi. She graduated from W. B. Ray High School in Corpus Christi, where she was voted Most Beautiful by her classmates her Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior years of High School. For three years, 1965–68, Fawcett attended the University of Texas at Austin, living one semester in Jester Center, and she became a sister of Delta Delta Delta Sorority. During her Freshman year, she was named one of the Ten Most Beautiful Coeds on Campus, the first time a Freshman had been chosen. Their photos were sent to various agencies in Hollywood. David Mirsch, a Hollywood agent called her and urged her to come to Los Angeles. She turned him down but he called her for the next two years. Finally, in 1968, the summer following her junior year, with her parents' permission to try her luck in Hollywood, Farrah moved to Hollywood. She did not return.
Upon arriving in Hollywood in 1968 she was signed to a $350 a week contract with Screen Gems. She began to appear in commercials for UltraBrite toothpaste, Noxema, Max Factor, Wella Balsam shampoo and conditioner, Mercury Cougar automobiles and Beauty Rest matresses. Fawcett's earliest acting appearances were guest spots on The Flying Nun and I Dream of Jeannie. She made numerous other TV appearances including Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, [Mayberry RFD]] and The Partridge Family. She appeared in four episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man with husband Lee Majors, The Dating Game, S.W.A.T and a recurring role on Harry O alongside David Janssen. She also appeared in the Made for TV movies, The Feminist and the Fuzz, The Great American Beauty Contest, The Girl Who Came Giftwrapped, and Murder of Flight 502.
She had a sizable part in the 1969 French romantic-drama, Love Is a Funny Thing. She played opposite Raquel Welch and Mae West in the film version of, Myra Breckinridge (1970). The film earned negative reviews and was a box office flop. However, much has been written and said about the scene where Farrah and Raquel share a bed, and a near sexual experience. Fawcett co-starred with Michael York and Richard Jordan in the well-received science-fiction film, Logan's Run in 1976.
In 1976, Pro Arts Inc., pitched the idea of a poster of Fawcett to her agent, and a photo shoot was arranged with photographer Bruce McBroom, who was hired by the poster company. According to friend Nels Van Patten, Fawcett styled her own hair and did her make-up without the aid of a mirror. Her blonde highlights were further heightened by a squeeze of lemon juice. From 40 rolls of film, Fawcett herself selected her six favorite pictures, eventually narrowing her choice to the one that made her famous. The resulting poster, of Fawcett in a one-piece red bathing suit, was a best-seller; sales estimates ranged from over 5 million[12] to 8 million to as high as 12 million copies.
On March 21, 1976, the first appearance of Fawcett playing the character Jill Munroe in Charlie's Angels was aired as a movie of the week. Fawcett and her husband were frequent tennis partners of producer Aaron Spelling, and he and his producing partner thought of casting Fawcett as the golden girl Jill because of his friendship with the couple. The movie starred Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Fawcett (then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors) as private investigators for Townsend Associates, a detective agency run by a reclusive multi-millionaire whom the women had never met. Voiced by John Forsythe, the Charles Townsend character presented cases and dispensed advice via a speakerphone to his core team of three female employees, whom he referred to as Angels. They were aided in the office and occasionally in the field by two male associates, played by character actors David Doyle and David Ogden Stiers. The program quickly earned a huge following, leading the network to air it a second time and approve production for a series, with the pilot's principal cast except David Ogden Stiers.
Fawcett's record-breaking poster that sold 12 million copies.
The Charlie's Angels series formally debuted on September 22, 1976. Fawcett emerged as a fan favorite in the show, and the actress won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Performer in a New TV Program. In a 1977 interview with TV Guide, Fawcett said: When the show was number three, I thought it was our acting. When we got to be number one, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra.
Fawcett's appearance in the television show boosted sales of her poster, and she earned far more in royalties from poster sales than from her salary for appearing in Charlie's Angels. Her hairstyle went on to become an international trend, with women sporting a Farrah-do a Farrah-flip, or simply Farrah hair Iterations of her hair style predominated American women's hair styles well into the 1980s.
Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after only one season and Cheryl Ladd replaced her on the show, portraying Jill Munroe's younger sister Kris Munroe. Numerous explanations for Fawcett's precipitous withdrawal from the show were offered over the years. The strain on her marriage due to her long absences most days due to filming, as her then-husband Lee Majors was star of an established television show himself, was frequently cited, but Fawcett's ambitions to broaden her acting abilities with opportunities in films have also been given. Fawcett never officially signed her series contract with Spelling due to protracted negotiations over royalties from her image's use in peripheral products, which led to an even more protracted lawsuit filed by Spelling and his company when she quit the show.
The show was a major success throughout the world, maintaining its appeal in syndication, spawning a cottage industry of peripheral products, particularly in the show's first three seasons, including several series of bubble gum cards, two sets of fashion dolls, numerous posters, puzzles, and school supplies, novelizations of episodes, toy vans, and a board game, all featuring Fawcett's likeness. The Angels also appeared on the covers of magazines around the world, from countless fan magazines to TV Guide (four times) to Time Magazine.
The series ultimately ran for five seasons. As part of a settlement to a lawsuit over her early departure, Fawcett returned for six guest appearances over seasons three and four of the series.
In 2004, the television movie Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels dramatized the events from the show with supermodel and actress Tricia Helfer portraying Fawcett and Ben Browder portraying Lee Majors, Fawcett's then-husband.
In 1983, Fawcett won critical acclaim for her role in the Off-Broadway stage production of the controversial play Extremities, written by William Mastrosimone. Replacing Susan Sarandon, she was a would-be rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker. She described the role as the most grueling, the most intense, the most physically demanding and emotionally exhausting of her career. During one performance, a stalker in the audience disrupted the show by asking Fawcett if she had received the photos and letters he had mailed her. Police removed the man and were able only to issue a summons for disorderly conduct.
The following year, her role as a battered wife in the fact-based television movie The Burning Bed (1984) earned her the first of her four Emmy Award nominations. The project is noted as being the first television movie to provide a nationwide 800 number that offered help for others in the situation, in this case victims of domestic abuse. It was the highest-rated television movie of the season.
In 1986, Fawcett appeared in the movie version of Extremities, which was also well received by critics, and for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
She appeared in Jon Avnet's Between Two Women with Colleen Dewhurst, and took several more dramatic roles as infamous or renowned women. She was nominated for Golden Globe awards for roles as Beate Klarsfeld in Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story and troubled Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, and won a CableACE Award for her 1989 portrayal of groundbreaking LIFE magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White in Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White. Her 1989 portrayal of convicted murderer Diane Downs in the miniseries Small Sacrifices earned her a second Emmy nomination[20] and her sixth Golden Globe Award nomination. The miniseries won a Peabody Award for excellence in television, with Fawcett's performance singled out by the organization, which stated Ms. Fawcett brings a sense of realism rarely seen in television miniseries (to) a drama of unusual power Art meets life.
Fawcett, who had steadfastly resisted appearing nude in magazines throughout the 1970s and 1980s (although she appeared topless in the 1980 film Saturn 3), caused a major stir by posing semi-nude in the December 1995 issue of Playboy.[citation needed] At the age of 50, she returned to Playboy with a pictorial for the July 1997 issue, which also became a top seller. The issue and its accompanying video featured Fawcett painting on canvas using her body, which had been an ambition of hers for years.
That same year, Fawcett was chosen by Robert Duvall to play his wife in an independent feature film he was producing, The Apostle. Fawcett received an Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Actress for the film, which was highly critically acclaimed.
In 2000, she worked with director Robert Altman and an all-star cast in the feature film Dr. T the Women, playing the wife of Richard Gere (her character has a mental breakdown, leading to her first fully nude appearance). Also that year, Fawcett's collaboration with sculptor Keith Edmier was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, later traveling to The Andy Warhol Museum. The sculpture was also presented in a series of photographs and a book by Rizzoli.
In November 2003, Fawcett prepared for her return to Broadway in a production of Bobbi Boland, the tragicomic tale of a former Miss Florida. However, the show never officially opened, closing before preview performances. Fawcett was described as vibrating with frustration at the producer's extraordinary decision to cancel the production. Only days earlier the same producer closed an Off-Broadway show she had been backing.
Fawcett continued to work in television, with well-regarded appearances in made-for-television movies and on popular television series including Ally McBeal and four episodes each of Spin City and The Guardian, her work on the latter show earning her a third Emmy nomination in 2004.
Fawcett was married to Lee Majors, star of television's The Six Million Dollar Man, from 1973 to 1982, although the couple separated in 1979. During her marriage, she was known and credited in her roles as Farrah Fawcett-Majors.
From 1979 until 1997 Fawcett was involved romantically with actor Ryan O'Neal. The relationship produced a son, Redmond James Fawcett O'Neal, born January 30, 1985 in Los Angeles.[26] In April 2009, on probation for driving under the influence, Redmond was arrested for possession of narcotics while Fawcett was in the hospital.[citation needed] On June 22, 2009, The Los Angeles Times and Reuters reported that Ryan O'Neal had said that Fawcett had agreed to marry him as soon as she felt strong enough.
From 1997 to 1998, Fawcett had a relationship with Canadian filmmaker James Orr, writer and producer of the Disney feature film in which she co-starred with Chevy Chase and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Man of the House. The relationship ended when Orr was charged with and later convicted of beating Fawcett during a 1998 fight between the two.
On June 5, 1997, Fawcett received negative commentary after giving a rambling interview and appearing distracted on Late Show with David Letterman. Months later, she told the host of The Howard Stern Show her behavior was just her way of joking around with the television host, partly in the guise of promoting her Playboy pictoral and video, explaining what appeared to be random looks across the theater was just her looking and reacting to fans in the audience. Though the Letterman appearance spawned speculation and several jokes at her expense, she returned to the show a week later, with success, and several years later, after Joaquin Phoenix's mumbling act on a February 2009 appearance on The Late Show, Letterman wrapped up the interview by saying, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight and recalled Fawcett's earlier appearance by noting we owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett.
Fawcett's elder sister, Diane Fawcett Walls, died from lung cancer just before her 63rd birthday, on October 16, 2001.[33] The fifth episode of her 2005 Chasing Farrah series followed the actress home to Texas to visit with her father, James, and mother, Pauline. Pauline Fawcett died soon after, on March 4, 2005, at the age of 91.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006, and began treatment, including chemotherapy and surgery. Four months later, on her 60th birthday, the Associated Press wire service reported that Fawcett was, at that point, cancer free.
Less than four months later, in May 2007, Fawcett brought a small digital video camera to document a doctor's office visit. There, she was told a malignant polyp was found where she had been treated for the initial cancer. Doctors contemplated whether to implant a radiation seeder (which differs from conventional radiation and is used to treat other types of cancer). Fawcett's U.S. doctors told her that she would require a colostomy. Instead, Fawcett traveled to Germany for treatments described variously in the press as holistic aggressive and alternative. There, Dr. Ursula Jacob prescribed a treatment including surgery to remove the anal tumor, and a course of perfusion and embolization for her liver cancer by Doctors Claus Kiehling and Thomas Vogl in Germany, and chemotherapy back in Fawcett's home town of Los Angeles. Although initially the tumors were regressing, their reappearance a few months later necessitated a new course, this time including laser ablation therapy and chemoembolization. Aided by friend Alana Stewart, Fawcett documented her battle with the disease.
In early April 2009, Fawcett, back in the United States, was hospitalized, with media reports declaring her unconscious and in critical condition, although subsequent reports indicated her condition was not so dire. On April 6, the Associated Press reported that her cancer had metastasized to her liver, a development Fawcett had learned of in May 2007 and which her subsequent treatments in Germany had targeted. The report denied that she was unconscious, and explained that the hospitalization was due not to her cancer but a painful abdominal hematoma that had been the result of a minor procedure. Her spokesperson emphasized she was not at death's door adding - She remains in good spirits with her usual sense of humor ... She's been in great shape her whole life and has an incredible resolve and an incredible resilience. Fawcett was released from the hospital on April 9, picked up by longtime companion O'Neal, and, according to her doctor, was walking and in great spirits and looking forward to celebrating Easter at home.
A month later, on May 7, Fawcett was reported as critically ill, with Ryan O'Neal quoted as saying she now spends her days at home, on an IV, often asleep. The Los Angeles Times reported Fawcett was in the last stages of her cancer and had the chance to see her son Redmond in April 2009, although shackled and under supervision, as he was then incarcerated. Her 91-year-old father, James Fawcett, flew out to Los Angeles to visit.
The cancer specialist that was treating Fawcett in L.A., Dr. Lawrence Piro, and Fawcett's friend and Angels co-star Kate Jackson – a breast cancer survivor – appeared together on The Today Show dispelling tabloid-fueled rumors, including suggestions Fawcett had ever been in a coma, had ever reached 86 pounds, and had ever given up her fight against the disease or lost the will to live. Jackson decried such fabrications, saying they really do hurt a human being and a person like Farrah. Piro recalled when it became necessary for Fawcett to undergo treatments that would cause her to lose her hair, acknowledging Farrah probably has the most famous hair in the world but also that it is not a trivial matter for any cancer patient, whose hair affects [one's] whole sense of who [they] are. Of the documentary, Jackson averred Fawcett didn't do this to show that 'she' is unique, she did it to show that we are all unique ... This was ... meant to be a gift to others to help and inspire them.
The two-hour documentary Farrah's Story, which was filmed by Fawcett and friend Alana Stewart, aired on NBC on May 15, 2009.[47] The documentary was watched by nearly nine million people at its premiere airing, and it was re-aired on the broadcast network's cable stations MSNBC, Bravo and Oxygen. Fawcett earned her fourth Emmy nomination posthumously on July 16, 2009, as producer of Farrah's Story.
Controversy surrounded the aired version of the documentary, with her initial producing partner, who had worked with her four years earlier on her reality series Chasing Farrah, alleging O'Neal's and Stewart's editing of the program was not in keeping with Fawcett's wishes to more thoroughly explore rare types of cancers such as her own and alternative methods of treatment. He was especially critical of scenes showing Fawcett's son visiting her for the last time, in shackles, while she was nearly unconscious in bed. Fawcett had generally kept her son out of the media, and his appearances were minimal in Chasing Farrah.
Fawcett died at approximately 9:28 am, PDT on June 25, 2009, in the intensive care unit of Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, with O'Neal and Stewart by her side. A private funeral was held in Los Angeles on June 30. Fawcett's son Redmond was permitted to leave his California detention center to attend his mother's funeral, where he gave the first reading.
The night of her death, ABC aired an hour-long special episode of 20/20 featuring clips from several of Barbara Walters' past interviews with Fawcett as well as new interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Jaclyn Smith, Alana Stewart, and Dr. Lawrence Piro. Walters followed up on the story on Friday's episode of 20/20. CNN's Larry King Live planned a show exclusively about Fawcett that evening until the death of Michael Jackson several hours later caused the program to shift to cover both stories. Cher, a longtime friend of Fawcett, and Suzanne de Passe, executive producer of Fawcett's Small Sacrifices mini-series, both paid tribute to Fawcett on the program. NBC aired a Dateline NBC special Farrah Fawcett: The Life and Death of an Angel; the following evening, June 26, preceded by a rebroadcast of Farrah's Story in prime time. That weekend and the following week, television tributes continued. MSNBC aired back-to-back episodes of its Headliners and Legends episodes featuring Fawcett and Jackson. TV Land aired a mini-marathon of Charlie's Angels and Chasing Farrah episodes. E! aired Michael and Farrah: Lost Icons and the The Biography Channel aired Bio Remembers: Farrah Fawcett. The documentary Farrah's Story re-aired on the Oxygen Network and MSNBC.
Larry King said of the Fawcett phenomenon,
TV had much more impact back in the '70s than it does today. Charlie's Angels got huge numbers every week – nothing really dominates the television landscape like that today. Maybe American Idol comes close, but now there are so many channels and so many more shows it's hard for anything to get the audience, or amount of attention, that Charlie's Angels got. Farrah was a major TV star when the medium was clearly dominant.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said Farrah was one of the iconic beauties of our time. Her girl-next-door charm combined with stunning looks made her a star on film, TV and the printed page.
Kate Jackson said,
She was a selfless person who loved her family and friends with all her heart, and what a big heart it was. Farrah showed immense courage and grace throughout her illness and was an inspiration to those around her... I will remember her kindness, her cutting dry wit and, of course, her beautiful smile...when you think of Farrah, remember her smiling because that is exactly how she wanted to be remembered: smiling.
She is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
The red one-piece bathing suit worn by Farrah in her famous 1976 poster was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH) on February 2, 2011.[65] Said to have been purchased at a Saks Fifth Avenue store, the red Lycra suit made by the leading Australian swimsuit company Speedo, was donated to the Smithsonian by her executors and was formally presented to NMAH in Washington D.C. by her longtime companion Ryan O'Neal.[66] The suit and the poster are expected to go on temporary display sometime in 2011–12. They will be made additions to the Smithsonian's popular culture department.
The famous poster of Farrah in a red swimsuit has been produced as a Barbie doll. The limited edition dolls, complete with a gold chain and the girl-next-door locks, have been snapped up by Barbie fans.
In 2011, Men's Health named her one of the 100 Hottest Women of All-Time ranking her at No. 31
(In Memory of Cruzer 2011)
13 The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14 from where he sits enthroned he blooks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16 The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
fon those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may gdeliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul iwaits for the LORD;
he is our help and kour shield.
21 For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ps 33:13–22.
Pujari is an Indian surname which means "priest". The word 'pujari' means one who does the Puja of the idol of God physically in Hindu temples. They are supposed to learn and chant hymns (manthras in Sanskrit) dedicated to God, generally in Sanskrit. Throughout India, pujaris act as counselors during Hindu festivities and festivals. Pujaris have a reputation for being learned.
Explore #115 on June 16th '09
Isaiah 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”.
I just decorated my apartment for Christmas. It started a few days and tree stands ago (long story), when my roommate and I attempted to bring holiday cheer to our apartment. As soon as December 1 appeared, up went the tree. And then the snowmen placemats and towels made their way to the living room and bathrooms. It looked cozy already. But what I really wanted, what I couldn’t wait for, was the night where I could finally give birth to the season’s magic.
I set my sights on Friday and cleared my calendar. It was me, my tree, tons of music and the ethereal blend of spiced vanilla candles. My apartment would be warm to combat the chill outside. I had it all planned.
And then I waited. Each day of the week passed with a slow shuffle, an agonizing patience stirring in me. I think the farther into the week I went, the farther off Friday seemed to be, like striding the wrong direction on one of those automated walkways at the airport. I hadn’t looked forward to a time like this in a while, and the longer I waited, the more anticipation grew in my heart.
When the appointed day dawned, I leapt for joy. I worked with fervor, delighted in the time spent with my parents and little brother for a bit in the early evening, and nearly burst with excitement as I headed home, eager to create my own winter’s dream.
I danced around my couch, twirling cords and colors with ornaments after stringing lights on my balcony, winter candles lit and a soft glow bathing the walls. Bags of gifts already purchased and cards ready to be written scattered themselves along the carpet, while the wicks of my candles swayed with MercyMe’s version of Silent Night. All too soon, the last strands were laid along the counter, and I surveyed my craftsmanship. Not bad, I thought, admiring the twinkling of the tree, not bad at all.
I was so proud of myself- my first Christmas on my own and the place looks like a (slightly altered) winter wonderland!
This is what I looked forward to all week- my night to load the lights and prepare the presents. To kick back when all was right and pen a few cards to those I care for. The anticipation ran high, sent jolts though my system at the prospect of preparing myself to celebrate this sacred holiday.
Anticipation.
We feel something coming, deep within our bones.
No one felt this tug more certain than the Jews, thousands of years back, while they awaited a Savior.
Through the wilderness. Through their scattering into nations. Through the signs and stumbles and wars and celebrations, they kept their hearts always ahead, hanging on the hope of a hero.
And He appeared. So much sweeter than anything they could have anticipated. But only a few noticed that first night, when He silently slid into the world He came to save. His parents looked down at their precious child, asleep soundly in his makeshift crib of cutout wood. They traced the curve of His nose, the sweep of his cheek that sung with each rise and fall of heavenly breath. His innocence before them, curled in a manger. And as all parents do, they anticipated His life- His childhood, the teachings He would impart not only on them, but on the world. Then the trial. The trail of blood and tears up a hill, where His final task would check complete.
But not now. Not yet. This night was theirs. Between donkeys and dreams, a man placed his newborn in his wife’s arms, gently touched His tender face, and kneeled before them both, amazed how he could ever hold such immense love for someone so small.