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Beautiful words of the bible to inspired me as I come and go through the front door :)
prints by tankandtink on etsy. hung in random frames I spray painted.
This Armenian Gospel book was produced in 904 of the Armenian era (1455 CE) at the monastery of Gamałiēl in Xizan by the scribe Yohannēs Vardapet, son of Vardan and Dilšat, and was illuminated by the priest Xačʿatur. The priest Pʿilipos commissioned the manuscript as a memorial to himself, his parents Łazar and Xutʿlumēlikʿ, and other relatives listed in the colophon on fols. 300r to 301v. Pʿilipos is depicted on fol. 14v alongside his brothers Yusēpʿ and Sultanša, as they kneel before the Virgin and Child enthroned (Theotokos). The book contains 26 full-page polychrome miniatures, including 4 Evangelist portraits; ornately-designed canon tables; 4 decorated incipit pages; numerous marginal miniatures of floral and faunal motifs; and 19 marginal miniatures of biblical characters or allusions to biblical narratives.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
Read more on: lakitgum.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/my-hero-bishop-macleord...
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"If he calls me, I will answer,
I’ll be somewhere working for my Lord."
Bishop Ochola is the retired bishop of Kitgum Diocese in the Church of Uganda. Kitgum is in the heart of Acholiland, in the northern part of Uganda, a region wracked by a devastating and ongoing war between the Lord’s Resistance Army (a cult-like insurgency group without apparent political aims) and the Uganda defense forces, with violence directed by both armies against the civilian population of northern Uganda. The northern Ugandan conflict, which has created what is currently the worst and deadliest civilian crisis that has as yet escaped the attention of the international community (several hundred people die daily in the Internally Displaced Persons’, or IDP, camps scattered across northern Uganda), cannot be understood without understanding both the religious origins of the Lord’s Resistance Army (as an African traditional religion cult with Islamic rituals and a Christian veneer of Scripture quotations and references to the “Holy Spirit”, though likely misunderstood through a misnaming of God in the Luo language to suggest an evil river spirit who twists human beings through tuberculosis of the spine) and the ethnic nature of what can only be termed the slow extinction - or genocide - of the Acholi, a Luo people of northern Uganda.
In that earlier essay I wrote (once again giving my caveat that adequate discussion of this conflict lies beyond the scope of my own understanding and ability to convey the truth about it),
The political situation with regards to the conflict in northern Uganda, both politically and ecclesiastically, is complicated and fraught with misunderstanding and grievous errors in judgment and action…
The northern Uganda conflict has largely been ignored not only by the international community but also by the government in Kampala, largely because of the ethnic division that has existed in the nation of Uganda for many years, an ethnic division between Luo (largely northern) tribes and Bantu (largely southern) tribes that existed in precolonial times but which was exacerbated by British colonialism. About half of the archbishops of Uganda have been Luo (and the other half Bantu), but the ethnic divide plagues Ugandan Anglicanism as well (though not violently).
This ethnic divide means that the Bantu majority in the southern part of Uganda enjoy rights and privileges that the northern Luo tribes do not, from education to local infrastructure and business to the simple need for people to be able to live quietly in the own homes without the constant threat of pillaging, kidnapping, rape, and murder. It seems likely that the Museveni government in Kampala has little current interest in ending the conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army, as it allows the continuation of a situation in which the Luo people of Acholiland are slowing dying off. That this lack of interest is intentional - specifically, that the intent is the genocide of the Acholi - seems likely from the available evidence. President Museveni’s animus for the Luo people is known to many, though not apparently on an international scale such as would produce action to end this humanitarian crisis.
As bishop of the Kitgum Diocese, Bishop Ochola is intimately - on a daily basis - familiar with the privation, fear, and death that mark the lives of the people of northern Uganda.
A Ugandan expatriate friend recounted a bit of Bishop Ochola’s history in a paper he wrote last year:
Bishop MacBaker Ochola has personal experience of the violence in his own family that began at the onset of the war with the rape allegedly by rebels (it could have been the military) of his nearly 19-year old daughter. Bishop MacBaker and his wife, Winifred Ochola were away in Canada on the verge of their return to Northern Uganda when their daughter died. Ten years later, Winifred Ochola was blown to pieces and died instantly when the church pick-up truck she was traveling in hit a landmine allegedly planted by rebels (it could have been the military)! Bishop Ochola often speaks of how he felt on getting the news of the sudden death of his wife, Winifred, even before both of them had fully recovered form the loss of their daughter. “I felt like a tree split by lightning from top to bottom!” Yet today without bitterness, resentment or hatred against the rebels or the military, Bishop Ochola has become one of the most active soldiers for peace in the Northern Uganda Conflict.
Bishop Ochola continues tirelessly to work for an end to the conflict, including serving as Vice-Chairman of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative to bring the government, the LRA, and the people of northern Uganda to the table in reconciliation talks. In this capacity, Bishop Ochola authored a statement in 2004 that addressed “The Crisis in Northern Uganda - Issues of Grave Concern“.
I now know and understand his lack of bitterness and hatred, even as I have caught a glimpse of the depth of his grief both for his daughter and wife and for the people of northern Uganda, after hearing Bishop Ochola preach this morning and after listening to his stories and his impassioned pleas for the people of northern Uganda while spending much of the day with him today (we were graced with his presence at table for Sunday dinner - remember that for us Southerners dinner is the midday meal). I was delighted and heartened by the many stories and Luo proverbs he shared with us. Our youngest daughter particularly enjoyed the rooster imitation the bishop rendered while telling us the story of how cows and chickens came to dwell with human beings. Bishop Ochola is a captivating story teller and has that gravitas that many older African men possess. On the way home from a concert earlier this evening, Bishop Ochola was recounting various “love names” (pet names) that the Luo people give their children, and I found myself entranced by the cadence and rhythm of his voice. It was nothing less than bardic.
But more than just storyteller and bard, Bishop Ochola is an apostle, a bishop in the succession of the apostles whose heart is on fire for Jesus. Before regaling us with the story of the cow and the cock, he told us a bit about his three years of exile in Bunia, Zaire, during the Idi Amin regime, after the martyrdom of Archbishop Janani Luwum (whose grave lies - unhonored by the Church of Uganda, though not by the local Acholi people - in dangerous territory in northern Uganda). He spoke of the great eucalyptus trees at a mission station in that part of Zaire, planted nearly a century ago by the Ugandan Anglican priest Apolo Kivebulaya, apostle to the Bambuti, or Pygmies of the Congo forest.
As the meal drew to a close, and as he was encouraging the young academic couple who joined us for dinner to follow where the Lord would call them, the bishop broke into song, with one of the verses of the gospel song, “In the highways and the hedges”. We all joined our voices with his by the time he reached the second line of the verse.
If he calls me, I will answer.
If he calls me, I will answer.
If he calls me, I will answer;
I’ll be somewhere working for my Lord.
It is my heartfelt prayer and hope that Bishop Ochola will be able to meet with government leaders and administration officials during his time in the United States, such that current United States policy toward Uganda, initiated under the Clinton administration and continued under the Bush administration (though there are some hopeful signs of change), will alter in the direction of ceasing support for the government of President Museveni until he deals with the Northern Ugandan conflict in a productive and just manner.
And it is also a heartfelt prayer and hope that Bishop Ochola would find his time among us a time for reflection, for discovering new friendships and renewing old ones, and for the grace of Jesus Christ to heal and to refresh him.
For more information about Bishop Ochola, see Nancy Cobbey’s article in the Church Mission Society’s Yes Magazine from 1999, “When order triumphed over grace“, concerning the episode when Bishop Ochola was not allowed to speak to the 1998 Lambeth Conference about the Northern Uganda conflict. See also the mention of Bishop Ochola and the Northern Uganda conflict in this sermon at Winchester Cathedral, preached by Bishop Michael Scott-Joynt, earlier this year.
The Church Mission Society’s Northern Uganda subsite, including more statistics on the displaced persons and the hardships they face daily, may be found here.
Note: the photograph with which this entry begins is of Bishop Ochola standing next to the wreckage of the pickup truck in which his wife, Winifred Ochola, was killed after the truck struck a landmine (photograph courtesy of the Rev’d Christopher Carey, from the Church Mission Society’s website).
Scripture reference: Philippians 3:14. Photo by Deb, a member of New Beginnings Christian Church (NBCCRVA) in Richmond, Virginia USA.
“I do not mean that I am already as God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal, but I continue trying to reach it and to make it mine. Christ wants me to do that, which is the reason He made me His. Brothers and sisters, I know that I have not yet reached that goal, but there is one thing I always do. Forgetting the past and straining toward what is ahead.” --- The Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:12-13.
"And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested."
Context:
Verse 9: "And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow."
Full chapter:
The sons of Judah; Pharez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal.
2 And Reaiah the son of Shobal begat Jahath; and Jahath begat Ahumai, and Lahad. These are the families of the Zorathites.
3 And these were of the father of Etam; Jezreel, and Ishma, and Idbash: and the name of their sister was Hazelelponi:
4 And Penuel the father of Gedor, and Ezer the father of Hushah. These are the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephratah, the father of Bethlehem.
5 And Ashur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah.
6 And Naarah bare him Ahuzam, and Hepher, and Temeni, and Haahashtari. These were the sons of Naarah.
7 And the sons of Helah were, Zereth, and Jezoar, and Ethnan.
8 And Coz begat Anub, and Zobebah, and the families of Aharhel the son of Harum.
9 And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.
10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.
11 And Chelub the brother of Shuah begat Mehir, which was the father of Eshton.
12 And Eshton begat Bethrapha, and Paseah, and Tehinnah the father of Irnahash. These are the men of Rechah.
13 And the sons of Kenaz; Othniel, and Seraiah: and the sons of Othniel; Hathath.
14 And Meonothai begat Ophrah: and Seraiah begat Joab, the father of the valley of Charashim; for they were craftsmen.
15 And the sons of Caleb the son of Jephunneh; Iru, Elah, and Naam: and the sons of Elah, even Kenaz.
16 And the sons of Jehaleleel; Ziph, and Ziphah, Tiria, and Asareel.
17 And the sons of Ezra were, Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon: and she bare Miriam, and Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa.
18 And his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took.
19 And the sons of his wife Hodiah the sister of Naham, the father of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa the Maachathite.
20 And the sons of Shimon were, Amnon, and Rinnah, Benhanan, and Tilon. And the sons of Ishi were, Zoheth, and Benzoheth.
21 The sons of Shelah the son of Judah were, Er the father of Lecah, and Laadah the father of Mareshah, and the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen, of the house of Ashbea,
22 And Jokim, and the men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who had the dominion in Moab, and Jashubilehem. And these are ancient things.
23 These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work.
24 The sons of Simeon were, Nemuel, and Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, and Shaul:
25 Shallum his son, Mibsam his son, Mishma his son.
26 And the sons of Mishma; Hamuel his son, Zacchur his son, Shimei his son.
27 And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters: but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply, like to the children of Judah.
28 And they dwelt at Beersheba, and Moladah, and Hazarshual,
29 And at Bilhah, and at Ezem, and at Tolad,
30 And at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at Ziklag,
31 And at Bethmarcaboth, and Hazarsusim, and at Bethbirei, and at Shaaraim. These were their cities unto the reign of David.
32 And their villages were, Etam, and Ain, Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five cities:
33 And all their villages that were round about the same cities, unto Baal. These were their habitations, and their genealogy.
34 And Meshobab, and Jamlech, and Joshah, the son of Amaziah,
35 And Joel, and Jehu the son of Josibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel,
36 And Elioenai, and Jaakobah, and Jeshohaiah, and Asaiah, and Adiel, and Jesimiel, and Benaiah,
37 And Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah;
38 These mentioned by their names were princes in their families: and the house of their fathers increased greatly.
39 And they went to the entrance of Gedor, even unto the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks.
40 And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old.
41 And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents, and the habitations that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their rooms: because there was pasture there for their flocks.
42 And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi.
43 And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day.
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
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MEDITERRANEAN SEA (June 13, 2010) French navy Catholic chaplain Pascal Frey, left, reads scriptures with chaplain Tom Ianucci before conducting a joint Catholic Mass service aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). Harry S. Truman is deployed as part of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility and is anchored off the coast of Hyeres, France, to observe the air show for the 100th anniversary of French Naval Aviation Aviation. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daron Street/Released)