Seventh Day of Christmas: Resurrection and the New Year

By the western Christian calendar, today is the seventh day of Christmas.  By the secular calendar, today is the last day of the year. In the middle of the Christmas season on the liturgical calendar, the secular calendar changes year.
There is something appropriate about this change of year in the middle of the Christmas season.  As [...]

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Sixth Day of Christmas: Bathsheba, the Ancestor of Jesus

The last woman to receive a special mention in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is Bathsheba, though she is not mentioned by name. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, an immigrant living in Israel in the time of King David. She conceived a child through the adulterous attentions of the king, who then [...]

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I’m Sure Mary Was Very Tired By Now, Too

I am afraid the Fifth Day of Christmas post is not going to happen.  The baby finally just stopped crying, and I am worn out.  But you can read last year’s post, and I will try to finish a Sixth Day post for tomorrow.

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I Think I’ve Changed

With my first baby, I introduced new foods strictly by a doctor-recommended schedule. Rice cereal, then barley, then oats. Green vegetables, then orange vegetables, then fruits. Yogurt at eight months. She did not have cookies or chocolate or ice cream until she was over a year old.
Today I sat at the [...]

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Fourth Day of Christmas: Ruth, the Ancestor of Jesus

The third woman listed in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is Ruth the Moabite. The story of Ruth receives its own short novella in scripture, and is the closest to a love story that the Bible offers.
During a famine, Naomi, a woman from Judah, left her home with all her family and emigrated to Moab, [...]

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