Wśród nocnej ciszy głos się rozchodzi:
Wstańcie, pasterze, Bóg się wam rodzi!
Czym prędzej się wybierajcie,
Do Betlejem pospieszajcie
Przywitać Pana.
Poszli, znaleźli Dzieciątko w żłobie
Z wszystkimi znaki danymi sobie.
Jako Bogu cześć Mu dali,
A witając zawołali
Z wielkiej radości:
Ach, witaj Zbawco z dawna żądany,
Cztery tysiące lat wyglądany
Na Ciebie króle, prorocy
Czekali, a Tyś tej nocy
Nam się objawił.
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Amidst the stillness of the night
Amidst the stillness of the night, a voice proclaims:
Arise ye shepherds – God is born to you!
Seize the moment,
Hasten to Bethlehem
To welcome the Lord.
They came, they found the child in the manger
With all the signs of honor
given by God ,
They shouted a greeting,
With great joy.
Welcome Savior, long desired!
Looked for for one thousand years
By kings and prophets
They waited, and you tonight
Revealed yourself to us.
Born: Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world; Sir Isaac Newton, natural philosopher, 1642, Woolsthorpe, near Grantham; Johann Jacob Reiske, oriental scholar, 1716, Zorbig, Saxony; William Collins, poet, 1720, Chichester; Richard Person, Greek scholar, 1759, East Ruston, Norfolk.
and my wife, Karen.
Feast Day: St. Eugenia, virgin and martyr, about 257. St. Anastasia, martyr, 304. Another St. Anastasia.
Christmas Day
The festival of Christmas is regarded as the greatest celebration throughout the ecclesiastical year, and so important and joyous a solemnity is it deemed, that a special exception is made in its favour, whereby, in the event of the anniversary falling on a Friday, that day of the week, under all other circumstances a fast, is transformed to a festival.
That the birth of Jesus Christ, the deliverer of the human race, and the mysterious link connecting the transcendent and incomprehensible attributes of Deity with human sympathies and affections, should be considered as the most glorious event that ever happened, and the most worthy of being reverently and joyously commemorated, is a pro-position which must commend itself to the heart and reason of every one of His followers, who aspires to walk in His footsteps, and share in the ineffable benefits which His death has secured to mankind. And so though at one period denounced by the Puritans as superstitious, and to the present day disregarded by Calvinistic Protestants, as unwarranted by Scripture, there are few who will seriously dispute the propriety of observing the anniversary of Christ’s birth by a religious service. … Read the rest of this entry »
For a picture of Christmas Eve, in the olden time, we can desire none better than that furnished by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion:
On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,
To gather in the mistletoe.
Then opened wide the baron’s hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose.
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of “post and pair.”
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down!
The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table’s oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar’s-head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where the monster fell
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked: hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas-eye;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made;
But, oh! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
‘Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.
Hannes became a professional hunter because, as he says in his fine book Strange Tales from the African Bush, he missed “the smell of cordite… the clatter of the helicopters and the memory of the blood brotherhood that few, other than soldiers under fire, are lucky enough to know.” He’s a fourteenth generation white African and a veteran of the famous Rhodesian Light Infantry that fought valiantly in that country’s civil war. He still loves Africa and lives in the Western Cape. When he visited our beach house on the Kenya coast, I managed to persuade him to tell me a few stories, fueled with bottles of Tusker — a much-loved local lager which is named after the elephant that killed the original brewer.
After the civil war, when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Hannes tried being a barrister. He tired of life in a courtroom and it wasn’t for him, so he picked up his rifle and headed off back into the bush where he’d grown up and seen so much action. For the next twenty years he hunted across Africa, guiding rich tycoons tracking trophies, but he met his nemesis in the flat dry scrub of northern Tanzania, deep in the heart of buffalo country. Here they came upon a 2,000lb bull at 150 yards. His American client fired his .375 rifle prematurely, as the creature faced him head on, wounding but not killing it. The injured beast took off into a ravine thick with wait-a-bit thorn and combretum scrub.
SCOOP: This week @Yale changed the name of a popular food item in their dining halls which has been on the menu for years. It’s called “Israeli Couscous Salad” and they removed the word “Israeli.” Why would they do that?
Yale University has reportedly promised to return the word “Israeli” to a dining hall nutrition label after it had been quietly removed as a descriptor of a “Couscous Salad with Spinach and Tomatoes” dish.
As images of the label without the word “Israeli” circulated on social media, Campus Reform reached out to Yale University to inquire whether dining staff had swapped out the grains in the dish or relabeled the same food– considering that Israeli couscous differs in size, texture, and production method.
A Yale University spokesperson told Newsweek that the word “Israeli” had originally been removed because of student concerns regarding country or ethnicity labels on dishes in general, but that in this case the word “Israeli” will be added back to the label, considering that ‘Israeli couscous’ is an “actual ingredient.”
Back when I was delivering UPS parcels (they don’t call them packages) in Lehighton, every hunter around was trying to bag a huge 12 point buck, who was regularly spotted eating in the fields on the mountain behind Gnaden Huetten Hospital, which is at the end of 12th St. It was the daily talk at many of my stops.. ‘did anyone bag the big buck’. Day after day, the answer was.. Nope.
I was delivering a home near the end of 11th St next to the hospital one afternoon. You may know that the Dutchies, for the most part, do not use the front parlor door so most deliveries were made in the back of the house. As I rounded into the back yard, the lady of the house was hanging some laundry out & quickly silenced me with her finger to her mouth. She pointed to the end of the yard, where the 12 pt buck was sleeping under her hydrangea bush. She said he is there before dawn every day & leaves after dark every nite. She swore me to confidentiality. That was one very smart deer.”
