The Little Ice Age is giving us a break once more, and a new time of prosperity, renaissance, and good eats is upon us. For those who fondly yearn for those high medieval days of Mediterranean vineyards in England and oranges in Kent, a story of joy!
Amateur gardener Alan Partridge has managed to grow a bunch of bananas in Devon.
Hurrah! Happy days are here again!
Filed under History
Every so often, it occurs to me that a lot of Protestant and evangelical layfolk don’t really want to act like laypeople at all. They want to act like they’re part of a religious order community (and though they’d never support the old practice of oblates), right down to their tiny little kiddies.
Enter the Armor of God Pajamas.
Now, I don’t particularly object to this. It’s just that we in the Catholic world, east and west, have a similar custom. It’s called “members of religious orders putting on their habits”, not to mention “priests putting on their vestments“:
“The priest or bishop who is about to celebrate, having washed his hands, taketh the amice, and covereth his head with it; and this he hath in the stead of the ephod or super-humeral, or of the Breastplate of Judgment; nay, even now it may be called the super-humeral. This signifieth salvation, which is granted through faith; whereof also the Apostle speaketh, saying unto the Ephesians, PUT ON THE HELMET OF SALVATION.”
(It goes on from there, with tons more symbolism and scriptural citation.)
Another very common accessory is the “yoke” that is “easy and light” — represented for the religious by the tabardy thing that monks and sisters of certain orders call a scapular (because it go over the scapulae, shoulders), and which inspired the stylized cord ones that many laypersons wear.
So I agree that re-inventing the wheel can be fun and useful. But sheesh, let the kids enjoy the lay state every once in a while, huh?
First, a good thing — my younger brother’s tire blew out the other day, and he didn’t end up smeared across the pavement! He was on the cellphone with my mother at the time. (Ooops.) But he dropped the phone, grabbed the wheel, and no bad consequences ensued — except to poor Mom’s pulse. So that’s something to be thankful for.
Now the prayer requests. One of my mom’s former students is going under the knife on Tuesday. The doctors hope to stop his grand mal seizures through surgery on his hippocampus. Unfortunately, there are many things you need that are also in the hippocampus part of your brain. So please spare him a thought.
Also, the continuing saga of tension and misunderstanding between my parents and my older brother and sister-in-law keeps rolling along. If you could spare a prayer about this to God, who gives us peace beyond all understanding, and maybe enlist the prayers of St. Monica, I would be grateful.Finally, a lot of people in my family are facing some serious health problems these days, and I’m not exactly Miss Fit and Healthy myself (though next to everybody else, I can hardly complain). So please pray for us, and I will pray for you and your families, too.
‘Cause if God is feeling favorable towards members of my family lately, I figure this might be a good time to keep asking!
(You know, it’s really lucky for me that my parents don’t have the Internet, and apparently nobody in the family is interested in my blog and podcast. My affairs bore them, and hence I have security through obscurity. Heh!
Of course, said security will probably all end abruptly someday and then there’ll be a big fight, but honestly, if you think a family like mine is going to avoid big fights, you clearly are overly optimistic. Actually, it’s the times when people avoid big fights and just brood, or take things to heart instead of slamming back, that I worry about. Big fights blow over.)
