As gay people around the country reveled on Sunday in the historic Senate vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a liberal media watchdog group said it planned to announce on Monday that it was setting up a “communications war room for gay equality” in an effort to win the movement’s next and biggest battle: for a right to same-sex marriage.
A recording of Messiah was the first “adult” Christmas present I remember receiving. I was 16, and had sung a few choruses from Messiah in high school chorus. My parents gave me the Robert Shaw Chorale’s performance, my very own – probably the first classical album I owned, too. I cried when I opened it. I hadn’t realized how much I really wanted to be able to listen to this music.
O Clavis David
O Key of David, and Sceptre of the House of Israel,
Thou That openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest, and no man openeth:
Come, and loose the prisoner from the prison house,
and him that sitteth in darkness, from the shadow of death.
A Vanity Fair reporter recently asked Scientology-affirming actress Juliette Lewis an affable, offhand question: Can a Scientologist celebrate Christmas? Her affable, offhand response:
“Perhaps true beauty is something that draws our attention at second glance, once the judgement of a first glance has realised its mistake.”
Mary gathers up all the pieces of the story and holds them within herself
“Many clergy and lay leaders have a hunger to see the dilemmas of their physical assets in a new light, and to find creative and innovative ways to deal with this long-standing, sometimes paralyzing, issue.”
If we haven’t asked the question well enough by now, it is now past time to do so, and at all levels: How equipped is The Episcopal Church to partner with Hispanic communities and churches as well as Spanish-speaking leaders and entrepreneurs among the faithful?
“Ultimately, Santa is about me and the stuff I so desperately want. But Jesus is about something more: the grace I so desperately need.”
O Radix Jesse
O Root of Jesse, Who standest for an ensign of the people,
at Whom Kings shall shut their mouths,
unto Whom the Gentiles shall pray:
Come and deliver us, and tarry not.