The Color of Objects that do not reflect visible light

Hello YA’s and OYA’s (Young Adults and Older Young Adults),

Today is Saturday. Yesterday was:

-Black Friday. It’s the day that’s recognized as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It was originally called “black” because of the bad traffic, but has come to be associated with retailers being ‘in the black’ because of the day…i.e., turning a profit. Here are other ‘black days’…

-Black Monday. On October 19^th, 1987 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points…a fall of 22.6%.

-Black Thursday (October 24^th, 1929). This was the beginning of the great stock market crash of 1929. Prices fell sharply as a record 12.9 million shares were traded that day.

-Black Tuesday (October 29^th, 1929). The market lost $14 billion in value that day, almost 5 times the budget of the federal government.

-Black Saturday (August 4, 1621). A particularly dark and stormy day in Scotland.

-Black Sunday (April 14, 1935). Day that a series of intense dust storms swept across the US and Canadian prairie lands, causing severe damage.

And here are a couple of ‘black’ religious references…just because (based on entries in Wikipedia):

-Black Pope. This is a nickname for the leader of the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order.

-Black Mass. This is probably best described as a ritual or ceremony that is a parody of a Roman Catholic mass. It’s typically associated with witchcraft and such.

-Black Church. There are several denominations whose worshippers are primarily African-American. Here are some of them…three of which are Methodist:

-African Methodist Episcopal (AME)

-African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) [I live 3 doors down from a church of this denomination]

-National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

-Church of God in Christ

-African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection (A.U.M.P.)

-Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME)

-Pentecostal Assemblies of The World, Inc. (PAW)

-Apostolic Faith Church (AFC)

Our pic today is of Richard Allen, the first African-American Bishop and founder of the AME Church. He was ordained by Francis Asbury…who was BIG in the early Methodist Church.

Be well my friends. I hope you are all still sleepy from eating too much turkey!

Peace,

Kevin

Happy Thanksgiving, slightly early

Hey all,

Well, Thanksgiving is a week away. Turkey! Stuffing! Cranberry sauce! Pie! Football! Family! It is a time of food, fellowship, family, and humble thankfulness for all the blessings in our lives (that’s what it’s supposed to be about anyway). It reminds me actually of the early Christian church. Before there were big stone churches, even before the term “Christian” had been coined, a meeting of the followers of Jesus Christ would look a lot like a Thanksgiving dinner. They would meet in a house and share food and fellowship with others who they considered to be spiritual family. Each shared meal was a time of thanksgiving for what God had blessed them with through Jesus Christ. The pic for this post is of what the layout of one of those houses might have looked like.

As you either go to see family for the holiday, or come home for it, or share it with new people because travel for you isn’t a possibility this year, keep a few thoughts in your head:

-There are far too many who won’t get to eat anything on Thanksgiving, much less extra helpings of turkey and pie. Check out ONE if you want to get rid of poverty, and with it, hunger.

-Take some time BEFORE Thanksgiving to really think about what you’re thankful for in your life. On Thanksgiving itself we’re often too busy enjoying the day to reflect too much on the deeper questions of life.

-Minnesota raises more turkeys than any other state

-Illinois produces the most pumpkins

-Wisconsin produces the most cranberries

OK, that’s all I guess. Have a great one, everybody. I’m going to be doing some research, compiling some data, and presenting a couple options for the mission trip for next year. So please be ready to weigh in with an opinion when the time comes!

Blessings,

Kevin

When the eternal becomes tangible...

Hey Folks,

Have you ever heard of the term “thin places”? Not like thin ice, or a thin sheet of paper, but thin places? According to Celtic spirituality, it’s a place and time where two worlds meet…our world and something that isn’t our world. Here is how it’s described one website: “Thin Places are ports in the storm of life, where the pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek, where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence.” I would consider this a possible definition, but not an all-encompassing one.

Have you had an experience that you can’t explain? Have you ever been in a place and time where you felt a connection with God that was above and beyond anything you could conceive? These would be examples of thin places, where the veil between our world and the next is slightly pulled back.

A person who is dying in a hospital says that they have been talking with a family member who is long dead. Are they confused and delusional? Perhaps not. Some people believe they see the auras of people, either occasionally or consistently. Are they all addled in the head? Perhaps not.

Not convinced yet that things happen that haven’t been adequately explained to us, including by the Church? I’ll go out on a limb and share one of the odd experiences that I have witnessed.

My Dad passed away in 1998. On the morning he died, at the time he died, three things happened simultaneously. I woke up, which is not so special. But two of my nieces, in different states but of about the same age, ran crying into their parents bedrooms saying that they wanted their grandpa. I can’t explain in any scientific way why that happened. My suspicion though is that my Dad said goodbye to the family at the time he moved over. That was a space and time that I would describe as a thin place.

Yeah, I know. Weird stuff this post. But life is weird. Have a good one.

Peace,

Kevin