|
y
This song comes from Boney M,
a bunch of folks from the Caribbean
that ended up in Germany, with
a string of super-hits on the European
charts in the late 70's and early 80's.
Their music is still played and loved
(even though it IS disco) all over
the world. This is from their
Boney M Gold CD from '92.
|
t
It's one of the "highlights" of what
is probably the best known
choral work of the western world.
Handel's Messiah was written by
the master in 1741, and first
performed the following year in
Dublin, Ireland. This version,
by the Robert Shaw Chorale
and Orchestra, came out in '92 on
the RCA Classics Christmas label.
t
|
Here's Catholicism's biggest
recording "star," John Michael
Talbot, who's knocked out over
40 albums, and sells over 4 million
a year. A former Methodist, he is
founder of a monastic community
in Arkansas. This is the title cut
from a Christmas CD that came
out in 1990 on the Sparrow label
|
t
Digging Into The Birth of Christmas
by Ariel David, The Associated Press, Dec. 23, 2007
ROME - The church where the tradition of celebrating
Christmas on Dec. 25 may have begun was built near
a pagan shrine as part of an effort to spread Christianity,
a leading Italian scholar says.
Italian archaeologists last month unveiled
an underground grotto that they believe ancient Romans
revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's
legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
A few feet from the grotto, or "Lupercale,"
the Emperor Constantine built the Basilica of St. Anastasia,
where some believe Christmas was first celebrated on Dec. 25.
Constantine ended the frequent waves of anti-Christian
persecutions in the Roman empire by making Christianity
a lawful religion in 313. He played a key roll in
unifying the beliefs and practices of the
early followers of Jesus.
In 325, he convened the Council of Nicaea,
which fixed the dates of important Christian festivals.
It opted to mark Christmas, then celebrated at
varying dates, on Dec. 25 to coincide with the Roman festival
celebrating the birth of the sun god, Andrea Carandini,
a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University,
told reporters Friday. The Basilica of St. Anastasia
was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council.
It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25,
part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to
Christian celebrations in the early days of the
new religion, Carandini said.
"The church was built to Christianize these
pagan places of worship," he said. "It was normal
to put a church near these places
to try to 'save' them."
Rome's archaeological superintendent Angelo Bottini,
who did not take part in Carandini's research,
said that hypothesis was "evocative and coherent"
and "helps us understand the mechanisms of the passage
from paganism to Christianity."
Bottini and Carandini both said future digs
could bolster the link between the shrine and the church
if structures belonging to the "Lupercale" are found
directly below the basilica.
The "Lupercale" shrine - named after the "lupa,"
Latin for she-wolf - is 52 feet below the ground.
yu
|
|
.
A Touch of Country
Here we've got classic carols by country stars now gone -
"Silent Night" by Waylon Jennings with Jessi Colter,
and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" by the
"late, great" (as they say) Jim Reeves.
Both songs are on COUNTRY CHRISTMAS,
a BMG compilation album issued in 2004.
t
|
t
Best wishes for your Christmas
Is all you get from me,
'Cause I aint no Santa Claus--
Don't own no Christmas tree.
But if wishes was health and money,
I'd fill your buck-skin poke,
Your doctor would go hungry
An' you never would be broke.
From Charlie Russell's 1914 Christmas card
g
|
|
All three of the selections above are from
The Warner Western Instrumental Series, Vol. 2: The Greatest Christmas Songs Ever.
The sound is "old timey" western, a la 1930's and 40's cowboy flicks. Good stuff.
The CD came out in '98 on the Warner Nashville label.
.
|
|
t
Legend of the Star of Bethlehem
These wise men saw no star to guide them
to Bethlehem. The beautiful legend of the star
of Bethlehem originated in this way:
Jesus was born August 21 at noon, 7 B.C.
On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an extraordinary
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation
of Pisces. And it is a remarkable astronomic fact
that similar conjunctions occurred on September 29
and December 5 of the same year. Upon the basis of these
extraordinary but wholly natural events the
well-meaning zealots of the succeeding generations
constructed the appealing legend of the star of
Bethlehem and the adoring Magi led thereby to
the manger, where they beheld and worshiped the
newborn babe. Oriental and near-Oriental minds
delight in fairy stories, and they are continually
spinning such beautiful myths about the lives of
their religious leaders and political heroes.
In the absence of printing, when most
human knowledge was passed by word of mouth
from one generation to another, it was very easy for
myths to become traditions and for traditions
eventually to become accepted as facts.
The Urantia Book, Part IV, 122, 8
t
|
|
.
No matter what the truth of "The Star" -
it's a beautiful story and a beautiful symbol -
which is the essence of everything from Tarot cards to the Catholic Mass.
A.N. Wilson, author of Jesus: A Life, notes, "Astronomers will never find
the real star of Bethlehem because the real star of Bethlehem is
a thing of our imagination. It's the light shining over the Christ Child."
The song "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem" was written by
A.L. Phipps from Barbourville, Kentucky, probably sometime in the 50's.
It's been "covered," as they say, by a LOT of musicians.
On the left is definitely the person who brought the song to the public's attention,
(as well as a lot of musicians). Emmylou Harris recorded this on her '79
release Light of the Stable, remastered in a '04 release on Rhino/Warner.
In the center is Connie Mike, in a different approach, released in '06 by
Turtle Island Music in a compilation album titled
A Turtle Island Christmas.
On the right is Southern Dogwood from their '04 release
A Gospel Bluegrass Christmas on Lamon Records.
.
|
|
t
We celebrate Christmas.
We celebrate the birth of a child.
But we have to look into ourselves.
There is a child in us to be born.
Our practice is to allow the child to be born
every moment of our daily life...
And we practice in such a way that
Buddha is born every moment of our daily life,
that Jesus Christ is born every moment of our daily life -
not only on Christmas day,
because every day is Christmas day,
every minute is a Christmas minute.
The child within us is waiting each minute
for us to be born again and again.
Thich Nhat Hanh
GOING HOME - JESUS AND BUDDHA AS BROTHERS
t
|
|
Thanks for Visiting...
Merry Christmas!
.
|
|
