Month: December 2009

Merry Christmas!

Not long before he retired, Fr. Ed Bell began his Christmas homily by asking if anyone remembered any of his past Christmas homilies. After an embarrassed silence, he laughed and said he didn’t remember any of them, either. That’s OK–Christmas isn’t about homilies. (Or blog posts.)

From today’s homily by a different priest at the same parish:

I don’t care if Wal-Mart doesn’t have a nativity scene. I don’t care if K-Mart doesn’t have a nativity scene. I care if these pews are filled.

My Christmas wish is that your heart and home are filled today.

And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
—John 1:14

Fourth Sunday of Advent

We’ve been using a booklet of Henri Nouwen meditations this Advent. He often counsels that we stay in the moment, and today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Greyhound is doing their bit to keep me where I am both mentally and physically by cancelling bus service to Worcester due to snow. (I am in no hurry to ride on icy roads after my Christmas wreck last year.)

Christmas caroling

Today we celebrated the season by Christmas carolling at a local nursing home and at the homes of neighbors and friends.

Advent wreath Advent panel

I also wanted to share photos of a homemade Advent wreath and a sort of “Advent board” tracing the lineage of Jesus, based on a design by legendary Catholic Worker artist Ade Bethune.

Hope you all have a wonderful, safe week!

508 #96: The local green economy

This week: the 508 Christmas Spectacular! The panel is Julius Jones and Mr. Brendan Melican. Theme song: “If I Had One Christmas Wish.” Words by Bruce “Snow Ghost” Russell, music by Mike Benedetti.


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Buddha Hut buffet Saturday; Stone Soup party Friday; Winter Mystery Band signups happening now.

The NYT is not selling the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Top suggestions for the T&G: stop running the internet poll on the front page, because you’re deceiving people who don’t realize it’s a phony poll, and you look bad to people who know what’s going on; create an RSS feed for Worcester news; make use of the <title> element so it will be easier to Google T&G articles; add features to the comment system to filter out noise.

Julius, who helps run the Regional Environmental Council’s gardening program, talks about the local green economy, or lack thereof.

Holiday gift guide:

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Nicole has posted an experimental Virtual Assignment Desk; Jeff Barnard highlights Bill Randell’s reporting on low-income housing financing.

You should wear a hat to stay warm! I’m told Lutheran Social Services has classes for recent immigrants to help them dress appropriately for the (bad) weather.

Second Sunday of Advent

Our homemade Advent wreath

Here’s a picture of the Advent wreath we made this week. We colored white candles with melted crayons (my friend is a master at this), melted them to a piece of cardboard, put that on a tray, and covered it with evergreen branches from the tree in the backyard. I think it looks great.

We’ve been marking Advent with readings from the Henri Nouwen booklet. Today for the first time we also used the Bishops’s prayers. I was surprised to see that as part of your Advent ceremony they ask you to visit a website. Makes me feel less silly about blogging my second Sunday of Advent.

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My friends have the Advent doodad pictured above in their kitchen. Day by day, you hang figures from the pegs. No idea what this is called.

508 #95: Barnraising

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Scott Guzman, Heather Mackenzie, Drew Wilson, and Brendan Melican.


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This week is the 10th anniversary of the Cold Storage Fire (photos). Brendan explains the city maintaining its current tax structure.

There’s an “energy barnraising” weatherization event at the Woo Church, 911 Main St, Worcester, Saturday, December 5th, 11-5pm.

Drew points out that Al Gore is finally speaking out against factory farming. Mike and Drew will be doing some vegan outreach at the local colleges.

Spectrum Health has a peer recovery center at 25 Pleasant St; also a Twitter feed. Mike asks Nicole to post a virtual assignment list.

She has been looking into, among other things, relations between Holy Cross students and their neighbors. This discussion has recently escalated. We need Holy Cross students to invite us to some parties so we can report on them.

Mark Lund has revived theater at Becker; they have some free plays this weekend. There’s an art fest at Union Station Sunday; Seah will be debuting a three-decker tee shirt that sounds like this season’s smash holiday gift.