Praying for Peace and Respect

In response to the recent spike in attacks on our Jewish neighbors in this country, I have chosen to shed a little light on this Festival of Lights being commemorated by faithful Jews around the world. this coming week. May they find strength, hope, and ways to achieve peace from their celebrations.

I am not condoning the Israeli attacks on Gaza, nor justifying the atrocities inflicted on the Jewish people by the Hamas October 7 attacks that started the current surge of horrific, heartbreaking tragedies. I am advocating for less blaming and conclusion-jumping about who’s innocent and who’s guilty. This is the latest eruption in a conflict between two ethnic and religious groups dating back thousands of years.

The best way I know to end violence is to learn more about those we so easily vilify as enemies. Until we understand their perspectives, we are doomed to keep repeating cycles of violence and bloodshed.

Five Alarm Fire of Disrespect

To that end, I invite you to consider a recent speech by Senator Chuck Schumer about the many ways people of Jewish heritage and faith have worked for peace and justice in our global village over the decades. You can hear it on YouTube or read it in a press release. This is not about politics as much as it is about choosing to actively work for peace or passively allow violence and prejudice to dominate our interactions. In Schumer’s speech, he refers to the current uptick in violence against Jewish neighbors in our country as a “Five Alarm Fire.”

History of Hanukkah

The term ‘Hanukkah’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning ‘Dedication.’ The eight-day festival is connected to the rededication of the Second Temple in ancient Israel. In 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the first temple, built under the reign of King Solomon in 1000 BCE.

The events that inspired Hanukkah took place during another turbulent time, around 200 BCE.  According to I Maccabees (a book contained in some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament scriptures), Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Judea, intending to convert the Jews to Greek ways. He outlawed the Jewish religion and ordered Jews to worship Greek gods. In 168 BCE, his soldiers invaded Jerusalem. They massacred thousands and desecrated the Second Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs within its sacred walls.

Celebrating Victory

Led by Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus, the Maccabees were the first Jews fighting to defend their religious beliefs rather than their lives. After a three-year struggle, the Jews defeated Antiochus. Judas Maccabeus ordered the temple restored. After they purified it, they installed a new altar and dedicated it to Kislev 25.

Judas proclaimed the dedication of the restored Temple should be celebrated every year for eight days, beginning on that date. In II Maccabees, the celebration is compared to the festival of Sukkoth, which the Jews could not celebrate when Antiochus invaded them.

Remembering Through Commemoration

Although not mentioned in the books of Maccabees, the traditional practice of lighting candles at Hanukkah likely started relatively early. The Talmud describes the miracle of the Temple oil. According to the Talmud, when Judas Maccabeus entered the Temple, he found only a small jar of oil that Antiochus had not defiled. There was only enough oil in the jar to burn for one day. But it miraculously burned for eight days until they could find new consecrated oil. That established the precedent for the festival lasting eight days.

Some information for this article came from history.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Hanukkah. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. SPECIAL DECEMBER SALE – BOTH MAYFLOWER HISTORICAL NOVELS FOR $35 OR EITHER ONE FOR $22. EMAIL kathrynhaueisen@gmail.com FOR DETAILS.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
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William and Mary Brewster are my great x 12 grandparents. While doing research for the two historical novels I wrote with them as the main characters, I spent as much time in the 16th and 17th centuries as I did in the 21st one. The more I learned about them the more I concluded they were truly an amazing couple. Now both Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures and Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower are published and available in print and eBook formats. Mayflower Chronicles is also available in audiobook format.  

I am in awe of the Brewsters and the others who made the dangerous journeys from their peaceful Scrooby village in Northern England to Leiden, and on to the Mayflower.

Most people pick up the Pilgrim story with the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod in 1620 and drop the story after what is widely claimed to be the first Thanksgiving. The story starts much earlier than 1620 and has repercussions that are still unfolding today. In recent years the descendants of those whose land and way of life were devastated by the arrival of thousands of Europeans have been more organized and vocal in telling us the rest of the story. We need to listen. However, for this blog, let me introduce you to this remarkable couple.

William at Peterhouse, Cambridge University

William was the only Mayflower passenger with any college education. He studied briefly at Peterhouse in Cambridge University but did not graduate. Historians do not know why, but I suspect he returned home to help his father as his mother was nearing the end of her life.

William and Mary married at St. James (Later renamed St. Wilfred) in Scrooby. We do not know with any certainty which family Mary comes from; though genealogists and historians have been trying to figure that out for years. One popular theory (it is only a theory) is that she was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth, who was the Bailiff and Postmaster at Scrooby until his death.

William’s father assumed that position after Thomas Wentworth died. When the senior William Brewster died, our Pilgrim William Brewster, Jr. assumed the role.

Before taking over his father’s role at Scrooby Manor, young William was a secretary or administrative assistant to William Davison, who was in diplomatic service to Queen Elizabeth I. She appointed him to her Privy Council. He served Her Majesty as Ambassador to the Netherlands and was named her Secretary of State. Pilgrim Brewster accompanied Davison on many of his court visits trips to the Netherlands on her behalf.

Mother Mary Brewster

William and Mary had five children, and one stillborn infant. Jonathan, Patience, and Fear were born while they lived in Scrooby. Fear’s rather unusual name is based on their commitment to rely on their fear of the Lord rather than the dictates of the Established Church. By the time Fear was born, her parents were deeply involved in the highly controversial Separatist movement. The term ‘fear’ does not mean to be afraid, though their defiance of the Established Church was certainly cause for fear. Rather the term means to be in awe or wonder at the mysterious ways in which God provides.

Two more sons were born after they emigrated to Leiden in Holland. Love was so named because the Separatists in Leiden felt such close kinship with one another they were as one large extended family. Wrestling’s name may be because when he was born, the Leiden community was contemplating migrating to the New World. Such a move was obviously very bold and precarious. They wrestled with the possibility for several years before committing to take their chances.

William the Underground Printer

The decision to take their chances in the New World was solidified when Dutch authorities, under directives from King James, confiscated Brewster’s printing business. Like Martin Luther a century earlier, Brewster printed pamphlets and books that criticized the Established Church. Others smuggled them back to England. Authorities eventually traced them to Brewster’s garret workshop on the top floor of his home in Leiden.

To avoid arrest, William hid for most of the year before the families going to the New World boarded the ship for the voyage. The majority of the passengers were strangers to their close-knit congregational friends. They referred to them as Strangers. The Adventurers, businessmen who financed the trip, insisted they join the Leiden folks. Given their extreme devotion to their religious convictions, they were sometimes called the Saints. Together they made up the English settlers who established Plimoth Plantation on the site of a deserted native village Patuxet along Cape Cod Bay.

Mary said goodbye to her three older children – Jonathan, Patience, and Fear – when she left Holland. She traveled to Southampton with her two younger sons to meet up with William and the other settlers. She and William were eventually reunited with three older children – Jonathan a year later; and the daughters two years later. By the 1600s European ships crossed the Atlantic frequently.

In addition to her own two young sons, Mary assumed responsibility for two of the four More children sent on the journey. History is unclear why these children were sent; one theory being their parents separated and the father didn’t want them to have access to his estate. Again, only a theory.

Survival of the Fittest

As more and more passengers died from extreme hardships, Mary assumed responsibility for newly orphaned children and young adults.  Being one of the older women in the group, she functioned basically as the colony Matriarch. History has recorded very little about her life, in spite of the major role she must have played nursing the sick, raising orphaned children, feeding family and friends, and other chores necessary for survival in the strange new world,

Mary Brewster was one of only five adult women to survive the first winter. She was one of four still alive for what we consider the “First Thanksgiving.” It really wasn’t, since many cultures set aside a time to give thanks for a successful harvest. But there was a three-day feast in the fall of 1621 and the local Indigenous people were in attendance. Mary died on April 17, 1627, the day after the birth of a granddaughter, also named Mary. William died peacefully in his own bed and surrounded by his family and friends on April 10, 1644.

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies, Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brewster by Mary B. Sherwood (Great Oak Press of Virginia, Falls Church, Virginia), and William Brewster: The Making of a Pilgrim by Sue Allan.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the Brewsters and some of the story behind our traditional Thanksgiving. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

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Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation

Tomorrow is Earth Day 2023. We need more than one day a year to remember the impact homosapiens have made on the earth, but a day is better than nothing. I’ve been away this week with a few friends on a getaway to Ohio’s wonderful Amish Country. This blog is from Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation. Her passion for caring for creation is contagious and worthy of a large audience. She speaks wisdom.

Whose Land of the Free?
By Phoebe Morad

Chief Seattle is credited for the sentiment: “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.” Many native peoples share this cosmology. This sentiment has been acquired by many environmentalists, at times with reverence, at other moments, perhaps just as an easy tagline.  As a group facilitator in the eco-faith movement, Lutherans Restoring Creation, I often I casually refer to indigenous teaching; yet, I have no concept as to which community was the original keeper of the lands on which I stand.  Only recently, have I started the practice of including time for “land acknowledgement” before meetings commence.  This offers time to recognize whose ancestors lived on, and/or what people continue to care for, the piece of Earth from which we speak.

Whose Rights Matter Most?

A broader understanding of stewardship is finally drowning out the “domination” reading of the Genesis story.  Earlier generations were eager to utilize the Biblical message as a pathway to conquest via the “manifest destiny” theory.  In The Sacred Contract with America, Caroline Myss reflects on the new-found freedom and equity celebrated by well-meaning colonists who were eager to embrace their rights to till and keep.

However, that genuine self-determination turned sour as patriarchal practices overcame the peaceful beginnings. Initially, some European settler communities did experience peaceful relations with native peoples. But as the numbers of new European arrivals grew, so did tensions of land use.  As Vine Deloria, Jr. explains in Red Earth, White Lies, a fundamentally divergent understanding of land-use was the foundation for broken promises: “The justification for breaking up the tribal land estate was to enable individual Indians to have land of their own – thus taking advantage of the great civilizing forces of private property – and to enable Indians to learn how to manage property.”

Property Managers vs. Property Owners

Through alternative teachings of “stewardship” from progressive Christian traditions, we hear that the duty of a steward is inherently tied to an acknowledgment that what you are caring for is not yours.  It all belongs to God.  How can we, as a contemporary society, reconcile with our past, while we live on and are fed by land that was never ours to re-distribute?

Dr. Tink Tinker, Osage elder, candidly shared the following as part of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis:

“Never forget that your wealth, the home that you live in (whether you own it or rent it), the salary you earn, comes from the theft of Indian land, the extraction of resources from that Indian land, and the oppression of forced labor on African peoples who were kidnapped and brought here to work this land. And then, in order to keep labor prices low, Asian peoples were brought in to compete with African people after the Civil War. All of this so that your christian people might have and keep all the more. When you’re on the receiving end of that land and wealth, you might see it as “God’s great gift.” But in reality, it is a tragedy. When you’re on the receiving end of that oppression from the christians, their God is an abject oppressor and not at all a savior.”

Listen with New Ears

Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in 1940, and since then, it has been taken on as an alternative national anthem by people of various political perspectives.  I urge you to listen with new ears as we continue to wrestle with those little prepositions that mean so much.  Is this land that we belong to or come from? Are we a country that cherishes freedom of religion or from religion?  Have we made it a land of the free or are those who are free the only ones with land?

Phoebe Morad is Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC), a grassroots movement promoting care for creation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For updated resources, events, and worship ideas, visit: Lutherans Restoring Creation 

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster Autographed copies available at my website.

The post Land of the Free? appeared first on How Wise Then.

St. Wilfrid, Scrooby, England

Photo by Luke Anderson

A note on the St. Wilfrid website reads: “The church has a strong connection with the Pilgrim Fathers (and Mothers!) being the church where William Brewster was expelled from before his journey to the New World with his fellow Separatists.”

Photo from my 2017 Research Trip

This is perhaps where William and Mary Brewster were married and their first three children were baptized. In their day, it was called St. James and is a very short walk away from Scrooby Manor, where they lived before fleeing to Holland in 1608.

Numerous gravestones in the cemetery outside bear the name “Brewster.” The ones who sailed on the Mayflower are buried in Massachusetts. Elder William Brewster has a plaque in his honor that reads:

Photo by Luke Anderson

“St. Wilrid’s church, Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, where William  Brewster was baptized (c. 1566). He became a Separatist and was the Elder and Spiritual Leader of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, New England, until his death in 1643-44. The General Society of Mayflower Descendants (U.S.A., 1897) Waldo Morgan Allen – Governor General on their first Pilgrimage – 152, by Planes – to the Netherlands and England September 22 – October 6, 1955 – 335 years after the sailing of the Mayflower”

Scrooby Manor

Photo from my 2017 Research Trip

When William Brewster first began exploring the Separatist movement in England, he and Mary lived at Scrooby Manor. He was the bailiff and postmaster, as his father had been before him. The first three Brewster children were born while they lived here. When the pastor of a nearby Church of England was removed from his pulpit for challenging the edicts of King James, the Brewsters hosted illegal worship services at the Manor. That was what ultimately forced them to flee to the Netherlands for security in 1608. They started their pilgrimage to Plymouth, MA, from Leiden in 1620.

Leave, or Else

William Brewster, along with several other Separatist leaders from the Scrooby area, spent a few nights in jail in the Boston, England, Guildhouse. A group of about a hundred tried to leave England in the fall of 1607. The shipmaster they hired betrayed them for the cash awards given to those who turned in non-conformists.

Boston England Guildhouse

The women and children were free to walk all the way back across northern England without their husbands to wait and wonder what would happen to them. They’d already given away or sold most of their things and were dependent on the sympathy and charity of friends and neighbors. The men were released after a short stint in jail. They returned to plan their second escape effort. That one succeeded. They arrived in Amsterdam over the summer of 1608, leaving in smaller groups to avoid undue attention from others seeking awards for turning them in.

A Time to Rest

Today, St. Pieterskerk in Leiden is no longer a church, but rather a combination tribute to its part in the Pilgrim story and a venue for concerts and lectures. Murals, plaques, and displays in and around the church tell the story of how this church helped newly arrived English refugees settle into the community. Though the Separatists did not worship here, their highly esteemed and beloved leader, Pastor John Robinson, is buried here. An alley connects the back of the church to the home where the Brewster family lived.

Thank you for taking a few moments of your time to read along today. If you like what you’ve read, please share this with a friend. Or, if you’d like to join this growing online community, head over to HowWiseThen to sign up for your FREE subscription. I won’t sell your information. You decide if you prefer a monthly newsletter or weekly articles about whatever is swirling around in my mind that week. I’m often as surprised as you are by what I decide to write about.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster Autographed copies available at my website.

The post The Brewster Trail appeared first on How Wise Then.

— William Stafford

It is Holy Week 2023. What I write today – Tuesday – will be delivered to your inbox on Good Friday. The verse above I found in a Tuesday Holy Week reflection by Diana Butler Bass in her newsletter “The Cottage.” I commend it for your own Good Friday Reflection. The term “Good Friday” is intentionally confusing as it refers to the specific day in history when Jesus was crucified. From our vantage point, we know that was the turning point, not the endpoint. But that day, those who had put their trust in him to turn a very bad situation around did not know that it was not the end. It was not a good Friday for them.

That day, they had no way of knowing he would not only return but would launch a movement that has shaped the world ever since. That day, they only knew the one they had trusted, followed, loved, and depended on to make their lives worth living had been taken from them through acts of violence.

Endings and Beginnings

That not-Good Friday, they were overcome with despair, frustration, fear, anxiety, discouragement, bewilderment, and a host of other jarring emotions. Much as I am this week – and perhaps you are as well. We’ve witnessed yet another slaughter of innocent grade school children. Meanwhile, nearly all media eyes are focused on a man who has had far more than his share of the public limelight. I’m not mentioning his name, and I’m writing this before we know the outcome of today’s court appearance. Nor am I rendering a personal opinion on the subject. When will it end? How will it end? Who knows? Surely, I do not. We are on the not-knowing side of a historical event, just as those dejected folks were two millennia ago.

Good Friday was not the end of the story. Much good has come from that day. The movement that began with a few frightened and discouraged people grew. At first, slowly, as the mighty sequoia starts from a small seedling, pushing its way up through obstacles of dirt and debris. Then more joined in, and more and more. Those who claim affiliation with that one man and what happened that one weekend centuries ago continue to have shaped society.

Love is the Trunk

A mature sequoia can rise 350 feet above the ground, with a trunk 20 to 40 feet in diameter. But that growth takes time. It may be 30 feet tall in ten years and only 100 to 150 feet tall in 50 years.

St. Catherine of Siena compared our lives to a tree. She wrote that the trunk is love, the core is patience, the roots are self-knowledge, and the branches are discernment. Love remains the most powerful force on earth, but it does not stand alone. It is sustained by patience and fed by self-awareness of both our individual worth and our capacity to influence others. It fulfills its purpose through awareness of where and how we can most effectively spread love.

Where to Focus

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in a weekly email exchange discernment process with another author about where to focus my writing efforts. I’m more than old enough to officially retire and savor the many wonderful opportunities before me now. But writing is as much an addiction as a craft or calling. I cannot not write. So the issue is not whether to write; the issue is what to write about and what to do with what I’ve written.

On this annual procession through Good Friday to Easter, I wonder if anything I write will make even an iota of difference in influencing the current context of conflicts, hostility, cruelty, arrogance, and senseless slaughter of innocents all around us. I do not know. But like the sequoia seed pushing through the dark dirt toward the bright sun, I feel compelled to try.

Each One Reach One

Here is my idea. In light of all that is troublesome right now, think of one person you know who could use a word of encouragement. Call, write, or visit that person simply to stay connected. No agenda. No advice. No request. Just “I was thinking about you and wanted to connect.” That’s it. Just connect with one person and do what is within your power to make this Friday a good one for one other person.

Will that stop the school shootings? Probably not. Will that put an end to the contentious political environment? Not likely. Will that end cancer or resolve world hunger? No and no, but it will increase the level of love in the world through that one connection, and that matters.

“Quiet in the earth a drop of water came, and the little seed spoke: “Sequoia is my name.” by William Stafford.

Thank you for spending a few moments of your precious time reading along today. If you like what you’ve read, please share this with a friend. Or, if you’d like to join this growing online community, head over to HowWiseThen to sign up for your FREE subscription. I won’t sell your information. You decide if you prefer a monthly newsletter or weekly articles about whatever is swirling around in my mind that week. I’m often as surprised as you are by what I decide to write about.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster Autographed copies available at my website.

The post Good Friday appeared first on How Wise Then.

”The Mayflower set sail for the New World from England in September 1620 with nineteen women among the 102 passengers. The passengers consisted of two groups. The smaller group were Separatists, English subjects who’d been living in Holland as religious refugees since 1608. The others were English residents added to the passenger list by the Merchant Adventurers. This group financed the trip and insisted that the additional passengers be included to increase the chances that the new settlement would survive and make them a good return on their investment.

An Increase in the Passenger List

All nineteen women survived the trans-Atlantic journey, including three women who were pregnant. The first woman to deliver her baby was Elizabeth Hopkins. She and her husband Stephen named their new son Oceanus since he was born somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. They traveled with three other children, two born to Stephen’s late wife, Mary, and one previously born to Elizabeth. Once they established themselves in Plimoth Plantation, they had five more children.

Mary Allerton delivered her stillborn baby while living on the anchored ship off the coast of Provincetown. She died a few days later, leaving behind three young children and her husband, Isaac.

Susanna White also delivered her son while still living on the anchored ship. She and her husband, William, named their baby Peregrine. They also had a five-year-old son, Resolved. William was among the many who died the first winter, leaving her a widow in a strange new place with a newborn and a young child.

Loss and Resolve

Her marriage to Edward Winslow on May 12, 1621, was the first marriage in the Plimoth Colony. Edward’s young wife, Elizabeth, had died in March, another victim of deprivations and the harsh first winter. An extended period of time to grieve was a luxury these desperate people could ill afford. Both the Whites and the Winslows were among the Separatists emigrating from Leiden. The couple had four children: Edward, John, Josiah, and Elizabeth, in addition to an unnamed child who died young.

Katherine Carver, another of the Separatists, was one of five women still alive when winter finally gave way to spring. She and her husband, John, married while living among other Separatists in Leiden. John Carver served as the group’s first governor until his death in April, from what was presumed to be heat stroke. Katherine died a few weeks later, perhaps from a broken heart at the prospect of going on without her husband and without any children needing her attention or offering her comfort.

Four Surviving Pilgrim Women

After Katherine died, only Susanna White, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Eleanor Billington still lived. Mary was married to Elder William Brewster, the designated spiritual leader of the emigrated Leiden community. They sailed with their young sons, Love and Wrestling. Their older children, Jonathan, Patience, and Fear, arrived at the settlement on later ships. Mary, being one of the older passengers on the Mayflower, often provided a home for orphaned children and young adults on their own. She was also one of a handful of pilgrims well enough to tend to the sick, nursing future Governor William Bradford back to health.

Eleanor Billington and her husband, John Billington, traveled with their young sons, John and Francis. They were part of the English residents foisted on the Leiden community by the Merchant Adventurers. The family caused much trouble in the colony from time to time. John was executed for murder in 1630. Six years later, Eleanor was sentenced to sit in the stocks. However, during that first winter, she pitched in to care for the many sick among both the Strangers and Separatists.

Read More in a New Historical Fiction Biography

More of the stories of those sturdy surviving Pilgrim Women are told through the historical fiction biography Mary Brewster’s Love Life: The Matriarch of the Mayflower. It will soon be available in print and eBooks wherever books are sold.

Parts of this article are based on information found in Mayflower History, Pilgrim Hall, and Women History Blog.

Thank you for joining our growing online community. If you appreciated this post, share it with one or more of your friends. Or, sign up for your own FREE subscription.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold.
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Autographed copies are available from my website.

The companion story told from the perspective of one of the four women to survive the first winter will be available soon in print and eBook.

The post Those Sturdy Surviving Pilgrim Women appeared first on How Wise Then.

Thank you Bishop Rinehart for your thoughts about applying an ancient practice to our very modern challenges. Though appropriate any time, Lent seems a particularly good time to incorporate this practice into our lives. Lent begins next Wednesday with Ash Wednesday.

Lent and Learning to Fast Again

by Michael Rinehart

God cannot fill what is full. — Mother Teresa

The three disciplines of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Jesus instructs his followers on these three disciplines in Matthew 6:1-21, encouraging them to beware of showy self-righteousness. We tend to pray and give pretty well, but fasting is another matter. It is a blessing worth our attention.

Everybody fasts.

You have fasted many times. In fact, you fasted today. If you slept eight hours last night, you fasted or went without food for at least eight hours. If you finished dinner at 7:00 p.m. and ate breakfast at 7:00 a.m., you fasted for 12 hours. Your “breakfast” broke your nighttime fast. All of us fast, often without thinking about it. What would it look like to fast intentionally? What might be the benefits?

Partial Fasting

Fasting is not necessarily completely giving up all food. Much of the fasting in the Bible is partial fasting – giving up certain kinds of food or drink for a time. Additionally, fasting is more than abstaining from food. Fasting is abstaining from anything for a period of time: food, alcohol, sweets, smoking, speaking, sex, the internet, or television. If you’ve ever set aside or given up something for a time, you’ve fasted.

People fast for many reasons. A diet is a kind of fast. People fast as a way to protest or draw attention to injustice. Some fast for clarity. Others fast for health reasons, to reset their digestive system.

Fasting for Spiritual Growth

While all of these are good reasons, our focus in the 40 days of Lent is religious fasting for spiritual growth. In my own life, fasting has helped me become more attuned to the things of the Spirit, to listen for the voice of God, and to focus my prayer. Fasting has aided me in turning away from the god of the belly. We fast to empty ourselves, if only for a moment, so that there is room for God to fill us with love, joy, peace and so on. Fasting is powerful. A denied impulse focuses us. An empty stomach draws our attention away from the usual distractions of life, back to the reason for our fasting.

Christians have used the word “kenosis” (self-emptying) to describe the practices of humility, fasting and self-denial. Paul says in Philippians 2:7 that we are to have the mind of Christ, who did not exploit his divine status, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus calls his followers to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him.

Many Biblical Examples

Jesus fasted at the beginning of his ministry. Consider the list of biblical characters that fasted: Moses, David, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Ezra, Jehoshaphat, Elijah, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hannah, Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego, Anna, Jesus, his disciples, Paul and others. You can meet many of these people in the pages of Learning to Fast Again: A Full Life through Self-emptying.

Fasting is not limited to Christianity of course, or even the Abrahamic faiths. Zoroaster fasted, as did Confucius. Plato fasted, along with Aristotle, Socrates, and Hippocrates, the founder of modern medicine. Gandhi was a famous 20^thcentury leader because of his deliberate practice of fasting through difficult times.

It was common in antiquity to fast for multiple reasons. We tend to medicate our way through digestive and other maladies, but throughout the history of the world, especially among the poor, fasting was the way to feel better. Even today, many of us have heard from parents, “Starve a cold, feed a fever.” People would fast as an act of prayer or devotion. People would fast before battle.

Fast for Enlightenment

Learning to Fast Again is not about fasting to lose weight. It is about fasting for spiritual growth, awareness, and enlightenment. It is about making space in our lives for God to speak and act. We fast not to climb our way to God, through acts of self-righteousness, but rather to empty ourselves, so that we may be more open and aware to the movement of the Spirit.

Fasting is not universally commanded in the Bible. There is no legalistic case for fasting. We see fasting as an opportunity. We are under the freedom of the gospel.

A Word of Caution

A word of caution: Not all kinds of fasting are for everyone. Children, pregnant mothers, and the aged should not fast. Some medical conditions preclude skipping meals. If you are considering a complete fast, please consult your physician first to get clearance.

Learning to Fast Again is a 40-day devotional, study and workbook on fasting. It is the second in a series on the three disciplines of Lent: prayer, fasting and giving. Learning to Pray Again, Learning to Fast Again and Learning to Give Again cover the spiritual practices Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6.

Start Slow and Grow

Consider reading a chapter a day. Pick a few ideas that work for you and try them out. Start small. When one takes up running, one does not begin with a marathon. When one learns to play the piano, one doesn’t start with a Rachmaninov piano concerto. Start simply. Even if you’ve fasted before, begin again with the basics. Start with baby steps: a few hours of silence, or a meal. Find a group to fast with you and discuss the experience. Fasting in community is a powerful experience. It also provides support. Sometimes buddy power is stronger than will power.

When you fast, include prayer. Prayer and fasting appear together in the Bible constantly. Consider taking notes to record your experience. Start a prayer journal. Talk about it with a friend. In fact, if you or your congregation isn’t ready to jump into the topic of fasting Just yet, start with Learning to Pray Again: Peace and Joy through an Ancient Practice.

Fast with Joy

Above all, if you choose to fast, fast with joy. Fasting can be an act of contrition and humble repentance, but it can also be a powerful vehicle to invite a spiritual encounter. I pray these pages will spark your imagination into the joys of fasting.

Thank you Bishop Rinehart for sharing your insights into this ancient and beneficial practice. Michael Rinehart is the bishop of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod with offices in Houston and New Orleans.

His new book is available now at Amazon

Thank you for being part of this growing online community. If you appreciated this post, share it with one or more of your friends. Or, sign up for your own FREE subscription.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold.
Bookshop.org (Support local Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies are available from my website.

AND, a companion story about the women who made the journey will be available soon.

The post Lent and Learning to Fast Again appeared first on How Wise Then.

Skip to the end for details about my special year-end book sale event.

Dickens opened his smash hit novella with this:

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to rise the Ghost of an idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant.
C.D.

December 1843

The Man Who Invented the Modern Christmas?

What would Dickens think if he could see how his efforts to “rise a Ghost of an idea” inspired numerous versions of his story in theatres, movies, spin-off books, and festivals?  Paul Millward’s Literary Traveler  2017 article suggests we thank Dickens for the popular, and lately, controversial, “Merry Christmas” greeting. After Dickens used the phrase in ” A Christmas Carol”, it went viral. I suspect Dickens would be shocked to learn that today people argue with strangers on social media about the appropriate use – or failure to use –  the phrase in the public arena.

Dickens set out to write something that would resolve his desperate financial straits.  Our modern Christmas traditions are relatively new. Dickens was born in the English Victorian era, when Christmas as a festival had begun to decline. There were still remnants of earlier pagan-inspired Christmas traditions, but it was Dickens’ story that rekindled the kind of lavish Christmas traditions we observe today. He introduced readers to a version of the season based on joy, compassion, fellowship, and family – the ideals on which modern Western cultures mark the season.

Unintended Consequences

Some go so far as to credit Dickens for inventing the modern Christmas season. Although he makes only veiled references to the biblical birth-of-Christ narrative, he champions charity and goodwill toward all, just as the angels in the biblical accounts. He hits hard on the theme that the key to happiness is giving to others. Ebenezer Scrooge is the antithesis of that. It takes four spirits – the ghost of his partner Jacob Marley and the Christmases past, present, and future – before Scrooge comes to his senses and turns his life around.

Though that central message is often lost in the piles of presents and platters of pastries, it remains the primary reason for the season. Dickens’ story launched an avalanche of sentimental journeys through the bleak winter season.

Desperation Fuels Inspiration

When Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the fall of 1843, he desperately needed a successful story. His wife, Catherine, was about to give birth to the fifth of their ten children. He was deeply in debt, and his two previous writing efforts had flopped. He had huge debts of his own, as well as those he inherited from his father. Desperation, as much as inspiration, prompted Dickens to write A Christmas Carol.

Whatever motivated him, he wrote a ghost story that hit the mark then – and continues to do so today.  Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve and has been in print ever since in several languages. Any modern author would be thrilled to have their books do as well as this novella did.

Write About What You Know

Authors often advise, “Write about what you know.” Dickens knew about poverty. At times during his life, Dickens could easily relate to the plight of Bob Cratchit. Born in 1812, as the second of eight children, his parents were poor but provided a happy enough childhood for him and his siblings – just like Bob Cratchit does for his family.

When Dickens was ten, the family moved to a poor section of London, where their financial struggles deteriorated from difficult to desperate. When Dickens was twelve, his father was sent to debtor’s prison. Dickens dropped out of school and took a job at a boot-blacking factory to help support the family. The family’s fate improved when his father inherited enough money to pay off his debts, and young Dickens returned to school for a few years.

When he was fifteen, he dropped out again to take a position as an office boy. That was the start of his literary career. He started freelance reporting in the London courts, which in turn gave him the skills to report for two major London newspapers. At age twenty-one, he started submitting his work to various magazines and newspapers under the pseudonym “Boz.” He went on to publish fifteen novels.

From Print to Film and Far Beyond

The first U.S. adaptation of Dickens’ story to the screen was rushed into production in 1938. The movie differed from the novel in a variety of ways, such as the timing of the arrival of the three Christmas ghosts. Several parts of the book were omitted from the first screen version, including Scrooge’s fiancée leaving him for being so stingy and the two poor, starving children, “Want” and “Ignorance.”

I have three favorite versions of the Christmas Carol. 

• The 1984 movie version starring George C Scott
• The 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol
• The 1956 musical The Stingiest Man in Town, starring Vic Damon and the Four Lads, among others.

My folks played that record every year as we decked our family halls. What’s your favorite version of Christmas Carol?

May the spirit of Christmas haunt your home pleasantly.
Merry Christian. Happy Holidays. God Bless Us, Everyone.

BLATANT END OF YEAR BUY A BOOK  BEG  – Some authors make a livable income from their book sales. I am not one of them; I’m more like Dickens’s pre-Christmas Carol success story. I write for the love of the craft and my passion for the topics I cover. I also share any profits with assorted non-profit organizations. When you purchase any of my books, you are indirectly helping a worthy cause. Check out what’s available through December. Sadly, due to the increased cost of shipping real paper and ink books, rates will have to go up come January.

‘TIS THE SEASON: A HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY: A dozen delightful short stories, each with a holiday theme, await you between the covers of this annual treat from Texas Sisters Press. One of them is by yours truly. “A Rose By Another Name” tells how sometimes the entrance to joy is through a door marked “tragedy.” Special Holiday price of just $12 (which includes shipping) – or $1/story. HowWiseThen/’Tis the Season

ASUNDER: The holidays can be brutal for those going through them for the first time after the loss of a loved one. Be inspired by how one fictional middle age woman, with the support of family and friends, dealt with grief that threatened to overcome her. Only $6 at HowWiseThen/Asunder

A READY HOPE: It seems we hear about another disaster somewhere in the world every week. Whenever disaster strikes, hundreds of well-organized volunteers come together through non-profit disaster response organizations to bring help and hope. In this book, you’ll learn what typically happens through the first year following a disaster and ways to help that are actually helpful. $12 at HowWiseThen/A Ready Hope.

The post Christmas Carol appeared first on How Wise Then.

From Dr. Martin Luther King

First up, thoughts from 1967, the last Christmas sermon Martin Luther King preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta a few months before he was assassinated.

“We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have goodwill toward men (and women), we will destroy ourselves. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. (L)et us this morning think anew on the meaning of that Christmas hope: “Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men (and women).”

(A)ll life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”

From Malala Yousafzai

In 2014 Malala Yousafzai became the second Pakistani, the first Pashtun, and the youngest person to receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. She was 17 at the time. Her acceptance speech reflects both her depth and youth.

“I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional love . . . my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly. (M)y mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth. (M)y wonderful teachers, who inspired me to believe in myself and be brave.

I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that.

We are living in the modern age and we believe that nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years ago and maybe will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be able to give every child quality education.

Dear sisters and brothers, dear fellow children, we must work… not wait. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. We. It is our duty. . .Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last, let us become the first generation that decides to be the last that sees empty classrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potentials. Let’s begin this ending together, today, right here, right now. Let’s begin this ending now. Thank you so much.”

From Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. She knew a thing or two about things that make for peace.

“Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you don’t really want to smile at; do it for peace. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish in the world and in the hearts of all men (and women) all hatred and love for power.

Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?”

From John F. Kennedy

Former  President John F. Kennedy delivered his peace speech at American University in June 1963, a few months before he was assassinated.

“I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived–yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.”

May you have peace within and goodwill all around you.

If you enjoyed this, pass it along to a friend. Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures tells how the Pokanoket people and the newly arrived English “Planters,” or as we know them, Pilgrims, established terms of peace back in 1621. I’d love to speak to your book club, library, or organization about this fascinating history. Contact me at HowWiseThen to make arrangements. Sign up to receive free weekly blogs and/or my monthly newsletter there as well.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures is available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies are available from my website or BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Peace and Goodwill appeared first on How Wise Then.

At that time, Leiden was a significant industrial community of around 15,000 and growing. Within 30 years after the Pilgrims left for North America, in 1650, Leiden was a city of 55,000. Leiden, also spelled Leyden, is about 10 miles northeast of the Hague, 30 miles southwest of Amsterdam, and 200 miles across the North Sea from London, England. The city is laced with nearly 17 miles of canals, second in number only to Amsterdam. Eighty-eight bridges cross the canals, many of them suitable only for pedestrians.

Immigrant Refugees

Leiden, in the 1600s, was a major industrial center for the textile industry. Many of the English Separatist refugees worked in textile mills or at home weaving for one of the mills. Children sorted and combed wool and did other textile-related menial jobs.

The Separatist immigrants came to Leiden a few decades after England had befriended the area against Spanish efforts to assimilate the region. England aided the Dutch, soundly defeating the Spanish Armada in the naval showdown of 1588. A decade earlier, the Spaniards laid siege to Leiden. For a terrifying period of several months (October 31, 1573 through March 21, 1574) the Dutch made heroic efforts to keep the Spaniards at bay. When the siege finally ended, William, the Prince of Orange, allegedly offered the people a choice. He would either exempt them from taxes for several years or establish a university. They chose the university, and the University of Leiden was established in 1574.

University of Leiden

The University provided William Brewster with a means of income. He taught English to university students through their mutual familiarity with Latin. Separatist Pastor John Robinson took classes there, making friends among the university faculty. Brewster was familiar with Leiden from his earlier trip there in 1584 as a staff assistant to William Davison, the former Secretary of State and Ambassador for Queen Elizabeth I.

The Dutch, grateful for England’s support, hosted Davison and Brewster at a variety of special events.  England befriended the Dutch in a typical European monarch game of chess, with each monarch trying to gain and maintain power and stability by absorbing neighboring nations. England wanted to secure the loyalty of the Dutch to keep Spain away from England.

Thanks to the University, Leiden became one of Europe’s most prominent scientific centers, a position is has held for over four centuries. Students from all over the world come to study there. One of them,  Dr. Jeremy Bangs, has devoted his life to researching the influence of Leiden on the American Pilgrims.  He founded the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in a small 14th-century house near the city center. There he collects and displays manuscripts and other memorabilia germane to the Pilgrim story.

Life in Leiden

As is the case for many modern immigrants, the plight of the Scrooby area Separatist immigrants was desperate. They arrived with few resources, most unable to communicate in Dutch, and were unfamiliar with city life. They banned together, doubling up families, taking whatever menial work they could find, and banning together to worship and encourage one another.

Eventually, they were able to purchase a home with sufficient land to build a series of small homes for their members. The community was so congenial that when Brewster had another child, they named their son Love. Though life was safer in Leiden than in England, it was also hard. Children were picking up ideas and practices from their Dutch peers that bothered their parents.

William Brewster’s decision to start publishing and distributing documents critical of King James stirred the anger of the king. Though the Dutch were tolerant, they were in no position to go against the wishes of the King of England. So when King James sent his men to find and arrest Brewster, William went into hiding, and their Separatist community more seriously considered setting up their own colony in the New World.

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Leiden made extensive plans to participate in the 2020 400th anniversary, plans which were scuttled because of the pandemic. However, forward-thinking planners put together a virtual four-hour Leiden tour with stops at places significant to the Pilgrim story.

This month is the second anniversary of the release of my historical novel about the story behind the Mayflower voyage. I’d be happy to speak to your book club or organization about this fascinating history. Contact me at HowWiseThen to make arrangements. You can sign up to receive weekly blogs and/or a monthly newsletter there as well. If you’ve enjoyed this article, share it with a friend.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures covers the Pilgrim’s escape from England and their interactions with the Pokanoket people. Available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies are available from my website or BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Leiden appeared first on How Wise Then.