Talk of taxes was in the air. Caesar Augustus had ordered the taxation, the Affordable Oppression and Extortion Act (AOEA), and the pundits were scrambling to figure out just what it would mean to people throughout the Empire. While the child tax credit and the standard deduction were up, experts were still not sure how betrothal would be treated under the new law. Would a small business such as a village carpentry shop be able to take advantage of the steep reduction in corporate taxes? The threshold for claiming medical expense deductions had been lowered, but most tax law professionals questioned the deductibility of manger straw, though swaddling clothes might meet the AOEA definition of medically necessary supplies. Continue reading →

We began our meeting the other night with the leader asking each of us to share our favorite Christmas carol and to say something about it. I paged quickly through the hymnal in my mind and stopped at “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

My favorite recording of “In the Bleak Midwinter” is this by Corrinne May.

The images of the first stanzas of the hymn are painted from poet Christina Rossetti’s memories of winters in Nineteenth Century England; those in the last verses from the First Century and a story told from a little town in the Judean hill country called Bethlehem and from the fields nearby where shepherds were keeping watch over their sheep by night. Continue reading →

If you use social media, Facebook in particular, you probably know about the “Year in Review” that is popping up on your home feed. If you don’t use Facebook, just know that this Year in Review is a completely insidious invasion of the privacy you surrendered to Facebook when you first opened an account.

Through use of algorithms and other things I don’t understand, Facebook has rummaged through the posts and photos of each of its nearly 2 billion users to create a personalized 65-second highlights video of the past year for each one of us. Continue reading →

According to the Advent Calendar – one with those little windows to open each day until Christmas – today is the first day of Advent. Beginning today and, depending on the calendar, each day until December 24 or December 25, we open a new window, each opening one day closer to the biggest and the best window. According to the liturgical calendar, Advent begins Sunday, the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and continues until midnight on Christmas Eve.

According to Amazon and Wal-Mart, you’re running out of time and better start spending now. We used to count the shopping days ‘til Christmas. Now every hour of every day is potential shopping time. You’d better hurry up. Look how little time is left.

But what if Advent is not about so many purchases and so little time? Continue reading →

Thanksgiving Day, this best of all the national holidays.  Its history is rich and includes the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation and calls for days of thanksgiving by presidents beginning with George Washington. Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation marks the beginning of fourth or last Thursday in November national days of Thanksgiving.  1863 with its battles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and elsewhere had been a bloody and sorrow-filled year, yet the nation was called to give thanks. 

2017 has been a year of troubles for the nation. The hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico.  The fires in California.  Strife in Charlottesville and bickering in Washington, D.C.  Shootings in Nevada and Texas. Terrorism in Manhattan.  Lincoln’s word still speak to the nation: Continue reading →