Category: Fun

Advent · Christmas Alliance · Fun · My world

An Old Christmas Friend

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thecinnamonbear.jpg

Here in Portland we are blessed when it comes to radio.  We have a couple very nice Christian talk/music stations, a great jazz station, very good classical and my personal favorite KBVM — our very own lay-owned Catholic radio station. 

Among the many fantastic things about KBVM is the Advent/Christmas season.  While every other radio station is stuck playing the same 14 Christmas songs 24/7 KBVM is playing its regular selections with Advent music mixed in.  Christmas Eve comes followed by Christmas day and 12 days of Christmas music both religious and secular to celebrate the season.  

KBVM is a family friendly radio station.  Twice a day there is “Kid’s songs” — Veggietales, fun sing-along songs and community children reciting scriptures or prayers.  My children look forward to this especially during Advent where KBVM replaces their usual offerings with a classic radio show entitled “The Cinnamon Bear”. 

I believe that the start date this year will be November 16th.  You can listen to KBVM on their website.  “The Cinnamon Bear” dates back to the 1930s and is really quaint.  Two children go up into their attic to find their Christmas star and end up on a wild adventure hunting a Crazy-Quilt Dragon who has stolen their star with the help of Paddy O’Cinnamon.  I will admit that I find it a wee bit grating, but the children laugh and get terribly excited by it and look forward to each installment… so who am I to argue. 

For more information check out:
Wikipedia for some history on the program
Radio Lovers has all the shows for free download to listen

So this Advent season you might want to check it out.  And take a couple minutes to check out the other offerings at the Christmas Alliance.

Blogs I Know · Caritas · Fun

Being Catholic is fun.

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On Called by Name Fr. Kyle Schnippel shares a story from Whispers in the Loggia  .  This is on of those stories that made my heart happy while bringing tears to my eyes.  Msgr Ed Petty passed away last week.  From the Homily at his funeral mass there was this:

For Ed, Catholicism was thoroughly fun. And real fun is being a part of something greater than yourself. Belonging to the church is fun because it expands beyond the limits of this world. Ed knew the thrill of being a part of something that brings us together with all the angels and saints—the worship of almighty God in spirit and in truth….

I love that thought.  The joy of being part of something so wonderful and magnificent.  We are made for sacrifice and love.  Hope, joy, faith and love.  
 

Blogs I Know · Fun

Joy and laughter

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The world is so full of gloomy people who take themselves too serriously.  Happy Catholic has a link to a blog post on the Ironic Catholic that makes me both smile and think.

Too often Catholics, Christians, people with any moral standards are seen a humorless, sticks-in-the-mud that have no pleasure in anything other than pointing fingers at other people and tutting in between their bouts of hand-ringing and tsking.  No… not at all.  Catholics, Christians and people with high moral standards can be the funniest and most legitimately fun people to be around.  We laugh, we love and we do so in a way that isn’t dependant on putting others down to make the point.

When I was in college there was a bit of burhaha about humor, jokes and “laughter”.  Some ignoramus with a PhD had suppose that all humor, yes all, was at the expense of someone else.  That all laughter was in essence a put-down.  This always seemed so very wrong to me… after all babies laugh at silly things and babies make people laugh.  No put down, no laughing at other’s expense just joy.  And the other half of this quite simply… we laugh at each other.  It is natural.  It is like the quote from Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice : ?For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”.  We all have our turn.  So laugh at me when I fall, but offer me a hand up and do not take offense when I laugh at you on occasion… for I am really only laughing at your humanity in which I share. 

I have to share yet another funny thing I read via the anchoress.     Parents explain the Birds and the Bees to their son.  I haven’t laughed so hard in a long long time.

Fun

Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling (2)

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Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling is a golden, gentle hymn. It is not precisely a Catholic hymn. It was written by Will L Thompson and first published in 1880.

Cyber Hymnal has this notation on the hymn:

When the world-renowned lay preacher, Dwight Lyman Moody, lay on his death bed in his Northfield, Massachusetts, home, Will Thompson made a special visit to inquire as to his condition. The attending physician refused to admit him to the sick­room, and Moody heard them talking just outside the bedroom door. Recognizing Thompson’s voice, he called for him to come to his bedside. Taking the Ohio poet-composer by the hand, the dying evangelist said, “Will, I would rather have written “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling” than anything I have been able to do in my whole life.”

 The song has appeared in movies, television and was included in Jonny Cash Sings Precious Memories album in 1975 where I first heard it at my grandparent’s house as a little girl. It stuck with me and has been one of my favorite hymns since then. It was also published on his 2004 album “My Mother’s Hymn Book”.

If you are interested in obtaining the music for the hymn Oregon Catholic Press carries it in several of their publications and the score is online at several places  

If you are looking for the lyrics they are here:

 Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?

 Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me;
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
Coming for you and for me.

 Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!

 Oh, for the wonderful love He has promised,
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon,
Pardon for you and for me.