♥♥ Mom ♥♥

source: MuttsComics.com, May 11, 2003

May the Fourth be with you.

And also with you.

My favorite finds:

• Best mashup ever. (source: Jayne & Garth, by reddit user DesignerDamon)
  
• The family that geeks together... (source: Foxtrot.com)
  
• Time for a rewatch! (Thanks to Emily for the find.)
  
• Op-ed on Why we really love Princess Leia -- thanks to Kevin for the find.
• Behind the scenes photos from filming Episodes IV-III
• Star Wars is for all ages. (source: Crayola FB page)
  
• Harry Potter vs Jedi
  
• Princess Bride Lightsaber Battle
  

Also, for reference, my Star Wars Day post from last year.

Do you want some afikomen?

6:13 adapts Frozen for Passover: Chozen And it is the best of all the covers/adaptations I have seen.

Chag Pesach Sameach! Happy Passover!

St Patrick's Prayer

source: Deviant Art by feral canary

Esther

Chag sameach Purim!

Celebrate God saving God's people from mass execution at the hands of the evil Haman. Esther was called "for such a time as this" -- what's your passion? To what has God called you?

I encourage you to join me in reading "the whole megillah", all nine chapters of the book of Esther, this weekend.

May I also commend to you Beth Moore's excellent Esther DVD/workbook Bible study.  (Looking forward to seeing her in person in May!)

Tabernacles

Chag Sameach! (Happy holiday (Holy Day)!, lit joyous festival)

I love our Sunday School curriculum, Show Me Jesus by Great Commission Publications. I've been teaching the 2nd/3rd graders from the Middle Elementary for a couple years now¹ and I have been blessed over and over again by the kids and getting to look deeper into the Bible with them. One thing I particularly love is its focus on holidays, by which I mean Holy Days, which is to say, the holidays Jesus celebrated. We as Christians too often overlook that Jesus was an observant Jew.

This time of year we have three major Jewish holidays. I've already briefly covered Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but the one I unfortunately tend to forget until it is upon us² is Sukkot. And honestly, Sukkot is the one in which, in the days of the Temple, Jews were instructed to make pilgrimage. There are only three such pilgrimage feasts in the year; the other two are Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) and the Feast of Weeks (Shavu'ot in Hebrew, Pentecost in Greek, which the Christian church has changed focus on to when the Holy Spirit came down like tongues of fire on the disciples and they spoke in all different languages, understandable to the multitudes there from different lands. Did you ever wonder why there were Jews from all nations in Jerusalem at that time?)

¹ My first group of 1st graders (it used to be a 3-year Primaries curriculum) are college freshmen this year. Yikes!
² I know why I tend to forget it: I grew up in a school district that had enough of a Jewish population that they closed schools for some Jewish holidays. Specifically, two of three fall holidays. Guess which one we were still in school?

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In ASL, the sign for TABERNACLE is the same as CAMP³ or TENT, because the house of worship was mobile for the Israelites' journey through the wilderness, unlike the TEMPLE or CHURCH, which is built on a ROCK and is fixed in location.<sup>4

3</sup> Or, locally, the first part of Camp Hill.
4 Yes, SigningSavvy.com does post the same sign for TEMPLE and TABERNACLE. But the book Religious Signing does not, and is theologically more accurate here.

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About Sukkot


And for your entertainment, a musical interlude.


I also highly highly recommend the movie Ushpizin, which is set in an Orthodox Jewish community during Tabernacles. How conservative are they? The husband in the movie had his actual wife play his movie wife so as not to show any impropriety. Amazing amazing movie.
trailer:
The full movie is also available online. A word of caution: it is in Hebrew, subtitled in English.

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For reference: a quick summation of Sukkot from Huffington Post.

Happy Independence Day!

May I make a confession?
And this is a bit sacriligious as a Murlander.
If I got to choose our national anthem, it sure wouldn't be The Star Spangled Banner.

There are so many great patriotic songs out there to choose from!

Don't just listen, sing along. Yes, you! I don't care if you think you can't sing well. Crank up the volume, and belt it out with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. Great attitude is contagious. Sing as long as you know the words and hum or harmonize those you don't. And listen thru. See how much depth there is to the later verses.


I have so many favorites. How to choose? But if I were forced to pick one for national anthem, I think I'd go with O Beautiful.

Although Ray Charles sings verse 4 first, I think he has the best version. And hey, learn verse 4! It's a good one!


I've always loved Irving Berlin. What an immigrant success story! What an incredible volume of work¹, and did you know he only played on the black notes? He devised this under-piano modulation lever, no midi in those days, to accomodate different vocal ranges.

So his God Bless America is a very close runner-up for me. And when Kate Smith was looking for something appropriate to sing in this setting, he pulled it out of a drawer where it'd been abandoned by him years ago. And Irving Berlin has never claimed a cent of royalties off it; they all go to a particular nonprofit that, back then, was much less controversial than it has been of late. (Don't comment on it. Just enjoy the song.)

¹ Arrivals at Ellis Island are greeted by Lady Liberty, who bears a plaque engraved with The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." Irving Berlin wrote a song for that one, too, but although the words are stunning, the music's pretty terrible. Oh well. Not everything's a Blue Skies kind of a hit.

Then there's The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic
I think part of why I like this version is because there are such strong harmonies. Once an alto...


And that great Woodie Guthrie classic, This Land is Your Land, sung here by Peter, Paul, and Mary.


Ah, patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear.


And, although lyrically lacking, Stars and Stripes Forever remains the most singalongable of all of Sousa's marches. In this particular version, watch and see how the backdrop changes to reflect the varied interests of the lead singers.


So, how about you? What would you choose for the national anthem?

Happy Canada Day!

O Canada, our home and native land...

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian cousins and friends!

I love that Canadians sing along with the national anthem without being prompted. I love that! I'm a big proponent of singing along with the national anthem, but in the States, people look at me as though I'm weird for singing along. Really?




And to wrap up, a Muppet's Salute to Canada. Bet you didn't know any of these new facts that Sam the Eagle vetted!


Now have some Poutine with the Swedish Chef.

May the 4th

Happy Star Wars Day!


source: geek-news.mtv.com


source:shirttrader.com

And my favorite Whose Line is it Anyway? clip, Star Wars: Number of Words.<sup>1

1</sup> Why can't I embed from YouTube via tablet?? I know how to do it via desktop. YouTube just provides the link there. But in the app, oh no.

EDIT: Embed accomplished by borrowing Earl's laptop. Still can't figure it out on the tablet. Suggestions welcome.


Additional images as the day progresses:

Liturgy runs deep.

source: Lutherans Online FB page, although I'm not Lutheran.

Here, too, is Drew McWeeny's Film Nerd 2.0: Star Wars journey introducing his two kids, aged 6&3, to the films. It was my introduction also to the idea of watching films in the sequence 4-5-(flashback to)1-2-3-(et voila, triumphant finale)6, which I definitely prefer to the sequence we got with the releases of old trilogy-new trilogy.