Well this blog will be silent for around a week, cause SCW and I will actually be hanging together---
-Hoody in AB

http://www.calgary.anglican.ca/Sower/SowerJan06.pdf click here to read my about my noviate vows service with the Franciscans.
-Hoody in AB

Hoody and SCW welcome a new member to the family:
Hey all it's a boy or a girl! See I've been praying about doing a sponsor a child thingee, and a few weeks back was kicked back in my church office reading the onslaught of newspapers and other propaganda sent to youth pastor types, when the World Vision envelope tumbled out...so yeah I figured for $35 a month I could seriously cut back on my slurpee budget to help a kid.
So that's the story, SCW and me have a child we're sponsoring!
-Hoody in AB

Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us. This one day is the day of his birth, but every day of our mortal lives must be his manifestation.
--Thomas Merton

An article for the Season:
The Poor King

At Christmas time in 1223, St. Francis of Assisi journeyed to a hermit’s cave high on a mountain above the little village of Greccio. He asked the owner, a friend of his, if could use a level place below the hermitage to celebrate midnight Mass, adding that he was planning a pageant to precede the Mass. He hoped the pageant would re-create the scene of the birth of Jesus. With his friend’s help, Francis mobilized the whole village, clearing the site, cutting torches, making candles, and building a manger scene. A family was chosen to play the roles of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. Francis recalled a verse from the prophet Isaiah: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows the manger of its master.” And so, he borrowed an ox and an ass to be part of the scene. And because Matthew’s Gospel includes soothsayers and Luke’s Gospel mentions shepherds, Francis asked some of the townsfolk to represent them.

On Christmas Eve, the forest echoed with the voices of a large crowd making its way to the cave, their torches lighting up the night. Francis stood before the crib; and with his heart overflowing with love and compassion, he preached about the birth of the poor King whom he called the Babe of Bethlehem. The moving ceremony, designed to strengthen those weak in faith, not only demonstrated Francis’ creative imagination, but helped to popularize the use of a crèche or Christmas crib throughout the Christian world.

On a deeper level, Francis wanted to demonstrate that God came poor among the poor and endured sufferings and discomforts from childhood on for our sake. The Christmas crib loudly proclaims that the Incarnation is a manger of contradictions. The Gospels give us the Christmas narrative, but it was Francis who gave us the picturesque iconography that has come to symbolize the birth of Christ. Unfortunately, over the centuries, the rough-hewn Franciscan crib has been supplanted by a comforting, greeting-card sweetness that conceals the true and revolutionary message of the Gospels.

On that first Christmas night, in silence and simplicity, God became downwardly mobile, embracing humanity and entering into its suffering with boundless love. The very substance of humanity was placed in an animal feeder-box at birth. A king who would never claim any worldly authority was presented to the outcasts of society. Greeting cards erroneously depict the shepherds as gentle, pastoral men. But in Jesus’ time shepherds were ostracized because they were considered to be common thieves who stole animals and illegally allowed their flock to graze on land they did not own. They were despised in Jewish circles and yet they responded to the birth of Jesus with piety and adoration. The message was clear: They understood that this child had come from God to embrace, forgive and save all people.

From the very beginning, Jesus identifies with the poor and the rejected, showing us that God lies waiting where the world never thinks to look. And Saint Francis reminds me to look at my relationship to everything in my life. He makes me take a second look at what “ownership” means. He tells me that everything belongs to God, who in His infinite love allows me to use them. This prevents me from clutching to things as “mine,” and instead fills me with gratitude for the generosity of God who has loaned me what I need. That shift in consciousness lifts a tremendous burden from my heart. Rather than holding on to what I own, I enjoy what has been temporarily loaned to me. Everything is gift; everything is God’s. Francis teaches me that I am merely a humble steward gently holding things in trust, enjoying God’s bounty without becoming attached to anything.

The San Damiano Foundation wishes you a holy and happy celebration of the Incarnation of God who became poor for us.
Gerry Straub


There is nothing in me that preceded all his gifts and that could have served as a vessel to receive them. The first of his gifts, the basis of all the others, is that which I call my own "I": God has given me this "I"; I owe him not merely everything I have but also everything I am.... Everything is a gift, and he who receives the gifts is himself first of all a gift received. – François Fénélon

Ah it was a marvelous day yesterday with yet another Advent Miracle. I had a booth at Gaia's Ethical Market trying to help friends out with ICROSS Canada...selling stuff of mine I no longer needed or wanted, and over the course of the last three weeks I managed to send a money order off today in the total of $100.54
-Hoody in AB

Gluttony
in the days of old
meant binging/purging on food
For us today the old term stands
but we over consume so much more
children of the world slave to
make our wares
or lose their innocence
in other ways.
Mother Earth cries
as we strip her bare
All for the bottom line
No more humanity
No more creation
Just commodities
to be bought and sold
on a whim.
-Hoody in AB

Darkness comes early now,
Hostages
Rape
Abuse
Murder
Fill the news as sirens ring out in
the night
the radio waves fill
O'Holy Night
as a woman cries
her husband dies
a gun shot
nothing changes
or has it?
Darkest night
coldest day
hopeless life
forever changed
A month the hay
the animals
a teenager cries in birthing pains
and a baby cries out
a bright light
homeless
bringing
peace
love
joy
and
hope
to a world of despair now filled with
God's Love.
-Hoody in AB

North American has a disgusting double standard! Channel surfing this morning I hit Good Morning America where they were talking with a woman who was impregnated by and then married a 15 year old boy, chatting with her about her plans for the baby to be born, and she got to explain how in love she was, and that the boy (the 15 year old who was then1 14 years old) had seduced her...acting like this was normal?
How far do you think a 37 year old man would have gotten on the same interview if he had impregnated a 15 year old girl, and then married her?
Regardless of gender sexual abuse is sexual abuse, and a pedophile is a pedophile.
-Hoody in AB

If anyone was going to do it, ya had to know it was going to be us. THe Calgary Herald reported this morning that the Franciscans have opened the first co-ed monastery where Friars and Nuns will spend meal time, work time, prayer time, and dialogue time together.
-Hoody in AB

And as night time dawns, so begins the Week of Joy! What a fun time of life to be in to reflect on the joy that God's love brings into our lives!
Think of Mother Mary, when she went to visit Elizabeth and talked of her pregnancy, she leapt, sung and danced for joy... when was the last time you danced in worship of our Lord?
-Hoody in AB

And so the Week of Peace closes, with the hostages of the Christian Peacemaker Teams being held in Iraq still alive!
-Hoody in AB

wow! The week of hope was unique. I had the opportunity to speak out in the media on the avoidability of poverty in Canada, collected clothes for a local shelter, and started raising money for ICROSS Canadawhile simplifying my life, and with my youth group did a letter writing night for amnesty international. Now some will go--that's just bragging--no, see for me I want people to realize that you can take little steps, and like snow flakes gathering on a branch, one make not make a difference, but you get the church world wide each member taking little steps, pretty soon all those little steps add up to a radically changed world!
This week is the week of Peace, it is a peace as I told my children at church today that comes from not concentrating on what is wrong with one another or what is different, but rather it is by looking at each other and seeing the similarities that God created us with, and when we were created we were good in our father's eyes...we must remember that as we interact, yes we are fallen, but in God's heart we are all blessed children of his.
-Hoody in AB

Christmas gifts that not only bless the receiver, but change the world!
Check out Sr. Paula's list at:
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=PaulaClare&uid=398168998&tab=weblogs#comment