The gathering of crops and preparation for the coming winter is traditionally celebrated in most cultures by enjoying the abundance of provisions and rest from cultivation and harvesting. In religious services thanks are given for blessings received and requests for future mercy:
Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered [...]
Archive for November, 2009
Harvest Festival & Thanksgivings
Posted in Customs, Festivals, Nature, tagged Harvest Festivals, Thanksgiving on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Plan Internation and Universal Birth Registration
Posted in Current events, Human relationships, Organisations, tagged Identity, Plan International, Universal Birth Registration on November 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Plan International is an international children’s charity working for children in poverty. They have just completed a four year campaign to register over 40 million people who did not previously have birth certificates or documentation:
A birth certificate protects children and gives them access to:
education
healthcare
property, and more
Plan’s campaign is ensuring more children receive birth certificates for:
easier [...]
Patriarch Pavle 1914-2009
Posted in Current events, People, tagged Serbian Orthodox Church on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The spiritual head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in former Yugoslavia died yesterday age 95; he was ordained as Patriarch in 1990 after a lifetime of service but had been in declining health for some time.
He was known as a man of simplicity and humility, refusing to purchase a car saying he did not wish to own [...]
Text: The Charter for Compassion
Posted in Conviction, Current events, Ethics, Human relationships, Organisations, People, Religion, tagged Charter for Compassion, Karen Armstrong on November 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A call to bring the world together…
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre [...]
Brian D McLaren
Posted in People, tagged Brian McLaren, Cedar Ridge Community Church, Emergent Church, Postmodern Christianity on November 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Pastor, author, musician, speaker and modern Christian activist Brian McLaren is on the Board of directors for Sojourners, the Christian social justice magazine and movement, and was a founder member of Red Letter Christians, red letters being the printed words reported as spoken by Jesus in the New Testament.
He is part of a growing number [...]
Halloween
Posted in Customs, Festivals, tagged Halloween on November 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
All-Hallows-Even or the night before All Saints Day on the Christian calendar is a secular festival where people dress up, decorate their homes, tell stories, share party food and carve pumpkins into scary masks:
Children go door-to-door collecting candy and trinkets, known as ‘trick or treat’ across Canada, the US, much of Europe and more recently in [...]
