Dean Nicola’s Advent Blog Post
Advent is my favorite season in the church calendar. Including the shortest day of the earth year, that encourages us to a deep place of quiet and rest, it strikes me as a velvety time when the stars and galaxies in the night sky seem close at hand. We are invited to welcome stillness and soft darkness before turning again to light, energy, and the lengthening of days.
With prayerful pleas
and Advent songs of longing,
I await the birth of God’s Anointed One.
~Edward Hays
Hi-Tech Novelty Ornaments!
Novelty Tree Ornaments: 3D-printed CCSP logo available in the Guild Hall
Recently fabricated for your Christmas tree is a novelty that will certainly make your tree outstanding. Pictured, these hi-tech novelty ornaments have been 3D printed by Dalton Headlee and are available in the Guild Hall in exchange for a free-will donation ($5 minimum requested). As well as being husband to Melinda and father of Rowan, Dalton is a professional engineer and likes to experiment with his 3D printer. Thank you for offering us this interesting fundraiser, Dalton!
Book of the Blog
Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love
Carmichael, E. D. H. (Liz). Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love. London: T & T Clark International, 2004.
In my office at St. Paul’s I am blessed to have 16 bookshelves that hold approximately 30 books each. That’s a lot of books! I have read about half of them. It occurred to me that you might be interested in a brief comment on a book that is found on my shelves. Please know that you are welcome to approach me to borrow any of these! So, left to right, top to bottom, here is the first one.
I was attracted to this book as an aid in contemplating Christian love, that is so central to our faith.
John 13:34-35 “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” NRSVUE
Liz Carmichael explores the idea that friendship is the “shape” of genuine love. She is curious about her observation that “despite the fact that Christians were among the foremost of such friends, it was rarely … that one heard this being explicitly discussed, explored, and encouraged in churches.” So, she wrote this book. Classically, philia is represented as the love that does not seek reward but loves the other for their own sake. In contrast with the 1930s work of Anders Nygren in which agape is characterized as entirely unselfish love flowing from one to another without reciprocity, and in which eros is characterized as selfish love that seeks reward, philia, friendship love, embraces both giving and receiving. It is the only one of these three that is reciprocal.
If you are drawn to contemplating the nature of God’s love for us, our love for God, and how we express Christian love for each other, then you might enjoy this book. Feel free to borrow it, and I look forward to hearing what you think of it.
