All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts Invited; the illuminated hall Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; He but perceives what is; while unto me All that has been is visible and clear.
We have no title-deeds to house or lands; Owners and occupants of earlier dates From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands, And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
The spirit-world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires; The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar Of earthly wants and aspirations high, Come from the influence of an unseen star An undiscovered planet in our sky.
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light, Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd Into the realm of mystery and night,—
So from the world of spirits there descends A bridge of light, connecting it with this, O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends, Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
Commerce has tricked many people into believing that Christmas begins with Black Friday sales.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The four weeks before Christmas are called “Advent”. Thereafter, Christmas begins with Holy Night (the night from December 24th to December 25th). Or does it?
Well, if you really love Christmas, you may actually enjoy it three (or even four) times. How come?
First of all, there are no historical records of the birth date of Jesus of Nazareth. So the chosen date for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ was picked rather arbitrarily. However, it stands to reason that the date was chosen to coincide (roughly) with winter solstice. This natural event had been a sacred day ever since human civilization grasped the rudimentary fundamentals of celestial cycles. The Romans (as well as many other literate cultures) had of course more than just a basic understanding of this.
By the way, contrary to popular belief, Christmas is not the most important holiday in Christianity, nor was it even celebrated in the early beginnings.
In 330 AD, the Roman Empire split into two parts: the western half centered in Rome, and the eastern half centered in Constantinople. The churches of the Western Roman Empire continued to celebrate Christmas as a minor holiday on December 25.
Mosaic of Jesus as Christus Sol (Christ the Sun) in Mausoleum M in the pre-fourth-century necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
But in the East, the birth of Jesus began to be celebrated in connection with the Epiphany, on January 6. This holiday was not primarily about the the birth of Jesus, but rather his baptism. The feast was introduced in Constantinople in 379, in Antioch towards the end of the fourth century ( probably in 388) and in Alexandria in the following century.
When it comes to marking days, all conventional, numerical calendar systems suffer from an astronomical problem: During the time it takes for the Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun, our planet rotates 365.256 times around its own axis. What this means is that the day isn’t really 24 hours long. Earth spins once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds with respect to other, distant, stars.
So one Earth year isn’t 365 days long, but precisely 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. How does one put that into a calendar when we define each 24-hour period as a “day”? And when we divide the year into 12 months – which, by the way, are all arbitrary, man-made definitions? There really are are only four natural demarkations in the year that play a major role in our lives: the two equinoxes and the two solstices, which mark the beginnings of each season.
For completeness, because Earth’s orbit isn’t a circle but an ellipsis, there are the two apsides, the two extreme points of Earth distance to the Sun: Aphelion (apoapsis) and perihelion (periapsis). But these two would have little to no practical effect except for those studying such things.
The Julian Calendar, was proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and enacted by edict on January 1, 45 BC. No, Julius did’t invent it. It was a reform of an earlier Roman calendar and probably designed by Greek mathematicians and Greek astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria.
Whoever did it, the Julian Calendar was undoubtedly one of mankind’s most remarkable intellectual accomplishments. But as all human explanations of natural phenomena, it is rather imperfect in that although its synchronization with the solar year is better than most other calendars, the deviations get bigger and bigger as time goes on. Eventually, the year’s four seasons and the calendar will become way off.
One can correct these deviations from the natural world by throwing in “leap time” – a strange concept in which we are basically making up days, months or even years. (In other words, we are violating the rules of science by purposely making our interpretation of the reality fit the observation).
In order to reduce the need for such calendar doctoring, Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582 introduced the Gregorian calendar as a correction of the Julian calendar.
Lunario Novo, Secondo la Nuova Riforma della Correttione del l’Anno Riformato da N.S. Gregorio XIII, printed in Rome by Vincenzo Accolti in 1582, one of the first printed editions of the new calendar.
This has liturgical significance since calculation of the date of Easter assumes that spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere occurs on March. To correct the accumulated error, Pope Gregory ordained the date be advanced by ten days. (One can do that is one is pope).
Pope Gregory XIII, portrait by Lavinia Fontana, 16th Century.
Most Roman Catholic lands adopted the new calendar immediately. (Not that they had much of a choice). The clerical leaders of Protestant lands who did not recognize the pope’s authority of course protested. But eventually, they too ended up following suit over the following 200 years. (Not because Protestants admitted the pope’s new calendar was a good innovation, but because having two different calendars caused quite a bit of confusion. Let’s just say it wasn’t popular with the masses).
The British Empire (including the American colonies) adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 with the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. At that time, the divergence between the two systems had grown to eleven days.
This meant that Christmas Day on December 25 (“New Style”) was eleven days earlier than it would have been but for the Act, making “Old Christmas” (“Old Style”) on December 25 happen on January 5 (“New Style”).
In February 1800, the Julian calendar had yet another leap year but the Gregorian calendar did not. This moved Old Christmas to 6 January (“New Style”), which coincided with the Feast of the Epiphany.
For this reason, in some parts of the world, the Feast of the Epiphany, which is traditionally observed on 6 January, is sometimes referred to as “Old Christmas” or “Old Christmas Day”.
So where do we stand today? According to the Gregorian calendar, Western Christianity and part of the Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on December 25.
The Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Evangelical Church, and some Anabaptists (such as the Amish people) still celebrate “Old Christmas Day” on January 6.
Meanwhile, most Oriental Orthodox and part of the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate on January 7 (which corresponds to “Old Style” December 25).
Lastly, the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem maintains the traditional Armenian custom of celebrating the birth of Christ on the same day as Theophany (January 6), but it uses the Julian calendar for the determination of that date. As a result, this church celebrates “Christmas” (actually, Theophany) on what the majority of the world now considers to be January 19 on its Gregorian calendar.
Russian icon of the Theophany (the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist) (6 January), the highest-ranked feast which occurs on the fixed cycle of the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
So there you have it! The dates of Christmas are neither prescribed by God nor nature, but by man. They are nothing but human convention, and they differ because of the problems inherent in making a calendar that accurately reflects nature, along with some religious differences. Celebrate as you wish!
This will be the second full moon in October 2020, making it a so-called rare “Blue Moon”. Not only has there not been a full moon on All Hallow’s Eve since 2001, there won’t be another one until 2039. And for the first time tonight’s Blue Moon will be visible to most of the world in 75 years.
You will also see a red object near the moon tonight: that’s Mars. Also happening on Saturday night: Asteroid 2020 UX3 will be whizzing by Earth at a speed of 36,000 miles per hour. But don’t worry – experts who track this sort of stuff say it won’t hit us. But there’s another asteroid (2018VP1) making a close pass by Earth on Election Day.
Peggy S. Harris and 1st Lt. Billie D. Harris were married for just six weeks before Harris deployed in World War II. His wife never saw him again. His plane was shot down and crashed into the woods near a small town in Normandy. It took Peggy 60 years to find his grave.
For many of us, the coronavirus shutdowns mean being separated from loved ones, and most of us are longing for a return to the social activities we once enjoyed.
But our inconveniences and hardships pale by comparison to the ordeals faced by those whose relationships were torn apart by war. Since 1775, the U.S. has lost 1.36 million of its people to warfare. And while the vast majority were young men, most of them left behind family, a lover, a fiancé, or a wife and children.
Here are a few snippets of wartime correspondence bearing testimony of the sacrifices made.
At the age of 23, Frank M. Elliott left Georgetown University to join the U.S. Army in 1943. From England, he writes to his wife:
May 6, 1944
Dearest Darling,
All day I have been fighting the feeling which has been dominating me of late. I keep continually thinking of home and longing for home in the worst way. All your letters of how beautiful my daughter is becoming by the day. The realization that I am missing all these months and years of her formative growth is actually gnawing at my heart. ...
I love you, Frank
Pauline “Polly” Elliott, 24, answers from the couple’s home in New Castle, Pennsylvania. They had a little daughter, DeRonda “Dee”.
May 28, 1944
Darling—
Here it is Sunday again — Sunday night. I think this is the most lonely time of the whole week for me. I am so darn lonesome for you, Frank darling. Oh I’m not the only one and I know it — there are millions just like me, wishing with all the strength of their hearts and minds for the return of peace and loved ones. — Dee is sleeping on this Sunday night, and the radio is playing old and beautiful music — and I am thinking of the Sunday nights to come when you will be listening to such music with me. — Took Dad to a ball game today — Dee went along — maybe she’ll learn to like baseball as well as her Daddy does — I’ll bet that she will.
I adore you, Polly
A week later, she writes to him:
June 5, 1944
Darling,
. . This is a beautiful summer evening, darling. I am sitting at the kitchen table (and not even noticing the noise of the refrigerator) from which place by merely lifting my head and looking out the window I can gaze upon a truly silvery, full moon. It’s beautiful, dear — really beautiful, and it has succeeded in making me very sentimental. I had begun to think that I was becoming immune to the moon’s enchantment — so often I have looked at it without you and to keep myself from going mad told myself “It’s pretty, yes — but, so what?”. . . That’s not the way it really is though, darling — the sight of that shining moon up there — the moon that shines on you, too — fills me with romance — ; and even though it’s just a dream now, it’s a promise of a glorious future with one I love more than life. The darned old moon keeps shining for us, darling — and even as it now increases that inescapable loneliness, it also increases my confidence in the future. I truly love you . . .
Frank M. Elliott was killed the next day, June 6, 1944 (D-Day).
Here’s a letter written by a girl from Boston:
A letter from Barth, Germany, dated May 10, 1945:
Sweetheart,
At last I can write you and say just what I please. I don’t know whether this will reach you before I get home, but it’s worth taking the chance. You cannot realize the joy I have experienced at being liberated, and the prospects of being with you soon. The Germans pulled out of here on April 30th, and we took over. The Russians arrived on May 2. Since then we have been impatiently waiting to get out of here…
…It has been a long time and you have not been out of my thoughts for one minute. I’ll close now, sweetheart, hoping and praying that we will be together very soon for all time. I love you with all my heart.
Your loving husband,
Arnold
Lieutenant Arnold L. Gray and Hazel J. Gray were reunited and lived a happy life after the war.
Here’s an excerpt from a letter written by 23-year-old Lt. Richard G. Fowler, a U.S. Army Air Forces navigator from Minnesota, to his wife Cornelia.
May 25, 1944
My darling Cornie —
This is my first letter to you in almost five weeks! And I’m writing it not knowing when I’ll be able to mail it, since believe it or not, I’m behind enemy lines.
Fowler’s B-24 bomber had been shot down over the Balkans. 8 crewmen where killed, but Fowler and another man were able to bail out on parachutes.
When I was certain the chute was open, I looked up and saw the white silk billowing and swaying in the wind. It was very quiet and you have no sensation of falling until you near the ground—just floating in space. My face and right hand had been burned quite badly and hurt like the very devil. A thousand thoughts ran through my head as I was falling. It took about ten minutes before I hit the ground so I did have time to think. First of all I wondered what you would think not hearing from me for a long time—I was quite certain I would be captured by the Germans and taken to a prison camp in Germany.
Lt. Fowler survived the war and was eventually reunited with his wife. Many other families were not so lucky:
This Memorial Day, let’s also consider those whose hopes for love and happiness were crushed and destroyed when war took the love of their life, never to return, leaving behind a void never to be filled.
