Hallelujah, it's a Christmas melange, with SILENT Monks

RantWoman is falling behind and variously out of sequence about Hanukkah and peculiar gratitudes.

First Day Worship: almost entirely silent with one lovely message about a family name that means frankincense in German and connections to new beginnings.

RantWoman spent a bit of worship seasoning one of her standard Russian novel messages. A theme of RantFamily Christmas celebrations has been God being present for everyone, from performance of a piece called Misa Criolla and discussion of the vernacular mass (the Rant Family is protestants but still) to the different walks of life represented by the traditional nativity story and manger scene.

This time, RantWoman was seasoning a message about Fidel Castro's passing, about someone RantWoman knows who talked both about how some of his family suffered during and after the revolution and about the role Cuban education and medical support and leadership of the non-aligned movement gave voice to many strivings for the Other Than Superpower segments of the developing world. RantWoman also finds reason to hope in the sequence of countries lining up in the UN Security Council sending a message to Israel that no matter what the #PEOTUS is crashing about trying to promise, Israel will NOT have carte blanche...

Maybe if RantWoman were a trained sermon writer... words would have lined up and made it out of RantWoman's mouth, but not so much this time.

and we will not even try to go near the question "What is the problem billionaires have thinking about everyone having health care?" also tied up with Castro and Christmas and ...

In other news, RantWoman managed not to bring a brass ensemble to Meeting for Worship on First Day and will hold off on convening the God Talks to RantWOman Through Pipe Organs So We Must Buy One Committee at her Meeting as long as the rant Family can make it to the holiday spectacle ( pun / false Russian cognate intended) at Little Sister's Presbyterian church.

Gratitudes:

RantWoman and RantMom discovered burgers and chocolate milk and a shared order of French fries at a newly remodeled neighborhood fast food outlet make fine Christmas Eve fare. Look there is something fried here. Happy Hanukkah with candlelight at church to boot.

Little Sister has a New Wheelchair which she claims is very uncomfortable despite some other awesome features. Everyone RantWoman knows on planet Obamacare who has needed wheelchair repairs or new wheelchairs has had to endure repeated cycles of worse service and worse paperwork screwup and delay than ever.  Little Sister was already 2 years overdue and her chair was literally falling apart when the new one got ordered. It has tons of spiffy features. The one that MOST THRILLS RantWoman is LIGHTS, front and back, white yellow in front and red in back with a flashing hazard option.RantWoman THINKS she will be able to resist both lecturing Little Sister about driving around the mean STREETS with NO VISIBILITY FEATURES WHATSOEVER and plastering the new chair with reflectivity features.

Irrepressible Nephew no longer needs Auntie's shoulders to help him reach the ceiling. This year he just reached up and flattened his hands back against the ceiling at RantMom's house.

The RantFamily has medical vulnerabilities and difficulties around the edges but it's REALLY nice when things are managed well enough that no one goes to the ER.

We even had a holiday phone call from RantBrother piquantly appreciated the results of the November vote at least as far as access to good weed. Okay, so NOT RantMOm's favorite topic, but how about we dedicate the following silliness to RantBrother just on principle: