News and Views for supporters and friends of
News and Views for supporters and friends
of
Christmas 2005
It’s Christmas time again already! Is it that the years are
accelerating or is it that I am slowing down?
The Holy Birth and every holy birth
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior
of the world, Emmanuel: God with us. God became man, without ceasing to be God.
It is really impossible for us to wrap our minds around the fact that Mary’s
womb was wrapped around the uncontainable God. We come to the manger with awe
and wonder like the shepherds and kings. We worship then we celebrate.
We
celebrate this birth by giving gifts to one another. Why? Jesus’ holy birth made
every birth holy. Without Him, we were all dead, in Him we are all alive. "For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians
15:22) God became flesh, thereby redeeming and sanctifying human flesh. He died
and rose again and sits in Heaven in the flesh, as a human being; and the first
born among many brethren. This gives hope and potential to each and every one of
us. We give gifts to one another at Christmas to acknowledge this. Every gift
given should be a reaffirmation to the recipient that they are loved by
God.
Christmas gifts are not performance bonuses. They are of grace and
sometimes mercy. In other words, Christmas gifts are not conditioned by whether
we were personally "naughty or nice". Christmas gifts affirm our original
‘niceness’ and our redeemed ‘niceness’ because of Christ.
Every birth is
holy. Every life is sacred. No one is to be written off or thrown away. Every
person that you ever have seen or will see was once a little baby in someone’s
arms, full of potential, full of hope, with that wonderful new baby smell. And I
mean everyone: from Gary Heidnik to Mother Raphaela; from Saddam Hussein to
Jimmy Carter; even that annoying person with 25 items in the express checkout
line.
Orthodoxy is nothing, if not incarnational. So let’s make this
personal. About fifty years ago, a young, black woman in South Carolina gave
birth to a baby boy. She named him Hulon. Fast forward thirty years. This boy is
a man living on the streets of Philadelphia. He has an alcohol problem. He is a
binge alcoholic. He earns the money he needs by helping with demolitions in
exchange for the metal salvaged. It’s dirty work that none of the union guys
want to do. When he can’t find those jobs, he sometimes has a shopping cart to
pick up aluminum cans to recycle. Hulon is a sweet man. He helps look after an
older man who lives on the street. Hulon tries to go to church regularly. He
sometimes spends Christmas with friends of mine that he met at his
church.
Sometimes Hulon goes into the rescue mission to have a warm, dry
place and to be sober for a while. He chafes under the rules and confinement
though.
Hulon has an amazing set of skills for surviving on the street. I
have known him for almost twenty years. He knows how to keep himself clean and
to be safe and avoid arrest. You are naturally prone to ask: If he has so many
skills, why is he living on the street? That is about the same thing as asking
me why, with all my skills, am I still living in the same old half-twin in an
unfriendly town after 28 years. Some things don’t go according to plan. Life
happens a day at a time. Most of the time it is easier to cope than to make a
radical change. But enough about me.
My point is that my life would be
poorer, if I had never met Hulon or Tom, Tony, Peaches, Alex, Shirley, Martin,
Tyrone, Christopher, Rosie, Charles, Donald, Jerome, Pete, and all the others.
Then there are those who have died: Oscar, Angie, Pops, Nanci and the
others.
Let’s celebrate The Holy Birth this year by honoring every holy
birth. Let us give gifts to our family and friends and to those less fortunate.
Let us show love and respect to all people, our enemies and even that annoying
person with too many items in the express line.
Cookies, Socks & Underwear
I’m putting out the call for cookies, socks and underwear to give
away on the street for Christmas. When I say cookies, I mean homemade cookies.
We would like to serve them on December 29th. You know you want to make more
batches than you really want to eat. So put together an assortment for the guys
on the street. A taste of home goes a long way to share the love of
God.
Men’s white tube socks are best and various sizes men’s underwear:
briefs, boxers and T-shirts. You may drop them by our house or call and we can
arrange an appropriate way to get them. While I was writing this, I received an
e-mail telling me that the ladies of St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox
Church will be bringing socks & underwear & coats to give away on the
22nd. Do God’s people respond quickly, or what?
Now We’re Cooking with Gas!
Since we roast a turkey almost every week, then turn it into 20 to 30
quarts of soup that simmers for several hours on our stove, it puts a good bit
of extra wear and tear on the stove. We discovered our oven wasn’t working with
the whole family over for our daughter Rosalie’s birthday party and a large raw
salmon. The stove was a little more than ten years old, and I have been
repairing it about once every two years. I had just replaced the broiler lighter
about six months ago. This didn’t seem like the usual lighter problem. We cut up
the salmon and fried it in the electric skillet.
We needed a new oven before
Thursday, so I could roast a turkey and make soup. Bethann and I went to the
local appliance store and in five minutes decided on a new gas range. It has an
extra large oven and five burners on top. The fifth burner is oblong in the
middle. It is perfect for simmering the soup for hours. I had to do some
refitting of the gas piping, so it took me seven hours to install the new stove,
but it was worth it. I installed it on Wednesday, December 7th, the next day I
roasted a turkey, made 25 quarts of soup and five gallons of hot
mocha.
Sometimes technology is our friend.
Author! Author!
I’m going to be published in April 2006. Heather Zydek is a feature writer and editor with Relevant magazine. She received a copy of TKJ Schematic with her icon order a couple of years ago. She interviewed me for an article in The Handmaiden, at that time. Last Summer she asked me to write a chapter for a book that she is editing on how Christians can respond to various social ills. She asked me to write the chapter on homelessness. It will be one of ten to twelve topics covered in The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World. Jim Wallis is writing the forward. I am jazzed! For my name to appear in the same volume as Jim Wallis’ is just way beyond my expectations. You can order it now for delivery when it is released by going to Amazon.com, then searching for "Heather Zydek". I will offer it for sale at www.comeandseeicons.com as well. I will autograph your copy if you say "Please."
What We Do
The King’s Jubilee
serves soup, sandwiches, pasta with meat sauce, hot chocolate, fruit and goodies
(if we have them) to between 50 and 150 men and a few women in Center City
Philadelphia every Thursday night. This is in a park, year-round. We also share
toiletries, blankets and season appropriate clothing with them.
We serve in
the open air, because some of those we serve are paranoid and will not readily
enter a place with which they are unfamiliar. Also, some of them are not
homeless, but are on very low, fixed incomes. They won’t go to a soup kitchen to
take from a program just for the homeless, but they feel free to eat with us to
stretch their food budget, so they can stay off the street.
We also try to
gather resources for other ministries that serve the poor in Jesus’ Name. If we
can’t do it in Jesus’ Name, we don’t have the time or the desire to do
it.
Christ is Born!
Glorify him!
No, We Can’t Ship in Time for Christmas.
"Come and See" Icons, Books & Art was started with the hope that it would provide a steady income with flexible hours to facilitate my involvement in service with The King’s Jubilee. After almost five years, the website has over 1,000 different icons on it. We have signed royalty agreements with more than a dozen iconographers of a variety of styles. The collection is growing all the time. We have shipped to all 50 states, every province in Canada and to over thirty other countries on all six inhabited continents. This month we shipped to Singapore for the first time. We average about 7,000 hits per day on the website. Please come and browse our collection at www.comeandseeicons.com
The Christmas Appeal
We can only do what we do, because there are many
others who share the resources God has given them with us. Donations are gladly
and gratefully received. In addition to checks and cash, personal size shampoos,
soaps & lotions are always welcome, as well as men’s clothing in
season.
One aspect of our ministry is to help other front lines ministries
who are serving the poor in Jesus’ Name. This Christmas, we would like to be
able to assist The Word in Action International Ministries in their ministry to
the poor in North Philadelphia, especially to those families transitioning off
of the street. They operate a food bank and clothing closet, as well as
tutoring, Bible studies and homeless outreach. No one who comes to Rev. Joses
& Chantal St. Phard goes away hungry. They are running short of cash. We’d
like to help.
Checks can be mailed to:
The King's Jubilee
216 W. Fourth St. 27 N. Front St.
East Greenville, PA 18041-1629 Souderton, PA 18964-1148
Our phone is: 215-679-7563 267-497-0267
email: TKJ@shoutforjoy.net
Thank you. May the Lord bless you as you bless the poor in
Jesus' Name. Have a Blessed Nativity season.
Peace,
Cranford Joseph Coulter
© 2005 The King's Jubilee
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