Carrying the Light of Jesus Christ in a Darkened World

A blog post comment by Mary Katherine May
Rick and Mary May own the webstore QualityMusicandBooks.com. 
December 28, 2017

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

     Praising Jesus in a darkened world is the same as lighting a candle while singing Silent Night in church with the lights out on Christmas Eve. 

Christ is the light of the world and we Christians carry his light, too. He lives!

Christ is born!     Glorify Him!

Lord Have Mercy It Is More Than Being Forgiven

A blog post comment by Mary Katherine May
Rick and Mary May own the webstore QualityMusicandBooks.com. 
December 23, 2017

Mercy is more than being forgiven. 

Mercy is also compassion that sees the brokenness in the human race with sorrow so great that Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior and Lord, was willing to take on himself human form to heal the breaks and then forget they were ever there.

Another NRA National Recovery Administration

NRA:
National Recovery Administration
Source: Wikipedia.org

WHAT!?
Why is this National Rifle Association NRA logo on antique, vintage and old sheet music? 

National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was part of the New Deal program during the Great Depression. 

The purpose was to encourage businesses to work together, promote stability and employment. 

Participating businesses were encouraged to use the Blue Eagle emblem on their products. 

There is a lot of good information to be learned about this NRA free on the internet. If you would like to know more I encourage you to use your favorite search engine.

Blog Post by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com

St Peter and St Paul Russian Orthodox Church Bramble Minnesota Exploring Northern Minnesota Borderland

St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church

St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church

Bramble, Minnesota

National Register of Historic Places Site

Blog Post by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.

This past weekend we went to the Blueberry Festival in Ely with family that was visiting our new home in Littlefork, Minnesota. On the way back I suggested stopping at St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church built in what had been a township called Bramble on Minnesota State Hwy. 65 in Koochiching County.

Minnesota 65 in the northern borderland is a long, sparsely populated road. Using Google Maps for directions by entering 47°54′23″N 93°10′00″W worked for us. Just don't be surprised when Google says you are on Industrial Avenue because you will wonder if your'e in the right place. 

Minnesota State Hwy. 65, Koochiching County

If traveling from the town of Littlefork it will take about an hour to drive going the speed limit including slowing down for all of the tight curves, and about 90 minutes to 2 hours if driving sight-seeing speed. 

Hey! You can hook up with Minnesota 65 in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota and drive all the way to Littlefork, Minnesota, 272 miles!

Photograph by Mary Katherine May

Interested in Seeing This Landmark?

Watch for the gold onion dome typically found atop Eastern Orthodox Churches.  If it's a sunny day the dome will shine brightly ahead of you. 

Another feature to notice is that the back of the church where the altar is located correctly faces east as customary for Orthodox Christians as priest and congregants celebrated Divine Liturgy.

The church is locked and can be seen from the outside only without making prior arrangement and depending upon availability of those who hold keys.

St. Peter & St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church
Preservation Project

What is so amazing, maybe even miraculous, is how the church was literally discovered in a state of disrepair by Rev. Paul Berg of the Episcopal denomination as he drove along MN-65 on his way to go canoeing. 

He was the instigator of a multi-denomination restoration effort, and now Sts. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Paul Berg is buried in the church's cemetery.

I feel a relationship to this sacred spot, the church and the families who worked to create a house of God for the purpose of worship, to fellowship together, baptize, marry, and bury their loved ones.  

Not that much farther north in a place named Plankey Plains in Manitoba, my family did the same.

Directions provided for families
searched for their ancestral heritage.

Where is the cemetery?

There has to be a cemetery in which to bury the parishoners.  One of the explorers in our group found the information on the Find a Grave website and a second trip quickly followed the first. 

The cemetery is kept up by the families of the church, I am sure. Newer grave markers have replaced many of the wooden crosses that are decaying or now gone. 

Colorful flowers are present and along with graves of those long in Heaven for eternity are found descendants of the original pioneers of Koochiching County.

Directions were vague but we found it and now can amplify for clarity. The cemetery is a little over a quarter of a mile north of the church on U.T. Road 385. The two letters mean Unorganized Township, a State of Minnesota road designation. Coordinates: 47°54'50.0"N 93°09'48.9"W

Surnames include Dominik, Woitel, Soroka, Sorokie, Billy, Danyluk, Lucachick, Kuryla, Baron, Poster, Diachok, Nelson and Grula.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian manner before leaving the cemetery I prayed the Lord's Prayer in the Ukrainian and English languages. Vichna pamyat. Memory eternal.

Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery
Koochiching County, Minnesota

More Information & Links
LINK to Wikipedia article
LINK to article on Ghosts of Minnesota: Abandoned Places and Roadside Attractions
LINK to OrthodoxWiki article
A 16mm film, The Bramble Experience, was produced by Al Milgrom of the University of Minnesota Film Society. Current whereabouts of the film and availability for viewing are unknown.

List of 10 Christian Quotes Tweeted on Twitter by Mary Katherine May

Mary Katherine May
Twitter: @MaryKatherineM8

10 Christian Quotes 
by Mary Katherine May

Tweeted on Twitter April 29 - May 4, 2017

1 If all that offends someone is eliminated life will cease to exist. Silencing differences is not respect.

2 No doubt Christians suffer even to death what God promises is to preserve without blemish the souls of those who love Him. Glory to God!

3 If you are believer in Jesus Christ you will pray for enemies of the Savior & grieve they are lost.

4 Testimony of Conscience (Psalm 35) When you pray for someone & it is rejected or response is evil God sees you did right. Matthew 5

5 Do you not yet understand real happiness can't be manufactured but springs up & bubbles over when Christ is the center of your life? Peace.

6 Thrill in revenge hateful words is an evil tense addiction emotional drug that always must be fed. Choose peace & prayer Live God's love

7 Wherever Brothers & Sisters in Christ find community it's a good place to be joined by love for Savior thru Holy Spirit even on Twitter

8 Being mean isn't related to Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative it is all about evil & sin. Spread peace not hate Get God. Get Love.

9 “I am the door,” Jesus said. It's not the house, it's the Life inside!

10 I can't say I'm a Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. What I can say is that I am a Christian who loves Jesus with all I've got.

Rick and Mary May operate Quality Music and Books, a Christian-based webstore.

It's not how worn or old the house, It's the Life inside!
Please download and share.

On SALE Now! Tiny Bear's Bible for Young Boys and Girls only 7.50 at Quality Music and Books!

LINK to Tiny Bear's Bible (Blue)

LINK to Tiny Bear's Bible (Pink)

Link to QualityMusicandBooks.com

My Minnesota Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park St Paul Minnesota Photo Image by Mary Katherine May

Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park

St. Paul, Minnesota

Photo by Mary Katherine May taken May 13, 2012

My Minnesota Photos Mille Lacs and Way Up North!

Exploring Northern Minnesota
February 21-22, 2017
Photos by Mary Katherine May

Rick and Mary Katherine May operate the webstore Quality Music and Books and the GrandmaHen Shop on Etsy.

Enjoy!

1. Minnesotans say Mille Lacs Lake even though we are actually saying Thousand Lakes Lake.  In this photo dot-size ice houses appear to sit where frozen water and horizon meet in nearly seamless fashion.

2. Traveling through parts of the northernmost reaches of Minnesota means quiet, peaceful spaces along highways cut from layers of rocks of the ages.

10 Comments from The World of Music Etude Magazine 1928

The Etude Magazine, August 1928 Issue

Blog Post by Mary Katherine May
Source Material: The Etude Magazine, August 1928

A great look through a window into history can be found in old magazines, periodicals and journal publications. The Etude, a music magazine is no exception.

The following are seven comments from the section called The World of Music: Interesting and Important Items Gleaned in a Constant Watch on Happenings and Activities Pertaining to Things Musical Everywhere, August 1928 edition.

This copy, by the way, has a fabulous signed illustration of Franz Schubert by Charles O. Golden.

1. Charles Wakefield Cadman, our notable American composer-pianist, is taking to himself the honor of a pioneer in the Alaskan concert field, being the first musician of note to undertake a tour of that territory. Assisted by Margaret Messer Morris, soprano, he began this month a series of concerts in Juneau and neighboring cities.

2. Henry F. Gilbert, one of the most original American composers, died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May 19th. Born September 26, 1868, of musical parents, his advanced education was pursued at the New England Conservatory and under MacDowell, and by residence and self-study in Paris. His Comedy Overture on Negro Themes, written in 1906, has been on the programs of leading orchestras of America and Russia.

His Negro Rhapsody had its premiere, under the composer's baton, at the Norfolk Festival, June 5, 1913; and the Symphonic Prelude Riders to the Sea was first heard at the MacDowell Festival, Peterborough, New Hampshire, August 20, 1914, the composer again leading. He won widest attention by the Symphonic-Ballet Dance in the Place Congo, which had its premier as a ballet, at the Metropolitan Opera House of New York on March 23, 1918.

3. Charles Adams White, eminent vocal teacher of Boston, died there suddenly on April twenty-seventh. He trained the first boys' choir in the famous Trinity Church, was the author of several exhaustive treatises on the voice and tone productions, and was for twenty-seven years a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory.

4. The Chicago Woman's Symphony Orchestra, of which Elena Moneak is founder and conductor, furnished afternoon and evening programs at the Woman's World Fair in the Chicago Coliseum from May nineteenth to twenty-seventh. Works by women composers were especially featured.

5. Handel's Messiah had a rare performance by Negro talent when it was given at the Auditorium of Chicago, on May 11th, by the Greater Bethel Choristers, with James A. Mundy as conductor. The soloists were Mrs. Odell Stone, soprano; Mrs. Inez McAlister Edmonson, contralto; Rev. George I. Holt, tenor; and Lewis W. White, basso; with the Little Symphony Orchestra as instrumental support.

6. Voodoo, the first grand opera on a Negro plot, by a Negro librettist and composer, H. Lawrence Freeman, recently had its first hearing over the radio from New York.

7. Paderewski's fiftieth anniversary of musical activities is to be celebrated in Poland by a series of concerts devoted to the master's works. After having finished his studies at the Conservatory of Warsaw, it was in 1878 that he took over the direction of the class in piano playing there and started on a career filled with greater and more varied honors than probably have fallen to any other musician in all history.

7 AM Sunrise in Crystal Minnesota February 14 2017 Valentine's Day

7 A.M. Sunrise in Crystal, Minnesota

14 February 2017

Sunrise with Jesus for eternity, Sunrise in glory is waiting for me!

Photograph by Mary Katherine May of Quality Music and Books.com

The Undoing of Babel by Mary Katherine May Opinion Bible Commentary

The Undoing of Babel

The Undoing of Babel by Mary Katherine may

A commentary by Mary Katherine May, a student of the Holy Bible. LINK to digital image, PDF file and Word Document on Archive.org where Mary Katherine May has the user name BabaMary.

What does the Tower of Babel have to do with Pentecost????

It is such a great a blessing to be in the Word of God and see how God's plan for His children has been in place throughout history!  In the Old Testament book of Genesis, beginning with chapter 9, we read of Noah and his family and their descendants.

One of Noah's descendants through his son Ham was Nimrod the mighty warrior.  Nimrod founded many cities, including Babel...

Genesis 9, 10 and 11; Acts 1 and 2

It was after the flood that it happened. Noah, a good and righteous man, had obeyed God and built the Ark, loaded in the pairs of animals, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and then closed the doors and waited for rain. God had told him it was coming.

On that day it began like most rains—a few drops here, a few more drops there, and then…the rain came down as though they were right beneath a waterfall. No one inside the Ark heard much of anything outside the confines of their tightly-filled space for the noise of the downpour. It covered most of what went outside of the Ark fairly well.

Soon the boat began to rock from side to side. Noah braced himself, but one jolt caught his wife by surprise and she fell. The animals shifted, bleated and growled and pawed at the floor. There was nothing much anyone could do about it, so Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, decided that it was time to rest before the animals’ beckoned them to once more to care for their needs.

After it was all over--when all could finally disembark, when dry land returned--how good everyone felt with that first breath of fresh, clean air—and the rainbow! It was exquisite! The animals leaped and ran and hopped, all under the multi-colored arch of beauty in the sky.

God said it was time to go and live a good life now. They were to have children, descendants that would populate all of the earth. Noah planted a vineyard, and after a time he reaped the fruit of his work, although on occasion a bit too much fruit was his fill. 

Drunk with wine, Noah staggered into his tent. Falling and tripping over his robes, they fell to the ground just moments before he did. In a drunken stupor he lay, naked and oblivious to his surroundings.

Shem and Japheth were not aware of their father’s plight, of the result of his sin of over indulgence. They were busy about their daily business. Ham, however, was not like his brothers. God had blessed Noah’s boys, but all was not well with Ham. He was perverse and his desires were not right.

Going to his father’s tent, Ham should have called out before entering, asking permission from Noah to see him—but that is not what he did. Ham had found traces of what his father had been about outside of the tent, and thus suspecting Noah’s condition he pulled back the coverings and entered.

We don’t know exactly what happened next, but it is suspected that Ham’s perverse mind was vividly, imaginatively busy in a shameful way. And because the sickness of his thoughts had so overcome him, Ham had the notion that his brothers’ thoughts were of the same kind as his.

Joking, with exaggerated speech and a gleam of delight in his eyes, Ham told his brothers of what he had witnessed. Only Shem and Japheth didn’t laugh or smile. They went to their father, and walking backward with coverings over their shoulders, cloaked his naked body, and then quietly and respectfully left Noah alone.

Noah found out what had happened and brought a curse upon Ham and his offspring. Ham had hidden his ways from his family before this, but no longer was it to be so—and God had always known, as God always knows.

Noah cursed Canaan, Ham’s son. Ham’s descendants were many and they scattered far and wide, including to Sodom and Gomorah and Babel—one of the cities that Nimrod the mighty warrior and a descendent of Ham founded.

Babel was a great city, far advanced in many skills and abilities. They were a proud people who delighted in themselves. It was decided that a tower should be built—a ziggurat¬¬--a mountain of stone--that would reach up to the heavens. But God saw that they were wicked people, having returned to the ways of those that had caused our Lord to send the flood, and so the Lord confounded their tongues with new languages that made it impossible for them to understand what each other was saying.

 The people scattered, populating the earth far and wide. People who were before neighbors, friends and families were now strangers who no longer could communicate, and soon they couldn’t recognize each other. And this is how it was.

 Yet, God remembered the people of the earth, and soon would come Abraham and Sarah, and later Moses and David. A very long time went by, and the story that follows is often far from pretty—until one night when the sky was clear and the stars were gently lighting the land below, a child was born. He was Son of God and Son of Man, and he was righteous, sinless, and obedient—even unto death. His name was Jesus.

 But there is more. He came out of the grave and went to be with His Father in Heaven. Fifty days later the Holy Spirit baptized the apostles of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, with mighty power and a fire that burned with love for God so great that they could not do enough to spread His message of forgiveness and salvation.

  

The apostles immediately began to speak in the languages of the world, languages that were previously unknown to them. No longer would fear grip their hearts. They spoke with authority the words given to them by their Heavenly Father.

  

It was the beginning of the Christian church, bringing all believers together and uniting them in the Name of Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Now, when believers scattered it wasn’t for lack of understanding. Rather, they would bring the message of salvation, and the Body of Christ would continue to grow, vibrant and alive.

At Mount Sinai God gave the law on stone tablets. On Pentecost God gave himself in the form of the Holy Spirit. Let us rejoice for this gracious gift that is freely given. Amen.

Rick and Mary May live in Minneapolis, Minnesota where they operated the webstore QualityMusicandBooks.com.  Rick is retired from a major corporation. Mary was a independent piano teacher and church musician. They have been married for 43 years and enjoy spending time with family and friends, exploring the natural world and trying new recipes.

10 Meaningful Quotes by Anna Bartlett Warner Author of Jesus Loves Me This I Know

The Melody of the
Twenty-Third Psalm
and Wayfaring Hymns
by Anna Warner.

10 Quotes by Anna Bartlett Warner taken from her book The Melody of the Twenty-Third Psalm and Wayfaring Hymns published in 1869. Some language updated for ease in reading.

In the inspirational book on Psalm 23 the reader will find inspirational commentary from the author and many related Bibles passages applied to each verse. Anna Bartlett Warner (1827-1915) is the author of the hymn, Jesus Loves Me, one of the best known Christian songs of all time. She lived her entire life in the state of New York.

Lost in wonder...

1 Surely whoever gets to heaven will be lost in wonder, almost as much as in love and praise. (p. 16.)

Open your mouth wide and I will fill it...

2 I do not know why we are so slow to take God at his word. It seems easy enough to expect blessings at the hand of earthly friends; the difficulty is to keep ourselves from expecting too much; but when the fullness of grace is actually offered to us, we content ourselves with taking a little. "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it," comes with strange rebuke to our half-closed lips and doubtful hearts. (pp. 33-34)

Gates of War Shut Forever

3 For he is our peace; and when, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through him, then it is our own fault if all the gates of war are not shut forever. (p. 38)

Blessing and Peace in the Middle of Trouble 

4 All through the Bible the promise is not of freedom from trouble, but of blessing and peace in the midst of it. (p. 47)

Anna Bartlett Warner
original image source: Wikipedia.org

The River of Peace

5 He that spreads out roots by the river of peace does not even see when heat comes! (p. 48.)

He leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul...

6 They who quench their thirst at earth’s sources are forever restless and craving, but those who come to Christ for rest have the spring of eternal peace to draw from. (p. 50.)

How were you brought back to God? 

7 Ask a Christian of any age or station or country, How were you brought back to God? and they will all answer, “I said, Lord, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against you.” (p. 60.)

8 Psalm 23:8 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Three times in three ways the Christian may pass through that valley: finding it dark and foul with assaults of sin, or black with overwhelming presence of sorrow, or dim and terrible with the long shadow of death itself. Yet need he not fear. (p. 82.)

Rod vs. Staff

9 These two words sound much alike in our English version, or at least one carelessly classes them together; but there is a wide difference. The staff was the symbol of leading, of guidance, of support. But the rod was the old token of power, of control. "The rod of mine anger;" "Stretch out thy rod," said the Lord to Moses. The true child of God has peace always, by all means. Others may like the Lord's help in their difficulties; others, sometimes, may wish for his guidance; but comfort from the absolute power, and joy and rest from his boundless control, none others know. (p. 95)

10 Psalm 23:5 You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. And herein lies the secret of the many empty cups: they are carried to the wrong fountain. P. 119.

The above quotes are in the Public Domain.

Blog post by Mary Katherine May

Rick and Mary May operate the webstore Quality Music and Books and the GrandmaHen shop on Etsy.com.