The 'O' Antiphons - O Emmanuel

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Emmanuel (God-with-us)

Not as a king you come here now;
No gold your throne adorns:
No royal crown is on your brow,
Except a crown of thorns.

You come a holy law to teach,
A perfect rule to set,
Give blind their sight and dumb their speech,
And be rejected yet.

Oh, make us one with you below,
In heart and will and love;
And when our time draws nigh to go,
Still keep us one above.

We wait in faith, we wait in prayer,
Until the happy morn
When you shall come our Flesh to share,
And for our sake be born.

The 'O' Antiphons - O Rex Gentium

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Rex Gentium (King of Nations)

O Christ, on whom the nations wait,
And kingdoms far away,
The Gentiles will own you as great
And all your words obey.

Far from the West bid hatred flee,
And unbelief and pride;
How long shall those who do not see
Your seamless coat divide?

Do not forget the faithful East
Where once your Truth was spread,
Where all your saints your Name confessed,
And holy martyrs bled.

To God, the mighty and the just,
All praise and glory be:
To him in whom all lands shall trust,
Our God, the One in Three.

The 'O' Antiphons - O Oriens

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Oriens (Dayspring)

O very God of very God,
And very Light of Light,
Whose feet this earth's dark valley trod,
That so it might be bright:

Our hopes are weak, our fears are strong,
Thick darkness blinds our eyes;
Cold is the night, and, oh, we long
That you, our Sun, would rise!

And even now, though dull and grey,
The east is brightening fast,
And kindling to the perfect day
That never shall be past.

Oh, guide us till our path is done,
And we have reached the shore
Where you, our Everlasting Sun,
Are shining evermore!

The 'O' Antiphons - O Clavis David

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Clavis David (Key of David)

O key of David, hailed by those
In fetters long confined;
For where you open, none may close,
Nor where you loosen, bind;

Without one ray of light around
To comfort and to cheer,
Poor pris'ners we in fetters bound,
Await your drawing near.

You, only you, can loose the chain,
You only end our woe,
You only give us light again,
And let the captives go.

The 'O' Antiphons - O Radix Jesse

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)

O Root of Jesse, upon whom
The Spirit comes to rest;
Whose boughs through all the world shall bloom
To bless and to be blest:

True Vine, in whom we must abide
To bring forth plenteous fruit;
Whose branches when by tempests tried,
Are firm in you, their Root.

You are a shadow from the heat
That burns the thirsty ground:
A hiding-place when tempests beat
Upon the plain around.

O Root of Jesse, day by day
To you our prayers we send:
Come now, and through the world, we pray,
Your healing leaves extend.

The 'O' Antiphons - O Adonai

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Adonai (Lord)

O God, who once came down of old
To bring salvation nigh,
When all the people of your flock
Sent up a bitter cry.

Your servant turned aside with awe,
And that great wonder learned:
A bush that flamed with fire he saw,
That yet was never burned.

To God, for ever to be feared,
All praise and glory be,
To him that in the bush appeared,
Our God the One in Three

The 'O' Antiphons - O Sapienta

(The "O" Antiphons, so called because each one addresses the God who comes in Christ with a different biblical title, beginning with the invocation "O," are prayed in the 7 days leading up to Christmas.)

O Sapienta (Wisdom)

O heavenly Wisdom, hear our cry,
Great everlasting Son;
Who with the Father, God most high,
Are now and ever one.

Ere you had formed the realms afar
Or all the world we see,
Before the heav'ns were made, you are
And when they fail shall be.

You made the waters like a robe
To gird the solid land;
The wandering stars, the firm fixed globe,
Were formed by your right hand.

Come, heav'nly Wisdom from on high,
And give us what we need;
Unloose our ear, unseal our eye,
And make us yours indeed.

Advent

It's the third Sunday of Advent, and I thought it might be nice to post some prayers and meditation for the Advent season.

We are an Advent people.We live not satisfied but plagues with thirst for the coming of the Lord. Our tragedy is that we often do not recognize the source of our restlessness but seek to satisfy it with all sorts of things that anesthetize our longings but do not fulfill them. One of the gifts of Advent is to stir in us the recognition that what we truly yearn for is not some passing palliative but the One who has come and will come again, day by day and at the end of time, to those who seek him.

Litany of Longing

Response: Come, Lord Jesus!

In the dryness of prayer, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the dissatisfaction of useless entertainments, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the desert created in us by overwork, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our thirst to love and be loved, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our yearning for priorities that matter, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our desire for a just world, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the darkness of our accumulated sins, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the hopelessness of our addictions, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the emptiness of habits of mind that nourish no one, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our restlessness for something beyond our present good, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our search for an anchor in this life, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our pursuit of beauty and goodness, we long for you, O Lord! R.

A great article at InternetMonk about Advent.

JesusCreed also has a series going, looking at different Christmas Words. I liked this one particularly.

A Guide to Weather Terms for Kansans

Snowfall
less than 2" is a dusting or minor accumulation. If it doesn't cover the grass, you can't call it major accumulation.

2-6" snow is a noticeable accumulation. This isn't a "significant winter weather event."

6-12" is significant accumulation. You don't need to cancel everything. Really. Everyone leave 5 minutes earlier and don't drive like the raving maniacs that so many of you are.

>12" can legitimately be called a major winter weather event, particularly if coupled with wind and drifts.

Snowplows
A snowplow is a unique piece of road machinery that efficiently clears snow from the roadways. It is good to USE this piece of machinery to clear the roads of any amount of snow above 2", preferably before everyone goes out driving around.

A truck with a snowplow attachment is NOT a snowplow. Even a dump truck with a snowplow attachment does not a snowplow make. Sorry.

Temperature
32-40 degrees is chilly. It does not yet qualify for characterization as cold. If you like, you could also call it crisp.

15-32 degrees is cold. Although you are really better off avoiding the term cold until the temp is a couple degrees under 30. No, you can't call 20 degrees bitter cold, frigid, or very cold. No. Don't argue. You just can't do it.

0-15 degrees is very cold. A wind chill that drops the "real feel" temperature into this range can also be called very cold. Again, this range doesn't merit the use of frigid or bitter cold. Suck it up and buy a real winter coat. You wouldn't be so cold if you dressed properly.

-15-0 degrees can be called very very cold or downright cold. It's really not quite cold enough to use any of those more dramatic temperature descriptions.

<-15 degrees. You have finally reached the range where you theoretically use the terms frigid or bitter cold. Just a note of warning though...you probably want to wait until it's below -20 to really use those terms. We understand you will never be quite as tough as people from farther north.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I don't know how I ever survived without knowing this classic Christmas song...

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
Don't want a doll, no dinky Tinker Toy
I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
I don't think Santa Claus will mind, do you?
He won't have to use our dirty chimney flue
Just bring him through the front door,
that's the easy thing to do

I can see me now on Christmas morning,
creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise
when I open up my eyes
to see a hippo hero standing there

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles, no rhinoceroses
I only like hippopotamuses
And hippopotamuses like me too

Mom says the hippo would eat me up, but then
Teacher says a hippo is a vegeterian

There's lots of room for him in our two-car garage
I'd feed him there and wash him there and give him his massage

I can see me now on Christmas morning,
creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise
when I open up my eyes
to see a hippo hero standing there

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles or rhinoceroseses
I only like hippopotamuseses
And hippopotamuses like me too!

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is a Christmas novelty song written by John Coctoasten and performed by Gayla Peevey in 1953. It is a Dr. Demento Christmas staple, and is currently available on Dr. Demento's The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time Vol. 6: Christmas.

Here's an interesting fact about the popular Christmas hippopotamus song - in 1953 a ten-year-old girl from Oklahoma, Gayla Peevey sang the song as a way to raise money for the Oklahoma City Zoo's first hippopotamus. It became a nationwide hit after that, although John Rox wrote the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" in 1950! The song was not written specifically for the Oklahoma zoo, its just that when they needed the hippo the song came out so the Christmas hippopotamus song just fitted in.

Ice and Snow

I would gladly give away the ice and sleet for a nice foot of snow. Ugh. I fail to understand how it can be 27 degrees and raining/sleeting rather than snowing. I'm told that it has to do with the temperature of the atmosphere, but it still seems rather ridiculous.

Anyway, I was in the office all week this week. Monday we decided that I needed to put out a newsletter as a vehicle for advertising the vegetable conference next month, so I spent most of Monday and part of Tuesday writing articles for that. It turned out really well though. Hopefully it is well received and gets a good response. I also got to meet the Extension vegetable specialist on Thursday at Master Gardener training and we talked for a little while about some ideas for programming and outreach here. I also got signed up to teach a gardening class next spring, so I started putting together the presentation for that class too.

Next week I'll be in Manhattan for 3 days: 2 days of Hort agent training, and 1 day of meeting with another mentor.

I'm trying to write some Christmas cards, but I have found that I'm severely lacking in addresses for people. So if you think you might like a Christmas card from me, you'd better email me your snail mail address.

Blog of the Week

It's been quite awhile since we've had a blog of the week, but today I'm highlighting 3 blogs.

1. The Epi-Log is the blog part of the Epicurious website.

2. I read Internet Monk frequently and there are always thought-provoking posts and articles there.

3. If you've never read WaiterRant, there are a couple great posts up right now about life from the waiter's perspective.

Long Time, No Blog

Since last blogging occurred, I went to Iowa for Thanksgiving with Steven and his family, then I was at KSU for the first round of "real" training. It wasn't too bad, actually. I was a little worried, because sometimes things like that aren't as useful as people running them would like to think. Then I was back in the office on Thursday and Friday, where I helped with Master Gardener training Thursday, and did odds and ends on Friday.

It is a trifle frustrating when I meet Master Gardeners, and they say, "I don't know why you like vegetables. There are so many beautiful things to plant in my yard, I just can't grow any vegetables." ARGH. Not that I'm opposed to a nice ornamental plant. I'm sure that once I have space and time, I'll find all kinds of bizarre and interesting irises and dahlias and such to plant. Ah well, I'm sure I'll have half a dozen who really like fruit and vegetable gardening eventually.

Next week I'll be in the office all week, probably working on presentations most of the time. December is kind of a slow month, so I'm not going to be running around like crazy...too much. It should give me time to continue getting settled.

I did drive around a bit yesterday, in an ill-fated attempted to do some Christmas shopping. I just seem to have no really good ideas for anyone this year. I'll probably do better with my online shopping. I was semi-productive last week, in that I wrote half a dozen Christmas cards. Now they still need addresses and stamps, so don't hold your breath waiting for a card from me.

Web Safari

Well, I have this collection of links from the past couple weeks. Hopefully most of the links are still good.

1. This books sounds interesting: Out of Print. What happens when all but a few passages of the Bible disappear?

2. Apparently there's also music hidden in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper. "

3. Things that the Class of 2011 have never known or experienced. I may have been young, but I do vaguely remember the Berlin Wall.

4. McDonald's is joining the specialty coffee market.

5. An interesting article about atheists, by an atheist.

6. And in case you haven't heard, there was a stem-cell breakthrough.

7. I don't often play computer games, but for some reason I like this one: Plant Tycoon.