Remembrances for January - 2023

 

Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

Jan. 1^st

Francois Valcour Aimé, one of Louisiana’s noblest sons.

https://64parishes.org/entry/valcour-aime

https://web.archive.org/web/20210126212259/https://64parishes.org/entry/valcour-aime

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6679407/francois-gabriel-aime/photo

Hank Williams, the country music legend.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/what-makes-this-musician-great-hank-williams/

Jan. 3^rd

Rev Robert Lewis Dabney, an influential leader in the South both behind and outside of the pulpit.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/dabney-on-fire/

Jan. 4^th

Gen Francis T. Nichols, a Confederate general in the War between the States who lost an arm and a foot defending his homeland.  After the unpleasantness came to an end, he became a reforming governor in his home State of Louisiana, waging another mighty battle - this time against the corrupt Louisiana Lottery.  He later sat on the bench of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

https://64parishes.org/entry/francis-t-nicholls

http://www.la-cemeteries.com/Governors/Nicholls,%20Francis%20T/Nicholls,%20Francis%20T.shtml

Jan. 5^th

George Washington Carver, the famous Tuskegee researcher who found many new uses for the South’s agricultural produce.

https://www.biography.com/scientist/george-washington-carver

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/179/george-washington-carver

Jan. 6^th

Judge Robert Baylor.  ‘Robert Emmett Bledsoe (R.E.B.) Baylor (1793-1874) was a lawyer and politician who represented Alabama for one term in the U.S. Congress. He is much better known as the principal founder of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and as a member of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas from 1841 to 1846. He was influential in moving Texas from an independent republic to statehood.’

http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3693

Jan. 8^th

Prof Thomas Landess, a recent defender of Southern ways.

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/thomas-landess

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/author/thomas-h-landess/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/13/tom-landess-rip/

Jan. 14^th

Grace King, ‘New Orleans novelist and historian Grace King made the city and state of her birth an abiding theme in her work. Prolific in several genres—short fiction, the novel, memoir, biography, social and cultural history—King published her work in major national magazines.’

https://64parishes.org/entry/grace-king-3

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6420504/grace-elizabeth-king/photo

Jan. 19^th

Arthur Gaston, a successful black businessman in many fields in Alabama and a successful though quiet worker for desegregation.

http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2062

Jan. 23^rd

Lucius Q. C. Lamar, a fine Southern statesmen of the 19^th century who held a number of posts throughout his life:  college professor, uS Congress and Senate, Confederate colonel, foreign diplomat, uS Supreme Court, and more.

https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/lqc-lamar/

Jan. 28^th

Zora Neale Hurston, Alabama-born and Florida-raised, she played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance and was a prolific writer.

https://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of January from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, follow these links if you’d like:

https://southernorthodox.org/orthodox-saints-for-dixie-january/

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2020/01/happy-feast-for-saints-of-january.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Appreciating God’s Greatest Gift to Man

 

The wonderful mystery of, and some of the inexpressible treasures given to man by, the birth of God in the flesh, as expounded by St Gregory the Wonderworker of Neo-Caesarea in his 3^rd-century Christmas sermon:

 

People entered into the Cave, thinking not at all about this beforehand, and it became for them an holy temple. God entered into Egypt, in the place of the ancient sadness there to bring joy, and in the place of dark gloom to shed forth the light of salvation. The waters of the Nile had become defiled and harmful after infants perished in it with untimely death. There appeared in Egypt That One, Who upon a time turned the water into blood and Who thereafter transformed these waters into well-springs of the water of rebirth, by the grace of the Holy Spirit cleansing away sins and transgressions. Chastisement once befell the Egyptians, since in their errors they defied God. But Jesus now is come into Egypt and hath sown in it reverence for God, so that in casting off from the Egyptian soul its errors, they are made amicable unto God. The river waters concurred worthily to encompass His head, like a crown.

 

In order not to stretch out in length our discourse and briefly to conclude what is said, we shall ask: in what manner was the passionless Word made flesh and become visible, while dwelling immutably in His Divine Nature? But what shall I say and what declare? I see the carpenter and the manger, the Infant and the Virgin Birth-Giver, forsaken by all, weighed down by hardship and want. Behold, to what a degree of humiliation the great God hath descended. For our sakes "impoverished, Who was rich" (2 Cor 8:9): He was put into but sorry swaddling cloths—not on a soft bed. O poverty, source of all exaltation! O destitution, revealing all treasures! He doth appear to the poor—and the poor He maketh rich; He doth lay in an animal manger—and by His word He sets in motion all the world. He is wrapped in tattered swaddling cloths—and shatters the bonds of sinners having called the entire world into being by His Word alone.

The whole sermon may be read here:

https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/discourse-on-the-nativity-of-christ

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Merry Christmas, from the American Empire

 

More shameful deeds from the ‘Chosen Nation’.  May God forgive us.

 

Damascus is now bitterly cold and is soon to be blanketed with snow. About 12 million Syrians are facing a deadly winter without heating fuel, gasoline for transportation, and dark houses each evening without electricity. Aleppo, Homs, and Hama are also extremely cold all winter.

 

Imagine being ill and having to walk to the doctor or hospital. The ambulances in Syria will now respond only to the most life-threatening calls because they must conserve gasoline, or face running out entirely. Gasoline on the black market costs Syrians an equivalent of 50 U.S. dollars for a tank of 20-liter fuel.

 

Sanctions against Syria were imposed by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Arab League, as well as other countries beginning in 2011. The sanctions were aimed at overthrowing the Syrian government, by depriving it of its resources. U.S.-sponsored ‘regime change’ has failed but the sanctions were never lifted.

 

For 12 years the U.S. and EU have been imposing economic sanctions on Syria which have deprived the Syrians of their dignity and human rights.

 

 . . .

 

After a 12-day visit to Syria, Douhan said the majority of Syria’s population was currently living below the poverty line, with shortages of food, water, electricity, shelter, cooking and heating fuel, transportation, and healthcare. She spoke of the continuing exodus of educated and skilled Syrians in response to the economic hardship of living at home.

 

Douhan reported that the majority of infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, and the sanctions imposed on oil, gas, electricity, trade, construction, and engineering have diminished the national income, which has prevented economic recovery and reconstruction.

 

The sanctions prevent payments from being received from banks, and deliveries from foreign manufacturers. Serious shortages in medicine and medical equipment have plagued hospitals and clinics. The lack of a water treatment system in Aleppo caused a severe Cholera outbreak in late summer, and the system cannot be bought, installed, or maintained under the current U.S. sanctions against Syria.

 

 . . .

The rest is at https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/22/us-sanctions-killing-syrians-and-human-rights-violation/ .

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

The Epidemic of Suicide

 

Prayers for those who have committed suicide:

https://www.orthodox.net/articles/prayer-for-those-who-have-died-by-suicide.pdf

Stories and advice to dissuade those who are considering it:

https://orthochristian.com/97051.html

Prayers for those who are experiencing grief, despair, and so on:

https://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2014/09/orthodox-prayers-for-deliverance-from.html

Where and how to experience heaven on earth:

https://inklesspen.blog/2022/12/03/there-is-nothing-on-earth-more-powerful-than-the-divine-liturgy-a-sermon-by-st-seraphim-zvezdenski/

https://orthochristian.com/149827.html

 

(The icon of Christ Pantocrator is from the last link on the list, from an Orthodox Church in Ohrid, North Macedonia.)

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!