Another joy filled Christmas song which brings peace as we ponder and reflect in preparation of celebrating Christ’s birth in the morning.
Bravely Gray
The video will make you weep in joy. Watch the visible poverty of Mary & Joseph, reactions of the shepherds, and especially the wise man when he finds the object of his long search.
Lyrics:
Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin mother and Child. Holy Infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight; Glories stream from heaven afar, Heav’nly hosts sing Alleluia! Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born!
Melvin Crispell III & Mav City Gospel Choir / Maverick City Music
Lyrics:
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining, It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth; Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Chorus Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices! O night divine! O night when Christ was born. O night, O holy night, O night divine.
Everyone going into any medical facility in Marin County and Santa Clara counties now has to have a mask. The diktat in Alameda, Sonoma, San Mateo, and Contra Costa counties only demand healthcare workers be masked up when there are around patients.
Two more articles describe the skyrocketing rate of chronic absenteeism in Minnesota and across the nation.
What could possibly be driving this? On twitter, Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) said:
“We told the kids that school wasn’t essential. They listened.”
That’s about right. Schools were shuttered anywhere from six to eighteen months in most places around the country.
In terms of the so-called remote learning, there wasn’t much teaching going on. In one district near me in California, teaching time during the pandemic was 45 minutes in the morning and then 45 minutes in the afternoon. Class time was merely 90 minutes a day.
Yeah, our education leaders, political leaders, religious leaders, and public health leaders all said school wasn’t important. A whole bunch of kids got the message: school is optional.
I hope against hope that the allegedly educated educators someday will be held accountable for the destruction they willfully caused.
New reports describe widespread chronic absenteeism:
9/15/23 – Washington Examiner – Chronic absenteeism skyrockets in Minnesota public schools– Before the pandemic, chronic absenteeism in Minnesota public schools was 15%. That is the number of students who were missing 10 or more days in the school year.
…closed due to government violation of First Amendment. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Santa Clara County in California has been putting pressure on Calvary Chapel San Jose for daring to hold worship services during the pandemic.
We now know the efforts to suppress Christian worship were a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, as determined by the Supreme Court in multiple rulings. See end of this discussion for list of posts describing the rebukes from the Supreme Court. (If you want to see the results when ideologues write feeble legal briefs, I heartily encourage you to read the dissents from the Supreme Court’s rulings.)
The county levied plenty of fines and a temporary injunction against the church. Previous article describing Calvary Chapel San Jose’s efforts to exercise their first amendment right to free expression of religion:
Since my post back in November 2020, we have learned the county was allegedly conducting surreptitious surveillance on the church during the pandemic. A neighboring church allegedly assisted with the surveillance. Fines issued by the county have been dismissed at the appellate level.
Now the church has filed suit against the county for their surveillance. They are standing up for the rights of all Christians to gather in worship.
This discussion is posted here on Nonprofit Update blog, as well as Outrun Change, because this affects the freedom of many in this audience.
By the way, if you see an above average amount of ridicule and sarcasm in this post, it is here in the hope that out-loud, belly laughter directed at officials will encourage said officials to reconsider their foolish ways. Supreme Court rulings don’t seem to have had that effect yet.
As our alleged experts in the so-called public health sector lay groundwork to impose another round of Covid restrictions, it might be worth paying attention to the research demonstrating ineffectiveness of the vaccinations.
In fact, looks like the bivalent booster is dangerous because it increases your risk of infection.
The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. Courtesy of the National Archives.
The Declaration of Independence with a candle holder, glasses and a quill pen. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
