Tracts For The Neighbors!

When little Marash Girl arrived home from church one Sunday afternoon with a pile of religious tracts clutched in her hand, tracts which she intended to distribute to her neighbors, her father stopped her in her tracts . . . whoops, rather her father stopped her in her tracks!

"Has anyone ever asked you why you're so different?" he asked.

"No," answered little Marash Girl.

"Well, until they do, you don't preach.  The best way to spread the good word is through the way you live.  Live that life, girl!"

 

"Prosecute Now!"

Photo by MarashGirl©2022

Photo by MarashGirl©2022 Photographed above are parishioners and friends of the Eliot Church of Newton, Massachusetts, yesterday, January 6, demonstrating during the evening rush hour in front of Eliot Church on Centre Street in Newton Corner on the anniversary of the January 6th attack on the White House. The demonstration occurred following the church service, parishioners and neighbors holding placards and signs calling for the government to "Prosecute T... Now For Sedition!"

His First Name . . .

Chatting with a fellow who had recently arrived in Massachusetts from the Middle East, Marash Girl asked about some of the issues the young man had had to face and how folks "identified" him. When Marash Girl wondered how folks knew if he was Christian, Jewish, or Muslim (as that seemed to be of importance in that faroff land) and treated him accordingly, he answered, "They know who I am by my first name which is on my identity card." And that, apparently, made all the difference . . .

Repent!

Sunday in Watertown Square . . .

Photo by MarashGirl©2021

"There Is No God. Prove."

"There Is No God.  Prove."  So began the otherwise blank final exam in Humanities Five, Introduction to Philosophy.  "Thank you, God," grinned Marash Girl as she began, hammer and tong, or should I say, pen and paper, to attack the question.  Her answer?  Her answer has been written throughout the Bible, throughout many a hymnal.  God exists.  She wrote two pages, asserting her belief, and the reasons for her belief, and . . . the final grades were posted.  She was the only student in the class to receive an "A" on the exam.  "Why was that?" everyone asked.  Do you know the answer, dear reader?

N.B.  Marash Girl may have written about this experience in past blogposts, but suffer her one more time to remember the graciousness of her Professor Aiken at Harvard University.

"Jesus loves the little children . . . "

Marash Girl's favorite hymn in Sunday School at the United Armenian Brethren Evangelical Church in Watertown, Massachusetts, was taught her by her Sunday School teacher who was a student at Gordon College.  This is how it goes:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world . . .
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world!

The chorus did not go on to explain that Jesus loves the grownups as well . . . red and yellow, black and white . . . although we kids were able to figure that out . . .  Marash Girl's guess is that many grownups could not. . .

Thanking God on a T-Shirt!

My sweet son-in-law:

                    "I asked God for Srength and Courage . . . He Sent Me My Armenian Wife!!!"

How does one recognize the devil?

Reading Kim Warp's cartoon in the New York Times several days ago reminded Marash Girl of one of those unforgettable sermons she heard when she was probably no more than eight years old.  The evangelist warned his congregation, "The devil doesn't come dressed in red with horns, carrying a pitchfork with three tines.  The devil (or evil, as you would have it) comes dressed in a nice suit with a white shirt, clean and well-dressed."
N.B. Or did the devil come in an overabundance of delectable desserts on the Thanksgiving table?

Amazing Grace

And speaking of being too religious (see  blogpost of Sunday, February 5, 2017), Marash Girl was having a very tough time with her data base recently, (she sells out-of-print books on the internet . . .) so tough that she feared she had lost the work of several years . . . When out of the blue, she received an order for a hymnal, and then a request for any hymnal that contained the hymn, "Amazing Grace".

Now was this God's way of reminding Marash Girl that there is no reason to get upset about much in the light of God's Amazing Grace?

The juxtaposition of the two occurrences sure put things into perspective for Marash Girl!

And miraculously, her database, though lost, was found!

Thank you, Martin Luther; Thank you, Martin Luther King!

Martin Luther King, Jr.  truly lived up to his namesake . . . King turned the world upside down with his dream, his protest against segregation and racism . . .  as did Martin Luther who began a religious protest against the control of the Roman Catholic Church, a protest which we know today as the origin of the Protestant movement.

Although many young folks today know of Martin Luther King, very few know about his namesake: Martin Luther. The Protestant practice of individuals reading the Bible to learn God's plan for His people (God's people, not Martin Luther's people) was initiated by Martin Luther.

Marash Girl was brought up hearing often about Martin Luther, but rather than repeat her father's teachings, Marash Girl quotes from Wikipedia (below):

Martin Luther (/ˈluːθər/;^[1] German: [ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈlʊtɐ] ( listen); 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk^[2] and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.

Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Vat the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlawby the Emperor.

Luther taught that salvation and, subsequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God^[3] and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.^[4] Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ.

His translation of the Bible into the vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation,^[5] and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible.^[6] His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches.^[7] His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry.^[8]

Take the Name of Jesus With You

Was I reading that sign correctly?  Or was it just that it was Sunday morning?  Did the Starbucks sign maker know what s/he was doing when s/he created the sign you see at the left?  Was it really a takeoff on one of Marash Girl's favorite hymns?  Whatever the intention of the sign maker, Marash Girl was taken aback and would like to counter by singing (sing along with her if you know) the old hymn

              TAKE THE NAME OF JESUS WITH YOU!

1	Take the name of Jesus with you, Child of sorrow and of woe; It will joy and comfort give you, Take it then where’er you go.
	Precious name! Oh, how sweet! Hope of earth and joy of heav’n; Precious name! Oh, how sweet!   Hope of earth and joy of heav’n.
2	Take the name of Jesus ever, As a shield from every snare. If temptations round you gather, Breathe that holy name in prayer.
3	Oh, the precious name of Jesus, How it thrills our souls with joy; All the favor of the Father In this name we may enjoy.
4	At the name of Jesus bowing, Falling prostrate at His feet, Claim His vict’ry over evil And the enemy defeat. https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/670

Has it become acceptable in this society to "dis" Born Again Christians?

Since when is it okay to "dis" 'Born Again Christians'?  Can't touch Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Jews, Catholics, Italians, Irish, but . . .

The most recent of many such occurrences was at a Mystery Book Club sponsored by a public library, when the leader of the group commented that a mystery writer of note had "accepted Jesus". Without hesitation, one of the participants in the group (rolling her eyes) exclaimed, "Oh, God!"   Her first time at the group, Marash Girl could only comment (resisting rolling her own eyes), "No, not God.  Jesus."

A 21st Century Miracle!

A policeman pulls over a car in which he finds a member of the clergy.  "Reverend, have you been drinking?" asks the policeman.  

"Yes, but I’m just drinking water!" answers the reverend.  

"Isn’t that a bottle of wine beside you?"  replies the policeman.

"Oh, my God," intones the reverend. "Miracle of miracles. He’s done it again!"                                  With thanks to Gary Lind-Senanian

Tracts? Or the Good Life?

When Marash Girl was five years old, she returned home from church (the United Armenian Brethren Evangelical Church where her grandfather's brother, Great Uncle Vartan, was preacher) with a handful of Christian "tracts".

"What are you going to do with those tracts?" her father Peter queried.

"I'm going to take them to all of our neighbors to tell them about Jesus!" answered little Marash Girl.

Marash Girl's father stood up and taught one of the most important lessons he had ever taught.  "When folks ask you what it is about you that causes you to live the good life, THEN you can tell them."

Sorry to have to admit this, but Marash Girl has yet to be asked.

"You don't need a book!"

Marash Girl was in the dining room at the Harborside Inn, getting ready to leave, when a new acquaintance -- a little 8 year old boy -- asked her where she was going.

"I'm going to the library," she answered.

"Why are you going to the library?" he asked.

"To get a book to read," was the answer she gave the little boy.

"Why do you want to get a book to read?" he continued.

"When you have a book, you are never alone,"  she answered.

"When you have Jesus, you are never alone!" he replied.

Overheard on Sunday

Question:  What do folks call the Episcopal Church?

Answer:  Junior Varsity Catholic.

Lucia Michaelian of Marash, a Bible Woman?

Recently, Phil Hanna wrote to Marash Girl:  A woman historian who has been researching and inventoring archival materials in Lebanon and studying some of the activities of the Protestant missionaries and their churches,  posed this question to me:
I wanted to ask you a question about your mother. I was talking to a
colleague about Armenian women and their important role in maintaining
the community especially after WWI and we were unsure if there was a
history of Armenian women serving as nuns or evangelical workers
outside of war time? I believe that there were Armenian female
monasteries and that Armenian women continue to play an important role
in the community but on a unofficial level. Do you know if there was a
movement among Armenian Evangelical women to become Biblewomen (like
there was with the women in Syrian and Lebanon during the late 19th
and early 20th century)? Or am I completely wrong with this
understanding?  
I did not have a sense of an answer.  I had not heard the term Biblewomen before.  What do you think?

Marash Girl's Response to Phil Hanna:
She was a tall woman, with very white hair that was cut just below her ears and somewhat curly. Miss Michaelian used to come to our house when I was a little girl.  She spoke English precisely.  She didn't look Armenian; she looked more like my Yankee school teachers!

[My Uncle, Rev. Vartan Bilezikian (author of Apraham Hodja of Aintab which is online) and the son of Rev. Sarkis Bilezikian (the first protestant minister of Marash), lived in Newtonville where I grew up and I have the sense worked closely with Lucia Michaelian.] Miss Michaelian, I’m sure, was a Biblewoman, though certainly not called that in English.  She was a religious woman who visited homes, and must have come to visit my blind grandmother who lived upstairs, but I distinctly remember her standing in the doorway to our living room and talking with my father.  What they talked about, I could not say.  Probably around 1944 or 1945.

Some more info on Lucia Michaelian from her grand niece Berta Bilezikjian who lives in California:

Lucia Michaelian was sister to Berta’s grandmother Kohar Michaelian Vahanian, born in Marash around 1900, the youngest of her family.  Excellent English, tall and slim, she used to preach when the preachers were away. She got her college degree in social welfare — would help Armenian immigrants.  Left Marash in the early 1920’s. She was working with the missionaries there.

We think she was a member of the Eastern Star.  She had a high pitched voice, sang hymns. died in 1956. she was  as good a preacher as anybody; she would preach when the preachers were out of town. she went to college in boston and returned to marash to teach in girls college. Her mother was housemother in the college. They stayed at the college for 14 years. Her older step-sister who had recently married and had a baby was killed in the genocide in 1920.  Missionary Mrs. Lyman told her mother  that the family could stay with the missionaries. The missionaries raised my mother (Zabel Vahanian), and taught her piano on their grand piano.  Mrs Lyman visited Berta in Aleppo and Boston. Berta's mother Zabelle and Mrs. Lyman played piano together during that visit. 

President Barack Obama with Amazing Grace

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/watch_president_barack_obama_just_sang_amazing_grace_at_rev_clementa_pinckney_s_funeral
[After clicking the link, when you arrive at the page, scroll down and click white arrow in center, and join in!]

President Barack Obama sings and heals with  Amazing Grace!  Truly moving . . . and amazing!

A blessed Good Friday to all.

Blessings to all on this Good Friday, and peace to all  who have begun to prepare the meal for the Easter celebration.

Roman Catholicism: Are you Irish or Italian?

Recently,  talking with an Irish Roman Catholic friend about the difference between the way the Italians and the Irish practice Roman Catholicism, Marash Girl's friend quoted Father Michael Craig's quip: "The Italians make the rules and the Irish follow them."