'Tis the Season of Posadas, Chicuyas, Misas de Gallo, Palo Voladares, Nacimientos y mas...

For nine days before Christmas, posada processions pass through the streets of Guatemala.




They beat drums and light fireworks...


...as they carry statues of Mary and Joseph (and other Saints) to friends houses where they sing carols and ask for lodging for the Holy Family in the families Manger by singing traditional songs about the pilgrims


They sing, dance, and eat Tamales. On Christmas Eve, the Christ Child is added to the Manger and everyone involved in the posada in the last nine days is invited to this last night.


A Christmas tree is added due to the large German population in Guatemala and presents are left for the children by the Christ Child on Christmas morning.



There is a midnight mass on Christmas Eve and a full supper. The mass on Christmas Eve has been traditionally known as Misa de Gallo, the Mass of the Rooster, as the rooster is long known as one of the first witnesses of Jesus and the first to announce his birth.


A Child Chosen, read it all, click here:


¨Chicuyas is the name by which Guatemalans name the part of the pine tree, which I don’t its English name (can you help me with the English name for part of the pine tree...gracias, Pine Cone). The pine tree provides many elements of the Christmas decorations for Guatemalans, like the pine needle that is spread on the floor as carpet at fiestas and special events. The pine needles provide an important aroma to the Christmas season in Guatemala.¨

Antigua Daily Photo, view/read it all, click here:


The Rooster is the first known to greet the birth of Baby Jesus by crowing and is often represented not only with the Gallo Mass but elaborate Fireworks displays at midnight.


The Misa de Gallo actually is translated as the Mass of the Rooster. Guatemala has many fascinating Christmas traditions, and they all culminate in the Misa de Gallo.


Again and again in Guatemala during the Christmas season, they include statues in daily processions. Statues of very popular saints, Santa Maria, San Jose, San Miguel the Archangel and the Virgin of Guadalupe being favorites, are included in the processions, but the main emphasis is on God. After the procession, the statues are returned to church.


Another big part of the Guatemalan Christmas celebration is its emphasis on the Nativity or manger scene, known as Nacimientos. On Christmas Eve, baby Jesus is added to the manger display.

No lesson, no matter how brief, would be complete without understanding the history of the Guatemalan people. Modern-day Guatemalans are descendants of the Mayans. About 400 years ago the Mayans were converted to Christianity after they were conquered by the Spanish. Through the centuries, they’ve come to celebrate Christian holidays to a larger extent than other Christian nations. On St. Thomas Day, for example, which occurs on December 21, they celebrate Palo Voladare.


This is also called the flying pole dance and was actually a ritual that preceded their conversion to Christianity, but was adapted to St. Thomas Day. St. Thomas was one of Jesus’ twelve Apostles. Santo Tomás Church, Chichicastenango,
Quiché, is one of the sites for the pole dancing ritual on December 21, 2008.

As you can see, the Christmas season in Guatemala is filled with celebrations not only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but throughout the entire month of December.

Christmas lore in Guatemala, Central America, read it all, click here:


Thanks to Antigua (Guatemala) Daily Photo
Thanks to Christmas Lore in Guatemala
Thanks to A Child Is Chosen
Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
Thanks to Guatemalas Department of Tourism

ALERT: ¨Juan Diego gathered up the miraculous blossoms in his mantle and hurried off...¨

In 1523, just two years after the Aztec capital of Tenochitlan fell to Hernán Cortés and his Conquistadors, the first Roman Catholic missionaries arrived to begin the religious conquest of Mexico.


Fray Bernadino de Sahagún and his fellow Franciscan brothers immediately immersed themselves in the intensive study of indigenous tongues along with the history, customs and religious practices of the Mexicas, whom they called Aztecs. Soon fluent in Nahuatl, they proceded to translate religious texts and teach the Christian doctrines.

Among their first converts was a man baptized with the Christian name Juan Diego. On the chilly morning of December 9, 1531, Juan Diego crossed the barren hill called Tepeyac to attend Mass. He was brought to a sudden halt by a blinding light and the sound of unearthly music. Before him appeared an astounding vision--a beautiful dark-skinned woman who, calling the Indian "my son," declared herself to be the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. She told Juan Diego it was her desire to have a church built on Tepeyac hill, and asked him to relay that message to Bishop Juan de Zumarraga.

It was no easy task for the humble Indian to be granted an audience with the top prelate, but the persistent Juan Diego was finally admitted. The incredulous Bishop demanded that he be provided with some proof of the unlikely encounter. Confused and fearful, Juan Diego avoided Tepeyac for several days, but on December 12, while rushing to find a priest to attend a seriously ill uncle, he took a short cut across the hill. The Virgin once again appeared and Juan Diego told her of the Bishop's request. The Virgin instructed him to pick roses from the usually serene and desolate hill and deliver them to Zumarraga as the sign.


Juan Diego gathered up the miraculous blossoms in his mantle and hurried off to complete his mission. Once again before the Bishop, he let the roses spill out before him. To the wonder of all assembled, a perfect image of La Virgen Morena (the Dark Virgin) was revealed emblazoned on Juan Diego's cloak.


By order of the Bishop, a small church was soon constructed on the site designated by the Virgin. Skeptics are quick to point out the unlikely coincidence of the Virgin's appearance on Tepeyac, the very site of an Aztec temple dedicated to Tonatzin (earth godess, mother of the gods and protectress of humanity) which had been devastated by order of Bishop Zumarraga.

The original church was replaced by a larger structure built in 1709. The Miracle of Guadalupe was officially recognized by the Vatican in 1745. The second sanctuary was declared a Basilica in 1904, but by then it had begun to slowly sink into the soft, sandy soil beneath it. A new Basilica, of modern design and enormous capacity, was dedicated in October of 1976.


In this and other churches dedicated to La Virgen de Guadalupe throughout the nation, millions of the faithful will gather December 12 for processions, prayers, songs, dances, and fireworks to honor "La Reina de México" (the Queen of Mexico).


Juan Diego's mantle, carefully preserved in the new Basilica, has been subjected to extensive analysis over the years. Experts have authenticated the fabric as dating to the 16th century, but have been unable to determine the type of pigment from which the image was rendered. It seems doubtful that in the Colonial era in Mexico human hands were capable of creating a portrait of its exquisite nature. Most wonderous of all, after 465 years, the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe remains clearly imprinted on the miraculous cloak without visible signs of deterioration.¨




A child in Guatemala City, Guatemala is specially dressed as Juan Diego for celebrating the anniversary of The Virgin of Guadalupe. La Virgen de Guadalupe is honored throughout Latin America on December 12th.

Mexico Connect, read it all, click here

Thanks to Dale Hoyt Palfrey
Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
Thanks to Juan Diego
Thanks to Fray Bernadino de Sahagún
Thanks to Bishop Juan de Zumarraga, First Bishop of Mexico and ¨Protector of the Indians¨

Human Rights ALERT: "grotesque" "It's more than a shame — it's unacceptable" Roman Church and Anglican Communion are accomplices in the martyrdom...

¨Journalists and activist groups are blasting the Vatican for what they say is its "grotesque" opposition to a U.N. declaration on gay rights — even though only a small collection of countries has supported the measure.

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a barrage of protests and searing editorials for opposing a French-sponsored decree that calls for an end to discrimination based on sexual or gender identity. The U.N. hopes to abolish summary executions, arbitrary arrests and "the deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights" of gays.

The Church's opposition to the measure has enraged gay-rights activists, who are mobilizing nationwide protests at Catholic sites in Italy. Members of Italy's largest gay-rights group, Arcigay, gathered inside the Vatican on Saturday, hanging nooses around their necks as they accused the Church of being an "accomplice in the martyrdom" of homosexuals.

Click here to see photos from the protests.

At issue for the Church are a few phrases placed in the document by its French drafters and readily approved of by the European Union, which has unanimously sponsored it. Nations may add their signatures, but they cannot vote against it. There is no debate and no rewriting of the declaration.

Related Photo Essays

Vatican Protests The Vatican worries that provisions in the document — the emphasis on "social and cultural rights" — could be used to pressure countries to embrace gay marriage, which the Catholic Church rejects.

The Vatican's permanent observer at the U.N., Archbishop Celestino Migliore, announced the Holy See's opposition in an interview with a French Catholic news service. "[S]tates which do not recognize same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure," he said.

The Vatican is hardly alone in opposing the declaration — as of Tuesday, 54 nations had signed it, which means the Holy See is currently keeping company with close to three-quarters of the 192 member-states in the General Assembly who have not signed on. France expects more countries to join when the declaration is formally put before the assembly on Dec. 18.

But critics have seized upon the Church, assailing it for not taking a stronger stance on rights for gay men and women. "I find it very disturbing that the Vatican ... is not willing to speak out about LGBT people being jailed or being tortured," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Rights program at Human Rights Watch.

An editorial in the Italian daily La Stampa called the Vatican's reasoning "grotesque," while La Repubblica said the Vatican's stance "leaves one dumbstruck." Before its protest at the Vatican, Arcigay told FOXNews.com that it hopes to pressure the 2,000-year-old body to change its doctrine on homosexuality.

"We hope the demonstration ... changes a bit the stance of the Church and the question of homosexuals," said Fabrizio Marazzo, president of the Rome chapter of Arcigay.

Catholic groups say the protests and editorials are part of a campaign to silence the Church on issues where it is considered politically incorrect.

"The fact that there are people who want to silence the Church is disturbing. If people want to disagree with the Church it's one thing, but when you start this kind of name-calling it is intended to have a chilling effect," said Susan Fani, a spokeswoman for the Catholic League.

The Vatican won't have an official say inside the U.N., where it lacks an official seat — though it is signatory to some human rights treaties and its influence is widely felt.

"[Vatican opposition] does have an effect — you can see this across Latin America, where the Vatican is enormously influential with governments and within society," said Long. "That silence without violence has an effect: it makes people feel that they can go on doing what they want."

France, the sponsoring nation, has been much quieter on the dustup.

"We're not surprised by [Vatican opposition]," said Axel Cruau, spokesman for the French delegation to the U.N. "We don't want to engage in some sort of fight with the [Vatican office]," he said, noting that the declaration "will not itself create new rights … it will empower people to do things.

"We thought it was important to launch [the declaration] because homosexuality is still a crime in quite a few countries," he told FOXNews.com. "It's more than a shame — it's unacceptable."

To anyone sitting in jail for the crime of homosexuality, the U.N. declaration is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on. It's a non-binding and toothless statement that lacks the force of international law, though human rights groups hope it will be a step toward binding laws.

Dozens of member-states at the U.N. do not grant even basic human rights to homosexuals, and rights watchers estimate that between 80 and 90 nations have laws against homosexual conduct.

Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, which will sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2009, both prescribe the death penalty for gays. And Angola, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso, which will get seats on the council in the next three years, all punish homosexuals with jail.

"It's kind of a general issue with the Human Rights Council that a lot of human rights violators still get to sit in its seats," Long told FOXNews.com. "That's a running problem."

Courtney Walsh contributed to this report from Rome.

Vatican Under Fire for Opposing ADOPTION of the France Resolution, click here, read it all

Fox News, click here

IRQR Urges the UN General Assembly to Adopt the France Resolution on December 10, 2008, click here

MEANWHILE, The demonizing of LGBT Christians at a few PROVINCES at The Anglican Communion continues:

Bishop Henri Orombi of Uganda, instigating a ¨witchhunt¨ at all levels of society.

Bishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, supporting the jailing of LGBT people, their ¨hooligan children¨ their extended families and their supporters ¨who gather in public¨ or attempt to openly worship together at Church.

Bishop Greg Venables of Argentina, illegal Provincial border crosser (according to his own Provincial Canons) and supports and promotes the EXCLUSION of LGBT Episcopalians/Anglicans, Brazilians and Canadians who are ¨called¨ to participate at all levels of Churchlife.

DEPOSED/RESIGNED and irresponsible FORMER Episcopal Church Bishop LGBT EXCLUDERS, Shofield/San Joaquin, Iker/Fr.Worth and Duncan/Pittsburgh.

DANGEROUS BISHOPS ALERT: Instruments of promoting/exporting and the preaching of Injustice, Discrimination, Persecution, Outcasting and HATE at The Anglican Communion and in their HOME COUNTRIES: Akinola/Nigeria, Orombi/Uganda, Bul/Sudan, Nzimbi/Kenya, Gomez/Jamaica, Venables/Argentina, Kolini/Rwanda, Jensen/Sydney, Anis/Egypt and their accomplices in North America.

Thanks to La Repubblica
Thanks to La Stampa
Thanks to Gay Religion (at the right sidebar)
Thanks to Arci Gay/Italy
Thanks to Human Rights Watch.
Thanks to Fox News.com fotoessasys
Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
Thanks to Father Christian Troll (at the right sidebar/GAFCON)

BREAKING HATE: Jose Sucuzhanay, MURDERED, Brooklyn, New York

Jose Sucuzhanay, Murder victim

¨This morning I got a press conference announcement from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's office which read, in part, as follows.¨

Statement by Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn

Re: Alleged Hate Crime in Brooklyn

I was outraged to learn this morning that two men were assaulted at Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, and especially horrified to learn that anti-LGBT and anti-Latino slurs were used by one or more of the assailants - raising this event to the level of a hate crime.

My office is in touch with the family of the victims and offers our prayers. We have also been in touch with the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force, and thank them for their immediate response and hard work. We are confident that those who committed this crime will be apprehended. Together we are calling on all who might have any information about this crime to come forward immediately to the NYPD.

Those who perpetrated this crime must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This cowardly display of hate against two innocent men only re-enforces the need to continue to inform and educate the public about the destruction that hate can cause.

We all must open our eyes to the hate that exists around us and work together to fight against those that demonize others and allow stereotypes to lead them to acts of unconscionable violence. We are all partners against hate. When we come together, to stand up, every time we witness an act motivated by hate, we will send the message that we will not stand for the destruction that comes along with it.

Members of the City Council, community leaders, clergy, and I will hold a press conference December 8th at 12:30 pm on the steps of City Hall to continue to stand up for the victims and to speak out against this vicious crime and all crimes perpetrated by hate.
I sought information online and just found this from ABC News:

Two Ecuadorian brothers were beaten, one critically, during an apparently unprovoked attack in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn Sunday morning that may be a bias crime.
The victims were walking home from a bar when they were attacked by three or four men, who jumped out of an SUV, at the intersection of Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue at around 3:30 a.m.

The alleged suspects did not say anything as they began attacking the two brothers.

But during the attack, the suspects used anti-Latino and other racial slurs as they beat the Ecuadorian brothers.

There'll probably be more information available in the next few hours.

UPDATE:

One of the two brothers attacked in Brooklyn yesterday has died of his injuries. He was beaten to death with a baseball bat because the attackers thought he and his brother were lovers.

The two brothers from Ecuador had attended a church party and had stopped at a bar afterward. They may have been a bit tipsy as they walked home in the dead of night, arm-in-arm, leaning close to each other, a common tableau of men in Latino cultures, but one easily misinterpreted by the biased mind. Suddenly a car drew up. It was 3:30a.m. Sunday, and the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a half-block from the brothers’ apartment, was nearly deserted — but not quite. Witnesses, the police said, heard some of what happened next.

Three men came out of the car shouting at the brothers, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay — something ugly, anti-gay and anti-Latino. Vulgarisms against Hispanics and gay men were heard by witnesses, the police said. One man approached Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, the owner of a real estate agency who has been in New York a decade, and broke a beer bottle over the back of his head. He went down hard.

Romel Sucuzhanay, 38, who is visiting from Ecuador on a two-month visa, bounded over a parked car and ran as the man with the broken bottle came at him. A distance away, he looked back and saw a second assailant beating his prone brother with an aluminum baseball bat, striking him repeatedly on the head and body. The man with the broken bottle turned back and joined the beating and kicking. “They used a baseball bat,” said Diego Sucuzhanay, another brother. “I guess the goal was to kill him.”
After the attack, the murderers (described by police as a group of black men) fled the scene in a Honda SUV. Yesterday NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn and a large group of Hispanic and gay rights activists gathered at City Hall to decry the attack.


Joe. My. God., read it all, click here

Anti-Gay, Anti-Latino Slurs, read it all, click here

IRQR Urges the UN General Assembly to Adopt the France Resolution on December 10, 2008, click here

Thanks to Joe. My. God. (at the sidebar)
Thanks to Blabbeando
Thanks to Brooklyn Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn

IN MEMORIAL OF MAKWAM: Urge the United Nations General Assembly to Adopt the France Resolution on December 10, 2008...

The Murder of Makwam, December 5, 2007

In Memorial of Makwam, December 6, 2008

¨Last year in Iran on December 5, 2007 Makvan Mouloodzadeh 21-years old was executed. Homophobia runs deep into Iranian society. This, of course, partly reflects the influence of the conservative Islamic legal and religious standards promoted by the government.

Within the region, Iran is distinguished by the overt severity of the penalties; it imposes on consensual, adult homosexual conduct. Lavat, or sodomy, is punishable by execution on the first offence, regardless of whether the partner is passive or active. Article 111 of the Islamic Penal Code states that, “Lavat is punishable by death so long as both the active and passive partners are mature, of sound mind, and have acted of free will.” Death is also the punishment for the first offence involving sex between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. According to Articles 121 and 122 of the Penal Code, Tafkhiz (the rubbing together of thighs or buttocks, or other forms of non-penetrative “foreplay” between men) is punishable by one hundred lashes for each partner. Upon a fourth conviction of Tafkhiz the punishment is death. Article 123 of the Penal Code further provides that, “if two men who are not related by blood lie naked under the same cover without any necessity,” each will receive ninety-nine lashes.

According to Iran’s Penal Code, an accused person can be convicted of sodomy if he reiterates a confession to the act four times, or if four “righteous men” testify that they have witnessed the act. The Code also offers ways to circumvent this nominally high standard of evidence. Judges may lodge a conviction for sodomy based on “the knowledge of the judge,” in practice allowing a wide range of circumstantial evidence to be adduced as proof. Furthermore, the practice of torture is prevalent in Iran, and the practice of torturing prisoners to extract confessions is common. Forced confessions are openly accepted as evidence in criminal trials.

The death penalty for lavat does not merely exist on paper: it is practiced and enforced. Trials on morals charges in Iran are held in camera; yet, international outrage over the frequency of executions (Iran has the second highest rate of executions per capita in the world) has led the government to exercise tight controls over press reporting of the death penalty. For these reasons, confirming the frequency of executions for lavat is effectively impossible.

On December 5, 2007, Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year-old Iranian man was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison. He was found guilty of multiple counts of anal rape (ighab), allegedly committed when he was as young as 13 years old. At his trials, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Makvan also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty. The Seventh District Criminal Court of Kermanshah in Western Iran and the Supreme Court nonetheless found him guilty and sentenced him to death. This ruling directly violated various legal codes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Makvan was born on March 31, 1986, making him a minor back in 1999, at the time of the alleged crime. Article 113 of the Islamic Penal Code declares: “If a minor sodomizes another minor, both should be punished by up to 74 lashes, unless one of them is forced to do so.” Since the alleged sodomy happened when the defendant and his alleged partners were 13 years old, the death penalty was not technically applicable to this case. Although all the alleged witnesses and victims dismissed the sodomy charges, the defendant pleaded not guilty and there was no medical examination conducted to verify the case, the judge employed the “Knowledge of the Judge” clause as a way to prove sodomy in this case. This case caused an international uproar.


In response to mounting public pressure, and following a detailed petition submitted to the Iranian Chief Justice by Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s lawyer, the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, nullified the impending death sentence. The Iranian Chief Justice
described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land. However, in defiance of the Chief Justice, the judges ultimately decided to ratify the original court’s ruling and ordered the local authorities to carry out the execution.


This case is a clear example of how convictions of sodomy can be obtained despite the absence of any credible evidence...¨

Read the entire REAL LIFE story, click here

IRQR Urges the UN General Assembly to Adopt the France Resolution on December 10, 2008, click here


Be Responsible. Be accountable. Stop the WORLDWIDE CRIMES OF LEGALIZED HATE that result in the MURDER and daily persecution of your LGBT brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, coworkers as well as Christians, Muslims, Jews and ALL others!

Thanks to Gays Without Borders
Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
Thanks to IRQR
Thanks to France

Nothing to say? Speechless? Full of Gladness, Grace, Hospitality and Positive Intuition?

Me too.

Dear Advent Friends and Others,

I´ve been contemplating my ¨blog entry¨ all day today as I paint paintings and alternatively run various errands in and around the foot of the volcano...friends, straight, married, Jewish, are coming for the HOLIDAYS/onward and we´re preparing a colorful apartment for them (the place has a great view of all surrounding volcanos)...one that they´ve rented for three months (maybe will keep for a year and go back and forth to San Francisco) just a few block away from us...my dear friend Juan Carlos has been busily painting walls and I´ve been buzzing around to the various sewing folks getting draperies and a few other ¨decorative¨ matters, furniture/accessories, and kitchen stuff taken care of before they arrive.


I want to tell you that I´m filled with Joy and happy anticipation this Holiday Season.

I know I´m very graced to live in a world so ALIVE with many everyday people who inspire happiness, service, well-being and peace-of-mind (and elected Barack Obama as the next President of The United States) and love...I also have been very glad that my artwork is going well (Jake/Terry, I´m still not done with yours yet, but it is lovely and I promised) and I´m currently working on another San Miguel, Archangel, that is giving me goosebumps with almost every stroke/dot...I find my religious paintings, although quite ¨wild¨ and ¨impressionable¨ seem to appear from the deepest regions of wherever it is that inspiration comes from...where does it all come from? We know, don´t we? It´s the same place that created each one of us to be, or become, the authentic, vibrant, creative and loving people that God created us ALL ¨to be¨...to be brave, keep our heads up, to keep attempting to love our neighbors and live in the REAL!

Less will be concealed, more clarity is coming, obsessive and harmful tangents (of all kinds) are fading away or being directly boldly confronted!

Love to you all (even you excluding folks who refuse to take Communion with me and the ¨liberal¨ likes of me...suggestion: get a grip in 2009 and keep your eye on YOUR own personal character).

The sky is clear, we await!


Prayers ascending for Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan, India and Pakistan



Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
Thanks to Juan C. Fuentes