![\"\"](\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/St-Francis.jpg\" "\\"St")
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Pictured here is Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone (a.k.a.\u00a0St. Francis<\/strong> <\/a>of Assisi, d. 1226 ) – my photo of a 19th c. statue from southern Arizona, probably well worn from processions and general fondling. I understand that he started, or at least popularized the building of manger scenes.<\/p>\n I remember reading his early biographies some years ago. I never could decide<\/strong> what to think: whether he was extremely holy, mentally ill, or both. Once a well known Christian philosopher who works in medieval philosophy described St. Francis to me as “a stinker” – I think the meaning was a sort of drama queen or manipulator. So that’s another option. \ud83d\ude09 But I remain perplexed.<\/p>\n Went to a Christmas eve service<\/strong> tonight. At one point the pastor said that the incarnation – that God became a human being – makes no sense to us, yet at some level we – i.e. all we Christians – believe it. If I were less tired, or in a different mood, this would induce a whole series of rants\/lectures from me. But, not tonight. I will just say: I am grateful that God sent us his only Son, the perfect representation of him and sure way to him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pictured here is Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone (a.k.a.\u00a0St. Francis of Assisi, d. 1226 ) – my photo of a 19th c. statue from southern Arizona, probably well worn from processions and general fondling. I understand that he started, or at least popularized the building of manger scenes. I remember reading his early biographies some years… Read More »Merry Christmas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,33,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-incarnation","category-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35070,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/35070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6937.jpg\" "\\"IMG_6937\\"")
Here’s\u00a0another pic taken at the same place<\/a>\u00a0as the Francis pic.\u00a0This time, someone indisputably both holy and sane, also celebrated Catholic-style. Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n