I am a Christian protestant, and in our church calendar we have entered the Sundays following Pentecost. Gone are the special seasons, 12 days of this and 40 days of that. Six months of crazy banner and parament hanging, checking colors and special candles. Six months of changing liturgy and worship order. No, now is the season where everything stays more the same for a longer time. My friend commonmass says the Anglicans call this "ordinary time." I have a hard time with it.
I traditionally have some extra reading during Advent and Lent. Maybe I need some special Pentecost reading too. I included a book review from my Lenten reading.
My friends JanF and Purple Priestess have educated me on the pagan calendar. Now this seems incredibly well-distributed. Equinox & solstice, with one holiday in between each, the spokes on the wheel. A lot more evenly distributed.
Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.
Rashi’s Daughters
A 3-book series by Maggie Anton
During Advent and Lent, I like to read religious or spiritual books. This winter I was reading Thomas Cahill, and was a bit bogged down in the Greek philosophy. I happened upon a Maggie Anton book at the library, and loved it so much, I checked out all of her other books too, the entire Rashi's Daughters Trilogy.
Rashi is a famous Jewish scholar from medieval Europe. This man and his wife only had daughters, and Ms. Anton follows up on legends that these daughters were unusually educated. She makes full characters come alive on the page in these works of historical fiction. There is one book for each daughter, and the three books together cover about 40 years of history. There are real events mixed in to the fictional details of this family’s life (Pope events, Crusades). The family is middle to upper-middle class in the town of Troyes. Ms. Anton illustrates the family working together to teach the Torah and Talmud, and write other studies, while maintaining their family vineyard and selling their products at Hot Fair and Cold Fair. The Shabbat rituals come every week, and the bigger holidays show up in their own turn, with Hanukah at the close of Cold Fair.
Separation due to jobs and education – the hazards of childbirth and disease – difficulties and adventures of medieval travel – aging relatives – religious tension – alliances for commerce - around every page are more interesting discoveries. I stayed up all night reading two of the books. I just love historical fiction anyway, and it was a nice change of pace from that harder Lenten reading. Naturally, there is some so-called controversy about what may or may not have really happened, however, Ms. Anton is very clear about where her imagination starts and the historical record ends.
I highly recommend all 3 books for their interesting story, adventuresome and achievable readability, and historical context. Ms. Anton has a new series, which started last summer, and the first book was also very good. This woman is from the first century in the common era and lives in Persia.