A very Happy, Healthy and Joyful Christmas 2015
to all.
Atheism may be fashionable, but most intelligent people believe in God
Have we
ever needed Christianity more than we do today? It’s a rhetorical question, for
sure, because the loss of our faith and the inability to confront Islam have
never been greater. When I was a little boy during the war, my mother assured
me that if I believed in Jesus everything would be OK. This was during the
Allied bombing on Tatoi, the military airfield near our country house where the
Germans concentrated their anti-aircraft guns. My Fräulein, the Prussian lady
who brought me up, was more practical. She handed me a beautiful carved knife
that made me feel safer than my prayers ever did.
Today, of
course, 74 years later, my prayers are far more likely to give me peace of mind
than a knife in my pocket. That’s the difference between being five and 79
years of age. Mind you, now I pray only for the safety and welfare of my
children and their mother. My soul I sold to the devil long ago. No prayers
will save that loser. At times, during Christmas and Easter, when I go to
church, light a candle and sit alone in a pew, all these memories come flooding
back, especially my fear of the noisy Anglo-American bombs that rained down
around us, and how only the steel in my pocket gave me courage.
More
First full moon on Christmas since 1977
This month, the December full moon falls on Friday, December 25, 2015. For
Earth’s Western Hemisphere, it’s the first full moon on Christmas Day since
1977.*
We won’t have another full moon on a
Christmas Day until 2034.
A 19-year cycle of the moon is the
reason. Amazingly, the moon’s phases recur on (or near) the same calendar dates
every 19 years. This cycle – known as the Metonic cycle – happens because 235
returns to full moon almost exactly equal 19 years.
So, in other words, the phases of
the moon realign (or nearly realign) with the same calendar dates every 19
years. We just missed a full moon on Christmas 19 years ago; instead, the full
moon fell on Christmas Eve. It was December 24, 1996 at 20:41 Universal
Time, or UT.
But two Metonic cycles ago – 38
years (or 2 X 19 years) – the full moon fell on Christmas Day. That full moon
happened on December 25, 1977 at 12:49 UT.
Astronomically speaking, the moon is
only full for an instant – at the moment that it’s 180o opposite the
sun in celestial longitude.
This month, that happens on December
25, 2015 at 11:11 UT. At United States time zones, that
translates to 6:11 a.m. EST, 5:11 a.m. CST, 4:11 a.m. MST or 3:11 a.m. PST.
Although the moon turns
full at the same instant worldwide, the clock reads differently by timezone. On
a worldwide scale, the full moon actually comes at all hours around the clock.
See the worldwide map below. The full moon takes place before sunrise
December 25 in North America, noon in Europe and Africa and after
sunset December 25 in eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
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