{"id":174,"date":"2014-12-24T20:54:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T20:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jackofalltribes.com\/?p=174"},"modified":"2014-12-24T21:44:43","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T21:44:43","slug":"a-cynics-awakening-a-reflection-on-brownings-christmas-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/a-cynics-awakening-a-reflection-on-brownings-christmas-eve\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cynic&#8217;s Awakening: a reflection on Browning&#8217;s &#8220;Christmas Eve&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/image_from_page_68_of_christmas_eve_1906.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-175\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/image_from_page_68_of_christmas_eve_1906-235x300.jpg\" alt=\"Image from page 68 of &quot;Christmas eve&quot; (1906)\" width=\"235\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/image_from_page_68_of_christmas_eve_1906-235x300.jpg 235w, https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/image_from_page_68_of_christmas_eve_1906.jpg 804w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Brownings-Christmas-Eve.pdf\">Browning&#8217;s Christmas Eve<\/a><\/strong> Christmas Eve, 1849, England. A cold, wind-whipped pedestrian seeks refuge from a rainstorm by slipping into the back of a stone chapel during a sermon.\u00a0 A mere nine people are listening to the preacher, whose logic and grammar are abysmal.\u00a0 The poet, already cynical about the holiday, pours out on paper a storm of questions as blustery and biting as the storm outside.<\/p>\n<p>I have learned that not all cynics are denying the goodness of God.\u00a0 Some, in fact, are truly hungry for good and are asking why people are so bad at making God known.\u00a0 Sometimes the answers are surprising. . .<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div id=\"pdrp_endAttribution\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tphotos by: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/126377022@N07\/14780109884\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"pdrp_link pdrp_attributionLink\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a> & \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/90518460@N00\/15228901032\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"pdrp_link pdrp_attributionLink\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Browning&#8217;s Christmas Eve Christmas Eve, 1849, England. A cold, wind-whipped pedestrian seeks refuge from a rainstorm by slipping into the back of a stone chapel during a sermon.\u00a0 A mere nine people are listening to the preacher, whose logic and grammar are abysmal.\u00a0 The poet, already cynical about the holiday, pours out on paper a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltribes.com\/jackofalltribes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}