Have a Blessed Christmas!

“Silent Night”

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS

7 brides for 7 brothers

Howard Keel and Jane Powell are starring in this 1954 movie. Seven brides for seven brothers is the story of the Pontipee brothers. Many others dancers and acrobats are playing in this lovely romantic musical. The Pontipees are living in the mountains, in an isolated farm. It is isolated especially during the winter when the pass is closed due to the snow avalanches…………..

PSALM 23

A Psalm of David

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Read the Psalm here in the online Bible – NIV translation

CHRISTIAN LIFE (I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE LAMB)

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE LAMB (singing Ray Boltz)

A father talks with his son about the christian life:

(conversation between father and son)

(Son) Dad, has it always been this way?

(Dad) Well, even from the beginning men hated Jesus

Even thought he did nothing but love them

And teach them and heal them.

They nailed him to a cross.

They thought they had killed Him, but they only set him free

To live in the hearts of people like you and me who believe in Him.

Then came the apostles and most of them were killed

For telling other people about Jesus.

But that time it was too late. There were hundreds of people who believed in Jesus

So they tortured them and killed them

And even left their bodies to rot as an example to other people,

But the church kept right on growing

Watered by the blood of these precious Saints.

(Son) But Dad, did they want to die?

(Dad) No. They didn’t want to die.  I mean, many of them had children

Just like you they had to leave behind.

But they were forced to make a choice.

They could choose to live this one life here on earth and reject Jesus

And be damned or they could chose to believe in the words of Jesus

And live forever.

(Son) I think I understand.

(Dad) Here, maybe this will help you understand.

 

(Song: I pledge allegiance to the Lamb)

I have heard how Christians long ago

Were brought before a tyrants throne

And they were told that he would spare their lives

If they would renounce the name of Christ.

But one by one they chose to die

The Son of God they would not deny

Like a great angelic choir sings

I can almost hear their voices ring.

 

CHOURS:

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb

With all my strength

With all I am

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

Now the years have come and the years have gone

But the cause of Jesus still goes on

And now our time has come to count the cost

To reject this world, to embrace the cross

And one by one let us live our lives

For the One who died to give us life.

Till the trumpet sounds on the final day

Let us proudly stand and boldly say

 

REPEAT CHORUS:

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb

With all my strength

With all I am

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

To the Lamb of God who bore my pain

Who took my place, Who wore my shame.

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

(conversation between father and son continues)

You’ve got to remember that it wasn’t always this way.

I mean, my dad could even pray in school.

Of course, they took that away from him.

Then it became incorrect for us to believe in the Bible

And after that they just stripped our right to worship away from us

And we quietly stood by.

But son, I hope that you’ll never put in the position

That you have to choose between your faith and your life.

But if you are – I know which choice you’re going to make

Because I know that Jesus lives inside of you.

In the meantime, just pray like I taught you how to

And take care of your mom

And remember that God is the Father of the fatherless.

 

REPEAT CHORUS:

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb

With all my strength

With all I am

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

REPEAT CHORUS:

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb

With all my strength

With all I am

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

REPEAT CHORUS:

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb

With all my strength

With all I am

I will seek to honor His commands

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb.

 

This christian song is composed by Ray Boltz, a singer-songwriter, whose songs often tell stories of faith and inspiration. Click Here to open more of his christian songs lyrisc.

Also, here it is another christian link about this song: http://members.aol.com/war4head/Page19.html

 

Copied from:

http://artists.letssingit.com/ray-boltz-lyrics-i-pledge-allegiance-to-the-lamb-chg6p4m

http://youtube.com  

 

 

THE JUNGLE BOOK

 

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first 6 years of his childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about six-and-half years. All of the stories were published in magazines in 1893-4. The original publications contained illustrations, some by Rudyard’s father, John Lockwood Kipling. These books were written when Kipling lived in Vermont.

The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families and communities. Kipling put in them nearly everything he knew or “heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle.” Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time. The best-known of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of an abandoned ‘man cub’ Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. The most famous of the other stories are probably “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, the story of a heroic mongoose, and “Toomai of the Elephants”, the tale of a young elephant-handler. Kotick, The White Seal seeking for his people a haven where they would be safe from hunters, has been considered a metaphor for Zionism, then in its beginning.

As with much of Kipling’s work, each of the stories is preceded by a piece of verse, and succeeded by another. The title of each is given in italics in the list of stories below.

The Jungle Book, because of its moral tone, came to be used as a motivational book by the Cub Scouts, a junior element of the Scouting movement. This use of the book’s universe was approved by Kipling after a direct petition of Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement, who had originally asked for the author’s permission for the use of the Memory Game from Kim in his scheme to develop the morale and fitness of working-class youths in cities. Akela, the head wolf in The Jungle Book, has become a senior figure in the movement, the name being traditionally adopted by the leader of each Cub Scout pack.

Animation
Disney’s 1967 animated film version, inspired by the Mowgli stories, was extremely popular, though it took great liberties with the plot, characters and the pronunciation of the characters’ names. These characterizations were further used in the 1990 animated series TaleSpin, which featured several anthropomorphic characters loosely based on those from the film in an comic aviation-industry setting.
Chuck Jones’ made for-TV cartoons Mowgli’s Brothers, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and The White Seal stick to the original storylines more closely than most adaptations.

There was a Japanese anime television series called Jungle Book Shonen Mowgli broadcast in 1989. Its adaptation represents a compromise between the original stories and the Walt Disney version. Many of Kipling’s stories are adapted into the series, but many elements are combined and changed to suit more modern sensibilities. For instance, Akela, the wolf pack alpha eventually steps aside, but instead of being threatened with death, he stays on as the new leader’s advisor. Also, there is an Indian family in the series which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as a pet mongoose. Finally at the series’ conclusion, Mowgli leaves the jungle for human civilization, but still keeps strong ties with his animal friends.

The Japanese anime was dubbed in Hindi and telecast as “Jungle Book” by Doordarshan in India during the early 1990s. The Indian version featured original music by Vishal Bharadwaj (with words by noted lyricist Gulzar) and a very good choice of dubbing artistes for the voice acting, which made it quite popular among television series of that time.

The anime was also dubbed in Arabic under the title “فتى الأدغال ” (Fatah El Adghal: Boy Of The Jungle) and became a hit with Arab viewers in the 1990s.

In 1973, another animated adaptation was released in the Soviet Union called “Mowgli” (Маугли), also known as the ‘heroic’ version of the story. It’s also very close to the book’s storyline, and one of the few adaptations which has Bagheera as a female panther. It also features stories from The Second Jungle Book, such as Red Dog and a simplified version of The King’s Ankus. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” has also been released in 1954 as a cartoon and in 1976 as a feature film. The former made its way into the hearts of viewers and is even now sometimes aired by TV stations of the Former Soviet Union countries as a classic of Soviet animation. Interestingly, in keeping with Soviet ideology, the Colonial English family in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi has been replaced with an Indian family.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

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One of the most beloved movie musicals of all-time, THE SOUND OF MUSIC had all the makings of a successful film — memorable Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, lush background locations, a talented cast, an experienced production team, the preceding momentum of a popular stage musical, and most importantly, a wholesome, sentimental story with sympathetic heroes, historic villains and broad family appeal.

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SNOW WHITE

 

Walt Disney’s Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937, and was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 4, 1938. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith from the German fairy tale Snow White by the Brothers Grimm. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey (1905-1971), Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film’s individual sequences.

  

Snow White was one out of only two animated films to rank in the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films of all time in 1997 (the other being Fantasia) , ranking number 49. It achieved a higher ranking (#34) in the list’s 2007 update, this time being the only traditionally animated film on the list.

In 1989, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  

 

sursa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)

http://www.youtube.com/

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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

 

Beauty and the Beast is an American animated film, the 30th animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. The film was originally premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 13th, 1991 by Walt Disney Pictures.

 

This film, one of the best known of the Disney studio’s films, is an adaptation of the well-known fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, about a beautiful woman kept in a castle by a horrific monster. It is the first and only full-length animated feature film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Heightening the level of performance in the era known as the Disney Renaissance (1989-1999, beginning with The Little Mermaid and ending with Tarzan), all animated films following its release have been influenced by its new use of 3D technology.

 

Beauty and the Beast ranked #22 on the American Film Institute’s list of best musicals and #34 on its list of the best romantic American movies. On the list of the greatest songs from American movies, Beauty and the Beast ranked #62. In 2002, Beauty and the Beast was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” On October 8th, of the same year, Walt Disney Home Entertainment released the film as a 2-Disc Platinum Edition DVD.

   

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_(1991_film)

CINDERELLA

  

One of Disney’s most popular creations, Cinderella was his twelve cartoon movie. This cartoon is very famous especially because of the story’s popularity. It was first presented on February 15, 1950, and both young and old audiences love this old story. It is the story of a young, poor girl who met her true love, a Prince, grace to her fairy good mother.

This cartoon was directed by Clyde Geronomi, Hamilton Luske and Wilfred Jackson, who adapted Charles Perrault’ tale and added it a beautiful music.

This was one of the “classical” cartoons made by Walt Disney, but also consisted in a great risk, because of the period of time when it was produced: short after World War 2.

  

This was the first great Disney project since Bambi, in 1942. Different by other cartoons, Disney added in Cinderella few ideas which are not presented in Perrault’s tale. Usual a cartoon is a short version of a classical published tale, but in Cinderella Walt Disney proved once again that he knows what the audience likes and wants to see, so he changed and added characters there.

As Disney used to work, almost the entire movie was prepared by actors, playing with small puppets and sceneries, before the first line appeared in the cartoonists’ drawing.

Disney invested 3 million dollars in this movie but, fortunately, Cinderella was a real success from the beginning, both for the audience and for the reviewers.

The former Disney‘s success was with Snow White (1937), and Walt Disney was closed to a real insolvency those times.

http://www.artline.ro/1_593_Cenusareasa_10865.html 

http://www.youtube.com

You can read Cinderella/The Little Glass Slipper by Charles Perrault, at http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0510a.html#perrault

AMAZING GRACE

This song’s lirics were written by Jown Newton in 1772, short time after his covert to christianity. This is this song legend:
As a child, John Newton lived with his mother in a house, at the seaside, on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. His father was a slave dealer: he used to catch black peoples in Africa and carry them in Europe, to sell them as slaves. About all the time he was gone away from his home, so the child rests in his mother care,  and she taught him the beautiful principles of the Christianity. She told him about God’s love, the christian mercy, His power to forgive, she taught him to love the people. So, this way, he became a wonderful youngman dedicated to God.
But one day, here it is his father, coming back form one of his long trips. It looked like a dark storm when he appeared at of the door’s house. He was a scary man: “Hm!” he said, his boy has grown enough to work for the food he is eating. “Tomorrow I will take him with me on the boat. I’ll teach him how to do his work”. His mother started to cry but no tear would persuade the man to give up on his plan. “How long do you think I will work for him? From now on, he will work for his food. This is the final decision! He will gain lot of money by selling the slaves he will catch in Africa”
So, the boy left his home and joined his father on this ugly job. So he was tought to catch black people in their homeland and carry them by ship in Europe, to sell them on the slave markets in Europe. Was so hard for this boy who was taught to love the neighbors. Where is the beautiful christian love? Where is God’s mercy? How could he whip those people? But his father was there, close to him: “Whip him!” he said. And the boy did it. He whiped a person for the first time. How hurtful that was. His felt the pain as he was whipping on his own skin. But his father is there, and is yelling at him: “Whip him, whip him, you are weak! So, day by day, the boy is growing up. And day by day is far, far away from the christian teachings of his mother. He became a tough man. Who could ever reverse the time and come back to the pure boy he was?
But nothing goes forever. Here this situation gets to its end. John was sailing, as usual, when a storm began. A great one. Especially for a sailor like him. This was the worst storm ever. The wind blows so hard that was about to break the mast. The ship fills with water. The waves were about to pull him over in the sea. He had to bind himself by the steering wheel with ropes so he could stand on his ship. The only noise he could hear was the storm. But wait; there is still something else he can hear. What is that? Music?? Where it come from? The slaves were singing, down there, in the bottom of the ship. They sang their home sick and their family sick.
This was too hard for him. He looked up, in the black sky and remembered his mother and her teachings; he remembered the Truth seed sew in his heart. It was about to come up now. “God”, he said, “What you are trying to tell me? If you help me to get out of this storm, I shall devote myself to You!” And God helped him. Because God never sleeps. He is working. The weather began to clarify and the slip landed. Everything looks as it usual does. But not for John. He is a changed now. He entrust himself in God’s hands, there, in that storm, and God didn’t let him down. Because He never disappoints anyone. Few years ago, we can find John a new person, dedicated to God. A man who never forgot God’s mercy, His AMAZING GRACE, how God worked to call him, how He took him off from that storm, but beside that, how He took him off this dirty, selfish, sinful world. On the music he heard in his last trip he wrote the lyrics we know today.
This song is still working in peoples’ hearts and tells them how much God loves them, keep calling souls to Him, so one day He will receive them HOME. Amazing grace, how beautiful sound!

***

Amazing Grace Lyrics

John Newton (1725-1807)

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we’ve been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

The lirics are copied from: http://www.constitution.org/col/amazing_grace.htm