{"id":4767,"date":"2019-12-25T03:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4767"},"modified":"2019-12-25T03:28:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T03:28:40","slug":"word-of-the-day-luminary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2019\/12\/25\/word-of-the-day-luminary\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Luminary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day is luminary<\/em>. Luminary<\/em> can be either a noun or an adjective. As a noun, it actually has three meanings: 1. \u201ca celestial body, as the sun or moon\u201d; 2. \u201ca body, object, etc., that gives light\u201d; and 3. \u201ca person who has attained eminence in his or her field or is an inspiration to others\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/luminary?s=t<\/a>). The adjective means \u201cof, relating to, or characterized by light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to www.etymonline.com<\/a>, the word entered the language in the \u201cmid-15c., \u2018lamp, light-giver, source of light,\u2019 from Old French luminarie<\/em> (12c.), \u2018lamp, lights, lighting; candles; brightness, illumination,\u2019 from Late Latin luminare<\/em> \u2018light, torch, lamp, heavenly body,\u2019 literally \u2018that which gives light,\u2019 from Latin lumen<\/em> (genitive luminis<\/em>) \u2018light, source of light, daylight, the light of the eye; distinguished person, ornament, glory,\u2019 related to lucere<\/em> \u2018to shine,\u2019 from suffixed (iterative) form of PIE root *leuk-<\/strong><\/a> \u2018light, brightness.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom late 15c. as \u2018celestial body.\u2019 Sense of \u2018notable person\u2019 is first recorded 1690s, though the Middle English word also had a figurative sense of \u2018source of spiritual light, example of holiness\u2019 (mid-15c.). As an adjective, \u2018pertaining to light,\u2019 from 1794 but this is rare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christmas tradition that I remember from my growing up years was quite different from what most people seem to do today. Rather than decorating the entire house, including setting up the Christmas tree, right after Thanksgiving, the only decoration we had was Advent candles in the window (they were electric candles). A few days before Christmas, my dad would go out and buy a tree. This was always a bit of an adventure because most of the good trees were sold by December 22. He got the tree so early because he believed that the limbs of the tree took a couple of days to settle back down into place after they had been bound up by the tree sellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tree stood undecorated until Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, we went to the 7 p.m. service, which my dad celebrated. Then we trooped home and pretty much went straight to bed. While we kids slept, my parents decorated the tree as well as putting together those Santa gifts. The older of my two brothers, Bill, was usually the first one up, and usually very early, but we had to stay at the top of the stairs until our parents gave us permission to go down. We went down the stairs and turned right into the living room (a very large room in the parsonage in which I grew up). It wasn\u2019t until then that we first saw the decorated tree, along with the presents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of the first Christmas tree was something else I grew up with, probably, at least in part, because my dad was a Lutheran pastor. There are versions of the story, but here\u2019s my attempt at cleaning it up. After the Reformation had started and Luther had separated from the Roman Catholic Church, he married Katherine von Bora and had 6 children, one of whom died very young. So with a big family, and a big house (a former monastery that was given to him by John the Steadfast, an elector).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was walking home one Christmas Eve, probably returning from a Christmas Eve service (that\u2019s my invention), when he noticed how beautiful the stars and moon were, shining in the black sky. He also noticed how the moonlight glimmered off the pine trees. The tradition of decorated trees around Christmas had been around for at least a couple of decades, maybe longer, but those trees were in the middle of town squares. Luther decided that the tree needed to be cut down and placed inside the home so that God\u2019s light would enrich the Christmas celebration. So he cut down a small pine and took it home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After carefully explaining to his wife that he would be responsible for cleaning up all the pine needles, he constructed a stand out of wood and placed the tree on it. Then he gathered some candles together, carefully attached them to the tree with twine, and lit the candles. Although scared to death by candles sitting loosely on the arms of a tree in the middle of their home, the Luther family loved the look, and a great tradition was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether moonlight, sunlight, candlelight, or electric light, we humans love light. In the 16th<\/sup> century, light inside at night was, I imagine, even more precious because it was harder to come by. Candles were relatively expensive, at least compared the cost of light today. Luther\u2019s use of candles to decorate for the coming celebration of the birth of Christ was probably extravagant, but he probably felt it was worth it. After all, there is no luminary in history greater than the Savior, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis painting, depicting what oral tradition indicated happened in 1536, was engraved in a gift book titled Wheat Sheaf from 1853 that was published in Philadelphia. It also said that Luther was the first to light a tree with candles in order to illustrate the \u201clight of God\u201d to his children\u201d (http:\/\/www.logosapologia.org\/christmas-trees-are-not-pagan\/comment-page-1\/#_edn2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day is luminary. Luminary can be either a noun or an adjective. As a noun, it actually has three meanings: 1. \u201ca celestial body, as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4769,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions\/4769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}