It’s always tempting at #Christmas to focus on the story of the birth of #Jesus. After all, the reason we’re celebrating is the #nativity. However, it’s super important to also remember the #Easter story. As we learn from Luke 24:1-7:

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”

Without the resurrection of Jesus, his birth would be no more important than yours or mine. Instead, Jesus rising again from the dead definitively demonstrated that he is the Messiah; the King of Kings. The Easter story is why Christmas is so important to begin with.

#Bible #God #Religion #Christian #Resurrection

Christmas is a great time to celebrate with family and friends, and enjoy the gifts and cards we give to each other in celebration. But it's also a time to reflect on the story of the nativity and the glorious day that Jesus was revealed to be the Messiah.

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

#Religion #Jesus #Nativity #Christmas #Luke #Gospel

A first generation Google Nest Hub and a few smart light bulbs from IKEA, that's been the entirety of my smart home until recently. I had the lights set to turn on in the morning on workdays (and turn off when it's time to leave), and I use Nest hub for timers, mostly in the morning for my pot of tea, and for cooking pasta. That was pretty much it.

While I'm not very technical, tinkering is something I sometimes enjoy, so I do have a few other devices around the flat. I use an OSMC Vero V to watch things on my dumb TV, this is fed by Jellyfin on a Raspberry pi 4 running CasaOS. The Pi also has a few other services such as Navidrome for music.
Another pi runs PiCorePlayer and connects to a few different speakers. Things work fairly well.

A few months back I got the Home Assistant Green as I was curious about the device and what I might be able to do with Home Assistant itself. I set it up but didn't really have the energy to actually learn how to use HA, even with the improvements in UX and onboarding they have apparently made over the last year or so, it was a bit much for me at the time. I'm always a bit extra tired this time of year. So the Green has been sitting idly, while IKEA has kept turning my lights on and off for me while Google let me know when the tea was ready.
But I really want to replace the Nest hub. In my quest to de-Googlify my life, that single piece of equipment had been a pain point. I use Proton for email and cloud storage, I use DuckDuckGo and Firefox for the web, and Freetube and Pixelfed for videos. But that Nest Hub in my kitchen has just been so convenient. Getting something from Amazon or Apple was obviously not going to happen, I'm not going to choose one Big Tech company for another.

Enter the new Home Assistant Voice PE. Combined with my currently idling Green, I hope for some simple automation magic to happen soon. At first, as I get a little more comfortable around HA, I'll probably just use it to turn on and off the lights, set timers and to play music, but after that? I don't really know. I'm looking into getting some smart blinds or curtains. For me things like thermostats, energy use, garage doors, cameras etc aren't relevant, but future projects might include some limited gardening, a wall mounted screen, and possibly using AI with the Home Assistant Voice.

I've already begun by unplugging my IKEA Hub (which apparently doesn't work with HA anyway) and pairing my lights with the Zigbee dongle I have, and made my first automation. And it worked! I can control my PiCorePlayer from HA too now, even if I'm a bit confused about the whole set up, it does work. I preordered the HA Voice yesterday, and with a bit of luck it won't take too long to get here.

I've no idea yet if this is a one off post, or if I'll make a few more as I explore this and delve a little deeper into home automation. Space, needs and funds are all limited, but as I mentioned earlier - it's fun to tinker sometimes.

#HomeAssistant #HomeLab #HomeAssistantGreen #PiCorePlayer #OSMC #Kodi #HomeAssistantVoice #NabuCasa