The Messy Table

And stay by my side…

This past week, I was hit by love three times.

The first happened when I was at the school near our church. I was popping in for a visit, after setting up some crafts at the church, and I had my huge messenger bag over my shoulder. I have a collection of buttons pinned there, and one of them is a drawing of an anatomical heart.

No Crying He Makes

The gate in the garden keeps crashing open and slamming shut. Leaves are blowing up the street at full throttle , and then come swirling back the other way again. The wind is fierce and fickle.

Birth in Strange Places

Thinking about performance, I came across Marni Kotak. She is a performance artist who tackles questions about the lines between life and art.

Late in October, in an art gallery in Brooklyn, she gave birth.

Acting out Advent

Advent begins. And together we wait.

Which sounds a bit tedious and pious, and anyways, it doesn’t always feel like waiting, does it? It can feel like the mad dash through an overly-full season ending with the too much of everything experience of Christmas.

But, in church, we try to slow it down a bit. Make Christmas something we can wait for. It makes sense to wait for a birthing story. Usually, that’s how these stories are lived.

Stir Up Sunday

Yesterday was Stir Up Sunday. Also known around Presbyterian circles as goodness-is-Advent-really-next-week-Sunday. But for our Anglican neighbours, it’s about pudding.

More or less.

We climbed a hill on Saturday

We climbed a hill on Saturday. It felt good to stretch the legs. There was no great need to climb it, no real goal in doing so. But we had a Saturday morning, and there was a hill nearby. A new friend mentioned recently that she had climbed it with her husband and new baby. She said that the city looked beautiful from the top, so it seemed like a good idea. My kids like to climb hills. And so do I. So we did.

Thinking Through Sunday School

Will Braun has recently written an opinion piece called Sunday is not a Day for School for Canadian Mennonite. He is a Winnipeg writer and used to work as editor of Geez Magazine. He often writes about faith and culture from a refreshing and sometimes confronting angle.

All Saints Meditation

Blue is building something. It might be the Eiffel Tower. It often is.

We are in the living room together, Beangirl and the Spouse have gone off to school, and we have the day before us. Of course, it’s Halloween – so costume ideas are a bit occupying. At breakfast, Blue was feeling inspired.

I’m going to be a witch. No, I’m going to be Mary. No, I’m going to be a pumpkin. No, I’m going to be a jack-o’-lantern!

Not sure what I did that my son wants to dress up as the mother of our Lord.

But it would be an awfully sweet costume.

October – Crisp and Good

Midway through visitor month chez nous and feeling very blessed with all the people coming through my house. I do like full tables. It’s so hard to have a full table and not do dessert. A few nights ago, it was an apple and walnut cake, slathered in treacle frosting and topped with golden candles for our visiting six year old and for my Blue. My soon-to-be three-year-old Blue.

What I read in the Psalms this week

Morning comes, and bedwarm cuddles for all. Then breakfast and the happy rush of places to go. I take Beangirl off to school and on the way, she runs to catch up with the boy down the street so that they can giggle their way to class together. Blue and his Daddy march off to campus together, where nursery waits with finger-paints, and a library then for the Spouse.

The Stuff of Thanksgiving

October is visitors’ month in our new home. It’s happily inevitable when you move to a new place. Though, come to think of it, our summer was pretty full of visitors, too. And we rationalized that as being happily inevitable when you are moving away from an interesting place. Either way, I’m happy because it means that there will be more people around my table. That’s the stuff of thanksgiving for me.

Key Rings and Bananas

My key ring’s getting a bit bashed up. I bought it six years ago, when I had just completed the Camino de Santiago. As you can see, the yellow paint is chipping away. I liked the key ring a lot then – I’d just spent a month walking across Spain, following spray-painted yellow arrows all the way. They are there to keep the pilgrims on track. And, for the most part, they work.

After September 11

Ten years ago, I sat by myself on a fourth-hand futon and watched the television. It was a bit strange – to watch history unravel by myself – and also strange because I had recently moved into the Blob.

Tomatoes

Today, I just want to write about tomatoes. It’s September and the season of proper tomatoes.

It’s also the week of our move, and the kitchen’s packed away. We’ve been working through the last of the pasta and frozen peas.

A few

A few days spent in a foreign country often wake you up a bit. And by foreign, I mean somewhere you don’t speak the language.

Seeing sites

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to Stonehenge. The Spouse and I are tag-teaming host duties for the in-laws: each day one of us sets off in the rental car for some English explorations while the other stays home to get some work done. The kids go out every day, spending as much time as possible with the grandparents because, really that’s what this visit is about.

London Riots

Last Monday morning, I went up to Tottenham. Ikea is up that way, and we were short on juice glasses. With the in-laws about to arrive, more glasses seemed like a reasonable idea.

Living Shape

The anticipation of a move dislocates you. You begin to live elsewhere before you’ve even left home. I’m feeling a little in limbo right now.

Part of it is the long process of saying goodbye.