On Monday morning I went to ask God for a sign and found the cathedral locked. I’m trying hard to read this as a sign to look for God in other places than cathedrals, and not to stop looking for God.
Vancouver Poet, Adrienne Smith
I was washing the dishes when I heard the speech. There’s something about the hands-in-suds pose, isn’t there? I do a lot of listening at the sink. The radio murmurs on during the clatter of dinner prep or in the quiet in the afternoon, but when I run the hot water tap and pile in the plates and the ears turn on. Of course, speech is the same speech everyone else has been talking about this past week – US President Barack Obama’s speech at last Wednesday’s memorial service in Tucson, honouring the victims of the January 8th shooting.
“I like the blue butterfly.”
“I like the blue butterfly, too.”
“NO! No, you don’t! You like the green butterfly.”
“Okay. I like the green butterfly.”
Happy New Year. Here’s a recipe for you. A messy table gift, if you like, maybe a challenge. You can do this with your kids, if you want a family adventure. Or lock them out of the kitchen and tackle it on your own. Let me know how it goes.
I work 20 hours a week. So the theory and the job description go. But Christmas doesn’t work that way. Churches are busy places, and there are so many things to do. Which is fantastic and amazing and now I am tired.
I’m new to the world of Christingles. And a bit boggled by symbolic oranges.
Maybe this tradition hasn’t yet scaled the walls of Canadian Presbyterianism. Or maybe I’ve been sheltered.
I expected to open the typical virgin birth kettle of worms, but no one mention it. So I pushed a little bit, wondering aloud if maybe the non-parallel nativity accounts were at all feather-ruffling. But the group was nonchalant. No specific Yuletide troubles to be reported.
I’ve been living in the future for a while. It’s working for the church that does it, but it happens to most writers, too. You end up planning life months in advance, putting thoughts and words around the upcoming seasons. At least I don’t have it as bad as the writers in the glossy foodies mags, posing for photos with their festive turkeys in the middle of a sweltering July. For me, it was September before I was into the thick of Christmas.
I spent last weekend away from my family. I left the Spouse and the kids at home and headed north in my hiking boots. When I told people at church that I was going, the response was twofold: “Without the kids?” and “Good for you!” And often both responses delivered one after the other.
There’s a French boy in my daughter’s class. It is a very multicultural school–26 languages spoken in total–but it is the French kid whose cultural difference gets most discussion time at our dinner table. Probably because he tends to be bit naughty.
So I left you with veal and the promise of fish. I thought this week I would focus more on New Testament story. And it started with dessert.
Andrew Stephens-Rennie posted this brief but provocative thought on Empire Remixed this week, and I wanted to share the idea here. Is he onto something? Are we mainlining Presbys wishy-washy on resurrection?
A couple of months ago, I went to the baptism of a little boy named Isaac. He is the son of good friends of mine and the happy first born in their family. The baptism wasn’t in a Presbyterian church, so some of the liturgical furniture was a little different. But that was all to the good.
Although we’re almost a month past the bonfire date, that issue is still in the air, primarily because it wasn’t a new issue in the first place. The Rev. Terry Jones merely announced an already awkward reality, loudly and dangerously.
Growing up, every Sunday morning saw me in a big stone church in downtown Ottawa. I was one of the kids in the pale blue choir gowns, my pigtails scruffily bunched up (again), much to my mother’s chagrin.
It was one year ago this week that the Spouse lost his job. The timing of this only occurred to us a few days ago as we drove to the airport.
Every library needs a reference section, and, so too with my bookshelf. I have recently been considering a couple of useful advice books that have worked for me like reference books.
My bed is covered with things. More specifically, my bed is covered with clothes. Clothes that need to be sorted and packed and, well, disposed of.
A teacher friend of mine tells me that kids in the classroom aren’t responding to quiet voices.
In teachers’ college, student teachers are taught that to get the attention of a class, the key is to lower your voice, not raise it. But apparently, it isn’t working anymore. Kids today are just too used to screaming.
For us, there is only one story. It has all the trimmings: damsels in distress, villains half-imagined, and a hero. And it wasn’t clear which role I would get to play.