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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I couldn’t resist. Yes, the book titles were memorable enough on their own, but put them together and you get something all together inspirational. Somewhere between Agatha Christies and Wonderwoman takes on the government. Sometimes that’s just the inspiration I need.
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.
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 days spent in a foreign country often wake you up a bit. And by foreign, I mean somewhere you don’t speak the language.
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.
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.
I came home to wilt. One sad basil plant, suffering on my all-too-sunny kitchen counter. It looked exhausted. And rather pathetic. I mentally added basil to my shopping list as I equally pathetically showered the shrivelled remains under the tap. I confess I did it with no hope at all.
Just because there are animals in a story doesn’t mean it’s a great story for kids. We tell some pretty horrific stories to children. I am not the first one to point out that most of the Bible stories we tell to children are not meant to be children’s stories. But mostly we do, I think, because of the animals. Kids like animals so we roll out the stories, two by two. (Althought, strangely, Elisha and the bears seldom makes it to Sunday School…)
We are still about a month and a half away from moving, but already the kitchen in beginning to feel different. We’re beginning to think in terms of using up rather than storing away. How are we going to get through that bag of lentils?
I put my parents on the plane this week. Which, I’m sure they will understand, was both very difficult and a relief. Blue helped at the airport by running around madly to distract me when needed, and waving enormously when it was time to say goodbye.
On Saturday, we went to Canterbury. Redy to wenden on pilgrimage and all that. But we went by train. The Spouse and I, Beangirl and Blue and my own aged parents.