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January 6th – Epiphany January 6, 2012

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THE WISE MEN

G.K. Chesterton

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly … it has hailed and snowed…
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
(… We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.

 

December 28th – Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28, 2011

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(From an article I wrote for Thought Meadow magazine)

Lully, Lullay, thou little tiny child.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

In the middle of the festive Christmas season there exists a little-known holy day, often forgotten amidst the gingerbread, carols and mistletoe. This day is called Childermas: “Mass of the Children.” It is also known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

Childermas commemorates the infants of Bethlehem who were murdered by Herod’s soldiers. They are often considered the first martyrs of the church, who gave their lives for their newborn Savior. Matthew quotes the haunting words of Jeremiah: “A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” In the church, the priest forgoes the white celebratory vestments of the Christmas season and wears purple as a sign of mourning for these little ones. The “Gloria in Excelsis” and the “Alleluia” are omitted from the service, as during Lent or other periods of solemnity.

In England, various family customs have arisen around Childermas. One of my favorites is that of a father blessing his children before bed – asking God to bless and keep them safe that night, in the name of the Trinity. Other traditions include serving red-colored foods to commemorate the spilled blood of the children (although some may find this rather morbid). In ancient times, the children were given a special place of participation in the church service on that day.

The familiar Christmas song “Coventry Carol,” unbeknownst to many, is actually about the Massacre of the Innocents. It originated in one of the medieval mystery plays called “The Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors,” which was a play about the nativity. The women of Bethlehem sing this song, knowing that Herod’s men are about to come to murder their children. The full version reads as follows:

Lully, Lullay, thou little tiny child.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay thou little tiny child
Bye, bye, lully, lullay

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing
Bye, bye lully, lullay

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye lully, lullay.

Ironically, this song is often misconstrued as a lullaby sung by Mary, a “song of peace and joy” as one version puts it. For aficionados of good Christmas music, Chris Walla (of Death Cab) performs a haunting version of this song.

So what do we make of Childermas, in the midst of the joyous Christmas season? I remember as a child reading a nativity book with black silhouetted illustrations. I had been enjoying the warm sentiments that accompany the story of Christ’s birth. But then I came across a part of the story that disturbed me. It was a picture of a woman kneeling on the ground, screaming over the body of her dead baby. Other women were clutching their babies to their chests as they ran from soldiers with knives, knowing that it was hopeless. Yet this horrific part of the Christmas story also has its place. The story of Christ’s time on earth begins with death, and it will come back full circle. Frederick Buechner, in his beautiful story “The Birth,” put it this way, spoken through the mouth of the Wise Man:

I will tell you two terrible things. What we saw on the face of the newborn child was his death. A fool could have seen it as well. It sat on his head like a crown or a bat, this death that he would die. And we saw, as sure as the earth beneath our feet, that to stay with him would be to share that death. . .

And the Wise Man was right. Scripture reminds us that to belong to Christ, we first have to die with him. Death is part of the story of Christmas, as it is part of our own stories.

Of course, there is another reason that Childermas is worth commemorating particularly in our own culture today. Church festivals, such as this one, are based around a particular historical event, but they also have ramifications in the present day. And so with Childermas – it is not just about an event two thousand years ago, that has no impact or effect on us now. We still live in a world where the powerful and strong persecute the most helpless ones of all; in our country, it is the case with abortion. But where Herod slaughtered perhaps a dozen boys, four thousand are killed each day in America. Like the blood of the babies of Bethlehem, the blood of our own murdered innocents cries out for justice. On December 28th, we can remember in our prayers these helpless ones, and beg for the justice they do not receive now.

But of course, that is hardly the end of the story – their cry has been heard. Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. He will make all wrongs right. The innocents will be vindicated and all shall be well, on earth as it is in heaven.

Christmas Decor December 3, 2011

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Pinterest has been useful for this holiday season, as I found some fun ideas for new Christmas decor. So this year we have:

Epsom Salt Candles (http://theinspiredroom.net/2009/11/30/easy-diy-christmas-decorating-idea-glittery-epsom-salt-snow/)

Branches, spray-painted white with red berries glued on, in a pitcher of epsom salt:


Ikea Centerpiece:

And hurricane filled with Christmas ornaments:

Finally, jingle bells to hang on the doorknob, for a cheery sound when people come into the house.

Happy Advent!

Double Stroller Giveaway November 14, 2011

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Shameless plug:  BabyGizmo is giving away a Bumbleride Indie Twin (read: very fancy) double stroller.  It’s great because it accommodates both infants and older siblings. And since we’ll be needing one come March, I thought it’d be worth an entry. :)

 

http://www.ratedbymom.com/2011/11/biggest-giveaway-yet/

Home Improvement September 25, 2011

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I’ve been steadily plugging away at my to-do list of home improvement projects, trying to finish the last few things I wanted done. First, I ordered a frame for the picture in our bathroom, and got that put up:

We got this poster in St. Joseph, Michigan – a beautiful little beach town about 40 minutes north of Notre Dame, which we visited frequently during our summers there.  I’ll miss it!

Next on the list was to devise a solution for the vented panels above the bathroom and bedroom doors. These panels were probably designed to help with heat flow, but unfortunately they also allow tremendous amounts of noise. Hence, the sound of Doggy’s hard plastic nose clacking against the side of the crib at ungodly hours of the morning, once a soft, even pleasant noise, was now a deafening din.

At my handyman father’s suggestion, I went to the hardware store and got a large piece of foam insulation, sliced it into strips with an exactoknife, spray-painted it white (well, mostly white – still a bit pink), and stuck it in the panels. It works pretty well  - thus far.

The only part of the project that went less-than-great was the part with the exactoknife.

But it only bled for a few hours.

The next issue was laundry. We have a community laundromat, but I wasn’t entirely thrilled about lugging my laundry there during the winter, being pregnant, or trying to take two kids AND a load of laundry. But there were ancient washer hookups in the kitchen, and a space just the right size, so we found a washer on Craigslist that worked wonderfully.

The dryer was a bit more of a problem, because there was no dryer outlet. But to my delight, we found a compact dryer, also on Craigslist, which plugs into a regular outlet.

In order to vent it out the window, I cut an extra strip of the foam insulation, and made a hole for the vent to fit in. Then I just put that in the window when I want to use the dryer.

But the downside to a 110 volt dryer is that it takes 2 hours to dry everything. So, we came up with another solution, for hanging heavier materials. My mom found this cool octopus-looking clothes hanger at Ikea, that hangs 8 items in a circle.

I wanted to hang it from the ceiling in front of the heater. Having learned some harsh lessons from my previous attempts at putting screws into drywall, I used the lovely new studfinder my dad gave me, and installed a hook into a stud in the ceiling. At least, I hope it was a stud. We will find out the first time I attempt to hang 8 pairs of jeans from it.

I also finally got around to putting up curtain rods. I found these cool, floor-length white drapes at Goodwill, which really added a nice soft touch to our bedroom, and frame the bed nicely.

I’m starting to put up fall decorations, although the weather hasn’t quite been fallish just yet. I found these cool gourds at Farmer’s Market. I think I inherited from my mother a love of lovely, warty gourds.

Finally, the bump is still growing steady, and I’m starting to feel pretty regular, sweet little kicks. So fun. 18 weeks!

New Home September 14, 2011

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Well, we arrived in Princeton nearly two weeks ago, and were blessed to have family visit us during that whole time. Davey’s mom made the trip out with us (driving the car with David and me, while Davey drove the moving van). She stayed for a few days, and then my parents flew out and stayed with us for over a week. It was a wonderful way to settle into a new place.

Davey and his mom did all the unloading, and then my parents helped greatly in finding us furniture and with decorating. Thanks to all of them, the new place is finally starting to look like home.

We were considering buying an Ikea couch, but then we found this green Ikea sofa at Salvation Army for $45. And best of all, it just happened to match the cute pillows I’d gotten at a thrift sale back at Notre Dame.

 

Kitchen, and door to the back porch:

 

Our wonderful new island from Ikea, which I’m very excited about.

 

Dining nook:

 

Entryway:

 

Hall:

 

Bedroom:

 

Pictures of the nursery will wait until we learn baby’s gender, so I can do some redecorating. :)

View from our front porch:

 

A mysterious gourd patch growing in the front yard:

 

On the front porch of our new home:

 

While we miss our Notre Dame friends already, we’re very excited to see what adventures are in store in this new phase of life. God is very good.

 

Williams-Sonoma Knock-off Hurricanes July 1, 2011

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I’ve been having fun with some decor projects for our new place. I haven’t done anything big (since we are moving soon, after all), but I found a few small things I thought would be fun to try over the summer.

This first one was a rousing success: the hurricane knock-off. I found this project online. Some clever crafter had seen these Williams-Sonoma cost-an-arm-and-a-leg hurricanes:

And came up with a clever imitation, using materials from the dollar store. Here is my finished version:

Cute, huh? Best of all, they only cost $2-$3 each to make! (Even the fillers came from the Dollar Store!)

Here’s the one I put on my bedside table:

Instructions here: http://www.decorchick.com/decorating/dollar-store-hurricanes/

 

Smoked Gouda & Basil Pasta July 1, 2011

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Since we were having guests for lunch today, I wanted to make something summery and fresh. So I found this recipe, which looked amazing (the Pioneer Woman strikes again!):

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/salads/spicy-pasta-salad-with-smoked-gouda-tomatoes-and-basil/

I popped down to Farmer’s Market, and picked up a pound of smoked gouda. Turns out I only needed a half-pound. Now we have extra smoked gouda in the house. How sad. :) Can you say “midmorning snack”?

The players: sliced basil, grape tomatoes halved length-wise, and smoked gouda, cut into small cubes.

The basil plant I also got at Farmer’s Market, and it has survived on my windowsill (despite being capsized several times by a two-year-old). The grape tomatoes came from the market as well, and are very fresh and sweet.

 

Add the chipotle cream sauce…

Toss with pasta, and chill in fridge! Voila!

 

Fresh, colorful, and (more or less) healthy!

 

 

The Mission of the Church in N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope June 19, 2011

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hope

C.S. Lewis once said that the great problem of Christianity for him had been this: What does the death of a man two thousand years ago have to do with us today? What is our hope as Christians?

In his book Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright answers these questions in a way that may startle many Christians. Wright begins by challenging a number of conceptions that Christians have about the nature of our hope. It is not, he argues, to escape this evil world and go to heaven, to live a spiritual, bodiless existence for eternity. This idea of freeing one’s pure soul from the shackles of this dreadful physical world stems not from Christianity, but from Platonism.

Christians believe that God created the physical world and called it good. The early Christians knew this – they didn’t hope to “die and go to heaven.” Rather, they always spoke of their hope in resurrection – the physical body coming back from the dead. When Christ rose from the dead on Easter, it was not to give us the hope of living as spirits in heaven for eternity. Christ rose from the dead, and that means that we will rise from the dead. Christ came back in his own flesh, and so shall we. As a teacher of mine once said, whenever you look at a graveyard, you should realize that one day, it will be empty.

For the early Christians, Paradise was not a final destination, but a resting place, a blessed Garden, where they would await the resurrection day. And what would this resurrection day look like?

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them . . .” And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. (Rev. 21:2-3,24)

Rather than people going to heaven, we see here the image of heaven coming to earth. The New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth, and the men of earth dwell there for eternity.

Wright points out how Revelation uses the image of a marriage – suggesting that heaven and earth are created for one another just like man and woman. They are designed to be wedded together – and it will be a day of great rejoicing when heaven comes to earth. That is when God’s kingdom shall truly come on earth, as in heaven. That is when all things will be gathered together in Christ (Eph. 1:10).

But this isn’t simply some event in the remote future: it already has begun. When Christ rose from the dead, the whole world changed. Death had no more sting; the grave had lost its power. The whole creation, which had been cursed by God at the Fall, began to live again. Romans 8 tells us that the whole creation had been groaning with birth pangs until now – that is, until the resurrection. The beginning of God’s new world was like a birth – the new world being born from the old.

But that is not all. Paul tells us that Christ now is reigning over heaven and earth: He is the King. And He will continue to reign until He has put all His enemies beneath his feet and until the earth is as filled with God as the sea is covered with water. And then there will be a new heaven and earth; that is, the earth will be made new, as the voice from the throne cries out (Rev. 21:5). The earth is restored, heaven descends, and all things are renewed.

So what is our role in this new world that God is creating through the resurrection of His Son? Wright puts it this way:

What we can and must do in the present . . . is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to I Cor. 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain . . . Every act of love, gratitude and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.

If God is creating a new world, then how does this affect our view of the church’s mission in that world? Just as man was a steward of the first creation, Wright argues, so we are now called to be stewards of God’s new creation. We failed the first time, but God has mended our broken stewardship and is giving us a second chance. We are working for His kingdom.

With this in mind, Wright outlines three key missions for the church today in building for the kingdom. First is to bring about justice – “the intention of God, expressed from Genesis to Revelation, to set the whole world right.” In the New Jerusalem, all wrongs will be made right. And so, Wright argues, part of our task as the Church is to start working towards that goal. To claim that the world is such a mess that we’d best just leave it alone is defeatism. Neither may we claim that because God will one day set all things right, we don’t need to bother doing anything about it now. That’s akin to saying that because you will one day be made sinless, there’s no point in working on your sanctification.

So how can Christians build for the kingdom by fighting for justice in our world? Wright says,

As far as I can see, the major task that faces us in our generation corresponding to the issue of slavery two centuries ago, is that of the massive economic imbalance of the world, whose major symptom is the ridiculous and unpayable Third World debt . . . (It) is the real immoral scandal, the dirty little secret – or rather the dirty enormous secret – of glitzy, glossy, Western capitalism. Whatever it takes, we must change this situation or stand condemned by subsequent history alongside those who supported slavery two centuries ago and those who supported the Nazis seventy years ago. It is that serious.

Conservative Christians might react to this injunction by thinking that fighting for social justice is something only liberals do. But Wright says it is the heart of the Gospel. James tells us explicitly that true and undefiled religion is relieving widows and orphans. It is mercy ministry. It is fighting for the oppressed. Our God is the God of the downtrodden – of the widow, the orphan, and the destitute in Third World countries who suffer at the hands of the powerful, often in the form of Western corporations and governments. These are the people the church should defend.

But it is not only in foreign nations where people suffer injustice. Wright talks about areas in the West as well, where small towns have been taken over by industries, built up, and then abandoned when they no longer fit into corporate plans. Towns become destitute. People lose hope. Says Wright:

There is a quiet anger, a sense that something has gone wrong at a structural level. Human societies should not work like that . . . Part of the task of the church must be to take up that sense of injustice, to bring it to speech, to help people both articulate it and, when they are ready to do so, to turn it into prayer . . . And the task then continues with the church’s work with the whole local community, to foster programs for better housing, schools, and community facilities, to encourage new job opportunities, to campaign and cajole and work with local government and councils, and in short, to foster hope at any and every level.

This is the role of the church: to bring hope and justice to the world. Wright outlines a number of ideas of how the church can work locally to better the lives of people in its community. Mercy ministry plays a huge part in this. The economic system that is in place today often makes it difficult for the poor to rise out of that state. But it is specifically the poor that Christ commands us to love –they are the ones who belong to the kingdom of heaven.

In earlier times, the church took very literally the injunction to care for orphans; often, unwanted children were dropped on the doorstep of the church because people knew the church would care for them. Perhaps there would be fewer abortions if single mothers knew the church would care for them and their babies, even if their own parents threw them out of the house. The church should be a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, and an orphanage all in one. That, according to James, is true religion.

The second mission of the church that Wright outlines is that of bringing beauty to the world – the kind of beauty that will be realized in the New Jerusalem. Wright argues that, in the postindustrial West, many communities are poverty stricken and ugly, with nothing to look at, day after day, but bleakness and filth. “When people cease to be surrounded by beauty, they cease to hope. They internalize the message of their eyes and ears, the message that whispers that they are not worth very much, that they are in effect less than fully human.”

Part of the church’s role is to bring beauty back into this world, through art and architecture, dance and feasting. Whether it is teaching painting or sculpting, playing music in coffee shops, holding feasts or dances for the community, the church is the place where new life, joy, and beauty should flourish, bringing hope to those who have lost it.

And when the church works to bring justice and beauty into the world, to see God’s kingdom come, then the third mission of the church will thrive as well: the mission of evangelism. When people receive justice that they never dreamt they would find, or are given beauty that they never imagined they would see, they will be inexorably drawn into this new world that God is creating.

To such places, and to the sad people who live in them as well as to those who find themselves battered by circumstances beyond their control, the message of Jesus and his death and resurrection comes as good news from a far country, news of surprising hope.

From “Housekeeping” by Marilynne Robinson April 30, 2011

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Lake Pend Oreille Cruise

“Cain killed Abel, and the blood cried out from the ground – a story so sad that even God took notice of it… Let God purge this wicked sadness away with a flood, and let the waters recede to pools and ponds and ditches, and let every one of them mirror heaven. Still, they taste a bit of blood and hair. One cannot cup one’s hand and drink from the rim of any lake without remembering that mothers have drowned in it, lifting their children towards the air, though they must have known as they did that soon enough the deluge would take all the children, too.. Well, all that was purged away, and nothing is left after so many years but a certain pungency and savor in the water, and in the breath of creeks and lakes which, however sad and wild, are clearly human.

I cannot taste a cup of water but I recall that the eye of the lake is my grandfather’s, and that the lake’s heavy, blind, encumbering waters composed my mother’s limbs and weighed her garments and stopped her breath and stopped her sight. There is remembrance, and communion, altogether human and unhallowed. For families will not be broken. Curse and expel them, send their children wandering, drown them in floods and fires, and old women will make songs out of all these sorrows and sit in the porches and sing them on mild evenings…

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after if. God Himself was pulled after us into the vortex we made when we fell, or so the story goes. And while He was on earth, He mended families. He gave Lazarus back to his mother, and to the centurion he gave his daughter again. He even restored the severed ear of the soldier who came to arrest Him – a fact that allows us to hope the resurrection will reflect a considerable attention to detail… And when He did die it was sad – and His mother wept and His friends could not believe the loss, and the story spread everywhere and the mourning would not be comforted, until He was so sharply lacked and so powerfully remembered that his friends felt Him beside them as they walked along the road, and saw someone cooking fish on the shore and knew it to be Him, and sat down to supper with Him, all wounded as He was…

There is so little to remember of anyone – an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way back home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long.”