Epiphanies in the Ordinary, part 3

Since agreeing to teach a four-week class at our church in March on “Liturgy, Lectionary, and the Christian Calendar,” I’ve been spending a lot of time–even more than usual, that is–thinking about the ways the calendar shapes our routines, the way we think about the world, and the way we experience the passing of time.

Some of us primarily mark time by school year, by fiscal or tax years, by growing seasons, and some of us, for a period of time at least, by the weeks of pregnancy ticking by on a calendar.

Regardless, we all keep track of time in some way, and as far as I can tell it seems to be getting the best of us.

I even know somebody who (no joke) begins a countdown to the following year’s Christmas on December 26. And she manages to keep the number in her head all through the year. If you run into her in March or July or October, she knows just how many more days until Christmas.

The truth is, it’s really hard to keep from looking to what’s next. It’s hard to be present in the present!

Guest Post Wednesday: Visiting in 3D

My dad wrote this guest post after visiting with my brother’s family, including the new grandbaby, out west last week. Here he muses about the difficulty of substituting electronic and social media communication for an old-fashioned, face-to-face visit.

It had been less than a year since Gail and I visited with our son, daughter-in-law, and only grandbaby in their home in Washington state. Because we live in Pennsylvania, we try to Skype each week so we can talk to them and see their faces and—most of all—so Myka can get to know her long distance grandparents.

It is always a delight to hear Myka’s sweet voice, “Hi, Grandma. Hi, Grandpa,” when she sees our faces on the screen. It always makes my old grandpa heart go pitty-pat!

Epiphanies in the Ordinary, part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, we were a little behind in taking down our Christmas decorations this year.

Though I tend to dread taking the ornaments off of the tree, dealing with the silly, stubborn metal hooks, and sliding the puzzle-piece smaller boxes around so that they fit in the big plastic tub we keep the decorations in, the truth is that I always enjoy the process once it’s underway.

Like so many other folks’ Christmas trees, ours is basically held together with memories.

And I’m only being somewhat metaphorical. Seven Christmases ago, we paid a measly fifteen bucks for the cheapest artificial tree we could find, not expecting it to last us past our short tenure in Texas. It’s pretty frail and sparse at this point, but nothing that can’t be patched together with a few memories.

Epiphanies in the Ordinary, part 1

We typically keep our Christmas decorations up through all twelve days of Christmas, so until January 6th.

Sometimes we’ve been known to gradually un-decorate, just as we gradually decorate during Advent. We’ll remove the ornaments and the tree, for example, but leave up the greenery and white lights on the mantle, reminding us that during Epiphany, we experience Christ in the world. We bring our gifts, like the magi brought, and we respond to the call of Christ’s light in the world, like the magi did.

This year, we were away for Epiphany. In fact, we didn’t arrive home until nearly a week after. Upon arriving home on the 12th, we moved our magi to their place beside Jesus, pretending they actually arrived while Mary and Joseph were still in Bethlehem, and decided to hold off un-decorating for a few more days.

Okay, so we were really just too busy to take the decorations down, but who’s counting?

Puke & Community

My brother and sister-in-law, like us, strive to live “in community.” Right now, in addition to a two-year-old daughter, a five-week-old son, and a seven-year-old chocolate lab, a friend lives with them in an extra bedroom. (Actually right now they also have my dad and stepmom sleeping on an air mattress in their dining room for the week!)

Over the last few days, their friend and housemate got a stomach bug. A very unpleasant stomach bug.

In the midst of all of this, my sister-in-law reportedly* stated a great truth about community, which I am swiping from Facebook and reprinting here without her permission:

Independence is cleaning up your own puke… Community is cleaning up your roommate’s.

Ah, yes.

And, we could add, community is also having someone to clean up yours.

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* I add an asterisk because she does deny using these exact words, 
though not the sentiment.

Not-So-Silly Geese: A Sabbath Meditation

This week, our friend Erik offered what our church calls the “children’s moment” during the worship service.

In pretty much every church I’ve attended, children’s moments are hit or miss. Some good. Some awful. Mostly awkward. And, as far as I can tell, much of the time they aren’t beneficial to the children, per se, other than to get them out of their seats to burn a bit of energy in the midst of all the adult moments going on.

Erik’s sermonette this week was about geese and whether or not they’re silly (as in, “you silly goose”).

Doesn’t sound very profound does it? Well, I’ve got news for you.

It was.

After some travels across the country over the last week, complete with new-baby snuggling, toddler entertaining, and germ-exchanging only-permitted-on-the-airlines stranger interaction, we arrived home to a dusting of snow, cancelled school, and FRIGID weather in central Kentucky.

And the imprint of a three-foot snow angel on our driveway that warmed my heart this morning.

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All that to say, thanks for your patience! I’ll get back to the regularly scheduled programming soon.

“A friend in need is a…”

This is the back story:

On Saturday morning over blueberry pancakes, J and I chatted about what we hoped to accomplish for the day, a typical routine for us. I had a laundry list of items I knew I wouldn’t accomplish, but his sounded pretty reasonable, mostly working on the renovation of our basement. By afternoon, if he’d finished with the electrical work, and if the weather was nice, he hoped to head to our nearest Big Box Store to buy more drywall for the ceiling.

This endeavor is always a little complicated, as we drive a two-door Ford Focus hatchback. Though we call this beloved hand-me-down “our little pick-up”–since we’ve managed to squeeze all sorts of enormous furniture into the hatchback–drywall doesn’t fit and of course doesn’t bend.

As a result, we always need to borrow vehicles to get the job done. And with our constant renovation, this happens pretty regularly and becomes a headache.

This is the actual story:

Late morning, we hear a knock on our front door. As I walk up to it, I see a large white pick-up truck parked in our driveway. Oh, geez, I think. Someone wants to clean our gutters. (This happens pretty frequently, which is probably a sign we should, ahem, clean our gutters.)

Texas Schmexas: 2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

New Years & Community Traditions

Smack in the middle of the liturgical Christmas season, which really does last for twelve days, we arrive at the non-liturgical holiday of New Year’s Eve. As our magi are still wandering around the living room, I’m mentally preparing to stay up a good four hours later than I have been recently.

This morning’s Writer’s Almanac included an interesting blurb about the history of the Times Square ball-dropping tradition. (32,000 LED lights? Who knew?) Mr. Keillor also mentioned the proliferation of item-dropping traditions:

Atlanta, Georgia, drops a giant peach. Eastport, Maine, drops a sardine. Ocean City, Maryland, drops a beach ball, and Mobile, Alabama, drops a 600-pound electric Moon Pie. In Tempe, Arizona, a giant tortilla chip descends into a massive bowl of salsa. Brasstown, North Carolina, drops a Plexiglas pyramid containing a live possum; and Key West, Florida, drops an enormous ruby slipper with a drag queen inside it.

All very, um, interesting, but as I read through this list, I kept hoping they’d mention some of my favorites from central Pennsylvania.