Friday cat blogging

OK everyone, here we go. This nowhere nearly as exciting, entertaining or anticipated as Friday Mr Red Peanut blogging but since the good Padre is off in Darien or somewhere with the kidlins at camp, it will have to suffice.


Here's Miss Funky Paws lounging on her favourite pillow and blanket. You can sort of make out how high the 'thumb' claw is on her hind paw. I am convinced she is a geriatric kitty. So the goal is to make her days as happy as possible, as if there were a way to make up for whatever unknown but evident awful past.


La Doyenne sees it her personal right and challenge to hone in on whatever place someone else has deemed as comfortable. Here she has scrunched herself on top of Orange Guy who was there first.


Ditto for here although they don't look too unhappy.


Here's the view from the top.


And from the side. Sweet.


Eventually Young Guy decides he wants to try out the basket by the desk. Great idea having it there because I always have a cat at hand!

It's ooblick time!

The roads have hardened back up again but this is what they looked like yesterday. Only in mud season/January thaw do we cancel school because the buses can't make it out the back roads.

This road somewhere in Barre exhibits perfectly the goo that Vermonters must navigate during such times. Nothing like a lot of mud on top of frozen ground and then covered with a slight sheen of ice — it makes for really exciting driving, even worse than snow.

Now I know Panamanian mud and it can be daunting but frankly it doesn't have a hold a candle to this stuff.

Back to normal

whatever that is... but I put my office back together this afternoon.

The rectangle on the ceiling is where the leak was; the red rectangle on my desk is the major area that got wet. So... until we are past snow season and future ice dams, I will have the most neat desk in my history because I will keep papers off it. I have moved all my photos off to the side and pray that all the diplomas and certificates will survive if it rains again.

To polish off the scene I went out and bought white switch plate covers that I will put in tomorrow. The brown is so dreary and functional.

Meanwhile, I will spare posting a photo of all the bruises I now have on my knees and legs from crawling around on the roof Monday night. Let's just say that my shins took a beating from the standing seams of the roof. I didn't feel it at the time because my legs were so cold but was aware of it when they thawed out.

Now onto the annual report.

The Sisyphus Files, 3 (this go-round)

Actually, I took a day off from the mess. Instead, I cranked out minutes I absolutely had to get in today and then had a good long visit with Naomi. Your prayers of HOPE for her are working. She will have chemo 4a/5 (or number 7/10 however you want to count) this Friday. She actually is getting a little bit of peach fuzz back on her head and it's coming in lighter than how her hair was before she lost it. Anyway, keep praying for her.


Meanwhile, this is what the office looked like this morning and as it is tonight. Mañana.... I guess I will hang things back up on the wall. The desk, however, I may just cover with the tarp when I am not around.

And so it goes.

Hisssspit

Lisa over at My Manner of Life wanted to know what a hisspit graphic might look like. This one seems as good as any other I could glom off the web.

Hissspit is for those moments in life when words fail me but I need to do something. I think felines have a perfect answer. The recent cause for hissspitting is the discussion on the House of Bishops/Deputies list over the phrase, 'Love the sinner, hate the sin,' which some people think is benign and many of us think is totally offensive since it is only selectively used in relationship to LGBT people.

Too much ink has already been spilled in that listserve, at Lisa's place, at Elizabeth's place and in the comments at Jake's place so I am not further commenting... just hissspitting.

The Sisyphus Files Continued

If only that little figure would continue to move — when I first put it up, it would move, chasing the rock down the hill and then pushing it up again. Oh well. Maybe I need to download it again.

Anyway, ol' Sisyphus is at it again.

Yesterday morning, my office was neat, my house was still picked up. The whole joint has gone to hell in a handbasket.

First, the office. I had to move everything back in except the rug is still wet so it's draped over a stepladder and old lectern. (I will photograph it tomorrow.) Everything else is in neat piles but just that, piles.

The house is so-so because of pulling out everything for the talk on the Camino. The pack is now on the kitchen floor where I dumped it last night when I got the message about the ceiling leak. At least the cats know I am not leaving.


Even before I got out of bed this morning, I knew that I had one other task: the shed roof (which I can see from my bed) had finally dumped. That's about an hour plus of shovelling.

So, I put on my boots, but since it was 50 out (!), I didn't need a polartec: even a turtleneck and denim shirt were too much. No gloves either. An iPod helps the time go by quickly.


I had a spectator's gallery with Orange Boy downstairs in the kitchen window and Miss Funky Paws upstairs (red arrow).


Here's a close-up of her as she looked down at me, probbly wondering what the creature doing? That is a characteristic look.

Tomorrow is a new day. Let's see what adventures it brings (!).

L'Ennui

or in other words, j'ai le ralbol. (I am fed up.)

I was wondering when the 'traditionalists' were going to start vociferating about the current discussion on extending the benefits of marriage to same-gender couples. Well, today with the start of our legislative session, they announced the formation of, get it, the 'Vermont Marriage Advisory Council,' a group that will hold hearings on the benefits of 'traditional' marriage.

Stephen Cable of Rutland, the founder of the conservative group Vermont Renewal, said the formation of this traditional marriage council is in response to what he says is the pro-gay marriage leanings of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection.

The traditional marriage group Take It to the People will also become more active in the debate this year. Craig Bensen of Cambridge, a member of the group, said he plans to launch an effort called Let Vermont Vote – a push to put a nonbinding referendum on gay marriage before the state's voters in November. [Benson was a real loud mouth in the civil union debate.]

They will be bringing in the ultra-right Family Rsearch Council to participate in their forums across the state.

You can read the rest here.

Frankly, I am so sick and tired of the conservatives yammering on about protecting marriage from those evil gays and lesbians.

Do pray for this little state of Vermont. Even here, things can get nasty. Last time we were graced by Ralph Reed setting up shop and even a visit from the arch wacko, Fred Phelps. (Actually, they helped the cause by their sheer ugliness.)

For a really good read on the civil union process, read David Moat's Civil Wars. (The link is to Powell's, Portland OR.) From the publisher:

In 2000 Vermont became the first state to grant gay and lesbian couples the right to join in civil unions — a groundbreaking decision that has inspired similar legislation in six states thus far. But it was not an easy victory; the ruling sparked the fiercest political conflict in the state's memory. David Moats was in the thick of it, writing a series of balanced, humane editorials that earned a Pulitzer Prize. Now he tells the intimate stories behind the battle and introduces us to all the key actors in the struggle, including the couples who first filed suit; the lawyers who spent years championing the case; and the only openly gay legislator in Vermont, who ensured victory with an impassioned, deeply personal speech on the House floor at a crucial moment.

Civil Wars is a remarkable drama of democracy at work on a human scale.

[photo: from a website: how to buy lesbian wedding rings :P ]

The Sisyphus Files or Here We Go Again

This is not the post I was going to write but the one that I was given. I gave my presentation at the local ladies' reading circle. That was lots and lots of fun — absolutely no effort on my part because it is so easy to talk about the Camino.

When I got back, I had a phone message from the nursery school teacher who said that she had gone into my office to photocopy something and saw that water was pouring from a leak in the ceiling. Drat — I really thought we were going to escape an ice dam. Nope. I phoned her and she said she had moved everything off my desk because that is where the leak was but my photos got wet so she took them out of the frames and the folders with my vestry notes were wet.

So, I changed into rain pants (which I subsequently tore on the standing seam roof) and jacket, huge boots, gloves and got a snow shovel. I dragged a ladder to the side of the one-story parish house that is by the church because I knew that I could wedge it in a way that it wouldn't fall down. With shovel, I climbed up on the roof, and crawled my way to the front where the leak is (where it always is). And then, sitting or lying down on my stomach (for a longer reach), I shovelled off as much snow as I could.


Here's a view from the roof, looking at the rectory.


And this is the lilac tree that captures the snow that then gets stuck and backs up.


My poor office. I guess I am fated to take it apart partially every other year (to get the floor done) and completely every four or ten (to get the ceiling repaired). This is it mostly taken apart. The red circle indicates the seam along which the water is leaking.


These are some of the things that normally hang on the walls.


And more stuff — I have too much but I've been in this office for 14 years.


I wish the office could stay like this, that is, empty, but since we share the one-room parish house with the nursery school, I will have to move everything back in. I will not reassemble my desk until I am sure that the roof won't leak again. The computer is under the tarp. The nursery school teacher, who rescued it, said that only the speakers seemed to have gotten wet.


It's time for some Abuelo!

The Feast of the Epiphany

The bishop came to our church today. So... no sermon. Instead, there's a very weary Caminante.

He presided and preached at both 8.00 and 10.00 services of Holy Eucharist — a very good sermon that maybe I can reconstruct someday.

The coffee hour with a special Epiphany cake: whoever gets the white ring gets to make next year's cake. Wouldn't you know — he got it! We threatened that he have to come back next year for Epiphany with a home-made cake but he traded off with a 10 year-old. I got a penny, symbolising that I am poor. Well, I didn't need to know that, though by world standards, I am very wealthy.

Then an hour-plus meeting with the vestry, followed by some time the two of us in discussion.

And then, in what was perhaps the most tender moment of the day, we took communion to the mother of a congregant. It was sweet to see our bishop in that context. After all, I don't think bishops get to do much of that.

Then meeting Compa downstream 35 miles (a little over halfway) to get my pack for the talk on the Camino I am giving tomorrow.

It's time to crater after this 'God' [i.e., typo for good] day. I am not even sure I will make it through one section of the New York Times.

Yearning

How am I going to survive this year without walking the Camino or the Chemin? For the past four springs I have walked a segment of it. Getting the pack all geared up, and hitting the Camino has become a way of life. So it seems unimaginable not to be doing it this year.

But the dollar against the euro is so bad that it would cost even more than it already has. And perhaps my poor foot needs time off.

At some point, I would like to walk the entire Camino from St Jean Pied de Port/Roncesvalles (i.e., cross the Pyrenees) all the way to Santiago... yes, even redo the meseta.

There are so many more people walking the Camino now even to the point that one can no longer put one's hand in the fingerprints in the column of Glory at the cathedral in Santiago — I guess they have stopped allowing that for fear of further erosion. With each year, will it be harder to find places to stay and even the sense of peace I get from walking?

One pilgrim walks for love. Another walks because it is there. I walk for a myriad of reasons.

Rory Stewart, who walked across Afghanistan, writes:

I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us from the apes. It freed our hands for tools and carried us on the long marches out of Africa. As a species, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted at a walking pace, even when some rode horses. I thought of the pilgrimages to Compostela in Spain; to Mecca; to the source of the Ganges; and of wandering dervishes, sadhus, and friars who approached God on foot. The Buddha meditated by walking and Wordsworth composed sonnets while striding beside the lakes.

Bruce Chatwin concluded from all this that we would think and live better and be closer to our purposes as humans if we moved continually on foot across the surface of the earth. I was not sure I was living or thinking any better.

[...]

In the center of Nepal, I began to count my breaths and my steps, and to recite phrases to myself, pushing thoughts away. This is the way some people meditate. I could only feel that calm for at most an hour a day. It was, however, a serenity I had not felt before. It was what I most valued about walking. [Rory Stewart, The Places In Between, Orlando, FL: Harcourt Harvest, 2006, 75-76.]

Molly Malone Cook says quite simply: 'People travel to keep from crying in place.' [Mary Oliver, text, Molly Malone Cook, photos, Our World, Boston, Beacon Press, 2007, 81.]

To butcher Descartes: Je me promène, donc je suis. I walk, therefore I am.

Two other creatures

While over at Miss Funky Paws' rescuer's house, I also saw this beautiful owl high up in a tree. It's a barn owl (? — I don't have any books here to verifiy), who has been there for three days, totally unconcerned about the people and cars nearby.


It looks sort of like the owl that did in Squirrel Nutkin's tail. (That was one of my favourite books as a little girl. I loved it so much that I coloured all over the pictures, ahem.)


There are lots of deer and they are hungry now. Today nine showed up.

Friday cat blogging (and how)

A bonanza of cat photos!


First the bookcase: Compa assembled a bookcase for my study two nights ago. No sooner than it was up than Young Guy decided to explore it. La Doyenne came over to inspect.


The boxing match was on.


He scores a strike.


She decides to give it up.

Next, the basket. Same basket as a previous series but now it is on top of the new bookcase. Everyone tried it out.


First Young Guy.


Then Orange Guy.


Lastly, la Doyenne who continues to shred the paper in it.


Meanwhile in the suite, Miss Funky Paws helps out with income taxes.


This afternoon I went over to visit Miss Funky Paws' rescuer. Here is one of her cats, Tommy, by some of his favourite toys: pieces of a box that he and his pal, Bumper, have torn apart, and some paper.


Here's another shot of him, with Bumper as a blur in the background.


Here's Bumper trying to get out of the enclosure in the front yard. He doesn't seem too bothered by the snow.

Oh my head hurts

The New York Times
January 4, 2008
Editorial

Let It Start Now

The candidates have spent a year and tens of millions of dollars in Iowa, and Thursday night the first actual voters offered their first assessments. Some candidates and their strategists were hoping the caucuses and the New Hampshire primary next week would settle the race, weeding out the contenders for the two major parties’ presidential nominations. Watching the campaign in cold, snowy and mostly empty Iowa, we were hoping for something else — that this year’s Iowa-New Hampshire rush to judgment will be the last.

For all of Thursday night’s drama, the results in Iowa did not preclude a race going into New Hampshire, and, we hope, beyond — to South Carolina, Florida and the cluster of primaries on Feb. 5. Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, but she’s got plenty of money left, and John Edwards got a boost. Mike Huckabee’s win was unlikely to deter Mitt Romney or the Republicans who did not contest Iowa: John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani.

Keeping this race alive so significant numbers of Americans in more populated states can participate would begin to make up for the ludicrous spectacle of the past year, which enriched the television networks and the political consultants (some $300 million already spent) far more than it enriched the political dialogue. We hope both parties will wake up and end the undemocratic system in which the choice of a new president rests far too heavily on nonbinding votes in January by voters that don’t necessarily represent the rest of the country.

We don’t question the enthusiasm or the commitment of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire. But Iowa, where a huge turnout amounts to less than 10 percent of the population, is about 92 percent white, more rural and older than the rest of the nation. New Hampshire has a non-Hispanic white population of about 95 percent. Iowa’s Democrats are more liberal and more protectionist than the nation’s Democrats. Its Republicans are more conservative, and religiously driven, than the nation’s Republicans. And yet, The Boston Globe reported that Mr. Romney spent $7 million on ads in Iowa. That’s nearly $4 per registered voter.

We believe the time has long passed for both parties to not only break the Iowa-New Hampshire habit but also end the damaging race to be third, with states pushing their primaries closer and closer to New Year’s Day.

Instead, the country should adopt a more sensible and more representative system of regional primaries, in which states are divided into regional groups that vote on a designated day. The honor of going first would rotate year to year among the regions. That would give a far broader range of American voters a say in this vitally important choice.

Make no mistake, there are choices to be made in this first election in many, many years in which both parties’ nominations are being contested. Most of the Republican contenders (with the exception, most of the time, of Senator John McCain) offer the same kind of politics of division that has so polarized this nation over the last seven years. It is a politics that thrives on religious and social intolerance and fear.

Mr. Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, cloaks himself in affability and Christianity. But he bullied Mr. Romney into pleading with religious conservatives to accept his Mormon faith as Christian enough for a Republican nominee and, after professing charity, has recently become a scourge of undocumented immigrants.

Fear often appears to be the only plank on which Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is standing, when you can tell where he is standing at all. Mr. Giuliani, who parlayed the 9/11 tragedy into a lucrative business and now speaks, bizarrely, of the “9/11 generation,” has switched his views a dizzying number of times — on immigration, on abortion, on New York.

Almost as dizzying, in fact, as the pirouettes executed by Mr. Romney, who wants American voters to forget his record as governor of Massachusetts — where he endorsed gay marriage and reproductive choice — and believe what he says now that he wants to be president. Among Mr. Romney’s tailored-for-the-campaign proposals is to double the size of the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which even President Bush knows must be closed.

All of the Republicans want to continue President Bush’s disaster of a war in Iraq, including Mr. McCain. He, however, has taken a courageous stand for immigration reform, which seemed to doom his candidacy last year, and is a strong advocate of the need to confront global warming and to stop the abuse of prisoners in Mr. Bush’s system of secret prisons.

The Democrats are united in their opposition to the war, but none have spelled out a persuasive plan for getting American troops home without setting off a wider conflagration.

Senator Obama generates enormous excitement with his youth, and his promises of change — even if it’s not entirely clear what he intends to change or how. Senator Clinton, meanwhile, wavers between wanting to be seen as ready to serve as president because of her eight years in the White House with her husband — and trying to satisfy voters’ yearnings for new ideas and new ways.

Mr. Edwards has a strong populist message, but it sounds a bit odd coming from a former tort lawyer and hedge fund executive who ran as a completely different person in 2004. One of his ads features an out-of-work Maytag employee who said Mr. Edwards promised his 7-year-old son: “I’m going to keep fighting for your daddy’s job.” We’re still waiting for Mr. Edwards to explain how he, or any politician, can turn back the tide of economics and globalization. We’d prefer if he explained how to make it work for all Americans.

None of this has led us to a choice in the nominating contests, never mind for the presidency. The majority of Americans are in the same position. That’s why they should be allowed to see and hear more of these candidates, and not have to settle for the judgments of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire.

How do people get these photos?

from I can haz cheezburger?

Java row

At the December clergy day, we always have a Yankee gift swap. This bag of Peet coffee made the rounds until I glommed onto it and since I was the first and last one to pick from the pile, I got to keep it. I swapped off a fake lava lamp for it.

I don't know why it is so much stronger than the Equal Exchange stuff I usually drink but this coffee gets me revved up. Today I managed to increase my ranking in the 30 minute row from 22nd percentile to 17th percentile (22/132). I am not complaining.

The dining room table sort of has an eclectic combination of Christmas, Simon Pearce, pottery from Palestine and the butter dish that came from my grandparents and probably belonged to my great grandmother.

Major Pet Peeve

The bloated pre-electoral season that started over a year ago which means that even in a state the candidates could care less about I have been getting solicitation phone calls from every candidate even if I never gave a cent to them, and mostly from the DNC. Just got another one.

Our system costs way too much and goes on for far too long. Would that it be short and sweet, two months, as it is in El Salvador. Theirs still is a costly process but at least it's not for 24 months.

Lord have mercy on the people of Iowa and New Hampshire, though they sort of ask for it by insisting on having the first caucus and vote (so my pity is somewhat limited).

Meanwhile, I wish there were a way to stop these calls. Grump.

Is this for real?

Name this photo. And then after you have submitted your suggestion, go to this blog for the original title (from whence I snagged this photo). Were I to put the title down, I'd lose my PG rating ;)

Of coffee and cultural change

George Hood, city editor of the Bohemian news, has an interesting article on the background not only to the story in San Joaquin and the larger discussion of mores.

Just a snippet from the article:

I realized that changes in the secular law that took place in the 1970’s, and later, bear on this present dispute in a way that I don’t think anyone could ever have imagined when those changes took place. I also suspect that many who now find themselves in this fight may not be aware of the path that led them to this point. Allow me to explain.

When I was a young man, the essentials of a good start for the day, that is, a good newspaper and a cup of drinkable coffee, both cost ten cents. The other day I dwelt a while on this bit of my personal history as I went past one of those chain stores where the coffee is just plain undrinkable and most of the patrons are looking for soy latte anyway.

It isn’t that I no longer like coffee. It’s just that what I call coffee is a whole lot different than what a lot of the people around here now call coffee. Things have changed.

[snip]

I grew up in a very different San Francisco, a place which had a substantial Roman Catholic population. For the many good Catholics here, life revolved around the Church: daily mass, daily reading of the Rosary, fish on Friday, the Men’s Social Club Annual Spaghetti Dinner, and the Easter Sunday Pilgrimage to the Cross on Mount Davidson – well, you get the idea. A great deal of activity found its origin in the Church and the faithful took their religion seriously even if they were sometimes light hearted in their expression of it.

This was the old time coffee. It was never bitter, never tasted burnt, and generally was pretty easy to drink. Whether you were Roman Catholic or Episcopalian, there never was any question of what you were going to get when you ordered it.

To carry this analogy out a bit further, from the perspective of the present Episcopal Church with its view toward “inclusivity”, this new chain store coffee, bitter as it may be, is a coffee equal to the older style of coffee. The Episcopal Church says, in effect, “coffee is coffee, let’s all sit down and discuss the many ways we can brew it.”

The orthodox, on the other hand, say, in effect “when we talk about conduct and pastoral responsibility, we are not talking about directions on a can, we are talking about the immutable laws of God and our directions come from scripture”. In other words, all coffee is not coffee in the sense of it all being drinkable. Likewise the many ways that human sexuality can be expressed do not all yield a spiritually acceptable result. The formula for the spiritually correct expression of sexuality is defined by the laws of God.

Of champagne and piles

If you don't like snow, then there's no point really in reading further.

This past December was one of the snowiest on record. In Saint Johnsbury where they keep records from the mid-1800s, it has been the snowiest. I don't know what the records are for here, but I don't recall seeing this much snow at the turn of the year.

I have just engaged in what some call is 'non-impact exercise.' That works as an idea as long as you don't hit anything hard underneath the snow. Then it can absolutely kill your shoulder (the voice of experience).

Today's snow is champagne-powder as we call it. Light and fluffy stuff with little water content. Perfect for skiing. Oh well.

In any event, there is too much snow now in the area plowers call the 'landing' so the plower didn't even try to pull the snow back from the shed (it's getting a bit narrow in there). Ayuh. So, twenty-five minutes later, I had cleared the area. It's not perfect but at least I think I can get the car out.

That is one sort of pile.

The other is the mountains of paperwork and papers through which to sort. Ay. Even doing miggly things, paying bills, doing the final donations/gifts for Christmas, getting together a collection of checks to send off, going to the post office to find out what I can do (nothing) about the fact that my sister's present never reached her even though I sent it on the 12th, all that has taken up the whole day.

Worse, I have been doing this thoroughly jazzed by two cups of Peets coffee. For some reason, it is stronger than the other coffee I normally imbibe. I got a pound bag of this coffee (Major Dikason's) at our clergy gift swap just before Christmas and made my first pot of it this morning. Wow. Only now do I think my heartrate is slowing down.

Last but not least, since the temperature is going to go below zero tonight, I have hooked up the space heater to the fuel supply line to the church furnace and double-checked that the heater to the parish house is also plugged in. All it takes is a couple of minus 10 nights and the oil coagulates and then I get the phone call from the nursery school that there's no heat in the parish house... Someday I will take a course in furnace maintenance and I will be eminently more employable as a parish priest.

Church as a place of refuge?

Grandmère Mimi asks today: "Whatever happened to the idea of the church as a place of refuge?"

Alas, there is an example in El Salvador, El Mozote.

Mark Danner's report on the massacre of El Mozote is the best.

Rufina Amaya Márquez (d.2006) was the sole survivor of the massacre and she hammered at the doors of justice for years to be heard and believed.

On 10 December 1981, in the village of El Mozote in the Department of Morazán [upper northeast corner of the country on the border with Honduras], units of the Atlacatl Battalion detained, without resistance, all the men, women and children who were in the place. The following day, 11 December, after spending the night locked in their homes, they were deliberately and systematically executed in groups. First, the men were tortured and executed, then the women were executed and, lastly, the children, in the place where they had been locked up. The number of victims identified was over 200. The figure is higher if other unidentified victims are taken into account.

Danner gives more like 800. There is a monument (photo above — the bands behind the statue are panels with the names of the deceased) that lists the names (where known), age (where known) and sex of the person. It becomes numbing to read, 'Child, age 6,' 'boy, age 3,' 'woman, age 22' and so forth.

A little distance away is another monument that informs the visitor that in that spot 125 people, all women and children, were burned to death in the church sacristy. I think that rattled me more than the large monument. In 2002 when I went there, not many Salvadorans made the long trek out there; most visitors were internationals. I suspect that might still be the case.

What happened in Kenya today joins the horrid memories of Rwanda in 1994, El Mozote in 1981 and other places that I don't even know.

May God have mercy on all of us.

This ain't Panamá

While Padre Mickey is enjoying hot weather in Panamá, Grandmère Mimi is in a warm place, Pseudopiskie is in a relatively snowy place, and Rev Dr Mom is in the rain (I think), I am in the snowbelt.


It snowed quite heavily early afternoon. Mercifully it didn't start until after we were in church this morning.


If you look hard, you can see the snowflakes. Some of them show up as dark blobs but it really is snow. I love how the trees get all gunked up with it. We've gotten probably seven inches by now.


The rectory has an upstairs back porch so I took this photo and the next one from that porch. The steeple beyond our tower is that of the Methodist church.


This is the back neighbourhood. It's always interesting how with the snow the colours are more muted.

We've already been plowed out so I don't have to deal with that. As far as I know, everyone I know who is travelling is off the roads, not in a snowbank, but safely at home.

How I feel about flying

Post no. 600!

from I can haz cheezburger

Feast of the Holy Name

It’s always fascinating to go through family histories to see the progression of names given from generation to generation. Way back in my family on my father’s side are the names Ebenezer, Abel, Aaron, John, Ingoldsby, Ossian, George and William. Alas, in the brief genealogy I consulted, there are no women’s names though I know way back there was a Lucy. By the time my generation rolled around, those names had long disappeared and my parents cast about for more recent ones. I proudly carry my paternal grandmother’s nickname (she was an Elizabeth). Amazingly, my parents could stretch my one syllable name into as many as they needed if they wanted my attention, particularly if I was misbehaving. When it reached a certain pitch, I knew I was in trouble.

Our names form who we are. There are some combos, like the Texan Ima Hogg, that are so bad, that their owners change them so that they can get on with their life (those these two women didn’t), and become who they feel they really are. But most of us, I think, live into our given name.

+

In Hebraic thought, to name someone is to know that person’s nature. The passage from Exodus recounts how God reveals the divine name in a single word, Adonai, I AM WHO I AM. Not that we can fully know God’s nature, but in that naming of God’s self, God tells us a bit about who God is — being and life. Then to help us, God provides a summary of God’s character — above all, abounding in steadfast mercy.

Likewise, the name Emmanuel, God-with-us, reveals some of Jesus’ character, namely that Christ is with us and in us at all times for ever. By becoming flesh and dwelling among us, God Incarnate in Jesus, is more present, more real to us.

The gospel of Luke does not lack in its numerous names for Jesus. Jesus calls himself: The Christ, Son of Man, Lord/Master, prophet, shepherd, bridegroom, Lord of the Sabbath, Child of Wisdom, the very stone which the builders rejected…

Others call Jesus: Son of the most high, Son of God, Son of Adam, Son of David, Son of Abraham, my beloved Son, Emmanuel, Christ, Holy One of God, teacher/rabbi, prophet, king of the Jews, Christ of God, Master, Lord, Saviour, salvation, my Son, my chosen, the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

I doubt any of us has ever had that many names attributed to us!

We know we are dealing with the Holy Name, the name at which every knee should bow, the name at which some of us do bow our heads.

If the name of God is I AM, and Jesus is, God-with-us, what is our name? As those baptised in Christ’s name, it is ‘child of God,’ ‘Christ’s child,’ or 'my beloved.' As children of the light, sons and daughters of God, we find Christ in one another.

As the world celebrates a new year, and we observe one of our major feasts, it’s fitting once again to ask ourselves when we see Christ in one another and how we respond to the Christ in front of us? How do we respect the person who also bears the name, ‘child of God’? And, how do we live into that name as we grow?

As those sealed and marked by Christ for ever, in whom Christ dwells, whose name we share, may Christ give us hope to look forward to the challenges of tomorrow; courage to face hardships without losing hope; faith so that the joy of receiving Christ into our lives will lead us to serve our brothers and sisters; appreciation for the gifts that we have received, that we may use them responsibly, daring to offer friendship, service and love to others; and the gift of Christmas throughout the year.