January Experiment: Follow-Up

Mornings are longer and lighter when I look out the windows instead of staring into a screen.

The urge for quick access to information strikes a surprising number of times throughout the day. My brain has been trained to digest many small meals instead of ruminating on a five course meal. Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks.

It is usually worth the time and effort to create my own approach to something, instead of looking for a stranger’s quick fix or opinion.

The Joy of Cooking not only has thousands of recipes, it teaches the hows and whys of cookery. I discovered how to make delicious stock from scratch, reduce stock into a gel for long-term preservation, master a stew, and create my own mushroom sauce base.

The amount of time spent surfing the internet is inversely proportionate to the cleanliness of the house.

It is quicker to look up information on the internet compared to finding it in the Yellowpages and then making a phone call . . . but only if I don’t get distracted with other things online!

The mechanics of friendship have changed with social networking. I really do make meaningful connections with friends on Facebook, and I missed them!

Fifty-nine cents is worth the smile on the other end of the mailbox.

I have learned to create through computer keys, and I found it more difficult to write with pen and paper.

It is more satisfying to spend half an hour reading one book than browsing through half a dozen websites. I read 5 books in January.

Thoughts are better preserved in a journal than in a status update. Not all thoughts are suitable for public consumption.

The internet screams NEWER! FASTER! UPDATED! It has no secrets, no mystery. It conditions for discontent. Nature invites reflection, investigation, appreciation. It ties you to its seasons and rhythms and rewards patience.

Computer time is best approached with intention, purpose and discipline. Just because it is available doesn’t mean it is beneficial. Anything I allow into my home should be subject to the rules and rhythms of the life we are creating.

The computer is a useful servant, but a brutal master. I am responsible to teach it its place.

winter grace

grace
tiptoeing through the snow
peering through the back window
breathing on the glass

you trace a heart in the fog
drawing us into your signature

grace
you leave your secret notes for us to find

so when the night falls,
and we look into darkness,
pressing our faces to the cold glass with a prayer
and a sigh,

..... our breath reveals your invisible ink
..... and we see our initials enclosed with yours

suddenly you are falling all around us
filling up the night
filling up our hearts
with a quiet flurry
grace


~lg

January Experiment

I used to boast that I could easily live without a computer. Now, I’m not so sure.

In fact, there are some days I find myself almost enslaved to my laptop. The glowing invitation for more information, more communication, more entertainment is a steady presence throughout my days. It’s all there, right at my fingertips, anytime the thought strikes me. It’s not an issue of whether this technology is good or bad. It can be pretty fun, and for my life, it’s downright necessary at times. But it’s become an issue of the master-slave relationship, and I think my computer has started to master me. When I can’t walk by it without just checking something out, I think I have a problem!

So I’ve decided to embark on an experiment this January. I’m going computer-less. Well, not completely. But in as many ways as I can, I’m going to intentionally shut down my screen. Recipes? I have cookbooks. Weather? The radio. You tube? My husband and daughter are far more amusing than double rainbow guy. Blogs I like reading? I have lots of books on my shelves. Facebook? That’s a tough one. It seems so normal to check facebook several times a day, but it’s not really necessary. How did I ever live 5 years ago without knowing what my friends were eating for lunch??

What about communicating with friends and family? I don’t want to turn into a hermit. But I will try to use the phone instead of email. Or write a real letter, you know, the kind you write on paper and send in the mail. Instant communication isn’t always the best.

There are some things I will need to stay connected to. Email, for instance. That’s the only way I have of communicating with some people, and some emails are necessary for work or other social functions. And that will also include some facebook messages, because that has become basically like email. And online banking. The bills must be paid!

The other big thing is word processing. I’ll still need to do some of that for work. But for my own personal writing – including blogging, poetry and journaling – I’m going to go old fashioned. Paper and pen. It will be fun to see how my thoughts flow at a slower pace, when I have to commit to each word I write or risk an ugly scribble-out.

Once I had decided to do this, my first thought was, I should blog about it as I go! Um… nope. Before this experiment is shared with anyone else, it needs to be my experiment. Maybe I’ll keep a paper record as I go and let you know later how it went.

And so all of that means – no blogging in January! I am a little bit sad about this. But I’m going to keep writing. And when January is over, I’ll see what I have that’s worthwhile posting. In the meantime, you can check out the archives if you like.

See you in February!

new year

The world is a white slate, ready for our footprints. Where will we dance? What will we explore first? The sun opens its heart to us once more, greeting us a little earlier every day. We awake to life, and this is the simple gift that demands our whole being.

Happy new year!

~lg

Book List 2010

Completed books:

What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Heidi Murkoff)
The Blythes are Quoted (L.M. Montgomery)
Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery)
Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery)
Impossible (Nancy Werlin)
Committed (Elizabeth Gilbert)
The Giver (Lois Lowry)
The Meaning of Tradition (Yves Congar)
Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart (Beth Pattillo)
Churched (Matthew Paul Turner)
The Wednesday Letters (Jason F. Wright)
Fever Crumb (Phillip Pullman)
Selected Columns from Canadian Living (Peter Gzowski)
When We Were Very Young (A. A. Milne)
Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)
Beyond Belfast (Will Ferguson)
What French Women Know (Debra Ollivier)
The Church, World and the Christian Life (Nicholas M. Healy)
The Bishop’s Man (Linden MacIntyre)


Books in progress:

Hospitality and the Other (Amos Yong)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)
Miracles (C. S. Lewis)
The Sunny Side (A.A. Milne)

Single-handed Theology - Baby Talk

I’ve got a little babbler on my hands. Arden is at the stage where she’s stringing syllables together, mostly “ba-ba-ba” or “da-da-da.” At this point they are random sounds, not associated with a particular concept, but they are words in an infant stage. Her favourite “word” by far is dada, and I’m trying to get her to match the sound with the reality of her Daddy.

In any language, a baby’s words for Mother and Father are simple ones – mamma, papa, dada. In Aramaic the word for Daddy is abba. Jesus taught us to speak to God as Father (pater in Greek), but we are also taught to call Him Dad, a tender term of intimacy.

Now I learned this a long time ago, but it was just this past week that I made the connection to baby talk. “Ah-ba” is something Arden says all the time. It’s one of the easiest vowel-consonant combinations there is. Before babies string consonant sounds together like “ba-ba-ba”, they will usually start with some vowel-consonant combo. Arden’s first such combo was “ah-goo”, followed closely by “ah-ba.” There’s a good reason that the Aramaic word for Daddy sounds like it does. Abba is baby talk. Anyone can say it.

The word is used 3 times in the New Testament. Jesus doesn’t use it in the presence of his disciples, at least not that we are aware of. He uses it in Mark 14:36 at a time and place of great loneliness and grief. We hear it first in Gethsemane, as he struggles to accept his Father’s will. It escapes his lips as he falls to the ground in prayer, an instinctual cry, simple syllables uttered in sorrow. It is amazing that when Jesus’ relationship with his Father is at its most strained, he uses the most intimate name he knows. It is a sound that returns to an almost pre-linguistic stage of being. This is the bond between eternal Father and only begotten Son.

We hear it again from Paul in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6. It appears as a word we learn from the Spirit of adoption, spoken within us before it is spoken by us. We are born again as sons and daughters of Jesus’ Father, and the first word we learn in this new creation is Abba. This is the basis of our relationship with God. We are His children, sharing by adoption the same bond Jesus enjoyed by nature.

"Ah-ba." Just a simple vowel-consonant combination. It sounds like babble till we associate it with the intimate reality of our Father. In this relationship, we don’t have to learn elaborate titles or complicated means of address. A vowel-less tetragrammaton is well and good for a reverent subject, but not for a child. The Unspeakable Name has been revealed, and we are to speak it with the delight and confidence of a 7 month old in Dada’s arms. When we don’t have any other words, Abba is enough.


~lg

Letters to Arden - December 25, 2010

Dear Arden,

It’s the evening of your first Christmas Day, and you are tucked in bed after a full day of festivities. We woke up to green fields and stuffed stockings. Santa found us in Wheatley River! I’m not sure you really knew what was going on under the tree . . . but you sure loved all the wrapping paper and ribbon! All those presents tired you out, and I’ve never seen you curl up so quickly with your blanket for a nap, thumb in your mouth.

The snow began to fall as we drove to our friends’ house for Christmas dinner. You enjoyed every spoonful – potatoes, gravy, turnip, sweet potato, carrot, green beans, parsnips, and plum pudding sauce. We couldn’t get the food in your mouth fast enough!

Back home we talked with family and friends on Skype who were happy to see you in your darling red dress. There are people who love you spread all over the world. Isn’t that a lovely thought? At the end of the day you sat content, surrounded by a little pile of toys, trying each one to see what it tasted like.

When you were too sleepy to stay up any longer, Daddy read the Christmas story while I held you close. I showed you Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus from our nativity set, and you wanted to eat baby Jesus too! We put both of you to bed, you with your new woolen rabbit and him with his tiny blanket. Baby Jesus is sleeping up in your room tonight. You are both safe and warm. One day you will understand who Jesus is and why he came, but for now all you need to know is that he'll stay by your cradle till morning is nigh.

Quiet night has fallen on the island and the green fields are now covered in wonderful white, a gift from the heavens. And I feel content. Content because we are together as a family in our warm house with too many blessings to count. Content because I don’t need gifts to have Christmas. I just need you, Daddy and baby Jesus.

Oh, I hear a cry coming from upstairs. I guess you wanted Christmas to last just a bit longer! Time for one more lullaby. Away in a manger . . .


~lg

The fifth candle

We awake to pure, white light. It streams in through the windows yet seems also to shine from somewhere within the house. Is it morning? Is midnight? All the candles are burning brightly – the beckoning flicker of hope, love’s steady flame, joy’s merry blaze and the comforting glow of peace. Their flames surround us, holding us in their circle, but they pale in comparison to this fifth candle. We see now it is the source of their light.

Is it a candle or is it the sun? We rise in wonder to behold this glory. Truly, we have never seen light till this moment. This is true Light, the Light that gives life to all. The Dayspring from on high has visited us, and our eyes are open for the first time to the infinite spectrum of grace.

We search for the centre of this light, but at every turn it is just as bright. And then we are aware of a pulsing warmth, and it is radiating out of us. We look down at our chests and see that our hearts are on fire. It is the Christ-candle.

We have been led to this place, not merely to find a refuge from the weather, but so that God might make his home in us. This overwhelming dawn will be with us always. We need not fear the cold. As we step out into a world of dazzling white, we carry the Light with us.


And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.


~lg

An Advent prayer from the Northumbria Community

An evening prayer for blessing during Advent

God of the watching ones,
give us Your benediction.

God of the waiting ones,
give us Your good word for our souls.

God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones,
the slow and suffering ones,
give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest.

God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones,
the slow and suffering ones,

and of the angels in heaven,

and of the child in the womb,

give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest and rise
in the kindness of Your company.


~ from Celtic Daily Prayer From the Northumbria Community

winter solstice

A nor’easter blows across our island this winter solstice as the heavens converge in a full moon eclipse. We cannot see the blood moon for the raging storm, and if we went out, we might get blown over by banshee winds. By morning the heavy rains and surging sea have overpowered our little river and forced it backwards, past its banks and almost over the bridge. The willows wave, waist high in surrender, but the water keeps rising. We are drawn to our windows all day, to watch and wonder, glad to be looking down from our hillside situation. When night falls again the tide tugs the water back toward the ocean, and we go to bed hoping our neighbours’ basement has seen the worst of the flooding. The seasons are at a turning point, and it is as if all the dark forces of nature are fighting against the return of light. But they will not, they can not win. The sea may be falling from the sky, the shadow may gobble up the moon, but all will be put to right. The darkness will not overpower us.

~lg

The Wexford Carol

The fourth candle

Lift up your eyes and see the fourth candle. Peace is the moon, gentle and bright. When the carols fade and we fall contented into bed, its countenance shines full upon us, a steady nightlight over the whole earth. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, it whispers. It whispers to those who are far off, drawing them nigh, into this snug house. It settles over our hearts like falling snow, blanketing us with a comfort beyond comprehension.

Peace is what remains when the party is over, guiding us all through the silent night. Sleep my child and peace attend thee . . .


~lg

down at the pond

On this green December day, a warm wind blows a blue hole in the clouds. Down at the pond, the water runs swift and brown, rushing with yesterday’s rain. A blue jay darts across the pond and into the secrecy of the trees, winking as he goes by. A crow is practicing his solo for the Christmas choir, trying to smooth out the squawks. We sit on the dock, listening, watching. The sun spreads a golden tint on the rippling waves. It’s not the usual winter scene. The ground is fragrant with new clover, taking advantage of the warmth to poke smiling leaves out into the open. It’s all a little strange, but I can’t help but smile back.


~lg

The third candle

The third candle is lit, now twinkling merrily on the mantle. Joy is a diamond, refracting and reflecting a sparkling pink light. It spreads over the room like stardust, glittering in every corner.

How is it possible for light to have the quality of music? All the colours of dawn are dancing, drawing me up out of the chair with a lightness my feet have never felt, right into some divine kitchen party. Invisible hands whirl me around the bright flame, and I am surprised to hear my own laughter after so long.

A flash of the aurora borealis answers through the window, joy calling to joy, and I am struck by the beauty of the winter night. The heavens are telling an inexpressible and glorious joy, and I am lit from within.


~lg

birth

“Be born in us today,” we sing

What is birth?
love and risk and pain
demands my body and soul
turns me inside out till there is nothing left hidden

This is birth
love made flesh
and in a miracle of creation
incarnation
I am reborn


~lg