Its about time don’t you think? I really ought to grow up. 34 years old and I am still shocked and surprised when life gets hard, good grief. C’est la vie, underneath all the adult, I still feel like a little girl. Always expecting apple tree blossoms, soft breezes, and my own personal little wooden swing to float up and down on as the air blows through my pretty flower girl dress and my hair gently brushes back and forth across my freckles. I still feel like I should have a father somewhere out there that will catch me if I fall, make sure I always have enough, and hold me close when life is too much to bear. I still become indignant when life dumps a truck load of **** on my lap. And when I want to whine about how unfair it all is, I still want a mother to fix me a cup of tea, wrap me up in a blanket, listen to all have to say and assure me that all will be well, I just need to take a nap.
We got the call in mid November. A call from your child has many implications. This one was “I got transferred can you help us move? “Of course, when do you have to be there?” “Early January.” Easy, peezy, right. Not so, the move was from Masset on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) to Kamloops. After many phone calls back and forth to determine the best plan of action it was decided the family should try to sell as much household items as possible to reduce the size of the Uhaul van which would come by ferry over to Sandspit. Mom and dad will fly into Sandspit pick up the van and drive the 1 hour up to Masset on New Year’s Eve, we pack and load and then take the overnight ferry over to the mainland on January 2, two days travel and we are there.
How do we make God known to the whole world? It is not by pretending to be somebody else. It is also not by performing a fake mission. It is not even by spending money for church renovations, physical improvements, and decorations. But, it is to testify that Jesus is God through our actions of justice, of sympathy, of hope for the people.
January brings many things - the advent of longer days, New Year’s Resolutions, and most recently, a huge helping of extreme cold weather. But one thing that I always look forward to in January is the feast of the Epiphany.
The feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on January 6th, which is the 13th day after Christmas. Linguistically, the word epiphany means “a divine revelation or insight”, and on this feast day, the Catholic Church takes that quite literally. The feast of the Epiphany celebrates when the three wise men, or magi, seek and find Jesus, who, quite literally, reveals the divine!
I started actively homebrewing beer in August 2015. Now, 4 ½ years later, I’ve just put my 100th batch into the fermenter. It’s a nice milestone at the start of a new year.
Pardon me while I reminisce.
On the first day of Christmas my parish gave to me:
A thousand lights in a giant tree...
A couple of years ago, during the dearth of mid-winter television programming we settled one night on watching a Christmas movie. Little did I know at the time, but we had just encountered the Hallmark movie juggernaut. I don’t recall the title but I’m pretty sure the story was about a young woman, originally from a small town but with a successful career in the big city who goes back home for Christmas and falls in love with a handsome widower and his adorable young daughter. Every house and street in the movie was festooned with thick layers of Christmas trees and other decorations. There would also have been a tree lighting ceremony in the town square, snowman making, carol singing, cookie baking and all manner of other Christmas merriment.
It always feels a bit ridiculous for me, a woman, to have a conversation with a man about what it means to be manly… and better yet, to insist I am correct. But what can I say, I am a woman, it’s what we do. (I bet you already feel bad for my husband, and indeed you should.) Unfortunately for all of my close male friends, I do have opinions.
By David Polzen
This Saturday marks the end of another Church year, and on Sunday we begin a new Church year with the celebration of the First Sunday of Advent starting us off on the Sunday Lectionary Cycle of Year A (The year of Matthew) and the Weekday Lectionary Cycle of Series Year II. I have noticed that we don’t bring in the new Church year as we do the new calendar year. There is no ball dropping in Time Square or champagne corks popping at midnight; but over the past few years I have introduced the concept of making a new year’s resolution for the beginning of the Church year...
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