Sermon from the Vigil

I preached at the Easter Vigil as I usually do. Well, 'preach' is kind of stretching it. I meandered around in a reflective sort of way. What was that term? A Preach Moment, maybe, even Homily is kind of generous. A sermonette for a Christianette. Anyway, here it is. Today we are going to try and have a proper celebration of Easter at home. Totally discouraged myself by Saturday reading blogs of what other people were planning to do. In the past we've tried to come home from a church and cook lamb and bake a pie or whatever. But reality, six kids later, has finally set in. We just can't go the distance of Holy Week and Easter and then come home and do anything else but sit around in a stupor. Maybe when the kids are older and can help cook. But maybe not. This year Elphine and Alouicious each took a turn to carry the incense boat, and Good Friday turned out to be a family affair--Matt led the stations, I carried the cross and they both carried candles. I have long looked forward to this moment when they can be up on the altar (and want to). They then volunteered for the funeral yesterday and ended up being paid modestly for their trouble. Really puts the 'fun' back in a funeral to be paid, AND there's always lunch afterwards. Yesterday's desert table was positively groaning.

Preach Moment for the Great vigil of Easter
The night before my grandmother died I had an interesting and troubling dream. I don't generally put much stock in dreams. I certainly have never had a prophetic dream—where I dreamed something and then it happened. But a few times in my life I've had a richly vivid dream that colored and shaped not only the light of day I woke up to, but many days and times after it. This dream was one of those kind. I was living in Oregon at the time and in the dream I was driving along the rocky and seemingly precarious curves of the agonizingly gorgeous gray rainy coastline. I was in a convertible car and I had a basket with me with, among other things, my mother's Bible. Of course, in the dream, the car silently and slowly swung itself off the road into the ocean which turned out not to be gray and choppy but to be clear and blue, like I was suddenly in the Caribbean. I floated along under the waves, looking up at the sunlight and sky and then realized with horror that everything was falling out of my basket! My Bible was floating along in front of me, and my keys and an apple and several other items. I tried in vain to gather them and put them back. The effort, though great, was not enough. I woke up startled saying, almost aloud, my basket is empty! My basket is empty!

Mid morning word came that my grandmother had died very unexpectedly, playing the piano at a nursing home for the elderly. She played the opening cord of the hymn, laid her head on the piano, and was gone, suddenly, like Bilbo running out of his house without a pocket handkerchief for the adventure of a lifetime. Most everyone here tonight, I expect, has experienced some kind of loss, some very deep. The kind of loss that leaves you thoroughly and completely empty. I expect Ezekiel, looking out over the Valley of Bones, must have been overwhelmed by the emptiness, the loss.

Certainly the women, on the way to the tomb, were empty and lost. They had gathered together what they could—spices, linen, oil—but nothing that would be enough, that would fill up the great hole that was the loss of Jesus.

I am frequently startled by how very great losses and small mingle themselves together to overwhelm me in grief. If I am very troubled by something, grieved and needy and unhappy, it will be the rice jar being empty, or finding I am on my last egg, or that I neglected to buy flour and butter, that we have no sugar cereal in the house or milk, that brings me to tears.
Come, buy and eat, says the Lord.
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Your basket is empty. You are starving to death. You are dying. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

This is the original question, isn't it? The very moment Eve plucked the fruit, the moment her eyes saw it and that it 'seemed good' that somehow she would be satisfied with something other than what God had provided. Eat from all the other trees, he said, but not that one. So it must be that that one has something better, something more satisfying. That was the original sin, and that is what we do every day. We give everything we've got to chase after what can't give us what we need. We eat and eat and eat and are never satisfied. We strive and work and end exhausted with our baskets still empty. The crown of this sin was the arguing of the disciples On the Night Before he died, about who was greatest. The Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Word made flesh is sitting with them, and its not enough. There must be something more!
But the more only turns out to be a dry ruined valley full of corpses, the ultimate end of all that work—death.

“Listen diligently to me,” says the Lord,
“and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me; hear that your soul may live”
Lean in, listen, attend.
How can He even say this?
How can God, even as Adam and Eve's fingers are yet stained with the fruit of their sin, say this! How can he offer anything to us? Why does he want to? I confess to being often baffled by this question. I don't know why God wants to redeem and save us! Even when God wants to tell us, we still don't know, don't want to know. Somehow So Often, daily, moment by moment, broken sinful rebellious need is better and safer than looking into the face of God, looking really at Jesus and listening to his real voice and hearing what he really says. We run away, argue, distract ourselves, grow busy and strive after anything that we can other than face the voice and face of God. Whether we are a long way a way in the pig pen in a far country, or whether we are close by in the upper room, or on the way to the tomb filled with broken empty grief. This is not only the problem of the wretched unrepentant sinner. It is everyone's problem. We don't see and hear, we don't want to. We don't find because we don't actually seek. We don't seek because we don't want what we know we will find.

I always wonder about Adam and Eve's relationship with God after the garden. Sure, it was hard work, and painful, but probably they felt safer in their broken emptiness, not always having to talk to God, to see him and hear him. Maybe he left them alone and they felt more comfortable. So comfortable that when God speaks to Abraham, no one has heard of him. It is a totally new thing. The trace and memory of his voice and presence has been unreluctantly forgotten. And so on, through the Old Testament, line by line, fall by fall, rebellion by rebellion, the desperate history of a people trying to Get Away from God.

And yet the Lord says, Come.
Come buy at eat. Delight yourselves in rich food. Seek the Lord while he wills to be found. Though you, fully rejected and sinned against would say that's it, I've had enough,
I'm done. The Lord still wills be found. His thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not his ways. The heavens are higher than the earth. His ways are higher than your ways.
Rain and Snow fall from the heaven and obey him, watering the earth, bringing forth growth, bread for the eater.
All of creation is obedient to the voice of God, the Word of God. So is the Word that goes forth from his mouth
obedient. Perfectly obedient. The broken and empty body of our Lord, willing in perfect obedience to go to the very end of emptiness, brokenness, sin, and grief, going farther than any of us could ever go, carrying a burden beyond measuring or numbering. Not one small valley of death and destruction but the weight of every small rebellion, every great and terrifying sin, my constant and innumerable selfishnesses, the mass murdering of every horrible thug—all of it accounted for in the broken empty body in the tomb.

The women hurrying forward in the darkness with their hands full of emptiness. But the cavernous rock hewn out of the hill is so full of the glory of God. Death is gone. Destroyed. There is only life. There is only joy.

Do you think your way is higher than his way? Do you think you can go on with your life coping as you want to as if your basket, your jar, your life is still empty?

You Cannot.
The Lord is Risen. The whole earth is full of his glory.
He has succeeded in his purpose.
What is his purpose? To Raise the dead.
To raise you to life.
To chase after you and bring you to himself.
To provide for you with his own body and blood.
To give you everything you need.
To gather you and love you and raise you.
He can because he is alive. Its only up to you to come, join the feast be satisfied with your Lord.
Alleluia. He is Risen.

Happy Easter

We have a funeral this morning and a completely filthy house plus a huge pile of laundry. So, um, well, I thought I would spend the week blogging but its looking more like I'll be cleaning and folding laundry.
He is Risen!

for Good Friday

Holy Week

That's what it is. Holy Week.
I have got to arise and quickly get the children moving so that I won't be late for New Baby's two month well baby at which time I expect to be told that she weighs a gagillion pounds. Nobody (at least amongst my children) ever wants to hold her because of the immediate back ache. Poor child. She is the first of my babies to definitely and completely have her hair rub off the back of her head from sitting so much.

And then I've got to run around and get ready for school.

And make some phone calls to fill those last slots of readers and one more acolyte. The vigil is well in hand, and Maundy Thursday. Thought that Tennebrae was fine until Matt said yesterday (Yesterday! mind you) "wouldn't it be great if I didn't do all the readings".

Well, yes, that's a sensible and fine idea but that means a bunch more phone calls.

I really love Holy Week for the church, but I do always come out on the other end needy for lost time with the kiddos and an actual complete conversation with Matt. I'm delighted that Elphine will be in most of the services this year, as a boat bearer and regulate acolyte. She finally decided she likes it because older girls she loves thinks its cool.

I ALREADY have Five Fat Easter Baskets filled and tucked away. I'm going to iron Easter dresses this evening. And we're going to more carefully plan all our Easter eating in such a way that we're not ruined from exhaustion. Easter day will just be something nice in the Crock Pot and then probably Tuesday of Easter Week we'll roast a large piece of paschal lamb and have lemon pie, or something.

Gratuitous Pictures

Gladys holding New Baby ("Can I hold the New Baby I'm sitting down" she says every few days.)

Alouicious a few days after turning 7. Think we lived up to his hopes and dreams but not totally sure.

Have a Blessed and Holy Remembrance of our Lord's Passion, Suffering, Death and Resurrection!
See you on the other side.

now in the fading light of day

The boys are riding scooters down the walk and banging into the back door.
The two oldest girls are sitting on the roof of the playhouse squabbling.
The baby's been working on smiling.

Marigold is wandering around trying to remove her diaper.
Matt is vacuuming so wonderfully because I haven't been able to face it for so many days.
I'm supposed to be making supper in a short break from the Great Easter Clothes Exchange (wherein I get all the bins of clothes out and figure out who can wear what for the next season--gasp) but am really praying and fretting about the wretched and horrible conditions in Ivory Coast.

Thought this was really beautiful. (hat tip Simcha Fischer)


Earlier was complaining desperately about having nothing to wear due to being still fat from just having had a baby. "I just want to be really really thin!" I yelled.
"Why" asked Alouicious.
"Because," I said, "I just want to super rail thin."
"As thin as Daddy?" he asked, wide-eyed.
"I'm thin" said Elphine, "Am I thin?"
"Yes!" I shouted. "I don't want to talk about it any more."

So maybe after I make supper I'll do some sit ups. But probably not.
Have a blessed Sabbath!

Sermon: Colossians 3:11

I was going to take out all the line breaks but I'm too tired. Don't count this up to pretension, its just easier to see the text on the page this way. I wasn't on the schedule to preach, I was just in the right frame of mind to help out at the last minute. Enjoy!

As we've said often in many different ways 

the human condition is characterized by the desire to be God. 

Not to be with God or know God 

or understand God,

but to be God.

When the serpent slithered up to Eve

in the beauty of the Garden

and the cool of the day,

he tempted her not with riches,

knowledge

or power

but with the chance to be ‘like God’ knowing good and evil.

From the Garden to the first murder to the flood was a simple matter of time.

We can tease apart the difference in every kind of sin,

every kind of falling away,

but they all find their root,

their core in Pride,

the desire to Usurp the throne and power of God and be ‘like him’.

This pride is on crude display in the account of the Tower of Babel.

1Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.2And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.3And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.4Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.6And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.7Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech."8So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

I want us to notice a couple of things from this text.

Verse One

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

This was post flood.

Noah and his family survived alone

and were 'fruitful and multiplied’ as they had been commanded to be.

But their descendants,

instead of dispersing over the face of the earth to fill it,

decide to gather together,

to pool their resources,

to build a big tower--

probably something along the lines of a Mesopotamian Zigurat

if you want to google it to see a picture.

They want the tower to have its ‘top in the heavens’

so that they can ‘make a name for ourselves’.

They're not just interested in living in community

and fulfilling the purposes God has for them,

glorifying him and worshiping him alone.

No, they want to make a name for themselves.

The choice of the line 'make a name' isn't inconsequential.

The name of God, as the rest of Genesis will show,

is a name so holy,

so powerful,

so important that it wasn't to be spoken.

When you came to the name of God, in Holy Scripture,

you stopped and said 'The Lord' instead of pronouncing the name.

You didn't write the name with your old pen if you were copying scripture.

You stopped to make a new pen to write the name of God.

There is only One Name.

The making and acclaiming of other names is the path to idolatry.

“You shall have no other gods before me”

said the Lord God to Moses and then he said,

“Do not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.”

They were trying to be 'like God'

having a name

being self sufficient

trusting in their own power.

So God, seeing what the people are intending to do,

is not afraid that they're going to become bigger and stronger than him.

You might think that's what it looks like in verse 6.

But that's not what's going on.

Idolatry doesn't lead to bigger and better and more beautiful things.

It paves the road for human descent into utter evil.

The 'nothing they won't be able to do'

is a foresight into the great evil the human heart can descend to.

If everyone is united

and everyone is sinful

the capacity for destruction and evil is very very great.

God's action here is one of mercy.

Lest they destroy everything, I will scatter and disperse them.

And the confusion of speech is a perfectly logical and just consequence

for the rivaling of the name of God,

for purposeful and organized idolatry that is taking place on the plane of Shinar.

The people are suddenly and momentously unable to understand each other,

unable, then, to cooperate

and therefore scatter in anger and confusion.

The legacy of Babel is with us in a myriad of ways, but there are three ways in particular I want to mention.

The first is in language itself.

If you a living breathing human person

you have probably suffered the pain and difficulty

of broken and fractured human communication,

either within your own language or across cultures.

Indeed, it is more fundamental and basic than that.

How many of you have struggled within yourself

to find words to express what you are feeling

or thinking?

Language slips,

it is often imprecise,

it is easily misused.

Very often it is utterly confused.

The second is the hating and despising

that groups of people indulge in against other groups of people.

We might call this racism or ethnocentrism.

There id s brutal war going on in Ivory Coast right at this moment.

It is a conflict between north and south,

one ethnicity versus another.

One group prepared to hate another because of their geographical location and ethnicity.

Ivory Coast is by no means alone.

The world is rich with ethnic and racial conflict.

Closer to home, we still find racism in our own neighborhoods,

in the halls of schools,

in our unexamined human hearts,

sometimes even in coffee hour.

Its not our new particular problem.

Its roots are on the plane of Shinar.

The third is man made unity.

We haven't,

even with the confusion of language,

lost that first desire to gather ourselves together and be one.

This is going to lead us to the New Testament.

But first we have to be careful.

The one language and one people was given by God before Genesis 11.

And also, the dispersing and scattering of people was given by God in Genesis 11.

In other words,

the desire for unity and oneness among all people is not evil,

but the erasing and flattening of all difference is.

All that difference,

the myriad cornucopia of language,

culture

and ethnicity

was given by God.

It was his act of mercy to save us from a great overwhelming tide of evil.

So often,

as we try to join ourselves together,

in our human sinful hearts we

One, try to make everyone like us and

Two, therefore try to make a name for ourselves.

We do this institutionally,

we do it through the subtlety of peer pressure,

gently making someone else feel bad by a swift glance

or a tossed off remark

singling out their difference in a vaguely negative way.

The church has done it sometimes in the name of spreading the kingdom of God

These three consequences of Babel,

like all human sin,

were always accounted for in God's perfect plan to rescue and save us.

Language,

so broken and confused in our humanity,

is made whole and perfect in the very Being of God himself,

the Word,

who dwelt among us that we might see the glory of the Father.

And from there, at the moment of Pentecost,

the church experienced the reversal of Babel.

Instead of confusion, the perfect Word of God was communicated in every language.

And for the effects of ethnocentrism

and man made unity,

we see God's power and glory on display in Colossians 3:11

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Verse 11 is embedded in the practical outworking of Christ's cosmic transformation of the world.
The church is THE place where the future kingdom is made present on earth,
where God's will is done, where his name is above every name,
where we become like him—
not in power and knowledge and person, but IN Christ—
having the mind of Christ,
being found in Christ,
having the love of Christ.

Now, in putting off the things of the world

anger, malice, pride, hatred

we put on Christ who gives us a new identity, a new purpose, a new name.

No longer defined by our ethnicity or race

Greek or Jew

Social Status or class

slave or free

culture and language

barbarian, Scythian,

Our identity is in Christ.

Does difference no longer matter?

By no means!

Our unity in Christ is made rich and perfect

by every difference of language, culture and race.

Our foundational unity and identity in Jesus

makes real unity possible

makes real communication guaranteed.

How else do you think this room of people could get along?

In along term sustained way?

And manage to share the good news of Jesus to this town?

Do you think we do in our own power?

That we all get up early on a weekend

and come here to hang out together

and drink coffee

and listen to a long talk

and eat a little tiny piece of cardboard bread

and have a sip of wine at 11 in the morning

and then cooperate on ways to do the normally very difficult thing

of telling other people about the person we all love most,

by whom I mean Jesus.

The local church, Sunday by Sunday,

day by day

is the visible evidence that Christ is our unity,

our name,

the Word on our lips and in our hearts.

He is all and is in all.

Give yourself to him, this morning.
Let him be your tower
Let his name be on your lips and in your hearts and in your understanding.
Let him bind you up and make you whole.
Let us pray.

Episcopal Oversight

We're halfway through our time with the bishop.
("Is the good bishop or that bad bishop coming to visit?" Alouicious asked on Thursday as we were cleaning.
"The good bishop," I said.
"Oh" he said disappointedly. Think he probably wanted to practice awesome "kung-fu" moves on a bad guy and so I pulled him back to remind him to pray for the bad bishop which disappointed him even more. Romulus then wandered in to inquire why we were cleaning.
"Because!" said Matt, "we enjoy a clean house, Cleaning is a regular integrated part of our lives." Nobody believed him.)
Today will be various workshops and training. Tomorrow will be baptism, confirmation, chrismation (I don't even know how to spell this or anything--someone, enlighten me, what will he be doing?), and, said the bishop, "raising of the dead". I look forward to it immensely.

Prayer, if you have a moment

While Libya and Egypt apparently spiral down from bad to worse, and Japan continues to generate news and need, Ivory Coast is barely a blip on the screen. Its so interesting and horrible to review geography week after week (right now we're studying the whole continent of Africa) and put your pencil on a whole country quickly before the next name is called out, and have a whole array of actual places flash quickly through the mind's eye. And of course, actual people--people with  chaos overwhelming and with no possible end in sight.

Lord have mercy.

The Bishop is Coming! The Bishop is Coming!

I always wanted to say that after seeing the Far Side cartoon about the anthropologists. This congregation is So diverse in denominational backgrounds that it seems like many people have no idea what this is all about. And I'm finding an appalling lack of vocabulary to be able to talk about it. My conversation with our wonderful church secretary went something like this.

Me: There are so many changes for the service next week perhaps I should just putting everything in order in a new document for you.
A: Are we not doing it right now?
Me: Oh no! We're doing everything right. Its just there will be some new things. And some other stuff.
A: Oh. Um ok. (looking very quizzically like why are you waving your arms and becoming agitated)
Me: I just want to make sure that everything is right for that week. (beginning to babble incoherently) Not Morally right. We're just talking about the service and the whole week. It's not a matter of sinning or not sinning, just being properly Anglican.
A: Properly Anglican. Ok.
Me: Well, that sounds weird. Scratch that. Just ask Matt what I mean.

Or my conversation with Matt:
Matt: Make sure everything is in the bulletin next week please because you messed up this week.
Anne: I'll write that line in your bulletin  that I forgot. You'll be fine.
Matt: I don't want to say it if its not in the bulletin. Everyone will be confused.
Anne: No one will be confused. It will be fine.
Matt: I don't want to say it if its not in the bulletin.
Anne: The bulletin isn't the Bible.
Matt: (laughing hystically) Yeah but sometimes the Bible quotes the bulletin so we have to be careful.
That was a joke! All non-Anglicans please don't freak out.

And then there's my running internal list of things to do that I'm afraid no one else will think about. Things like
1. Putting the fear of God into the acolytes so that they will slow down and not shoot themselves down the aisle after the service like all the donuts will be gone before they get there and by gum thy will get a donut so Get Out of the Way Everyone! They can't do that.
2. Finding out who the acolytes are ahead of time.
3. Putting a word in to the altar guild to make sure the purple altar frontal is swapped out for white because of baptism, even though its Lent.
4. Reminding the choir to wear white instead of purple.
5. Conferring with the altar guild about the whole chrism extravaganza--getting oil, having something to put it in. Its been so long since we've had proper chrism who even knows what we did before.
6. Trying to get Matt's attention about the schedule of the weekend so if we need to get a babysitter we'll have plenty of time.
7. Cleaning my House!!!!! Just in case someone wanders in.
8. Cleaning all the Sunday School rooms (but maybe someone could help with this).
9. Finding that wretched baptismal dress because we might as well have the baby baptized while he's here. Where on earth did I put it?!?!

etc. etc. etc.

reading and typing with one hand...

As a palliative to the horror of having to read Treasure Island (never before has anything entirely killed off my small desire to take to the sea in ships) I'm rereading Sense and Sensibility at the same time. I am convinced, again as I am every time I read it, that in this book more than any other, Jane Austin had very particular people in mind rather than just types of people. There is too much blended together in Mr. Collins to make him only one person. So also with practically all the awful Bennets. But Miss Steele, my heavens! She had to have had a very particular woman in mind to produce such a creature.

It grieves me, deeply, that she fixed on naming her 'Anne'.
 


'

The Sleep of the Righteous

This baby has the most grating, life shattering cry I think I've ever come across. And she can go from basic happiness to full throated hysteria in about 24 seconds. This is the result, apparently, of giving birth to a huge healthy baby with a great pair of lungs. We're so used to tiny delicate squeaky little babies who gently cry and coo. We continue, day by day, to be in shock of this cry.

Nevertheless, the size of this baby means that she is, at one month old, essentially sleeping through the night. You know what I mean--you know that incredible moment when a baby sleeps from like 11pm to 3am or 10:30 to 2:30am. New babies don't do that. It takes like six months to get there--six months of feeding at 6pm, 8pm, 10pm, at which point you try to decide whether to go to sleep or stay up till 12am, 2am, 4am and then you might be able to push it to 7am, but only with prayer and fasting. To have a baby go to sleep between 9 and 10 EVERY NIGHT and just sleep straight through till 3 is beyond anything I could have imagined. I'm getting as much sleep now as I did before giving birth, sometimes more.

This is another proof of a private hypothesis I've been mulling over for the last year: Nothing Is Quite As Bad As You Think It Will Be and likewise Nothing Is Quite As Good. Its the constant mingling tension between Sin and Providence.

I always like to expect the worse so as to be as disappointed as possible. But I've found, since I've been purposing to take notice, that I'm never quite as disappointed as I expect to be. Take giving birth, for example. I worked myself into a fit before going into the hospital about all the bad things that were going to happen to me (like giving birth). I took every opportunity to point out to God how badly it was going, but eventually I had to give in and admit that it wasn't go badly at all--on the whole a smooth and trouble free time.

And yet, to be further honest, it was not a sunshine path. The reason I got so worked up is in fact because of what was taking place. The presence of suffering and trial and sin is not imagined. Its just never quite as bad as I expect it will be.

That's sort of been my prayer for Japan over the last 24 hours. Its really bad. It seems to be getting worse. But I hope and pray that Providence will encroach and take over. That every blanket that's passed out, every parcel of food or bottle of water will relieve the ache and bring enough comfort--not as much as anyone would like, certainly, but enough. That's generally what God promises, enough.

So I'm getting enough sleep, and I'm really grateful.

A Holy Lent--Various Unrelated Threads

Sitting here watching horrendous coverage of the earthquake in Japan today, or rather yesterday for them. On the one hand filled with horror at the devastation, and on the other actually suppressing a great overwhelming desire to laugh at the ridiculous wall sized touch screen monitors that every male news anchor seems to have whereon he can circle the names of cities and draw little arrows and generally give no particularly relevant  information about what's going on other than that Not Enough People Have Died....yet. There's always a note of lingering hope in the voice of such an anchor.

Matt, who long ago in his far off youth got to visit Japan, has had both the tv and internet going all afternoon.

I've wandered my way through the day trying to ignore the fact that my mother is leaving tomorrow (Pretty Sure We Will Not Survive) and trying to get weepy little kids to take naps after being up sick all night. So Grateful that this bug made it through all of us in a week. Pretty sure, actually, we had two different illnesses cycling through at the same time. Just so so glad that everyone actually got it in a timely fashion and I'm not facing the weekend worrying about one or two "healthy" kids possibly throwing up suddenly at an unhelpful moment.

Realized, as I missed all the Ash Wednesday services, that the reason I LOVE Lent is because I love church so much. And when I say church, I mean the actual Church Service, although all the other stuff is nice too. I love Holy Week particularly for all the different types of services there are and the fact that there's at least one every day. Miss the long years past when we had a mid week service. Miss being able to go to Morning Prayer every day. Wish I had the time and energy to get Evening Prayer a couple of times a week (with music).

Battled down real envy this week when I popped into the sacristy to bother our Lovely Church Secretary about the bulletin for the altar guild ladies who were rearranging the linens and fussing with last year's palms and washing up the tiny little chalice in the traveling communion set. Matt likes theology and teaching and preaching. I'd rather fuss over the liturgy and whether the altar flowers and set precisely in the right place on the altar. It's like we're MFEO.

So I'm not aiming very high, this lent. I've given up complaining because I've noticed that my clever laser-like "analysis" of every tiny situation is trending pretty negative lately. Not taking up any kind of food fast because its enough to sustain the life of this Massive Baby. And I'm going to read carefully through Hebrews.

And hopefully we'll all give up being sick and just be healthy. And maybe we'll start collecting pennies for Japan as we pray for them. What a luxury to even have a church, or a standing house, and one's whole family safe and sound. From the BCP: Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake.  Amen. 

7 Quick Takes-- Long Over Due Pictures and other things

One--pictures from the hospital

This baby is so big that she fits the baby bunny already. It took several--many many many--weeks for Marigold to fit it. Here she is all ready to go home from the hospital. Amazing.

 Marigold was VERY SURPRISED by her visit to the hospital and not terribly delighted. She's been tantruming pretty regularly the last two weeks and by regularly, I mean several times a day. Never had a baby seriously fling herself down in anger and hysteria this young. I feel terrible because she was so Happy before (I know, I know, happiness is totally overrated) and sweet, at least as compared to Gladys who started her tough girl act so early in life.

I know we'll all recover and eventually she will enjoy Baby as much as the rest of us, but I reserve the right to cry about it as much as I want to until then.

Two--The night before going to the hospital

Look!!! The children are wearing their Christmas PJs. It might be Christmas!
Coming Soon--the children in their Christmas clothes. 

 Having had extra days waiting for Baby to turn, I baked three batches of cinnamon rolls, made a vat of oatmeal and turned half of it into breakfasty scones, and made two trays of rice krispyish treats (fancied up--peanut butter, raisins, peanuts, and whatever else I had in the cupboard).

 Three--A Snow Day

We've had many many chances to be in the snow. I need a good way to hang snow suits. Right now they get piled in a corner of the playroom in between snows. Here's Elphine and Alouicious.

 Gladys

Marigold trying to stand before going in the snow. She was very surprised by the whole activity--the clothes, the cold, everything.

Marigold in the snow really for the first time without screaming.

 Picture taken through the window.

 Cat from the inside.

Four--This last week

If you're on facebook you'll know that I got sick on Monday--well, I don't know if you can call it 'getting sick'. I wasn't paying careful attention to the fact that this huge baby doesn't really eat ever 2 hours like a newborn should. She really eats every 4 to 6 hours. I thought this was great until Monday night when I began to be in such massive pain that I figured I was going to die. So we went to the walk in Tuesday and I came home with a nice ten day antiobiotic, some more motrin and the dreaded and bovine breast pump which I still refuse to use when there's not an actual emergency. I actually spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in bed and then yesterday hobbling feebly around moaning and whining.

Five--A Sweeping Generalization

It is true that if men had to breast feed they just wouldn't do it. Matt looks wonderingly at me every time I grit my teeth and attach this massive mewling infant to the most sensitive part of my body. It is nuts. Men are just more rational than women, besides having a lower tolerance for pain. How is that for a couple of broad sweeping over generalizations?

Six--Another Snow Day

I'm sitting here in my warm office watching cars trying to pull into the church lot. Three have slipped and fallen back into the road with cars coming surprisingly fast behind them, but so far no accidents. The snow is plunging from the sky and yet everyone is driving along as if there is no weather. Crazy north-easterners.

Seven--I am reading books but I'm not having a good time

I HAVE to catch up on Treasure Island today. Managed never to read it as a child and am having to read it now with my class. Of course is a wonderfully written adventure story that every child should read. I just so dislike adventures--both in books, in movies and in real life. Having managed to get through the Hobbit this year my cup of adventure is virtually full and yet after this I still face Robin Hood, King Arthur, and The Shadow of the Bull (maybe, maybe I'll weasel out of that one). Jessica wrote an excellent post about what we're paying the writer of fiction for, what is it that we want? As I reach the midpoint of Treasure Island I've discovered that I'm willing to pay for brilliantly funny writing. That's why I'm always reading at least one Wodehouse book and sometimes nothing else at all. For me, Wodehouse is the Last Word in Funny.

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

Resting Up

I was persuaded to stay home from school for another day, ostensibly to get some rest, but in reality so that I can seriously clean the boys room without interference from them. Alouicious and Elphine, both, are already developing into pack rats--sequestering little bits of cardboard out of the recycling into strange nooks, and gathering broken bits of whatever they can find to "save for later". I am deeply against this habit. The more stuff you save and hang onto, whether bits of cardboard or broken bits of china (my particular hoarding vice), the more you have to be prepared to walk away from should Jesus suddenly decide to come back. I have this fear of being caught in my kitchen with a basket of broken saucers trying to decide to put it down so I can be caught up in the air to meet my Lord.

Anyway, so I'm going to at least get started on their room, and also take a nap, and maybe bake a pie. I don't know.The little ones need to learn to read so maybe I'll just do that today too. Personally, I don't understand why Matt keeps calling me "irrational" just because I'm all weepy from being "too tired" by the evening to "do anything more at all".

You know what! I think I'll chuck it all and go straight for the pie. That baby is going to want to eat again in an hour and I don't think I'll be able to really provide for her unless I've eaten a whole pie myself.

Have a great day!

That is a baby

I hope you'll congratulate me on the birth of our new baby...girl who looks just like Mr. Churchill, scowl and all. We have a real name but not a blog name yet. Some of the contenders are Ermentrude and Hyacinth (because she was born on the same day as the actor who plays Mrs. Bucket's poor husband). She weighed, at birth 8 lbs 13 oz (one ounce off of the last ultrasound in spite of being consoled over and over by the doctor, all the nurses and most everyone else, that those things are like a pound off and completely inaccurate). She's not very long and, I would say, not very big, just solidly heavy and covered in layers of fat.

I really appreciate all the prayers that she would turn--which she did without help from the doctor. I actually fell heavily in the snow right before going in to the hospital which shook us both up very much and immediately made everything feel different.

So, in case you're thinking about having a baby any time soon, I thought I would suggest some things you can do while you're in labor and then maternity.

While Laboring You Can
Listen to Matt read sermons by John McArthur about women being saved through child birth
Listen to Palestrina
Sing the Fruits of the Spirit song over and over in your head and realize that having all those things isn't actually supposed to be a passive activity but something you make an effort at (a little).
Have the hymn Come Labor On become permanently lodged in your head (I'm not kidding, I began to be hysterically unable to get the words to go away.)
Whine about being in pain and how much you hate labor and giving birth
Gaze out at the landscape and realize that Binghamton in the winter looks just like Communist Russia
Hear over and over that you 1. have a proven pelvis so everything will be fine and 2. have a tired uterus because you have had SO MANY children already
Seriously consider hugging the Epidural person for making it feel a lot like Christmas
Reminisce about growing up in Africa with the nurse who is also an MK only from the Philippines
Finally give up and give birth

While in Maternity You Can
Eat two dinners and then two breakfasts
Spend the night praying for the baby next door who is not eating, not sleeping and unhappy about everything
Read all the Father Brown Mysteries you were intending to read while laboring
Discover something called Percocet
Remodel the Maternity ward in your head
Count the seconds until you can go home
Continue to be completely amazed by how fat your new baby is
Freak out that your awesome new Kim Kardashian approved Belly Bandit will be way too small
Finally be allowed to go home

Pictures to follow!

Christmas in my heart the whole year long, blast it all

The baby is quietly waddling around the house undoing things--taking all the bottles out of the bottle basket, all the gray square mats out of the workout corner, all the toilet paper off the roll, all the clothes out of the laundry basket, all the kitchen towels out of the drawer, all the parts of the kitchen aid out of the cupboard, all the low lying ornaments off the tree.

Yes, we still have the Christmas tree up. I hate looking at it. I lie on the couch every evening and imagine taking the ornaments off, one by one, and wrapping them carefully and placing them in their bin. I can see, in my mind, where each of ornament will go and how they will fit together. But then, when I stand up, it all fades away and I forget that we have a living room or that Christmas was a month ago or whatever.

So I thought perhaps today, being a snow day, I might take a stab at coping with the tree. However, I've already made pancakes (does anyone else experience abject rage when, after serving up an entire meal at great personal expense of energy and time, 3 out of five children come back TEN MINUTES LATER to say they are "hungry" and what else is there to eat?), bread dough and done a load of laundry. That's probably enough for the whole day, given that shoving all the children in and out of snow pants, boots, hats, mittens and scarves will take about three hours, and then it will be time for supper or lunch or something. But maybe I could start by just getting the bin out to stare out for a few more days.

It might be really nice to have it down by Valentine's Day. Or the Super Bowl. Or the time my mom arrives (next Tuesday, PRAISE THE LORD). On the other hand, maybe we could leave it up "so she could see it" and then I could actually stage that now totally false picture of all the children in their Christmas clothes in front of the tree, followed by the equally false picture of all the children in their Christmas pj's in front of the tree.

Either way, when it all comes down to it, its not about the tree still being up or the baby wrecking the entire house or the children eating all day long, its about the fact that I am probably NEVER GOING TO GIVE BIRTH EVER.

Matt's Sermon from Sunday

Matt's sermon was so helpful to me this week. I thought I'd share it with you.

Baby Obsession--I'm sorry, I'm 37 weeks, I simply have nothing else on my mind

Matt appears to have the flu or something horrible which is in direct conflict with the baby who loves him SO MUCH that she wants to bounce up and down on his stomach and pinch him and be the center of his life.

I am delightedly watching the ice fall from the sky and humming songs of gratitude for a day off from school. I am exactly one day away from being totally on top of my laundry--including new baby things. I'm going to make the kids do puzzles (clean clean clean puzzles) all day and read books while I launder order back into our lives.

I spent nearly the whole morning at the Dr. yesterday--down to weekly visits now which is such a pain. This wretched baby is so seriously head grinning, waving, yawning and generally flitting away her time that I nearly had a temper tantrum. I'm not really prepared to try the ironing board thing, but I am going to try the music thing today, which I've heard first hand does work. I am really agonizingly afraid of a C-Section, just the whole idea of it makes me burst into tears. On the other hand, I've been very blessed to have five healthy normal deliveries with no complications and no trouble who have turned into five healthy stubborn messy children. So, having been commanded by the doctor not to go into labor this week because "the baby is going to turn, stop freaking out Anne" I am going to go merrily along my way and try to trust God.

Anyway, what with the flu and the laundry  and whatever else we have going on, the Tooth Fairy AGAIN neglected to visit our house last night. That makes twice for Elphine and once for Alouicious. His tooth has been hanging out of his mouth in the most foul looking way for weeks, but he wouldn't let anyone lay a hand on it or aid him in anyway. I finally convinced him to take a bite of a big juicy apple and out it came. However the Tooth Fairy apparently got stuck in the ice (just like an airplane) besides being so old and decrepit she can't keep a thought in her head, much to the disappointment of us all, and so we're going to have to write her a letter today and hope that she will pull things together.

Saturday on the links

I've succumbed to some kind of nasty cold and can't talk very well, for which I'm pretty sure all the children are delighted. Some of them keep coming and sitting very close to me and gazing rapturously into my fog filled running eyes. I don't know what they have to be insecure about. Just because we had something every night this week and haven't in any fashion carried on with our normal routine--honestly.

Actually, without forethought, we came to the end of the week and found it had been almost as bad as Holy Week (the standard of exhaustion by which all other moments of exhaustion are judged).

Anyway, so I woke up in the middle of the night and seriously gave some thought to entering MCJ's competition for Next Top Episcopal Bishop, and later took comfort in Simcha's furnace troubles (I'm probably not as busy as her!), and then later I used Jen's Saints Name Generator to pick a patron Saint for the year. I got St. Martha (Feast Day July 29) whose domain includes laundry workers, servants, housekeepers and cooks. Nothing, actually, could be more pertinent to my current station in life.

Have a great weekend!

in the bleak horrible snowy winter

There is something deeply mesmerizing about listening to the list of school closings on the radio. Even looking at the list online or watching the local news doesn't produce that deep sense of peace as our local NPR guy's strange lispy vaguely southern voice of soothing calm. I've listened to the recitation a total of 5 times this morning and have not been disappointed or bored by it once. Sadly, the hour is nine and everyone pretty well knows who's on a 2 hour delay and who is actually closed, so I'll have to wait until the next big snow for this small morning pleasure.

The hour is indeed nine and even though I can barely keep my eyes open. the throngs are clamoring to be allowed to go out in the wretched stuff. Monday, if you popped by, I was facing a sledding extravaganza which did, in fact, take place. It took me about three hours and one temper tantrum (mine when the closet door leaped off and smacked me in the foot) to find everyone's snow suit, boots, hats, gloves, scarves and the camera. Fortunately, when we finally made it to the slope Romulus completely spooked after one ride down the hill and screamed so loudly and longly that I was Forced to sit in the warm toasty car with him and the baby watching the madness from afar.

Today I'm going to watch from the window while they all fall down and cry and stuff. And then we'll all have a nap.

Let it snow let it snow let it..............

We're going to have to buck up and take the children into the snow today. I've been putting it off all weekend due to the fact that I HATE snow and being cold. I dislike it so much I don't even think its pretty. My ideal winter, of course, would be the hot hot dry dry north wind blowing sand everywhere and everything getting chapped in the dryness but so cold at night that you can put on a sweater and a pair of socks.

Instead of that, I have five children's worth of snowsuits and boots to dig out of bins This Morning because I have managed to put it off this long. Our old neighborhood included lovely children who would come and take my offspring into the snow while I stood at the window and snapped pictures. This new house is on a busy street and so Someone will have to go out with them. I'm assuming, of course, that that Someone will be Matt but since the snow began we have ceased making eye contact whenever the subject arises. Matt says with his lips that he "loves the gray sky of winter" but he hasn't made any move to take any child out in it.

While I am wrestling with crying sniffly frozen children this morning I will remind myself that Dante's lowest part of hell was actually cold, I think, not hot. Clearly God agrees with me.

Saturday Muddlings

Really miss blogging. However, just tried to perch the computer on my tummy only to find it slide off and hit the floor heavily. Am now trying to lean over and type so that it won't fall but am too enormous to really reach the keyboard.

Not really sleeping any more out of anxiety that we are Not Ready For This Baby!!! The house isn't clean. I don't have any baby clothes out and washed. We haven't even moved the current baby out the car seat into something bigger. The baby bed is full of toys. I don't have anything arranged to take to the hospital (my special socks, my special hidden pen, my special hidden toothbrush, the exact right novel...).

And, even more worrying, the baby is head up and already 7lbs.
So, um,
the only thing I can think of is to give you is this.

If you make it through the video you have to be sure and read the comments. I laughed for over an hour and ended up in so much pain I had to take a handful of Tylenol. I only discovered this Amazing video by trying to read about the inauguration of our new governor. I still don't know anything about that event because of only having time to read about this cake--although calling it a cake seems kind of a stretch.

In  other news we think the cat is trying to kill us.

Don't you hate it when people just change the picture/blog look without actually posting? Yeah me too. Have a great day!