winter, the season of my discontent

The wind is howling in a bitter, raging way and I am huddled next to the plug in heater in the office at church while the children run crazed and argumentative laps up and down the parish hall. Maybe they are having an actual game but I was promised they were doing 'laps' 'for exercise'. I've also been assured by everyone that every scrap of school work is done. And Matt is home cleaning the basement for exercise, not 'exercise' which is how it would be if I were doing it. So me sitting here, pursuing the vast sea of the World Wide Web, next to a pile of clean pristine church bulletins, the fruit of some few fretful hours yesterday and today, is perfectly justifiable, whatever the devil may try to say about it. (Hat tip Martin Luther)

Romulus has just been 'reading' to me--that mind/body/soul deadening exercise that comprises me sitting grinding my teeth and praying over and over 'Lord Jesus have mercy on me a sinner' while he writhes around on the chair trying to take his shirt and shoes off, picking all the skin off his lips, but never once sounding the sound of an actual letter unless I say aloud his name, sharply, and sometimes with a loud cry.

The child that wants to read speaks English the way I have always spoken French, haltingly, desperately, clutching at giant words like 'actually' and 'think so' and 'imgonnagogetdressedandgetmycoatandgowithyouonyourwalk' always without breath. She moves in when Romulus is finally at the end of either of us coping and looks at the back of Little Bear's Visit and says, 'You should buy me this red book here. Think so? Let's go buy it.'
'That book's not red,' I say, 'it's black. And we're not going to the store right now.'

It's really hard to keep my attention focused here, on the various dramas of all these children--and how is it that I'm only noticing now how many of them there are? I feel like I should have clued in three or four children ago and done some serious and real mental arithmetic--and not wander away in my mind to other climates and landscapes and colors and sounds. So many people I know and love are off in places of warmth and bright color doing interesting things, eating interesting food. How many of them envy me? Do they sit and think, 'what I wouldn't give to do the same things in the same order every single week'.

But I can't dwell too many minutes in discontent. We are memorizing Number 21:4-9 in the middle of which is documented that wonderful cry of the Israelites to God, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and water and we loathe this worthless food.' In response to which The Lord says nothing but only sends fiery servants to kill the people. Which is it, I wonder every time we say it out, no food or worthless food? Either way it wasn't true. There was food and it was heavenly food and also meat. Quail, for heaven's sake. As if any of us can afford to eat quail. Gladys turned her delicate nose up the other day and said, 'I weally weally like it' (whatever it was I can't remember) 'but I don't want to spoil it by eating it.' Like saying, 'yeah God,' as if any of us should be saying 'yeah' to God, 'thanks so much for everything. I'm really really grateful, but while you're at it, could you please make it something different, and put us all somewhere else.' I don't really want to be the one to say it. And I am really really grateful for the one who was lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness, to whom I can look and be saved from death, but from whom I also gain life and warmth and perfect spiritual food.

work, it won't save you

As usual for a Monday morning there are kids crashing around and screaming. We aren't shoving ourselves into the car to go scavenging for food one, because its sort of snowy and two, because an electrician is coming in a few minutes to see why all the kitchen lights keep shorting out or whatever it's called. And, three, if we were going to leave the house, I would have to get out of bed.

For the last few weeks or so, as is our want, we've been leading a seemingly crazy life that, in reality, isn't that crazy, but when you stop and examine it closely you think, 'OMW, there's no way everything will get done' but then somehow it does. Of course, the two things that haven't been 'getting done' are blogging and exercise....well...as it were....I've rebelliously decided not to walk because of the wretched wretched cold and if I'm not going to walk, why would I bother to do anything else? Really, someone give me a reason. Please. As for blogging, when the choice is between picking up the house again, cooking supper, trying to squeeze in one more subject with one more child, and blogging, well, there I've been a touch more responsible, though it hurts my itching fingers to admit it.

So, who else is ready for lent? I sure am. If Jesus doesn't come and save us we will be sorely lost under our own misguided perceptions and illusions and we will choose so often the wrong thing that its worth crying about.

On that note, here are three things Gladys said yesterday as she laboriously wiped off all the tables in the parish hall before Sunday school.
"Guess what. I've been working as hard as I can and I'm not even moaning.'
And
'Maybe if I work really hard, God will appreciate me.'
Haha Child. Hahaha...I didn't really laugh at her, I said that what she had said wasn't true and that God loves us first and we do work because we love him back. She laughed sarcastically and then said,
'Well, loving God is good. Not gross like Womulous burping at the table.'

confining my remarks to the weather

Looking at the weather forecast, I'm appalled to see that it's going to be really really tragically cold this week. We've been spoiled the last few years in the matter if cold, as in, it's been reasonable temperatures and we haven't wanted to commit any desperate act on account of the unspeakable Weather. Whereas now. Well, I'm not going outside. That's all I can say.

Marigold came in just now with her hat and boots and pjs on and told us she was "going out". Almost let her but opted for her just being mad at me instead. No, poor child and poor dog and poor sanity, we'll be inside all week. We should be super productive what with not having to worry about putting on shoes or walking out to gaze at the evening sky or finding everyone a sweater.

Do I sound bitter? I'm not really. In other times and seasons I've had to walk around in these frigid temperatures. I'm deeply grateful for the luxury of not ever having to go anywhere. But in a cosmic sense I think this kind of cold must be a sign of God's anger with Binghamton. Otherwise I can find no reasonable explanation for it.

a meager triumph

We're all watching football, most of us dubiously, or at least with a deep abiding sense of duty, but, I, at least, am basking in the glorious glow of finally having written on the last page of my journal. I've been writing in this journal for the last four years--began just a few days before we lost the lawsuit and had to move out of the old building and house--and have been sorely tempted, over the few weeks, to cheat by pasting pictures in the end or copying in laboriously the substance of some letter or fascinating post from my blog. But in the end I decided that integrity to the whole journal writing endeavor, and indeed my own conscience should win out over the perfect ideal of beginning a new book on the first of the year rather than on the 18th. So, in celebration of such an accomplishment and moral triumph, I have photographed all my journals.

Here is the first one (in the order of photographs, not of chronology). My very very clever aunt long ago  visually iconified the 'Lander Leg' in this lovely drawing which Marigold calls 'The Lady'. I, and all other females of the Lander Family, have inherited The Lander Leg--a stocky substantial Germanic leg which reaches all the way to the ground and which is, therefore, extremely useful. My Clever Aunt made this lovely picture and applied it to this book and to many cards. I was writing in this little book the summer my grandmother died.

It was really horrid of her to go off so suddenly, running away to her Love Jesus without warning anyone or being sick, although we all discovered afterwards that she had been sitting quietly on a lot of pain without fussing and whining the way I do. I was rooming with my Lovely Cousin and on the day Gramma (so we called her) died (whilst playing the opening hymn at a nursing home before my grandfather would preach) I sat up in my bed that very morning and said, "Cheer Up, things could be worse...so I cheered up and sure enough, things Got Worse', and never was I more prophetic than at that moment.

So next we have the book that was directly before that--The French Book. I purchased a nice plain gray book before shoving all my stuff in one of those old tortoise shell heavy duty suitcases so much coveted by me before I actually owned one. I had my plain clothes and plain hair and a frenchish sweater and very acceptable accent and I won't lie, I enjoyed my year in Nantes very very much.

I looked at the inside of every chateau I could reasonably get to, and eat my way through Strasbourg and spent all my religious holidays at Taize where I tried very hard to get them to accept me as a nun and failing that recommitted my way to Jesus accepting that I was a failure in so many things and yet He is Nice and He Likes Me.

I had to tear pages out at the end from writing much much too small through the year. Learned from this lesson later by buying books with actual lines in them.

And here is the bright fluffy much less fretful book with lines and blank pages in  which I discovered that I liked Matt Kennedy very much in spite of him arguing with the professors in class. Particularly liked that when I walked into a room he sort of came running forward with his piercing bright blue eyes saying foolish things like (in the school bookstore) 'Do you come here often?' Stopped writing a serious journal because of being swept up in  love and passing notes in New Testament and Systematic Theology.

Assuaged my conscience about not writing by pasting large cards on the off pages. Tore out a lot of pages at the end of the book to make it seem I'd even finished it.

Going back even further in time, here is the book I wrote in through High School. You remember, don't you, those puffy floral books from the 90's? They were so cool, so puffy, so floral.

I wasn't very clever, in high school, except in knowing that a lot of the things I was thinking and feeling feeling shouldn't be written down as they would embarrass me, probably, a great deal later.

Did do some "writing" but also an awful lot of "copy work"--the recording of clever and interesting quotes for future reference should I discover the need. Quotes like "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air" or whatever that one was. Not going to stop now and look it up.

And so we come to the Grown Up Years, or whatever it is I'm in the middle of now. Leather bound books with lines and a litany, four days out of seven, of how I hope God will interfere in the affairs of his creation, including mine, intermingled with actual events.

This book took the better part of a year. Constancy. Virtue. Writing Nearly Every Day. You get the idea.

The book before that, you can see, was not so....well, let's not make ourselves feel worse than we need to, shall we?

And finally, here it is. This is the book I've just finished. Its horribly thick, closely and regularly written, and finally done!

January 1 to January 18 and in the intervening time, a remarkable work of God to bring us out of fear, cold, despair, worry, loss and grief to life, provision, hope, industry, growth, and the mercy of God who is gracious and loving enough to care for the things that feel like they ought not matter and the things that obviously do.

I'm really grateful.
And hopefully optimistic about the new book.

This book was purchased as an "impulse" but really as Deep Calling to Deep. The pages, you can see

are the kind I grew up writing letters home from boarding school on--close careful writing all the way down the length of a long page. The color and feel of the cover is Exactly Right. Mrs. Miniver, writing about an engagement book (but the principle is the same), "An engagement book is the most important of all those small adjuncts to life, that tribe of humble familiars which jog along beside one from year's end to year's end, apparently trivial, but momentous by reason of their terrible intimacy. A sponge, a comb, a tooth-brush, a spectacle-case, a fountain-pen--these are the things which need to be chosen with care. They become, in time, so much a part of one that they can scarcely be classed as inanimate. Insensitive, certainly--but so are one's nails and hair. And although some of them can be given away if one takes a dislike to them, with others the only remedy is destruction; and there is no case on record of anybody, however, rich, being strong-minded enough to throw an almost new sponge into the fire. Meekly, one puts up with its inconvenient shape, its repulsive texture, and the cretinous face which is discernible among its contours when it is lightly squeezed. Eventually, thank goodness, it will wear out; or with any luck one may leave it behind in an hotel."

In this case, the book is the same shade as the purse I  happened upon for such a glorious sale that I paid only ten dollars for it--short days before the strap on my True Purse wore completely thin. So there you are. A new year. A new book. A new purse. And a new pen, because, by the mercy of God, the old pen ran out at the same moment as the old book. New wine in new wine-skins and all that sort of thing.

seven quick takes

one
Woke up in this last hour worried about my parent's cat who was horribly injured this week by a big dog. At last report he had a fifty fifty chance of making it. He's a good Christian cat named after and blessed on the feast day of St Frances and so I hope you'll all pray for him.
two
Our first week back at serious school did, in fact, occur which is a glorious triumph when considered in the whole scope of human affairs and not taken by itself in its own isolated sliver of reality (can you tell that I'm writing this at four in the morning?). After the initial shock, particularly on the part of Alouicious, they all managed to all calm down, stop the infernal screaming, and do a tiny bit of work. The best and most exasperating part of the week was struggling to satiate little 'nonverbal' Marigold's new and sudden desire to try to learn to read. Basically, it's not really her turn and she should go pour cups of water back and forth in the sink. But the all out brawl--lying on the floor screaming and sobbing and heaving when I said she had to wait a minute to practice letters--has made me rethink the order of my life. I'm delighted, of course. And also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to loose my mind.
three
If you are casting about for an order in which to read the bible in 2013 (because, like me, it takes you a week or two to realize that the old really has gone away and the new is jamming itself down your throat) I really recommend reading it in chronological order. Hat tip, several years ago, to Homemaking Through the Church Year, who recommended it so highly. I join her in this recommendation. And because, in 2012, I was constantly behind I was always listening to vast swaths of scripture at one go, like, the whole book of Ezekiel, or all the Pauline Epistles. And then finally, the whole book of Revelation, which remarkably (and I assume you know this already because you're smarter than me) recapitulates the totality of scripture in this vast cosmic intense way like when, in The Last Battle, all the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve keep coming on old familiar landscapes which are, somehow, made new and rich and satisfying again. Just as there are so many pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament, the Book of Revelation is chockablock full of everything before it. Seems stupid to write it out loud when I've 'known' that before. But I saw it in a new and richer way and it was wonderful.
four
As I was trying to spell the word 'recapitulate' just now Matt went out to unlock the church for the men's breakfast and came in with the mail from yesterday. How is it that we didn't even have time to check our own box attached to our own house for our own mail? I don't know, I didn't have a free second yesterday except to eat a piece of cheesecake alone in the church kitchen for breakfast because I didn't have the intelligence to eat something at home before hauling all the kids and all their school work over there....where was I? Oh Yes! Matt just now plunked the mail on me which comprised a lovely Christmas card from England and a package from Nairobi by way of NJ which, when I cut it open gave up a plume of gorgeous turmeric. It smells amazing and is all settled all over everything in glorious richness. Thank you mommy! Cooking tonight will be more than usually enchanting.
five
Matt maligns my love of ordinary curry powder but, since I'm already wildly recommending stuff, let me just impress upon you the heavenly delight that occurs when you lather ordinary little bits of tilapia with olive oil, salt, and curry powder which you then bake at 350 for ten minutes or so, depending on the thickness of the fish, while you sauté an onion, a garlic, some green and red pepper, a handful of frozen peas and a handful of corn also liberally adorned with curry powder and then pile it all over the fish and back in the oven until the fish itself flakes white and perfect. And then your babies, who don't know any better, gather it in like the Wide Mouth Frog and also go ahead and help themselves to more of everything.
six
Which brings to my mind that long ago moment when my own mother, who has a brilliant way with fish, accidentally breaded fish very much like tilapia in cake crumbs instead if bread crumbs. The result was so surprising I can taste it now, as I write this, and see the expression on her face, and the horror in her eyes, at the first bite.
seven
There's a baby up. That's too bad. She is shouting and rearranging the pillows and making a wreck of everything. I guess I'll get up and do some stuff. Amongst them continuing to pray for that poor cat, and for Jen of Conversion Diary who, though doing better, needs lots and lots of prayer.

in it for the long haul

I'm letting the children sleep in the living room tonight. So sue me. Its still a feast day. Tomorrow, back to cracking the whip! Hardy Har Har. As if there are any real whips.

No really, back to school and stuff this week. I held forth to a friend at great length recently about how children (as in my children) ought to be really really really self sufficient and self motivated and require only tiny amounts of me telling them what to do about school. All of which she thoroughly agreed with, I guess, because she just told me that her child did her last three days of school in just such a manner. So now I guess I also will have a chance to practice what I preach. Lots of reading and writing, suckers, lots of reading and writing!

Can you tell that I'm gearing up for any possible psychological warfare they might inflict on me in the way of whining and trying to get me to do stuff for them. I'm actually not dreading it. Its high time we put all our minds to better use than lying around eating bonbons and rearranging the furniture.

I like the time between the secular New Year and Easter. The upcoming times of fasting and feasting don't bring extra craziness and expectation from the culture and the world. Any craziness that bubbles up and permeates my life comes from inside the Church Year. And that kind of craziness is pleasurable and life giving. The children gain space away from all the tinsel and expectations of Stuff and gather their energy around the Party Hats at the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, or getting to miss Sunday School because of the Annual Meeting, or Celebrating the Last Supper on Palm Sunday altogether wedged into a tiny dark room. Their biggest concern is whether its our week to cook for Shepherd's Bowl and how many people will be there to play.

The days are dark and cold but ordinary and full and we will emerge on the other side to days that are longer and warmer, ready to be done with books and counting and writing and lists and routine. And hopefully not too too fat from all the baking.

ringing in the new year

 Matt takes his feasting very seriously. Last night we ate a lot of fancy little food and made hats and paper stars and a paper chain and then stayed, dedicatedly, up till midnight. This effort involved first watching Brave (fine but meh, if I'm perfectly honest, not nearly as good as Tin Tin from the night before) and then running in circles while Matt cleaned the kitchen with U2 turned all the way up, and then finally a little bit of Mr. Bean before watching the ball drop and being totally grossed out by all the kissing and by Mr. Bloomberg's happy lipstick embellished face surrounded by Rockettes. The vision of Mr. Bloomberg with his sweater and his rockets seems an ominous picture for tone and tenor of this New Year, but maybe I'm just being phobic. Anyway, the party happened at all kinds of levels. Elphine dressed up and sat around prissily drinking her sparkling cider and averting her eyes when anything turned out to be weird or gross.

 

The baby danced and wore a crown until we'd all had enough and flung her in her bed. She sees a camera (or a phone) and immediately strikes up a terrifyingly false grin and stretches out her hands in love. She also makes funny faces, when given the chance.

Gladys and Marigold ran in circles and joined in the general merriment. The boys drank vats of the sparkling cider and hoped that the bear in Brave would eat everyone (what a disappointment).

I sat in Matt's big chair and drank champagne and enjoyed Mr. Bean most of all. I find the whole specatacle of a lot of people in Time's Square screaming with Nivea hats and waiting to be on TV very strange. And the ball dropping at midnight is so over rated. The first year I heard of it I expected a large glass ball to be hurled off a tall building and smash on the ground. This, like the reality of the Alamo, has been such a disappointment in real life. However, the children were enchanted with the possibility of staying up till midnight, so it can't have been all bad.



So now on to the food, because that's what its really all about, isn't it? Here is the seafood with red and green pepper, onion and garlic, pickled jalapeno, hot chili oil, blue cheese and a dash of sherry from my very own glass.

Matt ate most of it because I'd tasted so much of everything before hand I wasn't hungry at all. Blast it. Elphine arranged the vast array of food artistically and in a good and rightful order.

 And here are the scrambled eggs with full fat cream and cheese.











And here are the cheese and pepperoni, arranged four or five different times because of being eaten off the plate as fast as they were put on. Not really worthy of a photograph in their own right but for the triumph of, for fifteen seconds, having a full plate of cheese and pepperoni before they're being eaten off once again.







And here are the little sausages wrapped in puff pastry which go very nicely with champagne or sparkling apple cider, of which none were left at midnight. I love how quickly they puff up, how easily they are made, how fancy they appear and how salty they taste. Whereas now the children are all relatively young and small, only one packet of little sausages was sufficient. As I laboriously cut and wrapped them, I imagined my future self with six teenagers sitting for several hours cutting and wrapping sausages and having them disappear with an even greater speed than the cheese and pepperoni do now. Sob.
And here is the crowning moment of my entire married existence.......
The Cherry Puff
Matt has resisted every single dessert I have made for the whole course of our marriage. I bake and he smiles and nods and walks by it all, fit, trim, disciplined, holy. Bread, Cinnamon Rolls, Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Trifle, Mango Cobbler, Persimmon Pudding, EVERYTHING, invented by me or even just executed very very deliciously. Until Now.
I took 15 seconds to lay down a puff pastry sheet, cover it with sour cherries left from the trifle, mix cream cheese, cherry guts and a teaspoon of sugar, mush it over the cherries and then lay over it all another sheet of pastry and he couldn't resist. Could Not. He ate a piece in the kitchen when he thought I wasn't looking and finished off everything out of the children's bowls and then put the very last piece in the fridge for later. Happy NEW YEAR!!!

And so finally we roused ourselves this morning to eat chocolate chip pancakes (well, the children did, I had a strong tea and hopped for a brighter tomorrow) and then Matt cooked a large turkey, as he is much addicted to doing, and we ate some more. And I waved my glass of Pinot around and held forth about the fact that I  had listened to the entire book of Romans this morning and discovered I was quietly hoarding some bad theology in the back of my mind but am firmly resolved to correct this faulty tendency in the new year, because, as we all know, Theology Matters.

So, A Happy New Year To You All! May God grant you many lovely things right away and may you eat of the fat of the land and sit in many comfortable chairs and be full of the knowledge of the love of God as the waters cover the sea.

revolutions

Several weeks ago Matt and I asked Elphine and Alouicious what they planned to resolve in the New Year, or, to put it another way, what resolutions they might like to make.

"For my New Year's Revolutions" Elphine said, relishing each word, "I will listen to all five volumes of The Story of the World, listen to the Whole Bible, talk less about myself, and be nicer to everyone."
Alouicious was less pious. "I" he said, "resolve to be more awesome."

No matter how often I try to get Elphine to say 'resolution' she persists with 'revolution', partly, I am sure, to spite me, and partly because it is cooler to plan a revolution than a resolution. Who are we kidding? Wouldn't we all like the whole world to be quickly, even if bloodily, better, not slowly and painstakingly improved in tiny ways that the stranger walking by wouldn't even know about? Last year I quietly settled myself to the loosing of lots and lots of weight--to get down to where I was before all the children, imagine--and to read through the Bible in the year, both of which I've basically, though not perfectly, accomplished. But the nose upturned young lady at the jewelry counter to whom I was trying to explain that the earring she'd sold me three days before broke the moment it came out of the tissue paper didn't know that I am much more awesome now than I was last year. I couldn't say out loud, "You shouldn't think I don't deserve to wear these earrings because, in fact, they will look fine on me and I know I'm not looking as fancy as you with all your necklaces and hair, but last year you would have despised me as much, if not more."

So this year, apart from resolving not to hate that young lady, but instead to pray for her or something (does it date me that I keep calling her young?), I am also resolving to
-finally read The Lord of the Rings even if it kills me
-read through the Bible again but in a different order
-post at least 200 times on this blog over the year
and of course
-be more awesome.

Merry Christmas!

the first decade

Am sitting here holding a couple of kids who feel better but who are pokey and puny after a long night and day of sick, and watching Elf. Vomit and a movie where Will Farrell eats spaghetti covered in syrup--its a fitting way to mark ten years of ordination. Ten years ago on this day, which must have been a Friday or a Monday or a Sunday or something, I had dressed Elphine up in a beautiful little velvet green dress and stuffed myself and my awesome haircut into something black and spent the evening with Matt and Good Shepherd and lots of other people from around Binghamton. That old church was never so full as that night.

And now I'm still wearing black and I finally have an awesome haircut again--took ten years to get it right. But now the kids dress themselves and tell me what to wear and run over by themselves to church, this big huge new church, that is filling up. And now, to counterbalance all this nostalgia and Memorial Sitting Around, I'm going to do a bunch of disgusting laundry. Because that's what the cross is about, probably.

a cord that ought not be broken

Very very grateful to have finally received the grace and mercy of The Post Office in the matter of Receiving A New Computer Cord. Well, of course, we ordered the cord and paid for the cord and expedited the cord, but it ultimately rested with the gods of the post as to whether they would let us have it in the end. And I think you know what I mean by 'let us have it'.

Also very grateful to have only had to stand in line for an hour and a half to mail a few flat packages and purchase some stamps. Expected it to be, perhaps, the whole day of standing there. And then paid Less than Fifty dollars for this enterprise. Like Whole Dollars Less. The people standing on either side of me, in this line, were trying to smile cheerfully but one was twitching weirdly and another looked to have actual tears in her eyes. I was saying quietly to myself, 'stamps.com, blast it all, stamps.dot.com.'

So here I am, veritably plugged in to the inter web superhighway and ready to catch desperately up on a few things like email, wasting all that lost time on facebook and doing a little tiny bulletin for the Christmas Pageant. In spite of my great loss the Lord was merciful to me. I sat around freaking out for a whole half a day but then, surely inspired by the Holy Spirit, the alien thought struck me that I could, perhaps, rearrange the order of my week. In the absence of a computer I forced myself to catch up on laundry,  complete all my Christmas shopping, wrap piles of stocking presents and get a proper haircut.

And while I have been rushing about, you might wonder, what has everyone else been doing?

Matt has been sitting under a pile of books all week muttering to himself about the Magnificat. I saw a look in his eye two weeks ago and realized that he was planning to carry on with Mark through the Christmas season (where are we in Mark? In the section about corban?) and had the presence of mind to throw a temper tantrum. After a measured amount of shouting and hand waving, he saw things from my view.

The children have been playing wildly, on one end of the spectrum, and on the other (Elphine and Alouicious) writing long chapter stories about Christmas. I haven't had time to read them yet but seeing that they've been carefully written and stapled together and given title pages I feel perhaps this would not be the moment to come out with my red pencil and my clever and critical eye, but rather to put a bow around them and leave them out for "Santa".

Along with a little glass of sherry. And not cookies. Blech. "Santa" wants a large pork pie.

unlinked, unhinged 7 quick takes

one
My computer cord seems to be taking its last dying breath and I am in the last ten minutes of the battery charge. So it may be that this will by my last blog gasp before Christmas. WHAT A HORRIBLE THOUGHT.
two
The children are supposed to be running around picking up "quickly" so as to be able to go hear a friend in a concert tonight. But instead of that, it seems they are cleaning up a massive spill of water on the kitchen floor. No one can explain to me how there is so much water.
three
I haven't been able to post pictures on this, my tiny stupid blog, and I have been so enraged I have not been able to bring myself even to look at my own page. Rage. Anger. Don't know whether to pay money to stupid blogger so as to be able to post pictures or chuck it all and start a new blog on a new platform. Advice? Counsel? Opinions?
four
shock. I'm not ready for Christmas. I thought I was, but then I looked around and realized I'm Not At All. So am sitting here in my bed thinking of maybe going on a holiday from reality.
five
Am more and more a proponent of quick public just execution. Who's with me? Or at least with me to pray for these families. Lord Have Mercy. And mercy for Mali, where its just getting worse and worse and worse.
six
In light of the maybe no picture no blogging thing, Follow me on Instagram! and friend me on Facebook. I would find the links but I'm seriously on my last minutes.
seven
I guess God wants me to go look at the massive puddle of water. There goes my charge! pip pip, sob

my sermon from this morning: mark 6

So last week, you might remember, we not only entered a New Church Year with the beginning of Advent, we spent it talking about the Beheading of John the Baptist. I myself came away feeling, and I know some of you concurred with me, that the idea of feeling honored by an ignoble and gruesome death was rather a stretch, and we, me, I long for no such honor. However, such a contemplation is well within the bounds of a Godly Advent Observance. Sure most of us under the height of three feet are really Waiting for Santa, and Waiting to Remember that Jesus was Born. But a true advent observance looks forward to the Second Coming of Christ. When Jesus first came into the world as the Light, he overcame the Darkness of Sin and Death. But he did not obliterate it. He calls us every day to push it back, to live in His Light. When he comes again in Glory His Light will be so great that there will no more be need of a sun or a moon, for we will look on him and be satisfied. It was that hope and trust and love that allowed John the Baptist to speak and then finally to die.

So today we pick up in the wake of that great murder and tragedy at another Feast, if you would open your Bibles to Mark 6. Whereas last week the feast was at night, celebrating a man working hard to attain and keep his own honor and glory, a feast of the high up and proud and mighty that Mary sang about in her Magnificat, a feast wherein there was at first a great deal of wine and then finally too much, a feast that debased a young girl and finally ended in murder, today we have its opposite.

Let’s begin in verse 30, the Disciples, having gone out two by two returned to Jesus to report on all that had happened. And they are exhausted. They’ve done a new kind of work, they’ve relied completely on God for everything, and they’ve seen results—the Word went out, signs and wonders were performed. And. They. Are. Tired. And Jesus plans to take them to a Desolate Place to Rest. The same kind of Desolate Place we have seen before, the wilderness where God forms his people, gives them an identity, draws them out to woo them and care for them and speak to them, the Wilderness where Jesus himself goes to commune with and to be fed by his Father. Jesus wants them to Rest and so they get in a boat, not, most likely as we will see from what happens, to go across the lake, but to go along the shore looking for a place to be alone, to regain strength and energy, to recuperate.

Often, when we are really tired and weary, it is easy to go on to the next thing, to go to the next busyness, or to go in heavily for “leisure” as in doing some kind of activity, without really resting, dwelling with God, lying on the couch, resting. If you never stop and rest, you’re saying to yourself and God, I’m stronger than You, You can’t handle any of this without me, this all has to be done My Way.

So Jesus takes them to rest. But, verse 33, as they are going, some, Mark says, “recognize them”. The Greek implies not recognized as in Who they were, but in what they were doing. The crowd knows they are trying to get away and instead of saying, Oh yeah, they’ve worked hard, they need to be alone, the crowd runs on ahead of them to purposefully intercept them. The run is a kind of frenzied run, not like a gentle trot but a crazy, running with all you’ve got run. This is all the crazier because, remember, Jewish men didn’t run. Children ran. Maybe, but I doubt it, a woman would run. But a Jewish man would walk in a dignified way wherever he had to go. But here people from all the towns and villages are running to meet Jesus on the beach when he lands. It might surprise you, but every time I read this, my response and Jesus’ response to these crowds is exactly opposite from each other. Jesus gets out of the boat and “has compassion”, this is a deep gut compassion that is only used about Jesus in the NT, not just feeling sorry for, but a physical reaction in the stomach, for, writes Mark, ‘they were like sheep without a shepherd.’

Sheep without a shepherd are dead sheep. Sheep, apparently, cannot survive without a shepherd. If they fall on their backs they can’t turn over. If they are not led in a group, or a flock, they scatter and get lost. If they are not led to the right kind of water, as in water that isn’t moving, they die of thirst. If they are not brought to grass, they are not intelligent enough to find it themselves. Sheep without a shepherd do not go on living for very long. The frenzied crazed running of the crowd to meet Jesus  are like sheep—they are helpless and sick and directionless and they will go on this way to death unless they have a shepherd. Don’t look at this crowd of sheep from the outside. You have just been running with everyone to meet Jesus. You know what he has done and can do and you are exhausted and harassed. You frequently fling your priorities into the wrong order and neglect what is most important. You have broken and ruined relationships that need healing and repair. You make poor decisions about your body and health. You neglect the word of God and choose to live in darkness and sin. And yet, you are here, seeking a shepherd, seeking the one who can give you life and direction and health. Praise God, praise God that Jesus doesn’t get out of the boat and say, ‘You jerks, leave me alone to rest. Haven’t I given you enough?’ NO, he gets out of the boat and he has compassion.

So, in his compassion, what does he do?

He begins to teach. Verse 34. Here, not turning all these sheep away, he gets out and begins to teach them. Luke tells us that he ‘Spoke to them about the kingdom of God.’ A frenzied crowd assembled on the beach to get close to Jesus and he begins to teach them and goes on teaching them about the kingdom of God. We know he goes on teaching because Mark finally says ‘the hour was late’, Matthew says it was evening. You know, the sun begins to wane, dusk is settling in. If you were at home you would be lighting lamps against the oncoming night and be well into your supper preparations. If you had little children they would definitely be crying by now. But here they are, in a desolate place. And the disciples, who haven’t had a rest, and who have had to listen to a long time of teaching, probably stuff they’ve all heard before and maybe even said themselves on their recent mission trip, have to interrupt the teaching to get Jesus to stop because everyone will be hungry. This is a kind of clash, a kind of collision that goes on every day in the church. On the one hand, the spiritual teaching and nourishment of the gospel is preeminent. And if we were all perfect and in our right minds we would always be strengthened by and attentive to the Word of Christ. And we would offer it freely and completely to anyone who comes in here and everyone we meet outside. But the body is frail, the mind dim. After a long morning of teaching and worship, we drink coffee and eat lunch. After a long day of study and work, you sit down and eat sensibly and chew each mouthful. God created the mind and heart AND the body, and so he taught AND healed the sick. How sensible of the disciples—it is a brief bright moment of sanity for them that vanishes quickly—to hear the murmuring of the crowd and go to Jesus and actually interrupt him. However, we can read their ongoing fatigue which manifests itself as irritation.

‘Send the crowds away into the towns and villages so that they can buy something to eat,’ they tell Jesus.

‘You give them something to eat’ reposts Jesus. This is the call, isn’t it? This is the critical moment in your life with Jesus. You’ve already given him yourself, you’ve given him your whole self, and then you see something that needs doing in the Kingdom of God, something comes to your attention, and you go to Jesus and pray about it, and he says ‘you do it’. And What do you do then? There’s work to be done, the call is there, what do you do? Because every time Jesus calls you to do something, you’re going to look at yourself, and look at Jesus, and look at the job and see plainly and clearly that you don’t have what it takes to do it. One option is to argue with Jesus about it, or even be sarcastic.

What! Shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? That’s like a whole year’s wages for a day laborer, and maybe the amount of money they had on them collectively. Maybe Judas jangled the money bag and rolled his eyes. This is how I respond when I discover something else Jesus wants me to do. What! Shall I just Stop Everything I’m doing and go over and do that Even Though I have six children and a house and, for heaven’s sake, I’m HOME SCHOOLING. Or. I can’t possibly do that because it’s not HUMANLY possible. If you try to answer the call of Jesus without going through this step of discovering that if you try to do it yourself, you will fail, then you will miss the point of who Jesus is and why we all follow him. To make sure the disciples don’t miss it, Jesus tells them to go see how many loaves exist among the crowd.

So, there’s this huge crowd, out in the middle of nowhere, a crowd that is so needy, so desperate for help, that when they saw Jesus trying to get away from them And Rest, stopped everything they were doing to catch up with him. Stopped things, maybe, like working to make a living, cleaning the house, taking care of children, doing the regular things of life. Nobody stopped to grab some food. In the whole crowd there seems to be only one thoughtful mother who happened to send her child to see Jesus with five loaves and two fish. We learn from John that a small boy had this amount of food on him. The loaves aren’t big, they’re little flat breads, maybe the size of crackers, and the fish are preserved or pickled maybe the size of a sardine. This is the ordinary lunch of an ordinary little boy roaming over the Galilean countryside. And it’s all there is in the entire crowd. And then, this is so awesome, Jesus takes the kid’s lunch.

This is how poor we are. This is how desperate we are for Jesus. The little that we have is not nearly enough and sometimes even what we have, or think we have, Jesus takes away. My mom and dad live like this. I’d watch them, as a child, counting up what was needed and then counting up what they had, seeing the great gap, and then someone coming to the door in great great need and having to give away the little that there was. It happens to me now with my time and energy. I look at what Jesus has called me to do. I look at who I am. I count up the difference and see the great lack and then something I didn’t account for comes and takes the little I thought I had. I think, in this country, we have so much. None of us have ever been sitting in a big stretch of wilderness with absolutely nothing to eat and nowhere to get it. We do not know that we cannot sustain our own lives. That if God did not provide in a common way, grace—the rotation of seasons and the order of the universe, and did not also hold all of it together in himself, sustaining our lives, giving us our very breath—then we would fall to nothing. Here we are, all here in this crowd together—no lunch, no life.

So he takes the bread and then he, verse 39, commanded them to all sit down on, what Mark now reveals, is green grass, a green pasture. The Lord, the good shepherd, is standing in the midst of his flock, arranging the flock in the pasture into groups of hundreds and fifties. The Greek, might be better rendered in English, ‘He commanded them all to recline—as one reclines at table, with the feet spread out, forming three sides of a square, so as to be able to be served as guests would be at a feast—to recline in open squares upon the green grass. And they reclined in squares that looked like flower garden plots, by hundreds and fifties. The word ‘ranks’ literally means ‘a garden bed’. But the ranks also indicate the groupings of the people of Israel as they went through the Dessert on the way to the Promised Land, the wilderness where God sustained them with heavenly bread, with manna.

And then, taking the loaves, Jesus looked up to heaven and gave a blessing, probably the regular blessing, a thanksgiving for the fruit of the earth, except he looks up to his Father instead of looking down, and then, at once, Jesus broke the bread, and then kept on giving bread to the disciples who passed it and the fish to the people. These poor tired disciples having to pass and pass and pass out bread to the people so that everyone was satisfied—everyone ate and ate and ate and ate. And then gathering up what was left and filling 12 baskets full. And then Mark gives us the punch line—There were 5 thousand men. Matthew adds the line, ‘besides women and children’. Five thousand men, maybe another five thousand women, at least that of children--Scholars say a conservative estimation of the crowd that ate and were satisfied was between 15 and 20 thousand.

This is the last big public display of Jesus’ glorious divinity. Gazing out over the crowd, some wonder if the people knew what had happened. The disciples, laboring to distribute this perfect bread, brought forth by the Creator of All Things, saw what happened but we will discover next Sunday that they did not understand it. Some saw the sign and wanted to make Jesus king then and there. We know that the bread was delicious, that it was extraordinary. John writes that in the morning, discovering that Jesus and the disciples had gotten away, the crowd tracked them all the way back to Capernaum and demanded breakfast. Then, when Jesus offered  himself as the food that they needed, his own flesh and his own blood, they, and even the meager group of his 100 or so disciples were so repulsed and horrified that they all left. Only the twelve, one of whom is a traitor, stay with him.

The impoverished, frantic, dying sheep run to and fro, looking for hope and help but when that hope and help turns out to be Jesus himself and not free bread and free health, the sheep scatter.

Don’t run away from Jesus, this morning. Let him be your food. As you shop for Christmas, or worry about your bills, or consider that food that you need here and now, let Jesus be your Shepherd. When he calls you to a task, discover that you do not have what you need, that you need him. When he calls your name, go to him. Soon he will come again and gather his flock from all time and space, from all the corners of the world into a New Pasture, to a Perfect Heavenly Feast where the One Flock will live together under One Shepherd. Where there will be no more need for the sun nor moon because Christ will be our Light.

a week in review

Took a week off blogging to have rather an unpleasant cold, and also, it was the second week of our school holiday in which we relished the few remaining days of Matt's parents being here and I generally Did Nothing except
Decorate the Tree (I know...I know...Its such a liturgical failure, but it might also be the Miracle of Advent)
Complete All My Christmas Shopping (except that stupid stupid Optimus Prime Remote Control, blast that thing)
Clean The House
Read Matt's Talk for IV Four or Five Times
Read An Actual Book (or start to anyway).

And so now I feel much better and am looking into a future I've never seen before: Advent With Maybe, Is It Possible, Time To Celebtrate It.

Sorry about all the Entitlements. Usually they're spread over a whole week and not gathered together in one tiny backward looking moment.

I just love advent, and I hate hate hate shopping. This time, however, the shopping was generally pleasurable because I had 1. the Internet (which I love of course) and 2. Matt's Mom (who is focused and creative). And because of God being gracious and us working hard at not spending any for a long time, we had, I'm so embarrassed to say it out loud, Money. So, for the first time ever, I have been unshackled from the exhausting and guilt ridden enterprise of trying to Make Things For People. I know when the apocalypse comes and the grid goes away we'll all be sitting in our cold hovels sewing and weaving again, but for one brief bright shiny moment, I've been able to fling down the false narrative that I Can Be Creative Too. Whatever. Going somewhere and buying something beautiful that someone else made was a thrilling experience and I will treasure it for a long time.

The other great gift that came with Getting It All Done is that I can concentrate on actually educating my precious, hemmm, children and remembering to light the candles at night and play the music and read the texts which we love so much but which usually I'm too stressed and angry to remember about. It may be, that in some far distant future, when the children can all put their own coats on, we will Hand Make.....bla bla bla. Why Am I Being Defensive About This? No more pinterest for me.

On that note, I'm going to go fight with blogger about whether or not I can upload pictures. Cheerio!