31 12 07 - 20:56
Marking the Passage of 2007
Well, we opened presents in three different houses, ate turkey and chicken and seafood casserole and roast beef until we were fit to burst -- somehow I'm the same weight at the end of my trip as I was on Christmas morning, I'm good with that! 
-- saw family and friends, both sledded and drove through some picture perfect snowfalls, and in general had a great Maritime Christmas.
Now I'm back home, the living room is a litter of presents and boxes from opening and assembling other presents, it's New Year's Eve, and I find myself taking stock of the year just past.
This has been a year of changes for our family. I made the tough decision to leave a nearly ten year ministry that had its ups and downs, but it was my first church, and it will always be special in my heart. ... (more)
22 12 07 - 17:29
Final Approach
I feel like I should be writing an uplifting inspirational message about surviving the season, but all my training, my supposed emotional maturity, and my experience at balancing family and the demands of a church don't amount to a hill of beans when it comes to the crunch of the week before Christmas. I did a quick count, and I'm doing five services in eight days starting last Sunday. I love worship, but try to twine that around Christmas shopping for three kids and a large extended family, and there is no way to do it calmly! 
Here's my calendar since the last time I blogged:
Friday: Friends coming from England. Pick them up at the airport just before supper. No, wait, their flight's been cancelled. No, wait, not going anywhere, because just about that time I fall victim to a GI bug that puts me in bed for fourteen hours ... (more)
14 12 07 - 15:21
Holiday Concert
My husband and I took the afternoon off work yesterday to attend the school's Holiday Concert. We're lucky that for this one last year, all three kids are in the same school, so we only had one concert to go to. I was talking to one of the moms at the church who's going to three!
Our eleven year old daughter was greeting at the door, and her delight to see me was matched by my delight that she had my ticket for me. I quietly joined my husband in the audience – I was on time for once, but the rotters started five minutes early – and tried to look encouraging as the first year string players shared their gift of music with us. I enjoyed the subversive head bopping of one of the clarinet players as the band broke into a Dixieland version of a holiday tune. We waved back at our five year old son, was that against the rules? He was one of the few who waved. Our nine year old daughter sang like a star, and just as they were ... (more)
07 12 07 - 13:02
Getting into the Christmas Spirit
My house was decorated in red on Wednesday morning by my five year old son, who decided to toss his yogurt tube down the stairs – apparently a faster way of getting it to his backpack than by simply carrying it – and was surprised when it burst on the bottom carpeted step. We were running late for school, that part wasn’t a surprise, and cleaning up red dye number 2 from the bottom step simply wasn’t on my schedule for the morning. I lost my cool, I confess, in the face of the unexpected.
I find myself, the older I get and the more I engage with family life, feeling for Mary and Joseph, who also found themselves in the face of the unexpected. The Bible doesn’t say if they lost their cool when they found out what was in store for them. A baby on the way, and Mary an unmarried teenager. A baby on the way, and Joseph knew he wasn’t the father. It makes the yogurt incident look like a walk in the park on a crisp, sunny December day. ... (more)
07 12 07 - 02:41
What am I doing here?
That's a question I've asked myself many times, and God rarely answers. The short answer is that this is the first time that the church I've ministered with has had a website, and I've stumbled across some really meaningful blogs that other ministers have written, so here I am, making it up as I go along.
I have no idea what I'm going to write about, but I can guess that a lot of what will come out is about my struggle to be a woman of faith working in a thinking church, while trying to juggle three kids, a husband with his own career, and my own needs as an artist and writer. Oh yes, and keep both my sanity and a sense of humour about it all.
If you go to http://fairview-united-church-halifax.org you can find my church, my bio, and my most recent sermons. Or come back here and check out the blog. You don't get to talk back during my sermons. ... (more)
