Archive for April, 2011
If you’re looking for a Paska recipe…
Yesterday, I had a first time reader get to my blog by stubbornly refusing to search for a Paska recipe. (Read the amusing story in the comments!)
Well – I’m not interested in causing marital strife, so when I saw that the “Mennonite Girls” had a Paska recipe on their site this morning, I thought I should probably provide the link:
Chickers
Yesterday, Oldest Daughter created the game of “Chickers” — it’s checkers with an Easter twist. Here’s the board:
And here are the playing pieces:
“But wait!” you say. “How do you get a ‘king’?” Well, I’m glad you asked! You put your piece in a basket:
And if there aren’t enough baskets? That’s the twist in the game. It’s your tough luck. You only have yourself to blame for not getting across the board more quickly.
Giving up failure for Lent
A few weeks ago, I was joking on Facebook about giving up fish tacos for Lent. Well – my dry humor didn’t translate well into Facebook, and I was immediately taken to task for my “sacrifice” – and rightly so. I’ve never eaten a fish taco in my life. My fish taco “joke” came out of the observation that:
- Many people “give up” one thing (e.g. beef) and immediately replace it with something else (e.g. “all-you-can-eat” fish tacos on Fridays). It’s no sacrifice at all.
- Fish tacos just sound silly to me.
Well – in the midst of the fish taco conversation, one of my friends from my congregation insisted that the tacos taste great and that she’d make some for me. So then I had to give up something else.
I settled on failure.
FailBlog is a website sharing pictures and videos of humorous moments when things… don’t go well. If you’ve seen television shows such as “America’s Funniest Videos”, just imagine that getting translated to the web. Anyway – FailBlog is one of the blogs that I would read daily, often getting a chuckle at the silly things that people were doing. But after a while, I began to notice some things that disturbed me. It is true that some of the humor wasn’t wholesome. That was probably a good reason to stop reading that blog, but I generally self-censored those entries pretty quickly.
However, there were lots of supposed examples of “failure” that had more to do with opportunistically taking something out of context. Perhaps pictures were framed in just the right way, or maybe something was removed from another culture and planted down in the middle of middle-class North America. Whatever the situation, I became bothered by the ease with which the website would label something as a failure. And I became even more bothered when I noticed my own tendency to do the same thing. So I unsubscribed from the blog.
Now – having said all that, this really isn’t about FailBlog. It more about the increasing willingness of our society to see things in black and white. Recent case studies come to us from our lawmakers: the fiasco in Wisconsin where all their Senate Democrats decided to come here to Illinois to take a short vacation (with similar stories in other states), and silly budget votes and government shutdowns taking place in Washington D.C. These people get paid way too much to argue like children and pass legislation completely along party lines. But how can we fault our legislators when they’re just reflecting the mood of the country? Researchers tell us that we are increasingly self-segregating ourselves – moving into areas where people look and think just like we do. It happens in politics, and it happens in our churches. One person called these groups “holy colonies“.
So this Lent, I’m committing myself to seeing shades of gray (and maybe even some patches of color). As James suggests, I’ll try to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
Hopefully, I won’t fail.
Worship ideas: Lenten hymn sing
(Proper acknowledgement: This is a good idea. But it’s not mine.)
This year, many Mennonite churches are using the theme “Becoming Human” to shape their worship services during lent. We are created in the image of God, but sin causes us to be less than human. And so, we look to Jesus as our example of how to become truly human.
In January, I attended the Lent planner at AMBS where they were sharing various ideas for worship during this season. Rebecca Slough suggested that we consider a hymn sing for one of our services. She proceeded to lead us in a selection of hymns that helped us reflect on the different ways in which we observe Jesus’ humanity.
Yesterday, I led such a service at our congregation and structured it in this way:
The Image of Jesus in the Prophets
The Image of Jesus in the Psalms
The Image of Jesus in the Gospels
The Image of Jesus on the Cross
Becoming the Image of Christ to One Another
Sent in the Image of Christ
I tried to follow the lectionary readings as closely as possible. The Old Testament reading was about David being anointed as king. I decided to replace that with a passage from Isaiah (“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse…”). However, I kept the psalm (Psalm 23) and the gospel reading (John 9 – the blind man is healed). Each of these was included in the appropriate place, as well as one or two appropriate hymns. At various times throughout the morning, we sang a chorus entitled “¿Quién dicen que soy yo?” (Translation: “Who do you say that I am?” For you Mennos, it’s Sing the Story #51.) This song re-centered us on the theme for the morning – deepening and broadening our understanding of Jesus. (This idea also came from the Lent Planner.)
In addition to the singing and the readings, one person shared a faith story (as we’re doing every Sunday during Lent); there was a children’s story; and we had our usual time for congregational sharing. I was assisted by an incredible group of musicians whose contributions made everything flow smoothly.
This is an idea that could be used during any time of the year, but it works especially well when there is an appropriate theme (as we have now). From my biased perspective, the congregation found the service to be very meaningful.
For better or worse, when you pick the songs, you get to choose ones that are meaningful to you. There were two yesterday that especially reflected the way I think about faith, both from the “Sing the Story” hymnal.
The first is entitled “Helpless and Hungry” (StS #26). It was written to be in conversation with the Christmas carol “What child is this?” (and to be sung in conjunction with it). So we have questions such as, “Who is this who lives with the lowly, sharing their sorrows, knowing their hunger?” And then we hear the response, “This, this is Christ the King…” Very powerful.
The second song was entitled “On The Journey to Emmaus” (StS #98). I think that what I appreciate about that song is summarized by the final line: the one “who welcomes the stranger shall welcome the Lord.”
Now – go plan yourself a hymn sing!
This week in the garden: crazy spring weather
Remember that week of beamtime that I mentioned the last time I was blogging? It turned into two and a half weeks of work and worship craziness. But after yesterday’s worship service (which was fun, though stressful ’cause I was planning it – more on that in another post), I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a while. Work is still hectic, but I won’t be here all hours of the day, and I don’t think I’ll have to take it home with me. So finally, I get to reflect on life again, get caught up with people who haven’t heard from me in forever (you know who you are), and do a little blogging.
Which means you get to put up with another set of garden pictures.
Illinois is experiencing run-of-the-mill spring weather craziness right now. Yesterday morning, it was 35 °F when I woke up. By late afternoon, we were up to 77 °F. Then last night, the thunderstorms rolled through (as you might expect) and the temperature dropped back to 44 °F. Of course, when the thunderstorms show up, so do the children who can’t sleep. Which has something to do with my stiff neck today.
Anyway, in the midst of gorgeous temps yesterday afternoon, I scampered out to take some pictures.
Ordinary Spouse planted the delphinium (2nd on the bottom) in the middle of last summer. She said that it didn’t do any growing then, but we concluded that it must have been putting down roots. It’s taking off now.
Our magnolia (last picture on the bottom) keeps growing. When we moved, it was a tree that obscured the entire front of our house. Dad and I chopped it down soon thereafter. But we didn’t remove the base of the trunk, and it soon started sending up shoots. We eventually decided to keep one, promising ourselves that we wouldn’t let it get as big as the last time. This year, it will probably reach a nice size. Every year, it gives us a few nice blossoms.
And of course, there is the regular assortment of spring growth.
