Book 10 of 2011 -- The Forest Laird

I happened upon this one whilst grocery shopping one day.  ANd since I like Jack Whyte's writing and needed a "nothing" book to read I picked it up.

It is a different choice.  A William Wallace story that ends as the legend begins.  THe last lines of this book talk about Wallace heading off down the road that will lead to Stirling Bridge, then Falkirk, then Tyburn Tree.  But the novel itself is maybe best described as the formation of William Wallace.

This is book 1 of a trilogy on Scottish heroes.  Next will be Robert the Bruce.  Last will be the Black Douglas.  Given that Whyte set the last book of his Templar trilogy in Scotland during the years leading up to the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn, I am sensing a trend here...

I liked this book.  Whyte has a way of writing the epic (which can be a challenge).  ANd he does a good job of weaving history with legend and fiction.  I look forward to his treatment of the Bruce.

Road Trippin' Friday 5

Over at RGBP Jan gives us this challenge:

Tell us about five road trips--in your childhood, in your family, in your recent past, with friends, and/or hoped-for-places-to-drive-to. Don't forget the one that stands out as the BEST or as the worst time. 

 1.  in 1984 we drove from Alberta to Chicago, up through Ontario to Sarnia, Toronto and Ottawa then back via the north shore of Superior.  Highlights included driving past Flint in the midst of a storm that was spawning tornadoes (quote from that section as my mother was looking at a map: "remember that mall we just passed?  that is where they just said a tornado touched down") finding out just how long the trip through Northwestern Ontario could be, and lots of grasshoppers through the prairies.

2.  worst road trip ever.  in 2002 Beloved and I were planning a trip out to BC for my grandparents 60th Anniversary.  WE were to leave on a Monday.  4:00 Friday afternoon the alternator light came on in my car, no garage open until Monday morning.  So we spent Saturday arranging for alternate transport to Edmonton where we could continue with my parents -- 28 hours on the bus.  On a full bus for most of it.  Not fun.

3.  a trip we plan to take.  Beloved and I would dearly love to fly to Halifax and take the train back across the country.  With stops to explore various places along the way.  But we want to wait at least 5 years until youngest is 6.  Sadly it will be a very expensive trip.

4.  most recent trip.  LAst summer.  Our big move.  Thunder Bay to Edmonton over 4 days, travelling in a convoy of 3 vehicles, with a 1 month-old.  It was a bit of an adventure.  Then after a couple of recovery days a final day up to our new home.

5.  last fall Beloved and I joined the other members of this Presbytery for a bus trip up to Whitehorse for the fall meeting.  First time either of us had been north of here (not surprising since the move was the first time we had been this far north [apart from interview and house-shopping on my account]).  And in 2015 the PResbytery should be due for a bus trip to Yellowknife.

Book 9 of 2011 -- Order in Chaos

I have been waiting to read this one for a couple of years.  It is the third of the Templar Trilogy.  However I read the second in paperback before the third even came out in hardcover and so I have waited (I prefer to read books in paperback whenever possible).

The trilogy as a whole is good.  Not something that is going to become a piece of classic literature by any means but good.  I also enjoyed Whyte's Dream of Eagles cycle (about the transition from Roman Britain to Arthurian Britain) and the next one I am reading is the first of a trilogy based in Scotland (where in fact this book largely takes place after the Templars are dissolved in France).

THe trilogy has been well immersed in the mythic nature of the Templar story, and this one gives a hint of the old folk legend that the Templars became the Freemasons.  I would recommend it.  It could stand on its own but obviously follows better if one has read the first two volumes.

FRiday???? Five, Also Blogiversary

What with the parade and the Canada Day Festivities last week I didn't get around to the Friday Five over at RGBP.  However today is my 6th Blogiversary and so I thought these queries would fit well today:

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore? In my first 6 months of blogging I posted 206 times.   THus far this year--31 (on this blog, there have also been posts on my "church blog" and worship resources posted on my "worship blog").  I'd say the numbers speak for themselves.  Reading is on a similar track, although I tend to read more blogs as part of my worship preparation now than I used to.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss? There aer some who stopped blogging that I used to read.  ANd many folks whose blogging has slowed so much that I miss following them now.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the 'must read' category? Certainly, most of the ones in my sidebar.  But to be fair I rarely find time to read all of them.

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging? That I spent too much time doing it???  But there was a growing feeling of community, a feeling of getting to know these people in some way.

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else's that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie? Nothing that really stands out.  There were posts that made me laugh out loud, and posts that have made me tear up.

Book 8 of 2011 -- Theology in a Digital World

This one was recommended to me when I was musing on FB about doing a paper on the use of technology in worship planning and presentation.  (I may still do that paper some day -- when I have the time).

It is not a new book.  I had to order it used.  But what amazed me was how prescient it is, for a book written at the beginning of the Digital Age.

Lochead was, as they say, and "early adopter" of internet possibilities within the United Church of Canada.  He was in fact a pioneer of ECUNET back in the day.  In his intro he says that the first chapter came to form in 1984.  Now I remember 1984.  THink Apple IIe.  THink DOS.  THink those lovely green screens.  The only exposure most of us had to modems and inter-computer communication at that time was movies such as War Games.  In fact a decade later, when I was doing my first internship, modems and ECUNET/othe internet things and so on were still something very few people were doing (and a 28.8 modem was the top of the line).  ANd yet what Lochead describes is eerily accurate to what we have now.

THis was a good book.  An introductory book to be sure.  But a good read.  Lochead raises important questions that still need to be explored, especially as we live into the reality of a social media world.  Given that I am still mulling the concept of doing a DMin exploring what it means to be the church in a Digital World I am really glad this book was suggested to me.

How I spent Last week

LAst week I took two extra days off.  To get a project done while my "work crew"  (aka parents) were in town. 

When we bought the house last year we had noted that the front yard needed to be regraded as it sloped in towards the house (and there was a gap of a couple inches between the bottom of the front step and the ground).  So we replaced the front sidewalk with a bigger one made of paving bricks and put nice big flower beds in to replace the 2 foot wide ones under the eaves.

After day 1 of work

The raised section right at the step, also to show the brick pattern

After completion (almost).  The sides have now been filled with sod clumps, soil and grass seed.  Now we just have to decide what all we want to plane in the beds (perennials and shrubs)

This Isn't Right!

I know it is only June and the only month in which snow has not been recorded in Alberta is July but still...

I mean 24 hours ago it was over 20C!

The Word of God? A Newspaper Submission

Each week, Christians around the world hear passages from Scripture read. Often the reading closes with the statement “this is the word of God”. But what does that mean? 

Does ‘Word of God’ mean that every word, every story is to be seen as factual, as having happened just that way? Does it mean that we need to take the whole of Scripture as having been uttered by God? Or does ‘Word of God’ mean that in the very human words and stories we find some lasting truths that point towards God? For many people the first option is a source of comfort and forms the bedrock of their faith. At the same time many people, both in and out of the church, find the second possibility to be much more realistic.

It is my opinion that taking the Bible literally does injustice to the intent of the original writers. Modern Western culture is one of the few cultures that equates truth with fact. The cultures that wrote the books of the Bible were much more comfortable with metaphor and parable. They had an understanding that the truth told by the story was often more important than the actual events. When we, with our scientific mindset, try to literalize the story, it then becomes ridiculous and we lose the truth that is being told. For me the question of literalism is best summed up by retired Episcopal Bishop John Spong who said: “I take the Bible far too seriously to ever take it literally.”

Mind you this raises another question about the ‘Word of God’. How do we determine what parts are more important or have more weight? If we say that God literally spoke every word, then all the words are equally important. Unfortunately, many of those words contradict each other. But if we see the Bible as a collection of books where humans are trying to explain how God is active in their lives then we can see that sometimes the biases and prejudices of the writer have slanted the vision of God. In the past, taking those biases literally have led the church to condone and encourage slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, and many other forms of oppression.

The alternative is to remember that humans wrote the Scripture. Therefore it does not perfectly express the will of God. One principle often helpful is to work out the core messages that run through all of Scripture and judge individual passages by that. One of those core messages is shown by the Rabbi [named differently, if at all, in different versions of the story, generally linked to one of the great Talmudic scholars such as Rabbi Akiba] who was asked to explain the Law and the prophets while standing on one foot. His answer? “Love God, love your neighbor - everything else is commentary.”

The Bible is part of the foundation of Christian faith. As those who were forming the United Church of Canada said a century ago:

We receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, given by inspiration of God, as containing the only infallible rule of faith and life, a faithful record of God's gracious revelations, and as the sure witness of Christ. (The Basis of Union of the United Church of Canada)

and as the same denomination said a few years ago:

Scripture is our song for the journey, the living word

passed on from generation to generation

to guide and inspire,

that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place

from the human experiences

and cultural assumptions of another era....

The Spirit breathes revelatory power into scripture,

bestowing upon it a unique and normative place

in the life of the community. (A Song of Faith, United Church of Canada, 2006)

Scripture is vital to our faith. Engaging and interpreting Scripture is not optional. This means we all have to deal with it. Engaging Scripture challenges us to work out what God is saying to us through these ancient words. We are challenged to see beyond what we want it to say to what it really does say. When we can all do that and live the life that God wants us to live then we can truly say that the Reign of God is being made real. May God help us in our quest. Amen.

This Is A Good Idea

I finally got down to looking at this month's Observer.  And so I read this story:

Classroom discussions and activities like these form the backbone of a course called Ethics and Religious Culture. It is mandatory at all grade levels in all of Quebec’s schools — public and private alike — making Quebec the only province in Canada that requires all students to study religion. The ERC program has powerful opponents but just as many advocates. As Quebec tries it on for size, other provinces will be able to see whether it turns out to be a failed experiment or a possible model for the rest of the country.

This is the sort of course I have long thought needed to  be a mandatory part of our education system.  I am glad to see it is at least being tried somewhere.

Now to have some province include a mandatory, fully-funded trip by land from coast to coast, with stops in all provinces, as a part of their curriculum....

8 Years AGo Today

Well technically teh story starts 8 years ago yesterday. 


It was a Tuesday.  I went to visit someone at the hospital, then for coffee at the Seniors Center, then went to talk to an intern who was doing some community develoment work in town.  AS I came up from that discussion Beloved was walking through the mall: "Oh there you are!"

Turns out she had been looking for me all afternoon.  She had just come from the clinic where her water had broken and she was sent to the hospital to get the ambulance in to the Regional Hospital.  She had left a note on my windshield earlier that afternoon but I had not seen it as the windshield wipers were recessed under the hood.

So we got to the hospital, Beloved got loaded up and I went home to grab some needed stuff for the next week before making the 2+ hour drive to the Hospital.  Around midnight the OB/GYN on call decided that since nothing was happening a C-Section was in order.  And so at 1:11 Wednesday morning our first child, Princess, was born.  A few days later we headed home...

But that was only the beginning.  355 days later Scalliwag was born (this time through a scheduled C-Section).  2 years after that Monkey came along on the 15th (2 weeks BEFORE a scheduled C-Section--and she hasn't slowed down since).  Then last year on the 26th of the month Bear came along with another scheduled C-Section.  Yep, 4 kids, all born in the same month.  Makes May a little hectic (2 parties last weekend, another one tomorrow).