Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas

One of the reasons I love living on the West Coast is that on Christmas Day, your bulbs are already starting to peek through...and you know that when Father Christmas comes, spring can't be that far behind. :)


Christmas Eve was nice...very quiet and relaxed. Played Scrabble...and well, you can't win them all, right? But it was VERY close..4 points or so...and we have a week of potential SPEED Scrabble coming up so things are looking up for me.


Went to church and then came home and cracked a bottle of wine, opened presents...lovely.


Now I must pack so that I can be ready for our flight...we have to be at the airport for 6am!!! O my.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

1st day off...ahhhh.

Drank coffee in bed and read my book. (another Bujold...I'm on a streak)

Hit Coquitlam Centre just at opening and before it got busy.

Made sugar cookies. (very festive, don't you think?)

Made a yummy dinner...a creamy roasted red pepper pasta with leftover flank steak from Sunday night.

And then, do you know what I did?

In a span of 4 hours, I watched THREE hours of DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER.

It's true.

Oh my. I love that show. But I usually only have access to one or two episodes at a time. Seems rather irresponsible of networks to offer such a BUFFET of guilty pleasures all in one evening.

There, my confession has been made. I feel much better.

Have YOU ever watched Dog?

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Advent week 2

I love it when a church feels like a church.

Smells like a church. (incense)

Looks like a church.

We sang at St. James Anglican on Sunday evening for their Advent Carol service which is loosely based on the King's College tradition. And it was LOVELY. Readings from Scripture, but also from Madeleine L'Engle and other authors who have written beautifully about scriptural events.

The choir sings from the loft which I also love. Namely, because we get to look at the beautiful front of the church. With it's candles and beautiful altar and woodwork and...(sigh). Worshipping in a place like that gives me "tradition envy"... you know, where you wish you came from a tradition other than that of boxy 60-70's "all purpose" architecture that has morphed into "community college" styles. (ever noticed that these new huge churches even call their locations "campuses"?)

Okay, enough rant. But really, it was BEAUTIFUL. And the building really makes the human voice RING. Love it.

The other thing I love about St. James is that it is right smack dab in the middle of the downtown eastside. There are always people sleeping on its steps. (okay, I don't love that they're out on the steps, but I love that the church is right there!) And I think I also have a special love for it, knowing that my friend Donna's amazing piece about Communion takes place as she makes her way from her community house on the other side of the park to St. James.

I know that we can worship anywhere...but I sure hope that the new heaven and new earth include some of history's greatest church architects.

Monday, December 04, 2006

advent week 1

To read one of the funnier accounts of an Advent experience from the planning end...I can SO relate except for the kids part, but then sometimes I think I'm enough chaos all on my own. Go read this Advent misadventure

More another time, but let me just say for now that if you can get your hands on Peter LaGrand, Ben Keyes & Jill Zimmerman's new advent/christmas/epiphany album, YOU SHOULD. Oh my. I love these people. And they can sing/play/arrange.

SO good.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

dialogue

Following up on a previous post about Ted Haggard, Mark Driscoll etc.

Apparently things had heated up - to the point that there was a protest planned for Mars Hill Church tomorrow. Here is
one report

and another from two very different sides of the conversation.