Where does the time go

I can't believe that January is almost over - it was just yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas - and Lent is coming very fast this year.

St. Paul's folk - please remember that the annual meeting is at 9 a.m. on Sunday - please come and hear about what went on this year.

Youth group parents - also remember the parents meeting after the 10 a.m. service - we have all (or at least most) of the information about the mission trip - come and hear the details.

Why, O Lord

I think that all of us looking at the pictures and hearing the stories from Haiti this week can't help but ask "why, God." Why these people? Why this? Why now? Why are their earthquakes at all? Why do people suffer?

I wish that I could say that there are easy answers (or indeed any answers at all) for those questions. But if there are I certainly haven't found them.

I think that situtations like this bring the question of faith into focus. We say that we believe that God loves and cares for his children. That is easy to say when all goes well, it is more difficult when things go badly.

But I think the challenge is to seek the presence of God in the midst of the things we don't understand - to look for the face of God in the rubble and see where the light of God shines through the darkness. It isn't a very satisfying answer, but it's the best that I can do right now.

Snow

I know that for those of you who live in Buffalo the snow is nothing new, but I have to admit my admiration - after 15 inches of snow over two days the streets (and the walks and drives at the church) are clear - there are few closings and people are just going about their business - this same amount of snow in December shut down Washington DC for 3 days.

It just goes to show that human beings can cope with anything once they have the tools and the experiance - which leads me to consider - what are the things that we think are too hard to over come because we don't have the right tools or haven't dealt with them before?

Merry Christmas

One of my favorite part of Christmas is the children's Christmas pageant, I love watching our children become familiar with the story of the birth of Jesus and to begin to take their parts in leading the worship of the Church.

This year's pageant was particularly wonderful (and not only because I wrote it :)) Click here for the youtube video and see if you agree.

Merry Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - or not

A group of us tried to go Christmas caroling yesterday afternoon. I emphasize that we tried, but it was raining and cold and a miserable day and we were not really able to get into the Christmas spirit and no one was really going to want to stand with the door open and listen to us.

It's amazing how the weather is so connected to Christmas for us. If it has been snowing instead of raining I think we would have all had a lot more energy and it would have felt a lot more like Christmas to everyone.

I have occaisionally wondered what the Church year is like for people in the southern hemisphere. For me snow and cold and "the bleak mid-winter" is an inseperable part of Christmas and the spring and re-birth of the earth is an insperable part of Easter.

I wonder what it would be like for Christmas to be in the middle of summer - and celebrated with barbeques and beach trips and for Easter to be in the fall when everything is dying - rather than beginning to grow?

A Season of Preparation

That's what we call Advent. It occured to me how many things we prepare for and how many different ways there are to prepare.

My parents went to the Carribian the Monday after Thanksgiving. They were preparing for their trip by making lists and packing suitcases and making sure that someone was taking in the mail and shovelling the snow and getting some of the Christmas decorations up so that when they came back they weren't so rushed. That's one way to prepare.

I went to the grocery store on Friday - they were predicting up to 10 inches of snow - there were lots of people there stocking up on the things that they would want to have in the house if they couldn't get out right away - that's another way to prepare.

I'm in the midst of preparing for Christmas, I'm writing cards and wrapping and mailing presents and writing sermons - that's another way to prepare.

But to prepare for the coming of Christ, that means to stop and reflect and look at what in our lives has taken too much of our time and energy and what has taken a backseat that needs to be brought forward - to look at our lives with the eyes of God and to try to see as God sees so that we can be prepared to enter into the presence of God. As the collect for the second Sunday of Advent says "that we without shame or fear may rejoice to behold his appearing"

Thanksgiving Reflections

I had the typical things to be thankful for this year, my family, my friends, a job I like etc, etc...

But it occured to me on my drive home from Columbus to be thankful for the freedom and ability to travel to where my family was this year.

I drove about 600 miles round trip to my family's home this holiday. Most of it on smooth, well lit, 2 or 3 lanes in each direction, freeways. Behind the wheel of my reliable Honda Accord. Averaging over 70 miles an hour (sshh, don't tell the highway patrol)

For most human beings on earth still today what I did was impossible. If you could, somehow, aquire a car and the gas to put in it, there are no, or only poorly maintained roads. For them, traveling 600 miles by road is facing several days of exhausting and hazardous travel.

It's a small thing, but it brought home to me how much I have to be thankful for and how much of it I regularly take for granted.