Sunday Morning Walk - February 3, 2012
I saw a family riding bikes while I walked my greyhound on Sunday morning. They peddled gracefully despite the freshly fallen snow, the father first, followed by a son, then another son peddling hard with a smaller brother riding on the bike with him, several more boys, then a girl. I saw her ankles were covered in thick beige socks that went up her legs. The mother followed at a distance. I waved as they went by and smiled because the sight of a whole family riding bikes was like something out of the past, like coming across my dad’s pink 1957 Chevy Belair or my manual typewriter.
I saw the family turn one by one onto Lake Ave. and I intuited they were going to church – to MY church. I felt strange excitement and as I turned onto Lake, there they were, clumped around a tree in the Ascension parking lot, securing their bikes. A tall man with a tall white coffee mug in his mitten came over to shake their hands and walk with them to the door. When I got inside I saw them bunched together in pews not too far from the front. Some Ascension people were starting to get the children settled with books and crayons. The men I greeted looked grave. Those were not all boys on the bikes! Only one person in the party spoke English. His friend had asked him, a Buddhist, to come to church with them. The man said they were from Burma. I figure they must have just come because even the little children don’t know any English at all.
In the library after the service – I had shooed them in there still dressed in my chasuble – the Buddhist friend said they were Anglicans and one of the men had a new baby, born Christmas day. He wanted the baby baptized. It’s a girl. So we arranged a date and I told all the Ascension people in the library and there was great rejoicing and the father smiled broadly. I’m sure there is a lovely quilt ready for the baby made by our Piece Makers.
Meanwhile, the children saw photos of the children in the Wed. after school program and they gazed at these with great interest. With the help of the translator, I got two addresses and with some luck, I’ll be going to pick the new children up on the van this Wed. I hope more Ascension folks will be able to come Wed. too. Somehow I think this is a big deal. God has sent us these people. What an amazing day!
Advent I - November 28, 2011
Christmas hymns on the radio while I helped prepare the Thanksgiving feast at a friend’s house, and seasonal pop songs on the ride home from Philly, got me thinking about timing. The music does it for me, time for Christmas has begun. I got out Luke and read about the birth of Jesus. I got out Isaiah. Written in this Old Testament book is that for God, one thousand years is as one day and one day is as a thousand years. That means only two days have passed in heavenly time since the Word became flesh! In any case, all the festivities of lights and music and feasts and presents are for something that happened in the past.
The Nativity, already in place at Ascension, brings our attention to the innocent faith of Mary and Joseph and the extraordinary love of God for us. The poverty of the scene reminds us that humans all over the earth struggle to survive and that God helps us throughout all the experiences of life. I love the Christmas story and all the ways we celebrate it and bring it out of the past into the present. I want more than anything to make Jesus’ birth come in me now in the present moment. I hope I can encourage all of you to seek him in the present, within your own heart and home. See you at Ascension during December 2011, a time of wonder and beauty and joy.
Peace,
Pat