Winter in CT

Here are some scenes from our time in CT over the Xmas holiday:



The Connecticut River in Winter.





The fields on the way to the River.




The Thicket.

Enjoy

Imaginary Friends

Apparently La Segunda's imaginary friend, Chacky, died yesterday. He was on a boat and fell overboard, and then was eaten by a shark. Curly appears to be unharmed. I asked La Segunda if this death was permanent, and she said yes. When I checked today, Chacky was still dead.

I remember when my imaginary friends left my life. I was about 6 or so, and they left for an extended trip to Alaska and never came back.

Curly is still around, and I hope to get updates about her. I heard about both Chacky and Curly on the walk to school last week, and everyone was in excellent health. I am saddened to hear of Chacky's demise, as I'm sure you are too.

Jesus in India?

Hi All! It's been a while. I still have some more images/video to post from December. But my friend, Hiphopopotamus and Rhymenocerous just got back from another trip to India and posted this and I had to share!

She is on an amazing journey. I hope to be able to post more about her trip, but will whet your appetite with this gem.

It may well be a fable, but I love the idea that Jesus' "lost years" were spent learning in the East. It makes a great story, whether it's true or not.

Video from UK Trip: The Underground

I took this video when I first went down the stairs to get to the "Central Line" at Tottenham Court Road. It was quite a journey to get to the Tube platform. Sort of reminds me of this year. Enjoy!

See you in 2010!

Video from UK Trip: Sloane Square Schoolkids

Sorry for the poor quality of this video. I was trying to be all subtle while filming these kids in their school uniforms. Judging from their uniforms, they must be from the Hill House International School, which is right near Sloan Square. However, I was totally surprised when I saw them walking by in these uniforms - it was like something out of Hogwarts for me!

Enjoy!

Christmas Cookie Update, Happy Yule, All!

Happy Yule, Everybody!! Well, starting today, the days will be getting longer, more sunshine. This really is a magical time of year. We in Philly just had our first (HUGE) snowfall of the year, and it's staying cold, so the snow is still here. Last night, Solstice, the crescent moon hung in the sky and was just beautiful.

We in the Grand Forêt household have started baking our Christmas Cookies. As long-time readers know, this is a long-standing practice for us. I love that the history of cookie baking is based in some good pagan-Christian overlap and continues the "borrowing" theme that I love so much in the seasonal traditions of Christianity.

Anyways, this year, we are baking:

• gingersnaps
• chocolate star cookies with crushed peppermint
• Austrian jam cookies
• cranberry chocolate chip cookies

Yummy. Peace to you All!

Video from UK: Harrods Phantasmagoria

This was truly a trippy and bizarre experience. I filmed this and got right out of the store. Sensory overload for sure.

Jesse's Tree

We interrupt our travelogue to bring you more awesomeness in the religious art world, brought to light by Terry, whose blog I just adore [keep up the great work at Idle Speculations!].

As usual, Terry has researched what is going on in this image, including biblical references to what we're seeing. Amazing!

We have been working so hard on our Nativity play, that we have not done any "Jesse Tree" ornaments at all this year, which is kind of a bummer. I love doing a Jesse Tree with the kids. I really feel like it helps them to remember the Old Testament stories better. AND it helps with religious art because you come away from each story with a symbol of it in your hand - a Ladder for Jacob, a Burning Bush for Moses, a Crown for Esther, a Lion for Daniel, a Coat for Joseph - on and on.

This painting reminds me a lot of Sirius Black's family tree tapestry in Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix.

Video From UK: Fulham vs Sunderland Starts

This was the beginning of the Fulham vs. Sunderland soccer (football) match we went to see on Sunday, December 6th. As you can see, it started out sunny! It was a GREAT time. I will post more video from this excursion, but the "official" highlights can be found at the Fulham FC site. Enjoy!

Check out the mounted police at the entry point:













And this is the scene at half time when everyone dashes out to grab a pint.



This is not even as crowded as it was a few minutes earlier. Seriously, I got physically closer to more people on that trip to the lav than I have...... pretty much ever. It was intimate, let me tell you!

Video from UK: Cornish Mossy Wall

More video from my walk in Cornwall. This wall just amazed me. No Martha Stewart-esque prep here. Enjoy!

Video from UK: Cornwall

This is the view from the lane right next to my Godmother's house. Beautiful, right? This was my second day in Britain, and I was trying to get over jet lag. This walk would cure jet lag for most I think. Cornwall is beautiful. And visiting my Godmother is always a time warp experience - in a good way. She serves me great British food, that is actually healthy. We have tea, and she has a great library and bed linens :) Cornwall is proof that the jet stream helps English gardens, and you can see how green and alive everything is in December. Cyclamens are alive and well in the garden!

Brief Hiatus, and Happy Advent

Hey All,

I'll be away for the next week, gallivanting around the UK. I hope to be able to post some great photos and possibly video of my time there.... we'll see. The image above is from Terry's blog, Idle Speculations, and seemed appropriate given my trip, and the season.

It's the beginning of my second favorite liturgical season, Advent. I hope you all get a chance to have some un-crazy downtime during this busy time of year. My friend, Moxie, has started a "Candletime" tradition in her home, and even has a corporate sponsor!


One more thing I thought I'd share before I head out is a letter from Shane Claiborne published in Esquire. I think it's awesome, and I hope you enjoy it, h/t to my friend, Jay.

A Path...

I just am figuring out about this chaplain thing, and maybe I've been called to do that, and it sort of doesn't seem real. But when I think back on the steps, it's eerie: like, I heard the "Fresh Air" interview with Dr Schwab the trauma surgeon, I was riveted and felt that I needed to leave my last job at a small, suburban women's college to pursue something more meaningful. I heard Al Gore and his "Inconvenient Truth", I read "Mountains beyond Mountains" in my book club, and I became radicalized.

I got this job, and at first lamented it, but have since realized that it affords me the opportunity and some time to take a class, if I set it up right, without taking too much time away from the fam. I started taking the class, and somehow got the immediate idea to shadow the chaplains. I have had an AMAZING experience with them and am basically feeling a call, and am now starting to plan out how I can do it: the masters and the lay chaplaincy.

So, this has been deferred for some time, but it's looped back to the topic that got me started on the path, AND it is using my strengths [all of this potentially]. So maybe it's all "in God's time". Happy Thanksgiving, ALL!

"Unbind him, and let him go"

As some of you know, I was recently at the funeral of a friend of mine, and while I mourned his passing, the words that the priest spoke during his homily helped me overcome another loss. The priest said, "we must forgive him for leaving us. He was struggling, suffering his own crucifixion. We need to forgive him, and let his soul go on." At those words I wept. They helped me so much. They put into perspective the struggle of my friend "James" who died, under similar circumstances, over 11 years ago now.

I didn't hear these words then, if they were even said. But now, they have helped me to deal with the loss of James. To let him go on, forgive him, and remember without devastation and fresh tears, what a great person he was before he left us.

The Sunday after the funeral, the Gospel reading at church was John 11:32-44, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the tomb. If you have a moment, go read it, it's a powerful and moving story of loss, and recovery. Jesus' friend Lazarus was dead and buried, and Jesus raises him from the dead (a miracle). But what struck me, and has helped me SO MUCH were the last words that Jesus says to his friends in this little story:

"Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

I will unbind James, and let him go. I will keep my memories of him, but I will let go of my anger at him for leaving us all. I forgive him.

November 11th

Whether you call it Armistice Day or Veteran's Day or Remembrance Day, today is a good day to remember soldiers and their sacrifices for our freedom.

I had never realized that there was a connection between Martin of Tours and Armistice day, until I just saw in the Wikipedia article on him that he was buried on November 11, 397. The day in the Church is called Martinmas, or Feast of St Martin, but it is apparently coincidence that these two share the same day. He was named Martin after Mars, the Roman god of War and is the patron saint of France and soldiers, and also conscientious objectors since he later went on to refuse to fight saying, "I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." The article goes on to say:

While Martin was still a soldier at Amiens he experienced the vision that became the most-repeated story about his life. He was at the gates of the city of Amiens with his soldiers when he met a scantily dressed beggar. He impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak Martin had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptised; he has clad me." (Sulpicius, ch 2). In another story, when Martin woke his cloak was restored, and the miraculous cloak was preserved among the relic collection of the Merovingian kings of the Franks.

The Wikipedia article also notes that the word "Chaplain" comes from the name and veneration of the cape he allegedly gave a beggar...after which he had a vision of Christ and became a Christian. "One of the many services a chaplain can provide is spiritual and pastoral support for military service personnel by performing religious services at sea or in the battlefield.^[7]"

I've been observing chaplains at the local hospital and am so amazed by their work and ministry. I'm thinking about it as a path for myself.... I think it's synchronicity that I am learning about all this today. I had never even heard of Martinmas until today.

Anyways, I want to say thank you to Veterans. Someone I know on Facebook said that "on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Andy Rooney said that as a Vet, he would like to work toward a Peace Day, because every single military death is a tragedy that person and his (and now her) loved ones. He said thank me by stopping the need for a Veteran's Day."

Extra Insight

I went to Ray's funeral today. It was a "good" one, by my standards. I thought the priest's homily was excellent, a good reminder about forgiveness. And helpful for me in my continuing struggle with another friend's death.

Anyways, I was reading my horoscope from Rob Brezsny for this week, and thought I'd share, it's very appropriate for me right now:

I hope you won't merely wander around the frontier. I hope you'll undertake a meticulous yet expansive exploration of that virgin territory. Here are some tips on how to proceed: 1. Formulate specific questions about what you're looking for. 2. Develop a hypothesis for the experiments you want to carry out. 3. Ignore what doesn't interest you and pounce only on what stirs your fascination. Halloween costume suggestion: an alien anthropologist visiting Earth from another planet; a time-traveler from the future who's doing a documentary on this historical moment; a religious pilgrim who's keeping a detailed journal.

I am listening to "Personal Jesus" right now as I type..... synchronicity??

P.S. Don't forget it's Daylight Savings time this weekend - Fall Back!

This Weekend, Folks

I was just wondering when it was time to reset the clocks, and now I know. h/t Jennifer. :)

Moxie's post for Ray

Moxie's post today really moved me, so I'm going to quote some of it here:

Someone I loved and lost once told me, "It's no trick for God to work through someone perfect. The more broken you are, the more God shows his glory by shining through you." Whether you believe in a guiding force or not, the universe creates imperfection. You in all your weakness are exactly what we need.

Please stay. Even if you don't know how. Just keep getting up in the morning. Eat what you can. Drink water. Go to bed, even if you can't sleep. Go outside and turn your face to the sun. If you can, do this with Teresa for 3 minutes a few times a day. And tell someone how you feel. A friend. A stranger. Leave it in the comments here.

Don't go.

This post is for my friend Ray, who went.

My friend Moxie posted the above about our mutual friend Ray. Moxie is a fabulous woman, and fierce friend. What I love most about her blog posts is that she is thoughtful AND includes CONCRETE advice for how to get through the rough patches (see above).

At my college we had this comment board at the dining halls where you could put up suggestions or comments or whatever on napkins - often the closest piece of paper to hand while in the dining hall. I don't remember when I started doing this, but after reading many awful and negative flame wars on the napkin notes, I decided to ONLY post positive napkin notes. Like, "thanks for the yummy vegan chocolate cake, who knew it could be so delicious!?" I'm all about the positive feedback - life's too short not to tell people when they're doing a good job, or even "just" keepin' on keepin' on. I feel like I'm continuing the "napkin notes of life."

One of the things that sucks about death is that no matter what: you never know if people read the positive napkin notes, or whether they believed they were about them. But Moxie's quotation above is wonderful:

"It's no trick for God to work through someone perfect. The more broken you are, the more God shows his glory by shining through you."

Hang in there Moxie, and all who grieve for Ray. And all who struggle just to make it through.

Cool Grannies & Fifinella

"During World War II, a select group of young women pilots became pioneers, heroes, and role models...They were the Women Airforce Service Pilots, WASP, the first women in history trained to fly American military aircraft."

My friend's grandmother was one of these women.

"This official mascot was designed by Walt Disney for a proposed film (from Roahl Dahl's book, "The Gremlins". During WWII, the WASP asked for permission to use her as the official mascot and the Disney Company generously agreed. Official Fifinella 'went to war' and was worn in the form of patches. Some were leather, some were cloth...worn on WASP flight jackets."

She recently got a "Fifinella" tattoo. I'm not a tattoo gal, myslef, but this is SO awesome. I'm going to tell my daughters this story.

Blog Action Day [350.org]

350.org is the first large-scale grassroots global campaign against climate change. Its supporters include leading scientists, the governments of 92 countries, and a huge variety of environmental, health, development and religious NGOs. All
agree that current atmospheric levels of CO2 -- 390 parts per million -- are causing damage to the planet and to its most vulnerable people, and that government action at the United Nations Copenhagen climate conference is required to bring the earth's carbon level swiftly down to 350 ppm.

What is 350? 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Scientists measure carbon dioxide in "parts per million" (ppm), so 350 ppm is the number humanity needs to get below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. To get there, we need a different kind of PPM -- a "people powered movement" that is made of of people like you in every corner of the planet.

Go to 350.org for more info.