This is the day, November 30th, that Andrew, the Apostle of Jesus is remembered on the church calendar. For many, the Sunday nearest St Andrew's Day brings thoughts of Advent. Andrew is known for his selflessness, and stands at the doorway through which we approach the deep mystery of God's Gift in Jesus. To receive this gift is a selfless deed.
Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist, but left home to follow Jesus. He brought along his brother and fellow fisherman, Peter. Jesus offered to make them both "fishers of men". His name means 'courageous' or 'manhood'.Andrew was present for most of Jesus' miracles, Passion and the Crucifixion. My favorite story is his noticing the boy with the lunch and he brought it to Jesus. What did he expect Jesus would do? (Jn 6:8)
Andrew had won a heathen Roman governor's wife to Christianity. Andrew was put to death for it - crucified on an X-shaped cross.The 29th remembers Dorothy Day, a modern-day saint who died in 1980, who many would say, was no saint. I loved the movie done on her, and would watch it again - Entertaining Angels. 
CS Lewis was born on November 29th in 1898 in Belfast, Ireland. I've read most of his writings, gleaning a lot from him, and respecting his outlook on life - from his logos to mythos. And I can't tell you my favorite. And I posted of his death on the 22nd, same day as Huxley and JFKennedy. Lewis became a Christian owing primarily to JRR Tolkien (and George MacDonald's and GK Chesterton's writings). I would have loved to hang out with the Inklings! The picture is a statue in Belfast of Lewis as Digory in front of the Wardrobe.
I was just washing the two tableclothes and napkins from Thanksgiving and remembering with a chuckle who sat at which table this year. Our great room has two tables: the Dining table and the Kitchen table. The kitchen table is usually referred to when we have lots of company as the 'kids' table, and the adults usually sit at the larger Dining table. Well, this year, us older six adults, sat at the kids table. And all the adult kids ate at the dining table - nine of them.
Heather and Bill slept in the laundry room, Travis and Sarah in Monte's office, and Sarah's parents, John and Kerry (I'm a Karey too - us two moms), slept in the guest room. Since it didn't snow and the sun was shining, we sent the guys to get Starbucks drinks after breakfast Friday while us girls tromped in the woods cutting greenery and anything else that looked like possibilities for wreaths.
It was another great day, Friday. The guys sat around talking and us gals on the dining table had dumped all the stuff and made wreaths for this next season - our first of the Christmas decor (I'm thinking I need to pull out my Christmas boxes, just to get my advent candle holder, BUT not wanting to pull all that stuff out yet!!!!
Tomorrow at church the first Advent candle will be lit, and the attempt with prompts, to draw out the children (and us adults!) to share, and see who remembers the Larger Story ...
The American Thanksgiving story has always been told me throughout my growing up, since William Bradford, the first USA Governor, was my great, great ... grandfather. Now I see the Pilgrim's 1st Thanksgiving as being the Jewish Festival Succoth. The Pilgrims, reading the Bible, probably decided to celebrate this Harvest Festival, giving thanks to God for a good harvest year and prayer for the coming growing season.Lots of Indians showed up that first Thanksgiving. They all shared their harvested food (the Indians brought food too) and partied for 3 days. My thoughts think, so much for the stored food for winter - quite the bourgeois thought! But how many people died that winter? None. It may have been hard, but God blessed their response of thanks to Him, their trust in Him, their resting in Him to meet their needs.In my last post I mentioned not putting up my typical Thanksgiving Tree, and wondered if someone would notice, missing it. Someone did. Kristin Johnson mid afternoon asked, "Where's your Tree poster? I've been thinking about thankful things I wanted to write on it for several days!!!!" "Well ... I was waiting to see if someone would say something, but look, I've now got lots of photos up where I usually always put it". Looking around, Sarah pointed out the refrigerator, so I drew a bare tree with black marker on paper and taped it to the front of the fridge and brought down my many colored markers. There was no need for me to pre-cut leaves. People drew more variety and way more colors, as the day progressed.We had a great day: lots of picture taking (flashes from many cameras!), games played, lots of conversations and laughter, good food. New memories. Dawson has posted pictures here. (That link is his new photosite and is harder/longer to scroll through the pics. So now I see he's keeping up with his older photosite and posted same pics there.)I was reading Psalm 100:Why laugh and sing myself into God's presence? Why give thanks, praise and worship? Because I know that God is GOD. God made me, I don't make God ... nor can I give myself a self. God has called me, and named me as one of His. I am making myself at home in Him. I thank Him, for He is all beautiful, generous in love, and faithful, with His truth enduring forever.
Well ... It's the night before Thanksgiving ... and all thru the house ... Splara and Dawson are upstairs. They gave our old dog Rocky a bath before supper at a dog place and have him with them keeping him warm (he's the chaparone). Bill's been reading and Heather is playing the piano. He was playing the guitar and they were singing together earlier.
I was going to just put a link to what I posted last year, but didn't do it right, so I'm copying and pasting some of it in here and writing more. I like the Thanksgiving Tree idea, but where I usually put it is now covered in framed photographs, so this'll be the first year in a long time that I've not put it up. But like my 'first's of spring' chart I've posted on before - by now, it's so ingrained, we automatically think about it.
We'll see if someone says anything tomorrow ... I've got an old one on cardboard in the garage somewhere I could pull out ...
We're going to have a house full tomorrow. Heather and Bill (so cool that she married a Lavender) flew in from Texas last eve. Twas a beautiful day today, but tomorrow we may wake to it snowing, or soon to, and Travis and Sarah, with her parents will be driving here in the morning, maybe in snow (1 1/2 hr drive away). Then our close friends Jim and Marty with their 4 grown kids will be coming. So I was just emptying the dishwasher and going to cut up the bread to dry overnight for the stuffing. Monte's in the greenhouse washing the turkey and getting it ready to brine. We got a BIG one this year!
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I often get frustrated at the Thanksgiving table when I ask what people are thankful for. Usually someone says something silly and then everyone else does. So now on a large piece of paper I draw a tree, with lots of branches and no leaves, to hang on the wall. I cut a variety of leaves from colored construction paper and leave them sit on a counter with a pen and glue stick. If this is done a week or so before Thanksgiving everyone who comes to our house can write something they're thankful for on a leaf and glue it on the tree. Then by Thanksgiving, we've had time to think beyond tangibles like food, family, God, friends, pets etc to intangibles like Truth, Love, integrity and then beyond to firemen, police, doctors ...
Two gals had heard me talk about it several years ago at MOPS and brought examples of their trees. One drew the tree skeleton and they ripped brown paper bag pieces and glued them on, filling in the tree. Pieces were loose and it looked like bark. Another gal had gathered lots of colored aspen leaves and color copied them to cut out for the leaves. And I think my one on cardboard in the garage is with real aspen leaves we pressed dry.
Last year I wrote 'gratitude' instead of 'thanks'. It's just something I'd been pondering ... It's an 'at the heart level' thing. Gratitude could change the world!
For those of you who occasionally look at my son Dawson's photoblog, he's moved to one that has better picture resolution because he's got a new camera:
Today is the day the 102 pilgrims landed on Cape Cod in 1620, having been on the boat for 65 days.
Where were you? That's what's been on the news radio this morning. I'm old enough to remember where I was November 22, 1963. I was in third grade and I remember all the teachers crying.Actually, on that day, three people died within hours of each other. But one so overshadowed the other two. JFK, our first TV president was assassinated. Being a kid, I was frustrated the following Saturday when cartoons were preempted for John F Kennedy's funeral that went on and on and on ... !!!CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley died too. Huxley wrote the book Brave New World describing a totalitarian society that disregards individual dignity, and worships science and machines (GK Chesterton did a spoof on the title writing a book called Brave New Family). His grandfather, Thomas Huxley was a friend of Charles Darwin. I attribute Darwinism to him. I think Darwin would not like seeing where his observations around the world on the Beagle voyage have come to.CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I love everything he wrote. He is so quotable too. Like this: "Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, is in a prison. My own eyes are not enough for me. I will see through those of others ... Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do." Like him, if I'm not reading good books, I "feel impoverished."I have a book called Between Heaven and Hell, subtitled, "A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with JFK, CSLewis and Huxley". Peter Kreeft imagines their discourse as a modern Socratic dialog - a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God?Kreeft portrays Lewis as a Christian theist, Kennedy as a modern humanist, and Huxley as an Eastern pantheist. Lots of good thought written very creatively. Thoughts I've wrestled with myself as I interact with varieties of people.(Peter Kreeft's book, The Journey, I read aloud to Monte and Dawson as we drove around the deserts of Arizona for a couple weeks. It's a "Spiritual Roadmap for Modern Pilgrims". A journey with Socrates out of the cave in search of truth through varying worldviews.)I love books.
I just read my friend Ellen's courageous blog post and want to link it here.
I've been reading about Advent before the time and am SO ready, which would mean I'm living in Advent, waiting with anticipation, hopeful, awake and aware, throughout the year! Aware of what? Not wanting to miss a God 'wink' in my day, and seeing whomever I encounter each day as someone reflecting God's image, though tarnished, looking and learning from and loving the glimmer and the gunk. I wait, trying to be present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen, new things far beyond my imagination or prediction.
Another friend, Sarah, sent me her thoughts on palm trees this morning. We had an art meeting last night at church and I brought my latest weaving to show her, telling her I wanted to use it as a background, and needlefelt a picture on it. We were brainstorming trees, and about Deborah in Judges ... And as I've pondered more from her thoughts, I realize how whenever scripture mentions 'trees', I'm thinking along the line of Oak.
Palms are very deep rooted, alive on the inside, growing from within. It's leaves are ever green, whispering musically in the breeze. Date palms takes time to produce fruit, with scarred trunks producing sweeter fruit, and it produces more fruit with age, bearing fruit for a century. And think about it visually, aren't they usually grouped around an oasis? And being a textile artist I love the fact that it gives of itself in many ways, besides wine from its sap and tall timber from its stem, the leaves are woven into ropes, rugs, bags and baskets ... It's a flexible tree, with more elasticity, yet growing upward even when loaded with weights.
Flexible? I'm open to God transforming me, reforming me, birthing anew in me, enlarging my heart. Thank you Sarah for thinking of me and blessing me with your inspirations. And as to Ellen's blog ... I've entered Hot Topic stores with Dawson, engaging the multi-pierced, black-bedecked, creative hair (I was there once!) young people in conversation and seeing them as fellow humanity. No fear ...
And as I think of it, I need to say thanks to my pastor friend Aram, for thinking of me and including me in what him and the pastoring team talked about this week. It is the end of the Christian Calendar Year, with this weekend being "Reign of Christ Sunday". As the lectionary book says -
"Jesus Christ is Lord of all and shall reign as Lord in my life. So committed, we are able to face every eventuality of life because we now know the One in whom our life is found, redeemed, and kept secure. Our radical trust is in the One who is completely trustworthy. Life in Christ is good and complete."
And as Aram said, "Whereas the beginning of the church year, with Advent, begins with anticipation, the end of the church year ends with a certaintly ... Jesus reigns among us."
I like the radical trust phrase. And I'm thinking on "perfect Love casts out fear".
We do have a new President-elect and he has a website.
I'm wanting to sell my 60" Swedish Glimakra weaving loom. I've posted before about my weaving. I've put out some ads for my loom and some are interested. I'm really afraid though that I'm going to miss it. But I do have a smaller loom (actually several smaller kinds) that most of what I typically weave can be done on. With me felting more, I don't weave as much.BUT, what I'm really doing, or should I say wanting, is a new loom - a new toy. In evaluating, I can't justify getting another loom without selling this large one. What I'm wanting, having done a lot of research is a Tapestry loom called a Gobelin. It's still another big loom, but more upright. I used to do tapestry weaving years ago and miss the more free-form weaving.
Today's Gobelin looms are copies of looms from the Royal Tapestry Manufactory of Gobelins France, near Paris, where tapestry had been done since 1667. It's where tapestries commissioned by Louis XV were created.
Since for years my thing has been "Fiber Arts", and I love history, and I've taught and done lots of demonstrating, I like being able to talk about tidbits of info (iike some I shared in the earlier post I linked above).
Something interesting is that so many of the fiber arts were originally done by men. A woman I believe invented knitting, but crochet, spinning, embroidery, weaving ... were done by men primarily. Some famous quilters today are men. When my friend lived in Sweden, she said everyone today knits, even in church, and that when she'd get stuck, she'd ask and men could help just as well as women. And we just found out while in Wisconsin that Monte's uncle Click liked to knit (Dawson was knitting this past winter). We think of these things today as women's skills.
Once the era in history left castles and Feudalism, Guilds of weavers, or guilds of embroiderers, etc began, on through the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Apprentices were taken on, still usually boys. The guild laws prohibited the wives and their underage children to be used for their work. Then progression to Journeyman and hopefully passing guild tests to become a Master - and masterpieces were created. Churches started commissioning fiber arts.
But then, technology, and the beginnings of Industrialization in 1764. With the introduction of the Spinning Jenny - it could match the production of 200 hand spinners (Leonardo da Vinci actually had drawings of my spinning wheel mechanism in one of his books)(I have more tidbits in my spinning/distaff post). And too, women and children worked cheaper than men.
SO ... when someone makes a statement that they can get a scarf cheaper at this store (probably made in an Asian country), what do I say? Men and women have an innate need, we are made in the image of a Creator, to express creativity in varying ways. As Marva Dawn talks about in her Unfettered Hope (Great book) - do you have umteen cheap coffee mugs from discount stores? or do you support a local artist and have a more creative mug? Buy something that tells a story, or compels you to look, touch, and experiment.
This is the day, November 30th, that Andrew, the Apostle of Jesus is remembered on the church calendar. For many, the Sunday nearest St Andrew's Day brings thoughts of Advent. Andrew is known for his selflessness, and stands at the doorway through which we approach the deep mystery of God's Gift in Jesus. To receive this gift is a selfless deed. 
