Lots to Blog About

Wow! Life has been flying by, and I haven't been blogging much. There's so much to share!

First off, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in my life last Thursday. It wasn't that complicated of an affair, as my lovely friends pitched in to bring dishes of yumminess over. All I made was a turkey, gravy, green bean casserole, and pumpkin bars for dessert. It was so great spending time with friends that I'm very thankful for. We're very blessed to be surrounded by some truly wonderful people in Edinburgh. And to top it off -- my friends can cook!  They each brought something so delicious over!

 Above is Josh and then Joe & Amanda. Amanda is doing a fabulous job of posting about all of her adventures in the UK at her blog The Riveras in Edinburgh. Keep your eye peeled for all of her snow pictures!

This is the lovely Alicia! When I get together with her, I'm not surprised when she tells me nonchalantly that she just biked 15 miles to the ocean and back. Wow.

On a side note - if you don't have a hand held blender, you are missing out an a fabulously convenient gadget. It was my lifesaver for hosting our Thanksgiving dinner. Is the cream cheese icing clumpy? Use the ole' hand held blender. Is the gravy disgustingly clumpy where you couldn't fain the existence of bits of turkey in it??? Hand held blender to the rescue!

This is the lovely Kidwells! Katy is who I went to Geneva with last week, and we pitifully do not have a picture together from our time in Switzerland. You should definitely check out their blogs: Sparrow Hopes and Domesticated Theology. And they even went one year of their life living "green," which you can read about at 52 Bright Green Weeks.

Next up, I helped host a "Hoo-Roo" for a very dear friend this past Friday evening.  This is a very sad yet happy thing for me. Peter, our guest of honor, is a very, very dear friend who I'm so sad is leaving Edinburgh. He's moving back to Sydney to start teaching at a seminary this month. He's been such a faithful, loving friend and has played such an integral role in our lives and has also been a constant source of encouragement and blessing. It makes me really teary that he's leaving, but I know we'll see him throughout the coming years -- whether it's in the States, Italy, or Australia.

This is Peter entering his surprise Hoo-Roo!

A little shocked at his surprise hoo-roo?

Did I mention why I'm "happy" for Peter to be returning to Australia?  His mama is in Australia, and I'm sure she'll be very glad to have him back home. I, on the other hand, would have been happy to have him wherever we live! (Totally selfish -- I know!)

Christine (the fabulous host!), Nigel, Becky, half of Josh, and Peter with his godson Dominic.

Speaking of Friday evening, that's when the snow began to fall. And it hasn't stopped! And it's Wednesday. The last report I heard is that we're under two feet of snow in Edinburgh. Isn't that ridiculous amounts of snow?!!? Yikes! It is so chilly here!

Here's a picture MBA took on Saturday:

 This was just a light dusting compared to what we have now! I ventured out with my camera today for a few more shots and will be back to share those with you shortly. 

But can I just say how nuts it is that we have two feet of snow, and it keeps falling. And falling. And falling. Now the officials are worried about flooding. But considering that it's - 3 and shouldn't be above freezing until Saturday -- and at that, only 1 degrees -- I'm not that worried about the flooding. 

(After my own flat flooded this past year and my grandmother's house floated away in the Great Flood, you would think I would be worried about flooding. Is there something wrong with me?!!?)

Anyway - back at the ranch. 

Or the tiny flat that my sister calls a tree house. 

I've also finished Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor:

I so wish I had the benefit of sitting under an amazing literary scholar and really gleaning all the insights that make this book what it is. It's a weird tale. The literary devices she uses are foreign from so many other books I've read. But, I appreciate the book. I'm glad I read it. I think I should read a minimum of five literary articles on the book and take a class on O'Connor. I've read her Spiritual Writings before and loved them. Yet, this novel was in its own ballpark. I'm still mulling over it ...

This is turning into the longest blog post ever!

Other things I'm thinking about:

1. The irony of people who allege to emulate the ethics of Jesus and are consumeristic-- especially consumeristic at Christmas time. What's that about? 

2. Making chili in this wintry blizzard we're having! Anyone have a recommended chili recipe out there? Are you still reading? I don't blame you if you're not!

3. The lovely German Christmas Market here in town and the super yummy blueberry coffee I got at the market. This was my first flavored coffee since living in Britain, and I so appreciated how super delicious it was!

4. How the movie Green Zone reminds me of No End In Sight (minus the conspiracy part). 

5. How the documentary on Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds me to be alert for present victims in need of assistance and compassion. Who are victims in our present society? May we truly see others in their struggle and seek to help them where they are. If you haven't seen this film, rent or buy it now. It's sooooo good. 

6. World AIDS Day.

7. Remembering Advent: when Jesus entered history.

"…[T]here must be no weakening or obscuring of the saving truth that the nature which God assumed in Christ is identical with our nature as we see it in the light of the Fall. If it were otherwise, how could Christ really be like us? … God’s Son not only assumed our nature but He entered the concrete form of our nature...". - Karl Barth (emphasis mine)

What I'm Reading

I've only read one of the daily readings for Advent thus far, but I can already tell it's going to be such an encouraging and focusing book. Dr. Underhill was a 20th century mystic and intellectual and was known to approach Christianity by her appreciation of St. Teresa of Avila's quote: "to give our Lord a perfect service Martha and Mary must combine." In the first reading, she brings our attention to the expectancy of the holiday commemorating Christ entering history. She also reminds us that when we prepare and invite our lives for God's arrival, God will always come to us. Very encouraging!

If I wasn't reading this book during the Advent season, I would probably be reading Watch for the Light. If you have any recommendations for Advent reading, please do share them in the comments. I'm very interested in how others focus on the true reason for celebrating Christmas.

On Law & the Constitution

"The end of every law is the common good of the community that it governs." - Thomas Aquinas, church father and influential thinker in the development of the western legal tradition, in his 'Treatise on Law' in Summa Theologica

"Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  - John Adams, founding father and second President of the United States, to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts on October 11, 1798

If I was a law professor, I would come up with an essay exam based on these two quotations. It would go something like this: "Does the United States Constitution promote the common good of society? If so, must the government enacting laws and enforcing laws be made up of moral  and religious people? You have thirty minutes to answer and discuss. Start writing." That might also be a good exam for a moral philosophy course.

Sister Holiday [Part 4: More of PARIS!]

Back to important business: the discussion of Paris. 

In Paris, Hilary and I enjoyed a leisurely morning at Musee d'Orsay. A big fan of Van Gogh, Hil was practically undone seeing his self-portrait in person. Pretty spectacular!

The background in the above picture features the famous train stationed turned art museum. 

One huge change I noticed the moment we stepped into the d'Orsay is that you're  no longer allowed to take pictures inside the museum. It changed the entire experience! No longer can people go painting to painting snapping pictures. The change is most welcomed!

We then headed to the Louvre:

Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre

The Triumphal Arch

The Pyramid!

Hilary in Jardin des Tuileries --- you can even see Place de la Concorde and the Arch de Triomphe back there!

So relaxing!

On Rue de Rivoli

And a view from the islands!

J'adore this area of Paris!

 So beautiful!

Aaaaahhhh. The bank of the Seine.

The backside of Notre Dame

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." - Ernest Hemingway

Preservation of Culture

"Culture preserves the map and the records of past journeys so that no generation will permanently destroy the route." - Wendell Berry in What Are People For?

On Thought & Labour

"Now it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity." - John Ruskin (art critic and social thinker of 19th century in England)

"For the secret of man's being is not only to live . . . but to live for something definite." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Word in Small Boats

"Faith grows into sight, and as it takes root in us, so it outgrows its beginnings as a mere conclusion from premises, the result of a train of thought. It becomes the basis on which we live, the shape that our mind gives to new experiences." - O. O'Donovan in 'The Witness'

Endlessly Fascinating?

I entered a contest today where you had to tell what one man you would like to meet and dine with in history. Who would you pick? I thought of the following:

- Otto Frank

- G.K. Chesterton

- C.S. Lewis

- Winston Churchill

(Geez ... is that a theme or what? In my defense, they were just the first to pop into my head!)

But my final answer was: Samuel Johnson.  

Noted as a man of "distinguished letters" -- perhaps the most distinguished in all of English history -- he would have to be endlessly fascinating. Can you imagine the stories he could tell? And he was oh so wise! Here is an interesting quotation from Johnson:

"Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think." - Johnson

Quite the traveler, Johnson even made his way north all the way to the Isle of Skye. Here's an interesting thought on traveling:

"As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him,' so it is with travelling, –-a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge."  - Johnson

“There is an art of which every man should be a master—the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?” —William Hart Coleridge, 1789-1842, abolitionist and Anglican bishop of Barbados

Camus

"Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people." - Albert Camus (in reference to the French collaboration of Nazi occupiers in France during World War II)

Barth on Forgiveness

"... let us not nurse our grudges with pleasure ... let us retain some humor with respect to our offenders. Let us have toward others this small impulse of forgiveness, of freedom." - Karl Barth in Prayer

Hannah Arendt on Revolutions

"If you look at the history of revolutions, you will see that it was never the oppressed and degraded themselves who led the way, but those who were not oppressed and not degraded but could not bear it that others were." - Hannah Arendt in Crises of the Republic

Think

Is law meant to make men good? Or should law liberalize choices where men and women have the choice to make good decisions? Is this what we associate with "freedom"?  Does it have to be either/or?

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - G.K. Chesterton

Bonhoeffer on Advent

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Letters and Papers from Prison

Winston Churchill

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." 

"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential."

"Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old."

"Great and good are seldom the same man."

"I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

"If you are going through hell, keep going." 

"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law."

- Winston Churchill 

"A person who cultivates his simplicity in order to escape the toils and the hazards of the search for truth is not being exactly respectful to the testimonies to the truth." - Helmut Thielicke

"Regardless of how large, your vision is too small."  -Thomas Chalmers

How to be a Genuis

"You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition,

preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption,

and never resist sleep when tired." - Piotr Wozniak

"The mass of the people, who are never quite right, are never quite wrong." - C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves