My Santa Hat

My Santa Hat is older than my children.

I got it the first year of college at Oberlin.

At that time, I realized three things

1. I missed my family and church (the churches were CRAZY as a result of 9/11 and I couldn’t find a good one)

2. I wouldn’t be able to do much preparing for Christmas

3. People hated to be wished “Merry Christmas” something about the White Christian hegemony in a very liberal arts school.

Plus I had my first round of finals coming up (yikes!)

so I went to CVS and bought this really nice $5 Santa hat, it is a dark red with a clothlike white trim

I have worn it since that Dec 2001, ….and (amazingly) I haven’t lost it…

I wear it to celebrate Christmas

I wear it to celebrate Advent, to bring Christmas into conversations is a “safe space”

Every Thanksgiving I get it out, and start to celebrate.

Sometimes I think that God works less like a thunderous mountain of justice…and way more like my Santa hat.

 

Robin McKinely is contemplating Christmas’ approach too

My talkative one….

My son talks as much as I do….my eldest one….

he talks, and talks and talks….

Some of his talking includes the following traits

1. Asking a question and then immediately repeating it, so there is no time to answer (sometimes including frustration that the parent is not answering quick enough)

2. Talking too much in class (of course)

3. Waking me up in the middle of the night to say something that is REALLY important to tell me…usually something we just remembered about school. (although his father does that too)

4. Asking for explanations…(this is beyond the why? stage) where everything needs to

 

Defensive tactics for Sir Talksalot include

1. Not even trying to answer…or pretending that we didn’t hear the question

2. Reminding him not to talk as much, trying to think of quiet activities to do instead of talking

3. ….ugh…finally I usually tell him that its sleeping time, not talking time….

4. Telling him we don’t know…at the go, it doesn’t work to say that partially in…

5. Take time out of the day and make sure to pay full attention and talk directly with him at some point during the day!

Hunger Games: Female leads, Love Triangles and a tiny movie review

Katniss Everdeen is not a typical girl! (this article was written after my blog)

1. When I first read the first chapter I wasn’t sure if Katniss was a girl or Gale was a girl…..

2. She can’t lie: Notice how she’s always the last to know about the real plot (wait Peeta is actually in love with me, I thought we were just pretending is the first book, and a whole host of things in the second one I can’t name). Stereotypically

3. Katniss is not in a typical Love Triangle…I feel like the girl is usually caught in a direct competition where the ENTIRE plot rides the triangulation….Katniss says she’s too busy to worry about being in love…and I think she’s right.

4. Love Triangles don’t exist for boys in books, usual for Men there are two equally viable possibilities and sorting it out is more about what kind of life the hero wants to live (i.e. quiet and nerdy or fast and exciting). For girls its about who is the “RIGHT” boy…I think Hunger Games is more about the possibilities of living with Peeta vs. Gale as opposed to one being “right”

5. Katniss is a dunce about others but she is very self-aware…I like it

6. She grows (always important to me)

7. Every time you think you get how deep the plot is, it gets thicker

8. Its a study on PTSD

Tiny Review of Catching Fire (spoilers ahead)

Catching Fire is intense, people who are not familiar with the book tend to be surprised.

There is a lot more kissing than in the book (as I remember Katniss kisses Gale and Peeta once (for real) each…)….still I found myself taking it into stride

The “feel” is right: This is important because the pacing and details have to change some (the books are mostly introspection, which doesn’t translate to the screen”) however, I think the changes they did were (mostly) sensible for onscreen, and I have no doubt this is because Suzanne Collins has experience writing for TV as well as books

Finally! ending was interesting: I won’t give it away, but they uncover something that is a major mystery in the third book…wondering how they will handle this in the next movie….

Missing Link: I wish they did more with the minor characters, part of what is engaging for Katniss (for her audience and for us) is how she connects with the other characters, they missed that some with nuts & volts as well as the morphlings (who were barely onscreen)….also Peeta connects more to them and is particularly good with the morphlings which we completely miss…a regretable loss….

PS Cinna is my favorite character, I wish they gave him a couple more minutes of screen time about him “putting all his emotion in his work”

Overall: A great adaptation of the book…however ALWAYS read the book

Star Trek and Dr. Who

katyandtheword's avatarkatyandtheword

Having written about Parables and Fairy Tales and the importance they play in defining the universality of the human condition for every particular human–and hence why they are awesome. I feel you are ready for the truth.

Star Trek and Dr. Who are Parables

Not only are they like most science fiction which discusses how the human race will interact with and respond to technological changes in the future (which is a little different than fantasy which explores humanity-exactly-as-it-is-except-there-happens-to-be-magic)…but these are characters whose stories are literally written and re-written from different perspective…

I mean at the end of Season 6 (yes I’m on netflix so I’m behind a season) when time has stopped, a villain offhandedly remarks that Rory is “the one who won’t die” which is so true, (WARNING: SPOILERS, Skip to next paragraph if you care) because Amy and Rory go through 5 different versions of reality to…

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Going from A to C in Pastor

YAY Co-Pastors ALL the WAY! Co-Pastors, the modern, Biblical model of leadership (Jesus sent them by two)

Theresa Cho's avatarStill Waters

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Have no regard for his appearance or stature, because I haven’t selected him. God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.” (1 Samuel 16.7)

I recently wrote a post about my personal journey in discerning my call. A part of that journey is moving from associate pastor to co-pastor. December 15, 2013, we will be installed, which coincidentally marks John Anderson’s 22nd year at St. John’s (started December 24, 1991) and my 10th year of ordained ministry and time at St. John’s (started November 17, 2003).

Reflecting on my time as an associate pastor, I am extremely grateful for the example and legacy that John Anderson has set, not only as a pastor, friend, and colleague, but more importantly as a Head of Staff. He has greatly affected, influenced, and shaped my role…

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Transgender Day of Rememberance

 

A Prayer for Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013

God,
of all the vast varieties of humankind,

Help us to move beyond
the exclusiveness
of an either / or mentality
to the inclusiveness
of an all and every
way of thinking.

Move us beyond binary definitions
to the mystery and complexity of
Your infinite creativity
and creation.

As we pause to remember those
senselessly
Murdered
because of their
all encompassing humanity
open hearts that need to hear
souls that need to know
and minds that need to see
that there are
no limits
to You
nor Your creation.

A Prayer by Vickey Gibbs.

 

Nanowriting and other musing

Culturally I am very interested in how the arts are playing out for millennials. 

I mean we’re mostly broke, so maybe creativity will abound? (this is my hope)

Let’s review

Couch Surfers

Open Source Computer Programs

Etsy

Carshares

and now I’ve re-discovered nanowriMo: National Novel Writing Month(which I’ve heard of briefly last year): in which you set yourself a goal to write a novel through writing about 50,000 words by the end of November

What I love is, you are really doing it for you….the website is (to me) like a self-determined excercise program where you count calories…no wait I mean words 🙂 on your own time and set goals for yourself.

I probably won’t keep up with the word count…but (partially inspired by avidly reading Robin McKinley’s KES) I’ve decided to give it a try…..I will definitely be farther along than I have been so far, I’m four short chapters in already 🙂

GO CREATIVITY! 

YAY BOOKS!

 

Talia: Chapter 4 #nanowriMo

“I don’t know if I’d call this a sword mother…it looks more like a…knife, a curvy-knife”

My mother shrugged, “All I know is its yours. Someone gave it to me about three years ago, you know, when everything……started, and it whispered your name…so I’m giving it to you” at this my mother grinned impishly, completely belying her age.

So I set off, trudging determinedly towards the unknown…

And it got pretty boring. I tried to spot pixies in the trees, but the glitter I caught was too fast to be identifiable. I walked a steady pace, but soon found it to be…..too quiet.

One day from home, and I already miss conversation, I’m not used to being quiet. My mother and I can talk as merrily as the day is long (as the poet says). Plus, I don’t limit my conversation to just my mother. The cat and I often have long in depth observations together….Ripp never says anything out loud, but of course I know better than to believe that she is not participating in the conversation…..in her own cat way.

Then of course there are the childlings, most of whom can outtalk me, but still the oft chatter of the young ones does fill the space around us pleasantly.

I think the real problem is I’m always talking. Its just sometimes I talking in my head, sometimes I’m talking to the text I am reading, and sometimes I’m talking out loud! But I’m always talking.

Towards the end of the day I find a brook, which, although it doesn’t talk, does burble loudly, with pink bubbles mysteriously rising out of the depths of the places where its almost still. This confuses me as I meditate on it, wouldn’t magic work like ripples or splashes off the stream? Conversely, does the very running of the water serve to break apart the magic…making it more likely to need a release in its more still areas.

Liking my completely unschooled opinion, I decide this must be it. I am nothing if not confident, true I didn’t have magical training, but I figure that common sense and the willingness to do hard work will serve in almost any situation, so I don’t tend to dither or worry the way other girls might. (Although, sometimes I wonder if the dithering is because a lot of girls can use it as an excuse to get a male opinion on something. How boring would that be to always have your opinion told to you!).

Moonrise comes (so to speak, as I said before the moon is no longer visible, but it doesn’t change the time of day it is, so we in my village at least, continue to call it moonrise). I decide that I have spent too many nights awake, and that I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep if stop anyway. So on I go.

Alone.