Weddings and Baseballs

Three years ago at the beginning of June my stepdaughter got married. It was the weekend before we went to Scotland and France for three weeks. She and her intended met playing softball. In keeping with their relationship, the wedding ceremony took place on a baseball diamond at a local community centre. The entire reception area was decorated in keeping with that theme. The predinner snacks were baseball field nachos, popcorn, mini hotdogs. The colour scheme was their favourite baseball team.

• 

• 

They are lovely people and it was a lovely wedding. The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome. We had a good time. I pray they have a long, healthy, and happy marriage.

I asked my stepdaughter well in advance what the colour scheme was going to be, she informed me it was the colours for the Toronto Blue Jays. Red, white and blue quilt coming up. I was a little surprised when we arrived and the coulour scheme had changed. Oh well. At least the colours of the quilt are the home team.

• 

Voila, a baseball diamond, red representing the players on the field. They loved it.

• 

• 

• 

Isaiah 62:5 As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Explorations in Gardening

This morning I prayed for those who grow our food. The neighbourhood seems to have more vegetable gardens than in previous years. People explored ways of keeping busy during the government shoutdown because of covid-19. The weather has co-operated, a couple days of warm and sunny with rain late in the evening or ending with a full day of gentle rain. The peas have suffered because the temperatures have been too warm, but the rest of the vegtables are doing well.

As I walked the dog, I encountered two young people picking and eating raspberries in their garden. I asked if they were good berries this year. They ageed the berries were delicious and shared some with me.

Their mother asked, “Are you the tulip lady?” ”Yes,“ I replied. And she proceeded to show me her garden, all the volunteer tomatoes, tomatoes she got at her favourite garden centre, and the tomatoes she got from her Polish neighbour down the street who has an “amazing” garden. She and her young son (enamoured by my dog) walked down the street to see Irena’s (the Polish neighbour) garden. “Is Irena the lady with the white fence? I love her,” the young man exclaimed.

Bless you, I thought, and bless Irena for whatever she does that has encouraged you to love her.

Irena’s garden was one of those backyard gardens using every usable inch to grow something. It was, amazing, lush and flourishing.

I give thanks for the openness of people to enter into conversation and the places it leads. Earlier this morning I read there is an upsurge in youth gardening. I pray for them and their new found skills in self sustenance. May they discover their efforts brings joy in the intricacies and beauty of God’s creation. May the first time gardeners, back yard gardeners, hobby farmers, and large scale farmers have an abundance of produce to harvest this summer.

Genesis 1:11-12
Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.

Wrapped in God’s Love

St. John’s has a long standing practice of gifting individuals receiving baptism, graduates of high school and university, and others going through life transitions.  It began with the baptism of infants.  They were given a receiving blanket embroidered with their name and date of birth with the assurance they were, are and will always be ‘wrapped in God’s love.’  In the past recipients were typically children, but since my call to the congregation it has expanded a little.  The recently widowed, widower-ed, moving away or into assisted living were given a prayer shawl or quilt, because in my mind, we are all ‘wrapped in God’s love.’

Recently in the presbytery there was an ordination of a young woman as a Minister of Word and Sacrament.  It was a month short of my tenth anniversary of my own ordination.  I was reminded of the prayer shawl a congregation in the presbytery gifted me on the night of my ordination.  I had just finished a quilt intended for a congregation member recently entering a nursing home.  Sadly, they only lived a few days beyond the transition.  It is a quilt drenched in prayer and who needs it more than someone newly ordained.

This was intended to be a simple Trip Around the World quilt.  Once I began placing the blocks on the design wall I decided I had to line up the strip blocks as much as possible.  Durn OCD.  Solving the puzzle was worth it, I think it turned out awesome!

Exodus 29:29  The sacred vestments of Aaron shall be passed on to his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them.

Stars and Stripes

Over a decade ago I met one of the most interesting people I have come to call a friend.  We met in the Where’s Willy forums.  He is a veteran living in Ohio.  We’ve had some serious heart to heart conversations.  He is intelligent and funny and thoughtful.  He has interesting hobbies, a fascinating life, and a great family.  The popularity of fb gradually lured us to other ways of social media and we don’t connect as much.  I miss it.  While still in northern BC I came across a quilt pattern in a magazine that immediately reminded me of him.  Over three years already!  The cut pieces came with me to Manitoba and I managed to complete the project last summer.  My bad waiting so long to get around to posting once it was completed.  I know it was last summer because that was the summer we had the purple paint petunias bracketing the bench on the front veranda.

I quite pleased with this one.  I used my favourite sort of fabrics, reproductions of civil war designs – blues that incorporated tiny stars, and red with stripes.  The finished quilt was lap size.  I think that bed size quilts are presuming too much.  First colour preferences, second bed size, and this one was a surprise, so I couldn’t very well ask.

I mailed it off end of summer.  They were surprised, and delighted, I think.  They sent a thank you stating as much, my friend commenting it would be most welcome once the cold weather arrives.  This quilt carried many prayers with it.  Serving in the navy does not come with a plethora of good memories, especially when one serves in a way that sees atrocities done to bodies that no one should.  The thought gives me a heavy heart and an ache in my throat.  It’s becoming more and more difficult to witness the hatred and violence of the world.

The quilted design of loops and stars was applied by The Quilty Guilt.  So blessed to have a long armer in the house.  This quilt is one of the first to not have a flannel back.

2 Chronicles 14:13  Asa and the army with him pursued them as far as Gerar, and the Ethiopians fell until no one remained alive; for they were broken before the Lord and his army.

 

A Christmas Wedding

Christmas is always crazy for clergy.  Multiple worship services, parishioners ill because of the weather, wind-up parties, more often than not a funeral, even more rarely a wedding.  Add in all the personal preparations for Christmas and you have a recipe for an abundance of stress and little time to sit still in awe of the reason for the season.

Today there was a wedding.  Lovely, appropriately white and red colour scheme for Christmas.  Two 30 somethings, 14 children between them, tattoos and pretend bling, chaos and nerves.  It has been my practice to give a quilt as a wedding gift.  I had this top finished for some time, the Quilty Guilt quilted it yesterday and I spent the rest of yesterday and this morning binding it.  Turned out beeeeeautiful!  Hubby didn’t think I should give it away, but I did.  It really did turn out nice.

As usual, I didn’t have enough fabric for the back.  I pieced in an orphan block and a few other odds and sods to make a piece big enough.

It was quilted with hearts, perfect for a bride and groom.  Wrapped in God’s love in grace I pray them all the best for their new life together.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Of Fish and Justice

I apologize in advance for the use of non-inclusive language.

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and  you feed him for his life.”

Well, maybe.  What if you teach fishing and then deny the use of your pond?   What if you teach a person a skill and then refuse them the opportunity to use that skill to sustain life because they were once in prison, or are an immigrant, or have physical disabilities, or are the ‘wrong’ gender?

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Further – Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that

1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

2. The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed:

• (a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources;

• (b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.

156 countries are signatories to the latter, Canada being one.   It saddens me that hunger is still a reality for 925 million people, that is one in seven people.  19% of that number live in developed countries!

Support the Canadian Food Grains Bank http://www.foodgrainsbank.ca/  They do amazing work through micro loans, education on nutrition, improving food security, and provide food assistance to people with immediate needs.  Also they attempt to influence public policies with the goal of ending hunger.  Often your contribution can be matched up to four times by the Canadian government and other organizations.  It is a way you, as an individual, can give someone a fish, teach someone to fish, and ensure access to fish!

1 John 3:17   How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Ezekiel 18:5,7-9  5 If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right — 7 does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,  8 does not take advance or accrued interest, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between contending parties,  9 follows my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances, acting faithfully — such a one is righteous; he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.

Statistics on world hunger obtained from http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

(I don’t know where I came across the images, I believe them to be tattoo designs.  If you know or if it is yours, please let me know so I can properly attribute ownership.  Thank you.)

 

Dark and Darker

Psalm 3 – The Message

God!  Look!  Enemies past counting!
Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery:
“Hah!  No help for him from God!”

But you, GOD, shield me on all sides;
You ground my feet, you lift my head high;
With all my might I shout up to GOD,
His answers thunder from the holy mountain.

I stretch myself out.  I sleep.
Then I’m up again — rested, tall and steady,
Fearless before the enemy mobs
Coming at me from all sides.

Up, GOD!  My God, help me!
Slap their faces,
First this cheek, then the other
Your fist hard in their teeth!

Real help comes from God
Your blessing clothes your people!

It’s one of those days, bad news, delays, disappointments, fatique, burdens.  Enemies of the spirit, closing in on all sides it seems to sap the motivation and strength out of time.  A body just wants to give in, give up, give way, give quarter, give vent.  It is dark, inside and out.  Skinny snow on the ground, cold, dreary.  I’m tired.

Prayers today for;

• TP – work, exs, family disappointments
• L, J, S, W & SP – legal challenges
• J & KY – loss of possesions through theft
• me