LineaLanoie's Weblog

I am sitting here trying to figure out what it is about Christmas that I look forward to the most.  I think what I really like the most is the whole sense of anticipation that goes with so much of the holiday.  And the memories.

My earliest memories are of family; gathering around the tree; eating at tables stretched out to their full length with extra seating for the kids somewhere; singing and my dad and grandfather playing their violins; always before opening gifts the reading of the Christmas story by my grandfather, now by my father. Christmas Eve began the major part of our celebrations in good old Scandinavian style for our mixed English /Swedish family.  

Mixed in with the family memories are others closely related; Christmas programs and the practices (not always good memories); memorizing the story from Luke; advent candles; early morning Jullotta services.  Always home and church at the centre of the celebrations.  A pastor’s family doesn’t go away at this time of year very often.

Then there is whole set of memories having to do with Christmas in the Congo.  Our little silver tinsel tree that was so shabby but worked to fill a hole of loneliness that first year when we had so much adjusting to do and when Christmas was still a forbidden holiday in the newly named Republic of Zaire.  Learning to do Christmas in the tropics a long way from family.      Learning to absorb other traditions that we were not used to; rice pudding, the Christmas Eve Buffet supper, The 4 am service at the church the drums beating the wake up call after a night of hearing the singing continue till midnight at the church.  Opening homemade gifts or ones that had been purchased in anticipation of this day a few years before.  A bottle of Coke became a gift of lasting remembrance, as did hand dipped chocolates.  I learned to do many things to prepare for the season from curing and smoking my own ham to making tourtière.  There was always sewing either for Christmas or for the new dress or shirt for the school program.  And always the gathering and purchasing of gifts for our household help.  There was no commercialization there were no stores to speak of.  But there was celebration.  And the people of the Congo celebrated, having known what it was like to have Christmas celebrations forbidden for about three years. 

Now, for me, the Christmas season still holds us together as a family.  Everyone will be home at my house on Christmas Eve since we carry on that part of my Scandinavian tradition.  At our supper, we will have ham, turkey, rice pudding and tourtière.  All foods which not only fill our stomachs but refill our memory banks.  Then stuffed we will all go to the Christmas Eve service, (Leo and I may go to the early morning service if there is one, but our kids never were too keen on this tradition.) then back we go to our house for the reading of the story and the gifts. 

It is a crazy hectic season.  But it is so full of good things for me.  I guess we could do without a lot of the gifts and decorations and we try not to go overboard on them.  But the joy that decorating brings to some of my kids I wouldn’t give up for anything.  To others of my kids the giving of gifts and watching the receiver open them is what it is about and that too I wouldn’t give up.  And I would not want to give up the memories that the season brings back or not pass on some of theses good times and memories to my children and grandchild.  And as our family enlarges we incorporate new ways of celebrating that will get passed down along the way. 

Maybe I see a lot of what Christ came to do in the way we celebrate his birth.  We are family together and love each other.  We don’t exclude the ones that may still be quite unlovely, and we take in new members and they become part of how we celebrate too.

I understand that for some people this is a sad and difficult time; that there may not be much to celebrate and that it just seems a commercial rip off. But to me that is exactly why he came.  God incarnate – coming into our world – into our families, into our world that has things all screwed up, even into our sad and depressed lives.  Loving us enough to come.  Sharing our humanness, experiencing our pain.  Being our only reason to celebrate.

Tonight we had the priviledge of attending the CBC’s reading of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  The music was done by the Prince Albert Mens Chorus and was well done.  The readings were superb.  And it was fun to have them done by by radio personalities familiar to us.  Leo knows some of the reporters quite well since they are regularly reporting on his antics as Medical Health Officer for our health region, so I got to meet them too tonight.  The reporter who usually interviews him is going off soon to spend six months in Ghana to work on training reporters on reporting human rights issues.  I think she will have a very interesting experience.

Around our staff room table at noon, we were all having soup of various kinds, some home made and some of the canned variety.  Roger, my partner and only male in the office, is actually quite a gourmet cook, sometimes with a tendancy to the exotic. 

So Kathy asked him for the recipe for his squash soup.

“To start,” he said, “you take a leek…”

We lost it!!  Not sure of the soups’ popularity from now on!

I think the experiencing of God in the silence this past week and the anticipation of sharing with the youth some of my thoughts on creation prompted me to write this:

The Sound of Creation

Silence.

The whispers of God’s voice,

So quiet.

You are so gentle, Lord.

You, that spoke into existence

All,

With your voice.

Did it thunder then,

In creation?

Or was it ever quiet?

The moving of a whisper

On the waters,

The division of cell to cells.

Your loving breath of a whisper

Transforming life

Till an unlikely likeness

Was created in your image.

This likeness that has

Stopped it’s ears

To silence.

I promised to give a talk on evolution/creation to the Youth Bible study on Wednesday night.  I am no expert but I do see things from more of a scientific point of view than the guy they have been watching in a video series.  It has never been a central issue for me but I think it can be a stumbling block, especially for young people not yet sure of how to balance what they have been taught in school with what they are being taught in church. 

My God is big enough to create the world any way he may have chosen to do so.  I would just like the kids to understand that it is OK to have lots of questions and sometimes to not have clear answers, but to keep seeking.  They will find that God will be bigger than their questions and that their opinions on how things were done will change as they learn more. 

My God is the creator, of that I am sure.  How he created the world is a lot less clear in my mind.  We are still fairly ignorant inspite of all that we know scientifically to date.  My lack of knowledge does not diminish His greatness.  At the same time my scientific knowledge does not destroy my faith in him.

So here I am waiting for Leo to come home.  His plane was almost two hours late getting out of Toronto – some malfunction in the air conditioning.  But he called an hour or so ago and has safely arrived in Saskatoon.  He was taking the guys for supper and then would head home – so I am guessing he’ll get here around midnight.

This week is going to be busy.  We have lots of stuff going on in the community; a reading of A Christmas Carol and the Peter Pan musical; Christmas parties are happening and there are several meetings.  I also have to recertifiy in my CPR this week. Our office does this together and Tuesday night is the course.  We’ll do Pizza and then right into the course, then right after that worship practice, so I won’t even get home that evening till late.

Those of us who get together to practice and lead worship on Sundays pass a lot of crazy e-mails between us.  It is kind of fun being crazy with a few other likeminded (also a bit crazy) people.  Of course the head honcho, the big cheese, the ring leader of all this is our PR.  He starts it off most weeks.  Even has accused us of being under the influence of illicit substances after certain fiascos on Sunday mornings!  What on earth could he be thinking – just because we missed every cue that we had diligently practiced just 90 minutes before! 

As I said, it is fun getting together with like minded crazy people.  And more often than we deserve, God comes and makes use of what we are doing – even when we do all the songs differently than how we practiced.

I was just musing on what is the meaning of PR – that is what got this entry started.  It just remembered me that PR was the term we used for the really important pastors in the Congo – in our “communauté” the head pastors were the “Pasteur Responsable” or as we usually shortened everything down to it’s acronym – the PR.  So for the CEUM of the ECC (ex-ECZ) in the DRC you Randall would really be the PR.  Now we just have to figure out the meaning of this “responsable” part!!

If you want to see some of the responsible things we are doing in our church, head over to Randall’s blog.  We have been spending a considerable amount of time in prayer this week and it has been very good.  You could even do our prayer walk, in a sense, on-line.  Not quite as good as the real thing but you can get a sense of where we’ve been this week.