Evendays

Here’s a quote from page 723 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after Harry’s long, plot-explaining conversation with his old mentor, Dumbledore:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” (emphasis mine).

What’s real? Is real what goes on inside your head (especially after having been smacked with a killing curse)? Is it as real as your family, as real as your love for them, as real as the past you’ve shared? Is it as real as your God, as his sacrifice, as your hope?

I remember speaking with a young lady about hope. I mentioned the resurrection of Jesus and that hope was based on this past event. I asked her: Do you believe that event happened? And she replied: I believe that, for you, it happened. But for me, it didn’t happen.

Wow. There were two ways of seeing history: For me the tomb was empty. For her, it wasn’t. The same event. Two realities, and reality inside the head trumps the truth of the actual event.

Yes, the Christmas packages have arrived. Mom and Dad sent us a big box full of stocking stuffers and specially requested gifts. Very nice stuffers indeed. Some candy and Christmas cooking material came in the mail today from  friends and supporters who go way, way back. They always send us something at Christmas, which I find remarkable. We got two boxes of great goodies from TN about 6 weeks ago. Amazing.

And the cards… We have a picture board in the kitchen, 7.5 feet high and 3 feet high. Christmas time is its time of renewal. The Christmas 2007 pictures are layered onto the Christmas 2006 pictures, which bury the 2005 pictures. If you thumb through them quickly, you see little children become teens, dear friends turning gray. Kind of like those Cracker Jack flip book cartoons.

There’s no more boat mail or surface mail for packages from the USA. Something to do with homeland security, and we really should be grateful about it. Frugal mailers use the Priority Mail® Flat Rate envelopes or boxes, available for free from the USPS, but you have to pay the $11 or $37 when you drop them off.

We use Amazonian, Bread and Barrel, Toys R danger-US and Better Buy for our USA gift online purchases. Not very personal, I know… But at least they have free shipping.

Welcome back!

Son 2 has just finished up 10 weeks of “Christians on Mission” in Marseille. He and his co-interns spent last week in Germany at an “American” retreat. They came to Lausanne on Wednesday, and I gave them a 7 hour seminar on the Epistle of 1 John, which I thought went quite well. It is amazing how much you can learn about a text if you dive into it for such a long time. Great fun.

 

I drove the 3 students to a weekend retreat where church workers meet for prayer, worship and encouragement. We spent another 24 hours there, through good times and in bad… Like most meetings…

There are some 40 students who are participating in this years Pepperdine program here in Lausanne. 4 or 5 come to church on Sunday mornings, a brave crew who sings along in French, praying and listening to a worship which is indeed foreign to them.

About 2 months ago, Wife started inviting students over on Monday evenings for a meal. They’ve always been between 6 and 9, but tonight they were 15. It has been such a joy for me (and even for Wife, though it is a lot of work) just to sit at the table, ask them questions about their lives, studies, and recent travel experiences. I think they enjoy it too. They keep coming back. Of course, free food is a great draw.

We always have a “question” for the evening (favorite film, dessert, one person they’d like to meet… They always ask: What’s tonight’s question? Such excitement!) Tonight two of them brought their homework and another 3 hung out till late. I don’t know how much they got done, but it felt like home. Not just for them, but they represent a part of America that I miss.

 

Some Protestant churches in Scotland would place long tables in the middle of their sanctuaries for celebration of communion. Later, they got rid of the tables in order to use their space more efficiently. (I personally think it was because one of the bishop’s brothers fabricated and sold aluminum individual communion cup trays, but I digress.) The communion table above (from the 1800’s) transformed normal pews into communion tables, with congregants sitting on benches on either side of the long, center table where bread and wine were served.

The table is narrow. The communion is close… Eye to eye, so to speak, allowing for interaction and expressions of faith of one believer to another.

So this Sunday when you eat at the Lord’s table, truly eat it with a brother or sister. Look them in the eye. Tell them you believe. And let the communion begin.

 

This is another way families kept the dead in the ground in Edinburgh during those difficult days in the 1800’s. Imagine having the iron casket within the tomb and the iron fence (mortsafes) around the tomb. Makes me feel comfy.

Some tourism pushes the haunted, the dark and the scary stories of the burgh’s past with visits to the underground city where the poorest of the poor lived and died. One guide told us that during a time of plague the underground entrances were walled up and those below were left to die. “And some say” (please imagine the Scottish accent) “their spirits still infest those deep, dark dwellings.”

In this cemetery near the Greyfriar church, 1200 “Covenanters” (who supported a form of Presbyterianism) were imprisoned in 1679 for refusing to give in to the political (and religious) demands of the King Charles. There they spent the winter with little food and only the tombstones for protection.

The nearby area was where JK Rowling spent her time dreaming of Harry Potter and Hogwarts when she hardly had a shilling to her name. I’m still digging through her seventh tome, yet haven’t come to the part where Dumbledore comes out of the closet.

Don’t tell me how it ends…

The armistice began at 11 AM, Paris time, on 11.11.1918.

As of yesterday, there were but 2 French veterans of that war who were still alive. During the war itself there were around 8,500,000 military deaths. During the war, the French suffered a 75% casualty rate (1.3 million dead. 4.2 million wounded.)
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We had 6 youth from the Geneva church come and visit from Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Our Sunday singing was much improved. They were fun to have and an encouragement to our family and to the church.

In the afternoon, we tried to practice a Skype video conference call that will performed on December 2 with the College church in Fresno. The call worked but the video didn’t. Our capable technician in Fresno was up before 6 AM on Sunday morning to hook up with Beijing, Nairobi and Lausanne. It seems that video conferencing is possible for PC’s, but once you add participants, it doesn’t work for, ehem, us Macs.

Three weeks ago, Wife, Daughter, Daughter’s Friend (girl) and I spent 4 days in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s been our family tradition to “discover” a European city during the October holidays. Since Son 1 was in university and Son 2 in Marseilles, Daughter got to bring a buddy.

We love museums, especially free ones. In the Scottish National Museum there is a section on Edinburgh and death. Fascinating, especially when you read about the Resurrectionists. They were not a sect of Presbyterianism, but rather 19th century body snatchers, grave robbers who would steal recently buried dead and sell the cadavers to the medical schools. It was a lucrative business, not even a felony and overlooked by many authorities, but an added burden on the loved-ones of the departed for they would have to protect the dead from thieves.

Check out the Iron Coffin below (click to enlarge). Now, imagine Greg, our favorite funeral home director, trying to store that into his vehicle with his well-publicized grace.

10. www.viamichelin.fr: For those of us without GPS. It lets you blame someone else when the directions are wrong.
9. Abebooks.com: The best place in the world to find used books.
8. Kayak.com: Incredible site for chasing down cheap airfares.
7. Up to date news about the dollar and the SF Giants, both of whom will stay in the cellar all winter long, and possibly into the summer.
6. Skype.
5. Instant prayers and sympathy from internet friends.
4. Family blogs. A great way of keeping up with Son 2
(missionmarseille.blogspot.com/), Sister 1’s family (randywray.com), and Buster (littlebustersmith.blogspot.com).
3. Email pictures of nieces and nephews.
2. I can cc Wife when I invite someone over for a meal. No more surprises.
1. Unexpected, encouraging emails and inspiring blog posts that often make my day.

Let’s see… For breakfast I had applesauce cake instead of tempting bread, butter and apple jelly. Then for my morning snack I munched on a small piece of apple pie. Very good.

With lunch I had a pint of fresh apple juice and then later that afternoon ate an apple off the tree.

In the evening, wife made a wonderful apple crumble for dessert. I ate a bowl of it with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. The best apple crumble I’d ever tasted.

There was still some fresh applesauce in the fridge, but I opted for another slice of applesauce cake. And that was the end of my very apple-ly Halloween.