Random access

My computer decided to boot up tonight. I guess it just needed a few days rest, a week actually. Then I even managed to get the DSL working again by reinstalling the drivers that came with the new Ethernet card. At least, I think that's what did it. Nothing like trying stuff until something works. But I have the feeling it could stop working again anytime. Meanwhile, I've backed up some files onto disks, just in case.

A new Wendell Berry novel

I've yet to read any of Berry's fiction, so this link to Valerie Sayers' review in the Washington Post Book World of Hannah Coulter is to remind me to look for Berry's novels in the library.

So Cal storms

I've been reminded often of Washington state these past days while it rains and rains and rains here in Southern California. According to today's LA Times' headline story (registration required):

Los Angeles has received almost 21 inches of precipitation since July 1. That surpasses the average annual rainfall of 15.14 inches with five months yet to go. [...]
The current dousing, which began Thursday, has been the heaviest. The more than 15 inches that fell on Los Angeles in the first nine days of 2005 was as much as the average annual rainfall downtown.

Bright and glorious

Sometimes, working behind the scenes in a church, you overhear and see disappointing words and actions. Other times, you get a glimpse of heaven. Today I had the joy of witnessing the latter. I was on a ladder replacing the 62 burned down Christmas candles in the windows (32 candles) and pew candelabras (30 candles) with all white Epiphany candles, which we celebrated today in advance of the actual feast day on January 6.

A woman who had emigrated from Denmark at least 50 years ago was preparing the altar with bread and wine. The pianist was practicing the hymns for today. He started playing "Bright and Glorious is the Sky." The woman exclaimed in her still-accented English, "Oh, that is a Danish hymn that we always sang at Christmas and Epiphany in Denmark!" Then, spontaneously and a cappella, she sang from the altar the first verse in Danish. It was beautiful.

[Note: the tempo of the electronic version of the traditional hymn tune linked to above is way too slow.]

New Year's Eve

I could be down on the Rose Parade route all night helping to save the 170 seats my church sets up along Colorado Boulevard, but I think I'll let others do that this year. I haven't attended the parade since the first year I moved here nine years ago but will probably watch it tomorrow in seats that others have saved for 20 hours.

This morning on my way to work I drove by people under colorful golf umbrellas in the rain already staking out their spot on the grassy median at the end of the parade route. The RVs have been parked in prime locations for three days now. It is clear of rain this evening with 20 percent chance of rain tomorrow—hopefully not until after the parade, which hasn't been rained on since 1955.

The work week was busy and absorbing after a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with friends. Christmas Eve meant another church service to help prepare. So it was somewhat of a relief when it was over—and Las Posadas less than a week before. I'm beginning to understand the daunting schedule clergy have at this time of year—and I didn't even have to preach!

I hadn't heard about the tsunami when I went to church on St. Stephen's Day. I had already been wrestling with the darker side of Christmas time. This year the liturgical choice was the martyrdom of St. Stephen, one of the first deacons in the book of Acts, or the First Sunday after Christmas, for which the Gospel reading is about the slaughter of the baby boys in Bethlehem.

I haven't watched any television yet. However, all week at work I watched the count of the dead in the headline story on the online WSJ change upwards by increments of thousands and ten thousands, sometimes hourly it seemed.

A book I had just picked up by the founder of Bread for the World, How Much is Enough: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture, by Arthur Simon (brother of the late Illinois senator, Paul Simon), seemed a fitting read this week.

So did this excerpt from the poem, "Classifieds," by Wisława Szymborska:

Whoever's found out what location
compassion (heart's imagination)
can be contacted at these days,
is herewith urged to name the place;
and sing about it in full voice,
and dance like crazy and rejoice
beneath the frail birch that appears
to be upon the verge of tears.

[Edit 1/1/05: Changed some formatting and added a couple links.]

Summer weather

Today is spectacularly beautiful. It's supposed to get up into the 80s. I have all my clotheslines full of laundry drying; just made quick and yummy muffins from the recipe on the Malt-O-Meal box; and will be going hiking in the mountains shortly. Fortifying myself for the next two weeks, which will be very intense with church-related duties.

Bulletin board

These days it seems all I have time/space for here are summary postings of reminders.

Last Sunday one thing I did make time for was clearing and preparing a space for my Advent altar. I drapped a beautiful blue with purple fringed silk scarf over the corner of my mantle and bookcase, placing on it two cobalt-blue glass candleholders with white candles and scattering white rocks gathered on a Washington beach to symbolize a path.

The other symbol I'm using this season is that of cleaning house.

Just as Lent is an appropriate time for spring cleaning, Advent, too, invites us to pay attention to our spaces, to eliminate the clutter and unnecessary furnishings....(Sundays and Seasons 2005, p. 23)

So, for this Sunday I chose the hymn "People, Look East."

People, look east. The time is near of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table.

People, look east, and sing today—
Love, the Guest, is on the way.

Sparrow, at Mercy Street, is posting wonderful Advent quotes.

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Norwegian knitting: Arnhild Hillesland, via the Winter 2004 Interweave Knits magazine.

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How Iris Murdoch's novels have been analyzed to show traces of the beginning of her Alzheimer's disease: The Guardian article via Bookslut. I first heard the story on NPR. Dr Peter Garrard, the neuroscientist who led the study, mentioned that part of what informed the research was his undergraduate studies in ancient languages, where he was schooled in how to analyze texts.