New Year's Resolution

Evangelicals have annoyed me for a long time. Most Christians don't, I am a Christian and recognize my limitations on expounding about faith. Proselyting has always annoyed me, diminishing God has always annoyed me and finger wagging has always annoyed me. Evangelical Christianity, as represented on Sunday morning shows and other mediums, is about all three and it grates down my spine like a wire brush. I cannot imagine what makes it so popular except that in making God small and easy to digest it makes Him more accessible. I don't want an accessible God. I want one who can make a universe that expands beyond my imagination and that will live on long after I have gone to rest. I want my great grand children viewing sunsets with wonder and awe and hopefully on other planets. I like that God incarnated to understand His creation better and in so doing forgave us our weaknesses. I like that we are cleared of past sins and left to grow on our own, responsible for our own actions and able to repair the damage done by mistakes. I don't understand how, if we are cleared of past sins, organized Christianity doesn't make it clear that that includes Original sin and Sins of our Fathers. I cannot accept any faith that doesn't get that- that we are only responsible for the sins that we commit. Even though we weren't granted immediate access to Eden, we are no longer stopped from striving to attain it. We can achieve it, we can learn enough about our world to bring it back.
So as the New Year dawns, I offer this promise I will strive to take responsiblity of my actions, I will strive to make the world a little better than it was and I will live my faith and not wear it on my sleeve.

Christmas with the Family

We have arrived at my parents' house and the season begins. We usually come out Christmas day after Christmas eve service but with my father's illness we are foregoing the fight over going to church. The gathering begins with my sister's arrival from Toronto and the fighting over the computer- blogging, barely started, will be light until I get home and it is only three people fighting for time.

And Christmas creeps a little closer...

I am putting the last layers of finish on 24 wooden boxes and I can honestly say that it will be a relief when they are done, filled and wrapped. Money and Christmas are often not very friendly and so my crafting instincts usually take over. This year the lead time was cut short when I lost the use of my left arm in November. A frozen rib gave me much the same symptoms of rotator cuff tendonitis (wow, is that painful!) and until a kindly physiotherapist put it back in place I was in pretty bad shape. Three valuable crafting weeks down the tube as the shoulder recovered but I am pretty close to having caught up. I won't be making quite so many gifts and some friends will be getting boxes made in January but hey, that is what Christmas is all about.

And so it begins

With the decision to blog comes other decisions, how often, about what and of course do I try to get other people to actually look at what I have written. I think that I will just leave this as my little space for now. I need to find my feet in the world of blogging and I guess to just hone my writing skills and find my voice. For today I need to get to work on finishing the Xmas presents. I am behind on my crafting and varnish takes time to dry.

So I've decided to blog

It has been awhile but I have finally decided to take the leap and start a blog. I will be posting recipes, projects and whatever strikes my fancy. For the moment this is all I've got but I hope to get started for real in the next few days.