Thanksgiving 2013

Had our first feast as a church, celebrating God's preservation in our town hall setting. Working off his Mayflower legacy - Carolyn, as well - Ben gave a history lesson of the colony after our supper. 

 

The spread was impressive, for our size, and invited guests and relatives filled out the tables, adding old GRC returnees, too.  Perhaps the original Thanksgiving's loss of 1/2 the colony was a little too close a parallel!

Church has been a rich experience for the boys, who relish food and social time.
+++
Later in the week, we enjoyed our own Thanksgiving, Carolyn's crafts for the table making things homey.

 

for ourselves and our Swiss guests, Julian, Ann, Leoni, and "Big" Jack, who flew in for the week. Julian is Scottish, Ann French, making Switzerland their home.

I cut corners with the food, with a hectic church feast days before, somewhat wondering the meaning of a repeat event, but it was great to tie some old threads together.

Aquatics

Seems a swimmer?  Snagged 1st in butterfly at a meet against older boys, so we were happy for him,  

 

and us. Michael's attentions are too divided at this point to head into any single area.

Out in the SoCal sun in mid November, if you can believe it.

Reformation Day - All Hallow's Eve - All Saints Day

October 31st has become layered with meaning, being the site of contested revelries, a tip-off to Luther's nailing 95 theses on the Wittenberg door &amp & All Saints Day. I taught two Reformation-themed Sunday School sessions, featuring music, visual art, and the concept of vocation.

Here's part of the gigantic murals in Neuchatel entitled, "The Second Coming of Christ," illustrating a dramatic change in pictorials of an otherwise ethereal topic; here, spiritual future meets Swiss farmland:

 'Agriculture' and 'Industry'

A renewed status for the everyday and crafts, juxtaposed with scenes of Judgment Day with the lake and hills of Neuchatel seen through the windows; the heavenly kingdom turns out to be a redeemed 'this world.'

Spoke of the failed reforms of Italian Savanarola, executed in Florence, against materialism. Imagine if Calvin - the Reformation's theorist - had studied art rather than law?

A bronze door replaces the original door of Wittenberg where purer doctrine linked to an economic practice. In sad contrast to the modern church's silence on the recent debt problem, where the institution with the language of debt, redemption and forgiveness has nothing to say.

The Sorbonne's Bibliotheque where Calvin and Viret studied marked a key trend as reformers went to the centers of cultural powerbroking, not the evangelical ghetto and fear of the city, partially explaining the former's impact and the latter's marginalization.

Prizes: Nutella for Savanarola's hometown, Ferrara, IT; Haribo for GMY; Toblerone for Switzerland.

*****

But we still do the pumpkin thing.

Michael dreams of living in his own house where he can grow pumpkins and tend a garden. After the corn maze and the haystack pyramind,

Then there're the other October 31st activities.

Although the jury is still out on how to best handle Oct 31 - ranging from early Christian mockery of the devil to skeletal reminders of death to general harvest celebrations.

Death remains the last enemy, thus still alive, real, not trivial, yet not a gospel of fear. Maybe parody, sadness, as we remember saints of old in All Saints Day.

Michael turns 11

This was a fun day, which began with balloons and crepes,

followed by...and a morning at Mondo beach in Ventura, where Carolyn had arranged a special Sabbath Surf Session, since we were worshipping in the afternoon, installing Pastor Ben.

Both boys have easily gone to the beach more than I ever had as a child. With one great exception, Japanese kids growing up did not surf. Surfing was a white culture clad with bright t-shirts, median gpas, and Led Zeppelin. Japanese kids weren't reading Francis Schaeffer and traveling to L'Abri either, I suppose.

But Michael is definitely our amphibian, the Daland Swim meet the day before DOB.

I Guess we all like to do what we do well - M cleaned up all heats! - although the parents strive to conquer the unloved tasks that need doing, overcoming carelessness, laziness - ie the bad stuff.

But birthdays are cleaner celebrations of the person, and what better place than Brat Brothers, where the polka band now plays on Sundays and sings Happy Birthday in German and English!

Christ Covenant came to the house for chocolate cake for the kiddos,

tiramisu for the adults for Pastor Ben's cake,

which is celebrating a birthday of sorts - his and ours. After everyone left, Michael opened his gifts of books and games, playing Jenga & The Scrambled States of America.

Christ Covenant

 

Somis Thursday Club, a beautiful space just north of Camarillo is Christ Covenants' - our new church - hew home. Built in 1890, the club has a large porch, kitchen, and lawns in front and back for the children to play.

Looking out at hills and farmland, this is a tremendous human space, transporting back to small town America.I believe Somis is unincorporated.

 The natural beauty and setting anchors our little band of believers in a way needed and uncharacteristic of SoCal. You pass Los Posas Berries on the way, local Japanse strawberry farmers, reminding me of similar farms in Torrance (now gone) and Buena Park.
 

Speaking of small-town America, the national past-time was where our new pastor, Ben Alexander, wanted to go...

 

It's a good year to become a Dodger fan, in terms of pay-off. Drug use and the strike back in the early '90s ruined the game for me, personally, but it's still a thrill to watch these guys hit balls out of the park, run around the diamond, as we eat for 3 hours. This new Dodger line-up reminded me of the squeaky clean bunch years past: Garvey, Cey, Welch.

 

 This is a time of new beginnings which echo the past, returning to Somis for worship after several years hiatus.  We arrive early to set-up and there's just enough folks to make the job doable - watch out for cold/flu season! - printing, stapling the hymns as handouts, until we purchase actual HYMNALS(!), which contains, as Pastor Rob from Tacoma used to remind us, the history of the church.  

Parting shot:  A magnificent California oak on a church's lot in TO.

Whidbey 2013

 

We had a good time at Whidbey this year,

squeezing in a Suzuki music camp up in Langley BC about 2 hrs north. The annual hike felt longer for some reason this year.

Maybe the best weather yet in the PNW?

 

 

Martha's theater camp.a

 

 

idyllic backyard.

 

Our time in Tacoma was especially good, given the upheaval at church in SoCal, renewing friendships. Whidbey functions as a growth chart for our family; the boys get older and we age.
Building sand forts against the tide.