A Quiet Sunday Afternoon

Today was a special day at church--every year we kick off the fall church season with a BBQ after worship. A number of families from the day care came for the service, so we had excellent attendance. The pieces of the liturgy worked well together, and during communion I anointed people with oil for healing. My homily was short by solid (and just as well since the service ran long). A couple of new tweaks worked out well, including praying with the choir just before the service.

After Mass the BBQ went into full swing. Besides food we also were able to offer a big inflatable "bouncy castle" for the kids to jump around in. Later in the afternoon a bunch of us adults took a turn. I'll try to post some pictures up here when I can. The bouncy castle is always a hit.

Been watching football this afternoon--also doing the dishes left over from last night's canning. Yesterday I made another batch of tomato sauce. This time it took about 9 hours of simmering, but the results were fantastic. Much more flavorful than what you get at the store. Downright intense, in fact. Using fresh herbs makes a huge difference. The wine also adds a lot.

I must admit to feeling a little anxious about the church finances. We simply need to raise some more money. So we are planning to send out a letter this week to solicit donations. But then we need to arrive at a more comprehensive strategy that will take us through the fall and winter and integrate both a regular stewardship drive and a capital campaign. I really, really need to delegate this to others, otherwise it's going to be hard to concentrate on my existing ministries.

Anyway, that's something to worry about on Tuesday. Right now I'm just going to enjoy some football and rest.

-t

Some Things Need to Simmer

A few weeks ago the sound system broke. It's been a pain to get fixed. Part of the problem is that the old system was really a series of patches overlaid on each other, so the resulting complexity in high. I'm glad I didn't try to fix it myself--I could have figured it out, but it would have taken a while. For instance, some of the speakers are run on a 70 Volt system while others are on a 8 Ohms set-up. Just figuring out where the wires actually run to is a time consuming process. Better to let the pro do it. Anyway, it's coming together--he should be finished in an hour or two. It's taken longer to get someone here to fix it than I had hoped. One of the big delays was special ordering parts. But it looks like my patience will be rewarded.

Last night I had another project that needed incredible patience. I turned 15 lbs. of tomatoes (about half a bushel) into five jars of really nice tomato sauce. Here's is the recipe:

Tay's Tomatoes - Recipe adapted from online source

15 lbs Tomatoes
10 lbs. Onions diced
5 Garlic cloves minced
1 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Tbs. Salt
1 Tbs. Pepper
1 Bottle Red Wine
2 Cups Herbs (Fresh Basil and Oregano are great)
1 Cup Lemon Juice

Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil until they change color (about 15 minutes). Prepare the Tomato puree by washing, cutting off the stem end, quartering, and running the tomatoes through a Victorio Strainer. Add the tomatoes and wine to the onions. Stir well and bring bring to a slow simmer.

Simmer until reduced by 1/3 to 1/2--about eight hours. Yes, eight hours! With desired thickness reached, add the freshly chopped herbs and lemon juice. Simmer for 5 minutes and use hot packing method of canning.

If canning, use 1/2" headspace. This recipe will make approximately 5 Quart or 10 Pint-size bottles worth. Process in boiling water path 35 minutes for quarts, 30 for pints. Cool and store.

This was a ton of work. But the results are fantastic. Interestingly, a bunch of basil and a bushel of tomatoes (enough to make this recipe twice) costs less than $20. Meanwhile, a jar of "Classico" tomato sauce runs $5-$6 in my local grocery store. So it's about half the cost to make your own as to buy.

Most versions of this recipe don't include the step of using the Victorio Strainer. but the beautiful thing about the Victorio is that it removes both the skins and the seeds! So the resulting sauce really does look like the primo-brand sauces. Another note: using a food processor to chop up the onions is highly recommended.

-t

The Canning Craze

A year ago Betsy and I canned some pickled Hot Peppers that have been a wonderful treat to have on hand since them. As the last jar is almost finished, we decided to do it again this year. We picked up some peppers last weekend at the St. Lawrence Street Market and I pickled and canned them last night. We still have lots of home canning supplies left and all the equipment, so I'm thinking that this year we should experiment with more canning.

I'm particularly keen on trying to can our own tomato sauce as well as some fruit. The directions online make it appear easy but time-consuming. It takes something like four hours to cook down a good tomato sauce--but if you do it in large batches than you have lots of wonderful, inexpensive sauce for quick dishes.

So while I was looking around the Internet I found a wonderful blog called Seasonal Ontario Food. This blogger has lots of recipes and information about food available in the Farmers' Markets here. Her list of fruits and vegetables by month is particularly helpful.

-t

Tay's BBQ

And on a lighter note... I found this outfit in Moss Point, Mississippi:

This is not a hoax, there is actually a chain of BBQ Joints in Mississippi named "Tay's BBQ"--and one of the three locations is in Moss Point. From the website:

Tay's BBQ originated in the 1930's in Columbia, Mississippi, by Mr. Millard Taylor. Today, Tay's BBQ features a truly unique flavor combination and is inspired by the recipes of two families who love great BBQ. (source)

Their motto is "Best Pig on the Coast." Here is their awesome van...

Like the sign says, a "A Day Without Swine is a Waste of Time"
Look at that beautiful MEAT!

I say you haven't lived unless you've eaten southern BBQ. Check out this Menu...

COMBO PLATES:
all of tay's plates are served with your choice of two
sides, bread, sauce and a regular drink.

LARGE RIB PLATE
(six bones)
$10.50

REGULAR RIB PLATE
(four bones)
$8.75

HICKORY SMOKED CHICKEN PLATE
three piece.....$6.99
two piece.....$5.99

PULLED PORK SANDWICH PLATE
large...$6.99 - regular $5.99

CHOPPED BEEF BRISKET SANDWICH PLATE
large...$6.99 - regular...$5.99

HOT WING PLATE
$5.79

I could really do with a pulled pork sandwich right now...

-t

The Unbusy Pastor

Another really busy day. Tuesday night I didn't get home until 10 pm thanks to an exhausting but important Parish Council Meeting. That made it a 13 hour day. Yikes. I don't want to be doing too many of those.

I'm really glad I reconstituted the Parish Council when I came to COTM--it accomplishes a bunch of things. First, it gives me a forum to reflect on issues affecting the congregation with more voices at the table than I get when I meet with the staff or the Corporation. Second, the increased diversity of opinions is useful to help correct the bias otherwise inherit in the role of staff or Warden. In other words, I get to hear from people that aren't in a position of power and responsibility in the church. Third, it helps widen the circle of people informed about some of the projects and concerns ongoing here. Fourth, it is a decent incubator for congregational leadership. And last night's meeting fulfilled all those roles. I went away from it feeling like I had a much better grasp on what's actually happening at COTM. It definitely took my insight about certain key dynamics to a new level. So three cheers for the Parish Council!

I couldn't sleep in today as flex time, however, as I had my Contemplative Eucharist to Celebrate. That service is really flourishing. For a while I was practicing being non-anxious about whether it would be sustainable and about whether anybody would come, etc. And yet without really trying hard to promote it I have a nice little group of folks that consistently come. I'm thinking about adding another service and perhaps tacking on a time for instruction on Christian meditation or contemplation. When I told my staff that I wasn't sure I was qualified to teach these things, they teased me mercilessly, so I guess I better just shut up and teach.

After that it was back-to-back meetings through lunch and into the afternoon. One of these was with the Parish Architect. It was a good meeting which produced some solid steps forward. We know what to do next to keep the plans developing.

Only then was I really able to sit down and do e-mail and correspondence. Fingers in many pies. I'm trying to get the lights fixed and the sound system fixed and give helpful feedback about the nascent confirmation program, etc., etc. I'm glad I started the day with some serious meditation!

I'm supposed to go to another meeting that starts in an hour. But it's already 6:30 and I can't imagine doing another 13 hour day. So I think I'm going to pull a Eugene Peterson:

"Yes, but how?" The appointment calendar is the tool with which to get unbusy. It's a gift of the Holy Ghost (unlisted by St. Paul, but a gift nonetheless) that provides the pastor with the means to get time and acquire leisure for praying, preaching, and listening. It is more effective than a protective secretary; it is less expensive than a retreat house. It is the one thing everyone in our society accepts without cavil as authoritative. The authority once given to Scripture is now ascribed to the appointment calendar. The dogma of verbal inerrancy has not been discarded, only re-assigned. When I appeal to my appointment calendar, I am beyond criticism.... (The Contemplative Pastor, Page 22)

A lesson I must hear again and again to get right. Someone at Council last night challenged me with this gem: "Tay, surely there are piles of books written for Pastors about how to drop stuff." True, that.

-t

The Parable of the 98 and the 2

And He told them this parable:

A shepherd has 100 sheep. Two are lost. One of these is old and ragged. His wool is thin and wiry and he will not live more than another season or two. The other lost sheep is young, strong, and fertile. Does he not leave the 98 to search for one of the two? And will he not save the old, sickly one?

I know, it seems like a false dilemma, in ministry and mission it rarely seems like we are choosing in such an abstract way to appeal to one group or another, but in reality things seem quite different.

Here's the reality. I have two or three people that call me several times a week, each week wanting my care and attention. They are both very marginalized. Yet both on the phone and in person I am able to give these people great comfort and care. It seems pretty straight forward, they need care, and within reason I give what I can.

Now, on the other hand, there are lots of ways that I could be reaching out to the high-functioning urban success stories that inhabit this neighborhood. I could offer another meditation group or set up a MOPS group or do something similar. This will take a lot of time and energy and the results are uncertain.

How do I, as a Pastor, decide where my time goes between these two things? The Gospel imperative seems to favor care to the sick, the poor, and the friendless, but I'm also told I need to "grow" the church (preferably by adding young, attractive families to the rolls).

WWJD? Perhaps he would engage the most proximate mission: reach out and heal whoever is at hand? In practice that's tough to engage, since the closest mission to hand is utterly subjective. It seems like there is so much need around me and COTM that we could engage any of them quite easily, but not all of them. How does the Holy Spirit guide us to the right mission?

I barely have a clue. Prayer, I suppose. Listening, of course. Maybe something else?

This is where ministry gets really hard--like editing, the key is choosing what gets cut out. It takes a certain courage to take something off my desk and put it in the trash can. It may be a very nice and pretty thing, but the desk is overflowing already. Many times when I pray for my ministry I pray the wisdom to have the detachment necessary let so many things (and even people) go.

-t

Church of the Resurrection in Newfoundland

Does this look familiar? Doug C. calls my attention to the Church of the Resurrection in Newfoundland. Collegiate-style (aka Choir-style) seating across a central axis that begins with font and pascal candle, continues through the ambo, and ends in the altar.

On the left we see that a warm, welcoming, and essentially domestic greeting space opens generously onto the principle worship axis beginning with the font and leading the ambo.

A nice looking Ambo that illustrates the concept well--note the teaching Christ icon and the Bema-style solidity of it. This is no mere lectern!

A large square altar with President's chair behind. The square shape helps reinforce the equality of participation while the chair preserves apostolic presidency.

Another view showing how the altar relates to the rest of the space. Although it's not elevated as it is in some places, the path between the two poles of Word and Table is a powerful negative space that draws out attention.

From the church's website:

Because we recognize that the “Church” is the people, we want to avoid calling our building or any part of it the “church.” The place where we gather for prayer is called the “Oratory”, which is Latin for “place of prayer.”

The Oratory is designed with the principles of equality of celebration, participation verses spectation, and flexibility of liturgical space.

The altar table and the ambo (table of the Word) are placed at opposite ends of the oratory to enable liturgical action to take place in the whole of the oratory. Sitting in the “round,” with the use of chairs, also enables the gathered community not only to be drawn into the liturgy, but to face one another and to acknowledge Christ’s presence in the other. The use of chairs, instead of pews, also allows us to be more flexible in the liturgical use of our space. (source)

I'm looking forward to returning to a configuration like this for Advent this year. We learned a few things from previous experiments that will help in the next iteration.

-t

Baptism

A priest friend passed this along to me. I can sympathize...



British church humor is just too perfect!

-t

No Country for Old Men - Post Script

Seeing my first post on the topic, a friend pointed me to an article in Wycliffe's newsletter about the movie "No Country for Old Men."

In "Praying the Psalms with No Country for Old Men," David Tiessen posits that NCFOM, like the psalms, explores the reality of a violent and desperate age and yet points to a distant glowing hope:

In the spare, minimalist terms of old westerns such as "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly," the film offers a meditation on the shift from the 'old country' of the trusting relations upon which neighbourliness and care for strangers is built and in which justice would prevail, to the emerging 'new country' of the violence of selfish greed and remorseless individualism which drives even the law to despair. The march of violence seems inexorable and inevitable, and as the film progresses we discover through and along with the characters the alternatives before them: join the game for one’s own gain but ultimately succumb to the inevitability of a violent end; risk resistance at the cost of the despair and exhaustion of watching the wicked triumph; resist the game on alternative (nonviolent) terms. In this film the results of these alternatives don’t look much different – it is always the violent and the wicked who seem to triumph: there is no country left for the ‘old men’ who presume the good. It is the bad and the ugly who win. It is Psalm 10, verses 1-11.

....Yes, the march of violence seems inevitable, but in the end there is a glimmer of hope that alternative forms of resistance are right in themselves and, at the very end, there is a final ‘verse’ that is the film’s prayer and benediction: Where it seems that God has all but abandoned us to the violent night, there remains the dream of a glowing fire somewhere up ahead in the dark, beckoning us on. With that, "No Country for Old Men" offers our culture a contemporary Psalm, turning us in the end to listen and look again for God in the dark. (source)

I would add that the movie seems to have an embedded critique about the "in my day things weren't so bad" argument. The fact is that "this country" has always been hard on people. So what does it mean, philosophically, that we feel such displacement, as though we were more suited to another age?

-t

Holy Cross Sunday

It's about 45 minutes before worship this morning. The choir is rehearsing. Most of the stuff that I need to do has been done. This year the feast of the Holy Cross falls on a Sunday, which is great, since usually it gets relegated to a weekday and is therefore ignored in parishes that don't celebrate weekday feasts. Holy Cross is special to me because, of course, it is the patronal festival for the Order of the Holy Cross, with whom I've enjoyed a long relationship.

Yesterday the Holy Cross here in Toronto hosted their yearly BBQ. I saw some folks I haven't seen for a while, which is always nice. People were feeling good and enjoying themselves despite the rain which trapped us inside.

I do miss staying at the West Park house of the Order. It's been my privilege to do several long retreats there. My favorite was probably the summer between my second and third years of seminary. There were three of us "Residents" at the monastery that summer: a priest on sabbatical, a seminarian from Princeton, and me. We fell into a wonderfully mature and helpful way of being together in which we all thrived. We would sometimes gather as needed to talk through difficult things and pray with and for each other. Other times we would go out together on excursions with or without the monks to see a movie or have a picnic. But mostly we just lived the monastic life of praying, eating, and working with the same patient persistence as the river that flows by the monastery.

People are arriving and I still do have a couple of things to do before the service starts...

-t

No Country for Old Men

We saw the movie "No Country For Old Men," last night. It's a very powerful film that explores fate, change, and the elemental forces that drive out lives. Haunting ending. I'm trying to discern about whether (and how) to preach about it.

-t

PhotoSynth of Hagia Sophia

This is a PhotoSynth created by National Geographic of Hagia Sophia


I love how this technology makes it so intuitive to visualize the thee-dimensional space.

-t