NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

We are now in Advent, the church's season of waiting and preparation for the birth of Jesus and  Christmas is approaching.   Each year at this time my inbox gathers various & sundry emails about those terrible people who don't say Merry Christmas, who want to call it a holiday tree and not a Christmas tree, who want to take the Christ out of Christmas! Instead of worrying about what the other thinks and does, it behooves us to look at just what each of us is celebrating, personally. If we are honest with ourselves, I think we just might be surprised! As I listen to the Christmas/seasonal songs on the media and in the malls, I find myself asking myself the question: Just how many different things are we celebrating on December 25?  Because I do think there is more than one celebration, probably more than two or three for most of us. Oh yes, we may say we are celebrating Christmas, because it is the birth of Jesus but is that really all….. or is it even one of the main

“Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah … - and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground. But Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.” [Genesis 19:24-26 - The Message Bible] I”m sure we have all heard this story the follows Abraham’s bargaining with God that he not destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if only 10 decent people can be found within them.  Lot’s wife was one of the lucky ones that the angels saved when 10 decent men couldn’t be found. She has always been portrayed as someone who didn't follow the directive from God and so was punished by being turned into a pillar of salt.  Whenever I take the time to reflect on some of these ancient stories, I wonder just why they have been passed down for over three centuries. What is it about a particular story that has earned it a place throughout all this time? What lesson is it telling that

Last week I was glancing through some books that were lying around in the church which, as a former librarian, is a favourite pastime of mine. The top one was a thin pamphlet, was called 'The Life of Christ Jesus in Bible Language'. Intrigued, and wondering just what a book written in Greek or perhaps Hebrew, was doing in an Anglican Church, I opened it to have a look at the title page. Apparently The Bible Language was the language of the King James Version of the bible. Who knew? As I was pondering this, I was reminded of a reader of this blog saying to me a few months ago, that she enjoyed reading ‘Nudgings’ because it was down to earth and she could understand what was being said.  That same day, a friend, while talking of her spiritual journey, spoke of a priest who had made a difference in her life, because he spoke in words that she could understand and that made sense to her.  As these three events came together in my mind, I began to reflect that the lesson to be

‘Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years  ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.’  - Robert F. Kennedy As the Middle East, as well as many other places on this globe, reverberates with the sounds of gunfire and of bombs detonating, we take November the 11th each year to remember.  We gather - the young, the old, the school children and those not working - while a minute of silence may be observed in the workplace for those not able to attend. But what are we remembering?  There will be talk of the sacrifice made by many men & women, not just in World War 1 but in the many wars and conflicts since that time: all those who gave their lives in service to their country, whatever country that might be.  But do we remember the 'whys'? The reasons that these conflicts occurred? The political, territorial, and economic conflicts between peoples and nations? While the specifics have been different in each confl

I was seven years old and had just moved to a new community 2 years earlier. Blackie, a small black kitten (the imagination of an almost five year old apparently isn't well developed...lol..) came with us and became my anchor in this new place.  Then one evening Blackie didn't return from the mousing with which he filled his days. I had faith though, and scoured the surrounding fields for days and weeks looking and calling for him. There was nary a faint meow! Then, although it broke my heart, I convinced myself that he had found another home that he liked better, but still might turn up eventually when he remembered me.  It was much later, years after my father died, that my mother told me he had found Blackie dead on the highway in front of our house after being hit by a car. His reason for not telling me was he didn't want me to be upset! Little did he know that telling me he would have prevented decades of my feeling abandoned by the first ‘person’ outside of my fa