This is why I hate summer.
Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. "Strongly dislike" summer is a more appropriate descriptor.
You can always pile on more layers to keep warm. And in a worst case scenario, hypothermia's not an altogether bad way to go.
There's only so much that decency will allow you to strip down to, and you can get to the point of indecency and still be uncomfortable (and have trouble breathing to boot). Plus, dehydration and heat stroke are both crummy ways to check out, if you ask me.
In other local news, this conscientious rogue recycler is ecstatic that the new recycling center in Milton will actually take paperboard (as in, cereal boxes). I bet they'll also take #1 and #2 plastic even if it's not shaped like a bottle. Recon is needed, but if it is true, you know what that means: buh-bye recycling Nazi (he's gotten particularly eagle-eyed this summer - I'm afraid to try putting any non-bottle shaped stuff in anymore)!
The other recent excitement in the borough was a black bear who "wandered out of his habitat" to rummage through dumpsters downtown. On my way to the bank yesterday afternoon, I noticed a large crowd (including a Daily Item reporter) had gathered by the fire company, and the police had the roads to it blocked off, and there was an inordinant number of people milling about the streets of downtown in general. Now I know why. Hopefully the authorities returned this Pooh bear to the correct Hundred Acre Wood, or I imagine he'll be awfully lonely without his pals!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Strikes and Gutters
Strikes
The Global Mission Event
The GME is always a lot of fun and very inspirational, and this year was no exception. The music was fantastic, heard some excellent speakers, got to catch up with old friends and make some new friends (Sarah was my roommate for the event, and she and I were busy little bees, cross-pollinating the various circles of Lutherans in which we each live and move and have our being). And I won an iPod nano from Grace Matters. I never win anything, so I was really surprised when they called my name, and then I felt kinda stupid for entering the drawing, since I already have a regular sized iPod (which, ironically, I finally asked for last Christmas after failing to win the iPod from Grace Matters or LWR at several previous churchwide events). But, I will share the love and pass it on to a worthy friend.
Facebook
I finally submitted to the peer pressure and signed myself up on facebook. I do have to say, I have been absolutely amazed at how many people I have reconnected with this past week - it has been really fun to get back in touch with friends from previous chapters of my life that I had lost track of over the years - each time I open the account, there's a new message or new posting from an old friend - it's felt kinda like Christmas in July. And I'm digging the Scrabulous application, even though Melissa is totally creaming me in our current game.
Friday Night Jam Session
I went over to Breen and Patrick's Friday night to help them make and can blueberry jam. Having already made a stainy red mess of myself a few weeks ago when helping to can cherries, I had the foresight to ask
It was a lot of fun, and my blue shirt was no worse for the wear this time around.
Target
Ok, I know this is total idolatry, but praise be the gods of commerce, there is now a Target open within twenty minutes of where I live. Target is as ubiquitous in MN as Starbucks is in Seattle, but in central PA they are few and far between. Previously I had to drive over an hour to get to any of the nearest stores, which my eco-conscious self couldn't justify doing for just a few items. This has meant I've had to break my long-standing Wal-Mart boycott several times since moving here - I've gotten rather creative to keep it going, but sometimes it was the only place that was open and had what I needed in an emergency. But with this new Target opening by the Lycoming Mall, and another one soon to be open on the way to Breen and Patrick's, the Wal-Mart boycott is completely and officially back on!
Gutters
Oversleeping (almost)
My biggest anxiety dreams are always worship related - most often about my sermon, sometimes about other aspects of worship, and sometimes about sleeping through worship. Today I nearly made that last one come true - I completely forgot to set an alarm when I went to bed last night. Normally I set three just to be safe (this would be another one of those things I'm a little OCD about) - the first one is to wake me up, the second is in case I accidentally turn the first one off trying to hit the snooze button (I am notorious for that), and the third one runs on a battery in case the power goes out in the middle of Saturday night (which has actually happened a couple of times). Last night I forgot to set any of them, and I woke up on my own at ten of nine - worship is at 9:30 and it takes me 15 minutes to get to church. So after beginning the Lord's day with a string of expletives not suitable for reprint, I got ready in record time and made it to church with 5 minutes to spare. Like I say, I'm kind of OCD about my Sunday morning ritual, I feel too rushed on the rare days that I'm pulling into the parking lot at 9, so this totally threw me for a loop. I'm grateful that it wasn't any worse, that I did wake up when I did and make it by the skin of my teeth, but my whole day has felt out of whack as a result.
And on top of that, I've got a case of
Writer's Block
I have not been happy with my last two sermons. And the stupid thing is, it's not for being at a loss for material - in my head I've known exactly what I've wanted to say, in my heart I've known exactly what I felt called to preach, but I've been completely tongue-tied when it comes to communicating it to my congregation. I had four false starts on my sermon yesterday, two of which I got 3/4 of the way through the sermon before I realized the approach I was taking was just meandering around the subject and wasn't going to get my point across. I'm hoping I break out of it soon, but I'm a little nervous about this coming Sunday, because once again I've already got a pretty clear idea of what I feel called to preach. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. . .
So that's the news from PA this week. Thanks for stopping by to read it.
C.
The Global Mission Event
The GME is always a lot of fun and very inspirational, and this year was no exception. The music was fantastic, heard some excellent speakers, got to catch up with old friends and make some new friends (Sarah was my roommate for the event, and she and I were busy little bees, cross-pollinating the various circles of Lutherans in which we each live and move and have our being). And I won an iPod nano from Grace Matters. I never win anything, so I was really surprised when they called my name, and then I felt kinda stupid for entering the drawing, since I already have a regular sized iPod (which, ironically, I finally asked for last Christmas after failing to win the iPod from Grace Matters or LWR at several previous churchwide events). But, I will share the love and pass it on to a worthy friend.
I finally submitted to the peer pressure and signed myself up on facebook. I do have to say, I have been absolutely amazed at how many people I have reconnected with this past week - it has been really fun to get back in touch with friends from previous chapters of my life that I had lost track of over the years - each time I open the account, there's a new message or new posting from an old friend - it's felt kinda like Christmas in July. And I'm digging the Scrabulous application, even though Melissa is totally creaming me in our current game.
Friday Night Jam Session
I went over to Breen and Patrick's Friday night to help them make and can blueberry jam. Having already made a stainy red mess of myself a few weeks ago when helping to can cherries, I had the foresight to ask
"Am I going to look like I murdered a Smurf when all is said and done?"
"Probably."
"Ok, I'll dress appropriately."
It was a lot of fun, and my blue shirt was no worse for the wear this time around.
Target
Ok, I know this is total idolatry, but praise be the gods of commerce, there is now a Target open within twenty minutes of where I live. Target is as ubiquitous in MN as Starbucks is in Seattle, but in central PA they are few and far between. Previously I had to drive over an hour to get to any of the nearest stores, which my eco-conscious self couldn't justify doing for just a few items. This has meant I've had to break my long-standing Wal-Mart boycott several times since moving here - I've gotten rather creative to keep it going, but sometimes it was the only place that was open and had what I needed in an emergency. But with this new Target opening by the Lycoming Mall, and another one soon to be open on the way to Breen and Patrick's, the Wal-Mart boycott is completely and officially back on!
Gutters
Oversleeping (almost)
My biggest anxiety dreams are always worship related - most often about my sermon, sometimes about other aspects of worship, and sometimes about sleeping through worship. Today I nearly made that last one come true - I completely forgot to set an alarm when I went to bed last night. Normally I set three just to be safe (this would be another one of those things I'm a little OCD about) - the first one is to wake me up, the second is in case I accidentally turn the first one off trying to hit the snooze button (I am notorious for that), and the third one runs on a battery in case the power goes out in the middle of Saturday night (which has actually happened a couple of times). Last night I forgot to set any of them, and I woke up on my own at ten of nine - worship is at 9:30 and it takes me 15 minutes to get to church. So after beginning the Lord's day with a string of expletives not suitable for reprint, I got ready in record time and made it to church with 5 minutes to spare. Like I say, I'm kind of OCD about my Sunday morning ritual, I feel too rushed on the rare days that I'm pulling into the parking lot at 9, so this totally threw me for a loop. I'm grateful that it wasn't any worse, that I did wake up when I did and make it by the skin of my teeth, but my whole day has felt out of whack as a result.
And on top of that, I've got a case of
Writer's Block
I have not been happy with my last two sermons. And the stupid thing is, it's not for being at a loss for material - in my head I've known exactly what I've wanted to say, in my heart I've known exactly what I felt called to preach, but I've been completely tongue-tied when it comes to communicating it to my congregation. I had four false starts on my sermon yesterday, two of which I got 3/4 of the way through the sermon before I realized the approach I was taking was just meandering around the subject and wasn't going to get my point across. I'm hoping I break out of it soon, but I'm a little nervous about this coming Sunday, because once again I've already got a pretty clear idea of what I feel called to preach. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. . .
So that's the news from PA this week. Thanks for stopping by to read it.
C.
Keeping Jesus Out of the Box
T ended a recent post with this line over at the Charmer blog, and I really like it, especially since it seems to be the theme of these past couple of weeks for me. Right before I left for the Global Mission Event, my congregation was visited by a man with a very large beard, who showed up halfway through the service, carrying his own Bible (already a suspicious clue - Lutherans rarely if ever carry their Bibles with them into worship).
Suspicions aside for a moment, I have decided that people who show up in the middle of the service are, in general, never good news. They always have some sort of personal agenda they are trying to accomplish. They are clearly not interested in worshipping God, or they would have bothered to arrive on time.
In this case, the man was also clearly not interested in joining with the body of Christ in a common meal, as he opted to refrain from participating in communion (and the way I invite people to the table, it's clear that this is Christ's table and all are welcome - I mean, I've had Catholic grandmothers visiting their kids who've told me in no uncertain terms before the service that they wouldn't be taking communion with us, who've nevertheless come forward after that invitation).
But nope, this guy was just there to hijack our Sunday School class after worship, to beat people over the head with the Bible (which he interpreted with a very selective literalism) and explain to us all very clearly how we're condemning ourselves to hell.
Sigh.
When I realized what he was up to, I joined the class. A couple of them were arguing with him, but the rest were pretty much silent. I entered into the fray, and quickly realized this guy was not interested in an actual discussion, with a respectful give and take, where one genuinely listens to another's opinion as much as one shares one's own point of view. All he wanted to do was triumph in a proof-texting war (where the text in question could only legitimately be interpreted according to his point of view).
Before I had realized what he was up to, when he came through the line to greet me after church, he had asked if he could come talk to me sometime. I told him I would be away at a conference but he could call the church the following week. I thought maybe after our little showdown that Sunday he would change his mind, but he actually called this week to set up an appointment. I firmly but politely told him he had made both his agenda and his tactics pretty clear the week before, and I had made my feelings regarding them equally clear, so I didn't see any point to meeting with him further - it would honestly be a waste of both of our time. He was as relentless as a telemarketer in trying to get me to change my mind, so I finally had to hang up on him.
Once again, I am amazed at how narrow and constricted and vengeful some peoples' view of God is. One of the main speakers at the Global Mission Event, Dr. Anton Tikhomerov, spoke exactly to the dangers and abuses of such fundamentalism - he actually sees it as a greater threat to the faith than atheism. He had a great line about fundamentalism changing the Bible, that instead of being a love letter to us from God, it becomes a stringently executed pre-nuptial contract. Great image, and sadly, too, too true for far too many people. . .but each of us can only fight it where we're at.
So here's to keeping Jesus out of the box here in central PA,
Catrina
Addendum from 7/28:
I'm getting caught up on some blog reading, and noticed Milton has also recently been thinking about this subject:
Read the fuller context of these eloquent thoughts and more over at don't eat alone.
Suspicions aside for a moment, I have decided that people who show up in the middle of the service are, in general, never good news. They always have some sort of personal agenda they are trying to accomplish. They are clearly not interested in worshipping God, or they would have bothered to arrive on time.
In this case, the man was also clearly not interested in joining with the body of Christ in a common meal, as he opted to refrain from participating in communion (and the way I invite people to the table, it's clear that this is Christ's table and all are welcome - I mean, I've had Catholic grandmothers visiting their kids who've told me in no uncertain terms before the service that they wouldn't be taking communion with us, who've nevertheless come forward after that invitation).
But nope, this guy was just there to hijack our Sunday School class after worship, to beat people over the head with the Bible (which he interpreted with a very selective literalism) and explain to us all very clearly how we're condemning ourselves to hell.
Sigh.
When I realized what he was up to, I joined the class. A couple of them were arguing with him, but the rest were pretty much silent. I entered into the fray, and quickly realized this guy was not interested in an actual discussion, with a respectful give and take, where one genuinely listens to another's opinion as much as one shares one's own point of view. All he wanted to do was triumph in a proof-texting war (where the text in question could only legitimately be interpreted according to his point of view).
Before I had realized what he was up to, when he came through the line to greet me after church, he had asked if he could come talk to me sometime. I told him I would be away at a conference but he could call the church the following week. I thought maybe after our little showdown that Sunday he would change his mind, but he actually called this week to set up an appointment. I firmly but politely told him he had made both his agenda and his tactics pretty clear the week before, and I had made my feelings regarding them equally clear, so I didn't see any point to meeting with him further - it would honestly be a waste of both of our time. He was as relentless as a telemarketer in trying to get me to change my mind, so I finally had to hang up on him.
Once again, I am amazed at how narrow and constricted and vengeful some peoples' view of God is. One of the main speakers at the Global Mission Event, Dr. Anton Tikhomerov, spoke exactly to the dangers and abuses of such fundamentalism - he actually sees it as a greater threat to the faith than atheism. He had a great line about fundamentalism changing the Bible, that instead of being a love letter to us from God, it becomes a stringently executed pre-nuptial contract. Great image, and sadly, too, too true for far too many people. . .but each of us can only fight it where we're at.
So here's to keeping Jesus out of the box here in central PA,
Catrina
Addendum from 7/28:
I'm getting caught up on some blog reading, and noticed Milton has also recently been thinking about this subject:
When it comes time for the sorting, if God says to me I missed the point because I let too many people in, I will smile and take the hit. What would break my heart would be if God said, “I had room for everyone. Why did you keep closing the door?”
Read the fuller context of these eloquent thoughts and more over at don't eat alone.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Golden Calves and Feautor
Friday, July 11, 2008
St. Mark's Mission Trip Blog
I'm too tired and it's too late for a witty title tonight.
This past weekend, we had the good fortune of hosting my home congregation, St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran of Circle Pines, MN, as they were on their way back from a mission trip in VA. You can read all about their adventures in their blog, which I think is a really cool way to document the trip and communicate with the folks back home (Robert or Kyle, if you're reading this, can we figure out how to do something similar on our church website?).
In any case, we had a great time together -as you can read on the blog, we were "one of the best days" on the trip! On a personal note, it was fun for me (and I think fun for them, too) to have some friends from home see where I'm at and see me lead worship as an honest to goodness pastor. And I think it was nice for my congregation here to see me a little more "in context," so to speak.
What I mean by that is, cultural context is important. In my time here, I've gotten to know the central PA cultural context, but most of my parishioners don't know or understand the context from which I come. I also mean that social history is important, especially in rural culture- most of my folks have known each other their whole lives, and knew parents and grandparents before that. I have that kind of history in MN, with St. Mark, but not here in PA. So, by hosting a mess of Minnesotans from my home church, my current parish had a chance to encounter my cultural context and social history in a way they hadn't up to now, which maybe helps them understand a little more of where I'm coming from sometimes (like why I'm always pushing them to try what to them are "new" hymns, because I come from a very musical congregation that sings from an extensive canon of hymnody).
Alright, I could keep reflecting, but I've got another funeral tomorrow, so I'd best hit the hay.
Thanks for stopping by,
C.
This past weekend, we had the good fortune of hosting my home congregation, St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran of Circle Pines, MN, as they were on their way back from a mission trip in VA. You can read all about their adventures in their blog, which I think is a really cool way to document the trip and communicate with the folks back home (Robert or Kyle, if you're reading this, can we figure out how to do something similar on our church website?).
In any case, we had a great time together -as you can read on the blog, we were "one of the best days" on the trip! On a personal note, it was fun for me (and I think fun for them, too) to have some friends from home see where I'm at and see me lead worship as an honest to goodness pastor. And I think it was nice for my congregation here to see me a little more "in context," so to speak.
What I mean by that is, cultural context is important. In my time here, I've gotten to know the central PA cultural context, but most of my parishioners don't know or understand the context from which I come. I also mean that social history is important, especially in rural culture- most of my folks have known each other their whole lives, and knew parents and grandparents before that. I have that kind of history in MN, with St. Mark, but not here in PA. So, by hosting a mess of Minnesotans from my home church, my current parish had a chance to encounter my cultural context and social history in a way they hadn't up to now, which maybe helps them understand a little more of where I'm coming from sometimes (like why I'm always pushing them to try what to them are "new" hymns, because I come from a very musical congregation that sings from an extensive canon of hymnody).
Alright, I could keep reflecting, but I've got another funeral tomorrow, so I'd best hit the hay.
Thanks for stopping by,
C.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
As If I Didn't Have Enough Books on My List. . .
my friend Choral Girl had to go and post this "Big Read" list on her blog. Apparently it's to encourage folks to read more. According to her original post, most people have only read six of the books on this list. As you can see by those in bold below, I've got a few more than six under my belt, but I was an English major (we tend to read a lot more than the average bear) - and I'm still feeling like a slacker when I see all the unbolded titles beckoning. . .
I do wonder about the formation of this list - it seems rather Austen- and Dickens-centric to me. And completely lacking any titles by the likes of Hemingway, Poe, and Twain (undeniable members of the canon), or Erdrich, Kingsolver, and Chabon (popular modern writers who will certainly be included in the canon 50 years from now). I'm just saying, they could have included some of these other authors instead of including so many titles by a few rather prolific authors.
Incidentally, Choral Girl is a pretty darn good writer herself, and has some beautifully poignant thoughts on spiritual generosity that everyone should read and ponder.
And now, without further ado, the Big Read List:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I do wonder about the formation of this list - it seems rather Austen- and Dickens-centric to me. And completely lacking any titles by the likes of Hemingway, Poe, and Twain (undeniable members of the canon), or Erdrich, Kingsolver, and Chabon (popular modern writers who will certainly be included in the canon 50 years from now). I'm just saying, they could have included some of these other authors instead of including so many titles by a few rather prolific authors.
Incidentally, Choral Girl is a pretty darn good writer herself, and has some beautifully poignant thoughts on spiritual generosity that everyone should read and ponder.
And now, without further ado, the Big Read List:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Cities Sampler Volume 20
In honor of the 20th anniversary, the Sampler is going to be a double disc this year, which means it's probably going to be totally awesome and nearly impossible to get your hands on a copy. The copyright folks only permit Cities97 to press so many copies every year, and it used to be you could get a copy of the Sampler (always released mid-Novemberish) up to the week before Christmas. But a tipping point came when I was in seminary, and now on the day of the release you pretty much have to be in line before Target opens in order to snag a copy - they'll sell out within half an hour of the store's opening.
This makes it especially challenging for someone who lives in PA to get a hold of one of these CDs. :) This past year's sampler was really good, so I had both parents on the job. I was completely annoying, calling them both about an hour before Target would open in MN and asking them to try and get me a copy (interestingly, both of them reacted the same way to my early morning call: "You're serious???" "C'mon, for Christmas," I pleaded). I figured Flaketown would be less busy and mom would easily score a CD, but surprisingly, they sold out before Edina, where dad was victorious.
But I digress. . .my original point in writing this was to say that Cities97 is asking listeners to pick the cover for the upcoming volume 20. So go cast a vote. I'm personally a fan of number 3 (though 2 is also not bad).
Peace,
C.
This makes it especially challenging for someone who lives in PA to get a hold of one of these CDs. :) This past year's sampler was really good, so I had both parents on the job. I was completely annoying, calling them both about an hour before Target would open in MN and asking them to try and get me a copy (interestingly, both of them reacted the same way to my early morning call: "You're serious???" "C'mon, for Christmas," I pleaded). I figured Flaketown would be less busy and mom would easily score a CD, but surprisingly, they sold out before Edina, where dad was victorious.
But I digress. . .my original point in writing this was to say that Cities97 is asking listeners to pick the cover for the upcoming volume 20. So go cast a vote. I'm personally a fan of number 3 (though 2 is also not bad).
Peace,
C.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Travelblog: Pfingsten Hochzeit
(Adri a Burki)
So, the real reason I was in Europe a couple months ago was to attend Adriana and Burkhard's wedding in Ottendorf-Okrilla (a village 30 minutes north of Dresden). They were married on Pentecost weekend, which was the most appropriate day possible to celebrate their union, as it was ultimately a quadrilingual wedding!
(All dolled up and ready to go!)
Adri is Slovak (and ethnically part Hungarian as well), and Burkhard is German, so the entire ceremony was conducted in both languages - first Pastor Matthias would speak in German, then Vladimir (a friend getting his PhD in theology) would speak in Slovak; we alternated languages on each verse of the hymns, and they each spoke their vows in their native tongue. The sermon would have been too cumbersome to go back and forth like that, so Matthias wrote it early enough to be translated, and all the Slovaks had a special insert in their bulletin so they could follow what he was saying (I was on my own to keep up with the German, but that was good practice, and I could follow most of it). Then they asked Burkhard's father, Adri's sister, their friend Adrian, and myself to come forward at the end of the service to each say a blessing and prayer in our native language, which is where things got quadrilingual as Hungarian and English were added to the mix.
So like I say, the day before Pentecost was the perfect day to celebrate this wedding!
(Can we set a table or what?)
Both the service and the reception afterwards were absolutely beautiful. Since Slovakia and Germany have differing customs, they really strove to blend their two cultures (as America has its own wedding culture, it was interesting to me to see where things were similar and where different). So, immediately after the wedding, they had a receiving line and took pictures with all of the guests, then we had cake and coffee (a German custom). There was an official wedding cake but then the guests were also expected to bring cakes to share during this time.
(Look at all that cake!)
After cake, the "program" began. This is also a German custom, and basically recurs through the rest of the evening. The program may or may not have anything to do with the wedding itself - activities ran the gamut from random silly skits and songs to large group folk dancing to skits specific to the couple and a version of the newlywed game, etc.
So there was some program, then we ate dinner, then some more program, then time for talking, interspersed with more program. Around 10 pm or so began the dancing (the Slovak custom), and at midnight all the women gathered around Adri and sang a folk song that was about giving up her veil (a symbol of single maidenhood that must be put away now that she's a married woman), and then the couple served another special, very sweet cake (all this is also Slovak custom). Sometime after this the group started to disperse.
(Adri and her Keretzmama - "Godmother" in Hungarian - with the youngest guest, die kleine Magdalena)
By American standards, this was a rather "small" wedding, but by European standards it was rather large, because they wanted a number of their friends to join the celebration. In America it also seems so much of the wedding accoutrements are bought from some store (often specializing in the wedding industry) and the couple's main tasks are to just pick out everything they want. This was a much more "organic" experience (and my impression is that such practices are more typical of European weddings - at least, of the circle of Europeans that I roll with).
Their clothing and flowers were purchased in the usual places, and the food itself was catered, but all the decorations and programs were designed and made either by Adri herself or by family and friends. A group of us spent all day Friday getting the church's community center ready for the reception (I had no idea I could do napkin origami!), and everyone also pitched in to help tear down when the party was over. All of the cakes were homemade, and friends of Burkhard's brother were hired to serve as waitstaff to help keep things flowing smoothly. Naturally, this all helped to make the cost of the wedding very reasonable, and had the added bonus of providing more time for visiting with the couple and fellow guests on Friday as we set up. And I can honestly say it was one of the most elegant, classy weddings I have ever attended, so it just goes to show you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to have a beautiful celebration.
So that was the Pfingsten Hochzeit. Tune in next time for more about the rest of the week in Dresden, generally.
Peace out,
C.
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