Flappers

Outside the wild waves tossed; on board one night we all dressed up in Roaring Twenties costumes and enjoyed the frivolity of boa feathers, beads and fringe and flapper dresses. 

Not to mention the odd gangster or two.

There is a time to meditate, and a time to party. I’m sure it says that in Ecclesiastes, doesn’t it?

Yeast

Been working on our traditional Christmas morning Potica. I bake a bread product with yeast once a year. Every Christmas finds me trying to make the equivalents from an American packet of yeast to a British one, figure out how to translate an old-fashioned recipe direction for dissolving the yeast first in warm water into using the new fast-acting yeast which just gets mixed in. 

Then there is the temperature in my home. Baltic at the best of times. So on this one day of the year I need to throw caution to the wind, push the ON button on the heat and enjoy the warmth.

Got started a bit late today and so, well into the evening, I am still waiting for the wreath-shaped potica’s to rise the second time, now filled with the yummy ground walnut mixture. I’ve got pans of boiling water in the oven with the two potica’s, hoping they will do the trick. 

I don’t plan to stay up all night waiting, so at some point I will just call time, turn on the oven and go for it, hoping that this will be a good year for it.

Funnily enough, Jesus mentioned yeast a few times as he taught his disciples. He described the Kingdom of heaven as being like yeast, which, when worked into the dough, caused the bread to rise.

He also said that the Kingdom of heaven is within you when Jesus is Lord of your life, so the hope – no, the expectation – is that as you work through the ‘dough’ of your life, that ‘yeast’ will touch every aspect of your life and affect it for the better.

I don’t know how far we can carry this analogy, but today I think that I failed to have the liquid warm enough when I added the yeast to it, and that has slowed down the action (and I wondered for awhile if it would prevent it from working at all). If we don’t keep the flame of love for Jesus fanned and burning brightly in our hearts, the yeast of the Kingdom may not be very effective.

Despite the hectic nature of the season, take time to fan the flame of love for Jesus in your heart, so that as you socialise and worship and celebrate this year, the Kingdom of heaven will affect all those with whom you party.

There's something about babies

My four were all summer babies. September – August – July – June. Today is the birthday of one of them. 

I’ve just watched the news, where the coverage is all about the royal baby born yesterday to Kate and Will. Well, why not give us an expansive report? Usually our screens are full of injustice and violence and hatred. How nice to focus on something as wonderful as a new baby.

Not everyone is that excited. Some are positively incensed that we should waste our precious time on this media circus. Those are the people who are calculating what a waste of money he is bound to be over the years of his lifetime. Let’s ditch this anachronism, they declare, and get back to the Serious Stuff. 

Two thousand years ago the heavens themselves were excited about the birth of a new baby. The angels formed a choir and just couldn’t help belting out a few gospel tracts. 

Some wise men were guided to find Jesus, and they were excited, too. Looking for him cost them something – dangerous travel, loss of earnings while they were away, possible threats from robbers or even the local despot, not to mention the expensive gifts they brought him. They knew this baby was someone special, and they were excited to invest their time, effort and money in him. 

The sitting king in the region, Herod, feared that this new baby was, indeed, someone special, and as such, a threat to his power. So he went back to the Serious Stuff pretty quick. More injustice, violence and hatred. Kill all the baby boys of that age, in that village. That should do it, he thought.

He missed the point though. The Kingdom of God was born on earth that night, and the earth has never been the same again. With Jesus came a resurgence of hope, of life, of love, of joy.

Jesus turned everything upside down, so that joy, hope, life and love became the real Serious Stuff. He freed us to love life, to laugh a lot, to party. He taught us that the Serious Stuff is not necessarily always that Serious. 

My summer baby born 31 years ago today also brought hope, life, love and joy. Our hearts sang with praise of the God who made him, on that night when he was born. Another wee miracle born to sing the praises of his God. 

Well. There is just something about babies, isn’t there?