Random, Roots, and Holidays

Haven't posted a really long post, in a while...abit overdue.

My husband grew up pretty liberal Episcopalian before they were liberal the way we know liberal. One of his grandmothers was Russian Orthodox from Ukraine, his grandfather from Macedonia. His grandfather went to church, too. One of the most powerful gospel messages we ever heard was in their church one Palm Sunday. It was very simple but very powerful in it's simplicity without leaving anything out or watering anything down. Sorry, I don't remember the details, just the effect.

His other grandmother was Swedish Finn. All three came from Revolutions that took close family members. His Finnish grandmother remembered running with her mother from soldiers on horses and hiding in a church. She was Lutheran. His grandfather from Germany came over between the wars. His mom went to church. His dad didn't, but their art was rich with religious themes. Sadly, we really didn't notice that (or they didn't display that art) until after they passed away. His parents were first generation here. He grew up in Manhattan, started very poor but went to private school. His mom taught art there. He was a strong math/science student and stayed in private schools. His German grandfather died before he was born. His orthodox grandparents lived half-way across the country but they were always an integral part of his identity.

My family's been here longer than you want to know- Reformed and Presbyterian rooted in most of the non-Mediterranean, non-Scandinavian countries of Western Europe. My dad was a farmer. We went to public school. We were always part of a church. All of my grandparents went to the same church we did until we moved at the end of 8th grade. No longer visible parts of who we are but essential parts of our identity and the identities of our children.

George and I were born-again, baptized in the Spirit, etc, etc, in the early 70's, spent a lot of years as part of two non-denominational charismatic churches - one with ECC-Presbyterian roots and one with Church of Christ roots, a very short season in a very small traditional ECC church and then we agreed to help support an ECC postmodern church plant. Not visibly so, but part of who my children are. The roots of a church and our own family roots affect us whether we want them to or not. When holdays come, for better or for worse, it's hard not to think about church and family if you've had any ties that way. You can probably consider those who've gone before you the unseen community you're part of, for better or for worse. You usually don't see roots either but they hold the tree up, or not.

For a brief year or so we visited churches just because we had never done that and being in a bit of a spiritual walkabout we thought it was worth doing. Actually, that's a really good word for it- a spiritual walkabout. George called it recovering from a spiritual heart attack. We visited churches where we knew people and places we wanted to explore. We even visited the Orthodox church, read Franky Schaeffer's books. We were frustrated with The Church but still after God. Exploring the orthodox church was a really interesting thing to do. It probably left us more open to post-moderns than if we hadn't openned and explored that door. I'm assuming God had a hand in it.

Why did I start this post? Holidays. Church holidays. The Orthodox calendar includes seasons of fasting. Having followed my husband through more diets than you ever want to hear about I thought there's probably alot of health wisdom to have seasons of fasting but scripture doesn't really lay it out like that or maybe it does if you go back to the Hebrew seasons and holidays. More roots. God in His wisdom. . . even food wisdom. The discipline of.... and the freedom from...another paradox. Old roots, new roots. Old memories, new memories. Another paradox. A baby born into poverty and God's king. Yet another paradox. But kids don't think abut all this stuff.

Backing up again, this is the random reason why I was thinking about holidays this morning. In our part of the hemisphere one of the things I look forward to this time of year is the crescent moon hanging in the sky. Funny, I only noticed it a couple of years ago. I don't know how far away you can be and still see the same phase of the moon, how many states, how many countries. I was admiring it again this morning at 6 am when I took the dogs out. It's always so much like a cradle hanging in the sky - a cradle to rock a baby. Sometimes you might be able to see a really bright star but I think the cradle's always there. Something for kids. Sometimes planetariums do programs at Christmastime about the Bethlehem star. This morning the cradle moon disappeared behind the clouds as I was going into the house, but it was still there.