Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Blessings in the New Year!!!

Hope you all had a swell Christmas. We are certainly having a relaxing time at home... and so thankful to be here.

So from one handsome chap to the next...

hugs and love

from the Nicholsons

downtime

After making it through my first semester at Regent i've had some time to bask in the glories of great music and writing... i thought i'd pass some of it along...

[tunes]
David Bazan - Fewer Moving Parts
This cd has rocked my world. The title track (electric version) has been stuck in my head for days. once again, our good man David (former frontman of Pedro the Lion) has delivered the goods.

Damien Jurado - Now That I'm In Your Shadow
I'm never disappointed with a new Damien Jurado CD. I was listening to this in my headphones (which by the way, i've learned that you've never really listened to a CD until you've heard it through headphones... so much to find when you block out all other noise) and i had to put my pencil down on several occasions on account of being deeply moved by the lyrics. in typical jurado fashion he covers many darker themes (i.e. adultery, death/murder, etc...) but this album is one of the most beautifully tragic pieces of work i've heard in a long time.

Sufjan Stevens - Hark! Songs for Christmas (vol. 1-5)
This man has single-handedly redeemed Christmas music from the syrupy, Walmart branded stuff we are bombarded with at the mall. His rendition of Holy, Holy, Holy is one of the most worshipful songs i've come across... it's beautiful.

Ane Brun - A Temporary Dive
simple and beautiful folky music.

Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
again, just simple, but beautiful folk music.

Honourable Mention goes to...
Sigur Ros - Takk; The Album Leaf - Into the Blue (although i liked them so much i got burnt out on them and have had to go on a brief sabbatical from them); and an occasional dose of Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself;

if you think my taste in music looks a lot like phil's, it's because i owe credit for my musical tastes to him... and i must say that we're both indebted to Todd for any good taste in music we both may have.

[reads]
Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
This is a great novel by the Vancouver writer. It's a fictional account of a Columbine-esque shooting in a Vancouver highschool. It's a powerful commentary on family tension, love, loss judgment, and hope. I've never read any of his other works, but after this one i'm sold. I just picked up his Life After God novel to read next.

Holy the Firm - Annie Dillard
One of the great things about reading Annie Dillard while on the West Coast is that you not only encounter her work on the page, but all around you. She has a way of drawing with words, and impregnating her language with deep meaning. Only she could write a chapter about a moth flying into a candle and make it so deeply profound. I'm looking forward to finishing this one...

Other Books I'm hoping to get at soon...
Life after God - Douglas Coupland
Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor

[sights]
I've been indulging on the First Season of Arrested Development. I'm hooked.
Let it also be known that i plan my week around The Office.

and finally, our plans for Christmas will come to fruition tomorrow as we board a plane and are Sarnia bound for 2 weeks.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Who needs toys when you have tape?

when i showed this picture to noah he couldn't stop laughing... what a fun age this is!

the call to bear Christ...

A Poetic Commentary on Botticelli's Cestello Annuncation
By Andrew Hudgins

The angel has already said, Be not afraid.
He's said, The power of the Most High
will darken you. Her eyes are downcast and half closed.
And there's a long pause -a pause here of forever-
as the angel crowds her. She backs away,
her left side pressed against the picture frame.


He kneels. He's come in all unearthly innocence
to tell her of glory -not knowing, not remembering
how terrible it is. And Botticelli
gives her eternity to turn, look out the doorway, where
on a far hill floats a castle, and halfway across
the river toward it juts a bridge, not completed-


and neither is the touch, angel to virgin,
both her hands held up, both elegant, one raised
as if to say stop, while the other hand, the right one,
reaches toward his; and, as it does, it parts her blue robe
and reveals the concealed red of her inner garment
to the red tiles of the floor and the red folds


of the angel's robe. But her whole body pulls away.
Only her head, already haloed, bows,
acquiescing. And though she will, she's not yet said,
Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord,
as Botticelli, in his great pity,

lets her refuse, accept, refuse, and think again.

In this picture, in the annunciation itself, and in the story of the incarnation, Mary not only represents herself, but the whole of man and his response to his call to bear the incarnate Christ into a broken world...

May our response be as humble, obedient, and honest as Mary's...

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

Come O Come, Bright Morning Star

A trialsome November has brought a new light to Christmas.

We have become fellow sojourners with the Magi,

Looking to the Bright Morning Star for a glimpse of hope.

Trying not to mourn what we have left behind, squinting to see a the twinkle of light that lies ahead.

Kneeling, pleading “O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”

In chapel on Tuesday a “wise man” spoke of Jesus’ last claim of himself… calling himself Bright Morning Star. He explained that the Bright Morning Star appears in the wee hours of the night after the darkness has been the strongest. It is the first glimpse of light, the first sign of morning, and though it appears so small and distant at times, it tells us that darkness has been defeated and daylight will triumph.

O come, O come Emmanuel!!!

Dante's Divine Comedy...

A poet i am not, and even less so a connoisseur of Medieval literature, but I just finished reading exerpts of Dante's Divine Comedy for my Christian Thought and Culture class. While I have to admit I was drowning in the allegory for 95% of my journey with Dante, I was struck by a few lines at the end of Canto XXXIII when Dante, after journeying through Hell and Purgatory is in Heaven and sees God face to face. (I apologize in advance to all you poets, because I'm just typing it all in one big long line... i know, it's probably like nails on a chalkboard to the poetic...)

In the deep and bright essence of that exalted Light, three circles appeared to me; they had three different colors, but all of them were of the same dimension; one circle seemed reflected by the second, as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles. How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set against my thought!
...
That circle-- which, begotten so, appeared in You as light reflected-- when my eyes had watched it with attention for some time, within itself and colored like itself, to me seemed painted with our effigy, so that my sight was set on it completely.
As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so i searched that strange sight: i wished to see the way in which our human effigy suited the circle and found place in it-- and my own wings were far too weak for that.
But then my mind was struck by light that flashed and, with this light, received what it had asked.

a green christmas?

It's Christmas! Let's be Glad.
Sufjan Stevens

since its Christmas let's be glad.
even if your life's been bad.
there are presents to be had.

take a walk out in the snow.
and hear Santa's, "ho ho ho."
he's got a million miles to go.

la la la la la la ah

sing a carol to your mom.
'cause she knows what's going on.
and she knows if you've been bad or good.

and if you'll get what you deserve.
to be graded on the curve.
oh you got a lot of nerve.

la la la la la la ah

since the year is almost out
lift your hands and give a shout
there's a lot to shout about today

since its Christmas let's be glad.
even if the year's been bad.
there are presents to be had.
a promotion for your dad.

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas lately and how each year the consumerism that drives our Western idea of Christmas drives me almost as crazy as the buttery smooth vocals of the Christmas carols being played in the mall. But on a practical note, I'm wondering what Christmas should look like in the context of my immediate family? Lydia and I were talking about this the other day, and although the issue of Santa really won't need to be resolved for another year now (Noah doesn't know Santa from a hole in the wall at this point)... but I'm really wondering:

Should we allow Santa to bring gifts to our home at Christmas? I'm not proposing the kind of "Santa is evil" mindset, but rather, is it just a fun, mythical element of the Christmas season, or is it something that really contributes to the consumerism that drives our Christmas season, and is it ultimately a barrier to our ability to ever celebrate Christmas in a real way?

This is a difficult thing to resolve in my mind because I don't want to just jump on the fundy bandwagon and revoke my children of the joys of Santa, but i also really don't want them to be writing lists of everything they want for Christmas either-- that just seems wrong to me. The thing i would love to somehow get away from is the "Christmas=presents" mentality. The difficulty also lies in the fact that i know the parents' values are transferred to their children... and i do enjoy giving and receiving gifts, but i am also growing in my intentionality to make the gift giving/receiving a peripheral matter to Christmas, not the core of it.

anyone else processing stuff along these lines?
any thoughts?

Man vs. Nature

November 16th...
Vancouver gets nailed with rain for 2 days without letting up. I'm told that rain is a regular occurance here, which would lead me to believe that the city can handle it. However, this time the tricks of nature prevailed, causing mudslides to plunge into the watersheds that house Vancouver's water supply. Vancouver is forced into a "Boil Water Advisory". We are still boiling water.

Days of boiling water to date: 12
Nature: 1 / Vancouver: 0


November 27th...
Vancouver gets nailed with snow for 2 days without letting up. Snow is new turf for Vancouver. It shows when people look at you funny when you drive somewhere after it has snowed. The boiling water advisory was going great until we woke up this morning without power, but with a foot and a half of snow in its place. (**side note: the front porch makes for a great alternative to a refrigerator in the winter.)

Hours without power and heat: 13
Nature: 2 / Vancouver: 0

hmm... i wonder what's next...

(on a side note, check the previous post for the fun we were able to have in the snow... we are glad to get a taste of real winter!!!)

snow... in vancouver?... oh yes!!!

presently living in the past...

When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost its liberating power for [modern] man, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that man sees himself as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future. But when man's historical consciousness is broken, the whole Christian message seems like a lecture about the great pioneers to a boy on an acid trip.

Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

what do you expect?

"[We have] used our wealth, our literacy, our technology, and our progress, to create the thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life... We want to believe these illusions because we suffer from extravagant expectations... When we pick up the newspaper at breakfast, we expect - we even demand - that it bring us momentous events since the night before...We expect our two-week vacations to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless. We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy, to "go to the church of our choice" and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer."

- Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.

Quotable...

If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if he has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him.
- Oswald Chambers

we've been so busy.... sleeping zzzzzzzzzzz

the language of creation

i first came across the following poem while reading an article by Eugene Peterson last year. it initially caught my attention, but i soon forgot about it until a couple months ago when i came across it again. it has been stuck in my mind ever since. i'm not poetic enough to grasp the entire depth of it, but i just love the resounding theme of all of creation employed to speak 'Christ'... because as man we are created in the image of God... the Imago Dei... Christ playing in ten thousand places.

to me this is beautiful.

Untitled
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speak and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
Chríst - for Christ play in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Halloween Fun

icons, idols, and incarnation.

i've been researching a paper for my Christian Thought and Culture class on the theology of icons and the history of the iconoclastic controversy. (a time in the 8th century where a movement rose up against the use of icons in worship and began crusading against these images, destroying any icons that crossed their paths.) it's been a great exercise for me and i chose this topic because the idea of using icons in prayer and worship intrigues me. one thing that has really struck me through this process is how our conservative evangelical protestant movement has typically been so reactionary to many issues and, in turn, has thrown the baby out with the bathwater on many occasions. the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th century was fairly unfounded, and the little basis on which it was formed was through an improper understanding of the 1st Commandment, and secondly through the rise of Islam and its influence on Christianity at that time. (Muslims believes it is wrong/impossible to capture/portray the image of God...) One of the greatest cases I'm creating in my paper (although i can't take credit for it... i must give props to St. John of Damascus and St. Theodore the Studite for this) is the fact of the incarnation. The iconoclasts claim that it is impossible to portray the image of God, however with the incarnation we have just that. Christ incarnate is the very image God, portrayed to mankind... i could go on, but i'll leave it at this to simply illustrate our tendency to go "all or nothing" on many of these issues. (i know that our main reason for rejecting the use of icons in conservative protestant worship is because of the corruption that took place within the Church prior to the Reformation, but i think this once again only serves to confirm my "baby with the bathwater" thoughts...)

i guess i'm really loving the opportunity to work through this stuff and develop a biblical and historical personal theology in areas that i've never really unpacked before...

fun times...

noah learned how to press his face against the
window on the lid of his toy drum...
you can blame daddy for this new discovery.















playing at the beach with some friends, Joe and Isobel.















and a nice bike ride around Stanley Park on a
beautiful Saturday afternoon...

a few more shots...

Just a few pix from the Nitobe gardens, Museum of Anthropology, and our thanksgiving/birthday turkey! We had a wonderful week with my mom!

so happy grandmas here!!!!!

Walking at Kits beach.

A view of English bay.

The 43rd run down the slide.

Mittens Grandma made me!

Snuggle time.

Building Lego with Daddy.

A prayer...

“Lord, I do not attempt to comprehend your sublimity, because my intellect is not at all equal to such a task. But I yearn to understand some measure of your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.” (Anselm, Pros logion)