Christmas Day

Christmas Day was a good day here. We had a small turn out for Christmas Eve and a better one for the Family Worship Service on Sunday. Two parishioners, who are no longer able to attend, gave an impressive supply of gifts to share with the children.

I had received a gift from someone (I couldn’t remember who) when in Belize City. I opened it during the Christmas message, leaving myself open to be totally embarrassed – suppose it had been underwear! Fortunately it was a presentation ECUSA Prayer Book and a little ceramic cross from the Bishop. Whew!

I was sent a dinner in the afternoon with the season special black cake and in the evening listened to the complete Messiah on CFMX. I rely on the Internet for all sorts of things in addition to this Blog.

This has been a relaxing week, with time to take a day trip to Placencia where I swam in the Caribbean for the first time. Yesterday Deacon Tess visited with a friend from BC who was quite taken with PG (to my surprise). They took me out for a Chinese food supper and then Gill beat us both at Scrabble. This morning they began a long trip northward as Tess heads home after a two-year stint in Belize. She will certainly be missed.

This reminds me that I have now been here for four months already. Looking back it seems like I’ve been here a long time, but looking forward it seems that there’s not much time left!

P.S. Thanks for your cards, they look great.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

http://jsmagic.net

As I said below ...

As I said below, “you do all you can and then time runs out”. Well, yesterday time ran out and, as anyone here will tell you, Belize time is something else. Gathering time for the cast was 5:15pm. By 5:30 one shepherd had arrived! Some of the cast arrived after we started at 6:15; some of them never arrived. Some of the audience arrived half way through; some of them never arrived. But improvise we did and, as I said in my Christmas letter, “It was not the accomplished affair I would have liked, but it was our offering and I think it was received as such.”

Tomorrow I make the 6-hour bus trek to Belize City for a day of meetings and then do it in reverse on Wednesday. By which time I’ll be in panic mode for the Christmas services (thought there will only be two, 7pm Saturday and 9am Sunday) and other Christmas duties. I may not get to post before the big day, so herewith I wish you a very blessed Christmas, and if you can’t celebrate it with those you love, may you love those with whom you celebrate it.

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Pills, batteries, wise men and shepherds...

I never thought that the pills would be a problem. You see, I don’t take pills – not really. Some people I know seem to have different pills for every day of the week and every hour of the day. Me? Only one Advil since I arrived in Belize over three months ago, and it was the same in Canada. But now I have to take these anti-malaria pills, two every Sunday. What a problem! Do you think I can remember? It takes at least one email from Pat each week and if she forgets, forget it – I won’t remember. This week she remembered on Monday evening so if I remember, I’ll take the pills with breakfast on Tuesday morning.

And talking about keeping track of the time, my Timex stopped yesterday. I suspected the battery had died so this morning I began to search for a new one. I asked Fr. Dick who said, “Ask at any store”. Any store said, “Flo Johnston carries them”. Miss Flo said, “Yes, I do, but you’ll have to go to the watch man to open the watch, and if he doesn’t have the right battery come back to me”. Turns out the watch man is the barber. I’d walked by his place many times but didn’t even know it was a barbershop let alone a watch repair shop. He’s a very friendly older gentleman and had my Timex running in no time. And now I know where to go for my next haircut.

You may have guessed that there’s not a lot to report from PG right now, and you may be right, but Monday is my day off. Tomorrow I’ll have company as Deacon Tess is coming from Mango Creek for a short visit, mainly to say goodbye to her Punta Gorda friends. She leaves for Canada in early January after a two-year ministry in PG and Mango Creek. Then it will be crunch time as we try to put the finishing touches on The Christmas Story. Not finishing touches like when you touch up the last little blemishes on a work, but finishing touches like you do all you can and then time runs out. People are reminding me that the key word is “improvise”. I think that means that if none of your three Wise Men show up you just narrate that part of the story and pretend you weren’t expecting them. (Today’s picture is of my four prospective shepherd boys.)

A Message for Advent?

"Our life is frittered away by detail.... Simplify, simplify." Henry David Thoreau

"Our life is frittered away by detail." I'll bet that echoes for most of you. Even more than in Thoreau's day, too much of our time is consumed with details. Call it "life clutter"-- all those nagging worries about inessential matters: what brand of soap Tommy said he wanted, which Star Trek episode is a re-run, whether I sent my mother a birthday card or just imagined it. My attention is scattered in so many pieces I can't pull together enough to create dinner, much less the Great American Novel.

Fritter, fritter, fritter, there goes my life.

But we can't rid life entirely of detail. Too often what seems just to be a trivial nuisance turns out to have some significant consequence. For example, consumed with anxiety that I got the wrong brand of soap for Tommy, I forget to send my mother that birthday card. She takes offense and decides not to lend me the money she'd promised that would rescue my new business. The business fails, the bank forecloses, and Tommy and I end up on the street, without any soap at all.
c. 1997 by Alicia Rasley

Ah, the devil is in the details! Such as the little knot that wasn’t on the end of the string which releases the lock to St. Joseph’s vestry where the bread and wine and other essentials are kept. With no knot to stop it the string slipped through the hole and into the vestry where it remains inaccessible. By service time things were in order – no problem! No clerical robes either, but bread from my kitchen and wine from someone else’s. And I’m still locked out of the vestry.