It was a good weekend. My husband's sister and her husband arrived on Saturday and we had a lovely evening together. On Sunday she made the circuit with us from church to church as my husband took his part in a priestly rotation to another parish that is currently without a priest. Today she and her husband are getting their RV cleaned out and ready for the second phase of their holiday, leaving us tomorrow.
Having the company was so easy with them staying in their RV. Like us, they have several food sensitivies and prefer to make their own breakfasts, so we share lunches and suppers together and it works out very well. Tonight I think we are just going to go out for pizza or do a "community" cook and have fun here at home making all sorts of "mismatched" dishes that we each enjoy.
The weather here is improving for the moment. Yesterday's travelling was in mostly dry conditions with the sun shining brilliantly, if not particularly warmly. It was the perfect day for a long drive around the province. We saw dozens of prong horned goats, a couple of large male deer with huge racks of antlers and a pair of herons flying along the South Saskatchewan River where we did our ferry crossings.
The thing that stands out to me each time we have such a day is the difference between each community and each church family. On a day like we had yesterday we met every kind of person there is to meet I suspect. It was a most interesting experience in good and not so good ways. It certainly reinforced for me my ignorance of some of the rural cultures we have to deal with at times and I need to learn far more than I have to date. I need to learn to be less easily wounded by people who have a different set of social skills and expectations than my own.
One of our own churches served up delicious coffee and a snack treat after service. Since it was Holy Cross Day we were treated to delicious cookies shaped like crosses with icing droozled on to resemble the snake Moses hoisted up on a post when the Hebrew people were seeking God for his solution to an innundation of poisonous snakes in their camp as they travelled across the desert after escaping from their slavery in Egypt.
My husband has a fabulous sermon from that reading in the Book of Numbers that he calls, "The Theology of Snake on a Stick." He points out how people have the option to look up to Jesus on the cross for healing of their spiritual illnesses in much the same way the Hebrews had God's instruction to look to the snake on Moses' post in order to be healed of their physical snake bites. What I hadn't realized very well until my husband pointed it out to me, is that Jesus on the cross doesn't identify himself as the conquering hero of liberation. He identifies with the snake!! Like the snake for the Hebrews, he was seen by the Romans as the cause of many problems, but instead, voluntarily looking to him in trust and faith, also like voluntarily looking at Moses' snake, he becomes the source of healing instead to those who choose to accept it.
I enjoyed the little bunny trails in the sermon as well: talking briefly about how the snake on the stick image associated with healing is a concept predates Christianity. There have been a few controversies over the centuries about the old healing gods and their symbols, such as the Rod of Asclepius with its symbol of the single snake, compared to the Caduceus of Hermes with its two intertwined snakes and its winged staff. My own medic alert bracelet features Aesclepius' rod and my friend's sports a large medallion featuring Hermes' caduceus. Always fun to learn the origins of symbols we take for granted today...and likely haven't bothered to research? My bad......
Today will be very low key in honour of my husband's day off work, although of course there are "just a couple of emails I need to respond to this afternoon.....", haha. As usual.....
Tomorrow I will do laundry and start preparing for another nine days on the road. My husband has meeting after meeting around the Diocese and I am going to visit good friends in our former city of residence. I can hardly believe it has been about a year since I was last there!!!! I remember one quick overnight visit there in the last year when I had time to have breakfast with a friend the next morning. That was the end of January I believe. Wow, it has been awhile and I miss my friends there so badly. Now that they are all back from holidays it will be easy to complete my visiting schedule.
Looking back at a good weekend and ahead to an excellent week to come.
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