Thursday, December 31, 2009

A resolution everybody can make for 2010

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday December 28th, 2009

Ah the proverbial nothing day.

Christmas is over, the weekend is over, New Years is still a few days away. This is one of the slackest times of the whole year.

Did you take down your lights? This is my personal pet peeve. Everyone begins celebrating Christmas as soon as Halloween is out of the way, and then on Boxing Day it all gets packed up again.

Everyone remembers the 12 days of Christmas, right? Well, day one is Christmas and it lasts until Epiphany, or the eve of, on Jan. 5. That is when we should be celebrating! Christmastide is the season, a little over a week long, that comes after Christmas.

The most popular Christmas song of all times, perhaps because it is one of the oldest, even lays out the presents you should buy for each day. Oh, and in case you did not do the math, if you got everything that they sing about, all those maids a milking and geese a laying, you would have 364 gifts; or one for every day of the year; and lest you run right out and buy it; the PNC Bank publishes a price index each year for current market prices of buying all the gifts in the song and the 2009 figure is $21,465.56.

But I have a less costly solution which I hope, accomplishes the same thing. And I would like to suggest that as you sit around waiting for New Years and all those resolutions, you consider the song, the Twelve Days of Christmas, as your starting point.

What if our resolution was to fill the next 364 days with reminders of the love and grace and nostalgia and joy we feel at Christmas?

What if we could bottle the Christmas Spirit into a way of life for 2010?

You see, I was talking to someone this past week who pointed out that 2009 was a terrible year; for many, many people. Perhaps it was that the economy tanked. Perhaps it is that the weather has really been horrible. Perhaps that whole Copenhagen, climate change, end of the world sort of thing is finally starting to edge its way into our subconsciousness.

Whatever it is, I think almost everyone would agree that we need a do-over.

And if we are going to do the year over again, then why not do it over in Christmas style?

It seems I quote Charles Dickens in almost everything I write over the Christmas season, but there is a reason, he said it perfectly when he said: "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

And it is so true, people will hold doors for each other, people will stop fighting, people are more generous, everything seems a little more festive and a lot more hopeful. But this is not something that needs to be mired in one block of weeks come late November. With very little effort this could be a year long way of life.

There was a movie and a movement a while ago called "Pay it Forward." For those of you who missed it, the concept was simple, do something nice for someone because someone has done something nice for you.

I know I am using too many quotes, but here is the concept as explained by the character in the book:

"You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do 27." He turns on the calculator, punches in a few numbers. "Then it sort of spreads out, see. To 81. Then 243. Then 729. Then 2,187. See how big it gets?"

It almost sounds too good to be true, but it is not.

Want a simple experiment about the power of suggestion? Go into a crowded room, yawn, and then wait. People will start to yawn. Even reading this, odds are that you are going to yawn.

The same thing is true of a smile. It is contagious.

So how about Christmas cheer? Let's pass it on and make it contagious.

If you cannot think what you could possibly do, here are a few suggestions. Hold the door open for more people. Let people pull out into traffic all the time. Buy the coffee, without even telling them, of the person behind you in line at Tim Horton's. Randomly give people gifts. It can be as large a gesture or as small as you can imagine.

And we all know it would work. If you win a free coffee, how does it make you feel? Realistically it only saved you a couple of bucks you were going to spend anyway, it is no big deal, but the whole world looks a little better when even one insignificant nice thing happens.

So there it is, while you are finishing putting away Christmas, and as you wait for New Years, make this your resolution: 2010 will be better than 2009. I will do what I can to make it just a little tiny bit better for everyone I can. Christmas never really has to end.

You deserve it.

The date isn't important, the meaning is

Faith Today - Published Saturday December 26th, 2009

Well, today is the second day of the season of Christmas, turtledove day if you know the song, or Boxing Day for those of us who live in countries that maintain a little British Empire in us.

Boxing Day is one of those bits of culture and religiosity that has totally gone by the wayside. Most people don't even know what it means.

In Victorian England it was the tradition to take leftover food and durable goods and distribute them to the poor on the day after Christmas, or St. Stephen's Day. These donations were boxed up and delivered; thus the name.

There are a lot of things that are just "traditions" being carried forward.

If you think about the church and the way we do things, the way we schedule things, and our calendar, many of the days and dates are just set because of convenience.

Boxing Day, for example, made me think about Christmas. There is, I suppose, a 1/365 chance that Jesus was born on December 25; but it is unlikely. The story doesn't fit with the cultural norms; for example, shepherds and sheep wouldn't be out on the hills in December in Palestine back then.

The Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 6, for example. Was that Jesus birthday? Again, you are probably looking at a 1/365 chance that it was.

Am I saying Jesus was not real? No. Am I saying the church is lying? No.

It is a very modern and very North American thing that we have confused details for the truly important intent behind stories.

Here is the thing, there was this guy named Jesus, who happened to be born into a poor and humble family. The original word for Jesus' father's occupation was tekton, which meant he was probably a stone mason, but perhaps he was a carpenter... he was a tradesperson who worked with his hands in a backwater town.

We know from historical Roman records that there was someone who got the people all riled up, and that later, his followers were blamed for some fires in Rome.

But unless you are an emperor, your birth date was not really all that important back then.

So why the 25th of December?

Well, some people claim it is because that is nine months after Jesus was conceived (again, this is just a guess -- I am not even 'exactly' sure when my own daughters were conceived) but it was also the date of a very important Roman Festival which corresponded with the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

The Romans had a feast in honour of the "Sun" to remind it to come back out and warm things up; since it was getting darker and darker.

This sounds extremely sensible to me, by the way.

And when Christianity became the official Roman religion of state, some 300 years after Jesus taught it to his followers, the idea of the sun bringing light to darkness was shifted, ever so slightly, to the son bringing light to darkness and, voila, Christmas.

The church just took something that everyone already understood and gave it a Christian meaning. It was not contrary to what they already wanted to say, and it was convenient.

Just like having a long weekend in May is convenient to celebrate the birthday of our monarch in the British Empire, whether or not it is their birthday in reality.

Does it make the story any less powerful because it also happens to fit perfectly with the understanding of the Roman winter solstice?

Or does it become even more appropriate when you realize that what we are trying to celebrate is not just one man, Jesus, but the way of life and faith that Jesus brought us to understand -- one that every culture had pieces of already?

There are people out there who think that those of us who have faith are ignorant of science, and history, and psychology and the real things of the world.

Quite the opposite is true. We just know that there is something with deeper meaning than a calendar, and that truth has nothing to do with accuracy, it is about the bigger picture.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Of course Santa Claus is real and with us!

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday December 21st, 2009

I believe in Santa Claus.

It is as simple as that. I see no evidence for the non existence of Santa Claus. Quite the opposite, in fact, Christmas is as filled with magic and unexplainable moments as any day can be.

Even if I told you my life story, which is fairly recent, there would be some myth, mixed with interpretation, mixed with magic, tempered with reality. It is no different for Santa, whose origins can be traced back to Turkey, of all places, and Saint Nicholas.

His wealthy parents, who raised him to be a devout Christian, died in an epidemic while Nicholas was still young. Obeying Jesus' words to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor," Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made the Bishop of Myra.

Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.

Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ruthlessly persecuted Christians, Bishop Nicholas suffered for his faith, was exiled and imprisoned. The prisons were so full of bishops, priests, and deacons, there was no room for the real criminals -- murderers, thieves and robbers. After his release, Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. He died Dec. 6, AD 343 in Myra and was buried in his cathedral church, where a unique relic called manna formed in his grave. This liquid substance, said to have healing powers, fostered the growth of devotion to Nicholas. The anniversary of his death became a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day, Dec. 6.

The fact that most of Western Culture has been shaped and influenced by Christianity is dying out. Every generation wants to believe that they invented the wheel; and I suppose that is just the way of the world. However, when we throw out our knowledge of the past, we start to be able to dismiss reality as Faerie Tale, which are also all true, by the way.

Santa Claus was and is real. Almost every sailor who found themselves storm tossed on the malicious ocean can tell you that Nicholas, patron saint of sailors and children, was there on deck as the waves tried to sweep them over. He answered their prayers and they found themselves surprisingly safe in port.

Vikings who converted to Christianity and sailed to Greenland dedicated their Cathedral to him; Columbus, after supposedly "discovering" the New World named a Haitian port after him; Spanish Conquistadores named a town in Florida St. Nicholas Port (for some reason we changed it to Jacksonville); and most importantly, Dutch Settlers, who had claimed Nicholas as the Patron of Holland, brought him with them to New Amsterdam; better known to you and me as New York, while the Germans brought him to Pennsylvania.

If you have ever seen a European Santa Claus, and you all have, you would recognize the long flowing red robe with an ermine sash, along with a hood trimmed with fur as well. Those are the robes of a bishop. Think about the Vatican and the different coloured robes that each level of cleric wears; the priest in black, the bishop in dark purple, the cardinal in bright red and the pope in white. Each colour gets lighter and closer to the purity of God . . . Santa is somewhere in between a bishop and a cardinal with his dark red robes.

In the late 1800s; at the end of the Industrial Revolution, the world was changing dramatically. Prior to this, children were seen almost as slaves, especially poor ones who often worked back breaking hours in mills and mines. Charles Dickens wrote books like Oliver Twist to try and change this and at the same time he wrote books about Christmas to help us embrace the values of the season, like Hope and Joy and Peace.

They also began to link the patron saint of children to this new idea that childhood was sacred, and since his Holy Day was in December, well, why not combine the two?

Then there was a poem; "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" which became "Twas the Night Before Christmas" that brought to light the nocturnal activities of Christmas Eve which heretofore had only happened while people slept. Washington Irving started to illustrate Santa Claus as a little more elf like, smoking a pipe, just like the poem suggested. A few years later Norman Rockwell and others changed the outfit and associated him with Coca Cola, changing the colour of the robes to the colour of a Coke logo.

By the way, Santa Claus is the way we English speakers struggled to mispronounce the German for Saint Nicholas, Sankt Niklaus.

There are those who want to dismiss Santa as just being made up to sell Coca Cola or adorn Hallmark cards. But the tradition goes back to very, very Christian origins; just like the rest of Christmas.

Martin Luther, who started the Protestant Reformation in Germany in the late 1500s and is one of Christianity's greatest theologians put up the first Christmas tree; but that is another story.

There are others who say that if Santa ever lived, it was almost 2,000 years ago and doesn't matter now.

Well let me tell you, I have seen presents under my tree that I am pretty sure my parents would never have bought. I have seen strangers inexplicably have their hearts melted and help each other. I have seen Santa in a shopping mall moved to tears by the requests of hurting children. I have seen ordinary fathers put on a red suit and be magically transformed into a Jolly Old Elf.

I have seen starving families fed and fighting families reconciled, homeless people sheltered and benevolent programs funded. I have seen whole villages in the developing world given wells, or farms, or schools.

Don't tell me there's no Santa Claus.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Walt Disney's world born in humble beginnings

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday December 14th, 2009

OK, so I love Walt Disney World.

It has been over two years since I have gone and I am suffering from withdrawal. This week was also the 'birthday' of Walt Disney. He was born on December 5th 1901.

I will not bore you with too many biographical details; but Walt's life story is really interesting.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, his father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt became interested in drawing at an early age, selling his first sketches to neighbours when he was only seven years old.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928. He made his screen debut in "Steamboat Willie," the world's first fully-synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.

Walt's drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor was introduced to animation during the production of his "Silly Symphonies." In 1932, the film entitled "Flowers and Trees" won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards. In 1937, he released "The Old Mill," the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.

On Dec. 21 of that same year, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Depression.

During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," "Dumbo," and "Bambi."

In 1940, construction was completed on Disney's Burbank studio. The staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work, including the production of training and propaganda films.

The story goes on, and on, but you can see that Walt was responsible for single handedly changing most of the animation industry -- he also changed tourism forever when he built the fist theme park, Disneyland, in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom.

A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his "Wonderful World of Color" in 1961. You might also remember "The Mickey Mouse Club"; I can still sing the song even though I have not seen the black and white show in perhaps 30 years.

So Walt was a success. One man, whose drawings were originally rejected by an animation company, went on to create an empire.

Here are some interesting statistics to chew over about the Walt Disney Corporation today:

There are over 300 licensed Disney characters all brought to you by over 100 separate business brands. To give you an example, Walt Disney Pictures also own Miramax, Pixar and Touchstone. Then they own ABC, the television network. They have cruise lines, travel bureaus, condominiums, product lines.

All of which lead the company to a staggering 12 million dollars a day in profit; or four and a half billion a year.

Interestingly enough, the majority shareholder in the Disney Corporation is Steve Jobs, founder and owner of Apple Computers. He owns seven percent and is on the board of directors.

So consider this: every day Steve Jobs could potentially be making $ 840,000 profit from the Walt Disney Corporation, essentially just because he was clever with his investments. In case the math staggers you, that is over $300 million a year.

But most statistics about Disney and its theme parks are staggering. Four percent of all photographs taken in the United States are taken inside one of the two Magic Kingdoms -- Walt Disney World or Disneyland; Walt Disney World is larger than the city of San Francisco, covering about 4000 acres of land.

There are 240,000 pounds of laundry done each day while some 32,000 costumes are dry-cleaned.

And even if I don't make it down to Disney this year, some 47 million other people will (and they will drink 75 million cokes.)

Sorry, I just find all of this to be fascinating. I also find it reassuring to think that if you put your mind to it, and you are creative enough, you can succeed, sometimes beyond your wildest dreams.

But more importantly, this entire conglomerate of influence and imagination is based on the concept of leisure and make believe.

There is something extremely important buried within this basic idea. We live in a world where we will pay millions and billions of dollars to escape.

We go to Disney World and pretend to be pirates, or astronauts, or princesses, or race car drivers. We watch movies and television to immerse ourselves in other realities, we buy books and make up and gym memberships; all to escape the here and now.

Walt was onto something when he tried to make people smile with a funny little mouse.

We need those temporary ways out; we need to relax more; and we need Disney World.

It is the one place where hardened adults suspend their disbelief and allow themselves to be swept up in a dream; one that the cynical part of us has long given up on.

I will never fly with Peter Pan; but I have. I remember the first time the little boat I was sitting in lifted off the ground, flew out the window, and over London. I was a troubled little kid... it was magic. It was magic when I did it again at 40.

I will raise a glass to Walter Elias Disney this week. He died shortly before the Magic Kingdom ever opened. His dream lives on and inspires the rest of us. Thank God.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

There must be a better way to organize our society

Social Studies - Published Monday December 7th, 2009

Work and kids and family; running a household and having hobbies; it seems hard to talk about these things without getting in some sort of trouble, but I think it might be necessary for us to rethink some things.

I do not think the way we live is the way we should be living.

Not that we are not trying as many different variations as possible. I could use my own family as a subset here. I have four brothers, and they have amazingly varied careers. Some have remarried and created blended families as my own father did. Some are professionals and some are just starting out.

Out of the five of us, or 10 if you count spouses, nine people work.

I have seen possibly every variation of having to figure out work schedules and household management and day care that you can imagine; from which I have determined that there are no good answers.

My wife and I tried working opposite each other for a couple of years. I would work one day and she would work the next, or she would work from eight to four, I would work from four till midnight; and then we would switch. Then there is the five days of day care. Even when one spouse does not work, as is the case for one of my brothers, the other spouse works hard and long enough that you still never see each other.

I do not want to raise the hackles of the feminists who think this is going to become a sexist rant -- but I don't think society should run like this. One income should be enough to run a household. It should not matter which person works.

Mind you, I don't think anyone should have to work any more than 35 hours a week to earn enough money to run a household. So perhaps both could work, but only work half time.

You may think this is just crazy dreaming, but for the most part economics are completely made up and we could in fact change the prices of things, or the wages earned, to make it work. An example of this would be my house. My wife, kids and I live quite comfortably in a three bedroom house on the Salisbury Road, which costs us exactly one quarter of a three bedroom house in Dieppe.

You have to trust me on this, but I am pretty certain there is no real explanation for the $300,000 dollar price difference.

The truth is that our economy is completely based on artificial measures of what things are worth -- the so called, 'market value' which really means what someone can get away with charging. At some point the amount charged began to make it impossible to live decently on your salary.

We are talking about 10,000 years of settled human history before someone decided to start making it nearly impossible to raise a family, own your own house, and get around. Never mind the astronomical price it would cost to take a vacation.

Also false, by the way, a little over a decade ago I went to Walt Disney World, stayed in a hotel, bought food in restaurants, bought souvenirs, and spent a little over $2,000. Now the same trip would run about $10,000.

So two people almost have to work; and then the kids need to be in day care. But we also have to work longer and harder than ever, with more economic and cultural stress; so for the two hours we do get to see our own kids every day we are either too tired, too stressed, or too rushed to be genuinely present.

It is a never ending circle too; we end up too tired at the end of the day to figure out how to get supper on the table; and if you are leaving work at five to rush to get the kids across town at five, and they are going to bed at seven -- how are you possibly going to cook within a reasonable amount of time? So you go to a restaurant.

Now, there is a costly way to escape stress and an unhealthy way as well. Better get a gym membership to use for those two or three hours you might manage to have for yourself. But the restaurants and gym are costing so much now you need to work even harder . . .

I am not suggesting we go back to a divided world in which men are the breadwinners and women run the household, but there has to be a better way to find life balance, and I think it has to begin with how we work. Or at the very least, what we earn.

Or perhaps we need to reassess what we 'have.'

Do we need as much stuff? Is that what is causing us to have to work so hard? Maybe it is the new car every couple of years, or the cost of replacing electronic gadgets every two years. Perhaps it is because we all need to instantly have furniture right out of Better Homes and Gardens.

There are a number of things that have gone out of whack in society to be sure. The problem is that we really have no idea what the long term consequences are. We already know that there are more divorces, more latchkey kids, more violence, and more crime than ever before. What will it be like when the next generation of kids, the one that has no real attachment to family or place, and any long term traditions or history, ends up taking over?

I was so looking forward to capitalism failing; and now they seem to be resurrecting it. I really wish we could all wake up and find a better way.

More openness and some humility will move us ahead

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday November 30th, 2009

Opinions being what they are, there is always something to write about.

I have not written in a month, in that period I have been taking some time to reprioritize my life and my thoughts, so I would like you to indulge me if for my first column back as I turn inwards instead of out.

You see, while writing these columns I am always thinking about what is currently happening in the world around us; be it as universal as global warming or as local as the causeway to Riverview. As an opinion writer I search for a position that I think I could uphold morally and ethically and then write it as definitely as I can -- hoping for two things, to get people thinking, and to get discussion started.

Many of us have opinions. Oh, who am I kidding, all of us have opinions. Many of us can voice them eloquently; while still more of us can voice them passionately. From what hockey team to cheer for right up to who to elect as a leader, each of us chimes in within society to try and make our voice heard. Or, at the very least, to try and get our friends to think like us.

Deep within our consciousness, I believe each and every one of believes we are right. Absolutely, universally, right. For some reason I believe I know how to solve the economic woes of the country. Despite the odds I know for certain I could run the government better. Heck, I probably even believe I could cure my own diseases better than my doctor.

Does any of this ring true for you?

Does any of it sound sort of ridiculous when you stop and think about it?

I do think this is the way most of us think. We act like and interact with people as if we could do their job better than them. Every day we believe that we have a better system or idea than the experts who are trying to solve problems.

Have you ever heard of Albert Einstein? He was one of those people who thought outside the box. He revolutionized physics. He played a huge role in developing atomic concepts (as in the atom bomb and nuclear energy). If we ever get time travel or teleportation down it will be because of Einstein's thought and work.

When they did an autopsy on Albert they found out that he had a brain defect. It turns out that the regions involved in speech and language were smaller, while the regions involved with numerical and spatial processing were larger. He simply thought about the world differently. He was a one in a billion random genetic mutation who could grasp space and time better than almost every other human being.

In many respects, he also failed. Albert would be the first to tell you this. He had a failed marriage, failed relationships, and even many, many failed scientific theories.

It is because of his failures, more than his successes, that Einstein said some of the wisest things I have ever read; one of which is this: "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it."

I have decided to make this one of my personal credos.

For me it means two things, first, it means freedom of expression. Second, it means humility.

Let me explain. What we need in the world is more honest communication about deeper issues with each other. We need a free press that can challenge conventional wisdom, and we need everyone speaking up about what they believe.

Although it sounds easy, there is an obstacle: this requires honesty.

When someone asks me how I am, I have to admit that I am a little messed up. I am sick, or sad, or lonely, or stressed . . . I cannot understand the instructions to put together the table I just bought, the weather is bringing me down, and I wish we could rethink capitalism.

At least, that is what is in my head. What I actually say to people is "fine."

How are we ever going to have authentic dialogue and learn to trust each other if we gloss over almost every aspect of our lives as we interact? We need to free ourselves to communicate with each other on simple things to make it easier to talk about the harder things.

Which is all wrapped up in the second part of my solution to the world's problems: when we are open about our thoughts and feelings we will discover that we cannot really solve all the world's problems. We are just one person, and we need help.

I came across another great quote this past month, this one from an even more unlikely source, the DJ of the original Woodstock concert back in 1969, Wavy Gravy.

According to Wavy Gravy, "We're all bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride."

How is that for a philosophy? From the cleverest neurosurgeon to the happiest bus driver, we are all just bozos on the bus. We have our own idiosyncrasies and problems, we are geniuses about something, and idiots about something else, and we all stumble through life and make mistakes. We are human.

The good thing is we also all do incredibly miraculous wonderful things.

But we need to remember that we are just bozos.

So every week I write about something I believe in. I try to change the world in my own little humble corner of Monday morning's paper.

But the philosophy behind why I do things is tied up in these two statements -- sometimes it takes the views of a different person to help us see our life a little bit more clearly; and we are all bozos making our own mistakes.

When we operate from there and are truly open to each other, I am convinced everything will change.

Visit to past reveals path to future

RELIGION TODAY - Published Saturday November 21st, 2009

This past weekend I attended a wedding.

My step-brother, recently converted to the Orthodox faith, got married in a Lebanese Orthodox church in Halifax.

Curiously, for all my travels and education in things religious, I have never before attended an Orthodox Christian service.

It was fascinatingly interesting to see your own faith from another perspective.

Here is a quick primer on church history.

Things went downhill from the point that Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

It used to be that all of us looked back at that as the beginning of the glory days, but that was the point where the religious movement dreamt up by those followers of Jesus suddenly became more political than social.

Rome had so much political intrigue throughout its life that you almost could not help but get caught up in it.

And here is where church echoed state.

There were, in essence, two capitals. In the early fourth century, having just made Christianity the religion of state, and having just united a divided Roman Empire, Constantine rebuilt the Greek city of Byzantium, named it after himself and tried to make it the capital of the empire . . . and thus the church.

Five hundred years of bickering among the bishops of rival cities eventually led to further and further division and the church of empire divided into two churches, East and West, Roman and Orthodox.

The Eastern Orthodox Church of today has over 225 million members and traces its roots and theology back to Paul, the author of most of the books of the New Testament.

In fact, most of the churches founded by Paul are now clearly orthodox, in orthodox countries.

From all accounts, it just might be us westerners who broke away from the true church and went off on some tangents.

But back to the wedding; it was both familiar and unfamiliar. Some of the readings and prayers were in Arabic and some were in English.

The stories from the Bible were pretty much the same ones you have always heard read at weddings.

There were three stunning differences to me.

First, the biblical stories were connected so concretely to present life.

For example, it was pointed out that he couple getting married were just like Abraham and Sarah getting married, and God would continue to be faithful to the promises which were made to that couple -- lots of children and long life.

The married couple was compared to Isaac and Rebecca; the celebration was compared to the marriage feast at Cana where Jesus first performed miracles. It just all tied together.

Secondly, there was a confidence that this was the right thing to do and that God was present in the moment.

No wishy-washy 'God will be with you as you journey through life;' more like 'God is here right now watching and God says, honour each other or else!'

And lastly, there was such a concrete connection between family, church, friends and God.

These two people were not getting married in a church and then running off on a honeymoon and that would be the end of it.

They stood there as part of a 2,000-year-old tradition.

The community was agreeing to see them as man and wife, to treat them this was from now on and to help them be a family.

God was really present within the church, the family and the community and always would be.

There was no individualism here, it was all part of a larger whole.

I think all three of these things were once part of our religious heritage as well.

As little as 30 years ago it would have seemed much more familiar.

But individualism has crept into our church culture as well.

The modern way of thinking of everything as having to do with 'me' has separated us from the larger whole.

I for one am going to try and figure out how liberal Protestantism can reclaim some of what it has thrown away with the bathwater.

We have perhaps forgotten our roots and our traditions. Sometimes it takes seeing the way someone else does it to realize you can do better.

APOLOGIES

This Blog went neglected over the fall. I was off work on medical leave and did not get to it. I am going to be updating it regularly from now on. Thank you.