Integrate!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosedavies/ Is this a picture of sunrise or sunset? We think we know the difference between a beginning and an ending, but it's hard to tell sometimes. I am writing this on Easter Sunday. It's a day for beginning, but it's not a day for a fresh start. The story tells us that rebirth - like birth itself - is messy and terrifying and painful. Christ rises and the women at the tomb are first confused, then terrified, and then joyful. And then they have to tell a story no one will believe. Christ rises with the the memory and the marks of his life. He does not promise a fresh start. Forgiving is not forgetting. He remembers and so do we. Christ rises and although you may not believe in the story, yet you believe the story itself while you hear it. That's how we understand stories: we believe them long enough to learn what happens, to experience a change, to recognize a pattern. This story is about the glory of starting again. This s...

Once upon a time, there was good coffee and homemade banana bread waiting for you early on a weekend morning. Somehow, although the weekend would be full of travel and challenges, time slowed down as you bit into the fresh, soft goodness. It was good. You were good. That's how our story starts. Whenever we gather for a course or event, I bake banana bread. Even the people who don't eat the banana bread like what it means for their weekends: you're starting from home; someone cares; you do have the energy for what you want to accomplish. It's hard to arrange this for yourself. If you bake your own banana bread, it's doesn't come with that little bit of surprise. If you seek it out at a favourite cafe, you get the treat, but not the same sense that it was made with you in mind, that it's reaching out like a hug. The public space is not often an anchor to home, and the public banana bread is not often exactly what we need to take us home. People take m...