Hodge podge of stuff

Hi all,

This is Melissa and now that I am on maternity leave I have a bit of time to post. We haven't really done a proper post for some time so this will be a hodge podge of everything that has been going on for the past few months.

First of all I have been at my quilting again and made a quilted table runner/wall hanging as a Christmas present for our friends. Chris actually designed it and did all the drawings and measurements and I just cut the fabric and sewed it. We are really happy with it and it was a fun project to work on together. Here are a few pics:





More recently Chris has switched jobs again. He has quit teaching guitar in the primary schools. His last day is 13 April. He will be teaching a few students privately on a Saturday morning from our house. It is worth the few extra pounds a month and is not too demanding. He has also been hired by our church as the new worship leader for their contemporary 11am service. He is excited about this opportunity and it is part time so it fits his schedule. He has a lot of work to do but he has a few core people in the existing group that are dedicated and on board with him. He also has the back up of the leadership to make changes and make the worship service more meaningful. The job is great because he can work from home except for practices. The church currently runs 4 services a Sunday, which is typical for churches here. The services range from Morning Prayer to Evening Prayer with traditional and contemporary services in the middle.

Chris has also started working on campus as a music archivist. He will be working with a specialist in the field to digitise old recordings. This is something that he is really interested in and it is a great skill to know and master. Again this job is flexible and he can work at anytime day or night.

Next autumn he will change to part-time for his PhD and hopefully we will be able to balance everything. The plan is that I will go back to work full time towards the end of September and Chris will balance all the above and take care of the baby. This will be a challenge but we don’t want to put the baby in daycare. If it becomes a problem then I will have to change to part-time. So please pray for all of that, it will be a struggle no matter what happens.

I am now just a week and a day away from my due date (and my birthday)! I think we pretty much have everything ready for the big day. My hospital bag is packed and ready to go. The nursery is set up, we are just waiting.

I finished work on 1 March and have just been relaxing and reading and sleeping. I haven’t been too bored yet. It is nice to be home and have lunch with Chris when he comes in between schools. We celebrated my birthday early and Chris got me lots of things to do while being home. My favourite thing is a book on quilt stars. It is a great handbook. I found one pattern that I really like and have started another quilt. It is a wall hanging. I am excited about it – I think each one I do is better than the last so it is nice to see improvement.

The British don’t normally have baby showers. When I explained it to them they were mystified. So the girls from my work decided to throw me an ‘American Baby Shower.’ With the help of Chris they threw it in my living room! They all had excuses why they were leaving early from work (which happens occasionally) and then I got home and they were all in my living room! It was a lot of fun and very sweet of them to do. They got us a Moses basket (or bassinet as you may call it) and it is just adorable. Here are a few pictures:




I think the last thing is Chris and I went to London the first weekend in March. One of his compositions was being performed at a weekend ‘Microtonal Festival.’ Microtonal music is a bit hard to explain so all I will say is that it is writing music with notes that are in between the notes on the piano. If you need further clarification then Chris will have to do that. Anyway the festival was good, a little long for me, but his piece went well and he made a lot of contacts.

I will leave you with a picture of me taken a few days ago and some pictures of York over the winter. A few of all the flooding we had in December and the one snowstorm we had (well not really a storm more of a flurry). The next time we post we will be three!!! Thanks for reading.

Melissa

Research summary

I recently had to submit a 100-word summary of my doctoral work, I thought it might be nice to post it for anyone who is wondering what the heck I'm actually doing (and I wonder myself!)

"The electronic medium allows for the creation of music with pitch content that is both flexible and precise. This provides the opportunity for new approaches to scale construction that make effective use of this resource. The objective of my research is to implement innovative tuning systems through fixed media, live performance, and sound installations, in order to explore the effects upon aural perception, form, and the compositional process. This approach will demonstrate the aesthetical value of the theories involved and suggest potentially fruitful directions for further development concerning the role of pitch within the context of contemporary music."

Winter Blues

Ok, so it's not really that bad, but I wanted an interesting title.

It has been a very mild winter so far, but with loads of wind and rain. The river has come close to causing a major flood, and the wind has blown over more than one lorry on the highway. I'm still fighting my way through it to teach guitar to children who I'm sure are not nearly appreciative enough of my struggles to reach them :)

Things feel very much in the balance at this point. I'm beginning another job which involves categorising and digitally archiving old recordings, and I'm applying for another job which will allow me to stop teaching; more on that to come if it materializes. In between that I'm desperately trying to stay on track with my own music-making and theorising, and of course waiting anxiously for the big arrival.

Melissa finishes work after the first week in March; she will officially be a housewife (temporarily) for the first time in our life!

We're planning on making our first visit back to the U.S. this summer, after being away for almost two years. That feels strange. So if you're planning on visiting us (you know who you are!) make sure you coordinate with our schedule.

Life is good, despite my previous complaining. We are both content and excited for the future. We'll keep you in the loop.

-Chris

Who stole Christmas?

Every Christmas I seem to stumble across one article that forces me to grimace with disgust, yell at the author in my head, and then take a deep breath and try to formulate a logical, reasoned response. I hope you enjoy my take on the Christmas front of the so-called "culture war."

[link to the original article]

Whose Holiday?

While there are many positive suggestions for a meaningful Christmas later in the article, the first two paragraphs alone are enough to push all my buttons. It begins with a lovely image of the Christmas ideal: enjoyable time with friends and family, a time for good feelings, etc. However, we are informed that this holiday is in extreme danger! Why? Because according to Mackay, we just can't have these things without mangers and shepherds as well. According to her, gathering with family and friends without an explicitly religious theme is "dull, obscure" and "meaningless."

The mission of Christians, then, is to "restore Christmas to its rightful owner – Christ." Reading this, I began to wonder: would Christ really want us to fight for "his holiday"? How did it even become "his" in the first place?

The last time I checked, Christ was the subject of Christmas, not the owner. Christmas was not created by Jesus; it was made up by Christians. Therefore, Christmas is our holiday, not his! You may think I'm nitpicking - but by making this simple point, any defense of the Christmas Crusade crumbles away. Making up a divine mandate to protect a human interest is known in the Bible as taking the Lord's name in vain. Fighting for our "right" to mandate a religious holiday observance is cultural imperialism, not Gospel living.

A Different Gospel

Ironically enough, Jesus made a big deal out of a very similar issue, and it was part of what got him killed. Allow me to (over-)simplify and summarize:

The Pharisees were building a snazzy new temple. "This belongs to God!" they said. "Everyone has to worship here like we tell them to. Furthermore, anyone who opposes our agenda is really opposing God, and will be punished." Jesus, however, didn't agree. "That building has nothing to do with God and neither do your silly observances; and he's not very fond of you signing his name on to your pet projects and proceeding to beat other people down with them."

Isn't there just a bit of an echo through all the years? There's only one problem: Jesus is on the wrong side! Is it possible that Christ really has been removed from Christmas– not by the Secularists, but by the Christians who claim to love him?

A Really Christian Christmas

It should be clear to Christians that if Christ really were the centre of Christmas, it would not lead to the fuzzy-feeling, cozy holiday that Mackay describes and that we all enjoy. Jesus "did not come to bring peace, but the sword." In other words, Jesus does not intend to give us comfort and security, at least not before sacrifice, pain and trials. If our holiday merely reinforces a general sense of "good will to all" and warm fuzzy feelings, we can be assured that it is not Christian is any significant sense. Mackay unfortunately tries to have it both ways by fighting for a Christian holiday (supposedly for the good of Christians and non-Christians alike), when a truly Christian Christmas would by definition exclude those who are not part of that faith community... or at least seriously piss them off.

Of course there are many Christians, including me, for whom Christmas really is a Christian holiday, a time to reflect on the "image of God" as flesh and blood, beginning to the long road to the cross. For me it involves feelings of joy ("Can it really be true?"), doubt, ("Can I really believe it is true?"), and struggle ("How can I learn to follow him?") My question is this: how could we argue (or simply assume, as Mackay does) that this aspect of Christmas can have any relevance to the rest of the world? And without the core of obedient discipleship, what is the use of mangers and wise men?

Whether Christians choose to admit it or not, there has always been a "winterval Christmas": the family dinners, warm sweaters, trees and presents. There is also a "Christian Christmas," where those who want to follow Jesus take the oppourtunity to reflect on his arrival in our world. To force the rest of the world to take part in a religious Christmas is not only an affront to non-Christians, it is an injustice to those for whom Christmas does have spiritual value. It is one thing to use Christmas as a time to share with others the light of Christ: it is another to harass the Royal Mail for not putting Jesus on their stamps.

This Christmas, let's give up fighting to preserve a religious culture that is devoid of spiritual value, a culture that emphasizes form over substance, that misses the forest for the trees; the same religious culture that led Jesus to the cross. Let us embrace the "winterval" as a chance to live as Christians in fellowship with the unbelieving world on their terms, not ours, and let us also celebrate Christmas as the arrival of our Lord, as only humble Christians can.

Happy holidays,
and Merry Christmas,

Chris

Week 24 update

Hello everyone

Sorry we have been lax about posting, but we always seem to be busy. This is Melissa, by the way, in case you can't tell from the writing style.

I am currently 24 weeks pregnant and doing very well. I saw the midwife on Monday and we heard the baby's heart beat again. I told her that I have been tired lately and she thinks my iron levels could be low. They don't officially check the levels until 28 weeks, so I am supposed to eat lots of leafy green veg and red meat and eggs and apricots and drink OJ because the Vitamin C helps your body process the iron. Hopefully I can get the levels up so I won't need to take tablets. Besides that I feel good, the baby is always kicking and Chris can feel it. He gets excited when he feels it. :) I am still walking about a mile a day to and from work which is keeping me healthy. I have attached a couple pictures so you can see how huge I am.

Chris' parents were here visiting for a week. They really tired us out, we are still recovering and both are fighting off colds. :( We are resting this weekend and hopefully next week we'll be back to normal again. We had a nice time and it was great to see them.

We showed them around York and did lots of shopping and eating traditional British foods e.g. fish n chips, Indian (seems weird but Brits love to eat it), mince pies and mulled wine, tea with milk, fruit cake with cheese(really yummy even though it sounds weird), tea room fayre, sausage and mash. We also did some pub hopping.

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Chris and I got a fresh organic free range turkey from a farm just outside of York. You have to order it ahead of time so they can make sure they will have one big enough, but when we went to pick it up, someone had taken it the day before by accident! So they apologised and then told us they would kill one and deliver it our house. When it got here it was still warm......that is fresh for you! It was delicious. I have to give credit to my friend Sue who showed Chris how to cook a really nice turkey.

The weather has been pretty mild and I think the rainy season is almost over. We did a riverboat tour up the Ouse River which was nice and I learned some new facts about York.

On another note Chris got a new laptop for Christmas. Of course he had to open it early :) He is very excited about it and has been working more at the University which is good. This gives him more of an opportunity to liaise with other students and keeps him in-the-know about different things on campus. He is very happy with his laptop and so I have to attach a picture of it. I told him that people wouldn't care ;)

I think that is it. I hope you enjoy the pics.


Melissa