Monthly Archives: June 2020

Moving On

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“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

It’s a small little verse tucked in to the end of Luke 2 (verse 52) but contains a wealth of information. And a lot of time. It’s the only verse we have that tells us about Jesus’ adolescent years before we see His ministry begin in adulthood. (Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about that — I didn’t truly research it). It’s a verse that I’ve been reflecting on this week as the youngest Mitton moved on from elementary school.

School (albeit the strange form of online-homeschool-semi-vacation-time-filling-preparatory-work as it has been for the last few months) is now completed for the summer. Our youngest was supposed to have graduation ceremony from our elementary school, which ends in grade 6, and move on to middle or junior high. Covid-19 prevented any kind of formal celebration — but that is another muse. For me, it was the end of an era. All four of our kids attended the same elementary school, and we parents were quite active in all of it’s goings ons — bake sales, track and field events, farm visits, pizza days, talent shows, concerts, parent teacher interviews and the school council. I’ve been on our elementary school council for almost 20 years… and now it’s done.

This past week, my current council blessed me with a “drive by” parade and a flood of well wishes and tokens of their thanks for my service. At first, the introvert in me was completely taken aback, and thoroughly embarrassed — the principal and vice principal, administrators and even key teachers showed up on my front lawn. (To the absolute detriment to my children’s self preservations — now the teachers know where and what our house looks like! The horror!) Alas, after the initial shock, I, well, I “had a moment”. Private thoughts and personal memories of each of our children’s first days, struggles and moments of joy flooded back as I reflected later. I, too, met new friends, shared highlights, valley lows and packed a whack load of lunches. I learned about other cultures, set goals, experienced frustration, joy and pride as I watched as my children also grow in “wisdom and stature”.

I don’t know what education looked like in Jesus’ day. I don’t know if Mary homeschooled or if education was at the temple or under Joseph’s care in the shop. The Bible verse tells us Jesus grew in wisdom — which means He persevered through experiences that lead Him to make decisions, to grow, to debate, and to decide in which direction to move forward. He grew in favour with God and man — which means He had to study the Torah and be taught foundational principles, as well as participate in traditions and festivals. It means He made new friends and endured teasing, perhaps even bullying, by peers. I’m sure He had chores and bookbags and homework. I’m sure Mary baked for neighbourhood kids and shooed them out to play. Did she have to send two healthy snacks and hope Jesus didn’t lose His indoor sandals? Did Jesus get frustrated learning how to knot the perfect tzitzit or did Joseph have “take your kid to work” day?

It’s a small little verse tucked away at the end of our “Christmas story” in Luke 2. For me, it’s packed with almost 20 years of memories of my own kids and many “I wonders” about another child who grew, yes, but yet had such a special mission. Time has a cruel way of never standing still. As my youngest “moves on” and I am forced to move with her, I will continue to pray and trust that we will all find favour with God and man. Enjoy your summer vacations, my friends!

Celebrating during Covid-19

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Welcome to another week of mittonmusings. Things are finally starting to open back up again and life is returning to our “new normal”. That seems like a strange notion to return to, but most of us have never been through a worldwide pandemic, and so we go with whatever the powers that be tell us. Which includes this whole idea of social distancing and isolating ourselves from others — especially the “vulnerable” ones in our society. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for safety and am a big believer in following the rules, but I couldn’t help but wonder this week: What will all this isolation do to our sense of celebration?

The middle kid celebrated his birthday this week. We’ve already celebrated two other birthdays in lockdown, and, of course, Father’s Day was this past Sunday. We were supposed to have a graduation, too, at the end of the month. Many of our normal celebratory gatherings and rituals have been cancelled. And yet, I have seen so many creative ways to mark special occasions in spite of lockdown. So, what does one do to mark a memorable day? Why do we do it that way or this way? Does it reflect the people celebrating or is it to mark the celebration itself? It’s interesting to ponder — especially as an introvert. I’m not much for celebrating, and we have a family debate each time a special date rolls around. Please feel free to comment on your thoughts to help the case one way or another. But as for me, I think about things. The reasons we do things — why and how, and then why “that how”? I get it. Humans were created to be social. We need each other and were created for interaction. One look at how Covid-19 has panned out and we see it. Just watch the news for awhile and we will see that we are geared to fight and protest and share joys and sorrows and injustice. Even if it is over zoom or from the balcony ledge. Forget the news… any kindergarten class will show you those things, too.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

According to Seline Shenoy (The Dream Catcher/ Happiness Project) there are five benefits to celebrating:

  • 1.Cultivating a sense of community: One of the most opportune times to bond with our families and friends is during special occasions.
  • 2. Instilling a sense of meaning and significance to our lives:  Participating in the customary rites (cutting cakes and drinking champagne) instills a sense of reverence and appreciation for the gift of life and connects us to a more omnipotent force.
  • 3. We will create lasting fond memories: The human mind tends to recall memories that carry a high emotional charge to them. When we commemorate a special occasion, we are essentially placing a mental bookmark on an experience, thereby making it easier to remember it in the future.
  • 4. It adds fun and excitement to our lives: Celebrations can be incredibly fun and provides us with the perfect opportunity to engage in the joys of life such dance, song, food, play and laughter. 
  • 5. We take our place in the circle of life: When we commemorate special occasions, we are essentially connecting with our humanity and the commonality that we share with all those who have been long gone before us. We tap into the timelessness of the human spirit when we take the time to pay respect to the important rites of passages that were celebrated by our ancestors in the yester years.

I don’t know if I agree with all of the five reasons, but I suspect sociologists and psychologists have been studying the whole idea for longer than I have, so who’s to argue? Besides, I love a good piece of cake. And my scrapbooks are filled with memories shared, so it must mean something. I think God just wired us that way, so that’s life.

I couldn’t help but find our past week of celebrations a little strange though, considering the times we were in: masked family, no hugging, keeping our distances … can you celebrate without the physical connection? Obviously, you can. We’ve participated in a virtual wedding and drive by birthdays this year. We “celebrated” — but it was strange. Did we miss out on some sort of secret? Or is it simply strange because it wasn’t the way we are used to doing things?

Sigh. I guess this muse has truly been that — a muse. I don’t have any answers this week. No insights or revelations. I’m simply pondering. Would you consider sharing your thoughts in the comments or on my socials this week? I’m curious what you might be thinking. How do you choose to celebrate? Why? Did God instill it in us? How has history played a roll? Or culture, tradition or socio-economic status? And what will it look like going forward from here?!

Fish Care 101

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We accomplished a big task this week… we cleaned the fish tank. Aquarium enthusiasts be warned, I have had fish for years and know that tanks need regular maintenance… but I am not the person to follow if you need good fish advice on how to clean an aquarium. But, let’s back up a bit shall we? We have a tall tank that sits in our living room — I’d say it’s about 35 gallons or so. We’ve had it for years and have done goldfish, tropical community fish and slightly more aggressive ones. My brother kept cichlids for years, but I am too “frugal” for that hobby favourite. Which brings me back to this week. A few years back we picked up some cheap show guppies — an easy-to-care-for community fish that is pretty enough to look at. Check out my facebook page if you wanna see the video of our fancy guppies! Fun fact about show guppies is that they are also live bearers (which means they breed well and have live babies). So, needless to say, our stock grew from 6 fish to about 80. Yes, 80. We also had some living duckweed and some other live aquatic plant in there… and an aggressive green algae that soon took over. ( I told you I wasn’t someone you should take advice from). Alas, here we are in the tail end of a global pandemic with nowhere else to go, so we decided to take the beast on!

You see, cleaning a green monster is no easy task when you still have about 80 fish… many of which are teeny tiny babies. You can’t just dump and pour. Fish tanks have delicate balances of good bacteria and things that fish need — not to mention our city water has a lot of bad chemicals that fish don’t need! And so we began the task of categorizing fish and separating them out to other balanced tanks. We even saved the littlest one which is about the size of “l” with eyeballs. We “traded in” quite a few to our local pet store (which was an ordeal in itself — self distancing with our bucket after sloshing the original container around in the car. Sorry about the seats, darling.) We knew we might lose a few to stress. Overall, though… a fairly successful fish move after their small tank “vacation” as the youngest referred to it as.

The tank itself wasn’t too hard to scrub out… and years of thrifting and pet ownership provided a nice selection of accessories to choose from, but we needed a new background. Did I mention I am “frugal”? Which means I wasn’t about to pay for a new fancy piece of glossy paper when I could print, laminate and creatively tape together my own… let’s just call it crafty, okay? So… after a week or so of scrubbing, fishing, waiting and bucket patrol… Volia! Happy fish and a clean tank!

The “After”

The week long task had me musing about fish, of course. And there are lots of examples of fish references in the Bible: the fishers of men miracle, Jonah and the giant fish, five loaves and two fish etc. Margaret Feinburg’s “Taste and See” book has some good thoughts on the “fishy” parts of scripture, so I encourage you to see my review about that here. However, my internet travels took me to another fish that I found interesting to read about: The Jesus Fish or ichthys. I’m sure you’ve seen it on jewellery, bookmarks or the back of someone’s bumper.

What I didn’t know was that the ancient Greek symbol was an acrostic of ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys), which translates into ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, [Our] Saviour’.

Iota (i) is the first letter of Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), Greek for “Jesus”.

Chi (ch) is the first letter of Christos (Χριστός), Greek for “anointed” (of the Lord).

Theta (th) is the first letter of Theou (Θεοῦ), Greek for “God’s”, the genitive case of Θεóς, Theos, Greek for “God”.

Upsilon (y) is the first letter of (h)yios (Yἱός), Greek for “Son”.

Sigma (s) is the first letter of sōtēr (Σωτήρ), Greek for “Saviour”.

Pretty cool, eh?

Apparently the symbol was used by the early church as a “secret” symbol during the Roman persecution of early Christians. It helped to identify whether a stranger was a fellow follower or an enemy. As the story goes, the greeter would draw the first half of the fish, and a friend would complete the reciprocal line if they understood the initial drawer’s reference. If not, the stranger would just appear to be drawing arches in the sand. The symbol was also spotted on secret meeting places or worship gatherings. It made a comeback in the 1960’s as Christians began to use it as a “logo” for Christian merchandising. Do you have it somewhere?

I hope you liked that little tidbit of information on such a simple idea. In these strange times of identities and isolations, I’m reminded that I too, have conversations to start about my identity as a “fisher of men (and women)”. That I belong to a bigger world of people who follow Christ, and that by doing so I may be persecuted for my own beliefs. Like our aquarium, I can get overcrowded, choked out and clouded up without regular maintenance. And it can be a big job to clean it up and get our lives back to looking sparkling again.

So, next time you see an ichthys on the back of someone’s car, send me off an email to remind me to change my fish tank’s filters okay? Be blessed, my friends!