just another day in Arkansas

Never know who you might meet on vacation. May we never meet again!

this time of year reminds me of Vienna

Five years ago my husband and I visited Vienna and Hallstatt. Everyone else should too. Hallstatt is backed up to the Austrian Alps and to get to the village you take a boat. Our boat driver bore an uncanny resemblance to Cliff on Cheers.

But we didn't go when it was all summer-ish like in the above picture. The below picture is more like it.

We stayed at the inn below - Gasthof Simony. Our window balcony looked over the water and swans: it was pretty much perfect.

                      And the street view:

I'm ready to go back.

from St. Aidan's

These short and to the point posts really hit the nail on the head. The 7 minutes (literally) you use in reading them will well be worth it. They are on very different topics, but all three are everyday things.


Family vs. Church
Teaser Quote:

At its heart, the liturgy calls us to “commend ourselves, each other and all our lives unto Christ our God.” While we need to sing those words on a weekly basis, we also need daily opportunities outside of liturgy to accomplish the challenge of our song. We need to establish and cherish those informal, non-liturgical times as God-given arenas in which service to our family can itself become a churchly act, our personal liturgy.

My favorite line is,
"The debate between family and church...is like the relationship of the flower to the soil."
2 minutes to read http://www.saintaidan.ca/2010/07/family-vs-church.html


Ministry of Suffering
Teaser Quote:

For those who endure chronic suffering, I would say: this is your ministry. Your victory in the smallest of things—getting out of bed, being gentle with a loved one in the midst of the pain—can and will change the lives of those around you more powerfully than the most talented of writers or preachers or missionaries. It was for you above all that God entered His creation. He came to suffer not just for you, but with you and beside you.

My favorite line is,
"The temptation in this line of thinking, of course, is to conceive of chronic suffering as a permanent detour from normalcy. “Real life” is somewhere else, and other people are living it."
2 minutes to read http://www.saintaidan.ca/2010/07/ministry-of-suffering.html


Vacation
Teaser Quote:

...vacation cannot be an escape from ourselves any more than it can be an escape from other people. Rather than using time away as a psychological anaesthetic for our personal pains, we might perhaps use it as a magnifying lens through which we can see our hearts more clearly.

My favorite line is,
"Wherever you go, you always bring yourself."
3 minutes to read http://www.saintaidan.ca/2010/08/vacation.html