|
Tomorrow being Thanksgiving, (it's in October here, Yanks) Amy's mum cooked a big turkey dinner. Amy and I and her brother and sister-in-law and their kids gathered for a lovely meal. I always love Thanksgiving dinner...as my mum once pointed out, beige foods are my favourite. Turkey, potatoes, stuffing - these are the Thanksgiving flagship foods. I have branched out recently...as a child I couldn't stand cranberry sauce, but I like it now. And Amy's mum had peas, which I'd been craving just a couple days previous, so the plate wasn't so monochromatic as it was in years past. Still...I like me some beige food. After church today I went along with Fr. O to a house blessing. It's not something a lot of people do, but I found it a really positive experience. We started in the entryway, blessing the inhabitants' work outside and praying for their safe return each day. We moved through the house, blessing the kitchen and the meals to be made there, the dining room where the family breaks bread together, the bedrooms for safe and rejuvenating rest and the living room as the focus of the family's life together. We even blessed the back yard, as a place of recreation and escape. Afterward we had a big meal and sat about chatting. I think it's a lovely way to move into a place - a way to celebrate the meaning of the home rather than just its use. The family, like many of the parishioners at St. Anne's, is from the West Indies. It's fascinating to listen to them talk about the islands...it's like someone from a mainland town talking about the surrounding communities. There's a sense that the whole area is their neighbourhood. People from St. Kitts relate to people from Barbados much like people from Guelph to people from Kitchener, or Edgerton to Milton. This place is hot in the summer, that one has a good night life, such and such has a beautiful beach. They're the folks just down the road...or just across the water. |
