Christmas Light Night 2014 or Church and State, No Separation

Friday the 14th of November, 2014  marked the annual Christmas Light Night in Dundee. 

Waiting for the lights to be switched on

This is the night on which the Christmas tree in the city centre is switched on, and the Christmas season officially begins (at least from the point of view of stores and shoppers, if not the church).

If you are reading this in the US, you may be saying, hold on a minute here - the city government puts up a Christmas tree in the centre of town? And throws a party, complete with a torchlight parade, music, dancing, an appearance by Santa, fireworks (set to "Let it Go" much to the delight of the girls) but ALSO the aforementioned Christmas tree, lighted decorations with Christmas themes, and a Nativity play? What happened to separation of Church and State?

Reform Street greetings

The answer, as far as I can tell in Scotland, is "it doesn't really exist."  The common perception is"Well, everyone is Christian anyway, so it doesn't matter."  According to the 2011 census in Scotland, 54% of people say they are Christian, while 37% claim "no religion."  Muslims are 1.4% of the population, and all others (Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, or Another Religion) are .9% of the population.  Audrey goes to a Catholic school which is part of the state-supported school system - she went because there were places there, not so much because we wanted her to be in Catholic school, but it is tuition-free - again, a big no-no in the States, and a big so-what in Scotland.

So, Christmas Light Night 2014. 

The Christmas Tree, lit up

The City Centre gets a teacup ride for the occasion

...and really large Disney balloons...

Preparing to go out, with our Santa hats

Bonus: One-minute video of the Light Night event during which the band plays a cover of A-Ha's "Take On Me" on the bagpipes. Seriously Awesome.

Post-Easter-Post

Today at church I heard a great children's sermon.  The regular sermon was good too, but I was struck by the children's sermon because the pastor did something I hadn't seen before. He told the kids he was going to talk to them about God's love, and sharing their faith.  And he proceeded to show them a sheet of paper on which he had printed, many times, the words "God's Love":

He asked the kids to count the corners on the paper (four, naturally) then pulled out a pair of "Sunday School scissors"..

...and proceeded to cut off a corner of the paper to share God's Love with one of the kids. He then asked them how many corners he had left - they said three. But of course, when he counted, he had three he had started with, plus two corners he had created by cutting off the fourth corner - so five corners. He got up to 10 corners by sharing God's Love, and he also showed the girl who took the first corner that she now had 3 corners, and when she shared with a neighbor, each of them had three corners. A great illustration, I thought.

A few other post-Easter thoughts - I spent Good Friday in St. Andrews, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day.  Between that day and sunny days in Dundee,  I have been taking a ton of pictures, some Easter-related, and some just arty.  A few of the more Easter-related are below. 

Churchyard, St. Peter's Free Church, Dundee	St. Peter's Free Church, Dundee
Church door in St. Andrews	St. Peters sign, Dundee
Dandelions on the tops of her shoes	Daisy Trinity
St. Andrews Cathedral	Exiting St. Andrews Cathedral toward North St.
Walking on Water...almost	Church on the Dundee-St. Andrews road with graveyard tumbling  down the hill

Renewing Vows and Unanswerable Questions

Just to be clear, the two parts of today's title are not related - I just have two short topics I am thinking about so I figured I'd put them in one entry.

On Valentines Day, Paul and I renewed our wedding vows while holding Audrey, who was content to try to dismantle the two roses tied together with ribbon that they had given us. The renewal ceremony was held at a Lutheran church on the southeast side, and most of the people participating were from that church, but a few, like us, had read about the ceremony in the paper on Thursday under "alternative things to do for Valentines Day" and called the church office on Friday to RSVP.

The service was at 2 pm, and Paul's story is that he got so frustrated with me complaining that I had nothing to wear (that fit, anyway) around 11:30 am that he took Audrey and sent me out to buy something , anything that I felt looked decent and not to come back until I had something. It took me almost 2 hours but I managed to get a black skirt. I couldn't even find a whole outfit. But I put the skirt together with a shirt I already had, fed Audrey, and we got in the car and went to the service, making it just in time.

My story is that although we made it to the service, I forgot my camera so we have no pictures of this event. We ended up waiting a bit anyway once we got there because they were waiting for one more couple who had RSVPed. The service was nice although I did have to get up and walk around with Audrey when the pastor made his remarks - a sort of mini-sermon, but still too long for Audrey to sit through. After several readings and the remarks, we got up to renew our vows. The church was octagonal, and had an octagonal alter rail around the central altar, so we spread out around the alter, facing our partners. There were 13 couples, and the pastor had specifically admonished us that we were to say our vows to our current partner and not to someone we happened to be standing next to as we circled the alter. One couple had been married 50 years that day, so they stood up on the alter with the pastor and he read the vows for them. The men went first, with the pastor saying "I, Don" which Paul quickly changed to "I, Paul" then..."take you, Roberta" to which Paul promptly repeated "take you, Roberta" I started laughing as Paul pressed on, repeating the vows and slipping in "Kay" in a few spots so he could assure me that he was renewing his vows with me, and was not in fact marrying Roberta.

After the service the ladies of the church had made a variety of valentines cakes - one looked like a mini wedding cake but others were heart-shaped with jam and the best one, a low-sugar chocolate cake. They were all very tasty, and people admired Audrey who of course put on her most charming looks for them. As I told Paul, I wanted to renew our vows because it was a sentimental thing to do on Valentines day, but also because I knew there would be a story. Or in this case, at least two.

Now, to close with the unanswerable questions. There are two, right now. One is "How's your dissertation going?" and the other is "Is Audrey sleeping through the night?" The short answers are "Slowly" and "No" and I don't really want to get into either!

Holy War?

Yesterday Paul and I were sitting, as new parents are wont to do, admiring our beautiful, intelligent baby as she leaned up against dad's knees and made faces at us. Mostly smiles, but some other faces too.

One of us had said something about church, which prompted me to say "Yeah, before we know it she'll be up singing in the children's choir at church" (or, more aptly, standing in front of the church with a bunch of other little kids, two of whom are actually singing and the rest of whom are A) scanning the crowd for mom and dad, B) having found mom and dad, waving wildly, C) looking like they are about to cry, or D)all three).

Paul agreed that she might be in the children's choir, because we will probably raise her Presbyterian. After all, Paul reasons, it is the church that I (and sometimes we) go to on a regular basis. By "a regular basis" I mean once a month or more...Paul is still adjusting to this whole "not going to church weekly is not a sin" element of the Protestant faith.

Paul teases me that I have something against the Catholic church, since I am so avowedly Presbyterian. In my defense, I point out that half my family and most of my friends who profess any religious preference are Catholic, but this does not seem to sway his view that I am somehow anti-Catholic.

I had to laugh, though, because as we were talking about church, Paul said to Audrey "Yes, you'll probably be Presbyterian but you could be Catholic, what do you think about that?" Audrey replied with a face I can only describe as "dubious." Too bad I didn't get a picture.