Perspectives by Rev. Arlyce Schiebout

February 15, 2012 Editor Opinion

Feast of Friendship and Love

What a delight to write a column for Valentine’s Day.  What do I know about the day?  

Well, perhaps like many of you there was the yearly ritual in grade school of making a mailbox out of a shoebox and putting it on the side of your desk.  Then buying or making valentine cards for each person in class, trying to find the right person for the right card, a matching process of sorts.  Treats like cupcakes, heart candies and strawberry punch were shared, and it was reason for a mid-winter party.

Adults like to give and receive Valentine’s Day cards and gifts, too.  I know two people who have sent back and forth the same valentine card over their 30 years of marriage.  They just joke that they are too frugal to buy a new card.  

In fact, the card’s greeting is so meaningful to each person that neither has found another card that offers better sentiments.

Card companies sell more cards for Valentine’s Day than for Christmas.  Internet blogs and social networks go crazy on this day as do the florists.  It is said that men purchase valentines more than any other kind of card.

God sends us a masterpiece of art and love everyday.  We awake and there is hope and possibility for the day.  God’s love for creation and humanity is not defined by colouring in the lines of a card.  

Rather God’s love particularly colours outside the lines so that each of us is unique and loved before, beyond and forever.  We are one-of-a-kind works of God’s love.  

And when we claim God’s goodness and love in our lives, we can share that love and wholeness with others. It is the love that extends from self to other; it is self-giving love that generates integrity and love knowing that the other is also created in God’s image, unique and loved.  It is the living out of the Great Commandment, “to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and one’s neighbour as one’s self.”

Valentine’s Day is that day when we practice self-forgetfulness, which is at the heart of making love–being totally engaged in what you are doing for another person.  

Those who make love daily by self-forgetfulness find ecstasy in celebrating the love they have been making day by day.  Go for it!  May the peace and blessings of the One who is Wholly Love guide and keep you.  

Rev. Arlyce Schiebout

Lakeshore United Church

Morrisburg

 

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Pound for pound

April 3, 2013 Editor Opinion

Do you know what the hardest part of dealing with a major holiday is? The extra goodies.

On so-called ordinary days of the year, I zero in on sweets with the tracking intensity of a smart bomb. (A two day old slice of commercial pecan pie locked inside an iron safe at the bottom of a concrete bunker would not escape me.) 

You can imagine how challenging it is for a perpetual dieter like me, therefore, to be confronted by major holidays. Surrounded on those days by dinner tables, bakery shelves and candy counters literally groaning  under loads of extra goodies.

It can make you crazy.

And there is no use pointing out that all I need to control my cravings is a good dose of will power. If that actually worked, I wouldn’t wake up the morning after a holiday,  my head throbbing, to discover a stained saw clutched in my hand and the frozen remains of a caramel fudge cake scattered around me.

Diet. One of the vilest four letter words in the English language. 

Yet for most of us, it is a word that we constantly use in even casual conversations. We openly discuss preparing for a diet,  being on a diet, recovering from a diet, or purchasing billions of dollars worth of books with titles like The Hollywood Dog Biscuit and Warm Tonic Water Diet.

Unfortunately, the warning signs of overindulgence are all too easily spotted. 

The inability to bend over in our jeans. Or do them up. Realizing the driver’s seat is already as far back as it can ever go. Pausing to check out one’s stomach profile on a bank of motion activated computers, only to see a sign pop up on the monitor which reads “continued on next screen.” 

Serial dieters confront  daily dilemmas. Brussels sprouts versus double chunk chocolate ice cream? A plain tossed salad, dressing on the side, versus five cheese lasagna with garlic bread? 

Some one actually shared with me her foolproof solution for coping with these issues.

She maintains that all she has to do is rigorously diet every single day of the year except for two hours on an official, designated, national holiday! In those two hours, she claimed she could dive into the forbidden goodies: but only for that fixed amount of time,  and only on specific holidays. 

I really think her designated holiday solution may have merit.

And may I take this opportunity, here and now, to remind everyone of the following lesser known holidays: National Tooth Decay Day (Oct. 20), Celebration of the Invention of Velcro Day (Aug. 18), International Yodelling Day (Jan. 13), Replacing Furnace Filters Day (April 16), Civic Take Down Your Christmas Decorations Day (July 27)…

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