Christos anesti!

On Saturday night/Sunday morning I attended the Orthodox midnight Easter service with Patrick, Toby, Dan and Ellie (to be accurate, Kala Pascha, the English word "Easter" being derived from the name of a pagan goddess.) This service contains a number of elements, including candles being lit from person to person at midnight, people chanting in Greek with interesting harmonies, and being given a painted (dyed?) boiled egg at the end. We think the priest liked Ellie because she got two eggs. We then proceeded to Gardie's, which, being Greek, did good business.

If you're wondering why this was a week after most people that you're aware of celebrated Easter, there are long and complicated historical reasons for controversy over the date. Thus the Venerable Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Speaking Peoples has one point of contention with the Celtic missionary Aidan, otherwise held up as a great example of a Christian life:

I have written thus much concerning the character and works of the aforesaid Aidan, in no way commending or approving his lack of wisdom with regard to the observance of Easter; nay, heartily detesting it [...] but, like an impartial historian, unreservedly relating what was done by or through him, and commending such things as are praiseworthy in his actions [...]To be brief, so far as I have learnt from those that knew him, he took care to neglect none of those things which he found in the Gospels and the writings of Apostles and prophets, but to the utmost of his power endeavoured to fulfil them all in his deeds. These things I greatly admire and love in the aforesaid bishop, because I do not doubt that they were pleasing to God; but I do not approve or praise his observance of Easter at the wrong time, either through ignorance of the canonical time appointed, or, if he knew it, being prevailed on by the authority of his nation not to adopt it. Yet this I approve in him, that in the celebration of his Easter, the object which he had at heart and reverenced and preached was the same as ours, to wit, the redemption of mankind, through the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven of the Man Christ Jesus, who is the mediator between God and man.
(Book III, chapter 17)

It seems to me that Bede is more on the right track with his final comment than the rest of what he says, i.e. the meaning of Easter is more important than the date we celebrate it on. A more blatant example of missing the point is a letter of complaint received by the liturgical committee of the US Episcopal Church, which read, "If Jesus Christ knew what you were doing to his prayer book, he'd be turning in his grave."

On Sunday evening I travelled out to Cromwell Road to watch a DVD with people. We watched Spirited Away, a Japanese animé. This was much more plotful than the animé I watched before, and the story was quite touching in places. The general effect of the style has an entrancing beauty. It was nice to see people too.

I got my assignment in yesterday on the minute of the deadline. I had been good and printed out my two copies the day before, but happened to check the regulations one last time that morning only to discover I needed to have a word count and cumulative word count on each page. It's a relief to have it in. Now I've just got a dissertation to write.

We had an Easter egg hunt yesterday evening at Risky Living. This was because it was the first student gathering after the Easter holidays and some people felt hard done by to have missed out on the children's Easter egg hunt by being away from Cambridge at the time. People had great fun throwing chocolate eggs at each other up to and down from the balcony. It had the secondary effect of bringing the timing of the western and eastern Easters together, but I'm not sure that was a conscious intention.

Tim Challies is liveblogging from the Together for the Gospel conference in the USA.

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!
(Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!)

Food 

Lizzy 

Laura 

Aliens 

At the Agra 

Armanio 

birthday season

I am now back in Cambridge, having spent a couple of weeks at home over Easter. We also had three family birthdays (my sister Lizzy's, my brother-in-law Andy's and my mum's), having now embarked on the main family birthday season which runs from March to May (we have another birthday season between September and December, and put together these two periods cover most of the family). For my mum's birthday I obtained a nice card from my sister and then hid it in my room so my mum wouldn't find it. Unfortunately, neither could I when it came to her birthday. I finally found the card yesterday, in a library book which I've brought back to Cambridge. However, for my mum's birthday my sisters cooked a lovely meal, which was something vegetarian in three courses.

I've had some ants crawling round my kitchen (and up my arm). The other day I didn't screw the top on the orange squash tightly enough and counted about 40 dead ants floating in the bottle when I returned to it. (On my mum's birthday I put a slice of lemon in a jug of water which sank to the bottom and remained there until the water was nearly finished. I'm not sure of the science of that.)

I've also had a kind letter from the government to tell me I should start thinking about my pension. They project that, if I don't make any contribution, my weekly pension will be £84.25 at today's prices.

"A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age."
(Robert Frost)

Chinese whispers

Congratulations to Dan Lewis, who has won the UK Varsity ‘Chinese Bridge’ Speech Competition, which involves giving a number of speeches in Chinese and answering questions about Chinese culture - the university press release is here. This was a pleasant surprise to me yesterday - I went to the Cambridge University website to check up on something else and suddenly thought "Hang on, I recognise that face". Congratulations to Joy too, who won a prize along with Dan for the Chinese song they wrote. Dan and Joy can always be expected to do things in style.

(Is the baby imbibing Chinese yet?)

family fun

I'm back home in sunny Sleaford, Lincolnshire. I got back on Friday evening. Since then I've been to a performance of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at my church by visiting puppets from Grimsby. This was a spectacular production involving multimedia, as well as appropriately multicoloured, effects. Andy & Lorna, as the Sleaford hosts of the performance, added their own touch by giving out a party bag to every member of the audience with glow sticks, cardboard crowns and party poppers, all to be used at the appropriate time in the show.

Yesterday was my sister Lizzy's birthday. Since she's a primary school teacher, she's busy this week helping turn the pages for the songs at the Year 6 pantomime. So for her birthday, we took her out for a meal at the local pub and then went to watch the pantomime, Aladdin, which was good, with some touches which succeeded in being intentionally humorous.

In my last couple of days in Cambridge I participated in three linguistics experiments, which are always fun. They're often looking out for volunteers and do give a small pecuniary incentive as well as the fascinating experience of having your mind played with (usually in not too drastic ways).

Ciao for now.