New avatar time. This one I picked up courtesy of Phil Plait, the astronomer best known for the blog Bad Astronomy. It is the Earth taken from 630,000 km by the EU's Rosetta space probe. The spacecraft's main mission, for which it just woke up, is to drop a lander on to a comet; the first ever attempt to land on one. IOW, this spectacular view of Earth could just be the beginning of one spectacular space exploration mission.

Mendalla

A little over one hundred years ago, in January 1911, Westside Methodist Church opened with great fanfare and festivity.

Designed in the Akron Plan style, it was the most up to date church building in Owen Sound. When it was dedicated, it was completely and fully paid for. The Methodist Church would not allow it to be otherwise. Debt was seen to be something which held a congregation back and placed an unfair burden upon them.

Westside was debt-free largely because of the dedicated work of the minister, The Reverend Henry Fish.

I love it when kids ask questions which confound adults. Our Sunday School leader approached me after Christmas with a good question one of our young people asked in Sunday School. “If Jesus were alive today, how old would he be?” There was some argument in the group over whether Jesus would be 2013 years of age or not. Fortunately, the Sunday School leader said she would check it out and come back with an answer. And the answer is, “It depends.” No one, with any certainly, can give a definitive date for the birth of Jesus, no matter if we celebrate it on December 25 every year.

I confess that I have, over the years, contributed to the decline of Canada Post.

I haven’t sent Christmas cards in years.

I rarely send letters, except for business reasons, or to the Canada Revenue Agency.

I have, by and large, turned to e-mail and especially text messaging for much of my communication.

But I still enjoy receiving a letter.

I like reading magazines which come through the mail.