festival – Like An Anchor

I’ve mentioned before that I keep Saturday as a Sabbath rest, but I don’t think I’ve talked about why. Not every Christian is convicted of this, but I’m seeing more and more acknowledging the value of “sabbathing.” It’s just a small step from realizing that God’s command to rest is good, to resting on the day He set aside from the beginning of creation.

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (Gen. 2:1-3)

This verse tells us God chose a certain day, the seventh, as a day of rest. He gave this day a special blessing, and set it apart for sacred use. “Sanctified” in the Hebrew carries the sense of separating something from “the common or profane” and placing it in “the sphere of the sacred” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p.1989). That’s what God did with the Sabbath day from the beginning of the world. Read more →

Albannach at the Ohio Renaissance Festival — Albannach called this kid on stage after seeing him Highland dancing in the audience.

A couple years ago when my sister and I were at the Ohio Renaissance Festival on Barbarian Weekend, we heard the sound of drums and bagpipes from the direction of Reveler’s Stage. Intrigued, we followed the music and saw Albannach perform for the first time. Since then, our goal has been to make it back to the Ren Faire on a day Albannach was performing, and this year we finally made it for Highland Weekend. We watched all three of their shows, so it was nearly three hours of awesome music. You can hear samples and buy songs on their website.

In between Albannach’s second and third shows, we meandered over to the Arena of Champions for a full armor joust. It’s always a highlight of the Ren Fest, and this year we were treated to a tourney with four knights jousting instead of the usual two. Usually it seems that when they divide the audience up to cheer for a specific knight, I happen to be sitting on the side that loses. This year, however, “our” knight won his joust, but unfortunately we couldn’t stay for the 5:00 joust to see the winners compete.

I was sewing like a mad woman last week so all three of us (my brother, sister, and me) were able to go in costume. Perhaps not quite the costume we were hoping for (my brother would have preferred noble man to peasant), but we’ll plan on that for next year. Only a couple of our pieces were new for this year, but I think the overall mixing-and-matching turned out rather well.

Tag: festival

There Remains A Sabbath

Renaissance Faire …… Huzzah!