I Definitely Need This Study!

This morning a dear friend and sister in the Lord sent me a copy of a bible study she is working on by Steve Johnson titled, "30  Days to Coping with Delay".  It is about learning how to better handle life when it seems God is taking his sweet time and then some to answer prayers that seem to us in need of far more quick responses than what we are getting.

At first glance the study seemed simple enough; based on Abraham and Sarah praying for a child and the terribly long wait they had for Isaac's arrival.  However the first question based on Proverbs 13:12"...hope deferred makes the heart sick." caught my attention. The question is "How do you feel when hopes are delayed?"  

Confession time:  Ummmm....without even taking time to think much about it I had 5 words/phrases, boom, just like that! And ALL negative! Yikes! (frightened, hopeless, resigned to the worst possible outcome, undeserving of God's attention, confused as to whether or not I have been praying for the right kind of answer) In other words every response EXCEPT "trust" (in God's wisdom to answer correctly in HIS time).  WOW, how incredibly embarrassing is that after all the years I have been trying with varying degrees of success to be a disciple of Christ??!!!? After all the years of seeing God answer prayers at the last possible second, and perfectly, how could these be my instant first responses to the question?  Aiii yiiii....I have some work to do in my relationship with God, that's for sure.  I am most grateful to my friend for passing this study along to me.  Never too old to learn so that is a good thing! God is so incredibly patient and for that I am most grateful!!

It Isn’t Up To The Kids To Exonerate Their Parents’ Unresolved Guilt!

I am learning things now that I wish I had understood much earlier in my life, as it would have made for more adult emotional security for myself and may have helped my parents understand the reality of the consequences of some of their actions toward me. If nothing else I could have changed my own pathetic responses to some of the things they said to me, even when I was an adult, but stupidly I never did. 

A few examples stand out to me. There are many more, but no need to share them all because I have forgiven my folks. All parents make mistakes and I am guilty of some real lulus with my own son. 

I am now realizing that some things said to me by my parents were for the purpose of getting ME to absolve  THEIR guilt; things in some cases that I never needed to know. I didn’t need to know at age 4 that a lovely young woman we knew had asked my parents if I could be the flower girl at her wedding and they said no because they felt I was not mature enough. Even at that young age I knew inside, when they confessed the situation and their decision to me, that my job was to tell them it was okay even though for me it wasn’t, that I understood, even though I didn’t and that I wasn’t upset about it, even though my little four year old heart was breaking with overwhelming disappointment. How on earth was I so aware of my “duty” to absolve at the ripe old age of four years? And why did I even have to know the possibility of being a flower girl had even come up? 

For the next more than 50 years I had many similar situations occur: that my parents rejected my acceptance into the accelerated learning programme in elementary school, that after assuming I would be going  along and included as a grandchild, I was not taken to my grandparents’ funerals when I was in high school…missing my most dearly loved paternal grandfather’s funeral, ("We had planned actually to take you to this final funeral for your one remaining grandparent, but decided you should not miss a week of school.", despite my being an honour student at the time). That was a tipping point for me as I cascaded into an emotional breakdown for which no professional medical help was offered. Why at a time of great need for my family did I need to know this: my parents told me what they had planned to do to assist us, but, “now we’re not because we can get this great situation of ourselves instead.” In all these cases I did not need to know what wonderful things they had originally planned for/with me and then decided not to for various odd reasons. I just remember myself continuing decade after decade to go through the expected motions of telling them it was okay that they had changed their minds and that it was okay that they told me about these possibilities they then decided were not going to happen…even though it wasn’t.  How much guilt about their own changes of mind in regard to what was going to happen in regard to events that impacted me were they harbouring that made them so needy for my forgiveness over things they could have just said nothing at all about?

As I say, I have forgiven them and harbour no more resentment, but I had a strong feeling this morning during my prayer time that I needed to attempt to send out a message to parents who read this blog:  DO NOT expect your children to rid you of your own guilt over actions that you have taken in regard to decision making for them. Expecting a young person to understand why you have changed your mind as to how they should be involved or not involved in a situation where you have that kind of control, a situation they did not even know had arisen, to wave the tempting carrot after the race to decide has already ended without including their input is not fair to any child.  Please don't do that.  Don't expect a pre-schooler to make you feel better about your decisions affecting them....decisions about situations they had no awareness of until you told them about it and made it seem like they were going to be participating in the situation or receiving something from the situation and then pull the good possibility out from under them because you know inside yourself you feel guilty for some reason for the decision you have made.  Please, please, please don't do that to your babies.  Assess very carefully their need to know the situation or possibility has arisen in the first place.  As a four year old I didn't need to know I had had the opportunity to do something that sounded so wonderful and then had it snatched away with no input on my feelings about it. Discuss with your child before the decision is made, not afterwards, and then only IF the child is old enough to understand what is being offered and why the offer is being withdrawn.  Ask yourselves, do they even need to know about this?  Are they too young to understand our decision?  If so why, REALLY, are we telling them and expecting them to forgive us for our decision?

Thank you for reading this and thinking about what I am saying.  As I mentioned, I made some horrendous mistakes myself as a parent that still haunt me when I remember them, but this is one bit of advice I can offer as someone who paid the price for that kind of communication glitch with my own parents.  As an adult I could have and should have responded with calm honesty to these kinds of situations, but I didn't and that is on me. 

Blessings on your day!  My own day has been blessed because my husband and I were able to get out grocery shopping in the nice warm sunshine.  We were able to get to multiple stores and stock up on many sale items.  My boots provide wonderful support for my sore foot, so although I probably didn't need to wear winter boots today for most of our walking about, it was marvellous to be on my feet that much and be pain-free!  We stopped for lunch at Roots and took advantage of their daily $10.99 lunch specials...really, really nice hand formed burgers and three cheese with spinach dip and uber fresh corn tortilla chips.  No wonder it is so crowded at lunch time there....really good food, low in salt in our case as requested and the price...amazing!  

So all the groceries are put away, my bank book is updated, I have done this blog post, had a good chat on the phone with a BC friend....must be time to go and do a few physio exercises.

Thank you God for a very good day today! 

Tomorrow my coffee buddy is coming over and in the afternoon is Bible Study, plus it is to be a few degrees above zero again....lots of happy things to look forward to. 

 

 

Preacher Pa, Tennis Enthusiast, On Jesus Playing Tennis

 " 'I'd like to see you read Paul's letter to the Romans.  He has a great deal to say about keeping oneself free from vanity. Focus on the important things.'

'Like tennis, I suppose.' I said, with a hollow laugh.

'Tennis is a discipline,' sighed Pa. 'The more disciplined we are, the better we are.  Jesus would have played tennis, had the game existed in the ancient Graeco-Roman world.'

'Whom would he have played?  John the Baptist? He'd have been a great player, wouldn't he, Pa?'

'John would have been too wild, too unorthodox.  I suspect his backhand would have let him down.  He'd have amazed you occasionally though. He'd suddenly do something unexpected and brilliant. He'd have shocked the crowds.'

'Peter?'

'Not confident enough.  He'd lose his nerve under pressure.'

'Paul?'

'He'd challenge the linesman continually.  He's want to analyse every shot.  He'd refuse to admit defeat.'

'So Jesus would have won then, against all of them?'

Pa shook his head.

'Not at all,' he said.  'He'd let the others win.  Every time.'

'So his weakness was making people believe they were great when they were quite ordinary?'

'No, no, no,', said Pa. 'That was his great strength.' "

--from "The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp"  by Eva Rice

Good Thoughts On the Imago Dei...So True

From an author our pastor and my husband have been reading lately:

D.J.A. Clines sums up the functional understanding of the imago dei quite nicely.

Man is created not in God’s image, since God has no image of His own, but as God’s image, or rather to be God’s image, that is to deputize in the created world for the transcendent God who remains outside the world order. 

That man is God’s image means that he is the visible corporeal representative of the invisible, bodiless God; he is representative rather than representation, since the idea of portrayal is secondary in the significance of the image. However, the term “likeness” is an assurance that man is an adequate and faithful representative of God on earth. The whole man is the image of God, without distinction of spirit and body. All mankind, without distinction, are the image of God… Mankind, which means both the human race and individual men, do not cease to be the image of God so long as they remain men; to be human and to be the image of God are not separable.

Henry Rollins Captured My Own Feelings

We have moved so many times in the past 25 years that I am feeling rather rootless and disconnected as life marches on.  Losing most of our family members and many close friends in the areas we lived longer term prior to beginning all the years of moving is not helping me feel an ongoing sense of connectedness to any place I can truly call "HOME".  The writing below by Henry Rollins sums up my feelings well:

"Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don't know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly, they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned.  Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home.  Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year.

At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my home town.  These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be. The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my home town."  --Henry Rollins

Yes, I would love to have a place to return to that would be home in my heart, but such a place at this time does not exist....the most obvious city of choice still stands but the former beauty and most all the friends and family are now gone.  It will be interesting to see how my longing for home eventually turns out. It makes me think of Jim Reeves old gospel hymn "This World Is Not My Home".

Please Stop Massacring Our National Anthem!!!!

 

I am cringing right now listening to a dear young woman, who actually does have a rather pretty voice, destroy our national anthem at the beginning of today’s Grey Cup game. Dear girl, our national anthem is not a lullaby. It does not require the use of a chamber orchestra, nor sliding notes, nor added trills, nor other ridiculous embellishments of any kind….trust me!! Please, please all you who sing the National Anthem at sporting and other events, just sing the blessed anthem the way it is written!! The rest of us are not there to listen to you put on a stage or recording worthy vocal performance, we are there for the actual event and expect our national anthem to be respected. I am tired of our National Anthem being so disrespected. It was written for Canadian audiences to honour our country and show our patriotism by all being able to sing it together….in unity as fellow Canadians. 

Stop messing with O Canada!

Just! Stop! It!

So, I DID Try To Fix The First Line Of The Previous Post.....

 .......but even though the first line of the poem in the entry below this one did show up as being in the same font and colour as the rest of the poem here on my pre-posting page, it refused to maintain that font and colour once I hit "Publish".  My apologies to readers and to the poet himself.  I tried twice to fix it and had no success.  Not the first time this has happened where what I was looking at when I published a post was not the same font or colour or size as what actually posted. Grrrrr......

Apart from that little glitch I was unable to fix up successfully very early this morning, the rest of the day has been good.  The laundry I began yesterday afternoon before being called to the home of a friend for tea and blueberry scones was completed this morning and now I am staring at a rather frightening amount of ironing that must be done this week.  That's what I get for waiting for two weeks without doing any laundry, but my hip was so terribly painful last week that I couldn't face going up and down two flights of stairs for each load.  On the weekend my hip was absolutely fantastic compared to the previous week, but this afternoon the inflammation and painful muscle spasms have begun again.  Well, I am MOST thankful for two full days of nearly painfree existence! Hallelujah for those two days and may there soon be a few more of them.  

I enjoyed watching some short clips about Language today with my husband. It is a series of fifteen minute clips by Dr. John McWhorter as he talks about the history of various changes to the English language since the Old English and Middle English eras.  Today I learned that out of 6000 languages and dialects around the world today, Standard English and about four other languages in small areas of the world, are the only languages that do NOT accept/embrace double negatives.  Double negatives were the standard in Old and Middle English, apparently for the purpose of emphasis.  Some rather snobby and influential English folk back in the 18th century "decided" for the rest of us that changes were needed to English and double negatives became big bugaboos.  So, I won't apologize any more should double negatives appear in my posts....and they already have in a number of instances because, well, just because.  The rest of the world seems to think they are just quite fine, thank you very  much!   I also learned how in so many world languages where subtle and apparently unconscious changes happen over a few years' time, one of the first letters to be lost in pronunciation is the letter "R".  I didn't know that before either.  I am enjoying this series. My husband rented it from the public library and we are both enjoying it very much.  We saw several of them today....are there 24 episodes? 26?  I forget, but they are very, very well done.  There is incredibly interesting information presented often in a very witty manner.  Another of my favourite clips is about the use of plurals and gender appropriate nouns in various languages.  He included the Dinka language as part of his list of examples of how plurals are expressed and he talked about how there are an amazing number of languages that do not use plurals at all.  Fascinating stuff!!  Really, it is.

Two pieces of mail have come in recently to let us know about the cost of certain services going up in December.  Blah!!! We have decided to cancel one of them.  Our rent is set to go up another one hundred dollars a month in January and with my impending double hip surgeries we are tempted to sigh a one year lease again to avoid the next one hundred dollar a month rent increase in June.  It's not like we can move anywhere when I can hardly walk at all, let alone go looking at new accommodations or packing any more "stuff".  Without a lease landords in this province are allowed to raise rents every six months. So, we will have two rent increases since June 1 of this year.  If we stay for a third one we will be paying three hundred and forty dollars a month more by June 1 2025 than we were on May 31 of this year....criminal for this dump, but we were so sure we were moving out of it long before now....never, and I confess this with all humility, have I ever missed hearing God's direction in life as completely and embarrassingly as I have over what I thought was a nudge. (No, let me rephrase that: a gigantic push!!), to get packed and get ready to move elsewhere. Yup, missed TOTALLY!!  That has never before happened to me in any of our last 15 moves.  How I could be so wrong this time I will never know, but wow, was I ever.  hahahaha  Aiii yiiii....well, grin and bear it and carry on, right?  hahaha At least the winter is late getting started...there's something happy and postive around here!

AND the other POSITIVE EVENT coming up, in about 10 minutes actually, is on TV:  the November SUMO tournament hath begun!!! YIPPEE!!

First The Provincial And Now The Civic!! I Have Voter Burn Out!!

I am once again somewhat confused as to who to vote for in our civic election next week.  It seems there is an historic number of people running for the position of Mayor and trying to track down actual platforms for some of them is intensely frustrating...mostly with those who have not yet had any political experience.  What is the best thing to do?  I do not want the present mayor and most of the present council to be returned to office, but with so many candidates for all positions, the votes are going to be split up in all directions.  There is an indigenous mayorality candidate I would like to vote for as she is one of the few who actually talks about doing a better job caring for the poor and homeless than the "bigger name" candidates with more political office experience and voter clout.  However, will a vote for her end up being inadvertently a vote for our present mayor??  The most likely opposition candidate to our mayor has lots of political experience, but reading the details of her platform the committments seem to still be infrastructure, bringing in big business and other economic issues....which are also important of course, but there is little mention made of helping the homeless and the addicted at a civic level.  So...what to do and of course there is always the temptation to wonder if it really matters at this point as things in the city are such a mess in so many ways.  Sigh....I will be happy when all this voting business is over for another couple of years. The older I get the less I understand what the best ways are to get more help for my community and my province.  Finding detailed platforms is next to impossible any more. There are so many idealistic, vague and impossible to enact statements floating around the campaign trails.  What to do....?? We are too close to the time when our democratic process may be taken away from "we the people", so I want to exercise my right to vote and to vote for the candidate of my own choosing.  It is getting more difficult to make those choices these days.

I read an interesting news item yesterday that surveys had been conducted in both Regina and Saskatoon a few weeks ago asking those chosen to participate in the survey  which issues are most important to them personally. Now, who these people are and how they were chosen is a mystery to me, but I do think the results are somewhat telling about the difference in focus between the two small prairie cities.  Here in Regina the main concerns centered around the economy, bringing in big business, fiscal responsibility and disclosure, etc.  Social issues such as homelessness, addiction, food availability, housing costs etc. were mostly down close to the bottom of the list.  Sasktoon was the opposite!  Social issues topped their list of pressing needs needing addressing.  The fiscal issues were far, far down the list.  I found that most interesting to discover the differences in thinking.  Why there is such a diversity in the importance of these issues between the two cities I don't know, but perhaps I would prefer living in Saskatoon after all? hahaha  Nope....I would still be on the prairies so....in some ways, six of one and half a dozen of the other. hahaha Forgive me fellow prairie-ites.  I always sound like I am most miserable here, but truly I have found my place and friends despite the geographical setting that does not speak to my heart.  It is all good now that I have come down from the highs of being in NYC and Vancouver earlier this year.  Truly it is.

Lofty Thoughts About Death.....

 DEATH

It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself.  He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain and repent, yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness.  He takes the account of the rich and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth.  He holds a glass before the eyes of the the most beautiful and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. Oh eloquent, just and mighty Death! Whom none could advise thou hast persuaded, what none hath dared thou hast done, and whom all the world hath flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised.  Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow words, Hic jacet.

--Sir Walter Raleigh, The Historie of the World, 1614

 

"Here lies". Raleigh was cited in John Dover Wilson, compilation "Life in Shakespeare's England-A Book of Elizabethan Poetry".  Published in Cambridge England in 1911; Cambridge University Press.)

Deep Thought For The Day.........

 "The truth does not require your participation in order to exist.

   Bullshit does."

--Terence McKenna

A Warning For Our Easily Offended Culture!!

 “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Amen!!

Mobility Success! Hallelujah!

This has been a good day for testing out how my leg muscles are healing! I was up early this morning and got to the grocery store before 7:30am, so the day started off well. Home by 8:30am to unpack and get myself some breakfast. I did the shopping without using my cane and parked as far away from the store as possible in the big lot so I could get a bit of a stretch in. No pain at all. Various house chores completed my morning.  At noon I asked my husband if he would like to walk the couple of kilometres to the church for a meeting there this afternoon. He said we could try it IF I used my cane and walked slowly. I did do both. The twenty minute walk took me over 30 minutes and I did have to put a bit of weight on the cane…..but…..I did it, and repeated the route home after the meeting. No pain, just the usual discomfort I have in one muscle group every spring when I first start longer walks after an inactive winter. I am delighted…thrilled, but mostly just grateful. I was flying so high that after making dinner and post meal cleanup and dishes I tossed a load of laundry in the washer to get a head start on tomorrow’s laundry day. Yes!!  

It is now apparent that the arthritis in my hip has not worsened over the past year. Any discomfort when walking is muscular and in the same muscle group that has bothered me for the past nearly 9 years since the hardware was first installed. Yes!! 

Update: I received a brief note from Anne tonight, very grateful for your prayers. She hasn’t had any more blackouts today and only a few relatively short bouts with the stabbing pains on her head. As soon as her doctor can locate an available heart monitor in her health region she will do a 24 hour strap on heart monitor test. Right now May 1 is the first day her doctor can have one delivered from the regional hospital, but we pray she can get one sooner. The miserable state of health care in this country is hitting closer to home all the time for me. I am so upset for my friend. She suddenly has a condition where, for now at least, she can’t be left alone, she can’t drive. Her husband is being just wonderful about upending his own life to care for her until she can get more medical help. Thanks again for praying for her/them.

Should sleep well tonight. I put the winter weight duvet away and replaced it with my lighter summer duvet. Good weather now for awhile. Yay!!

A Wonderful Book by Loren Wilkinson!!

 My husband and I are reading a most fascinating book together.  Tonight we reached the half way point in Loren Wilkinson's book "Circles and the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation".  (Forward by Peter Harris; Cascade Books, Eugene Oregon, 2023)

To quote the summary printed on the back cover of the book, "Circles and the Cross in an invitation to explore two mysteries. One is the miracle of the cosmos: why is there something and not nothing?  The other is the miracle of consciousness: why should this collection of stardust be an I and not just an it?  Our basic response to those mysteries is wonder, and from wonder have grown the three great trees of human culture: Religion, art and science. This exploration is undertaken in the light of a third mystery: the cross of Christ is the clearest picture we have of the triune Creator of both cosmos and consciousness.  That self-emptying of the Creator out of love for the creation helps us understand the pleasures, paradoxes, and pains of science; it helps us understand how 'evolution' can be another name for creation; it casts light on the Enlightenment and Romanticism. In particular, it illuminates the environmental movement: an ethic in search of a religion.  Loren Wilkinson, drawing on fifty years of teaching and writing about our relationship to creation, invites you to join this journey into understanding how the cross of Christ sheds light on the mysteries that surround us-and gives us hope in a difficult age."

One of the things we have most enjoyed about Wilkinson's writing, as he traces the history of science and environmentalism is the way he can so succinctly summarize the basic philosophies and outcomes of the various religious, philosophical and scientific ideals that have brought us into this time of the environmental movement. He gives us an overview of the philosophies and teachings of people like Plato and Aristotle, St. Francis of Assisi, E.O. Wilson, Duns Scotus, Johannes Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and many others who have been influential in the thinking of the scientific and religious movements throughout history, who have led us to today's move from the recent conservationist movement into the even more recent environmental movement and into what the Cross of Christ has to do with any of it.  Reading the book is bringing our God expected requirement of stewarding the earth/all of creation properly to the forefront of my mind again after a long time of simply not having the energy to do much about it in the most stressful times of my life over the past couple of decades.  If you have an interest in the history of how science and religion went from being considered "roommates" of philosophy and practise to being considered by many in recent decades to be on opposite ends of the spectrum in many ways, even sometimes enemies of each other, how we can respect all of God's creation because of Christ's cross, I think you will really enjoy this book.  Certainly it presents a lot to consider as we look at climate change, world wide pollution issues, the disappearance of so many flora and fauna and what the end result of these disasters could be if we don't get a grip on how to stop the destruction.

I am pleased that this return to a kind of mini-winter will be coming to an end over the next couple of days.  We didn't get the bad snowfall here that the towns and cities in central Saskatchewan experienced and I am grateful for that, but we did get about an inch with drifting and it is so cold here tonight, after all the warm days preceding, that I am sitting here in a flannel nightgown and flannel tabi socks, a full length cotton summer tee dress over the nightgown, an overly large cardigan sweater over that and my summer bathrobe over the whole works. BRRRRRRRR!!!!  Going out for coffee this morning and managing not to fall down the icy back stairs was a confidence booster; coffee with my friend this morning and going out to other friends' with my husband this afternoon for cheery times of visiting, combined to restore my cheerfulness.  I think my misery over this kind of slow introduction to spring is because of my fear of falling on the ice and into icy snowbanks. Falling down and injuring myself right here in my own house kind of set me back on feeling secure when I am walking anywhere in less than optimum outdoor conditions.  Good to know......

My Husband's Reflections On Holy Saturday...Better Late Than Never?

 

My reflection for today ... that some refer to as "Holy Saturday"  is to think of some emotional parallels between my life (and our lives generally) and that of Jesus first disciples the day after his crucifixion.
I think this is the day which resonates much with our own common human predicament.
They had been with Jesus for at least 3 years, and they had seen the power of His words, to heal, to cast out evil, to calm storms, and interpret Scriptures.
But not even He could stand against the might of Rome. And in the end, for after all his powerful words, He couldn't even save himself.
We, like them, are disoriented by the actual empirical condition of our world.

Indeed, for most of the followers of Jesus ever since, our disappointments and our fears and our regrets contribute to a sort of ongoing or recurring Holy-Saturday-like experience.
We may remember times in the past when we felt close to God and that all was well.
But now in the midst of whatever tragedy of grief or nostalgia we are experiencing, our memories tend to remind us more of what we have lost rather than the happiness that we are now afraid to even hope for. 

We, like them, are standing between (hopeful) words that were spoken and the reality of physical death, made all the more stark because in spite of our longing, apparently death pays no attention to words. 
We, like they, have heard predictions of death. (His and ours)
And although we may have heard of resurrection, like them, we aren't sure how to understand it.
Figuratively? Metaphorical? Literal? Biological? Spiritual? Pertaining to an as yet to arrive "messianic age"? or to a "Natural/inevitable evolution into some future Utopia? or just the "power of positive thinking" to keep us thinking positively even though everything is most likely essentially meaningless? 

When our personal, and vocational and social and political and ideological hopes, (for ourselves and our world), have been dashed simultaneously with the loss of a close friend, we are apt to feel somewhat numb.
We are aware that we have awakened to this day, but as we awaken, we remember what has happened ...the death of our friend, and the death of our hopes  ("We had hoped that He might be the one..." Luke 24:21, to bring about a better world).

It is not just that a friend has succumbed to death.
Or that our personal hopes and plans and yearnings have been dashed, 
But there seems to be such an injustice behind it. 
Not only humanly achieved inhumanity and cruelty,
but apparently the abandonment of justice by divinity as well. 
(it does not seem logical to ascribe a world so full of cruelty to a loving creator)

We have been warned about this, but when the loss of hope comes, the earlier warning which we hoped we might ignore without disappointment, now seems trivial in light of our disconsolate emotions.
If we recall it at all, it seems more like a taunt ... "I told you so!"    ... than any sort of comfort for our discouragement and despair.

Can any hope remain?, or revive?, that does not seem silly in the light of hopes so achingly crushed ?
Shall we dismiss the meaning of Love in order to reduce our sense of loss and grief?
Perhaps the safest way out of suffering is to abandon all attachment. 
Is it not the yearning of affection and love that keeps us trapped in the pain of loss and disappointment?
Surely, developing indifference could set us free from grief. 

But today, as in all times that we cope (again) with a sense of hopes dashed, we try to be content to remain in our numbness, tending to our daily chores without consciously thinking too much of our losses. 
We are disoriented enough to know that reason and reasons are not apt to help much.
So as we go through our daily tasks we let the mystery of grief reside in our subconscious, for another day... until another day ...

Perhaps it is all just too mysterious to ever be fully comprehended ...
But possibly, just possibly, it is all just intelligible enough, just barely intelligible enough, to justify our instinct -our sense, that we really are part of a story much larger than our grief.
A story in which our senses of beauty, love, compassion, poignancy and joy in creation are not mere illusions, but ultimately that which is most real.
It remains debatable whether such a sense is foolishness or faithfulness.  
But since existence and consciousness seem to be continuing, perhaps tomorrow might tell more, and so at least that hope is not unreasonable. 

Shalom,
Dell

Rev. Dell Bornowsky

I Think I Agree With Jacques Ellul On This….

Christian anarchist Jacques Ellul brought up a good point in some of his writings that Christians could likely be more successful anarchists than humanists would be because Christians would have a better understanding of human nature. I find committed humanists a tad naive about that. There seems to be an idea there that if there were no imposed societal controls on behaviour then humankind would work out ways to get along together. As lovely as that thought is……hmmmm….I suspect not. I need to study this subject a bit more.

Thoughts for a slow day at home….restful day…..boring day? I do not rest and relax well here it seems. Perhaps a good long walk while my husband is napping would be in order.

Inspirational Ideas!

In his book "Mystical Rose", author Richard Scrimger's main character, Rose by name, is dying of dementia and related illnesses.  After months of scattered thoughts that flip back and forth to encompass her past, her confusing present and her conversations with almighty "You", as she is dying in her bed at her hospice facility, she has a final conversation with her Supreme Being that I find very interesting:

"It is a matter of faith, isn't it? All right, here is my prayer right now.  I'm still lying down, staring at the blackness. And I'm praying. I, Rose, ninety years in the dying, ask You to look after me--not in the future, because I don't have one; and not in the present, because it's slipping away faster than a drunk's inheritance. Look after me in the past.

     That's right. If your grace is truly infinite, it knows not space, nor can it be confined  in time.  Look after my youth, will You?  Look after me in my cradle. Let Your grace wash my childhood clean.  Be most creful of my growth, my young womanhood, my own experience of love and trust.  Le Your face be turned towards me as the years run back.  Please.  Heal my hurts, infuse me with hope, bring me to faith, to love. Bless the girl that I was. Keep her in Your care.  Watch over me all the days of the life I leave now. Amen."

( Taken from "Mystical Rose", by Richard Scrimger; Double Day Canada, Toronto; 2000.) 

This prayer of Rose's reminds me that God transcends time and space and has the capacity to deal with us in an eternal context, not just in the here and now, not just in our future with Him after we leave this body.  As someone who has a great many woundings in her past, many of them self-inflicted, it reminds me of the hope I have in Christ that I am transformed by his grace and love, that whatever is in the past is also covered by his sacrificial atonement. God is still present at all the ages and stages of my life. Wow!!  

Poor Wee Mousie...Poor Giant Ankle!!

I got an unhappy surprise when I opened my car this morning before I went to pick up my friend for our coffee date.  Inside the front, all over the floor there was a shredded napkin and an even more shredded kleenex. Sigh.....although there were no visible droppings, obviously a mouse had taken up residence in our vehicle overnight.

So, I pulled every single item out of the car, out of the trunk, dumped out bags of stuff, shook out some old towels, looked through every inch of the car, but no sign of Mr. or Mrs. Mousie!  I grabbed some hygienic, rubbing alcohol drenched wipes out of the house and wiped everything off as best I could while racing quickly so I could still pick up my friend.  My concern was that the blasted mouse was going to suddenly appear while I was driving.  Fortunately that didn't happen, but I knew better than to think it was gone.

As soon as I got home, my husband loaded up some traps with nummy cheese and peanut butter and set them around inside the car.  Two hours later we found in one of the traps, our napkin shredding offender.  It always hurts our hearts when we have to kill mice, but what option did we have?  Sigh..... We still have another trap out there to check in the morning just in case our former "friend" was not alone.  Oh man.....a couple of weeks ago our car is broken into by people and last night it was broken into by a blasted mouse.  At 10pm tonight my husband checked the second trap and thus far it is still set.  This is the time of year that mice are looking for a warm place to nest for the winter, but so sorry wee mousies, our car is not an option for you.  It would be so much easier if we weren't so impractically soft hearted about killing things. It doesn't seem completely right somehow.  Okay, I know how crazy that sounds, but my husband's softy toffee heart has rubbed off on me.

In other news:  I hurt my "bad" ankle somehow today.  This morning I took a short walk and at some point I managed to strain/sprain a tendon or ligament or muscle on the outside of my ankle...right around where I have a long titanium plate held in place with eight screws that were all put in to stabilize one of my many ankle fractures after a fall about 12 years ago.  My poor ankle is swollen and painful. I can weight bear, but bending it enough to walk properly  hurts like the dickens.  My hope is that I have not developed a hairline fracture under or around that plate and screw arrangement. If so it would require major surgery that I don't have time for right now.  I remember straining it like this once before a few years ago and it was okay after a few days of partial rest and using a cane to shift some of my weight off of it.  Praying and hoping that is all it is!  The pin that goes through the "balance bone" on the other side of that ankle is showing intial signs of working its way out again....not unusual after this many years of it being in there, according to the surgeon who put it in originally, so I am keeping a close eye on that, but it should last another year or more before anything needs to be done.  As one of my friends says about herself, myself and many of our mutual friends, "We are getting old and parts are falling off and breaking down!"  True, so very true!!  If my ankle isn't a LOT better after this weekend I will go and have an x-ray...what a nuisance!

This afternoon my husband helped me hobble into our fellowship and study group for a couple of hours.  It took my mind off my ankle issues and we enjoyed very much another installment of N.T. Wright's series of short video talks on "Salvation".  Today we listened to his ideas of death being a two step process and, although it is certainly not a new idea to me, it still reminded me that my parents, even in this stage of death are with Jesus.  It reminded me as well to always remember that God's ultimate purpose with his creation is to restore it and that includes us!  Wow, it was such an encouraging message, all wrapped up in that coherent, succinct manner N.T. Wright is so very capable of.  If you are looking for encouragement about what salvation is all about, get onto YouTube and watch the series. Most of the videos are between 7 and 12 minutes long. Great, great stuff!

The Weight Of Shame

My husband and I had a good discussion the other day about the concept/issue of shame and what it can actually mean when we refuse to let go of it even after we have gone to God to ask for forgiveness for whatever it is we have said or done that has likely given us good reason to feel that shame.

I struggle with shame often when I see how my actions as a parent failed my son when he was growing up; how those unintentional parental disasters continue to negatively effect him to this day. Occasionally that sense of shame still rises up so overwhelmingly that I feel like I can't bear the weight of it any more.  

After a recent episode of struggle my husband decided we needed to more thoroughly discuss my problems of letting go of shame and guilt over this situation. We eventually came up with an idea that has helped me get my emotions and thoughts back in line with reality:  not letting go of those feelings of shame and guilt, beside letting God know that his forgiveness is apparently not sufficient for me, (throwing his forgiveness back in his face actually), continuing to wallow in feelings of shame and guilt are making ME the centre of the situation.  Instead of God being the centre of the situation, where I am accepting his forgiveness and asking for his restoration in my son's life for the ways I did him wrong when he was a child and moving forward in a new and better direction in my interactions with my son, I am focusing all my attention on my own guilt and shame. I am focusing on ME instead of God....how subtle that is, right?  It creeps up at some point and I didn't realize that was a huge problem I have been creating for myself and in my relationship with God.  I am also effectively telling God that he is unable to heal and restore my son.  My self-centered feelings of shame and guilt are placing myself instead of God and his total forgiveness at the centre of my personal universe.

My husband's idea certainly got my attention. I spent several very serious hours with God after that discussion and I feel like I have good spiritual armor now to deal with those feelings when they attempt to resurface and take over my life again.  God bless my husband. What a gift he is to me! 

No Big Dental Deal For Now....YAY!!

 My husband survived his dental check and is grateful and relieved that he didn't have to have any work done today. (and I really enjoyed my hour of sitting in the car waiting for him, reading an interesting book with no interruptions) Now he is online enjoying his monthly discussion with his World Issues group. Today they are discussing a couple of articles they read together about today's so-called "wokeism" and how what was formerly considered a liberal veiwpoint that protected freedom of speech completely has now taken up the frightening banner of banning speech the current movement considers incendiary for one arbitrarily decided reason or another.  Talk about a flip flop of values over the past twenty years or so.

Anyway, yes, there is an issue developing with a tooth, but for now the decision is to leave it until the dentist can see which direction the problem is going to take, then repair the tooth accordingly.  If my husband hadn't freaked out and waited another few weeks to have it checked, the problem's direction would have been likely more obvious, but better to have things checked right away "just in case", right?  Now my husband is mad at himself for "wasting" part of our slim dental insurance coverage for this year, silly man.  I could feel badly for doing the same thing this past spring when I had a sore tooth checked only to discover the pain was coming from a bruised ligament and would heal itself over the next month to six weeks...which it did. Neither of us would have known we had nothing immediate to be worried about if we hadn't checked these things out. No regrets!!!  Now neither of us is stressed and have a far better idea when we need to have pains checked, what specific types of pains need to be checked immediately and what pains require waiting longer than we want to for a check up.  It is all good.

This afternoon our ladies' prayer group is going to be a bit of a "special" time. Our hostess has developed a serious mobility issue and must head to hospital by ambulance after our meeting for several days of assessment as to what do to next to help her.  She has been struggling for months now, so it is a relief that she decided to accept the recommendation of her home care worker and have the assessement done.  Please shoot up a prayer for Mar, if the Lord should so lead you. Assessments can be scary things when it is so difficult at this point to know what the results will be. Thank you.

We had to cancel our game day with friends on the weekend as my husband has had a plethora of other meetings arise for that day.  Waaaaaa.....  Oh well, there will be other chances to play this game soon. I am reading the Scriptures at church on Sunday and then after church we have another meeting with LUNCH!!, a happy business meeting, and also get to attend a patio party that evening with some church friends.  So, a busy weekend coming up, but it will be good despite so many meetings.

I am looking forward to my walk to prayer meeting this afternoon.  The weather is perfect, mid plus twenties centigrade, a slight breeze, a bit overcast...mostly from forest fire smoke rather than clouds, but it is upper atmosphere smoke, so it isn't bothering me today.

Alternatives For Recovery!

This morning at my church's women's breakfast, one of our church members gave a talk on her line of work: providing programmes and counselling for addicts of all kinds.  I know from our own family experiences that while A.A. and N.A. are lifesaving programmes for many people and have a pretty good track record, 12 step programmes do not work for everyone.  The first time I attended an A.A. meeting I knew that constantly talking about the past and starting every meeting with "My name is So and So and I am an alcoholic." was not something I could ever have done. For me, it would keep me too focused on the addiction.  Other family members with addictions needing help struggled mightily and not always successfully with that type of programme.

Today I learned about another programme based on cognitive and behavioural therapies that for me, seems more positive and more directly involved with changing thinking and emotional responses that can trap us in addictions.  It is called Smart Recovery and is more the sort of programme that I could see our family relating to.  I was really impressed with it.  Apparently every other province in Canada, most of the states in the USA and many European countries have been using this programme successfully for some time.  Why am I not surprised that MY province is ridiculously slow to want to offer an alternative therapy for recovery from addictions?  I won't get into my problems with the culture and attitudes in this place right now, but I am VERY proud of my friend who has spent two years or more coming up against that culture and interesting the provincial ministries here in incorporating this programme into addictions centres of all kinds.  It has been endorsed at a federal level for some time now.  

My friend is working tirelessly and pretty much on her own to be the face of Smart Recovery in this province and this morning asked for our prayers that she would be able to interest the universities and schools to look at the programme as another useful resource to be added along with A.A. and N.A.

Oh my friend, that I am doing!