Another reason to write an occasional post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com came this Christmas season, so on December 22nd I was posted again....what it says about how I am feeling is self-explanatory. Here it is:
Outrageous Grace
by Meg
I stood in the still cluttered kitchen, holding the sparkler. I said to myself, I am standing here holding and watching this sparkler because it is reminding me to be in the moment, to celebrate God's unexpected gifts of joy in the midst of sadness and dullness. And I am doing this because these sparklers ended up here in my kitchen because of my daughters, my lovely daughters who are far away for Christmas on the other side of the world. I am cleaning my kitchen for the church choir party, and, in the midst of this chosen drudgery, I am celebrating all that life has given me.
I had lit the sparkler thinking it was a joss stick that the girls had put on that shelf, and I thought I would check its scent and see if it would add to the Christmas atmosphere I was creating for the party. Everything was deliberate and planned, necessitated by organizing it by myself, after years of spontaneous Christmas happenings energized by twenty years of family milling around, pulling me into the moment. Now the unexpected sparkler pulled me into a moment of reflection, wonder and celebration again. Outrageous in a way, to my Martha style preparations.
Isn't that just like God?, I thought again to myself. We are caught up in the daily grind, the tasks, big or small, that fill our days. We are also caught up in the troubles of others, and our own. They weigh us down, and the feelings around them add on tons. We look for alleviation, for special grace to pull us into a new space of joy. I had depended on that for many years, I realized a few weeks ago. Now this Christmas I would recognize more by absence than presence of chosen vessels of grace, beautiful creatures from my own womb, for whom I had chosen to make a dream that wouldn't include me. Ah yes, that choice sparkles in my heart again. Yes, that gives me joy, that freely made choice, that freely given gift.
I check my emails, finding out more news about others' trials and joys. More untimely deaths and illnesses. I phone my friend who struggles with depression and share words of hope and encouragement. I pray through my list, mindful that the number of those with cancer has increased. I sit with a neighbour during her chemo treatment, finding appropriate topics of conversation, reflecting on the apparent smallness of my trial compared with hers. We go to a Christmas party with lots of dancing. The best dancer and most beautifully dressed person is another friend who is still not sure of the status of her own body after two surgeries and multiple treatments for cancer. It was only seven months ago that I was praying for her, thinking she was dying. Here she is glittering and wigged, the life of the party, delighting her husband and family and friends.
The choir director phones me to thank me for giving them such a wonderful time. Our 100 year old always-in-the-family piano had thrilled to an excellent touch the night before as our choir brought our joy and skill into renditions sublime and ridiculous of Christmas music. Outrageous gifts of joy in the midst of a town submerged under snow only the week before, the party cancelled first time around. Now, delay had brought more joy, more celebration.
The words of a much loved song came to mind:
There's a lot of pain,
But a lot more healing;
There's a lot of trouble,
But a lot more peace.
There's a lot of hate,
But a lot more loving;
There's a lot of sin,
But a lot more grace.
Oh Outrageous Grace!
Oh Outrageous Grace!
Love unfurled by Heaven's hand
Oh Outrageous Grace!
Oh Outrageous Grace!
Through my Jesus I can stand.
There's a lot of fear,
But a lot more freedom;
There's a lot of darkness,
But a lot more light.
There's a lot of cloud,
But a lot more vision;
There's a lot of perishing,
But a lot more Life!
(Chorus)
There's an enemy
That seeks to kill what it can't control.
It twists and turns
Making mountains out of molehills.
But I will call on the Lord
Who is worthy of praise;
I run to Him and I am saved! ..by..
(Chorus)
Godfrey Birtill
Copyright 2000
Thankyou Music/PRS
December 24, 2009
November 26, 2009
joy in new things to say, a new focus
Hey - I felt inspired to write from time to time again for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com....so this is what came out...had to be genuine, and didn't want a me focus unless it was really gritty...not too chatty...yet this seems a little heavy...what comes next time may be lighter...I'm not real heavy these days..there's a sort of evening process going on...a settling...but I have an ever deepening focus on my sweet Lord and what He wants to say to me...so that is what I want to share, when I feel right about it...here it is, for now:
Me Too
The words jump off the page. But, hey, I've read this passage countless times. Why now? Why me? Am I all that bad?
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brother, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. James 3: 9 - 12
The memory comes that in the past I have always told myself upon reading this that it doesn't apply to me, that I am not one of those people who curses others, one of those bad people. Or at least that I'm not ALL bad.
But today, with my heart open to God in fresh ways, I stop, and listen, unafraid and ready to hear. Somehow I know I can face this in myself, at last, and in the moment of confession, find forgiveness. I trust my heavenly Father enough to know He loves me so much, and He just wants to do more refining. I instinctively feel that He is saying to look beyond the hyperbole that Jesus so frequently used, the exaggeration, and to see that even if my "tree" or "spring" is not all bad because of the bad that I do, that He needs me to see the destructive effect of what I sometimes do, and the potential for it to become much worse.
Yes, He knows I really mean it when I praise Him, when I lead in our worship team and belt out the songs I love. He knows I really do trust Him and seek to honour Him in my life and choices. He takes me seriously, and He knows I take Him that way too. But because He is my father, and He wants to bring me closer, move me further, grow me up even more, He has to touch that spot, and today He's done it and I didn't say ouch.
So I reflect, how do I curse? What have I done that merits that description? Ah, it is my critical spirit, that lurks behind my thoughts and comments. I don't always say things out loud now. But in the past I did. I often had to qualify praise for others, bring them down in some way in the eyes of others. Maybe it was only to close friends. But the bent was still there.
I remember that weird dream a few months ago. I was shown a funny little man, almost like a mischievous leprechaun, with an orange turtleneck shirt and funny brown tights, a jaunty cap, a jutting chin and a sharp nose. "His name is Legalism", the voice in the dream said. This was in the context of all of us in the dream being shown the evil parts of ourselves.
Again, I had been struck with the word. I am not one to think of myself as legalistic. Heaven forbid!!! I'm all out for a generous way of relating to God, while obeying His requirements, but not holding people's toes to the fire about rules and appearances. But again, I was open to see what God was saying. Again I had identified my critical spirit as the culprit.
Okay, so it runs in the family. I come by it honestly. In fact, that was the major thing I found fault with in my mother!!! How typical. My critical spirit was critical of her critical spirit. And I listened to her tongue qualify the faults of others, while to the world she presented that wonderful sweet spirit. Hmm...something hit home again.
Thank you, Lord, for Your gracious lesson again. Thanks for letting me find it in Your Word, and not have it come through the rebuke of friend or foe. Thanks for making me ready to hear and see, and ready to change. Help me, Lord, to leave the judgments of others to You, and just be the one to praise and bless.
Me Too
The words jump off the page. But, hey, I've read this passage countless times. Why now? Why me? Am I all that bad?
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brother, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. James 3: 9 - 12
The memory comes that in the past I have always told myself upon reading this that it doesn't apply to me, that I am not one of those people who curses others, one of those bad people. Or at least that I'm not ALL bad.
But today, with my heart open to God in fresh ways, I stop, and listen, unafraid and ready to hear. Somehow I know I can face this in myself, at last, and in the moment of confession, find forgiveness. I trust my heavenly Father enough to know He loves me so much, and He just wants to do more refining. I instinctively feel that He is saying to look beyond the hyperbole that Jesus so frequently used, the exaggeration, and to see that even if my "tree" or "spring" is not all bad because of the bad that I do, that He needs me to see the destructive effect of what I sometimes do, and the potential for it to become much worse.
Yes, He knows I really mean it when I praise Him, when I lead in our worship team and belt out the songs I love. He knows I really do trust Him and seek to honour Him in my life and choices. He takes me seriously, and He knows I take Him that way too. But because He is my father, and He wants to bring me closer, move me further, grow me up even more, He has to touch that spot, and today He's done it and I didn't say ouch.
So I reflect, how do I curse? What have I done that merits that description? Ah, it is my critical spirit, that lurks behind my thoughts and comments. I don't always say things out loud now. But in the past I did. I often had to qualify praise for others, bring them down in some way in the eyes of others. Maybe it was only to close friends. But the bent was still there.
I remember that weird dream a few months ago. I was shown a funny little man, almost like a mischievous leprechaun, with an orange turtleneck shirt and funny brown tights, a jaunty cap, a jutting chin and a sharp nose. "His name is Legalism", the voice in the dream said. This was in the context of all of us in the dream being shown the evil parts of ourselves.
Again, I had been struck with the word. I am not one to think of myself as legalistic. Heaven forbid!!! I'm all out for a generous way of relating to God, while obeying His requirements, but not holding people's toes to the fire about rules and appearances. But again, I was open to see what God was saying. Again I had identified my critical spirit as the culprit.
Okay, so it runs in the family. I come by it honestly. In fact, that was the major thing I found fault with in my mother!!! How typical. My critical spirit was critical of her critical spirit. And I listened to her tongue qualify the faults of others, while to the world she presented that wonderful sweet spirit. Hmm...something hit home again.
Thank you, Lord, for Your gracious lesson again. Thanks for letting me find it in Your Word, and not have it come through the rebuke of friend or foe. Thanks for making me ready to hear and see, and ready to change. Help me, Lord, to leave the judgments of others to You, and just be the one to praise and bless.
October 24, 2009
joy in moving on, in changing pace and letting go
Unexpectedly I have come to the end of this blog writing for now. I will write one when I have a website for my life coaching, but the story I share here for the blog www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com tells how I felt sure it was time to stop and give myself more brain space and time for my studies and future business. It is an education to me even in the way God led me to this decision. But I feel confident about it, and ready to let go. When I have my new blog on my new website, I will post a link to it here. Other than that, as far as I know, I won't be writing anymore on this blog. It has been a good season, and although there have been few comments on this site, those on the other blog have enriched my life and encouraged my writing immensely. Now I need to write more specifically for a life coaching audience, and for my studies. I am somehow tired of being more random about my writing....so it is good to move on, and keep growing into new challenges. Here's the story:
Change of Season - Change of Pace
by Meg
I returned to Ontario to the signs of late fall and approaching winter. I got my snow tires put on and speculated about the days to come. I don't mind the rain, and the cozy feeling inside the house. It is home. All the time we were away in British Columbia I dreamed of home, our house by the river, our quieter pace. The hustle and bustle of so many places out there was a lot to contend with; I noticed how much it affected our friends. There were precious quiet moments - a walk on the beach, or by a rushing stream with salmon leaping and spawning. And most of our friends have quiet hearts in the midst of hectic lives. As I have, or seek to have.
Yet the addictive tendency to busyness is inside of me despite my quiet home and town. My whirling brain often doesn't allow me to settle at night. My plans for the future collide with each other as each day's demands compete. Reality checks come in various ways.
Such was what happened last week when I wasn't able to post on Saturday. I had been praying about whether or not I should continue to write my posts. Not because I don't love writing. And not because they take a lot of time to write. But they occupy brain space during the week: mulling over what would be relevant to say, wondering about what is really appropriate to share from my own life's experiences, past and present. By the time Friday evening came I had been planning to write and knew basically what I wanted to say. I had had internet access all week at moments in the places we were staying. Friday night's venue had been fine for that before. Then I discovered Thursday night that there was a new password for it. I got that Friday morning and got on fine - I fully expected to be able to get on later when we came home tired from our long day of driving and visiting.
For several hours I battled the system gaining an inch and losing it again, slipping in and out of access to the browser but never getting into this site. What was God saying? Eventually I had to let go, let the dreaded thing happen - I would not be able to fulfill my commitment to a Saturday morning post. By the time I got access in a restaurant mid morning B.C. time on Saturday Belinda had already posted on my behalf.
My reflection upon it all reached the conclusion that I really need that bit of brain space for my main focus. That I need to give up this opportunity to have more available energy and thought for the major plans God is calling me to. I realized, sadly, that it is time to say goodbye for now.
I told Belinda that when my life coaching business website is up and running, sometime in the new year, that I will have a blog on that, an opportunity to reflect in a way that has a devotional flavour and yet fits with the world of Christian life coaching, that world of purpose and passion, focus and faith. I asked if I might have a link to that blog on this site and she said that would be great.
A few days after that decision I saw the leaping, spawning, dying salmon. It was an amazing sight, so unexpected on that last day of our busy "holiday". I have pondered upon it as another sign...these salmon live out their life cycle and make some final courageous leaps upstream before they spawn their eggs and then die. It is as if my decision not to write these posts anymore is like those dying salmon...I have been swimming upstream for a long time, I have made some major leaps to bring about a new phase of my life, I have already deposited my spawn, sown my seeds, laid my eggs for this new season of my life. But if I am to go forward into it, I need to let that old part of me die, as the new part is being prepared for birth, in a new form.
So here I am. I am moving into a new season, changing my pace. I am letting go and moving on. It is bittersweet. This has been a precious time in my life. Writing these posts has been healing and strengthening. Getting feedback on how they have touched others has been affirming and deeply encouraging. But that is not enough to keep me in this "space". I have to embrace new things and to do that I have to let go of some former things. Thank you, dear readers, for sharing this space with me - for reading and commenting, for inviting me into your lives through your time and focus. May the Lord continue to bless us all as we trust Him for future days and ways. Bye for now.
Change of Season - Change of Pace
by Meg
I returned to Ontario to the signs of late fall and approaching winter. I got my snow tires put on and speculated about the days to come. I don't mind the rain, and the cozy feeling inside the house. It is home. All the time we were away in British Columbia I dreamed of home, our house by the river, our quieter pace. The hustle and bustle of so many places out there was a lot to contend with; I noticed how much it affected our friends. There were precious quiet moments - a walk on the beach, or by a rushing stream with salmon leaping and spawning. And most of our friends have quiet hearts in the midst of hectic lives. As I have, or seek to have.
Yet the addictive tendency to busyness is inside of me despite my quiet home and town. My whirling brain often doesn't allow me to settle at night. My plans for the future collide with each other as each day's demands compete. Reality checks come in various ways.
Such was what happened last week when I wasn't able to post on Saturday. I had been praying about whether or not I should continue to write my posts. Not because I don't love writing. And not because they take a lot of time to write. But they occupy brain space during the week: mulling over what would be relevant to say, wondering about what is really appropriate to share from my own life's experiences, past and present. By the time Friday evening came I had been planning to write and knew basically what I wanted to say. I had had internet access all week at moments in the places we were staying. Friday night's venue had been fine for that before. Then I discovered Thursday night that there was a new password for it. I got that Friday morning and got on fine - I fully expected to be able to get on later when we came home tired from our long day of driving and visiting.
For several hours I battled the system gaining an inch and losing it again, slipping in and out of access to the browser but never getting into this site. What was God saying? Eventually I had to let go, let the dreaded thing happen - I would not be able to fulfill my commitment to a Saturday morning post. By the time I got access in a restaurant mid morning B.C. time on Saturday Belinda had already posted on my behalf.
My reflection upon it all reached the conclusion that I really need that bit of brain space for my main focus. That I need to give up this opportunity to have more available energy and thought for the major plans God is calling me to. I realized, sadly, that it is time to say goodbye for now.
I told Belinda that when my life coaching business website is up and running, sometime in the new year, that I will have a blog on that, an opportunity to reflect in a way that has a devotional flavour and yet fits with the world of Christian life coaching, that world of purpose and passion, focus and faith. I asked if I might have a link to that blog on this site and she said that would be great.
A few days after that decision I saw the leaping, spawning, dying salmon. It was an amazing sight, so unexpected on that last day of our busy "holiday". I have pondered upon it as another sign...these salmon live out their life cycle and make some final courageous leaps upstream before they spawn their eggs and then die. It is as if my decision not to write these posts anymore is like those dying salmon...I have been swimming upstream for a long time, I have made some major leaps to bring about a new phase of my life, I have already deposited my spawn, sown my seeds, laid my eggs for this new season of my life. But if I am to go forward into it, I need to let that old part of me die, as the new part is being prepared for birth, in a new form.
So here I am. I am moving into a new season, changing my pace. I am letting go and moving on. It is bittersweet. This has been a precious time in my life. Writing these posts has been healing and strengthening. Getting feedback on how they have touched others has been affirming and deeply encouraging. But that is not enough to keep me in this "space". I have to embrace new things and to do that I have to let go of some former things. Thank you, dear readers, for sharing this space with me - for reading and commenting, for inviting me into your lives through your time and focus. May the Lord continue to bless us all as we trust Him for future days and ways. Bye for now.
October 10, 2009
joy in new food for thought and pilgrimage
When this is published I will be having Thanksgiving weekend with relatives on their farm and enjoying one of their own turkeys for the special meal...how appropriate. But I wrote the blog post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com a few days before, when we were at a camp we knew long ago. I have to get my secure wireless connections when I can...and I appreciate that learning for my journey too, that planning ahead and preparing for the future, while resting in the day...
Here it is:
Food for Thought and Pilgrimage
I knew this trip would be a pilgrimage...not just a visit with my daughter, old friends and a few relatives, seeing old and new places. I knew there would be lots of opportunities for reflection on life, ministry, calling, past, present and future. And there would be lots of food.. at chain restaurants in the middle of big cities,at Irish pubs with singers, at a bistro with a roaring fire in a rainstorm, in the modest homes of friends on missionary support, or in more elaborate homes with hillside or oceanfront views owned by friends very blessed financially. Each of them living out their Christian lives with many blessings and many trials, each of them with their own reflections on ministry, service, vocation, God's leadings, each of them with their own stories of moving around from one place to another or staying put for many many years.
Take today for instance. We are experiencing gorgeous early fall weather on an island off Vancouver Island, the sun blazing in the window as I write in the home of the camp cooks at a wonderful Christian camp which has flourished for more than fifty years. My husband built their first rowboats in his first summer in Canada in the 50's. The founders of the camp still live here in their 90's, setting up the camp after spending years living in a boat called the GoForth and journeying up and down the B.C. Coast spreading the gospel. They have spent their lives on this coast and in this camp. We had lunch with other camp staff who have been planted here for many many years also, never, as the husband said, having been told by God to go elsewhere. Our hosts, on the other hand, have moved every few years, blessing various ministries with their cooking expertise. Their daughter came out with us to Uganda in her mid teens to help us homeschool our daughters, and had what she called a "pivotal" time with us there.
This morning we meandered our way to the wharf and considered taking a rowboat out on the very breezy water, and thought better of it. Then the sailing director came down to prepare the four Catalinas for the campers who had just arrived. We had a lovely chat with him instead, hearing how God opened the doors for him and his wife to leave their ministry as worship leaders and pastors in a church where they were burning out. We reflected on balance in ministry, self care, and being led of the Spirit into ways of service where we can work with teams and not wear ourselves out doing too much.
I reflect on the motel room excellent wireless connection the Lord provided for me two days ago to take my Life Coaching online exam, which I had been too busy to finish studying for before we left on this trip. I muse about His constant provision and protection over me and all His children, and yet I long to be able to get on with new work and ministry and not keep having so many lessons of trust and patience to learn. I champ at the bit to know how the future will look, how I will combine my coaching with my counselling studies, and my dreams of ministry and creative ventures. It might seem I am still the driven person I have often been.
I go now, however, to read a novel on the porch in the sun, to bless God for His constant faithfulness to me again and again, and to put my trust in His timing and leading for yet another day, another journey, another phase of life. I look forward to Thanksgiving with our only B.C. family on their turkey farm and another look at life through the eyes of others. There are many reality tests on this trip, and all of them call me to reflect, to observe, to share and to trust, to forgive myself and others, and to move ahead in trust. This is my daily bread today, my food for thought and pilgimage.
Here it is:
Food for Thought and Pilgrimage
I knew this trip would be a pilgrimage...not just a visit with my daughter, old friends and a few relatives, seeing old and new places. I knew there would be lots of opportunities for reflection on life, ministry, calling, past, present and future. And there would be lots of food.. at chain restaurants in the middle of big cities,at Irish pubs with singers, at a bistro with a roaring fire in a rainstorm, in the modest homes of friends on missionary support, or in more elaborate homes with hillside or oceanfront views owned by friends very blessed financially. Each of them living out their Christian lives with many blessings and many trials, each of them with their own reflections on ministry, service, vocation, God's leadings, each of them with their own stories of moving around from one place to another or staying put for many many years.
Take today for instance. We are experiencing gorgeous early fall weather on an island off Vancouver Island, the sun blazing in the window as I write in the home of the camp cooks at a wonderful Christian camp which has flourished for more than fifty years. My husband built their first rowboats in his first summer in Canada in the 50's. The founders of the camp still live here in their 90's, setting up the camp after spending years living in a boat called the GoForth and journeying up and down the B.C. Coast spreading the gospel. They have spent their lives on this coast and in this camp. We had lunch with other camp staff who have been planted here for many many years also, never, as the husband said, having been told by God to go elsewhere. Our hosts, on the other hand, have moved every few years, blessing various ministries with their cooking expertise. Their daughter came out with us to Uganda in her mid teens to help us homeschool our daughters, and had what she called a "pivotal" time with us there.
This morning we meandered our way to the wharf and considered taking a rowboat out on the very breezy water, and thought better of it. Then the sailing director came down to prepare the four Catalinas for the campers who had just arrived. We had a lovely chat with him instead, hearing how God opened the doors for him and his wife to leave their ministry as worship leaders and pastors in a church where they were burning out. We reflected on balance in ministry, self care, and being led of the Spirit into ways of service where we can work with teams and not wear ourselves out doing too much.
I reflect on the motel room excellent wireless connection the Lord provided for me two days ago to take my Life Coaching online exam, which I had been too busy to finish studying for before we left on this trip. I muse about His constant provision and protection over me and all His children, and yet I long to be able to get on with new work and ministry and not keep having so many lessons of trust and patience to learn. I champ at the bit to know how the future will look, how I will combine my coaching with my counselling studies, and my dreams of ministry and creative ventures. It might seem I am still the driven person I have often been.
I go now, however, to read a novel on the porch in the sun, to bless God for His constant faithfulness to me again and again, and to put my trust in His timing and leading for yet another day, another journey, another phase of life. I look forward to Thanksgiving with our only B.C. family on their turkey farm and another look at life through the eyes of others. There are many reality tests on this trip, and all of them call me to reflect, to observe, to share and to trust, to forgive myself and others, and to move ahead in trust. This is my daily bread today, my food for thought and pilgimage.
October 03, 2009
joy in points of connection
I am sitting right now in my daughter's room in her apartment style residence in B.C. It is a beautiful fall day...we have just come across on the ferry from the mainland...it's surreal to see my daughter in her new space, her new home, her new life...it's a very good life, with God's leading all the way, His protection and His provision. But it's weird for me all the same...Empty nest syndrome I guess...letting go. I've been so blase about it all...now the reality is hitting me. But it's great to be here, and she is the biggest connection for us out here...long may it last...our connecting across the miles, as with so many friends whom I'm meeting and writing about in my post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com today:
Points of Connection
Connecting has been the order of the days on this 27 day trip in B.C.. Before we left we had lined up lots of connections - lunch and dinner arrangements, places to stay, people to see, all to reconnect with the people we knew in days gone by. Now, a week into our trip, I am reflecting upon the underlying themes of this journey, this kind of pilgrimage. God always has so much to teach us as we connect, because it's really all about connecting more deeply with ourselves and with Him, as well as with others.
Points of Connection
Connecting has been the order of the days on this 27 day trip in B.C.. Before we left we had lined up lots of connections - lunch and dinner arrangements, places to stay, people to see, all to reconnect with the people we knew in days gone by. Now, a week into our trip, I am reflecting upon the underlying themes of this journey, this kind of pilgrimage. God always has so much to teach us as we connect, because it's really all about connecting more deeply with ourselves and with Him, as well as with others.
Indeed that is what it's been - the physical ways of connecting and making arrangements have just been metaphors for connecting in other ways. Conversations for me have focused in on the deepest level - how are these friends growing older? What is most important to them now? What visions inform their lives? How do they interact with those that inspire mine? How do they live out their Christian faith in context of various churches and denominations?
A common theme has been, not unexpectedly, that these friends, like we, are often dissatisfied with many versions of Christian fellowship. They, like we, will not settle for "rules" that seem superfluous or even alien to true Christian realities - levels of church politics, status or elitism. Not surprisingly these are continuing versions of what connected us in the first place. And of course the ones who have remained friends, or have become better friends now, are those who share a certain distaste for anything phony, legalistic or pretentious.
Most of all what unites us is a delight in each others' company, a warmth of acceptance and sharing of our humanity. For me this is a special delight, not only with these friends but with my daughter who is the biggest reason for this whole trip.
Each day has brought more depth and points of connection. Today we spent with a friend and her husband, a friend with whom I shared deeply over the years over a decade ago. It was as if the years had rolled away and we were back at her table affirming each other and bringing our gifts of discernment to bear on each others' lives. Only this time it was even better. All that has happened to each of us has only deepened our friendship, left on the shelf for years.
How could I expect anything else from my precious friend, and my precious Father? He is the author of these relationships, the keeper of our lives, the planner of the future. We walk in His grace and favour, and He, on our journeys, makes the points of connection.
September 26, 2009
joy in celebrating God's goodness to me
When you read this I will be in British Columbia, on the third day into our nostalgic trip, and our visit with our daughter newly settled out there. As I prepared the post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com ahead of time, the theme that emerged is one that has been springing up more and more from within me these last few weeks. I found it came out so smoothly with this song attached to it, as its true voice of what I feel so truly and deeply at this time in my life. Here is the post:
Lord, You've Been Good to Me
My mind whirls as I remember the way this trip came to be. It was born as a simple dream to see our daughter settled into her new home in the province of her birth, British Columbia. A dream to spend Thanksgiving with her so she can bear our Christmas love to her sibling, our other precious child, far across the ocean in New Zealand. But God had much more to the dream than even I could plan - a gathering in and celebration of our life from before Uganda, a first holiday for me, a first flight for me, a first reconnection for me, for almost ten years. Each detail has come to fruition almost as soon as it was conceived. Every person we have contacted to see has been able and eager to see us. Our itinerary reads like a bus tour with each day carefully and delightfully planned. The only difference is that we are the bus drivers, in our rented Honda Civic. My conclusion: this trip is totally a God-thing.
So, with delight I prepared the final details of packing. By the time you read this we will be two days into our visits, already seasoned travellers again, picking up on expertise born of routine travels as missionaries for almost a decade, a decade ago. My heart will be even more overflowing with gratitude for God's faithfulness and graciousness to us and me through all our lives. I look forward to sharing stories of our visits with many old friends, and opportunities to remember special moments of the early days of our children's lives. I have no doubt that they will shine with the luminiscence of God's overshadowing mercy and protection and provision.
There seems no other song more fitting to share with you at this time, one that we have sung recently in our worship times at church, and one that has run through my mind, and out my mouth many many times in these weeks: Graham Kendrick's "Lord, You've Been Good to Me". I have been able to find a section of it on You Tube performed by Graham and his band, but I wouldn't want you to miss out on all the words. Here are both, to bless you as they bless me:
Lord you've been good to me
All my life, all my life
Your loving kindness never fails
I will remember
All you have done
Bring from my heart
Thanksgiving songs
New every morning is your love
Filled with compassion from above
Grace and forgiveness full and free
Lord you've been good to me
So may each breath I take
Be for you Lord, only you
Giving you back the life I owe
Love so amazing
Mercy so free
Lord you've been good
So good to me
Copyright © 2001 Graham Kendrick
Administered by Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk
Lord, You've Been Good to Me
My mind whirls as I remember the way this trip came to be. It was born as a simple dream to see our daughter settled into her new home in the province of her birth, British Columbia. A dream to spend Thanksgiving with her so she can bear our Christmas love to her sibling, our other precious child, far across the ocean in New Zealand. But God had much more to the dream than even I could plan - a gathering in and celebration of our life from before Uganda, a first holiday for me, a first flight for me, a first reconnection for me, for almost ten years. Each detail has come to fruition almost as soon as it was conceived. Every person we have contacted to see has been able and eager to see us. Our itinerary reads like a bus tour with each day carefully and delightfully planned. The only difference is that we are the bus drivers, in our rented Honda Civic. My conclusion: this trip is totally a God-thing.
So, with delight I prepared the final details of packing. By the time you read this we will be two days into our visits, already seasoned travellers again, picking up on expertise born of routine travels as missionaries for almost a decade, a decade ago. My heart will be even more overflowing with gratitude for God's faithfulness and graciousness to us and me through all our lives. I look forward to sharing stories of our visits with many old friends, and opportunities to remember special moments of the early days of our children's lives. I have no doubt that they will shine with the luminiscence of God's overshadowing mercy and protection and provision.
There seems no other song more fitting to share with you at this time, one that we have sung recently in our worship times at church, and one that has run through my mind, and out my mouth many many times in these weeks: Graham Kendrick's "Lord, You've Been Good to Me". I have been able to find a section of it on You Tube performed by Graham and his band, but I wouldn't want you to miss out on all the words. Here are both, to bless you as they bless me:
Lord you've been good to me
All my life, all my life
Your loving kindness never fails
I will remember
All you have done
Bring from my heart
Thanksgiving songs
New every morning is your love
Filled with compassion from above
Grace and forgiveness full and free
Lord you've been good to me
So may each breath I take
Be for you Lord, only you
Giving you back the life I owe
Love so amazing
Mercy so free
Lord you've been good
So good to me
Copyright © 2001 Graham Kendrick
Administered by Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk
September 19, 2009
joy in loving the land
Today I am at a seminary retreat in a lovely setting. I wrote this post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com as a follow up to last week's. It has been healing for me to write them, and to see what I end up saying.
Loving the Land
by Meg
Last Saturday I reflected upon the impact of selling our family cottage. I spoke of the liberation from the weight of memories, of the heaviness of family system "rules", however unspoken, and the connection of those with a physical place, the family cottage that had been part of my life from its beginning. Writing that story was liberating, and in doing so I was reminded again of the importance also of celebrating all that was wonderful and good in that place and those memories. I said I would share what I had written in the summer of 2008, when selling the cottage was not really in our thinking. I reread these words and they bring alive again what I truly feel. I am grateful to have them to share now, in this season of letting go of the physical symbol of that part of my family heritage. ......
I lay this morning on the cottage living room floor on the mattress from the uncomfortable sofa bed moved up from my mother's apartment last year when her cancer got the better of her interesting life in Windsor. I mused upon the cedar beams and the pine boards of the cathedral ceiling Dad and she envisioned and built in 1969.
I recalled the many evenings of square dancing and sparkling fires, slide shows and card games, with several generations present. Almost forty years later I celebrate the way my parents put their vision into a building, now labelled a knockdown cottage. I mused also upon the recognition in my spirit that these parents, so different from me in so many ways, like me needed a vision to keep them going. Like we all do. They needed to create a world that represented their love of nature, their desire for company and fellowship, their appreciation of simplicity and beauty. The openness of the big windows on three sides, and the huge totally screened porch spelled out their desire for connection with the land and world of Muskoka. Lying in the lovely early morning sunshine on Canada Day, 2008, I celebrated these dear Canadians, my parents, Dorothy and Cyril, in this year of my mother's death a few months ago, almost 95, twenty years after my father's death, and I remembered their vision and the heritage they have given me, in this cottage, and in my life, as I set aside the stories of tension and misunderstanding I also carried within my being. I rejoiced, and found new joysprings in these stories in the beams above me, in the windows around me, in the trees and lake that beckoned to me, that they and I loved together for all those years. This is a deep part of my Canadian heritage, these parents who in their own way were Canadian pioneers and settlers, like so many people I know and love in this part of Canada that has now become my permanent home...Muskoka, land of those who love the land.
My understanding of God is that he has put us here to love the land, as well as to love people. He doesn't want us to love it more than we love Him,or people, but I do believe He has so much to teach us through His creation, and through the simplicity and richness of living life in deep connection with the land. Just as loving people teaches us so much about Him, and certainly about the nature of love, so loving the land has innumerable lessons. Perhaps our family cottage was the first place where I really learned to love the soil beneath my feet, the stones glistening under the water, the loons calling at night, the sunset saying "Good night", the sunrise saying "Good morning". I have relearned these love lessons again and again, as I have been privileged to live for short or longer times in northern Alberta,Scotland, Jamaica, British Columbia and Uganda, and to visit England,Wales,Israel, Egypt, the beautiful maritime provinces and to drive west through the Rockies. I live them here each day, in my home on the river in a Muskoka town. God calls me through every leaf and breeze, as through each person I meet. My prayer now is that I will always remember to hear His voice through each new encounter with land and person, and through the heritage of memory of family and land shared with them.
Loving the Land
by Meg
Last Saturday I reflected upon the impact of selling our family cottage. I spoke of the liberation from the weight of memories, of the heaviness of family system "rules", however unspoken, and the connection of those with a physical place, the family cottage that had been part of my life from its beginning. Writing that story was liberating, and in doing so I was reminded again of the importance also of celebrating all that was wonderful and good in that place and those memories. I said I would share what I had written in the summer of 2008, when selling the cottage was not really in our thinking. I reread these words and they bring alive again what I truly feel. I am grateful to have them to share now, in this season of letting go of the physical symbol of that part of my family heritage. ......
I lay this morning on the cottage living room floor on the mattress from the uncomfortable sofa bed moved up from my mother's apartment last year when her cancer got the better of her interesting life in Windsor. I mused upon the cedar beams and the pine boards of the cathedral ceiling Dad and she envisioned and built in 1969.
I recalled the many evenings of square dancing and sparkling fires, slide shows and card games, with several generations present. Almost forty years later I celebrate the way my parents put their vision into a building, now labelled a knockdown cottage. I mused also upon the recognition in my spirit that these parents, so different from me in so many ways, like me needed a vision to keep them going. Like we all do. They needed to create a world that represented their love of nature, their desire for company and fellowship, their appreciation of simplicity and beauty. The openness of the big windows on three sides, and the huge totally screened porch spelled out their desire for connection with the land and world of Muskoka. Lying in the lovely early morning sunshine on Canada Day, 2008, I celebrated these dear Canadians, my parents, Dorothy and Cyril, in this year of my mother's death a few months ago, almost 95, twenty years after my father's death, and I remembered their vision and the heritage they have given me, in this cottage, and in my life, as I set aside the stories of tension and misunderstanding I also carried within my being. I rejoiced, and found new joysprings in these stories in the beams above me, in the windows around me, in the trees and lake that beckoned to me, that they and I loved together for all those years. This is a deep part of my Canadian heritage, these parents who in their own way were Canadian pioneers and settlers, like so many people I know and love in this part of Canada that has now become my permanent home...Muskoka, land of those who love the land.
My understanding of God is that he has put us here to love the land, as well as to love people. He doesn't want us to love it more than we love Him,or people, but I do believe He has so much to teach us through His creation, and through the simplicity and richness of living life in deep connection with the land. Just as loving people teaches us so much about Him, and certainly about the nature of love, so loving the land has innumerable lessons. Perhaps our family cottage was the first place where I really learned to love the soil beneath my feet, the stones glistening under the water, the loons calling at night, the sunset saying "Good night", the sunrise saying "Good morning". I have relearned these love lessons again and again, as I have been privileged to live for short or longer times in northern Alberta,Scotland, Jamaica, British Columbia and Uganda, and to visit England,Wales,Israel, Egypt, the beautiful maritime provinces and to drive west through the Rockies. I live them here each day, in my home on the river in a Muskoka town. God calls me through every leaf and breeze, as through each person I meet. My prayer now is that I will always remember to hear His voice through each new encounter with land and person, and through the heritage of memory of family and land shared with them.
September 12, 2009
joy in liberation from the weight of memory
Here is today's post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Already our blog manager, Belinda, has commented on it, and on the liberation from memory that comes from writing. I so appreciate that comment, and also look forward to sharing from my own archives next Saturday the blog post I wrote here about our family cottage heritage when I first began this blog. Stay tuned.
The Weight of Memory: Reflections on Selling the Family Cottage
We glanced up at the window across the street from the lawyer's office as we exited after signing off on the sale of the cottage that had been in our family since the mid-1940s. "Isn't it interesting that the lawyer's office is right under Mum's old window?" I said to my sister as we got into the car. "It sort of underlines the heaviness of this whole thing, doesn't it?"
She agreed, as we drove away reflecting again on the various stages we had gone through this year and a half since our aged mother died beside that very window, in the seniors' home we had brought her to so that we could be there for her in her last days of terminal cancer. The precious year we had with her before her death was unforgettable. We could not forget either the conversations we had with her about the cottage, the assumptions we had made that we would do all in our power to keep the cottage, preserve it for the future generations.
Yet now we had made this decision, made it in peace and prayer, and the sale had gone smoothly and been a win win for all concerned. The intolerable burden of responsibility had been lifted off our shoulders, and we had given the next generation of family time to realize that what we would have kept alive if we could have afforded it was really only a dream, a version of unreality that we did not want to promote, even a snare and a delusion to bind them into future conflicts, both inner and outer. We did not want to wish on them the carrying of a dream that would turn into a heavy load. Let alone the work and worry.
For me, as I walked up and down the hill at the cottage many times these past few years, I realized more and more that selling it meant saying goodbye to my family system in a way that was very liberating. For our cottage was not just a building and a dock on a lake - it had been part of a network of relatives' cottages, a community that had been both comforting and confining, and, ultimately, a constantly bittersweet place of many melancholy memories. Our cottage experience had bound us into obligations and rituals that often snared and obliged us and taught us the tyranny of family rules that had nothing to do with God's plans for families and their blessings upon the children.
Even the good memories kept me haunted and held, weighed down and reflective. Instead of just enjoying the outdoors and the beauties of nature I was confronted always with scenes from the past...and the ones I treasured most were the most distant...yet even they were full of sadness, the sadness that lay about our extended family like a cloak, the sadness that was sewn into the fabric of our beings from such an early age that it seemed normal.
Now we are free from the physical reminder of all of this...now we just remember, and have more choice, perhaps, about how and what we remember. 'Sometimes the weight of memory is just too much', I had said to myself a few weeks ago. 'Sometimes we need to be free from a place that binds us too closely to those memories.'
I reflect upon how my mother would see things from a heavenly perspective, liberated herself from the family rules, from the obligations that overshadowed so much of her own life. She had also been a sensible person who was willing to encourage others to move on, to make new choices. I cannot help but feel that just as we were free to make this decision because of her death, that she also would be with us in spirit in this choice, that she would not want us to feel guilty or that we had let her down. She might even have said something like I said to myself, knowing what she had learned in her own life but probably could not articulate while she was alive: that we should not live our lives held down or back by the weight of memory.
A Postscript: I would not want you to think I have undervalued the family legacy here. It was a joy to discover what I did share as we left, and will continue to share. I wrote a letter to the new owners and left it with a copy of the booklet my father had written, with my editorial help, of the history of our cottage community, from its earliest connections to the whole history of Muskoka pioneers. I also told them about how my father had made various items of furniture we left in the cottage, and how my mother had made the curtains and bedspreads we left for them too. There were many treasures we took with us, but we left those, and several paintings with interesting connections to our parents. It was a joy to tell these stories, and our agent said it touched him so, and felt we would be welcome visitors to the new owners. With our children we also took many photos of loved places, to keep forever as reminders of all that we loved the best.
Next Saturday I will share the post I wrote on my own personal blog over a year ago, about the great things of that family legacy at the cottage and how I saw them in their best light. That will be a liberating thing for me, now free from the physical burden, to share those good reflections and memories, and choose what I wish to preserve for posterity myself.
The Weight of Memory: Reflections on Selling the Family Cottage
We glanced up at the window across the street from the lawyer's office as we exited after signing off on the sale of the cottage that had been in our family since the mid-1940s. "Isn't it interesting that the lawyer's office is right under Mum's old window?" I said to my sister as we got into the car. "It sort of underlines the heaviness of this whole thing, doesn't it?"
She agreed, as we drove away reflecting again on the various stages we had gone through this year and a half since our aged mother died beside that very window, in the seniors' home we had brought her to so that we could be there for her in her last days of terminal cancer. The precious year we had with her before her death was unforgettable. We could not forget either the conversations we had with her about the cottage, the assumptions we had made that we would do all in our power to keep the cottage, preserve it for the future generations.
Yet now we had made this decision, made it in peace and prayer, and the sale had gone smoothly and been a win win for all concerned. The intolerable burden of responsibility had been lifted off our shoulders, and we had given the next generation of family time to realize that what we would have kept alive if we could have afforded it was really only a dream, a version of unreality that we did not want to promote, even a snare and a delusion to bind them into future conflicts, both inner and outer. We did not want to wish on them the carrying of a dream that would turn into a heavy load. Let alone the work and worry.
For me, as I walked up and down the hill at the cottage many times these past few years, I realized more and more that selling it meant saying goodbye to my family system in a way that was very liberating. For our cottage was not just a building and a dock on a lake - it had been part of a network of relatives' cottages, a community that had been both comforting and confining, and, ultimately, a constantly bittersweet place of many melancholy memories. Our cottage experience had bound us into obligations and rituals that often snared and obliged us and taught us the tyranny of family rules that had nothing to do with God's plans for families and their blessings upon the children.
Even the good memories kept me haunted and held, weighed down and reflective. Instead of just enjoying the outdoors and the beauties of nature I was confronted always with scenes from the past...and the ones I treasured most were the most distant...yet even they were full of sadness, the sadness that lay about our extended family like a cloak, the sadness that was sewn into the fabric of our beings from such an early age that it seemed normal.
Now we are free from the physical reminder of all of this...now we just remember, and have more choice, perhaps, about how and what we remember. 'Sometimes the weight of memory is just too much', I had said to myself a few weeks ago. 'Sometimes we need to be free from a place that binds us too closely to those memories.'
I reflect upon how my mother would see things from a heavenly perspective, liberated herself from the family rules, from the obligations that overshadowed so much of her own life. She had also been a sensible person who was willing to encourage others to move on, to make new choices. I cannot help but feel that just as we were free to make this decision because of her death, that she also would be with us in spirit in this choice, that she would not want us to feel guilty or that we had let her down. She might even have said something like I said to myself, knowing what she had learned in her own life but probably could not articulate while she was alive: that we should not live our lives held down or back by the weight of memory.
A Postscript: I would not want you to think I have undervalued the family legacy here. It was a joy to discover what I did share as we left, and will continue to share. I wrote a letter to the new owners and left it with a copy of the booklet my father had written, with my editorial help, of the history of our cottage community, from its earliest connections to the whole history of Muskoka pioneers. I also told them about how my father had made various items of furniture we left in the cottage, and how my mother had made the curtains and bedspreads we left for them too. There were many treasures we took with us, but we left those, and several paintings with interesting connections to our parents. It was a joy to tell these stories, and our agent said it touched him so, and felt we would be welcome visitors to the new owners. With our children we also took many photos of loved places, to keep forever as reminders of all that we loved the best.
Next Saturday I will share the post I wrote on my own personal blog over a year ago, about the great things of that family legacy at the cottage and how I saw them in their best light. That will be a liberating thing for me, now free from the physical burden, to share those good reflections and memories, and choose what I wish to preserve for posterity myself.
September 05, 2009
joy in God's faithfulness, and my girls' faithfulness too
I searched my heart and mind again yesterday about what was most important to share this week. I could have taken some of the lines from the song I had the privilege to sing in church last Sunday...solo. Or played with words and made up some clever stuff about great spiritual truths that speak to me every day. Yes, I have lots of blog material for years to come, it would seem. But what seemed most personal and universal to share this week was becoming an empty nester and saying goodbye to my daughter as she headed off to university. Because it really wasn't about that, but about God and how He has taken care of my girls, and how they have allowed that to happen by their trust and their own care. So I celebrated that, and added in the song that came...not a seemingly very profound song, but a suitable one. A simple one, full of simple truth, which is really what life is all about. Simple truths. So here is my weekly blog post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com...the comments when you read the post on that blog are always rewarding and interesting.
Faithful God, Faithful Girls
She won't be home tonight. At least not to this home. She flew out west very early yesterday morning. I said goodbye to my baby again, companion for this summer while my other baby settled into Bible school in New Zealand. Now they are both gone, from here, but not from my heart, nor me from theirs. Until now I have been so happy for them, so thrilled at how their plans have worked out, that I haven't had much time to miss them, or think about missing them. Now here we are - empty nesters.
Interesting that in just three weeks we will see one of them again! How's that for a pining Mum!!We actually arranged the trip for very practical reasons. Share Thanksgiving with her so we can send her to have a Kiwi Christmas with the other one, then welcome the other back for a few months a little while later. Now I am so delighted that it will not be long before I see my daughter again, my dear friend. And I am delighted that she feels the same way.
But what is my song today? I can only sing that refrain "What a Faithful God have I". I think back on these years of child rearing...through all the adventures...moving with them to Uganda in their very early years, moving suddenly back to a new part of Canada in their early adolescent years, moving them from being missionary kids to being small town kids. They coped so well, all the way along, with so many transitions, so many times of being different or misunderstood. And through it all they kept their faith alive, a real, gutsy faith. Then they tested it out in Bible school, and in revisiting Uganda. They got on the family airplane track again, and stepped out into the big wide world, the post 911 world, alone, trusting, scared and faithful.
And as they have grown up, I have too, but I have also become more childlike in my trust. When I wondered how she would get from the ferry to the university residence with her big suitcase, backpack, carry on and satchel, God provided. First He gave her a contact with a wonderful out of the box type of church, then they asked her if she needed help settling in. All I had done was pray for something to work out for her.
I could go on and on with the details of God's faithfulness in provision and protection, and their faithfulness in seeking Him and trusting Him. What more can I say? What is more important than to thank Him every moment for His faithfulness, and trust Him more and more.
These seem the most important words for this week. I have many more words in my own heart of His provision for me too, many too private to share. But God knows how I feel, and how grateful I am. That is enough. So it seems the words have run out, and there is only song. Let's share it together.
Faithful God, Faithful Girls
She won't be home tonight. At least not to this home. She flew out west very early yesterday morning. I said goodbye to my baby again, companion for this summer while my other baby settled into Bible school in New Zealand. Now they are both gone, from here, but not from my heart, nor me from theirs. Until now I have been so happy for them, so thrilled at how their plans have worked out, that I haven't had much time to miss them, or think about missing them. Now here we are - empty nesters.
Interesting that in just three weeks we will see one of them again! How's that for a pining Mum!!We actually arranged the trip for very practical reasons. Share Thanksgiving with her so we can send her to have a Kiwi Christmas with the other one, then welcome the other back for a few months a little while later. Now I am so delighted that it will not be long before I see my daughter again, my dear friend. And I am delighted that she feels the same way.
But what is my song today? I can only sing that refrain "What a Faithful God have I". I think back on these years of child rearing...through all the adventures...moving with them to Uganda in their very early years, moving suddenly back to a new part of Canada in their early adolescent years, moving them from being missionary kids to being small town kids. They coped so well, all the way along, with so many transitions, so many times of being different or misunderstood. And through it all they kept their faith alive, a real, gutsy faith. Then they tested it out in Bible school, and in revisiting Uganda. They got on the family airplane track again, and stepped out into the big wide world, the post 911 world, alone, trusting, scared and faithful.
And as they have grown up, I have too, but I have also become more childlike in my trust. When I wondered how she would get from the ferry to the university residence with her big suitcase, backpack, carry on and satchel, God provided. First He gave her a contact with a wonderful out of the box type of church, then they asked her if she needed help settling in. All I had done was pray for something to work out for her.
I could go on and on with the details of God's faithfulness in provision and protection, and their faithfulness in seeking Him and trusting Him. What more can I say? What is more important than to thank Him every moment for His faithfulness, and trust Him more and more.
These seem the most important words for this week. I have many more words in my own heart of His provision for me too, many too private to share. But God knows how I feel, and how grateful I am. That is enough. So it seems the words have run out, and there is only song. Let's share it together.
August 29, 2009
joy in using metaphors - again
Well, here is my post for this week for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. What is really fun is to read it on that site and see the comments, which really mean a lot to me, and can be lots of fun too, like today's! I find the discipline of writing the post as a regular thing for that blog a real challenge. It has moved from a sort of self-indulgent outlet, an avenue for my "voice" to a discipline to find something worthwhile to say to others, kind of like giving a homily as our pastor does. I appreciate that I can do it with humour and hope to do so more. I learn a lot from reading the work of my fellow "blog princesses", as we dubbed ourselves a year ago, when I was invited into the team. Now I see it as a chance to grow in my writing, to understand myself better as I see what comes out of me, (or wants to come out, and then I have to evaluate it), and as an opportunity to connect the parts of my world together and show myself and others how all of life is spiritual.
Living Watersheds and Dancing Metaphors
Last week several people commented on my post about Algonquin Park and Niagara Falls with the greeting "Happy ICLW!". I, despite my plea for preservation of beautiful natural wonders, didn't know the meaning of this acronym and dutifully did an internet search about it. It seems to be a toss up between "International Comment Leaving Week" and the "International Center for Living Watersheds". I was intrigued by the latter, knowing The Park to be a watershed, and a living one because it is protected and maintained as a vital and fresh one. I also of course began to see spiritual parallels right away. In my single days in the renewal movement in Toronto I edited a small magazine I called Living Letter loving the apostle Paul's injunction to be ambassadors for Christ in all we do and say. So for me the image of a "living watershed" is similar, except of course it can't be found in scripture.
But the connections with other scriptural images are obvious, the clearest one being that out of those who are in Christ will flow streams of living water. Stepping up from water to a watershed in its other meaning brings more theological reflection: a watershed is "an important period, time event or factor that marks a change or division." (Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary) Can't you see the metaphor? We need to be people who create events or are catalysts for periods in people's lives to make important choices happen, changes for the better, changes that may mean a decisive turn, even a division that needs to happen between the old and the new in their lives. What an exciting metaphor to contemplate - to be a living watershed!!
Now to gather in more wool from my week: the message on Sunday evening by our pastor used a metaphor from the news story of a collision between a bread truck and a steel truck on the Burlington skyway. She called her talk "When Bread Meets Steel". She said this was the stuff of the Christian life - negotiating the collisions in our lives between the soft life giving things and the harsh realities. Those sorts of collisions are also watersheds.
Now I'm going to jump even more with my metaphors: steel looks negative in this previous story, but there is a way in which we can see it positively. More on that in a moment. To keep connected to our watershed metaphor let's imagine that as we give life through living water and are people who continually supply that, in Christ's strength and abundance, then we, like the bread of life, provide food for the journey on which such collisions happen. And we can only have the strength to withstand life's tough things ourselves and be watersheds for others if we ourselves have met a lot of steel, and had the strength of the steel built into our very beings.
Streams in the Desert speaks to this again, on this very day I am writing:
And if you feel dragged around in my dance with words and metaphors, please forgive me and take what you will out of my indulgence. I will end with yet another metaphor that came alive again this week for me, about words and their uses. I had to ask forgiveness for offending and hurting people with my words on several occasions, and I remembered the slogan I once hung over my desk and should definitely place prominently again: "O Lord, may my words be sweet today, for tomorrow I may have to eat them".
As I can't get away from metaphors this week, may I say that I hope there is life in my words this week for you, as bread or as water, and may they strengthen you as you develop the steel you need to withstand the storms of life.
Living Watersheds and Dancing Metaphors
Last week several people commented on my post about Algonquin Park and Niagara Falls with the greeting "Happy ICLW!". I, despite my plea for preservation of beautiful natural wonders, didn't know the meaning of this acronym and dutifully did an internet search about it. It seems to be a toss up between "International Comment Leaving Week" and the "International Center for Living Watersheds". I was intrigued by the latter, knowing The Park to be a watershed, and a living one because it is protected and maintained as a vital and fresh one. I also of course began to see spiritual parallels right away. In my single days in the renewal movement in Toronto I edited a small magazine I called Living Letter loving the apostle Paul's injunction to be ambassadors for Christ in all we do and say. So for me the image of a "living watershed" is similar, except of course it can't be found in scripture.
But the connections with other scriptural images are obvious, the clearest one being that out of those who are in Christ will flow streams of living water. Stepping up from water to a watershed in its other meaning brings more theological reflection: a watershed is "an important period, time event or factor that marks a change or division." (Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary) Can't you see the metaphor? We need to be people who create events or are catalysts for periods in people's lives to make important choices happen, changes for the better, changes that may mean a decisive turn, even a division that needs to happen between the old and the new in their lives. What an exciting metaphor to contemplate - to be a living watershed!!
Now to gather in more wool from my week: the message on Sunday evening by our pastor used a metaphor from the news story of a collision between a bread truck and a steel truck on the Burlington skyway. She called her talk "When Bread Meets Steel". She said this was the stuff of the Christian life - negotiating the collisions in our lives between the soft life giving things and the harsh realities. Those sorts of collisions are also watersheds.
Now I'm going to jump even more with my metaphors: steel looks negative in this previous story, but there is a way in which we can see it positively. More on that in a moment. To keep connected to our watershed metaphor let's imagine that as we give life through living water and are people who continually supply that, in Christ's strength and abundance, then we, like the bread of life, provide food for the journey on which such collisions happen. And we can only have the strength to withstand life's tough things ourselves and be watersheds for others if we ourselves have met a lot of steel, and had the strength of the steel built into our very beings.
Streams in the Desert speaks to this again, on this very day I am writing:
I stood once in the test room of a great steel mill. All around me were little partitions and compartments. Steel had been tested to the limit, and marked with figures that showed its breaking point. Some pieces had been twisted until they broke, and the strength of torsion was marked on them. Some had been stretched to the breaking point and their tensile strength indicated. Some had been compressed to the crushing point, and also marked. The master of the steel mill knew just what these pieces of steel would stand under strain. He knew just what they would bear if placed in the great ship, building or bridge. He knew this because his testing room revealed it.
It is often so with God's children. God does not want us to be like vases of glass or porcelain. He would have us like these toughened pieces of steel, able to bear twisting and crushing to the uttermost without collapse.
He wants us to be, not hothouse plants, but storm-beaten oaks, not sand dunes driven with every gust of wind, but granite rocks withstanding the fiercest storms. To make us such He must needs bring us into His testing room of suffering. Many of us need no other argument than our own experiences to prove that suffering is indeed God's testing room of faith.
And if you feel dragged around in my dance with words and metaphors, please forgive me and take what you will out of my indulgence. I will end with yet another metaphor that came alive again this week for me, about words and their uses. I had to ask forgiveness for offending and hurting people with my words on several occasions, and I remembered the slogan I once hung over my desk and should definitely place prominently again: "O Lord, may my words be sweet today, for tomorrow I may have to eat them".
As I can't get away from metaphors this week, may I say that I hope there is life in my words this week for you, as bread or as water, and may they strengthen you as you develop the steel you need to withstand the storms of life.
August 22, 2009
joy in finally exploring Algonquin Park
I had many possible ideas for my weekly blog post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com, but this is what came after a glorious day in Algonquin Park. It seemed to fit so well as a comparison with our trip to Niagara Falls two weeks ago, and my musings upon that for last week's blog. I am enjoying finding so much spiritual truth in these experiences of nature...I look forward to many more.
Set Apart yet Close By
Last time it was Niagara Falls; this time Algonquin Park. Another day away, another natural wonder. So many times we've driven through The Park, on the way to somewhere else, intent on making time on the journey, not oblivious to the beauty, but not having or taking the time to experience it.
Finally the day came, a day set apart for the purpose of exploring this amazing place, of finally venturing off the highway and into the wilds on either side. And it was made simpler and more special this first time by our friends...excited explorers who have walked all the trails but one, and many times at that.
Like experiencing The Falls I felt immersed: enveloped by miles of trees and all forms of ground cover, aware of the potential for hours of gazing and drinking in the glory of natural beauty, witness to the wonders of divine creation far surpassing any man-made wizardry.
Returning home sun-kissed and wind-blessed I pondered the difference between The Falls and The Park. Both are visited by millions of people. Both possess an ongoing capacity to fascinate and enthrall and absorb the attention of humankind. Yet here there is space to be part of the beauty without being overwhelmed by the people. Of course it helps that there is no city surrounding parts of The Park! Duh, Meg.
And that's really it. Before there was a chance for a city to grow up around its special wonders, The Park was set apart. The Falls got the city, the theme parks, the hotels, the casinos and restaurants, the endless tide of commercialism. The boundaries weren't drawn in time to preserve the wonder and direct the way attention would be given.
So here I go for the spiritual parallels again. Guess you could feel them creeping up on you. Intentionality in drawing boundaries, setting things apart for their special purposes, matching things in appropriate ways. I was jarred by the dissonance at Niagara Falls between natural stupendous creation and man made hideous cheap thrills. I didn't have to deal with that at Algonquin Park. The human creations were tastefully serving the natural creations, framing it and setting it off, enabling greater appreciation of it instead of exploiting it.
What are the lessons to learn more than just appreciation for the creation of national parks? How can we apply this to our own lives? How do we make choices for ourselves so that we can be integrated and resonant like the world surrounding The Park, instead of disrespectful and dissonant like the world surrounding The Falls ? How do we take what is most precious in our lives and preserve it by drawing boundaries and keeping it set apart and sacred? How do we hear God calling us to do that, to bring into balance and harmony our connection between ourselves and His wonders in our world and our lives?
I am grateful today for so much food for heart and soul, mind and spirit, as well as fresh air and exercise for my body, and a feast for my eyes. I have travelled to many places in the world. I have had many spiritual experiences. But today I have enjoyed communion with the Lord of lords in a fresh and deeply personal way just "around the corner" from my home.
We can find such places and moments in many ways and days in our lives. They may already be set apart, or we may draw those boundaries ourselves. Either way, God waits to speak to us through them, as we set ourselves and time apart to seek His face in their midst.
Set Apart yet Close By
Last time it was Niagara Falls; this time Algonquin Park. Another day away, another natural wonder. So many times we've driven through The Park, on the way to somewhere else, intent on making time on the journey, not oblivious to the beauty, but not having or taking the time to experience it.
Finally the day came, a day set apart for the purpose of exploring this amazing place, of finally venturing off the highway and into the wilds on either side. And it was made simpler and more special this first time by our friends...excited explorers who have walked all the trails but one, and many times at that.
Like experiencing The Falls I felt immersed: enveloped by miles of trees and all forms of ground cover, aware of the potential for hours of gazing and drinking in the glory of natural beauty, witness to the wonders of divine creation far surpassing any man-made wizardry.
Returning home sun-kissed and wind-blessed I pondered the difference between The Falls and The Park. Both are visited by millions of people. Both possess an ongoing capacity to fascinate and enthrall and absorb the attention of humankind. Yet here there is space to be part of the beauty without being overwhelmed by the people. Of course it helps that there is no city surrounding parts of The Park! Duh, Meg.
And that's really it. Before there was a chance for a city to grow up around its special wonders, The Park was set apart. The Falls got the city, the theme parks, the hotels, the casinos and restaurants, the endless tide of commercialism. The boundaries weren't drawn in time to preserve the wonder and direct the way attention would be given.
So here I go for the spiritual parallels again. Guess you could feel them creeping up on you. Intentionality in drawing boundaries, setting things apart for their special purposes, matching things in appropriate ways. I was jarred by the dissonance at Niagara Falls between natural stupendous creation and man made hideous cheap thrills. I didn't have to deal with that at Algonquin Park. The human creations were tastefully serving the natural creations, framing it and setting it off, enabling greater appreciation of it instead of exploiting it.
What are the lessons to learn more than just appreciation for the creation of national parks? How can we apply this to our own lives? How do we make choices for ourselves so that we can be integrated and resonant like the world surrounding The Park, instead of disrespectful and dissonant like the world surrounding The Falls ? How do we take what is most precious in our lives and preserve it by drawing boundaries and keeping it set apart and sacred? How do we hear God calling us to do that, to bring into balance and harmony our connection between ourselves and His wonders in our world and our lives?
I am grateful today for so much food for heart and soul, mind and spirit, as well as fresh air and exercise for my body, and a feast for my eyes. I have travelled to many places in the world. I have had many spiritual experiences. But today I have enjoyed communion with the Lord of lords in a fresh and deeply personal way just "around the corner" from my home.
We can find such places and moments in many ways and days in our lives. They may already be set apart, or we may draw those boundaries ourselves. Either way, God waits to speak to us through them, as we set ourselves and time apart to seek His face in their midst.
August 15, 2009
joy in seeing and enjoying the presence of God in nature
Well, it's a warm Saturday morning and I am cleaning the kitchen and preparing for another busy day: finishing laying resilient flooring in our bedroom, taking the old windows and other stuff to the dump, buying eco friendly toilets at the Home Depot special, tidying other areas of the house, and somewhere in there getting out for a bike ride, a walk with my husband, and a quiet time on the steps down our hill by the river, where, such a short distance from our house, I can feel immersed in nature as I sit surrounded by wild flowers, (some of them weeds in my front garden), and look up the river where I love to canoe. What a privilege to live where I can connect with nature so quickly. Yet it is often hard to organize my time so that I do choose what is best for me and make this connection. It is indeed a parable about being swallowed up in the busyness of life and forgetting the most important things. I am grateful that this summer I have had opportunities and reminders about making space for the grandeur of God, and for my own self care, in simple ways in my daily life. Our short half weekend away to Niagara Falls brought another such experience and reminder. I wrote about it in my regular Saturday post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Here it is:
Explore the Roar
We paid our admission to the Maid of the Mist and got into line with hordes of people at Niagara Falls. Complimentary postcards were thrust into our hands: Explore the Roar they said. A proclamation and a challenge. We were in for a little adventure. Since 1846 these little boats had been providing a thrill for those seeking to get a little closer to the greatest source of electrical power in the world. We were in for a roar all right. And a soak, I thought, as we donned our large blue ponchos, ready to look like oversize versions of those bags they put flyers in to throw them into our driveways.
Friendly line-mates compared Niagara thrills with us, agreeing this was the best. "There's a moment", this Kilimanjaro climber excitedly proclaimed, " when it really feels like you are coming into the presence of God". That's it! I thought. That's why we do things like this. We want a memorable experience that takes us closer to the author of natural wonders, something that takes us out of ourselves and reminds us of our smallness in the face of creation.
Satisfyingly soaked, we smiled our way on the elevator ride back up to the souvenir shop and hunted for a hot cup of tea. Another line for that, with another friendly person. A worker for the Midway rides, she enthusiastically recommended some sites to round out our day. I politely listened, then gratefully took our Earl Grey bags in cardboard and water to a table by the window overlooking the park. Our next destination, for a rest on a bench until the drops of rain started. What a blessing amid Midway madness, strange creatures glaring at us from atop buildings and peeping from doorways and windows, that there were flowers, benches, grass, sanity and peace in the midst of the competition with Mother Nature for first prize in thrills.
Why should we need more than the roar of the Falls? Drenching from its spray and a confrontation with our vulnerability in its wake? Recognition that without the motor power and the soundness of that small craft we would be bobbing (if we were lucky) on the water or sucked under by the current?
Recalling Aslan's roar and realizing how easily we underestimate God's power, I contemplated our spirituality, our church life, our Christian events. What do they resemble? Are they like the Falls, the spray, the roar, in their (super)natural wonder and magnificence? Are they even like the natural serenity of the park, the trees, the flowers, the grass, the unhurried quiet away from busyness? Or are they like cheap thrills ( or not so cheap) - Ripley's Believe It or Not, wax replicas of real people, cheesy imitations of real beauty, the list goes on. Do we try to dish out "spiritual" experience like souvenirs, T shirts stamped "Been there..done that..."? You know the deal. What's the "take home" from church/prayer time/worship for you/me? What are we looking for?
And could we say, as with Niagara Falls, that we get what we look for? That finding the "real thing" is only for those who really want it? That there are lots of substitutes beckoning to us all the time..so near, and yet, needing a search, a definitive choice, a saying no sometimes in order to say yes.
If we want to explore the roar, if we want to taste the peace afterwards, we may need to be sure, be ready, and be willing to be satisfied with nothing but the real thing.
Explore the Roar
We paid our admission to the Maid of the Mist and got into line with hordes of people at Niagara Falls. Complimentary postcards were thrust into our hands: Explore the Roar they said. A proclamation and a challenge. We were in for a little adventure. Since 1846 these little boats had been providing a thrill for those seeking to get a little closer to the greatest source of electrical power in the world. We were in for a roar all right. And a soak, I thought, as we donned our large blue ponchos, ready to look like oversize versions of those bags they put flyers in to throw them into our driveways.
Friendly line-mates compared Niagara thrills with us, agreeing this was the best. "There's a moment", this Kilimanjaro climber excitedly proclaimed, " when it really feels like you are coming into the presence of God". That's it! I thought. That's why we do things like this. We want a memorable experience that takes us closer to the author of natural wonders, something that takes us out of ourselves and reminds us of our smallness in the face of creation.
Satisfyingly soaked, we smiled our way on the elevator ride back up to the souvenir shop and hunted for a hot cup of tea. Another line for that, with another friendly person. A worker for the Midway rides, she enthusiastically recommended some sites to round out our day. I politely listened, then gratefully took our Earl Grey bags in cardboard and water to a table by the window overlooking the park. Our next destination, for a rest on a bench until the drops of rain started. What a blessing amid Midway madness, strange creatures glaring at us from atop buildings and peeping from doorways and windows, that there were flowers, benches, grass, sanity and peace in the midst of the competition with Mother Nature for first prize in thrills.
Why should we need more than the roar of the Falls? Drenching from its spray and a confrontation with our vulnerability in its wake? Recognition that without the motor power and the soundness of that small craft we would be bobbing (if we were lucky) on the water or sucked under by the current?
Recalling Aslan's roar and realizing how easily we underestimate God's power, I contemplated our spirituality, our church life, our Christian events. What do they resemble? Are they like the Falls, the spray, the roar, in their (super)natural wonder and magnificence? Are they even like the natural serenity of the park, the trees, the flowers, the grass, the unhurried quiet away from busyness? Or are they like cheap thrills ( or not so cheap) - Ripley's Believe It or Not, wax replicas of real people, cheesy imitations of real beauty, the list goes on. Do we try to dish out "spiritual" experience like souvenirs, T shirts stamped "Been there..done that..."? You know the deal. What's the "take home" from church/prayer time/worship for you/me? What are we looking for?
And could we say, as with Niagara Falls, that we get what we look for? That finding the "real thing" is only for those who really want it? That there are lots of substitutes beckoning to us all the time..so near, and yet, needing a search, a definitive choice, a saying no sometimes in order to say yes.
If we want to explore the roar, if we want to taste the peace afterwards, we may need to be sure, be ready, and be willing to be satisfied with nothing but the real thing.
August 08, 2009
joy in finding new "wealth", and truth
Here is my post for today for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Again, challenged to find a way to share my experience and understanding in a true and useful way, I have endeavoured to summarize new reading and learning. The challenge of course is to live it out.
Real Wealth
I've been hearing, reading, and talking a lot about wealth lately. When I was preparing for my garage sale last week I listened to a CBC program about money and happiness, and the correlation or lack of between the two. A famous Canadian Christian multibillionare said he was no happier or less happy than he was when he began his business, and still lives in the same house he had back then. A saliva test survey discovered that many people who have more money show much more of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. They also feel guilty about their wealth. Longstanding Christian friends who visited recently were expressing concern about how the prosperity gospel is creeping into a movement they had formerly respected. Their summation of that gospel was that one gives to get something for oneself, to get more - the actual epitome of a worldly mindset that is against the true giving, freedom from care attitude of Jesus and His followers.
There were a number of years in my young adult life when I sought to live the Christian life by avoiding wealth as I understood it and so remaining not only poor monetarily, but poor in terms of living out my talents and gifts and relationships in the fulness I believe God intended. Now as I prepare for later years and take stock of all I have learned and experienced, I find myself needing fresh input and insight. As I prepare to coach others, I am a learner myself.
My Life Coaching homework and lessons this week were about wealth and mindset. There, in the secular foundational course book we use and then discuss from a Christian point of view, was a wonderfully stated position about wealth. It made me realize that I, as a person who has always despised wealth in many forms, sought to work for the poor and underprivileged, and continued to be frugal no matter what my net worth, discovered that, in light of the course material's parameters, I really have a poverty mindset in many ways. Not about monetary wealth, but about any kind of wealth. And that in having such a mindset I can easily be displaying a very worldly way of being - which is worrying about not having enough, believing I don't or won't have enough, and so remaining in a place that is out of sync with a truly Christian worldview. (I can imagine I am actually in 'good' company with many Christians, for the body of Christ is rather skewed in its attitudes in many ways.)
In our text ( Becoming a Professional Life Coach) by Patrick Williams and Diane Menendez can be found these nuggets of wisdom and truth:
A real sense of personal wealth comes from knowing that we always have a reserve of whatever resource we're focused on. (p.269)
Real wealth comes from experiencing more than enough of whatever is at issue. (p. 270)
Scarcity is simply a habitual way of thinking...and robs clients of the ability to feel appreciation for the abundance they do have in many areas of their lives. (p.276)
We focus on the importance of having a sense of abundance - a reserve of sense of wealth - in key areas: relationship (or love), time, vision, money, career and contribution. (p.276)
Sometimes clients discover that in order to create a true sense of wealth for themselves, they need to simplify. For example, they may discover that to create a wealth of time, they need to have a smaller house with a smaller yard to mow. (p.277)
These expanded views have helped me get out of the box in thinking about wealth. They are new companions along the journey to gaining a truer understanding of what abundant living as a Christian is really meant to be, to examining my assumptions and those of others about what it means to have the mind of Christ and a truly Christian worldview.
Let us not be afraid to receive truth, a wealth of truth, from many sources, and to trust in the abundance of understanding in seeing that all truth is God's truth. That is indeed wealth available for us all, as we prayerfully engage in life in all its fulness.
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ( Phil. 4:9 KJV)
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. (Eph. 3:20)
Real Wealth
I've been hearing, reading, and talking a lot about wealth lately. When I was preparing for my garage sale last week I listened to a CBC program about money and happiness, and the correlation or lack of between the two. A famous Canadian Christian multibillionare said he was no happier or less happy than he was when he began his business, and still lives in the same house he had back then. A saliva test survey discovered that many people who have more money show much more of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. They also feel guilty about their wealth. Longstanding Christian friends who visited recently were expressing concern about how the prosperity gospel is creeping into a movement they had formerly respected. Their summation of that gospel was that one gives to get something for oneself, to get more - the actual epitome of a worldly mindset that is against the true giving, freedom from care attitude of Jesus and His followers.
There were a number of years in my young adult life when I sought to live the Christian life by avoiding wealth as I understood it and so remaining not only poor monetarily, but poor in terms of living out my talents and gifts and relationships in the fulness I believe God intended. Now as I prepare for later years and take stock of all I have learned and experienced, I find myself needing fresh input and insight. As I prepare to coach others, I am a learner myself.
My Life Coaching homework and lessons this week were about wealth and mindset. There, in the secular foundational course book we use and then discuss from a Christian point of view, was a wonderfully stated position about wealth. It made me realize that I, as a person who has always despised wealth in many forms, sought to work for the poor and underprivileged, and continued to be frugal no matter what my net worth, discovered that, in light of the course material's parameters, I really have a poverty mindset in many ways. Not about monetary wealth, but about any kind of wealth. And that in having such a mindset I can easily be displaying a very worldly way of being - which is worrying about not having enough, believing I don't or won't have enough, and so remaining in a place that is out of sync with a truly Christian worldview. (I can imagine I am actually in 'good' company with many Christians, for the body of Christ is rather skewed in its attitudes in many ways.)
In our text ( Becoming a Professional Life Coach) by Patrick Williams and Diane Menendez can be found these nuggets of wisdom and truth:
A real sense of personal wealth comes from knowing that we always have a reserve of whatever resource we're focused on. (p.269)
Real wealth comes from experiencing more than enough of whatever is at issue. (p. 270)
Scarcity is simply a habitual way of thinking...and robs clients of the ability to feel appreciation for the abundance they do have in many areas of their lives. (p.276)
We focus on the importance of having a sense of abundance - a reserve of sense of wealth - in key areas: relationship (or love), time, vision, money, career and contribution. (p.276)
Sometimes clients discover that in order to create a true sense of wealth for themselves, they need to simplify. For example, they may discover that to create a wealth of time, they need to have a smaller house with a smaller yard to mow. (p.277)
These expanded views have helped me get out of the box in thinking about wealth. They are new companions along the journey to gaining a truer understanding of what abundant living as a Christian is really meant to be, to examining my assumptions and those of others about what it means to have the mind of Christ and a truly Christian worldview.
Let us not be afraid to receive truth, a wealth of truth, from many sources, and to trust in the abundance of understanding in seeing that all truth is God's truth. That is indeed wealth available for us all, as we prayerfully engage in life in all its fulness.
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ( Phil. 4:9 KJV)
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. (Eph. 3:20)
August 01, 2009
joy in songs from memory again
Another Saturday, another post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. And a garage sale as well. Now I am enjoying savouring comments from my post, and rejoicing again at how God uses the past and the present and weaves them all together, whether in garage sale connections or writing songs on blog posts.
Second Childhood?
Those of you who follow my blog posts may not be surprised at whatever I will end up saying. After all, the empty nest approaches, and I am already rambling about the teapot song in midlife crisis and re-singing simple worship songs from long ago. None of us, particularly me, can predict what will come out next.
Like when I put my personal search engine to work in my own brain to choose a song to sing solo for a special service coming up. What was that? I asked myself. The words from the 70s emerged from the cobwebs of my memory. I want to be a child again came, the words and the title, from the Fisherfolk song I loved in my Scottish days, days of yearning to be part of that Community of Celebration, that group in which people from all over the world lived in community on a remote Scottish island, wrote lovely songs for the renewal movement in the mainline churches. Some of you may remember those blue and red songbooks: Sounds of Living Waters and Fresh Sounds. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end. More songs coming out my ears.
But I digress. I want to be a child again. Why do I want to sing that song for our church community? I guess that when I sing solo I want to sing for sure from the very core of my being, express my child-like faith, renew my own childlike trust in my dear Lord, sing of that ever present innocence deep within my own heart.
What a blessed place to go. Second childhood. Perhaps not second. Maybe eternal childhood. The eternal experience of being a child of God. Our only true calling. Our only necessary calling. Resting in that total dependence upon Him, that total trust in His loving care.
I am glad to be singing this song again. In more ways than one. Why not join me?
If you want to hear it, you will need to go on to the Fisherfolk website, and look for the CD called Be Like Your Father. You can order it from the Community of Celebration for 15 USD.
I Want To Be A Child Again
Copyright 1975 Celebration
Diane Davis Andrew
Chorus
I want to be a child again;
I want to see the world
Through five-year-old eyes;
To walk with my Lord
Wherever He may lead,
To put my trust in Him.
Verse 1
Make me a child, O Lord,
Make my song joy,
My heart free,
My life a dance,
A dance of praise to you.
Verse 2
We must become as children,
Simple and trusting of heart,
To enter you kingdom, Lord,
To rest in peace with you.
Second Childhood?
Those of you who follow my blog posts may not be surprised at whatever I will end up saying. After all, the empty nest approaches, and I am already rambling about the teapot song in midlife crisis and re-singing simple worship songs from long ago. None of us, particularly me, can predict what will come out next.
Like when I put my personal search engine to work in my own brain to choose a song to sing solo for a special service coming up. What was that? I asked myself. The words from the 70s emerged from the cobwebs of my memory. I want to be a child again came, the words and the title, from the Fisherfolk song I loved in my Scottish days, days of yearning to be part of that Community of Celebration, that group in which people from all over the world lived in community on a remote Scottish island, wrote lovely songs for the renewal movement in the mainline churches. Some of you may remember those blue and red songbooks: Sounds of Living Waters and Fresh Sounds. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end. More songs coming out my ears.
But I digress. I want to be a child again. Why do I want to sing that song for our church community? I guess that when I sing solo I want to sing for sure from the very core of my being, express my child-like faith, renew my own childlike trust in my dear Lord, sing of that ever present innocence deep within my own heart.
What a blessed place to go. Second childhood. Perhaps not second. Maybe eternal childhood. The eternal experience of being a child of God. Our only true calling. Our only necessary calling. Resting in that total dependence upon Him, that total trust in His loving care.
I am glad to be singing this song again. In more ways than one. Why not join me?
If you want to hear it, you will need to go on to the Fisherfolk website, and look for the CD called Be Like Your Father. You can order it from the Community of Celebration for 15 USD.
I Want To Be A Child Again
Copyright 1975 Celebration
Diane Davis Andrew
Chorus
I want to be a child again;
I want to see the world
Through five-year-old eyes;
To walk with my Lord
Wherever He may lead,
To put my trust in Him.
Verse 1
Make me a child, O Lord,
Make my song joy,
My heart free,
My life a dance,
A dance of praise to you.
Verse 2
We must become as children,
Simple and trusting of heart,
To enter you kingdom, Lord,
To rest in peace with you.
July 25, 2009
joy in expressing sentimental and spiritual truth in a song
This is my latest post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. It is easy to see how it arose in me, and in my life this past week. My daughter still at home called it "sentimental". I guess it is. But that doesn't mean it's not spiritual, as in life-giving. And it certainly speaks emotional truth to me, and even Biblical truth. I think what is most important is that it is real to something within me, and something without me, and the connection between them. It helps me to make sense in a spiritual way of what is happening in my life. But even more than that, it points to the source of all truth, to Jesus, and to the power of the Holy Trinity to preserve my life and that of my family. It affirms His sovereignty in our lives, His care, and our trust in Him.
Turning Round the Corners of the World
We were saying goodbye outside the US Security gate in Terminal 1. My other daughter cautioned my husband not to take any more pictures. We heard the annoyance of one officer arguing with other passengers. Three of them joined in a huddle, their holsters bulging, while my daughters, husband, three young friends and I stood, each waiting to give and receive our hug, and send my younger girl, my grown up baby, through the gates and on to the other side of the world. As I awaited my turn, saved to the last, tears sprang quickly to my eyes, and the first words of Sydney Carter's song leapt into my consciousness:
"One more step along the world I go"
I whispered to my daughter of this special confirmation, and that I would write more about it to her, as it felt such an affirmation of God's seal of approval on this mighty new embarkation: a high school graduate on her way to a half year at Bible school "down under", the furthest point we could choose from home to send her, yet somewhere that felt so safe and sure and full of promise and hope, a place to consolidate her sure foundation in Christ, and prepare her for her life journey.
We had sent our older daughter to a linked Bible school in a castle in Britain two years before, and the growth and learning and friendships that came out of her time led to many creative and important decisions. She is soon to leave us for her university studies, now chosen with confidence and excitement, her connections with a vital local church there already made.
How wonderfully my prayers have been answered. And why should I have doubted my Lord? He has seen me through so many journeys and brought me safely home again, always home to Him, who watches over me as the apple of His eye. How could I ever doubt that He would do anything less for my children?
One more step along the world I go,
One more step along the world I go,
From the old things to the new
Keep me travelling along with you.
And it's from the old I travel to the new,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Round the corners of the world I turn,
More and more about the world I learn.
And the new things that I see
You'll be looking at along with me.
As I travel through the bad and good
Keep me travelling the way I should.
Where I see no way to go
You'll be telling me the way, I know.
Give me courage when the world is rough,
Keep me loving when the world is tough.
Leap and sing in all I do,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Sydney Carter
author of Lord of the Dance
Such a simple song,yet so profound,embedded in my heart from early days of worship leading in the seventies, days of my own exploration and launching out, risking and wondering.
I look back and see that all that I sang about, all that the words say for all of us, have come true. He has indeed looked at everything "along with me". He has indeed given me courage, made me loving, and even able to "leap and sing in all I do" when the world has been tough and rough. I could truly take this song as a signature tune for my life.
So now, I sing it for my daughters as they turn round the corners of the world, and as I move forward into a season without them close by. I need to pray, as profoundly as ever before, for myself as well,
And it's from the old I travel to the new,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Psalm 121: 7-8
The Lord will keep you from all harm -
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Turning Round the Corners of the World
We were saying goodbye outside the US Security gate in Terminal 1. My other daughter cautioned my husband not to take any more pictures. We heard the annoyance of one officer arguing with other passengers. Three of them joined in a huddle, their holsters bulging, while my daughters, husband, three young friends and I stood, each waiting to give and receive our hug, and send my younger girl, my grown up baby, through the gates and on to the other side of the world. As I awaited my turn, saved to the last, tears sprang quickly to my eyes, and the first words of Sydney Carter's song leapt into my consciousness:
"One more step along the world I go"
I whispered to my daughter of this special confirmation, and that I would write more about it to her, as it felt such an affirmation of God's seal of approval on this mighty new embarkation: a high school graduate on her way to a half year at Bible school "down under", the furthest point we could choose from home to send her, yet somewhere that felt so safe and sure and full of promise and hope, a place to consolidate her sure foundation in Christ, and prepare her for her life journey.
We had sent our older daughter to a linked Bible school in a castle in Britain two years before, and the growth and learning and friendships that came out of her time led to many creative and important decisions. She is soon to leave us for her university studies, now chosen with confidence and excitement, her connections with a vital local church there already made.
How wonderfully my prayers have been answered. And why should I have doubted my Lord? He has seen me through so many journeys and brought me safely home again, always home to Him, who watches over me as the apple of His eye. How could I ever doubt that He would do anything less for my children?
One more step along the world I go,
One more step along the world I go,
From the old things to the new
Keep me travelling along with you.
And it's from the old I travel to the new,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Round the corners of the world I turn,
More and more about the world I learn.
And the new things that I see
You'll be looking at along with me.
As I travel through the bad and good
Keep me travelling the way I should.
Where I see no way to go
You'll be telling me the way, I know.
Give me courage when the world is rough,
Keep me loving when the world is tough.
Leap and sing in all I do,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Sydney Carter
author of Lord of the Dance
Such a simple song,yet so profound,embedded in my heart from early days of worship leading in the seventies, days of my own exploration and launching out, risking and wondering.
I look back and see that all that I sang about, all that the words say for all of us, have come true. He has indeed looked at everything "along with me". He has indeed given me courage, made me loving, and even able to "leap and sing in all I do" when the world has been tough and rough. I could truly take this song as a signature tune for my life.
So now, I sing it for my daughters as they turn round the corners of the world, and as I move forward into a season without them close by. I need to pray, as profoundly as ever before, for myself as well,
And it's from the old I travel to the new,
Keep me travelling along with you.
Psalm 121: 7-8
The Lord will keep you from all harm -
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
July 18, 2009
joy in dancing teapots
This morning I am preparing my daughter for takeoff...not really a time to think about teapots. But I share the post I prepared for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com...showing today...I had more fun writing it than any other post I have written so far...good thing I got it done ahead of time before this marathon prep for a journey across the world.
The Dance of the Teapot
Last week I found out that Beauty and the Beast may be performed locally this autumn. I fantasized out loud about what part I wished I could sing. Mrs Potts came immediately to mind, but only for her beautiful song. "But I wouldn't make a very good pot", I said to my friends. I think my vanity about appearance would have overridden the joy of singing that gorgeous love song.
Of course I have always loved teapots. If I became a collector, I think it would be of teapots. I have some of my aunt's collection, destined to be kept because most of them came across the ocean from Scotland in the mid 1800's with my great grandparents, and graced family tables, along with their oversized sugar bowls, for many years since. I proudly use them from time to time, determined that a beautiful teapot should not just be on a shelf, but part of a social experience.
My lessons on a potter's wheel have also convinced me that if I were a potter I would want to make teapots. So much grace and beauty and skill all in one item. The spout of course makes all the difference to a really usable teapot. No point having your tea dribble off the spout and on to a tablecloth. I always check that out in stores, and pass on my inherited wisdom to anyone willing to listen.
Then there was the time I visited a "kindergarten" class in Uganda and pulled something out of my head and experience with which to entertain these children. I sang the teapot song, with actions!!
I'm a little teapot, short and stout.
Here is my handle; here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, then I shout:
"Tip me over and pour me out!"
I think I chose it because I love the actions and the tune, and the delight and silliness of the song. I didn't think about cultural relevance at the time; after all, my Ugandan friends are used to boiling their tea with milk, if you please, in a regular pot on the fire, then storing it in a thermos.
My new favourite author, Sue Monk Kidd, has now brought teapots into my vocabulary of spiritual symbolism. In her book on midlife spiritual crisis, When the Heart Waits, she takes the teapot song to new heights, with her story of a tap-dance recital at the age of five dressed up as a teapot. I am so envious. I am learning to tap dance all over again to recapture some childhood delight. That's part of my midlife crisis. Still, I don't think my silliness would drive me to do something similar on the stage of Beauty and the Beast. (I don't know how they perform it live.) I'll keep you posted on that one.
Sue says that "the dance of the teapot is the dance we all do in the dark night":
The possibilities strike me - a new movement - Teapots for Jesus!! - see the headlines - Mrs. Potts, Evangelist for our Time!!
I think I can just content myself with taking myself less seriously as I struggle with my darkness. God knows...He's with me....even in my teapot.
And for sure, if you think I've gone potty, maybe I have!!
The Dance of the Teapot
Last week I found out that Beauty and the Beast may be performed locally this autumn. I fantasized out loud about what part I wished I could sing. Mrs Potts came immediately to mind, but only for her beautiful song. "But I wouldn't make a very good pot", I said to my friends. I think my vanity about appearance would have overridden the joy of singing that gorgeous love song.
Of course I have always loved teapots. If I became a collector, I think it would be of teapots. I have some of my aunt's collection, destined to be kept because most of them came across the ocean from Scotland in the mid 1800's with my great grandparents, and graced family tables, along with their oversized sugar bowls, for many years since. I proudly use them from time to time, determined that a beautiful teapot should not just be on a shelf, but part of a social experience.
My lessons on a potter's wheel have also convinced me that if I were a potter I would want to make teapots. So much grace and beauty and skill all in one item. The spout of course makes all the difference to a really usable teapot. No point having your tea dribble off the spout and on to a tablecloth. I always check that out in stores, and pass on my inherited wisdom to anyone willing to listen.
Then there was the time I visited a "kindergarten" class in Uganda and pulled something out of my head and experience with which to entertain these children. I sang the teapot song, with actions!!
I'm a little teapot, short and stout.
Here is my handle; here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, then I shout:
"Tip me over and pour me out!"
I think I chose it because I love the actions and the tune, and the delight and silliness of the song. I didn't think about cultural relevance at the time; after all, my Ugandan friends are used to boiling their tea with milk, if you please, in a regular pot on the fire, then storing it in a thermos.
My new favourite author, Sue Monk Kidd, has now brought teapots into my vocabulary of spiritual symbolism. In her book on midlife spiritual crisis, When the Heart Waits, she takes the teapot song to new heights, with her story of a tap-dance recital at the age of five dressed up as a teapot. I am so envious. I am learning to tap dance all over again to recapture some childhood delight. That's part of my midlife crisis. Still, I don't think my silliness would drive me to do something similar on the stage of Beauty and the Beast. (I don't know how they perform it live.) I'll keep you posted on that one.
Sue says that "the dance of the teapot is the dance we all do in the dark night":
We're containers filled with an ego elixir we've brewed ourselves. When the heat is turned up inside and the old begins to burn away, we must offer God the handle and the spout of our lives. God tips us over and pours us out. The "me" is poured out: the self with a lowercase s, the old ways of being, the old ways of relating to God. We're emptied so that we can be refilled with new and living waters.
Midlife is a time of tipping over. It is a good time to learn that simple little song. It gave me a way of thinking about my experience that wasn't mysterious and threatening. I was dancing a childhood dance, that's all. And if I ever got to feeling terribly 'spiritual' about it all, I imagined myself in that ridiculous teapot costume and that took care of that.
"Tip me over and pour me out" is the underlying theme of the spiritual dark. (p. 150)
The possibilities strike me - a new movement - Teapots for Jesus!! - see the headlines - Mrs. Potts, Evangelist for our Time!!
I think I can just content myself with taking myself less seriously as I struggle with my darkness. God knows...He's with me....even in my teapot.
And for sure, if you think I've gone potty, maybe I have!!
July 11, 2009
joy in new truths about transformation and butterflies
Here is my weekly post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I wrote it yesterday, then this morning when I got up there was a power out for a short while, then a tire with a nail to get fixed, a daughter to send off to work, and dishes to be washed. Now I can put this forth again, and enjoy the comments already on the team blog, encouraged that what I threw together out of my experiences and reading came out in a way that made sense and blessed others. I suppose it doesn't need to bless anyone, and I shouldn't look for that validation, but at this point in my writing I really appreciate the feedback. It has been just a year since I was asked to begin writing for this team devotional blog, and having that discipline and opportunity has brought about a lot of transformation in my life. I wonder about writing more things and ponder what they will be. I suppose, like my blog posts, they will just come. Beginning to read the work of Sue Monk Kidd, I am encouraged to write, because she is someone who has written what is true for her. There seems nothing contrived or formulaic about her work. It comes from her heart, which is where I try to come from.
The Inner Maze of Waiting
We sat on the porch, musing about our coming empty nest, brainstorming about things for my husband to do as I set about building a new career and pursue some well established new directions. Yet even I am finding this waiting stage strange. I am excited about new possibilities, grieving things and ways of living left behind, and absorbed in helping release my two emerging butterflies from their chrysalids. Two weeks ago they were my sparrows, now they are my butterflies, in some ways still struggling to break free of the confining boundaries of their cocoon/chrysalids. These daughters are starting out on the big road of life in a new bigger way. Yet my husband and I are also working through these stages of transformation ourselves.
I love the butterfly/transformation message so much that I wrote a whole thesis about it for my Master of Religious Education twenty five years ago. It is indeed a universal symbol, not just for Christians, but something deeply embedded and understood in the human psyche. It doesn't take much for us to love a butterfly symbol for tattoos or jewellery, lawn stakes or placemats, clothing or wall plaques....we feel that little rush of delight in its beauty, its joy and message, that it really is possible to become new, to undergo complete transformation.
Sue Monk Kidd, in her book, When the Heart Waits, expressed it this way:
Probably the biggest lesson I am learning in this inner maze is to rest and trust, to not need to know the way out of the maze, for me or for my dear ones. I have come as far as I have in this particular transformation because I learned to wait and let things develop naturally. However much I chafed at the slowness of that process, in hindsight of course I saw how each stage was so necessary.
Yes, God does indeed "make all things new". That is His delight. However, it doesn't mean that he does it instantly, like a magician. He takes the time He needs, the time we need, whether we think we do or not.
And He brings His wonderful law of spiritual ecology into full force during that slow process:
Romans 8:28.
" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
I remind myself, as I write these words, of God's continuous message to us all, His wonderful, terrible declaration:
God is in charge. He has His way of bringing about His plans in our lives, which interweaves with our own longings and desires. While we wait in the inner maze, He works mysteriously, using natural processes but according to His ways and thoughts. Like the caterpillar who enters a chrysalid, we surrender to death to our ways and enter the maze of waiting, and if we wait patiently enough, in His time we emerge into the transformation needed, and wonderfully possible, in whatever phase of our lives we are.
The Inner Maze of Waiting
We sat on the porch, musing about our coming empty nest, brainstorming about things for my husband to do as I set about building a new career and pursue some well established new directions. Yet even I am finding this waiting stage strange. I am excited about new possibilities, grieving things and ways of living left behind, and absorbed in helping release my two emerging butterflies from their chrysalids. Two weeks ago they were my sparrows, now they are my butterflies, in some ways still struggling to break free of the confining boundaries of their cocoon/chrysalids. These daughters are starting out on the big road of life in a new bigger way. Yet my husband and I are also working through these stages of transformation ourselves.
I love the butterfly/transformation message so much that I wrote a whole thesis about it for my Master of Religious Education twenty five years ago. It is indeed a universal symbol, not just for Christians, but something deeply embedded and understood in the human psyche. It doesn't take much for us to love a butterfly symbol for tattoos or jewellery, lawn stakes or placemats, clothing or wall plaques....we feel that little rush of delight in its beauty, its joy and message, that it really is possible to become new, to undergo complete transformation.
Sue Monk Kidd, in her book, When the Heart Waits, expressed it this way:
I found myself staring at the chrysalis, at this lump of brown silence. It overwhelmed me with its simple truth. A creature can separate from an old way of existence, enter a time of metamorphosis, and emerge to a new level of being. ..In that moment it struck me clearly that the waiting process actually has three distinct phases that need to be maneuvered: separation, transformation, and emergence. I knew that I had come upon the inner maze of waiting.
Probably the biggest lesson I am learning in this inner maze is to rest and trust, to not need to know the way out of the maze, for me or for my dear ones. I have come as far as I have in this particular transformation because I learned to wait and let things develop naturally. However much I chafed at the slowness of that process, in hindsight of course I saw how each stage was so necessary.
Yes, God does indeed "make all things new". That is His delight. However, it doesn't mean that he does it instantly, like a magician. He takes the time He needs, the time we need, whether we think we do or not.
And He brings His wonderful law of spiritual ecology into full force during that slow process:
Romans 8:28.
" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
I remind myself, as I write these words, of God's continuous message to us all, His wonderful, terrible declaration:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.Isaiah 55: 8-10
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
God is in charge. He has His way of bringing about His plans in our lives, which interweaves with our own longings and desires. While we wait in the inner maze, He works mysteriously, using natural processes but according to His ways and thoughts. Like the caterpillar who enters a chrysalid, we surrender to death to our ways and enter the maze of waiting, and if we wait patiently enough, in His time we emerge into the transformation needed, and wonderfully possible, in whatever phase of our lives we are.
July 04, 2009
joy in finding numbered buoys and answers to prayer
Last weekend our extended family and friends rented a pontoon boat to see more of the bigger lakes near us. We had one gorgeous day, and one rainy day, both paid for in the package. My daughter and I got our power boat operator's cards, but I felt the load of responsibility for the driving. The map was excellent, and I quickly realized how essential the numbering on the buoys was.
Here is my story about some of the spiritual lessons learned, written for my regular Saturday post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com
Lessons on the Lake
We'd gone in a circle it seemed. The eight of us in the pontoon boat were pondering where we were. The big lake had no familiar landmarks for us. The steadily falling rain and wind beating against the canvas and plastic only increased our sense of lostness in the grey Sunday afternoon. Yesterday had been a glorious day in our rented boat, a special family weekend plan to look over lake life while we could.
Now I, the driver, was particularly worried about how we were going to get to our destination and then back home in time to turn in the boat. I wondered aloud if we should stop at a dock and see if some cottager would take pity on us and help us find our place on the map. But how to tell who was home in the midst of the drizzle? Hardly any other boats were on the water, and we, the brave but seemingly foolish ones, had ventured forth to make the most of our investment.
"Let's pray", came the suggestion, and we all agreed. A moment or two later the proud towers of the new resort beckoned like sentinels from the high cliffs beyond. We moved in their direction, and recognized the familiar numbered buoys in the waters ahead. At last we would be able to match three dimensional reality with the map we had been trying to follow. With sighs of relief, we found our place on the map, and reoriented our course.
Reflecting upon the possibilities of what might have happened, we were quick to note God's faithfulness in meeting our need when we put our only hope in Him. Too tired to eloquently spout parables or draw fine object lessons to impress each other, we tucked in our vulnerability and hung our hearts on the reward to come of making port for a break in the journey, and finding our way home again.
Half an hour later, cheered by steamy cappucinos from the trendy lakeside nautical shop, we piled in again for the next leg of the journey, relieved that there were fewer islands to provide circles to get lost in again.
Somehow it seemed to me that God wouldn't let me have even a boat tour without a reminder of my need for Him. I'd wondered what I'd learn most about on this voyage among million dollar boathouses. I already had a distaste for that lifestyle. No need to learn more about that. But I did need a reminder that even in my genteel poverty but seeming wealth for a weekend it was not right to even have the luxury of looking down upon others with material riches. Out there on the choppy waters in the pouring rain I and we were in the same "boat" with everyone else on the lake....completely helpless without a map and numbered buoys.
Here is my story about some of the spiritual lessons learned, written for my regular Saturday post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com
Lessons on the Lake
We'd gone in a circle it seemed. The eight of us in the pontoon boat were pondering where we were. The big lake had no familiar landmarks for us. The steadily falling rain and wind beating against the canvas and plastic only increased our sense of lostness in the grey Sunday afternoon. Yesterday had been a glorious day in our rented boat, a special family weekend plan to look over lake life while we could.
Now I, the driver, was particularly worried about how we were going to get to our destination and then back home in time to turn in the boat. I wondered aloud if we should stop at a dock and see if some cottager would take pity on us and help us find our place on the map. But how to tell who was home in the midst of the drizzle? Hardly any other boats were on the water, and we, the brave but seemingly foolish ones, had ventured forth to make the most of our investment.
"Let's pray", came the suggestion, and we all agreed. A moment or two later the proud towers of the new resort beckoned like sentinels from the high cliffs beyond. We moved in their direction, and recognized the familiar numbered buoys in the waters ahead. At last we would be able to match three dimensional reality with the map we had been trying to follow. With sighs of relief, we found our place on the map, and reoriented our course.
Reflecting upon the possibilities of what might have happened, we were quick to note God's faithfulness in meeting our need when we put our only hope in Him. Too tired to eloquently spout parables or draw fine object lessons to impress each other, we tucked in our vulnerability and hung our hearts on the reward to come of making port for a break in the journey, and finding our way home again.
Half an hour later, cheered by steamy cappucinos from the trendy lakeside nautical shop, we piled in again for the next leg of the journey, relieved that there were fewer islands to provide circles to get lost in again.
Somehow it seemed to me that God wouldn't let me have even a boat tour without a reminder of my need for Him. I'd wondered what I'd learn most about on this voyage among million dollar boathouses. I already had a distaste for that lifestyle. No need to learn more about that. But I did need a reminder that even in my genteel poverty but seeming wealth for a weekend it was not right to even have the luxury of looking down upon others with material riches. Out there on the choppy waters in the pouring rain I and we were in the same "boat" with everyone else on the lake....completely helpless without a map and numbered buoys.
June 26, 2009
joy in trusting in God's care for my children
This is my weekly Saturday post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Again, I searched my heart and mind for a way to articulate some of what is going on in my life, in a way that can touch others. In the process, again, I have learned more for myself.
His Eye is on My Sparrows
A blue jay alighted on the railing as my friend and I conversed on the deck. No sooner there and it was gone. But in that instant I saw its lovely form, bigger than I imagined, of course, because I hadn't seen a blue jay up close before. I muse upon that this morning as I think about my "sparrows" about to fly from the nest very soon. The younger one graduated last night, with honours, from secondary school. A long journey ended, a long period in the nest over. She will literally fly away in two weeks to Bible school in a far country for five months. The older one flew away two years ago,for a year to Bible School and travel in six countries, in Europe and Uganda, her childhood home, and then came back to the nest again for a year. Now she will fly again soon, to study on the other side of our country. Already she has become an award winning writer and a travelling photographer. Her photos of African women hang in a gallery exhibit in our small town.
I rejoice that my sparrows know how to fly, in more ways than one. I have tried to provide for their needs in the nest, and help them find their wings. They said I had given them those in their Mothers' Day card. So I guess that job was well enough done. They, my vulnerable ones, have been my very intensive responsibility for more than eighteen years. Now they, beautiful birds, bright blue jays, but vulnerable sparrows, need to fly from this nest. The time has come.
I also am learning to fly again. Not so much literally, but at least figuratively. I need to push myself out of the nest of familiar ways and launch my business in life coaching. It will be easier to do that with my young sparrows out flying on their own. But it won't be easy for any of us. We will always be thinking of each other, wondering how the flying is going, wanting to preen each others' feathers, for my sparrows are good "mothers" to me too. They have taught me a lot about learning to fly, and helped me find my own wings again.
But my greatest, my only true comfort, is that Jesus is watching us, and, if that is so, I should not worry. How hard it is for me to rest even more in Him as I place my sparrows more consciously in His hands. I remember the old song, and play it for you here, with sweet images that remind us of this abiding truth, even as the way it is sung can slow us down to listen.
His Eye is on My Sparrows
A blue jay alighted on the railing as my friend and I conversed on the deck. No sooner there and it was gone. But in that instant I saw its lovely form, bigger than I imagined, of course, because I hadn't seen a blue jay up close before. I muse upon that this morning as I think about my "sparrows" about to fly from the nest very soon. The younger one graduated last night, with honours, from secondary school. A long journey ended, a long period in the nest over. She will literally fly away in two weeks to Bible school in a far country for five months. The older one flew away two years ago,for a year to Bible School and travel in six countries, in Europe and Uganda, her childhood home, and then came back to the nest again for a year. Now she will fly again soon, to study on the other side of our country. Already she has become an award winning writer and a travelling photographer. Her photos of African women hang in a gallery exhibit in our small town.
I rejoice that my sparrows know how to fly, in more ways than one. I have tried to provide for their needs in the nest, and help them find their wings. They said I had given them those in their Mothers' Day card. So I guess that job was well enough done. They, my vulnerable ones, have been my very intensive responsibility for more than eighteen years. Now they, beautiful birds, bright blue jays, but vulnerable sparrows, need to fly from this nest. The time has come.
I also am learning to fly again. Not so much literally, but at least figuratively. I need to push myself out of the nest of familiar ways and launch my business in life coaching. It will be easier to do that with my young sparrows out flying on their own. But it won't be easy for any of us. We will always be thinking of each other, wondering how the flying is going, wanting to preen each others' feathers, for my sparrows are good "mothers" to me too. They have taught me a lot about learning to fly, and helped me find my own wings again.
But my greatest, my only true comfort, is that Jesus is watching us, and, if that is so, I should not worry. How hard it is for me to rest even more in Him as I place my sparrows more consciously in His hands. I remember the old song, and play it for you here, with sweet images that remind us of this abiding truth, even as the way it is sung can slow us down to listen.
June 19, 2009
joy in a new perspective
I'm at the library, furiously getting this up for tomorrow for my spot on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com, because our internet is down at home. Thank God for public computers. I am glad I am lightening up a little, so here is my set of words on a sunny day...
Seeing Things as We are
No it's not a typo. I really did intend to write, "Seeing things as WE are". I got that from this quote from The Talmud: "We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are." Well, so what, you say! Another clever quote. What does it have to do with you and me? Good thought. We need to examine and think about all the stuff that's thrown at us every day, in this culture. Things move so fast and we struggle to keep up. Today has been a slower day for me and I feel guilty. My inner gremlin is working on me telling me I am not doing what I should be doing today...I am wasting time and not accomplishing much. Those rule makers in my head can work overtime on a gorgeous sunny day like today. Why? Because I see things as I am - according to the voices in my head.
We talk a lot about inner gremlins in my Life Coach training program. For they are what keep the kinds of people who like to become life coaches from marketing themselves confidently, and most of all they are what keep the kind of people we expect to coach from making significant changes in their lives. They are what keep us all from moving ahead. And of course one of the reasons they do is because we somehow believe that these voices are interpreting reality as it really is to us, and that they know better than other parts of us, like our hearts, or our guts, know what is going on.
I suppose one of the gremlins I deal with almost on a daily basis is that I feel so stupid about not learning about those voices a long time ago, or not paying attention to what they really were. Why did it take me so long to learn what I have been learning? And then, when I turn away from that gremlin, turn down the volume on that voice, I hear that sweet voice of the Holy Spirit reminding me that at least I am learning this now, and that God can restore the years that the locust has eaten. He can make up for the time I've lost listening to the wrong voices, for the negative influences of my family of origin, or our culture, or imprisoning mindsets that keep me blocked and locked up within the expectations of others.
If we have the mind of Christ, if we have the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us, then we can move toward a merger of seeing things as they are, and seeing things as we are. Of course we won't get a perfect fit...not until Heaven, but if we know for sure that our perspective in this life is shaped so much by who we are and where we have come from, then we are more able to tune in humbly to hear God's voice and take on His viewpoints and to remember that with Him, "All things are possible."
Seeing Things as We are
No it's not a typo. I really did intend to write, "Seeing things as WE are". I got that from this quote from The Talmud: "We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are." Well, so what, you say! Another clever quote. What does it have to do with you and me? Good thought. We need to examine and think about all the stuff that's thrown at us every day, in this culture. Things move so fast and we struggle to keep up. Today has been a slower day for me and I feel guilty. My inner gremlin is working on me telling me I am not doing what I should be doing today...I am wasting time and not accomplishing much. Those rule makers in my head can work overtime on a gorgeous sunny day like today. Why? Because I see things as I am - according to the voices in my head.
We talk a lot about inner gremlins in my Life Coach training program. For they are what keep the kinds of people who like to become life coaches from marketing themselves confidently, and most of all they are what keep the kind of people we expect to coach from making significant changes in their lives. They are what keep us all from moving ahead. And of course one of the reasons they do is because we somehow believe that these voices are interpreting reality as it really is to us, and that they know better than other parts of us, like our hearts, or our guts, know what is going on.
I suppose one of the gremlins I deal with almost on a daily basis is that I feel so stupid about not learning about those voices a long time ago, or not paying attention to what they really were. Why did it take me so long to learn what I have been learning? And then, when I turn away from that gremlin, turn down the volume on that voice, I hear that sweet voice of the Holy Spirit reminding me that at least I am learning this now, and that God can restore the years that the locust has eaten. He can make up for the time I've lost listening to the wrong voices, for the negative influences of my family of origin, or our culture, or imprisoning mindsets that keep me blocked and locked up within the expectations of others.
If we have the mind of Christ, if we have the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us, then we can move toward a merger of seeing things as they are, and seeing things as we are. Of course we won't get a perfect fit...not until Heaven, but if we know for sure that our perspective in this life is shaped so much by who we are and where we have come from, then we are more able to tune in humbly to hear God's voice and take on His viewpoints and to remember that with Him, "All things are possible."
June 13, 2009
joy in finding something to be sorry for
Sometimes I know days ahead what I want to write about for the Saturday post on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Sometimes it just happens, ahead, or the day before. This time it happened by a conviction of the Lord into my spirit, and, like I said at the end of the post, I was glad to have something I could say sorry about, something I could write in a humble way about, that is true of me, something that does not make me sound like some sort of saint, but like an ordinary, struggling Christian who is trying to learn to grow in Christ, to grow in my humanity, to be more loving, and more aware of my own failings, and yet accept God's grace to fill me up with His love.
Flint Removal
Grumpy weeks are good ones for making me humble. For me it takes a while. First I go through the complaining stage, reciting to myself all the reasons I have for feeling the way I do. Somewhere in there God begins to challenge my heart, and I take a closer look. It's not that I don't have lots of reasons for needing God's grace to cope and hang in, to give out and to keep going. It's just that the most important thing to God, and really to others, is how I do what I do. What's the point in coping, hanging in, giving out and keeping going, if I don't do them with true grace and gentleness? That was what I always found fault with my mother about, and others who had "power" over my life. If they were harsh, and they often were, I wilted and cringed. Of course I have that capacity well built into me, despite how much I hate it. I may come across as gentle to some, and may indeed be gentle inside, but often it is harshness that lashes out, especially with those closest to me. I am grateful that today I can share challenging and helpful words from Streams in the Desert (of course) that have spoken deeply to my heart, and my need in this area:
That breaking and crushing, that wringing of heart, is really a daily thing, which the great saints knew and embraced so well. I want to be gentle. This I truly know. With all my heart. I want "thorough gentleness". So that means I must embrace all that will create that in me.
This reminds of what my daughter said when she was so mad at someone who hurt her regularly. She said she was always glad to have something to apologize for to that person. It helped her to deal with the other issues, helped her to stay humble and in a place of openness to growth. When I struggle most with attitudes in others, that is when I most need to look at myself, and learn the lessons of my own untamed heart.
The servant of the Lord must....be gentle. (2 Tim. 2:24)
Flint Removal
Grumpy weeks are good ones for making me humble. For me it takes a while. First I go through the complaining stage, reciting to myself all the reasons I have for feeling the way I do. Somewhere in there God begins to challenge my heart, and I take a closer look. It's not that I don't have lots of reasons for needing God's grace to cope and hang in, to give out and to keep going. It's just that the most important thing to God, and really to others, is how I do what I do. What's the point in coping, hanging in, giving out and keeping going, if I don't do them with true grace and gentleness? That was what I always found fault with my mother about, and others who had "power" over my life. If they were harsh, and they often were, I wilted and cringed. Of course I have that capacity well built into me, despite how much I hate it. I may come across as gentle to some, and may indeed be gentle inside, but often it is harshness that lashes out, especially with those closest to me. I am grateful that today I can share challenging and helpful words from Streams in the Desert (of course) that have spoken deeply to my heart, and my need in this area:
When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world.
The graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our nature or behavior.
Every advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it.
So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind.
That breaking and crushing, that wringing of heart, is really a daily thing, which the great saints knew and embraced so well. I want to be gentle. This I truly know. With all my heart. I want "thorough gentleness". So that means I must embrace all that will create that in me.
This reminds of what my daughter said when she was so mad at someone who hurt her regularly. She said she was always glad to have something to apologize for to that person. It helped her to deal with the other issues, helped her to stay humble and in a place of openness to growth. When I struggle most with attitudes in others, that is when I most need to look at myself, and learn the lessons of my own untamed heart.
The servant of the Lord must....be gentle. (2 Tim. 2:24)
June 06, 2009
joy in linking old and new again
This is my weekly post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. It was simple to write, and lighter than I have often written. It blessed me especially to be able to use the song I love so much.
Summer - Season of Questions
As I reflect upon the coming summer months, I realize that summer has always been a season of questions for me. Each year as a school girl I had the opportunity to make plans that reflected the questions I asked or was allowed to ask about my life. There was uncharted and unprogrammed time to plan. Even if it was a summer job I had to take I at least could ponder the type of job I wanted or was willing to take. There were many things that I hoped would happen that didn’t in those months, many plans I would have liked to make. The point is that I got to ask some important questions that were key to who I was or wanted to be.
I wouldn’t be sharing this now if I didn’t feel that my experience in some measure has been true for all of us, if not all the time, then at least some of it, if not in summer then at least sometime. But summer can be a metaphor for such a time because we likely don’t have to be so preoccupied with survival, at least weather wise. There is sunshine and a bit of a holiday mood, space really for moving outside of the box of our usual preoccupations and for bringing on board something new and exciting, and time for reflection. Such a season is essential in our lives, and is similar to the day of rest we try to have each week. We step outside our routines and reflect upon the deeper issues of faith, vocation, purpose, and our relationship with our creator and our saviour. We can open our hearts and minds more widely to hear His voice, and realize that the really important questions are the ones He asks us, for, whether or not we listen, they are the only real questions that a Christian has to answer.
For me, I find those questions embodied in a lovely song we often sing at our church. This song means all the more to me because I spent two very significant summers on or near the island of Iona, in Scotland, the home of the Iona community, who copyrighted the new arrangement to the song. The lilting but haunting Scottish traditional tune evokes deep memories of the questions I was asking those summers, and the choices I sought to make for my life. It was not an easy time, but I am grateful for all that I learned. My prayer for all of us this coming “summer” is that we would each be open to the essential questions God is asking us about our lives, and that we would have the courage to answer them.
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.
Text: John L. Bell b.1949; Tune: Scottish traditional: Kelvingrove ;
Graham Maule.© 1987, Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc.
Summer - Season of Questions
As I reflect upon the coming summer months, I realize that summer has always been a season of questions for me. Each year as a school girl I had the opportunity to make plans that reflected the questions I asked or was allowed to ask about my life. There was uncharted and unprogrammed time to plan. Even if it was a summer job I had to take I at least could ponder the type of job I wanted or was willing to take. There were many things that I hoped would happen that didn’t in those months, many plans I would have liked to make. The point is that I got to ask some important questions that were key to who I was or wanted to be.
I wouldn’t be sharing this now if I didn’t feel that my experience in some measure has been true for all of us, if not all the time, then at least some of it, if not in summer then at least sometime. But summer can be a metaphor for such a time because we likely don’t have to be so preoccupied with survival, at least weather wise. There is sunshine and a bit of a holiday mood, space really for moving outside of the box of our usual preoccupations and for bringing on board something new and exciting, and time for reflection. Such a season is essential in our lives, and is similar to the day of rest we try to have each week. We step outside our routines and reflect upon the deeper issues of faith, vocation, purpose, and our relationship with our creator and our saviour. We can open our hearts and minds more widely to hear His voice, and realize that the really important questions are the ones He asks us, for, whether or not we listen, they are the only real questions that a Christian has to answer.
For me, I find those questions embodied in a lovely song we often sing at our church. This song means all the more to me because I spent two very significant summers on or near the island of Iona, in Scotland, the home of the Iona community, who copyrighted the new arrangement to the song. The lilting but haunting Scottish traditional tune evokes deep memories of the questions I was asking those summers, and the choices I sought to make for my life. It was not an easy time, but I am grateful for all that I learned. My prayer for all of us this coming “summer” is that we would each be open to the essential questions God is asking us about our lives, and that we would have the courage to answer them.
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.
Text: John L. Bell b.1949; Tune: Scottish traditional: Kelvingrove ;
Graham Maule.© 1987, Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc.
May 30, 2009
joy in growth in listening and learning
Each week I try to find something timely and timeless to say for my Saturday blog post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. And each week the simplest place to write from seems to be from my own brokenness for that is the place of growth and healing for me, and so I trust it must be so for others. This week has felt like I didn't have a lot to say...I am tired and have lots to do and lots more to learn...but the fruits of last week's sharing prompted an email from a blog reader leading to more helpful thoughts to share, and connect with past learning. And so it goes on, as life does, getting simpler in more and more ways. Here it is:
Leading with our ears
Another week of ruminating on how to connect with others in helping ways. Another week of pondering the connection between suffering and sustenance for our souls. Another week of visioning for a future profession and ministry: how to be a life coach and one day a counsellor/therapist coming from an authentic place within myself.
In this process I have been joined by a blog reader who does her own writing, research and ruminating on similar subjects. This week she shared some powerful words from Larry Crabb's book, Soul Talk. :
Crabb's message is the key to this process is to experience and function out of our own brokenness. We don't need to become superhuman and expert, we just need to come alongside and be human and listening to the hearts of others, and sharing as we are led once we have permission to look in on their stories.
I recall a similar message in one of our texts for the foundational course in Christian counselling, William Kirwan's Biblical Concepts for Christian Counseling. He bemoaned the lack of empathy, genuineness and warmth in much Christian counselling, the prevalence of Job's counsellors who label people's issues and say "There you are!" instead of asking, like God in the garden asked Adam and Eve, "Where are you?". He urged us to ask the right questions and listen for the true answers about where people are, allow them to speak for themselves and be part of the process of solving their own problems:
Furthermore, as my blog reader friend Magda said so well, we need our wounds to help us become better healers and helpers: "The wounded heart listens differently than the person who has never experienced pain, either in reality or through denial."
We do not need to be afraid of suffering, of wounds, or of not having the answers for others. We just need to come to others in our own brokenness, with our wounded hearts and Christ's open wounded hands, and open our ears before we open our mouths.
Leading with our ears
Another week of ruminating on how to connect with others in helping ways. Another week of pondering the connection between suffering and sustenance for our souls. Another week of visioning for a future profession and ministry: how to be a life coach and one day a counsellor/therapist coming from an authentic place within myself.
In this process I have been joined by a blog reader who does her own writing, research and ruminating on similar subjects. This week she shared some powerful words from Larry Crabb's book, Soul Talk. :
Every person who relates with people - whether as coach, counselor, spiritual director, therapist, pastor, elder, caregiver, spouse, parent, friend or mentor - needs to speak Soul Talk. And that means we must stop talking so quickly out of what we think we know and learn to lead with our ears...If we learn the discipline of silence as we engage in conversation and think passion as we quietly listen, perhaps we'll spend less energy figuring out what to do as experts and more energy allowing the powerful life of Christ to surface within us and be released in the words we speak. We'll leave behind the sandy foundation of expert knowledge and savvy wisdom and build instead on the solid rock of divine energy, on the foundation of life with the Trinity.
Crabb's message is the key to this process is to experience and function out of our own brokenness. We don't need to become superhuman and expert, we just need to come alongside and be human and listening to the hearts of others, and sharing as we are led once we have permission to look in on their stories.
I recall a similar message in one of our texts for the foundational course in Christian counselling, William Kirwan's Biblical Concepts for Christian Counseling. He bemoaned the lack of empathy, genuineness and warmth in much Christian counselling, the prevalence of Job's counsellors who label people's issues and say "There you are!" instead of asking, like God in the garden asked Adam and Eve, "Where are you?". He urged us to ask the right questions and listen for the true answers about where people are, allow them to speak for themselves and be part of the process of solving their own problems:
Good listening helps to keep the counselor's responses close to the counselee's feelings and experiences, permitting corrections of any misunderstanding the counselor may have. The active listener is open to being corrected. When answering the counselor's question, "Where are you?" the counselee must have the freedom to correct any misapprehensions by saying, "No, not there; I am over here." Often such freedom is not allowed in Christian counseling. The counselee's problems are forced into preconceived molds or categories. The theological points made by the counselor may be accurate, precise, and even profound, but they still may not fit the counselee's problems. If the counselor is to know the right doctrine to apply (as Jesus always did), it is essential to understand exactly where the counselee is. (p. 140)
Furthermore, as my blog reader friend Magda said so well, we need our wounds to help us become better healers and helpers: "The wounded heart listens differently than the person who has never experienced pain, either in reality or through denial."
We do not need to be afraid of suffering, of wounds, or of not having the answers for others. We just need to come to others in our own brokenness, with our wounded hearts and Christ's open wounded hands, and open our ears before we open our mouths.
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