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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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)