joy in finding new reflections out of Christmas lessons

Well, it's that time again, new year or not, for my weekly post on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I so appreciate the regular challenge and opportunity of writing something for this blog, and doing my best to make it something worth reading in a devotional, reflective way. Speaking of being reflective, I am enjoying doing my final synopsis for the set of excellent courses I took this fall at Georgian College on Saturdays in Teaching and Training Adults. They were a refreshing revisiting of teaching and learning theory for me, without high pressure performance and evaluation. The final synopsis involves really sincerely reflecting upon my perspective and philosophy as a teacher. I have found it very enlightening and helpful, both for my past as a teacher and any future teaching I will do, and also for my understanding of myself and my orientation to learning, to people, to students, etc.

Here's my blog post for the team blog:

Taking Christmas Lessons into the New Year as Word-Made-Flesh

Incarnated lessons continue into this new year for me. Yes, indeed, our bodies remind us of our needs, and overcome our mind control when we need them to. Such was the lesson I learned on Christmas Day, written about here a week ago. But the lessons of incarnation are much bigger than that. Jesus was God in human form, but He was the Word. He was the Word that created the world and is the Word that still recreates it; He was and is the Word that heals people's bodies and minds miraculously. Words have power and are incarnated in many ways. We are His words in so much of what we do, and we know the deep conviction we feel when our words do not bring life.

I am reminded of these complexities as I do a teaching assignment on learning styles and multiple intelligences. I remember the ratio of communication from former classes in counselling - that the verbal component of communication is only 7%: the rest is made up of body language, context...all the non verbal stuff. I am excited that one of my Christmas gifts is a subscription to Scientific American Mind, which can keep me up to date in a popular sort of way with brain research. An area of fascination for me is EMDR, a form of trauma therapy using bilateral brain stimulation that helps to release traumatized emotion trapped in the amygdala,a small mass in each brain hemisphere deeply connected with memory and visual learning. Our bodies and minds are so complex, as well as the interaction between them. Would that they were as simple as the computerized system on my car that tells the mechanics which little part needs to be replaced or repaired.(and at such cost!!)Yet how wonderful it is that our complexity is so often overruled by God's simplicity, His healing and overcoming words.

My nephew's gift to each of us this Christmas was his words: not the oft repeated phrases of our Christmas greetings, but words specific to each of us, embellished with drawings and poems well chosen. I felt understood, cherished, and challenged. My daughters and niece have often written such insightful penetrating words, gifts of time and themselves in unforgettable ways. Others too, family, friends, mentors, acquaintances, strangers - I am touched by their words of affirmation and blessing, and they by mine. My daughter's photo story book about our life in Uganda (described in last week's post) was a word made flesh, with power to bless me, even as they disturbed me, with tears. I am sure those tears were not just grief, but joy in her creation, joy in our life there, joy in this reconnection.

My sister shared with me from her monthly digest of meditations a very insightful article on these aspects of incarnation. I share some of them here with you now:

Spend a few moments with the central image of the (Christmas) story: a 'word taking flesh'. How does your own word take flesh? It begins in your mind, heart and soul, but takes concrete form 'in flesh'. Sometimes it takes flesh in language, sometimes in gesture, sometimes in a facial expression, perhaps even in a work of art.

A word or an idea cannot simply remain in our minds and hearts and expect another to receive it. To effect or create anything, it needs to be expressed. It can't do anything if it's bottled up. It has to come out somehow. A clenched fist is a word made flesh. A smile is a word made flesh. A spoken word is an idea, a concept or a feeling made flesh. A blueprint for a building or a work of art is a word made flesh.[...]

Jesus as Word-made-flesh does not come to rescue God's people from a dark and dangerous world, but to embrace that very world and to teach us how to embrace it in His spirit, to find abundant life in its abundant possibilities. [...]

It is the Word-made-flesh, Jesus born on Christmas Day, who is grace upon grace and the best and fullest sign of our own possibilities as words made flesh in our own right - for we are created in the image and likeness of God. In the very person of Jesus, God reveals humankind's highest and most glorious possibilities, and invites us to discover our highest potential and destiny in Jesus.

Adapted from: Corbin Eddy's Who Knows the Shape of God? Homilies and Reflections for Year B (Ottawa: Novalis,2002) pp. 37-41

May we, as we go forward into a new year filled with the lessons from the Christmas season, be empowered with a greater sense of God's creative power at work within us and others, through our words and actions, through every way in which we show and experience the Word-made-flesh.

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; to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3: 20-21

joy in rejoicing in this year, and looking forward to the next

What a prosaic title....but of course it's what we are all doing, I trust. It has been a hard year, and also a wonderful year. I have grown so much, and learned so much, and there is so much that I am grateful for, so much to look forward to, whatever the difficulties and trials of life. I trust it is the same for any of you reading this.

My plan to start a new blog will have to wait until the new year...part of the whole thing of being realistic and not binding myself into boxes and rules that I don't need to...keeping dates that don't matter and trying to tie things up neatly instead of just letting them be what they are...so whenever it happens, I will have a new blog...and tie this one into it...it doesn't have to be neatly at the end of the year or the beginning of the new one...

To anyone who reads this from time to time, bless your hearts and days in the year to come!!!

joy in God's incarnated lessons at Christmas

This is my weekly post again for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Life is too busy now to try to write daily posts, so at least I am doing this much!

Incarnated Lessons at Christmas

Christmas is a time for celebrating God's greatest "invention" - incarnating Himself in a human baby body, and speaking to us of His love, His servanthood, His humility, His sharing in our lives, by drawing us into His journey to and birth in a stable manger. We talk often in sermons and books about the lessons we learn from this, how God continues to incarnate Himself in our lives in so many ways. But it still feels to me that I don't expect Him to. I somehow believe that certain events are separate from who we really are, even when we are with family and friends. And then He surprises us again with new evidence of His awareness of us, new speech through the language of our bodies.

Such was my experience this Christmas day. My daughters and I had created a lovely Christmas atmosphere, for ourselves as a family, and for our guests later in the day. While a bit pressured, those preparations were meaningful and fruitful. We enjoyed the moments of giving and receiving gifts carefully chosen for each other. That seemed enough for me, being with my family and enjoying their joy, their company. I was not prepared for what happened. My older daughter had saved a special gift to the last. It was a photo book of her recent photos from the trip to Uganda this year by both our daughters, blended with photos from their childhood there, mostly taken by me. She had it made into a beautiful bound book by Mac. It is called THE RETURN HOME. As I moved from page to page, seeing the combination of past and present, familiar faces and places, all sensitively bound together, I cried and cried. "It takes a lot to make Mum cry", my daughter had said to someone the week before, in another context. And it is true. And here I was, on Christmas morning, blubbering my eyes out over photos I had seen many times before.

My body was telling me that there is so much grief still to heal, so much joy still to celebrate, about our years in Uganda. Amazed and overwhelmed by this incarnated sign of God's love, I had to stop and put it aside, and get on with preparations for our Christmas dinner guests.

We had a delightful meal in every way, with meaningful conversation and delicious food. Games and laughter followed for hours. A friend from Toronto phoned to share her good news after months of trials. A neighbour dropped in to join us for dessert and games. It had been a great day. Our guests left in mid evening, all of us in cheery form.

I was tired and went to bed early, suddenly aware of huge fatigue, wondering if I had a bug. My stomach warned me of impending events, and I tried to stave off the wretched moment. I could not believe it was happening after such a special day. I had not overeaten and no one else seemed ill affected by the food. The pain would not go away, and the relief was swift, but there was more to come. Sleep came after many hours, and the next morning I asked the Lord what it was all about.

Somehow I knew it was not a bug, or food poisoning. It was my body telling me that there is too much going on in my life. That there is so much left to heal, and that I ignore my emotions and they come out through my body. I need to pay more attention and take better care of me. God was doing me a favour by incarnating truth in a way that I would get the message.

Later the next day he gave me a conversation with one of the guests, at their drop in gathering down the street. She saw the incarnated lesson clearly, and, from her own very parallel experiences, of mission life, sudden loss and great grief, and ignoring her own emotions, added her words to God's message. He made sure I would receive this sign of His love to me, His personal agenda of concern and care for me in the midst of this season for others.

And that is His constant message to each and every one of us. We are individually so important to Him that He cares enough to give us suffering in our bodies to pay attention to our needs, and to readjust our focus. We can never do without incarnation, with our bodies to tell us what we need to know. I think we as Christians, let alone as humans, so often ignore and abuse our bodies, and think that spiritual truth can only speak in disembodied ways. But so often it is the opposite. God knew that from the very beginning, of course. And He continues to graciously tell us what He knows, every way He can, every day. What a good God.

joy in Christmas in the global village

Here is my post today for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Hope it strikes a chord with you too:

Christmas in the Global Village

Headlines declare the truce in Israel has come “to an explosive end.” My mind jerks back to the plate I bargained for in the silent auction at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. I know my $25 will go to a good cause this Christmas. The plate was hand made in Jerusalem, beautiful coloured glass outlining features of this city I have loved and visited. How are those we knew doing in the midst of all the turmoil? I remember how chilly it was in the shepherds’ fields near Bethlehem on Christmas Eve in 1995 when we made our pilgrimage with our children to fulfill their wish on our way to missionary life in Uganda. No donkey bore us there. We took the tourist bus, glad to be safe from the mobs in Nativity Square celebrating a messiah in a keffiya, that leader now dead whose words did not give life.

The radio interview with a family therapist gives wise counsel about family system issues that are likely to crop up at Christmas gatherings. I reflect upon my learning in my counselling training, flashing forward a few years to the time when I will sit with people and help them sort out their deep personal issues that keep them imprisoned in negative patterns. I hope to be someone who will give life to others through my words.

I sit at the car repair garage, wrestling with the latest verdict about my computer controlled newest secondhand car. Several hundred dollars will replace a heat sensor and allow the Check Engine light to go off again. I mutter to the mechanics that I really belong in the middle ages with a horse and buggy.

We send photos to friends in Africa of our family standing in deep snow in our back yard by the Muskoka River. How will they spend Christmas? Much as they did when we lived among them, going to church, maybe having some meat in their usual routine meal, maybe not. Sharing a few cards among friends, but no tree, no old family dishes, lace tablecloths, special turkey on a platter such as we will share this year, with friends and family. Their candles are more likely to be needed for light than for the decorative effect I will create.

I listen enthralled in a pew in an Ontario village, feasting on selections from The Messiah by the choir at my nephew’s college. The maestro celebrates the timelessness of the words and music, for him, for us all, citing the thousands upon thousands of times he has conducted these songs in his relatively young life. Mural paintings depicting the Holy Family and the saints cover the high walls like elegant wrapping paper. I muse upon this explosion of life giving words, music and art in a humble snowy village in the depth of Canadian winter.

My daughter writes an essay on the much ignored world issue of the death every day of preventable diseases of more than 26,000 children. We speculate together on the world responses and causes – indifference? corruption? ignorance? confusion? How do I respond? How can I sort it out in my own heart? Where and how can I give life in the face of such odds? How do I put it together this Christmas?

Life giving words come through the car CD player as I navigate the latest snowfall.

I’ve looked for love in so many places
Trying to find out where I belong
Wandering through this barren land of longing
Looking for the place called home, a place called home.

You said “Come to Me all you who are so weary
And you will find true rest for your souls”
Lord, let these words of life speak into my heart
Anywhere I am I can be home.

You are my home, You’re my true home
I am safe inside the shelter of Your love;
You are my home, You’re my true home,
I am free to be child once again.

Oh, I ‘m free in You.

You are my one true destination
The place I eternally belong.
You made me from the earth and then You breathed into me life
Redeemed from my sin and brought me home.
…….
My heart is restless, till it rests in You
My heart is restless, till it rests in You.
Until I dwell in You
Until I find my home in You.

Brian Doerksen “You are My Home”

joy in making new starts, and making new rules

I guess there are lots of times for starting over. And starting anew. Seems with me, even if I like doing this, it is also stressful. Anyway, today, as well as learning to use our new snowblower, going for a swim in the new rec centre for the first time in the two years since it opened, I decided to open a new blog and start afresh with a new approach. I am going to call it My Sacred Scrapbook, and use it to share in a similar way to what I have already done, but with greater freedom to do a lot more random stuff. The way I set this one up, I had to put joy somewhere in the title each time. Now those were just my "rules". But it seems in some ways I get to be my own kind of stickler for rules. And then I can find them confining. I have been really challenged by seeing a few other blogs, most notably one called Holy Experience. It is done in a way that says to me to do it that way. Some of us need to find our own way to do things, and some of us need someone else's example to follow. So I am going to set up this new blog over the Christmas holiday period, and get the look sorted out in a more deliberate way and enjoy having it ready for the new year. I will also find out how to make sure that people who try out this one can find me on the new blog. I am going to do research looking at other people's blogs, and share their addresses here too, as recommendations. So I will be putting my energy into that in the next while, as well as writing my usual Saturday posts for the devotional team blog, www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. It is through that blog, which incidentally tied for 3rd place in the Canadian Blog Awards Best Religion and Philosophy Blog category, that I have met some other blogs. There is really some interesting stuff around. It all challenges my creativity, and my writing style. I love that. So may we all enjoy the new starts that are coming our way, and be willing to make them, and to keep moving on, at our own paces, finding His joy in our creativity and courage.

joy in the bleak midwinter

This is my weekly post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I'm in a very positive mode myself these days, but this reflection is borne out of past times of struggle, and my capacity now to use that learning to reach out to others.


Blessings in the bleak midwinter

“In the bleak midwinter. frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago.” I look at the words of this old hymn and discover it was written by one of my favourite poets, Christina Rossetti. I guess even in Victorian England she knew what it was to watch the snow endlessly falling, and feel overwhelmed by winter.

So many people are feeling like that these days. Despite the wonderful winter sun, reflecting off the mountains of snow on our deck, the cozy heat inside, cheery plans for Christmas, gratitude for so much that I have, I can be overcome by winter’s intensity. Yes, I am learning to embrace it, and love it, and to do more outdoor activities, after many years of winter in milder climes. I remind myself, in this eighth winter in Muskoka, that every Christmas in Uganda I felt strange, that I often shrunk from the intensity of the heat there, and longed for the changing seasons, the brilliance of fall, the sweetness of spring. When I lived in Scotland, or in British Columbia, I adjusted to the rain and dark days, and missed the brightness of winter snow in Ontario. So now I have lots and lots of it, and I am learning to love it.

Nevertheless, I think of what winter does to so many people, bringing extra hardship, perhaps even death with inadequate heat, or, at worst, by exposure through no place to stay, even on the streets of Toronto. I think of people sleeping on the vents in the sidewalks on Queen St., their sleeping blankets and bags left there for the day. How many people dread winter just because of the depression that will come? My own inner struggles open my heart to such people.

This is one treasure of darkness, of bleakness, to the extent that I know it. I wrote on July 30th of how God had spoken to me about such treasures, years ago when we went through many harsh things in Uganda. I find in today’s reading in Streams in the Desert, that Mrs. Charles E. Cowman also took those words from Isaiah 45:3 as a rhema word from God to her heart. No surprise, given all the meditations in her precious books. As so often, the excerpts she shares from others speak profoundly to us all, across the years, and the differences in our circumstances, for we are all united in our understanding of suffering.


“In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. Thus’, we are told by the guide,’do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light.’

May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting, God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears. “ J.R. Miller.

The shuttles of His purpose move
To carry out His own design;
Seek not too soon to disapprove
His work, nor yet assign
Dark motives, when, with silent tread,
You view some somber fold:
For lo, within each darker thread
There twines a thread of gold.

Spin cheerfully,
Not tearfully,
He knows the way you plod;
Spin carefully,
Spin prayerfully,
But love the thread with God.

(from The Canadian Home Journal)

joy in letting go and letting God

This is Advent, a season for opening up more and more to God, and, I believe, for letting go...seems as we approach Christmas we let go of various things, money being the chief one!!!But somehow for me, it is about relaxing..not that I do much of that, but I think relaxing from feeling I have to do things a certain way. So what that translates into with this blog is that I will write when I do, and I don't know when that will be. It will certainly be once a week, on a Saturday, because that is when I publish a post on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. So I always put that same post on this blog. But other than that, I am just going to let it happen, and if it doesn't, then fine. I am not going to be religious about my blog, as in observing a sort of ritual about it. And I certainly don't want to write something for the sake of it...and I get quickly sick of hearing my own "voice" as it were. More than five months of this blogging has been a great discipline, a great outlet, healing and challenging. It has also left me feeling exposed at times, as I have shared some personal stuff and really put myself out there. So I want to be sure that I am comfortable with what I am sharing on a long term basis, and also that I am saying something worth saying. So, to whomever reads this, blessings on your beings..and may you continue to walk hand in hand with our heavenly Father, with Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit.