So Many Books, So Little Time

"Please Remember," the sign says. "The entire Library is a quiet zone."

Remember? That's why I'm here! I have established a 'new' Monday place to be, and it's here, surrounded by the books at Heritage Seminary Library. I know. You can call me a geek but you wouldn't be the first, and likely won't be the last. But there's a soul-filling quality to the noise- protected, word-filled, info-lavish environment that is this place. And I'm making a declaration for my Mondays to be spent here, whenever possible, and making it so.

Since coming back from eight weeks away, I have noticed some differences in me. One is a lack of being completely tanked at the end of something that normally would have spent me. Friday nights, Sundays at noon, a particularly challenging meeting, a non-Highview speaking engagement, a people-filled event. Even with fully four weeks of real life behind me, I am benefiting from the rested-to-the-core energies that remain. This is the extent of the gift I was granted this summer, and I am so grateful still.

I have also noticed something about how I should be spending my Mondays. Perhaps I'm more aware now, in a post-loa head space, of what I need. And what I need is to be alone on Mondays. Running errands, medical appointments, and other very good and necessary tasks of life, even playing with grandchildren, will have to wait until another day. Monday is mine. And I need to be alone.

So, after my swim, after sitting by the water, weather permitting, I will head here on Mondays and rest in the quietness of the books and the light and the space and the easy chairs, to read and think and write and study and be.

I miss the dock for sure. But how cool that God is providing little spaces of cottage right here in the midst of my city life.

Even Better

Tried another place this morning for my personal reflection time. This is just off Westmount at Columbia (that's in Waterloo for any out of town readers). There's a spot right by the water - no dock - but I took the camping chair there this morning to watch the sunrise. It's quieter, in terms of no joggers or bikers going by, like there was at Waterloo Park. But what you can't hear by looking at the picture, of course, is the morning traffic noises.

Just the same, it was a close facsimilie to my morning on the deck with my tea. Even had a blue heron swoop majestically past to land in the marsh nearby.

Been pondering on the reality of sin these past few days. I know. Hardly sounds positive, but us pastoral types, by virtue of our occupation, come face to face with it more often than normal people do. The particular situation that prompts these ponderings makes me mad, but mostly just deeply sad for all those involved.

The Apostle John brought comfort to me this morning by the water, through these familiar words.

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. 1 John 1:8-10

I was encouraged, because in the situation at hand confession has been made and things have been brought to the light. This is good. Honest confrontation of wrong is exactly what John is talking about. Healing can begin. Forgiveness can be received. Cleansing can happen. Good thing. We're all of us badly in need.

A new day. That's what I love about a sunrise. New mercies, fresh start, a brand new slate on which we can co-author the story God is writing into our lives.

It's Not the Freddy Channel But.....

I may have found a new place for some quiet reflection that has an almost-dock by some water.

Realizing again how much better I connect with my own soul and with God when I'm outdoors, and wanting to take advantage of this ongoing summer weather, I went searching after my swim this morning for a greenish, quietish place in a park somewhere.

I landed in Waterloo Park and discovered the waterside boardwalk. Since it was just after daybreak, it was just me and two ducks under the shelter. I spent about an hour there, reading and journaling and looking up occasionally when I heard a large splash. Never did see the fish jump, just the ring of ripples on the flat, murky surface. Sounds big enough to be a little scary, actually.

I think I'll try again tomorrow morning. Won't be a swim day, though. With the Waterloo Swimplex still closed for repairs and maintenance, I am doing my laps at the Breithaupt Pool (no discount, rats!). They are only open for lane swims Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But it's still three days out of five regularly, and that will have to do. Nice pool, good showers, and some of my swimming buddies are there, plus a new fellow-swimmer who was kind enough to help me out when the lockers kept eating my quarters.

Back to the almost-dock by the water.

I'm reading through Jeremiah right now. Got to admire that dude. Kept on preaching even when no one would listen. At a few points, the people actually wanted to kill him! A pastor these days would definitely count that as reason to retire. I need Jeremiah. He's real honest about his frustrations, but he doesn't quit. He inspires me.

Going to take a camping chair tomorrow though. The bench, while new and clean, is also a bit hard and a bit high (for my stumpy little legs).

And I'll have to think of a name for those two ducks.

Jeremiah 1:5
Before I made you in your mother's womb
I chose you.
Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work.
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

First Sunday back.
Big morning this.
Wonder if I remember how to preach.

There are lots of hugs of welcome.
Mean more than I could explain.
And a church welcome just before I started the sermon.

And this morning the worship really rocked!
I love to worship in the quiet on the Freddy Channel.
I love to worship with my friends at Cognashene Community Church.
I love to worship in the joyful, skillful noise that is our offering of music at Highview.

And I'm back, and it's all okay, and not nearly as hard to readjust as perhaps I feared it would be. Crawling up out of the mellow, as my friend Bill would say, hasn't been too hard.

And in this returning there is a stronger sense of calling again.
I'm no Jeremiah.
I don't have the "prophet to the nations" assignment.
But I do have an assignment
And I do believe God's pre-chosen strategy is fairly standard issue.
And I do believe I have been prepared for something new this season.

It's time.
And I have been poured into
To get ready

So here I am
Doing what God figured out a long, long time ago
But making it new and fresh and real and pressing and big and special work
To come home to.

Which feels good.
And is good.
And will be good
In His goodness.

All This And Summit Too

First week back has been so good!

Following the counsel of two pastor friends who have done sabbaticals themselves, I am not racing back into insanity. "Easing back in" would be more descriptive. Of course, this is only possible because of the amazing people at Highview who know their stuff and commit their hearts to building bigger hearts. I have come home to a smooth running ship and glad but not desperate welcomes. What a gift.

And...the end of this week includes the Leadership Summit, out of the Willow Creek Association. Members of our Staff Team are attending the London satellite site. Day one was yesterday.

For me personally, it just feels like a different kind of dock experience. God's presence, plus my full attention, plus impeccable timing, plus great company and dialogue (that's not part of the dock thing but...), equals more learning, more ideas, more excitement for the future....more building into my soul.

My Dad often used an expression. "All this and heaven too!" Mostly he said it looking at his dessert, especially if it was pie. I guess that's how I'm feeling about my first week back and how it has included the power packed experience that is the Summit, and how all of it is coming together after such an important, restorative time away.

And it's not even Sunday yet!

Saying Goodbye to a Perfect Morning.

Sunrise on flat
Quiet.
My tea and me and my Bible waiting for today's holiness to unfold.

The wren stops to perch on the rail, chattering her good morning. Somewhere not too far away, a woodpecker is drilling out breakfast. The humming bird makes a quick buzz by, hovering to check again on the red of my dress, just for a second, then off she goes. A chipmunk has already bounded little bounds up the deck stairs, taken a peanut from my hand, and run off to store it against the winter.

This is it. My last ritual of cottage before letting time move me forward and into all that's about to be. Time of resting and away is rested and gone. Soon I will climb into this boat and journey back to joining the journey with all the wonderful everyones of my amazingly connected life.

But right now He has given again this gift of the perfect morning. I revel in it this one, last, this-year time, feeling many things but most of them all, grateful.

I revel in the gratitude of this waking home-going day.

I am not so sure that when my entire time on this planet it done, I will leave wherever it is that I have just left my body and step through a warm haze to a place that looks suspiciously like our marina.

Jesus will be there, in t shirt and jeans and bare feet, rope in hand, smiling and waving me over to the boat. I'll get to Him, and He'll be crying and I'll be crying, and we'll be hugging, we're so glad to see each other. Then we'll pull it together and He'll invite me me to get into the boat.

The ride will be wild and freeing, the wind ridding my soul of any earthly leftovers; all the stress and sadness and the ugliness blowing hard away. We'll move through the channels and it will all smell so good and the colours will be piercingly vivid, and it will be all open space and sky and water.

Then we'll come out into that opening just after Tomahawk Island, where I can see Giant's Tomb Island, and it will be rough like it mostly is. But just for fun, Jesus will look at me and laugh. and He'll say, 'Be still!' And suddenly we'll be gliding the rest of the way across on glass.

But it won't be until that final approach into the Freddy that things will get really quiet. Deeply quiet, and building. From the roar of the full out, to the pulling back of the way you make no wake. Slowly we will make our way down and around, past the docks of the church, and into our little bay as it opens up.

My heart will feel like it always does when I do this ride the first time every year; trembling with a big joy that won't sit still, only I think this will be much, much worse.

We'll get to the dock, and pull in slowly. I'll be crying again already. Jesus will get out first, I think. He'll offer me His hand and I'll climb out to stand beside Him. With His arm around my shoulder, He'll point up to the cottage, and say, "Here Ruth Anne. Well done. This? It's yours.

"I've been getting it ready just for you."

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