Still Not Used To It

This tiny woman gave birth to me.  I know. 

It occurred to me today that I've seen more Christmases with this woman than with any other single person in my life.  (Dad left for Home in February 2010.)

Ken and I celebrated a mini Christmas with Mom today in Lakefield where she lives now.  Only the third Christmas of my entire life where an early visit in a very understated few hours actually counts as 'it'.  I don't like it.  I don't like that she moved away and that it takes 3 hours to get there.  I don't like that Christmas is so very different for us now.

But I'm glad she seemed so delighted with her gift - a set of small and delicate porcelain birds, perched on a tree branch.  She loves birds.  I'm glad we could bring a small centerpiece of Christmas greens to decorate her room for the season.  I'm glad we could eat together, even if it was only the 'festive special' at Swiss Chalet.  I'm grateful for the time we have, when we have it.

Just....still getting used to it.

Were I've Been

 מַה־נִּמְלְצ֣וּ לְ֭חִכִּי אִמְרָתֶ֗ךָ מִדְּבַ֥שׁ לְפִֽי׃

 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!      Psalm 119:103

It's been a barest-minimum kind of fall in my blog world, so I just wanted to write something quickly to explain.  Since September 13, exactly four months ago, I have had the excruciating privilege of studying Hebrew, the original text of about two thirds of the writings I hold to as my Scripture.  This is all part of my ongoing academic efforts towards a Masters of Divinity.  Hebrew Exegesis was both the title and intent of the course, and it involved more than just translation, as challenging as that is all on its own.  We dug deep, did word studies, learned to ask interpretive questions and did a pull-it-apart-at-the-seams paper on one specific text.  Today was the final exam

 

I am spent.  This particular run at my schooling included a transfer to Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, an hour and 15 minute commute, on a good day, one way.  I do not like to drive to Toronto.  I actually don't like to drive.   It was hard to give up an entire day during the week for this.  It was brutal doing the work

But even now, right now, as I lay my exhausted self down to sleep, I know a deep sense of gratitude for how this has made me love my Bible more.    Like honey.  Even, and maybe especially, the humility-gift it brings along with it.  There's nothing like digging into the original language and trying to wrap your brain around the author's cultural perspective to make you realize, yet again, just how very little you know about anything.   It's a sweet humility, a gentle dismantling of my soul even as I dismantled each verb and syntax 

I do hope to be able to write a bit more in the next few days before Christmas.  There's so much worship and love to be had in Advent, the beauty of it is unmissable

But that's where I've been. And now to bed

 

Not On My Game

It seems like it was a weekend of learning through my mistakes.

I know, I know.  It's all supposed to be good and fine if you actually learn from making mistakes.  But the truth is, I hate making mistakes in the first place.  It's embarrassing, frankly.  And especially when it's in areas that, by now, I should have it down.

Leadership stuff.  Little nuances that have big implications.  Meetings that don't go as I envisioned.  Meaningful intentions that go awry.  Missing basic cues in group dynamics.  Coming to the table without the big picture in mind and getting lost in the details.  I know better.

People stuff.  Emails that get sucked into the vortex that is my relentless inbox.  Meetings that bump into one another.  Birthdays that get forgotten.  Thank yous left unsaid.  Balancing the priorities of who will get my attention, trying not to let the loudest squeaker get the grease, but knowing the squeakers still count.  Loving oh so imperfectly. 

I fumbled and spluttered this weekend.  So I come to the eve of my Sabbath renewal knowing I was most certainly not the best me I could be.  Doesn't feel so great.

Glad to have the chance to tomorrow to regroup.  And ponder the lessons.  Determine corrective action steps.  And keep on learning, glad for the grace offered to me by those who should have been led better.  Humbled by the grace of a Saviour who is made greater in my weakness.

On Being a "Rescuer"

Recently I was called a "rescuer" in a derogatory kind of way. It's given me reason to pause and consider.

Clinically, the terms refers to someone who over-helps others as a means to fulfill their own needs for value and importance. It addresses underlying, unhealthy motives for engaging with others who are in need.

I don't want to be that, so even though I take this comment within the context it was given, I'm taking stock and analyzing some of my recent "helping" behaviours, asking God to reveal "any hidden way in me" (Ps 139:23).

Separately, I've been reading through Proverbs again, and this morning's reading was from chapter 14, verses 21 and 31.

"He who despises his neighbour sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy....He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God."

It seems pretty clear from these and countless verses in my Bible that God is a rescuer for the needy, and He calls us to partner with Him in this. And it would seem that, and it's been my experience that, as I press into God, I would catch this passion. How could you love God and not be moved by those in need?

Yes, there is a danger always of the shadow side of good things. And I will continue to watch for a "Messiah complex" and the insidious ways of over-helping.

But I think there also may be a way we tend to pathologize kindness as a means of excusing our own selfishness and ingratitude. I don't want to be that either.

And if I err, I'd rather err on the side off too much than too little. Because, quite frankly, I think there's a whole lot more most of us could be doing to share the incredible wealth we've been given in this part of the world.

So, as I continue to guard against the shadow side, I am committed to being a "rescuer" for God....He's rescued me from so much!
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Open Letter to Highview Community Church

Dear Friends,

Right Now

Since arriving home from the cottage I have been surprised by the wonder of the gift of our pond across the way.  It’s not like I didn’t know it was there, or even that I haven’t made use before of this quiet spot right in our own backyard.  It’s just that, this August, the continuing warm weather and my very rested self have combined into waking early, and sneaking off for sunrise moments overlooking the still water. 

With our church building silhouetted in the background, this makes for a good ‘conversation piece’ with God.  In those misty conversations, God continues to encourage me regarding all of you.  Over the past year or more, I sense a growing steadiness about our forward movement and inward deepening as a community of faith.  This steadiness is punctuated with high moments of celebration and joy, and honest moments of pain and loss amongst us.   In all of it, I honestly cannot express enough what it means to me to be given the honour of serving alongside all of you, ‘doing life’ and walking together through this kingdom adventure He’s so generously invited us to share with Him.

It is truly my hope that even in these last few days of summer, every single one of us is finding the space to be still and refuelled, and to press our souls up close to the Creator of everything summer offers.  September is coming, however, and it’s full of opportunity!

This September

Of course you won’t want to miss the Tailgate Party happening Saturday, September 8^th.  Go online (www.buildingbiggerhearts.ca) to catch all the details for this first annual, fundraising event focused on moving forward in our Property Expansion Project.  I can almost smell that hot asphalt now!

We are eagerly looking forward to Sunday, September 9^th when the regular schedules begin again, so to speak, in our fall-is-here Canadian rhythms.   It will be a happy morning of worship and connection, and the beginning of our first-of-the-season series “What Still Matters”.  This will be an important time of re-envisioning and aligning our focus on the four basic components of why we do church:  Loving God, Loving People, Going and Growing.  

Wednesday, September 12^th, from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m., will be our first Family Chat of the season.   You’ll have the chance to get to know Dr. Bill Webb a little better and ask questions about his Ministry To Younger Churches initiative, and Highview’s connection there.  We’ll be talking about the implementation of our new safety and protection policy at Highview, as well as giving some sneak previews of what’s coming for the season in terms of Sunday morning teaching. [Hint:  If you wanted to get a head start on memorizing the Ten Commandments, go for it.  The challenge will be for all of Exodus 20:1-17.]

God’s good gift of our beautiful partnership with 17 used-to-be orphans at Hot Springs keeps us travelling half way around the world at least once a year.  The 2013 Thailand Team will be raising separate funds from our neighbouring community with our second annual Garage Sale, Saturday, September 15^th.  Anyone having goods to donate, please bring them to the church September 11 and 14 (9 to 9) or September 12 and 13 (9 to 5).  All monies raised will go to team expenses or the ESL Day Camp.

Throughout the Season

In so many ways, our Children are our Most Valuable Kingdom Treasure.  Over this season their priority will be expressed in a variety of ways including:

• The implementation of our new Plan to Protect, with opportunities for the whole church to heighten our awareness through training (September 22 or 27). 
• The re-opening of our Bedrock Toddlers room and full-morning program to celebrate the graduation of several babies from the Pebbles Nursery.
• The inclusion of our school age children of Cornerstone Program in the first 15 minutes of the worship service upstairs.  This is a one- season-only plan meant to appropriately respond to current demographics and broader church needs.  More information will follow to ensure we have a common understanding of expectations that will allow for an inclusive, distraction-free worship time for all. 

As always, my time away this summer included much praying, journaling, consideration of the season just past, and an overview of the remainder of the Five Year Plan.  In all of that two words best express what I believe God wants me personally to give attention to over this coming season.  Love and Align, has become the anchoring words for my own growing and leadership over the next several months.  I don’t know if that sounds simplistic to you, but I have the feeling I’ll be digging deep and listening hard as I explore more what they mean for us this year.

So…it truly is my prayer that the Lord would direct all of our hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance as we finish out this summer and head into a brand new season together.  Can’t wait to see what God’s got in mind as we cooperate with His Spirit in grace and truth.

Your pond-sitting pastor,

Ruth Anne

Perspectives

Well.....The geese are safe.

That's why traffic had stopped, three vehicles ahead of me.  Ira Needles Boulevard, with its stretches between the ponds, is a popular place with a large number of Canadian geese at this end of Kitchener.  And they boldly waddle across, single file, most often in no particular hurry.

That's what they were doing about 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon when I was on my way home from church.  It had been a different sort of service for us; taking the time over the long holiday weekend to be together in a simple, meditative, unplugged kind of way.  Prayer and Communion.  And we'd prayed over our neighbourhood; the neighbourhood that included these geese. 

I remember having to come to something of a sudden and unexpected stop, while the traffic ahead made space for our Canadian mascots.  I glanced in my rear view mirror to see who might be behind me, but the vehicle was significantly far back and I returned my focus to the road ahead, counting the long string of geese who had stopped traffic on both sides.

Then.  Bang!  My head is flung back into the head rest behind me, and I feel it hid hard.  My van is heading directly into the van ahead of me, and I steer, with brakes still applied, into the left turn lane, avoiding my own rear end collision, and ending up on the center median where I again come to a stop.

Oh.  Stillness.  What?

Steve from Newfoundland, thank you.  He had been coming in the other direction and was in no way involved in the accident, but he stopped to make sure I was okay, checked on the driver of the other vehicle, an SUV, than called police to the scene.  He had been in a rear end collision himself a while back, and advised me to remain in the van and keep my neck and shoulders still until the police came.  When he called 911, they asked if I wanted an ambulance and I said no.  I wasn't in any significant pain, really.  Just felt 'scrunchy', kind of tingly in my neck and shoulders. 

The woman in the van ahead of me pulled over too.  Again, she wasn't directly involved but wanted to make sure I was okay, and to thank me for not hitting her.  

I called Ken.  Then it was about an hour of talking with police, writing out my statement, Ken emptying out the van which was totalled.  Couldn't even open the passenger side doors, either the front or the sliding door.  Could barely even open the driver's side door.  Later Ken would discover than even the mechanism that adjusts the seat was jammed.  A bluetooth device that was clipped to the visor ended up way at the back of the van.  According to the testimony of the other driver, she hadn't slowed down at all and hit me going about 60 k/h.  Like I said.  Bang!

I had said no to the ambulance, but now I was feeling more and more like I should been seen by a doctor.  The sensations in my neck and head, while still not what I would call pain, were increasing.  Hot.  I could feel my pulse strongly all along my upper spine.  I was getting a sort of headache that felt like I was wearing a tight hat, only I wasn't.

It took the rest of the afternoon to be seen by the emerg doctor who said the word "whiplash" and gave me advise as to how to handle the next few days of significant pain.  As it hadn't set in yet, and since I'd skipped lunch - kinda busy - we stopped at Swiss Chalet for supper.

I am taking the whiplash seriously.  I know it can lead to significant issues if not treated properly.  I've already made calls to adjust next week's schedule, and made appointments for follow up medical care.  I'm icing and getting up every hour to gently move and slowly stretch the muscles that are destined for spasms.  I'm staying on top of the pain medication.  And I'm not looking forward to the pain that's been predicted.

But mostly?  Honestly?  I'm just very grateful. 

Before they towed it away, I asked Ken to take this picture of the van.  Because I had stayed fairly immobile in the driver's seat, and then had been helped to Ken's car for the rest of the wait, I never did get out of the vehicle and look at it for myself.  When he brought the picture back to me, and I saw the extent of the damages, I was surprised.  And sobered.  Something way more serious could have happened today.  The van is a wreck, but I am, for all intents and purposes, intact.  The impact was severe, my injuries, by comparison are minor. At least so far as I can tell right now.

People get hurt every day, sometimes seriously.  Sometimes permanently.  Today, that could have been me, but it wasn't. 

Earlier today, with my community, we had prayed for the neighbourhood.  We'd prayed for the safety of those traveling over the summer.  We'd committed our lives again into the care of the Father who is sovereign and loving and who for reasons we don't dare try to explain sometimes allows unspeakable damage to be done to bodies and lives.  I know.  Jesus said it.  "In this world you will have trouble."  But not today, not for me, or for the other driver.  Not today.

And the geese are safe and I am safe.

Oh Father...thank you.

Best in 39

Ken and I arrived safely home this evening, having spent one last perfect day, slowly packing, sitting together on the deck, going for my swim (Ken spots me in the red canoe), last bits of laundry and cleaning, and enjoying the great gift that is our time away in this particular place.

For me it was a total of 37 days (with just a quick visit back for a very special wedding on July 14).  That was a good, long time.

I realize how blessed I am to have both this place, and this time away, longer than most have for holidays.  I do not, for a minute, take any of it for granted, and am deeply and ponderously grateful.

The time allows some freedoms for my mind and spirit that are not possible during my regular, abundant and responsible life at home.  To have such an extended time for meditations and rest and reading and prayer and writing it all out, longhand, in a beautiful butterfly journey (birthday gift from Kim); to sit inside the sky, it seems, and hear Him tell me that the expanse of it is how much He loves me, and to weep for the knowing of it; to laugh -- probably more than I've laughed in the past 13 years all put together.  To.....be.

But I'm ready to be back.  Looking forward to Saturday morning time with Abby and Zach, some unpacking, and sharing in a graduation celebration for two pretty spectacular people later in the afternoon.  Looking forward, oh so much, to being back at Highview on Sunday, with that family of faith who is so incredibly loyal and gracious to me.  I don't deserve them.  Can't wait to worship together.

This was my 39th year at our cottage.

I visited first as a just-turned-16-year-old who was invited to spend the week at her boyfriend's cottage with his family.  That was....a long time ago :).  And I fell in love with the place then.  I've been enjoying time at the cottage every year since then.  And every year has it's treasures, it's memories. We got married, brought the children, they grew up having summers there.  And now, as empty-nesters, sort of.  The cottage has been a holy place for a long, long time.

But, I'm thinking, this year?..... with the weather and the timing and the comings and goings, and the time spent just with that same boyfriend-turned-husband.....this year?  It was the best yet.

Dance of Delight

The Lord your God is with you
He is mighty to save
He will take great delight in you
He will quiet you with His love
He will rejoice over you with singing
Zephaniah 3:17

Oh Mighty Saving Father,

Who hands me breathless gifts I do not deserve.

I am speechless with wonder at feeling Your joyful dancing, spirit to Spirit, with me! We danced and danced, delighting in nothing more than the face and presence of each other, and the wind and the stretching clouds across the vast sky of Your love declarations.

How I revel in the song You've sung over me, Dancer of Heaven. And I say thank you, but it barely chokes out of my throat tight with adoration. And I say thank you, but it seems such a thin thread compared to the tapestry of love and cherishing You've wrapped around me.

How I delight in Your astonishing delight of me. Me? All this, and you know me! Good thing You are so mighty to save!

Dancing Saviour, I adore You.

And now, please take my hand as I step off the dock of this heaven-place and back onto the shore of my now-but-not-yet realities, for which, yes Father, for which I am also truly and deeply grateful.

I hear You singing still.
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Almost

Will there be enough peanuts? Only four more days!

Enjoying these last days on the deck.
Starting to point my heart towards home.


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The Giver

And I on shore admire this living Scripture
And adore
The Painter of this picture I adore
The gifting and the Giver

- Steve Bell
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Curiosity

In just a few hours now, Ken will arrive.

It will be starting to get dark because the sun will have officially slid behind the treeline. But the horizon will keep shouting the colours and light, as if from off stage, and that shouting will call him home to our dock.

He'll be alone, and that will be good.

A few days ago that didn't feel good, because that's when I found out that our son and his family wouldn't be joining us for the weekend afterall. And I cried a little that day. Grammas do that.

But by now I've accepted and even welcomed the extra days alone, just the two of us, as a gift, fully aware that it's the kind of gift this marriage can eagerly receive, given what it's contended with these past several years.

So.

I wait for the arrival of not just the boat, and not just my husband, but of the last curious threads of the tapestry that God's been crafting from my cottage stay this year.

And I'm so grateful. And I'm curious.

Grateful because this year, unlike so many before it, I did NOT arrive in a state of exhaustion. Not at all. It was amazing, giddy even, to begin my time with a calm and happy spirit, instead of the grumpy and/or numb self I usually bring to my first days here. What a gift to let the filling of quiet, rest and solitude pour into already existing reserves; to accept from God the lavish experience of fullness from the beginning.

Grateful because this was an all out summer, at least up to this point. I have barely been inside for five weeks now! The consistent early morning breath-snatching stillness has been unprecedented. So many mornings of unhurried time with my Bible and my journal, just me and my tea....and the beavers! Or the loon. Or the chipmunks, if they too got off to an early start.

Sunsets, likewise. Down by the water, rehearsing with Jesus all the thoughts, and ponderings of my day, of my life. Remembering again who I am, while the Shekinah proves too much to look at, but I can't help myself.

Grateful for the time Kristyn and her beyond resilient family could be here, and how the joy lingered when Abby could stay. Even though there were more Gramma tears when she left. (Truth be told, she had to leave to give the frog population a reprieve.)

Grateful for the prolonged permission to indulge in the rhythms and order in which my soul comes alive, and is most at peace, no other schedules to compete with the rituals of every day. Just being free to pace the day.

Grateful for the honour to be allowed the joyful work of study and preparing for the fall, the glorious uninterruptedness of it, the thoroughness of it.

So.

Grateful. And curious.

Because God, through the generosity of my astonishing community of faith, has still provided me with one more week. And He seems to have gone out of His way to protect it for just Ken and me. So I'm wondering, what that might mean; what 8 more days of this perfection might have hidden in it.

Open my eyes
My ears

Let me feel You on my skin
Glorious and warm and golden

I am all Yours, still
These last important, curious days.
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Curiosity

In just a few hours now, Ken will arrive.

It will be starting to get dark because the sun will have officially slid behind the treeline. But the horizon will keep shouting the colours and light, as if from off stage, and that shouting will call him home to our dock.

He'll be alone, and that will be good.

A few days ago that didn't feel good, because that's when I found out that our son and his family wouldn't be joining us for the weekend afterall. And I cried a little that day. Grammas do that.

But by now I've accepted and even welcomed the extra days alone, just the two of us, as a gift, fully aware that it's the kind of gift this marriage can eagerly receive, given what it's contended with these past several years.

So.

I wait for the arrival of not just the boat, and not just my husband, but of the last curious threads of the tapestry that God's been crafting from my cottage stay this year.

And I'm so grateful. And I'm curious.

Grateful because this year, unlike so many before it, I did NOT arrive in a state of exhaustion. Not at all. It was amazing, giddy even, to begin my time with a calm and happy spirit, instead of the grumpy and/or numb self I usually bring to my first days here. What a gift to let the filling of quiet, rest and solitude pour into already existing reserves; to accept from God the lavish experience of fullness from the beginning.

Grateful because this was an all out summer, at least up to this point. I have barely been inside for five weeks now! The consistent early morning breath-snatching stillness has been unprecedented. So many mornings of unhurried time with my Bible and my journal, just me and my tea....and the beavers! Or the loon. Or the chipmunks, if they too got off to an early start.

Sunsets, likewise. Down by the water, rehearsing with Jesus all the thoughts, and ponderings of my day, of my life. Remembering again who I am, while the Shekinah proves too much to look at, but I can't help myself.

Grateful for the time Kristyn and her beyond resilient family could be here, and how the joy lingered when Abby could stay. Even though there were more Gramma tears when she left. (Truth be told, she had to leave to give the frog population a reprieve.)

Grateful for the prolonged permission to indulge in the rhythms and order in which my soul comes alive, and is most at peace, no other schedules to compete with the rituals of every day. Just being free to pace the day.

Grateful for the honour to be allowed the joyful work of study and preparing for the fall, the glorious uninterruptedness of it, the thoroughness of it.

So.

Grateful. And curious.

Because God, through the generosity of my astonishing community of faith, has still provided me with one more week. And He seems to have gone out of His way to protect it for just Ken and me. So I'm wondering, what that might mean; what 8 more days of this perfection might have hidden in it.

Open my eyes
My ears

Let me feel You on my skin
Glorious and warm and golden

I am all Yours, still
These last important, curious days.
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Raindrop Relationships

Woke up to rain this morning, the only time since Abby arrived.

When she joined me for a pajama snuggle in the chair by the window, she apparently had already been awake for a bit, sending messages to her friends from school.

These were not text messages. She's only six. But they operated in a similar way, or so she explained to me.

"We have a secret way to send messages to each other with the raindrops. When it rains and the drops hit the window, all we have to do is write a message on the window, and they get the message when they look out their window and see that it's raining."

"Instantly?", I asked, appropriately amazed.

"Yes, instantly", she assured me, very serious. "Whatever I want to say, I just send them my message, and they get it and understand it."

"Wow", I said. "Wish I could talk to my friends like that!"

And I meant it.

With all the technogadgets we carry around with us, yes, even at the cottage, it might be tempting to think that I (and you) actually do have the means to instantly connect with friends. And I have certainly made use of these kinds of connections, yes, even at the cottage.

But I have to admit that I find this isn't all that satisfying most of the time. Technology aside, and with a little brutal honesty here, I actually find most of my important relationships to be confusing and difficult, and the pursuit of spiritual intimacy with others pragmatically impossible in any consistent kind of way.

There are moments, to be sure. Two souls fusing in a deep spiritual friendship, like David and Jonathan. Times sitting around a family dinner or a meeting table, and the synergy and ideas and love are almost tangible. Quiet moments on a deck, under the stars, declaring loyalties in the face of personal attack of one or the other. I've tasted it.

But the messages of utter respect and unconditional positive regard and "you could have my kidney" loyalty are both rare and fleeting. Sometimes you think you've got it, only to find out you were merely emotionally convenient and practically useful.

Raindrop relationships are rare. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing my messages on the windows, but my hoped for connections are as whimsical as Abby's imagination.

Maybe it's just me.

People move away and changes bring adjustments, and confessions bring harsh new realities to light, and words bring wounding and a clearer picture of what the other actually thinks about you, and..... yeah, like that.

And sometimes I wonder why any of us bother.

Thing is, we do, I mean really do, need each other. There's this deep, hard-wired longing for loving and being loved; an aching loneliness for knowing and being known. It's one of the ways we bear the image of the Triune God-Community that created us.

Somehow, I feel like I'm supposed to have this relationship thing nailed by now. But I don't.

I preach regularly about community and authenticity and a commitment to love and grace. I believe Jesus calls us to that ideal. I believe the church should be irresistable because of it. But I certainly do not have this down.

And so I will continue to pursue it, to seek to be the kind of person worth pursuing in it.

Because most of the time I'm pretty sure that it's not you, it's me.

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Jubilee Moments By The Water

in living this many years
Joy comes more invested.

Down by the water yesterday
All sunshine and wetness and frogs
I realized
Gradually
That I have been granted
A longing -
To enjoy this creation glory
With my grandchildren.

I think perhaps
I have looked forward to this one
Particular moment
For a sweet and longish time.

So happy birthday
To the mother of this
Astonishing Nature Child
Splashing on this day
Of longings fulfilled.
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What's The Opposite of Murphy's Law?

Rained today. On and off, all day.

We were out in the boat, around town in Midland, having lunch, doing errands and buying candy -- I mean, groceries. And it poured like crazy, several times.

But we didn't get wet.

Abby is with us this week. Just Abby, newly six, and Grandad and Gramma. So it only seemed fitting that we would plan for a day trip into Midland. Treat day.

And it rained, but not on us.

It was so crazy. As soon as we were inside anything - the van, the restaurant, the store - it just came down like nobody's business. Then when we were done and needed to be outside, nothing.

"Isn't that weird?" I asked Abby, the third time it happened.

"God is doing it", she replied matter of factly.
And I agreed.

To be clear, I do not hold to a theology that expects only health and prosperity -- and no rain -- for God's people. I know that suffering is as much part of the abundant life Jesus promised as is the blessings. No. I know.

And if experience wasn't enough, there's even that bit where Jesus specifically and metaphorically talks about the rain falling on the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). So, this isn't about that.

But the uncanny way that we escaped getting really wet -- all day. Especially when you consider what that means when you're out in a boat for a good part of that -- well that just put all of us in a happy, grateful mindset today.

And it may seem overly simple but, in light of how much complaining I can do when something's NOT going my way...it's just something I wanted to acknowledge today.

Just a simple gratitude for the crazy way we stayed dry today. Didn't do a single thing to deserve it. But it was fun watching it happen like that.

Exactly the opposite of Murphy's Law, whoever that poor sod is or was.

"Give thanks to the LORD for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm136:1
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Lose the Shoes

I am just so much more aware of my feet when I'm here at the cottage. It's the first thing I do - take off my shoes. And while certain activities like going into town, and blueberry picking might require appropriate footwear, for the most part I like to be barefoot as much as I possibly can.

Let me dangle them in the water at the end of the dock. Let me stand on the rock at the end of the day and sole-soak, soul-soak the radiant heat from the day. Let me poke them out from the covers on a hot night and feel the breeze from the water wash them cool.

Not surprisingly, I take better care of my feet when I'm here. Partly because they're far more visible and therefore in need of some help to be presentable. And partly because while I'm here..... I can. Just soak and buff and rub my feet with coconut buttery goodness, out on the deck, music playing, sun shining, curious chipmunks coming by to look up at me with questioning faces, and peer inside my pail to see what's going on.

It's the luxury of taking care of two parts of me that carry the full weight of responsibility in transporting the rest of my body around all the rest of the year. It's the gift of having that little bit of time to just look after me.

But mostly it just feels good to lose the shoes. Maybe because, for me, this is holy ground.

It was God's instruction to Moses. It's a practice still followed my Muslims before entering a mosque. There's a symbolism in the removing of shoes in order to prepare to meet with God.

And that's so very true for me here too. This is a Meeting Place of Holy Things for me. Quiet hushes of His whispers to my neediness. Comfort for the wounds sustained. Gentle rebuke for what needs course correction. Joy and delight in just sharing this time together.

So maybe, in defernce, in hopefness, I lose the shoes. And in gratitude receive the water, wind and rock with reverence, and gladness, and an anticipation of the Holy.
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Like I Never Left

This year my return to the water seems hardly a return at all.

To be sure, there were 11 abundant months in between. Months of ministry and family and growing and full engagement in the wild adventure that is my great gift to call living.
This past year, as I Waited and Listened (as instructed last summer on the dock), I saw God do His thing in some pretty spectacular, quietly astonishing ways. Relationships shifted, loves grew deeper, connections ran stronger, celebrations rang happier. (A hands-down highlight was being asked to baptize five new believers at Hot Springs when our Team was there last March.)

My outside speaking engagements brought serendipitous surprises as I came with my little bag lunch of loaves and fishes and then stood back and watched with amazement as God fed healing and encouragement to the masses. My own healing was part of His agenda those times too.

Highview, my blessed place of serving and being served, has grown in her hunger for prayer, her longing for deep teachings from God's Word, and her passion to be the hands and feet of Jesus in honest and livable ways. Fifteen among us made the decision to call Jesus Lord. Oh!

So, the between-time was decidedly big and memorable and breath-snatching.

And yet.

I come to the dock now, to begin a generous six week stay, and -- it feels like I never left.

Maybe it's because I'm not exhausted. Usually I am. Usually I get here barely coherent, running on fumes (that stink) and ready for nothing more than sleep alternating with glazed-over stares across the water. Usually it takes me a solid week or more, sometimes a lot more, just to "climb back up to zero" as on of my Elders describes it.

Not this year. This year it feels like God and I are picking up where we left off last summer. I am alive and alert and deeply engaged right from the get go. Ken has noticed (and appreciated) the difference. So have I.

I am grateful for those who continue to speak encouragement into my soul all year long, my confidants, my counsellors, my mentors. Thank you for sharing your spiritual energies with me always, but particularly this year.

I deeply love and appreciate the committed and hard working Staff at Highview, who have shared the burden with me this year in new and obviously healthy (for me at least) ways.

And I am full of awe, and vibrantly aware of my deep and refreshing God, who's been both with me every moment of this past year, AND waiting with eager anticipation to meet me here again, on the dock, where it feels like I've never left.
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Jubilee Letter to My Mom

Since my youth, O God,

You have taught me,

And to this day I declare

Your marvellous deeds.

Even when I am old and gray,

Do not forsake me, O God,

Until I declare Your power

To the next generation,

Your might to all who are to come.

Psalm 71:17-18

June 8, 2012

Dear Mom,

This is a significant birthday for me – age 55.  It’s not just the years of my life, but the years of my spiritual life.  I was 5 when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and Lord.  That means all this year I am celebrating 50 years with Jesus!  In the Old Testament, that’s called the Year of Jubilee.  It was a time of remembering that everything and everyone belongs to God; a time of freedom and rest and redemption.

In the months leading up to today, and even now, I am reading and praying and considering exactly how I want to mark this year with God.  I think it will involve some beautiful experiences with Him over the next 12 months. 

 

But I wanted to begin by saying thank you to you, my Mother, for nurturing me inside of you, for giving birth to me, and for all the investment, physical, emotional and spiritual, you poured into me. 

Most of all, thank you for laying out a spiritual pathway for me to find intimacy with God through Jesus Christ.  Thank you for believing in me and supporting me all through my life.  I am convinced that your faithful prayers for me and my family and the ministry God has entrusted to me, have blessed and carried and strengthened me far more than I can truly know.

Psalm 71:17-18 has become my ‘theme verse’ for this Jubilee year.  While it is my own earnest prayer before God, it also reminds me of you.  You have declared God’s power and might to me, to my children, and now to my grandchildren, just by living so faithfully for Him.

I am deeply, deeply grateful.

Your daughter,

Ruth Anne

Jubilee

"Consecrate the fiftieth year 

and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.  

It shall be a jubilee to you."  

Leviticus 25:10

I'm having a significant birthday come Friday.  

It's not the year exactly, that makes this birthday stand out for me.  I'm turning 55 - -  which by the way, just by itself I think is kind of cool.  But it's the spiritual marking of it that's been making me want to approach this birthday, and this entire year, in a set-aside, consecrated kind of way.

This year will mark 50 years of following Jesus.  I was 5 when I made my first profession of faith.  And even though I believe it was just the beginning of an understanding of what it means to seek redemption and forgiveness, and come into a personal, intimate relationship with God through Christ, it is in my mind the beginning of what I know to be my spiritual journey.

So, 50 years.  According to Levitical Law, this is my spiritual "jubilee".

God's instructions to Moses and His newly liberated people, standing at the base of Mt Siani concerning the Year of Jubilee, were all about letting the land rest, restoring dignity to the oppressed and poor, and being reminded in concrete ways that we are utterly dependent on a full-of-grace God for everything we have.  It was  meant to be a kind of gigantic 're-set' button on the nation, where everything was set back to the way it was supposed to be.

Inspired by that fact, and also I'm sure by the fabulous celebrations around Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee, I've decided that I want to find ways to spiritually celebrate somehow.

I don't have it all figured out yet.  But I do know would like to take the whole year and mark it in significant ways.

I've chosen my Jubilee verse:

Psalm 71:17-18

Since my youth, O God, you have taught me,

and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.

Even when I am old and gray,

do not forsake me, O God,

till I declare your power 

to the next generation,

your might to all who are to come.

Lots to keep me meditating on with that one for a while, the ponderings of which I will save for future Jubilee blogs :).

I'm looking forward to marking things with Highview's stellar Staff Team --  a little more than normal special lunch time this coming Friday, since our weekly meal together actually falls on my birthday.

And I've arranged for a special cake - yes, I do love cake! - to share with my family that evening.

And the day before I've asked for time with a trusted friend and counselor who's been a spiritual mentor to me through so much over a significant part of my adult life.  We will pray together and mark the beginning of the Year of Jubilee of my soul.

As for the rest of it?  I will soon be away for my annual summer Sabbath at the cottage where I will spend more time reading and journaling and pondering on this, finding more ways, I anticipate, to declare God's marvelous deeds, His power and might, to the next generation, and to proclaim liberty, whatever all of that looks like.  As I said, I don't have it all figured out yet.  Some of it will be out there, with family and friends and blogs.  But most of it, I'm thinking, might be quiet and hushed and holy, and really private.

It sounds simple to say it, but it's really, really deep in there.  I love Jesus.  He has been my best and most faithful friend, my Messiah, my source of peace and strength, my everything.....for just my whole life long.  And I want to celebrate Him, honour Him, declare Him, worship Him.

Because my soul is excruciatingly grateful in the deepest  most private places that I call me. 

Open Letter to Highview Community Church on our 15th Anniversary

June 3, 2012 

Dear Beautiful Friends,

This morning we marked 15 years together as a church.   Hardly seems possible, but by God's grace, here we are.  And I know I said it this morning, but I want to be sure to say it again.

I love you.

I love serving with you, doing life with you, reaching out to regions beyond with you, worshiping with you, and having you to walk with during the joys and agonies.  I love your creativity and tenacity and honesty.  I love your loyalty, to me, to one another and to God.

I love the joy, the depth, the generosity and integrity of your spirit.  I love watching you share your faith with gentleness and respect.  I love watching you love each other.  I love watching you grow more and more deeply in love with Jesus.  I am astonished by how I am known and loved by you.

It truly has been a privilege to have been in this with you for the entire 15 year run, not all of those as your pastor, but all of them as your friend. 


Highview's growing up.  For all of our beginnings and boldness, successes and blunders, there's a new and humble movement toward greater maturity and depth among us now.  There's a sense that we're coming into a season of deeper roots and stronger foundations, foundations laid with the faithful, sacrificial service of every single person who has called Highview home.

Today, with a young sugar maple sapling and bright ribbons, we marked 14 decisions for Christ in this season alone.  "For our inheritance, give us the lost" we sing, and God has been so generous!  I can't wait to see how big that little tree will have grown in the next 15 years!  I can't wait to see what God will do with a church on the roundabout at the bottom end of Kitchener, excited and strong and fully surrendered to Him.

Happy Birthday Highview!

Profoundly grateful,

Ruth Anne

A Good and Quiet Choice

There's always this crunch time between coming home from Thailand and going away for my summer Sabbath.

Both are incredible gifts, so I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining. Hardly!  The community that is Highview is beautiful and generous to her pastor, allowing me to be away each year in March to visit our Thai family at Hot Springs AND to be away each year in July to sit by still waters in Cognashene where our family has a cottage.  Amazing.  And everything goes along just fine without me both times, which I'm pretty sure wouldn't surprise you, and long ago has stopped surprising me too :).

But this in between time can get intense.  Catching up from everything that was happening while I was in Thailand, and preparing for everything to be in order so I can leave for the cottage.  And that last part isn't just so things will be good over the summer only.  This is the time of year when the bigger plans for the whole of next season, September to June, are talked over and prayed over and calendar'd over and schedules are set and people are contacted; all of it being continuously offered as an open book upon which the Holy Spirit is invited to write.  It's the time of year for appreciations and thank yous and wrapping up in significant, honouring ways.  It's the time of year we celebrate our church's anniversary - this year is number 15! - and that always includes new members and baptisms, and all the wonderful conversations around all of that.

I've felt that intensity over the past two weeks, especially.  It's a dangerous place for a workaholic.  So much to do, so little time (it always seems), all of it's important, and the rush of tending to it, feeling the wind in my hair, seeing good things being accomplished.  A professor once told a class I was in that he didn't know the difference between work and fun because his work was fun.  For me, much of the work of pastoring is fun.  Not the conflict resolution or walking people through pain or the weight of leading, not that part.  But lots of it is.  And when the push is on and you're seeing it happen, and you've got good and honest people to labour with, well, it can get intense.

So I opened my journal this morning in the early sun of the quiet room where my husband still slept, and just sat for a moment and felt it.  The nothing.  And goodness was in the nothing.  And for a few moments I just felt good.  And quiet.  And out of those nothing quiet moments nothing particularly spectacular happened in my soul, except to be reminded that sitting in the sun in the quiet is good. 

It was bit of a strange day anyways.  An interruption in the rhythms of the work week.  A Tuesday trip to Lakefield to see Mom on a day that was originally scheduled to be a 'care counsel' meeting with the team that's looking after he in her new residence.  It was cancelled, but we went on Tuesday anyway, instead of the normal Sunday/Monday thing.  An interruption in the intensity.  A pause.  The whole day.

Fish and chips with Mom in the restaurant, and Hey Jude was playing and Mom said, "This is a pleasant tune."  And I teased her because she didn't realize it was the Beatles.  Growing up we weren't allowed to listen to that nasty rock and roll music. And she laughed at herself, and it was a good and quiet moment.

And later in the afternoon, talking quietly and openly about Mom's funeral service, which she had asked that we do together.  And the goodness in her faith, expressed by a confident longing for what is to come.  And her reassurances of her love for me, and appreciation for me, in the face of some hard family dynamics.

And just having those unspoken moments with Ken in the car, my faithful hero driver, because the drive back and forth has become too much with all the other responsibilities of my life, so he drives instead.  And oh how I need the good and quite of being passenger instead.


I'm still a workaholic, I know.  But I'm more mellow these days.  At least in these kinds of pockets of sunshine and pause and interruptions like today, I am.  I think maybe I'm finally learning, on these kinds of days, to watch for what God thought was so important that He would actually take me away from my 'work' to show me.

And driving home I was glad for choosing it.  And I was looking forward to engaging in the fun again tomorrow.

Mai Nit Noy

Thim is my own sponsored child.

There are 17 amazing Sponsors at Highview, who have committed to providing a monthly life altering contribution to the lives of 17 corresponding and equally amazing children who live at Hot Springs.

Thim's my girl.

She's beautiful. Tall, graceful and smiling always. I've watched her grow more and more into a young woman these past four years. She's 16 now. And beautiful. I mentioned that, I know. But obviously you can see that.

Her temperament is very even. In the six times I've been to visit, she's always been so gentle and pleasant and smiling. She seems to be a stabilizing factor for the other girls a lot of the time. Just quiet and confident and nurturing.

She's expressed her affections freely with me, but always with that quiet reserve. Until this time.

On the Sunday before we left just as we were waiting for church to begin, she found me waiting just outside where it was (relatively) a little cooler. I was looking over the garden, trying to take in my last moments, making them count, trying not to think about how hard the goodbyes will be. Thim came up behind me.

She had a bracelet she had made for me. This is a common symbol of affection and friendship in Thailand. In fact, this wasn't the first I'd received from her. But this time she is speaking to me in Thai and she is choking on her words.

'I give you so little. You give me so much.' She is crying.

I take the hands that had just finished tying the bracelet around my wrist, and draw us to face each other, close. I muster my brain around the rising emotion and speak the best Thai I could manage.

'Mai nit noy,' I say. 'Not little. Thim growing up beautiful young woman, not little. You loving God, worshiping God, not little. Thim grow up beautiful woman become teacher (she had told me once that this was her goal). I will come and see you teaching. If Thim has husband and have babies, I will come hold your babies.'

We're both crying now. And we're hugging, and I'm saying over and again words I now know well, "Ruk mahk, Thim." I love you so much, Thim. "Kit-teung makh." I will miss you so much.

I call Thim 'my girl' but she is in fact very much her own girl. She calls me 'mother' in her letters. Imagine that. Another gift that is anything but little. Mai nit noy.

In fact everything about Thim is mai nit noy.

And who am I that these things should be offered me?

Mountain Sunset Proclamations

How lovely on the mountains
are the feet of those who
bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!"
Isaiah 52:7

Dear Suradet and Yupa,

Your feet are lovely.

Respectfully,

Ruth Anne

Breathing Heaven

Who can breathe
in a moment like this?

Hot sun
Cool water
Hearts burning in worship passion

Decided to follow Jesu they did
Wanting to make it public
Wanting to obey what He said to do

Mark it
Here
Now
With this community of wonder

They waited for me to come for this
Unworthily given this gentle honour
To baptize beautifully new believers
To stand knee deep with my brother/friend/fellow warrior
And bear witness to spiritual rebirth

Oh my soul!
How much of heaven can you handle?

Pictures by Megan Ogilvie

Waiting for My Soul to Catch Up

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
Psalm 42:7

Jet lag is an odd sort of place to be. It's almost as if your body, mind and soul travel in different dimensions of time.

Your body gets home first, along with your luggage. And it's your body that has the first hot water shower and scrubs the red dirt stains off the bottom of your feet and starts the laundry and has a first non rice meal. And to be real honest, it's your body that kisses your husband hello and receives the enthusiastic hugs of grandchildren.

I think maybe your mind arrives a day or so later. Starts to answer a few emails, checks in with co-workers about items needing attention, puts your purse back together and gathers the papers you'll need to take into the office for 'just the morning' (I promise) tomorrow. It's your mind that responds to requests for reconnection with friends for coffee or a phone call. It's your mind that writes a blog.

But your soul? I'm honestly not sure exactly when my soul even leaves Thailand. Or if it's not still there right now, sitting quietly with Nut, letting the excruciating beauty of the waterfall wash over the deep that calls to Deep.

This sensation, of waiting for a while until my soul is ready to leave the intense and exotic spirituality of Thailand, and rejoin my abundant and satisfying life in Canada, is exaggerated this year. We went as a Team of 11, and with a significant task to accomplish in Day Camp. I celebrate with huge joy the work God has done in us, and the ways in which He was evident throughout the camp time. But the leadership and pastoral requirements were the priority, and my soul was respectfully but most definitely asked to wait its turn. Perhaps as we gain more experience in bigger team/task focused trips I will learn ways to inject my own soul time into the mix. But not this trip.

So if I seem vacant in the next few days, I am. Please forgive me, it's nothing personal. It's just me, waiting for my soul to get home.

My thanks to Megan Ogilvie for these incredible photos.

The Last Sunday Morning

Feeling an unusual weariness of soul this morning as I wait in these moments of preparation for Hot Springs worship service to begin.

I am speaking this morning. That's not unusual. "Hot Springs' spiritual mother" Suradet calls me, and he strongly encourages me to teach as much as possible when I am here.

And I like doing it. But I am also keenly aware of the inadequacies of my language skills and my lack of cultural context. On this trip, particularly, I feel I have not had time for that essence of being so essential for effective spiritual communication to any group of gathered souls.

There's more. I am not quite ready to turn my heart towards home, still greedy for more of this other home to be home for longer.

Father, empower my words this morning. Be my suffiency in all the inadequacies of my tongue and soul. And help my heart know You as home always.

Amen
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That Moment When You Realize It's Actually Happening Way Better Than You Imagined

Pictures: Children from neighbouring village get ready to ride home at the end of ESL Day Camp Day 3.

"We're here, and it's happening!"

This I say to myself several times a day since Monday, when ESL Day Camp began.

What was dreamed of in a visioning conversation with Suradet around the dinner table last year, and has been meticulously planned for over months of Team meetings in Canada, and eagerly prepared for on the Thailand side of things for a while already, has come to reality under a hot sky and God's gentle love.

I think the moments happen most strongly for me when we're singing. Beautiful Asian children smiling recklessly, doing the actions we taught them only yesterday with vigor and enthusiasm.

Or later, quietly, doing the puzzle. Or when a child just comes up beside you for a hug.

It's happening!

We're here making a difference and that's making a difference in each one of us.

ESL Day Camp. A new adventure.

When I was 11, I felt my first tug to Asia, beleiving God had called me to be a missionary. For such a long time I thought that had been a misunderstanding on my part.

But --

I'm here.

And it's happening.