Bread and Honey

An Open Letter of Thanks to the Women (and Men) of Grace Church's Ladies' Day Apart

2012-02-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Journeyers,

Saturday was a deep day for me.

Sharing the experience of the Ladies' Day Apart with you at Grace Presbyterian Church was truly a gift to my soul. Not only did I get to meet some remarkable kingdom servants, but I got to be present as God moved us and taught us and filled us.

Hiram was stellar! And his sensitivity to God's Spirit and his heart to serve brought a musical beauty and spiritual healing all on its own. I am enriched for having met him and having sat under his ministry.

The Team who pulled this together, under Wendy's leadership, was certainly one well-oiled, but also deeply Spirit-led machine! Our prayer time at the beginning of the day was so God-focused, and God-filling, it was almost a conference, a "day apart" in itself.

And for the men who served us, all day and in so many capacities, thank you! You brought a balance and beauty to what the community of faith is supposed to be for one another.

And in all of it, all of you, there was this spirit, this environment of gentleness and authenticity. I so loved that so many of you stopped me throughout the day to encourage me and, in some cases, tell me little bits of your own stories. That you cried with me and hugged me and honoured me with your transparency.

And mostly.......thank you, all of you, for making the Ladies' Day Apart such a safe place to share such a painful story. Thank you for coming with open hearts and minds to hear what God might be speaking to your own heart in the midst of your own stories, which I know are also painful. Thank you, those who did, for responding with courage and honesty to the promptings of His Spirit to take you further down your own pathway of forgiveness.

And in so doing you walk with me as I continue my pathway, and let me, in your gentle presence, take more steps forward.

But most of all, thank you for participating in the triumph God is forming out of the ashes of what was meant to destroy. For this I am grateful, deeply and humbly.

Blessings on all of you as you continue the journey.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven."

Gratefully,

Ruth Anne

Fresh Journal

2011-12-31T21:37:00.000-08:00

Pages empty, waiting to see where the story will take me
Clean and unmarked, new mercies for every morning on its way
And that's good
Because I need all the mercy I can get

Pen at the ready
Heart at the ready
Listening and waiting for beautiful direction only clear as I take each step
Write each line
Turn over each page
In faith hoping for a stronger, wiser, more humble me
To emerge at the other cover

I will record the events of the year
The important words of friends
The whispers of and to my soul
Hurts and healings
Wounds and wonders
Losses and impossible gains

Fresh new journal of journey
And it all begins today

Honestly!

2011-12-30T05:17:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I need to work on being more honest. I think. Maybe.

As New Year's Eve arrives, and with it that wonderful opportunity for some contemplative meditations and stuff, and given some recent relational reflections that are coming into focus for me....yes....I'm thinking about relational honesty and how it may be that some of my relationships have been lacking. My bad. Or is it?

While I like to consider myself a truth-telling person, I'm certainly not ready to rush into the kind of honesty that just "tells it like it is". Sometimes it feels like I should be good at frank, honest speech, given my age (some of my friends call this "old and bold") and the kind of work I do, where relationships of integrity are essential. But I've been the victim of other people's "honesty" and it's not been pleasant. I bear scars. I have also, from time to time, tended to the wounds of others who have been damaged by "honesty".

Add to this sense of woundedness, is this fact that I keep running into this "others' focused" kinds of teachings in the Bible that seem to encourage me to keep quiet. Like "A man's wisdom give him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense." Proverbs 19:11

And, as my wise friend Erin reminds me, I am grateful for those in my life who've overlooked MY offenses!

Then there's the cultural consideration that my limited exposure to South East Asia provides me. In Thailand there is no such thing as "relational honesty" as we understand it in North America. Respect and deference are the primary values. One would never insult and violate another by confronting someone about an offense directly. Any corrective word needs to go through another. That's respectful. "Relational honesty" is incredibly rude in that context. Are they right and we're wrong?

So....I'm curious. How do I practice honesty AND overlook an offense?

Any ideas?

I'd appreciate your honest feed back :).

Post-Christmas With The Crank

2011-12-29T01:15:00.000-08:00

It's not exactly been what I was expecting.

These "down-time" days between Christmas and New Year's have, in the past, been just as eagerly anticipated as all the fun, festivities and worship of the weeks leading up to and including Christmas Day. A time for resting, coming away, being quiet.

For Ken and I, it's also been a chance to reconnect and say I love you in more than just the fleeting ways one often defaults to in a busy household and a busy life. Just those few nothing-on-the-calendar days can deposit so much into the cherishing account. Lovely. Needful.

But this year's been different.

Leading up to Christmas - over the top! We all worked hard, both at home and at church, to make things wonderful and beautiful and Christmasful. And it was worth it. Decorations up early, setting the stage. Strong and well spoken Christmas series for Sunday mornings. Stellar, redemptive Staff and Spouses Dinner at our house on the 16th. Three performances this year of Let It Be Christmas, with record attendance totaling 430. Watching groups of people working together for the common good, being generous and gracious and making all out investments in the lives of others. Hearing Abby recite the pieces of the Christmas story, all throughout the season, as her Dad led the family Advent liturgies. Being as much as possible altogether for all of Christmas Day - a gift this family does not take for granted. I am grateful for it all. Christmas 2011 will be remembered with affection and deep satisfaction.

It's this post-Christmas time that's been less than what, so badly it feels, I need it to be. An infectious 'something' with one of the kids required the cancellation of an important connect for Ken and I, and rearrangements in who would travel where to what over the next two days after Christmas. A cold I'd been able to ward off during the pre-Christmas activity, has won over now, not in a severe way, but just enough to make me feel really tired. The three day privilege of acting as full-time Gramma, that I eagerly volunteered for, has revealed that I have lost that skill of finding meaningful but completely interruptable things to do while delightful small children play at my feet for extended periods of time.

Add to that a pre-Christmas, perceived-by-me relational snub that feels way bigger than it probably is, and that the holidays make difficult to follow up on, and I am, quite frankly, well.....cranky. I do not feel any after Christmas glow. Like, really don't. And I know that all too soon, I will be back into the swing of what the new year holds, knowing some of the challenges that face me once I step foot into my office on January 3rd, and the energies this will require....and....yeah....cranky.

And I write about this not to complain, because the truth is I have so much abundance in my life that complaining is truly wrong. And being cranky in the middle of it seems wrong. So maybe I'm writing to confess the crankiness, in hopes that will help it go away. Or to acknowledge that down days of disappointment and loneliness can still happen in the midst of an abundant life. And to help me remember this when engaging with people who struggle with so much more than I do, and are heroically NOT cranky.

And anyways, I'm sustained.

I was reminded of that as I sat crankily beside the fire during nap time yesterday, crying and feeling sorry for myself. "I am he, I am he who will sustain you." Isaiah 46:4. Oh, how gentle is this God who comes to sit beside the crank.

And now today begins with nothing particularly different planned than yesterday. So we'll see. I still feel cranky as I get myself up. But I think this could be another great day to let Him be my sustaining God. And that's a post-Christmas gift I can be grateful for.

Oh For Joy

2011-12-23T23:42:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve.

The day of it already starts to hum with the joy, even before it's hardly begun. It's the first thing I think in my waking up, and I stretch into the prayer that will orient my day around the Yahweh who brought the joy to the world in the first place, the manger place.

Just think of it! God wraps our injured flesh around Himself and lays down in humility to begin His rescue plan. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain....except me. You and me. Did all this for that. Keeping promises whispered to prophets and farmers and kings, who knew He was coming, just not exactly how or when, but spoke the joy out of time and ahead of time.

Redemption's bell is rung, and you can't un-ring a bell, not ever. Instead it peels, sending a ribbon of restoration and hope and peace and joy, out ahead of itself toward a dark day of non-joyful joyfulness where Godman seals the deal in blood. Peeling forward, joy continues its power play straight into death. And wins!

And there's a party. All the time, there's a party. Only, at this time of year we call the party Christmas.

And today it's Christmas Eve. And, oh the joy, the freedom joy, the peace joy, the generous joy, that wraps the last gifts, and gets tomorrow's breakfast ready, and sets the table for the feasting, and builds a fire to be ready, and heads down to the church to be together in joy with just so many others (So many! And that in itself is an entirely related and entirely other kind of joy!).....who want to let it be Christmas already!

Christmas Eve. The day vibrates with joy. It can't help itself.

Me neither.

Almost Christmas Peace

2011-12-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

If I could I'd fix it all
But He could and He doesn't
Not now, not yet

We are left in the tension between
Destiny and reality
Knowing incompletely
Wondering
We're left wondering in our faith
Which is why they call it faith

If I could I'd make peace mandatory
For every human person
Regardless
No torment of the deeper places
No worrying
About anything

But He could and He doesn't
Not now, not yet

We're left in the tension of choosing it
Or not

Peace as a chosen state
Instead of the result of agreeable circumstance
Peace in the midst of sensationally disagreeable circumstance
Possible choice

But we forget
Or we don't know
Or we don't know how
So we negate available peace
And complain instead

If I could I'd make everyone choose peace
But then
It wouldn't be a choice

Peace on earth
A Christmas pronouncement
That begins in my own mind
With my own soul
And sparkles quietly outward
I hope it does

I hope the peace I choose
Brings peace to others
By proxy

That's how peace on earth can be

So sleep well these pre-Christmas nights
Heavenly
Getting ready
for the Prince of it

In The Morning

2011-12-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
In the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.

Psalm 5:3

I admit it.
I am a morning person.
Love the new mercies of the sunrise,
The fresh moments waiting,
Promises waiting to be unfolded.

In the morning God is not any nearer
But my soul is more still
And my ears more eager to listen.

Even frosty dawns bring life and light
To a world waking under God's watchful eye.

Old Mirrors

2011-11-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

I found myself standing there again this morning. That now more familiar territory of actually knowing and liking myself, and standing in the quiet confidence of it.

It's a little weird to be just arriving here by now. I'm 54, a Gramma, having raised 2 children before that, lived an already full life. I've weathered ministry storms of catastrophic proportions. I'm at a season of life where you might think one would have figured out the whole self-identity thing long ago. But my journey hasn't been a normal one, particularly not in the venue of "career". It's taken a longer, roundabout route for me to be known as and know myself as Pastor. And so, I find that I get to experience this sense of self-discovery in 'younger' ways, like I was still a 20-something maybe. I don't mind. I think it's keeping me from being too settled just yet.

This morning it happened as I listened to two people in conversation, who knew I was there and visually included me, but were really having their own dialogue, and I didn't interrupt. They were talking about the essence of what I do and who I am, the art of preaching particularly. Not totally in a specific to Ruth Anne kind of way, but talking about me just the same, smiling.

One of them was from my past and one, Lord willing, will very likely be a significant part of my future. One has known me and shaped me and has offered perceptions of me to me for a long time, having allowed me to partner with and learn from, but coming from a history of intimately knowing my insecure, unactualized self. The other, only recently being part of the kind of work we do together, has only ever seen me at this later stage of life, and perceives me quite differently. And as I stood there on the fringe of their talking, it was like being able to see both me's.

Fascinating.

I wonder if for too long I've let people hold up old mirrors, and believed that the reflection there was still valid. At the cottage there are some old mirrors, all veined and distorted, kind of cool, I guess, but not good for getting a clear picture of your face. If I accepted what came to me from that mirror, I would not feel very good about myself. Actually, I'd hardly really be able to see myself as I am today, I think. Looking into that mirror, for instance, I lack wisdom and discernment, don't know what I'm doing, am a pushover for being manipulated into all manner of ways of doing what others should do, and apparently need to be corrected lots...like lots. The old mirrors want to suggest that I'm too sensitive, too inexperienced, and don't have what it takes to lead...and that this picture is 'me'. They might call on how long they've known me to justify what they are reflecting back to me is me, now.

And a lot that list of what they've seen in years past has been true. Growing up is hard to do. It's a rough job making us holy along the way. And I will always and ever be grateful for those who have put up with my immaturity and insecurity and let me stumble along with them towards this becoming of me.

But these days, others are holding up newer mirrors. Who I am now is being reflected back to me by people who are engaging with me now, and the picture is very different, it seems. Not without imperfections. Heaven forbid I don't have people around me that can still speak into that. But recently, just in the past three weeks especially, I've been described in very affirming ways by a variety of people in very different settings. Really? I'm just shaking my head and peering closer into these new mirrors.

Hey! I think I like me!

Like I said. This should be basic. Should be something I figured out a long time ago. But, oh well, I'm just getting to it now.

And reason this matters isn't just about how I'm liking feeling this way, although it's kind of fun. It's about how knowing who I am and being confident in the new reflections helps me, in turn, speak positively into the lives of others. Knowing me and being okay with me means I don't have to get tangled up in trying to please past mentors. Knowing me and liking me means I can be free to preach with more authenticity, more transparency. Knowing me and celebrating me means I can relax in the presence of others and more fully engage with their spirits, without agenda or judgment. Knowing me and embracing me means I have more energy to hold up new mirrors to others, and hopefully reflect back the wonderful beauty their soul's potential.

And so, back to the conversation.....I left it joyful.

We haven't thrown out the old mirrors at the cottage. They're vintage. They remind us of where we've come from and the treasured faces of family before us who peered at themselves when the mirrors were new. There's heritage in those old mirrors, and I love them....a lot.

But I am me now.

And I'm liking this.

Christmas Spirit Whisperings

2011-11-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

Quiet preparations, unhurried, begin
And gradually Spirit whispers into me
"O come and adore again."

So I do
The now frosted sunrise
Vanilla of candles
Small, warm lights on green
Hand made messages of Joy to mail
Gifts, careful-bought and tucked away hiding

Words crafted to Let It Be Christmas
Praying, hoping that they bring something new, inspiring, lifting
Prayers on knees in the quiet of early, early Sunday morning
Before anyone else arrives

O Generous Father
Courageous Son
Pervasive Spirit
Come again to us

Make us ready

A Not So Feminist Rant

2011-11-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

There's healing happening for me in what's on at Highview this Sunday.

Dr. Bill Webb, author, conference speaker, professor and leading theologian in understanding redemptive Christianity, will be speaking about those troubling texts in our Bible regarding women and what they are and are not supposed to be doing in Christ's church. This is part of a broader series of three weeks, covering other weird and wacky parts of Scripture (slavery texts and war texts), and was first imagined and planned for way back last March.

I knew in advance this would be a good thing for Highview. First, to have Bill share his expertise and insights on these matters is no small deal, given his status in the academic community, and the scope of his influence in shaping contemporary Christian thought. We are truly humbled and honoured to have him teach us these three weeks.

And, of course there's the matter of helping us know better how to read our Bibles, and not to be afraid of the parts that seem troubling to us. Bill is truly adept at taking complex textual analysis and making it understandable to regular people who sincerely want to live for Jesus.

But I'm surprised at how I am personally responding on an emotional level as I anticipate the particular session this week. As much as I would like to believe I am relaxed and confident in my femaleness as a spiritual leader, I go deeper and find something trembling there....with anticipation.

Yes! This Sunday something very personal will be affirmed! It's okay to be me. It's okay to be a woman AND to lead a spiritual community!

The story of my journey to the position of pastor is one where the facts and events are fairly well known; at least within the scope of the church, and the friends who've walked this way with me. There was a church-merger, where an egalitarian position on the role of women in leadership was adopted. Then, a year on the sidelines, while the new church found its leadership stride, but without "forcing" a female Elder on anyone. Then a gradual stepping into increments of greater responsibility as we grew beyond the sum of our parts into a new entity.

In the years that followed, there was the departure of first one, then another male colleague, and the decision on the part of the church itself to invite me to step into the void and take the lead as senior pastor. All the while, there has been and continues to be the ongoing educational piece as I seek to "retrofit" by means of grad studies. In all, I am acutely aware of the risks others have been willing to take as I have been embraced to lead by a church bold enough to stand differently in the realm of fairly traditional evangelicals.

Yet, as affirming as the broader picture my story paints, it hasn't come without personal woundings.

Overt patronizing, malicious gossip, outright rejection, insulting job offers. Requests to perhaps avoid talking about what I do "at the church" and just talk about my husband and children, when being interviewed for a certain mission's video. Requests to not mention at all that I am a pastor when being introduced at certain functions. The accusation that a significant church crisis was God's judgment on the church for having a female pastor. When seeking to process these wounds with other male colleagues, being told that I was making it all up. And the worst of it, to be accused of dishonouring the Father and His Word, when in truth I would die for love of Him. I need to be honest, even as the sharpness of each lessens, these wounds kind of wear on me after a while. If I'm not careful, they tend to pile up in my soul.

I've never mounted the soap box. And to the best of my knowledge, I've never pressed my own agenda. I only wanted to let God make me into all He had in mind when He created me. All of it. Fully surrendered. Here I am God, let's go as far as You say. I'm Yours. Isn't that what fully devoted followers of Christ are supposed to do?

At the beginning of that journey of surrender, I would not have considered it could take me into the realm of serving Him as a pastor. But it did. So here I am.

And that's why this Sunday seems like a marking moment somehow. One of the Church's brightest and best theologians will be at the church I now pastor to show why the Bible redemptively supports who I am and what I do. And I rejoice on behalf of my sister theologians, pastors and leaders as well, both those serving right now and those in the wings waiting.

And it seems so right and fresh and good and energetic and....healing.

And I am grateful. I am grateful for the woundings and sacrifices of Bill Webb and others who have taken more heat than I ever will, and do so courageously and with great grace. For what they've lost to stay true to what they are convinced of, I am profoundly sad, but deeply grateful.

And to a patient God who somehow makes His plans and purposes prevail in spite of what should not be, I am eternally and truly devoted.

Embracing the Disruption

2011-11-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

It's weird to be home on a Wednesday.

Wasn't expecting this, really. When I was booked for a day surgery procedure, on a Tuesday, to blast away a nuisance kidney stone that had found a cozy little spot in one of my "tubes", I called the doctor's office to see what the recovery time might be. Return to work on Wednesday? No problem. Just don't do any heavy lifting.

However. At the hospital I was reminded that there's this little thing about not driving or being by yourself for 24 hours after anesthesia. Oh. And then, my body is telling me it needs to recover from all that "action" inside. Okay then!

So, here I am, at home, with my faithful hero Ken, both of us having had to rearrange our Wednesdays at the last minute.

And I find I'm quite okay with that.

That may seem obvious to most. But for us Type A, highly structured, I-have-my-week-all-laid-out-so-don't-mess-with-it individuals, this kind of disruption can wreck havoc on the soul. Normally this kind of hiccup in my week would send me on a rant, complaining how every time I try to lay out a schedule of balance and sanity, something comes up to seriously disrupt the plan. The nerve!

But maybe, just maybe, I'm growing in spirit. Because today, and throughout this entire episode with one nasty little beastie of a kidney stone, I find I am able to embrace the disruption. In fact, I am very, very grateful that I have not experienced the kind of pain that is often described for kidney stones, or for the procedure I've just had. I'm so glad for flexible and understanding colleagues who are willing to change their own well-laid out week, to accommodate me, and who express care and concern over any kind of annoyance this certainly brings them. I am over the top loving it that my husband Ken has willingly and without complaint stayed home to be with me - and OFFERED a quick Tim's run this morning! And how this disruption has actually provided us with a rare space of hours in a row to be quiet together in our family room with a fire on.

I am encouraged and affirmed by the prayers of family and friends. My Mom prayed over me on Sunday when we visited - such a blessing to be prayed over by a parent. And there are used-to-be orphans praying for me from half way around the world, which I still find astonishing. And, of course, the wonder of all the others in between who've emailed or texted or called just simply to say that they cared.

Isn't all of that a gift? Why wouldn't I embrace the gifts of this disruption?

I'm glad I'm growing, but a little sad too, for all the gifts I've missed before. I regret my previous tirades, endured by those around me. Sure, I want to be remembered as a diligent and faithful worker. But hopefully, from now on, I'll be able to make some new memories of a more gentler, less self-centered person.

Someone who can embrace disruptions with grace.

Catching My Breath Between God-Sightings

2011-10-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a breath-taking two days.
Back to back to back.
Conversations, meetings, visits, introductions, sessions, confrontations, Scripture.
Seems like it started first thing Wednesday morning and just wouldn't quit, right up to just before supper tonight (Thursday).

God-sightings.

Funny. I remain convinced for some reason, that I actually do have control over how any given day will go. It's an illusion, I know, utilizing the mirrors of Outlook Calendar, my Blackberry and a weekly list of what needs to be done. Yet, in the last two days so much of that list has NOT been checked off.

Today especially.

Thought it might be a great day to hunker down into my office and pull off some much needed paperwork, emails, manuscripts, and other assorted concentration-intensive aspects of what I do.

But when I first woke up this morning, following an already surprising Wednesday, I realized what was actually unfolding for the day. Seemed like it was going to involve very little office time after all. So I decided to spare myself the frustration and enjoy what God had in mind instead. Probably sounds rather obvious to you, but for me, the way I'm wired, this is a mini, in-my-head kind of miracle.

I can't really give you the play by play of these past 48 hours. The Divine would get lost in the details. But the fact is, as I moved through these two days, He breathed into all of it, every nook and cranny with a redemptive activity that was nothing short of stunning.

Not a little part of all this was a visit from Asia's Hope's incredible National Director for Thailand, Tutu Bee and her delightful husband Dan. Their stories, both as individuals and as a couple, are full of God, full of compassion, full of freedom, full of hope. It's impossible to calculate the number of lives that have been rescued from despair and degradation because of the life and legacy of Tutu. It's impossible to imagine how much more God will do through them now as a couple, seeking to serve God on behalf of children in South East Asia. The time we spent together as a church was rich, warm, gut-inspiring. Then, for me, our meals together, sharing each other with each other, was like taking a long drink on a hot dry day. My spirit is so refreshed.

On top of Tutu and Dan's visit, I've also seen

the strength of a soul surrendered to God's sovereignty in the face of death,

been loved in the translated words of more than a dozen hand written letters,

been affirmed by the prayers of brother-Elders,

been awed by the synergy of spirit-led leadership development planning,

and watched God (was that Him grinning?) bring impossible but very welcome elephants into the room.

I drove home at the end of it full of joy and wondering at the undeserved blessings of the One who lets me do this pastoring gig - especially the part where I get to tag along to watch Him do His thing.

Tonight, I just need to be quiet, catch my breath, and wonder what's He's up to for tomorrow.

A Simple Gratitude

2011-10-09T15:58:00.001-07:00

It's been a quiet Thanksgiving in some ways, and that's been great. Yesterday, it was "just us" [minus one and I'm letting those longings be God's deal], with all three grandchildren and a walk in the maple bush right near our house. Loved it. Gentle, together, outside with the Creator....and my family.

Shouldn't be, really. So much would have been our undoing were it not for that same Creator creating in us room for each other, and forgiveness, and acceptance. I am grateful this Thanksgiving that I have been forgiven by my children for the inadequacies of my mothering, and that by now they still love me enough to want to take a Thanksgiving walk together. So grateful for that.

I am grateful for how that love is also the connecting wire to three (so far) stellar little human beings that mystically carry some of my DNA and totally carry my heart. My gratitude for that is unspeakable.

I am grateful for a husband who has walked walks with me for 33 years plus and still serves me in his willingness to match his stride to mine, both actually and metaphorically, as we follow what has at times been a very winding life-road.

I am grateful for the harshness that's come to us in different ways, meant to break us up, but somehow having been used to bind us tight. And the missing one too. In time. I know it, because of how He's proven Himself faithful.

Simply walking in a bush together on Thanksgiving.

Redemption Song

2011-10-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

Today I celebrate all that has been redeemed for my friend BJ. Last month marked the miracle of her first year of sobriety.

What a gift to have journied with her these past 22 years, to see how strong love is and to know such loyalty and truth from such a friend!

Blessings and strength to you, dear heart. May you press onward into all the abundance that God still longs to give you.

Best Of Both

2011-08-31T06:53:00.000-07:00

Ken and I have been able to sneak back up to the cottage for a completely "exta bonus" three days, finishing off August in Georgian Bay style. What a gift!

It's not a holiday, per se; both of us brought work with us, and have kept in touch with faithful cohorts at home via the wonders of modern technology.

Still, writing sermons (my main objective for these days) is so inspiring in the so-quiet of a cottage morning, where my concentration is broken only by an eager visit from the chipmunk looking for breakfast, or the loud splash of that huge bass that repeatedly shows off his tricks for me.

So. Best of both worlds. It's such a happy thing to be here again, starting my morning with a cup of tea on the deck. AND it's such a happy thing to be engaged in meaningful work with sensational people and to be looking forward to all that's coming this fall.

I feel so full of blessings these days. This is not in the absence of challenge and heartbreak, both my own and the people I serve and love. The stories of our lives intertwined include difficult chapters all along the way. But there's a deeper understanding of the promised endings of things, and as I meditate on those promises, I am more and more convinced that good prevails.

I can rest in that conviction....and look out over the water or open the door to my office - either way, starting my day in confident expectation. Because God's holiness shines brilliantly into souls and out beyond time and space.

And I get to muse on these things on the dock. Quiet happiness. Gentle joy. Here and home, both feeling like home.

Best of both.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

I Like to Be Right

2011-08-01T17:52:00.001-07:00

I didn't know this before, but apparently there's a boy's side and a girl's side to the blue plastic teeter totter in our backyard. I was informed of this little known fact by my 5 year old granddaughter, Abby, this afternoon.

She and her brother Zachary were up and downing quite successfully - part of our wonderful hours outside on this perfect long weekend - when suddenly Abby stopped the action, feet planted firmly on either side of her end.

"Wait!" she said, "We're on the wrong sides!" She said this rather decidedly, and with a clear tone of this being something that required immediate rectifying. I tried to explain that there really were no "sides" to teeter totters, but she bent her small head around to check what turned out to be a label on the one side of the toy. "There! There's the girl side and there's the boy side."

Sure enough, there was the label, showing two children, one smiling girl, and one smiling boy. And yes, Abby and Zachary were on the "wrong sides.". Well then.

Since Zachary is just two and it takes a bit more effort for him to climb on and off the teeter totter, and since we had, after all, just got started, I suggested that it really didn't matter who sat on what side, and let's just stay the way we are. But Abby was insistent. Helping Zachary do the switch, she looked at me, and said matter-of-factly, but without any cheekiness or attitude, "I like to be right."

So you do, my dear. And you come by it quite honestly, I'm afraid. First born female of a first born female of a first born female. If that's not a recipe for perfectionist tendencies, I don't know what is. Good thing both her mother and her grandmother are well aware of the dangers of our shared temperament, and have committed ourselves to the lifelong pursuit of balance, loosening the ropes, and, every once in a while and on purpose, colouring outside of the lines. And even though I am far from getting this down pat, hopefully, as Abby's personality continues to show itself, she and I can keep on learning together how to function and thrive, in health and wholeness, in a far from perfect world.

Still.....I admit to an appropriate degree of delight in her statement. Yes! Oh Honey, I like to be right too! Feels good to live in order and clarity. There's joy in truth and strength in obedience - to the right things of course. When it comes together, and there's a straightness to the path, and a goodness to the action, and a godliness to the choice, in those moments it's supposed to feel deeply and passionately right, even when it might also be so very hard to do. It's paths of righteousness that the psalmist is so glad his Gentle Shepherd guides him along.

And while the abuses of perfectionism can be brutal, please, my dearest child, do not ever stop liking being 'right'. Not, of course, in the way that has to win every argument or pridefully thinks you have all the answers. That's something entirely different. But this joy in doing it properly....delight in it. Don't think you have to "fix" this desire to be right. It's who God created you to be. And He wants to use it for Him.

In my recent ponderings about self awareness and self care, I am embracing my perfectionism these days. Reintroducing it as a means by which I can reduce some of the stresses that tend to make me a less gentle person than I want to be. I know this may sound somewhat contradictory, but the truth is, if I am allowed the time and space to do things "right", the world gets a better me. And when I strive to "chill" or "let it go" too much, if I give way to the mess and disorder for too long, try to live in it as if it were the norm, even if I think I'm doing that to accommodate others, I end up being a much paler version of myself.

So, I'm liking this about me again. But the trick is - and here Abby has it - in order to do this, I have to stop the teeter totter, take the time, help those around me who need help so I don't just dump them in the grass, and get myself situated properly. From time to time I will have to plant my feet firmly on the ground, bring the action to a halt, and make things right. Spend some time sitting quietly beside some water. Write slowly in my journal, so my penmanship is pretty again. Stop talking, and just listen. Like that.

Does it matter what side of the teeter totter you're on?

It might.

The Gift I Gave Myself

2011-07-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon.

It's an unfamiliar familiarity after spending 5 weeks with no work-related schedules - no anything-related schedules - to give you any sense of the beginnings and endings of work weeks or the onset of ...ahhhh....the weekend.

But here I am. Friday afternoon of the first week back, and feeling almost the same as if I was still at the cottage. Well, no. Just sat outside for a bit with my journal and....well....even with my chair turned toward the farmer's field.....being as close as we are to the roundabout isn't ANYTHING like being on the deck. Especially when there's a fender bender and somebody really loses their temper. Hoooo!

Even so, it's this thing, this understanding or something, that I am ending off the first week back in as UNpressurized a state as I can remember ending a work week in......well, forever. And I'm pretty sure it's because of the gift I gave myself.

I had determined, when I still was on the deck, that this first week back I would do nothing but that which served my soul's need for order and clarity and respect. I respected myself this week. What that meant was that I had NO meetings. I did celebrate a friend's birthday. I did reconnect with another friend over coffee. And I enjoyed a breakfast with the Elders of Highview, just to be glad to be with them again and show them my tan as proof of the last 5 weeks of resting. But I held back on anything that would pull or push or clutter or twist or muddy....or put anything new on my list. Just this week.

And what a great gift that has been. Without rushing, I have cleaned out files, set up new binders, prayed over and researched sermons for dates far away. I have reordered books on shelves, read and journalled outside, and pondered my academic goals online. Without rushing...did I mention that?

At home I sat and watched small children play in the pool, read stories, purged my closet AND took it all away to the Salvation Army. I cleaned out some cluttered spaces and bought a new swim bag and watched TV. Had a lovely, long conversation with my remarkable daughter. Played a game of Super Scrabble with my ferociously competitive husband (who is also remarkable in many ways, just ferociously competitive). Ate ice cream. Yeah...like that.

And coming to the end of this week, I'm thinking, I ought to give myself this gift every once in a while. A no meeting week. A week devoted to only that which serves my soul's need for order and clarity and respect. Because, as insignificant as all that may sound (Boring!!!! as one of my friends complains loudly), it's exactly what I need to keep me grounded.

It certainly was a fabulous way to end my time of resting at the cottage and prepare for a more energized re-engagement in life. Which I am looking forward to, by the way......after the long holiday weekend :).

Hope your summer is providing LOTS of opportunities to respect your own soul, whatever that might look like.

Safe weekend, everyone.

Best For Last

2011-07-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

I am out on the deck finishing up a supper of grilled chicken and tomato. Softly, Steve Bell's "On the Wings of an Eagle" plays into the breeze, and obligingly, as if to provide me with a real live multimedia show, an osprey floats on a current above. A chipmunk has joined me, curious to know if anything on my plate might suit his tastes. On the counter inside is about three cups of blueberries gathered this afternoon, and I'm trying to decide if I'll be taking them all home with me, or I'll sneak some for dessert tonight.

The sun keeps coming out from behind some rather dubious clouds, leaving vibrant streaks of late sun touching the tree tops across the channel, then shooting out across the top, back and forth like that.

That same breeze the osprey is floating on is delicious on my skin against the heat of this day. I breathe in slowly, deeply, and can feel the fresh oxygen rushing, it seems, to every gentle cell in my body. The stillness of my soul is profound.

I would say that all this is happening for me so vividly in these moments because they are among the last of my time here at the cottage this summer, and I am trying to grab as much of them as I can. Well....yes. But the truth is that all these moments register as vivid and wonderful the whole time I'm here - all of them. I am fully present in them all, grateful for their real time reality against the thousand thoughts of wishing for them all winter long. In some parts of me, I am most alive, most in touch with the me of me, when I am here.

And this last week has been the best of it. This does not mean that the weekend with my daughter and two of our grandkids wasn't sensational. It was! And Abby catching frogs, and Zachary's glee-intensity over the chipmunks were so much fun!

I also thoroughly enjoyed having our Staff Team up for those few days, and the truly memorable sunset baptism for Paula.

And I have to say that in 33 years of marriage, plus 5 summers coming to Georgian Bay before that, this year, the time Ken and I had alone? Beautiful!

But it seems that God has left the best for last. It hasn't really been until these past five days alone that I've been able to really hunker down and listen to all He had in mind to chat with me about. Five weeks, and it took until now to quiet down enough. But we did get to it, eventually.

First, I don't do conflict very well. Hardly news to most who know my passion for peace, and the mother-part of me that "just wants everyone to get along!". But this last week on my own, I've been able to listen, and see how this could be hindering some decision making processes and the team dynamics of the people I lead.

Second, my neglect of self care is becoming more of a threat to myself, my life's work, and all those I love and lead, as I get older. Hard fact, but there it is. I'm 54 and I just can't "do" as much dysfunction as I used to and get away with it. My sin of pushing too hard is producing increasingly damaging consequences for myself and others, and it needs to stop. And my pride has been blinding me to this.

Third, I've been worrying again, big time. Letting life's challenges threaten me, forgetting that I have an ENORMOUS God! The engery waste of this is criminal.

And lastly, (at least of the things I'm willing to blog about), I've been told to WAIT and LISTEN. Don't even really know exactly what that means yet. But everytime I would even begin to approach God with questions of direction and guidance, where the church, or my own minisrty needs to go from here, those two words would crowd right into my brain. They're all over my journal. WAIT. LISTEN.

So tomorrow I head home with all of that packed lovingly into my soul.

And tonight I sit on the deck,
resting in the vividness of it all,
revelling in God's breathy nearness.
And deeply, deeply grateful.
He's saved the best for last this year.
And I thank Him.

There are only two places on this planet for which my heart aches when I am not there.

This is one of them.
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Breathless

2011-07-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

Breathless I am beside the water in the quiet so holy I barely know where I end and the everything of it begins.

Silent I am within the evening in the hot so still I barely can stand the sunset on my face it burns.

And then it's gone.
But not.
And the bullfrog breaks the spell, and a boat going by.

But for a moment there, I caught You, Holy Hush Almighty, and kept myself as still as I could.....

To let You fill me with it, again.
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Turtle Breaths

2011-07-08T18:06:00.001-07:00

Her name is Tamu.

She's a snapping turtle, about 10 years old if I'm reading the nature books right. She's probably about the size of a large dinner plate across her shell, but I'm only guessing that by the size of her head.

Tamu hangs with me in the evenings, between the dock and the shoal. She's a shy gal, keeping her distance mostly. But I'm thinking that my reputation on the dock of being quiet and still is helping her trust me more. She's popping her head up just a little closer each time.

Tonight I can hear her breathing.

You know it's quiet when you can hear a turtle breathing.

When I'm here on the dock, I realize how noisy my life is at home. Not just the city stuff, but my soul. Sometimes there's so much going on, I'm not even sure I'm breathing, spiritually. I can't hear the breaths of my soul.

So I'm glad for Tamu, and for being so quiet and still on the dock. And how lovely to the ears of my soul are the breaths of a turtle.
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First Ripe Blueberry Sighted!!

2011-07-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Well, that just about decided what I'm doing for the rest of my holidays :)!!
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Heaven Too?

2011-07-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Hard to imagine a more perfect holiday weekend.

Despite brutal traffic on Friday, Kristyn and the kids arrived with smiles, eager for the boat ride that would blow all the driving and city tensions away. They must have brought summer with them, because the coolish temperatures we'd been having up here so far, surrendered to the sun's brilliance through an impossibly blue sky.

And it was summer all weekend. We even finally got in the water, although I admit, it was Abby who led that campaign. Such a cottage natural, that girl! She was in the water as much as possible, with an unfortunate problem -- how to keep from choking when you can't stop smiling and laughing just from the sheer joy of it.

Zachary loved the chipmunks, and was remarkably still and quiet, once he realized that a toddler's wild dance and shrieks of delight are somewhat counterproductive. Of course he was so happy to see his Grandad!! Especially because Grandad has really fun kinds of cereals and other breakfast treats that Mommy, who's getting a chance to sleep in, doesn't.

Loved having my daughter here. Wish it could be longer. Someday, maybe next year, it can be. And that way, after the kids are in bed, we can have even more games of Scrabble, and cups of tea, and long talks about deeply important things, and side clutching laughing fits about random, "you had to be there" silly things. And she would get the kind of holiday she so definitely deserves, but really hasn't been able to have for some time now.

The weather was still perfect Sunday morning, for the opening service of Cognashene Community Church, a hearty congregation of cottagers that have been meeting together for over 100 years. Well, us and our ancestors. I have the enormous privilege of leading the first service of each season; always a meaningful time, but this year there was an extra sense of God's Spirit. This was particularly felt as we met over in the Tranquility Garden to dedicate the plaques of four individuals who have left us since last year. The love and comfort that was so freely expressed to the grieving families was a beauty to match the place.

For the whole of it then, the canoe rides and birthday cake and frogs and "fishing" and BBQ meals and happy chaos of small children about....yes, a perfect weekend.

Except...Ken's vacation time is done, and he went home with the crew today. What a easy, joyful time we had together for our time alone this year. In 33 years of marriage there are certainly going to be times of stress and challenge and difficulty. This was not one of them. I started missing him the moment the boat disappeared down the channel.

So, a perfect weekend. Almost. The only better way it could be, a better way I am asking God for, in His time and His plan, is to have everyone, our whole family, here together at one time. It's a common desire of those of us with grown children and grandchildren. But it's a tall order for us. There are lots of hoops to jump through yet, and some significant changes required on various fronts. I'd say it was impossible even...if God wasn't involved. But He is, and I watch Him do impossible things, everyday. So, we'll see.

And now....I eagerly step into that holy place my Loving Shepherd has prepared for me. Solitude, for the next five days.

There's that saying, that exclamation of gratitude and amazement, do you know it? "All this, and Heaven too?!!!"

Yeah, that's me, right now.
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Ten Minutes Two Frogs

2011-07-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

It is fabulous to have Kristyn and the kids up for Canada Day weekend! And Abby, true to her naturalist's heart, was on our little beach right away. With nothing but a plastic container and her bare hands, this five year old nature girl has caught two frogs! This talent she does NOT get from her Mother :).
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Safe

2011-06-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight I am suddenly overwhelmed with the safety of this place.

For all of life's harshness, there is the piercing gentleness of the loon's sympathizing melancholy.

For all the rough waters, the storms you didn't see coming, there's the exquisite calm of the bay at sundown.

For all the crazy ways our crazy lives make for crazy-making hurry, there is here, by the water's edge, something holy -- time.

And it seems that it comes around me like a force field, a barrier, a castle's moat. Here, I am away and safe for long enough to rest and heal and find my soul again.
Not crushed.
Not in despair.
Not abandoned.
Not destroyed.

(2 Corinthians 4:7-10).

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Celebrating Abby

2011-06-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

Dinosaurs and caterpillars.
Fairies and kitties.
Cuddles with Gramma on a Saturday morning, lazy.

Exquisite laughing.
Favourite pajamas.
Turning dandelion extractions into grand adventures.

A thousand kisses, like this...
Loving you all the way to the moon and never back!
Twirly dresses and favourite blue jeans.

Purple and pony tails and practicing ballet.
And making "Gramma's home!" such a trumpeted event.

Being all you all the time in that wonderful five year old way that nuances so vividly, so honestly, with a capacity to love that makes this older heart remember that that's what it's all about.

Keep imagining it, Sweetie, that sensational world you play in. Thank you for inviting me into it, to play with you, and love with you.
Keep imagining, and in all the ways that matter, as you grow and are unleashed to be all God created you to be, you will make the best parts of your five year old world come true for those He gives you to love and lead.

Happy Birthday Abby girl! What a gift you are to my heart.

Gramma
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Soon

2011-06-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

Just a few more days of sunshine, with the odd shower thrown in. Yup, that oughta do it!
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Returning to Cottage Normal...Almost

2011-06-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

It was a perfect day for putzing, rainy and cool. So Ken putz'd at the back with plumbing, and I putz'd at the front with construction clutter and random furniture placement. When we were done, the washing machine was ready for the next sunny day, and the main room was more habitable.

Caught two mice last night, saw a huge fish jump out of the water, had a nap....yup, starting to ease back into "cottage normal".

it is wonderful to have the most disruptive part of the bathroom project done. And even more wonderful to have been able to work through the cramped quarters and lack of facilities, with Colin and Cindy and Isaac and Allie, and have all of us keep our sense of humour, and realize that we can work well together even with all that.

Now Ken has the fire on and soon we'll start our evening game of Scrabble. Normal never felt so good.
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The Chaos Before The Serenity

2011-06-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

Every cottage season has its work projects. That's just the nature of things when you've inherited vinatge property with "rustic" buildings that need attention.

And every once in a while the attention required is, um...... significant. Such as when you discover the supporting beams across the entire back of the structure have rotted away. And while there's joy in taking certain risks, the thought of the toilet crashing through the floor while one is seated upon it, isn't exactly the kind of adventure you hope to write about in the cottage log.

So this year, my arrival to this place of serenity has been somewhat chaotic. Outside walls have been ripped away, indoor amenities have been removed altogether, and six people are trying to work and live and fit into the same space as I normally have mostly all to myself.

Its all going really well. I guess if you can get along with relatives in a crowded, construction messy cottage, with no one having a shower in going on four days, having had to make extra trips into town, and hiking up the back hill to the biff...and you're still laughing and playing Scrabble and racking up points for how many mosquitoes you've squashed before bed...then that's probably the best kind of family to have.

Everyone's working very hard, contributing their bit and working as a team. Colin, Ken's nephew, has excellent skills for this kind of project and has basically taken the lead. Some of it is just simply brutal grunt work, like crawling down in very squishy places under the cottage. But it's coming together. Every once in a while, someone stops and says giddily, "It's happening! It's happening!!!"

So this is the chaos before the serenity. Making memories.
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Summer Sabbath Letter to One Sensational Church

2011-06-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

June 19, 2011

Dear Cherished Friends,

Later this afternoon, I will get in the car with Ken,

and we will drive for about two and a half hours

until we get to a marina. Then we will load

everything into the boat and ride for another

half hour over the water until we get to a dock.

That dock is a holy place for me. And after we have unloaded and settled in, after we have had our first dinner together, looking out over the water, I will gather my Bible and my journal, and maybe a few jujubes, and head down to that holy dock.

One of the things I will do on that dock is talk with God about you. I guarantee it. Because in that quiet, mystic place, I always pour out my deepest longings, and bring to Him my most valuable treasures….and without question you are top on that list.

As we all head into our summer Sabbath, whatever the official start date of holidays, or wherever our times away may take us, I am praying special prayers of restoration and recharging for each of us. I am praying that all of us will have more time to just sit and be with God, to meditate on His goodness, and let the light of His righteousness shine deeper into our souls. Time for growing intimacy with God. And intimacy with God is essential for any follower of Jesus who wants to build their heart bigger for Him.

Whenever we can find ourselves together at Highview, and I do trust you will make every effort to do so every Sunday you are in town, we will be having our own “fun in the sun” by pulling together various parts of our Bible that talk about the sun, about sunshine, sunsets, light and brightness, by means of our summer series Here Comes the Sun.

I think this makes perfect sense. Not just because it’s summer and we normally see more of the sun over the summer months. But also because one of the Bible’s prevailing pictures of God is that He is light.

And as we make our way through these teachings, we’re going to find out more about this God of light, His power, His protection, His Sovereignty, and His holiness. Each Sunday that we are together, our study of different texts in the Bible – all dealing with sunshine and light – will help us learn more about the character of God. And to know Him is to love Him.

And while I am eager to get away and rest, spend time with my exceptional husband Ken, have grandchildren visit us, feed the chipmunks and gather blueberries, I find myself also excited about what is waiting for us next season. This is unusual, people. Normally round about now, I just want to make sure all the loose ends are tied up before I go. I don’t want to think about August and the next season until I get back.

But the significant and frequent acts of God I have seen first hand in just these last two months, and even more concentrated in these past three weeks, not to mention all that God has done over this entire past season, leads to me to believe that there is good work ahead. People to love, souls to journey with, hearts to build.

You are such a blessing to me! You are truly a Hebrews 13:17 kind of church. I love how you respond to God’s work in your lives, how you love each other, how you continue to press forward to all God’s called you to be, and all He’s called us to be as a church. I commend you for your faith,you’re your diligence, for your perseverance, for your faithfulness.

Thank you for being a church that I can’t wait to get back to,

for whom I will be praying earnestly,

thanking God for you on every remembrance,

as I sit in that quietness,

on that holy dock.

Honoured to be serving alongside of you,

Ruth Anne

Tied Up At The Dock

2011-06-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

For the simplicity of it
The off loading and unplugging
The fierce gentleness of a space that asks nothing of you
Just gives

For blueberry therapy
And still water healing
And cool breezes restoring
And expansive sky reminding me of just how big You are

And the seagulls and jenny wrens and humming birds and redheaded woodpeckers
And the water snakes and snapping turtles and salamanders and toads
And the otter and the beaver and the red fox and, yes, the bear

For the boat
The ride
The wildness of Your Spirit over the waves
And then....

Tying up
Just like that
Simple and snug and so secure

Being quietly
With You
Who loves me.
You must,
To give me this gift
Over and again, summer by summer
Tied up at the dock
With You

RAB11

Psalm 113:3

2011-06-15T02:44:00.001-07:00

From the rising of the sun
to the going down of the same
the name of the LORD is to be praised.

Gentle Father,
I can't wait
to revel in the glory of You
by sunrise
by sunset
and let it be
enough for me
to sit.

RAB11

Right Sizing

2011-05-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

There's something about the expanse of sky and water together
that reminds of how perfectly sized I am.

Enormous enough to be the object of all my God can offer.

Small enough to be entirely not in control.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!
If I were to count them,
they would outnumber the grain of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
Psalm 139:17-18

Out of My Own Backyard

2011-05-03T17:42:00.001-07:00

Driving up the coastline toward Ft. Meyers for a short ride this morning, I couldn't help but think something.

Beautiful beach front homes lined the way; tall, elegant, extremely modern, with stunning views of the gulf. I roll down the window and shamelessly point my camera at the homes of strangers. I am so curious about whoever would live in such a place. What's it like to live like that? How do these people make their living? Who loves them? And I wonder who's around to make sure they know, that no matter who they are on the social scale, God is crazy about them, and has a meaningful, difference-making life in mind for them.

And I remembered visiting the Lahu village, north of Chiang Mai, and shamelessly pointing my camera at the home of a stranger. Simple, tidy, extremely ancient, with a spectacular view of the hills. I am so curious about whoever would live in such a place. What's it like to live like that? Who loves them? How do these people make their living? And I wonder who's around to make sure they know, that no matter who they are on the social scale, God is crazy about them, and has a meaningful difference-making life in mind for them.

And I'm thinking all of a sudden about all the houses going up along Ira Needles Boulevard, back home; the houses I pray for every day as I drive to the church; the ones with no particular view really. I am wondering who will live there, how will they make their living, who loves them? But I don't have to wonder who's around to make sure they know, that no matter who they are on any social scale, God is crazy about them and has a meaningful difference-making life in mind for them.

Because as far away as God sometimes takes me.....this is my own backyard.

The Unexpected Pause

2011-05-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Since it's so hard to get me to sit down, it's notable that I've been sitting for most of the afternoon. Stretched out on a lounger, screened in porch, ceiling fans on slow, a drink with ice chinking in it - that kind of sitting.

Ken and I are the grateful guests of a generous couple at Highview who have provided their Florida condo to us this week as a gift. We're looking over a few acres of wet lands, all the comforts of home (actually more :), and yet feeling more like we're away from it all, just that closer to creation, everglades style. Started the day doing laps in an amazing pool, ate too much for brunch, picked up a few groceries, napped, and came out here to the porch. And that about sums up the day.

As I breathe in the resting of it, I realize how open my soul is to the idea. Surprisingly. The beginning of May is not a normal time for me to take a break, with summer down time so close. And this year I've just been away, in March, not for a holiday, but a definite change/break from the normal demands of my life, for sure. This little holiday was not necessarily in the original plans for this season, but instead was kindly offered to me. Often I would resist, make excuses about why I just couldn't leave all my responsibilities. But I didn't. So to get here and be so ready to do this, not to be worrying about stuff at home, to just be enjoying the quiet presence of my husband, all day....it's ..... nice. A gift.

It's been my experience that when God provides these unexpected pauses, He does so for a reason. I'm paying attention.

Oh, and Ken has just brought me a cup of Skittles. Wonderful!

Tomorrow the beach. Wednesday a ball game. Who knows about the rest of the week? Doesn't really matter. I'm just....pausing.

By Name

2011-04-23T22:44:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if it strikes you as odd or not, but this first encounter, Mary’s encounter, with the risen Jesus, as recorded by John (20:10-18), seems out of place to me.

I mean, you’d kind of think that Jesus, after everything that was done to Him just days before, would have a different agenda that morning. Like maybe marching off to the temple to confront the religious leaders or Caiaphas, the High Priest. Getting in their face and saying, “Now do you believe me?”

Or zipping off to the Praetorium to say to Pilate, “I told you so.”

You’d think maybe He might stop in on the soldiers who’d spat on him, mocked him, beat him, scourged him, and hammered nails into him, just to say, “Do you have any idea who you were dealing with?”

He didn’t go and sort of show up the center of Jerusalem to impress the crowds.

He didn’t present himself to any official body for “resurrection verification”.

All of that would have been perfectly understandable somehow, and much more likely to have been part of the story if it were being fabricated, by the way.

But this?

He goes to Mary. And he calls her by name.

Names are important.

It says in John’s gospel that she was crying.

That’s an understatement in English. In Greek, the language that the apostle John first wrote this, he uses a word that indicates loud lamentation, not quiet sniffles. This would have been loud, gut wrenching crying. The kind that makes you have the shudders, on the intake, later.

Mary was of course deeply grieving.

Mary. Mary Magdalene. The Mary who was rescued from no less than 7 demons.

And without getting into a sidetracking kind of conversation about demon possession….anyone of us who have wrestled with our own personal demons knows that the person who helps liberate you from that….they are your Saviour.

Mary adored Jesus. Her heart was consumed with gratitude for Him. She believed He could do anything, because she’d experienced His power in her own soul.

She believed He was God. Of course she did. He’d rescued her. Restored her soul. Reclaimed her life.

But now He was gone.

Have you ever missed someone who’s gone? Maybe they didn’t even die. They just moved away. Or broke up with you.

Psychologists who study grief tell us that the pain of it, is really just that horrible emptiness that’s left when the exchange of emotional energy stops. You miss the emotional energy, the psychological energy that came to you from the other person. AND you have all this emotional and psychological energy that used to go TO this person, but it’s just dumping out into this horrible, cold void.

And it’s painful. Often felt right here, in our chest. And if it’s severe enough, you can catch yourself expecting to see the person you’ve lost coming through the door. Sometimes you walk around a corner and you’re sure you can smell them. You wake up, and there it is, right there and you can’t get away from it, they’re gone, they’re gone, they’re gone!

So Mary….she’s wailing with her grief. But added to that was the absence of Jesus’ body.

See in the Jewish culture that Mary came from, the first seven days of mourning were taken really seriously. Those who were in mourning did not wash, work, have sex, or even study their Bibles. These people were serious about expressing, not repressing their grief.

And if the body was missing, and Mary was prevented from showing her final acts of love….that would have been excruciating to her, intolerably tragic. Even tomb robbers usually left the body behind.

So, yeah….Mary is crying. Wailing. Sobbing. Messy, unglamorous, raw.

She’s beside herself. I don’t think the black and white words on the page truly does justice to this scene. Not at all.

I think, when she’s replying to the angels, who are saying, Why are you crying?.... it’s got to have had just whole lot of power in it, tons of anguish. Almost screaming out the words. Why am I crying? They’ve taken my Lord away and I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY’VE TAKEN HIM!!!!

And she just gets finished screaming at the angels and there’s another person, she thinks is the gardener, asking the same idiotic question.

Why are you crying?

I can’t help but believe that this just might have pushed her over an edge. And she might just then have looked at Jesus, not yet knowing it was Jesus, and growled at Him in a blaming, furious sort of way. If you have taken Him tell me where He is…right now…and I will go get Him!!!!!!!!

And into this chaos of pain and fury, Jesus just says one word. Her name. Mary.

Which, if you think about it, would be exactly Jesus’ agenda for that morning.

To speak her name. To touch her soul and invite her into intimacy, by speaking her name.

Yes! This would have been Jesus’ agenda. If He was indeed who He said he was, that being the same God who

Came down in the cool of the evening to walk with Adam and Eve. That’s Genesis 3:8.

The same God who wanted to rejoice over us with singing and quiet us with His love, that’s in Zephaniah 3:17

The same God who compared His love for us in terms of the intensity of the bond between a mother and a nursing baby, and said that He’d inscribed our name on His hand. That’s in Isaiah 49:14-16.

The same God who, also in Isaiah, that He calls us by name.

Fear not, I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name,

you are mine.

Isaiah 43:1

"I know you by name."

So Jesus, this same God, speaks Mary’s name. Of course He does. And that is His agenda. To invite her out of the pain and chaos, into intimacy with Him.

And the risen Jesus knows your name. And He has the same agenda. This Easter Sunday, this resurrection morning, His agenda is the same.

To speak your name.

Speak it softly into your pain.

Speak it loudly into your indifference.

Speak it lovingly into your loneliness.

Speak it strongly into your weakness.

Speak it deeply into your soul.

The risen Jesus knows your name.

And He longs with all of who He is -

Mighty God

Redeemer

Risen Saviour

Beautiful Friend -

To identify with the deepest places of you

And all that your name represents to who you are

And offer you the abundant life He so spectacularly demonstrated on Resurrection morning.

This is first and foremost on His mind this morning. To invite you out of your pain and chaos, into a relationship with Him that is intimate and dynamic and life transforming.

So if you are hearing your name spoken this morning.

Or at any time over this Holy Weekend

Or in the days, weeks, months to come

Turn around

Very likely, you’ll recognize that it’s Jesus

Inviting you

Intimately

And then, what you do after that

Is entirely up to you.

Anything-But-Holy Week

2011-04-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Journeyers,

It’s called “Holy Week”. This. Right now.

The week we’re having right this minute, starting last Sunday and going right to Resurrection Morning.

It’s supposed to be a time of self denial, meditation, sombre reflections on the severity of Christ’s supreme gift, followed by the wild and grateful surprise of celebration when we get to the part where Jesus comes alive! Contemplative. Serene. Wild worship. Holy.

But I wonder how many might be having a week more like mine – too busy with unexpected additions to the already too-long list, bumping into dysfunctions – mine and others’, all making me more annoyed than grateful, more irritated than celebratory. Definitely not holy!

Or maybe it’s just me.

That’s why, when I walked into the church basement this afternoon, I realized just how badly I need Easter.

Karen Adourian and her diligent crew are worshipping their way through the set up of a stunning series of stations designed to provide an opportunity to move into the holiness of this weekend. With more space and separated quiet places than in any of our previous Holy Journey’s, the transformation of space and time is striking. And so are the understandings that come out of the observance of what this week represents.

I so badly need Easter! This week reminds me, even in the un-holiness of it – no, especially in the un-holiness of it - that I need the death of Jesus to cover the wretched debt I’d so impossibly owe otherwise. I need the resurrected life of Jesus to infuse the beyond-my-humanity, abundant life He’s promised, AND He delivered so spectacularly that first Resurrection morning.

I need Easter to be the hope for the One Day that makes every day, even crazy, un-holy days, make sense. I do truly hope you're having a fabulous Holy Week, I do. And if you are and if you're not, please don't miss out on the chance to pull it all together somewhere inside your soul. At Highview, for anyone within driving distance, you can come either Thursday or Friday for both the Holy Journeys AND In The Name of Love. And you will want to make sure to be here Sunday morning to finish the story right and celebrate or investigate, whichever describes you best. Because you and I, we badly need Easter. We do. I do. Can't wait to see what God's going to do for you this weekend.

Holy Journeys at Highview - Thursday, April 21 - 1 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 21 - 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

In the Name of Love at Highview - Thursday, April 21 - 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 22 - 7:30 p.m.

Love's Got Your Name On It - Sunday, April 24 - 10:30 a.m.

Holy Journeys at Highview

2011-04-15T07:14:00.001-07:00

Easter Weekend Opportunities for Meditation and Celebration

Holy Journeys
Stations of the Cross
Personal reflection and meditation
Thursday, April 21 - 1 to 7 p.m.
Friday, April 22 - 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
295 Highview Drive
Kitchener, Ontario

In The Name of Love
Live Concert
The story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection
As told through the music of U2
April 21 7:30 p.m.
April 22 7:30 p.m.

Connecting the Stories

2011-04-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

Bao holds a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers.
The red one represents the red earth of Thailand.
The white one represents the snow of Canada.
When I'm there with our Hot Springs Family,
these two figures sit together in their connected embrace.
And when I leave, I take the white one home.
The red one stays behind.
Until the next time we're together again.

Connecting the Stories

Just making sure to connect two blogs that, together, have helped tell the stories of this last trip to Thailand. As well as this, my personal blog, there's Highview to Thailand part of the Regions Beyond initiative of Highview Community Church, where I pastor.

Small World, Big God

2011-04-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

Early light breaks over northern Thai mountains.

The Mighty One, God, the LORD speaks
and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun
to the place where it sets.
Psalm 50:1

Early April sunrise across Waterloo.

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait with anticipation.
Psalm 5:3

The Blue Spiral Notebook

2011-03-28T23:31:00.001-07:00

I am home. And among the many welcome back surprises (including about 50 balloons from Abby!), there was in the mail a package from a man named Mark who found my notebook and sent it back to me.

This was an item of absolutely NO monetary value whatsoever, but of extreme importance to me. It was stuffed full with notes and journal entries, pictures, lists, letters and ideas, all concerning Hot Springs and the family Highview sponsors in Thailand. It contained notes collected not just for this trip, but from all of last trip as well. Items our Sponsor Jen Connor and I had sat down together to list. Ideas for what I should bring home for the Christmas Bazaar. Pictures the kids themselves had drawn for me. Addresses, letters in Thai, candy wrappers of grave significance...all that sort of thing.

I had carelessly left my blue spiral notebook behind in the pocket of my plane seat on the very first leg of my journey to Thailand this month. I last had it on March 8th, having pulled it out of my backpack for a thorough going over during the first, five hour ride. The gentleman beside me was chatty, however, and I never did open it. When the time came to pack up and get off the plane, I managed to gather up everything else, but not the notebook.

How I failed to check that seat pocket and leave all that priceless information behind is still something I just have to choose to forgive myself for. When I realized it was gone, I allowed myself about 5 minutes of abject grief. And then I gave it to God.

The notebook is His after all. I gave it to Him about a thousand times, every time I've sung one of those dangerous surrender songs in church. Everything I own is His. So....He just gently reminded me, that the notebook...wasn't mine. Throughout the rest of my trip, I kept trying to remember what was in there....and got myself a new notebook in Chiang Mai to start over with the lists.

So what an amazing surprise to find my blue spiral notebook in my mailbox today, my first day back!!!

The guy who sent it back included a note. He'd found it, he'd said, and it seemed important. So he sent it back to me. He would have had to dig around a bit for my address, and it cost him about $7.00 in postage. I am so incredibly grateful for his courtesy and kindness. And how God can use a stranger to remind on of His forgetful children, that even though everything is His, He still cares for the details.

I will try to unpack slowly this week. Not just my suitcases, but my soul as well. There were SO MANY gifts for me this year, so many deep, important learnings, that I believe not only have helped me in my own spiritual journey toward God, but will help form and direct our delightful and amazing partnership with Suradet and Yupa as we move forward together.

I am overwhelmed with the bigness and the smallness of a God who sees how to bring together two churches from exactly the opposite sides of the world...something so grand and broad, AND who can put just the right person in the same seat I had the flight before, to send something home that I really, really hated losing....something so small in "insignificant".

Caught Between Two Worlds

2011-03-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's not a bad place to be. I'm starting to pack, both my suitcases and my heart, in preparation for tomorrow's long ride home. Calling to confirm the flight, checking off lists to make sure I have all the Sponsors' letters, thinking through what I can leave behind in the bin I now leave here for storage of personal and future Team needs.

But thinking about home and being here still, it's like being caught between two very different worlds. Which isn't a bad place to be.

I feel a deep sense of having cooperated with God in His purposes for this trip. I have succeeded, to the best of my ability, to convey our love and support to Hot Springs. The Sponsors' packets are always a big hit, and I'm still seeing yo yos and balloons and stickers. I'm pretty sure the candy is gone by now:). The video taken by Megan of various Highviewers saying Hi, was a HUGE hit.

Every time I can, with the little Thai I know, and as often as possible through an interprter, I tell them. There is a whole church of people in Canada who love you and pray for you and want God's best for you.

I've observed the improvements in the basic standard of living, improvements brought by the combined efforts of Highview, a generous couple named Doug and Laurie Schinkle of Guelph, and the indirect but significant contribution from the Korean Methodist Church. But mostly, the improvements are due to the faithfulness and diligence of Suradet and Yupa and the children themselves. They have worked hard to maximize the potential of this property. They raise fish, frogs and chickens for food. The garden is amazing. There are mature mango, papaya and banana trees here. And it's all being utlized as a means of feeding and training the children. I can bring back a thorough report to the Elders, and send my commendations to Asia's Hope.

So I've done and seen all that. Plus I've let God speak and move, do damage and then healing in my heart. So much so that it will take more blogs, more private journalling, more talking with soul friends, to fully explore it all. But I have no sense of urgency, no pressure points. Just a very large understanding of the rightness of my being here right now for this time.

So in this in between time, as I sit in the shade of the morning, ready to leave for an event at another church (I think), the sounds of Hot Springs - clucking hens, tree frogs, exotic birds, Thai voices, chopping from the outdoor kitchen, cars along the road - I happily BE in this between space for now.

God is so good.
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Shaken, Not Stirred

2011-03-24T16:52:00.001-07:00

Yes, I felt it. Two tremors last night our time. One about 9:30ish and one 11:30ish.

Since the earthquake that hit the Thai border is already in the Canadian news, I thought I'd better let everyone know that we are all fine, all buildings intact here.

Well, never done THAT before :). Only three days left. Wonder what other adventures God has in store?
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A Pastor's Spiritual Retreat

2011-03-23T19:03:00.001-07:00

I've looked at the ads. "Renew Your Ministry By Renewing Your Soul". "The Art of Self Leading". "The Pastor's Heart". All promise, and no doubt provide, a time and space for weary pastors to recharge those ever-ready batteries that sometimes aren't so ready.

I've thought about trying something like that out. Especially on days when I'm feeling particularly ministered-out and think that, yes, it would be nice to be ministered to in that way.

But then I remember Thailand. The sweet gentleness and humility of the people. The slower pace of life, at least here in the rural north. The deep spirituality of believers here. Their astonishing prayer life, their enthusiastic worship, their persistant praise.

I remember how well cared for I am when I'm here, how the potent combination of cultural practice and profound gratitude provide me a position of priority I dare not abuse or take for granted. Instead I find within this place of being esteemed, a choice to practice my own humility; a humility of gratefully accepting and allowing myself to be served.

Within this particular kind of renewal, I find my ears more open to the voice of God. His whispers come at any time. Watching Him paint a sunrise across the tips of mountains. Hearing Him soak up the delight of childrens strong voices singing. Glancing back to the crowded happy passengers in the back of the truck. Lying in my bed, lights out, having just said, both in English and Thai, "Goodnight, I love you" to the girls sleeping with me that night, and hearing them respond, both in Thai and English, "Love you too!". And God's enormous love washes over me, and I hope the girls can't tell I'm crying.

To renew this Pastor's heart I only need to be allowed to fly away to the other side of the world for a while. Just to BE here, in this land so strange and so familiar all at the same time.

I am heading into my last days here. There is most certainly an eager anticipation to be near to those I love at home. And a readiness to re-engage with the abundant life God has graciously given me in my home land of Canada. But for these next few days, I will just BE. And I will pay attention.
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Laugh Attack

2011-03-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

Probably the singularly most disturbing reality of South East Asia are the children with vacant eyes. You will see them in lots of places, along the street, at the night market, and if you go into the villages where most of Asia's Hope children come from, they're there too.

Beyond the usual outward appearances associated with poverty - filthy clothes, lice-ridden hair, evidence of malnutrition - a child that doesn't smile, barely responds, seems to have bought out of life and living, is heartbreaking to encounter. These kids are everywhere here.

But not at Hot Springs.

Meet Bee-yung. He's one of the newer kids at Hot Springs, arriving there in 2009. He's Saiy's little brother. And he has eyes that are full of life and mischief.

He has a talent for producing this outrageous laugh that just over the top enough to let everyone know he's faking, but hilarious and sweet-spirited enough to make it almost impossible not to laugh too. He demonstrated his laugh attack for me and I was able to tape it.

Silly, right? And fun.

But as I was watching some of the footage I've captured this visit I watched this one a few times. Something hit me that made this much more than just cute or funny. Bee-yung is laughing. Even outside of his silly fake laugh, this guy is a happy guy. He engages well, makes strong eye contact, smiles readily, and laughs for real -- all the time.

Without the love and support of his Sponsor, Marianne Hillier, without Highview's all-church love for our Hot Springs kids, without Asia's Hope, without Suradet and Yupa's astonishing compassion, this young man could also have vacant eyes instead.

I am not sure we fully grasp exactly what these kids have been rescued from. We focus, and rightly so, on their healthy present realities and the future possibilities for each of them. But if I allow myself a quick glance over my shoulder to what was happening just before each of these amazing kids arrived at Hot Springs, I gain a fuller picture of the contrast. My heart does a double take. The difference between what was and what should have been, and what is and what now can be, is enormous! Every time I'm here I think I understand just a bit more and bit deeper exactly what the impact of our partnership with Suradet and Yupa is accomplishing.

I am finishing up a short stay in Chiang Mai, heading back to Hot Springs this evening. And while I have truly delighted in Debbie's company and enjoyed doing a bit of city shopping (mostly fun art supplies and such for the kids), I find myself looking forward to the quieter, simpler life of a more rural Thailand...the life of our family .... who laughs a lot.

Safe and Well

2011-03-11T15:59:00.001-08:00

While my thoughts and prayers are certainly with Japan, we are not in any way affected here. Just wanted you to know. Thanks for the emails of concern and prayer.

Another day dawns. Plans are to go to a mountain church where Suradet is friends with the pastor, for a Saturday worship. Everyone's invited!! Can't wait.

Moment of astounding beauty this morning at our own sunrise worship. Simple guitar, three part harmony, two languages, I Surrender All.

We also sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and I was able to tell Saiy that this was one of her Sponsor Derek's favourite. :)

Breakfast is soon. Good thing because while the jet lag has been minimal, I still find myself STARVING at the oddest times.
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Jeeg-Saaw

2011-03-11T05:52:00.000-08:00

That thoughtful rooster always makes sure I get up in time for morning worship by 5:30. Not that it was a problem this morning. Jet lag hs been minimal but I'm still not completely flipped over the 12 hour difference and was up by 4. Spent some time chasing a goodly sized cricket out of my room (No wonder they eat those things! You should see the meat on those hind legs!!) and made my way over to the chapel.

Watching the sun rise while surrounded by the voices of Thai children praising God is one of those "something of Heaven touches earth" moments for me. We read through Prov 11 (same at today's date) and I was able to follow fairly well.

After breakfast the older kids spent two long and lazy hours with me doing a puzzle (in Thai - jeeg saaw) Jen Connor got for me to bring. It depicts a cottage sunset on still waters, and I played Steve Bell's Shepherd of Life and explained, I hope, how it all connects based on Psalm 23. And we just hung out (I'd say we chilled but that would be a lie because today was hotter) and I enjoyed the simplicity of just "being" and loving on the kids, listening to their happy chatter and learning more about them.

There was a point today when I was feeling some dismay at how much Thai I seemed to have forgotten. I was blaming it on my Hebrew course last fall. But then, after the jet lag and heat put me out for two hours, I woke up with a fresher brain and was understanding more and able to talk a bit more. So maybe I don't have quite as much to relearn as I thought.

Saw the frogs and fish and garden today. All these are expanded projects by which Suradet and Yupa utilize all the resources and the gifting God has given them in order to be as self sufficient as possible. The food gained from this feeds the family. What this communicates in terms of the work ethic and value system in play here is huge to me.

Highview has been beautifully connected with people of great integrity, gratitude and industry in our partnership with Suradet and Yupa. AND they are passing these skills and values down to our children, who not only eat the food grown on the property, but help with the related tasks as well.

I will see if tomorrow I can figure out how to send a picture from the blackberry.

Well then. 9 pm here and I'm thinking I could fall asleep (lap) quite nicely about now.

Think I will.

By the way, this is NOT roughing it!!! Especially this year so far. Feeling like I've grown out of the culture shock. Only took five times!
;)

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Dee Jai!

2011-03-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

It's the way to say that you're happy to see someone, but it literally translates "Happy in my heart". And that's what I am.

Big blessing/surprise that all the kids were there to meet me at the airport. I was so not expecting that give the late arrival. However - and there's the great news! - school's out! Yes! So already we've been planning the outings. I think we will just have to do the waterfall again.

So...tomorrow is some shopping for supplies, a visit to the prison because they'd planned on that already, and then out to Hot Springs!!!

But now...I really do need to sleep.

Um.....Where's My Blue Notebook?

2011-03-09T01:09:00.000-08:00

The long flight is over, and it wasn't so bad. I'm not sure if I'm getting more used to flying or I just know better what to wear and how to pack a carry on, but I'm not finding the actual trip to be nearly as gruelling as that first time in January of 2008. Plus, so far, I'm really liking this new route and airline. Except....I think we flew back over Toronto from Atlanta and got here by flying over the north pole!!! That's sure what it looked like from the map on the screen in the plane.

Didn't do nearly the kind of work or amount of work I thought I would. Perhaps being up now for more than 24 hours has something to do with it. Didn't sleep too much, just dozing on and off. But I feel really good, really relaxed, AND feeling the excitement at the same time.

I had a set back though. The small blue spiral bound note book that I started on our trip last May and added to in preparation for this trip, got left in the first plane. It's one of those 'no monetary value but HUGE personal value' kind of items. It has the words to Come Now Is The Time To Worship in Thai all written out, all the names of the children written out in Thai, lots of pictures and other smaller pieces of paper collected from last trip, a list of everything I left in the bin at Hot Springs, my lists for this trip...oh my.

I've already connected with Ken and he's chasing it down for me to see if they can send it home again. If they do, I still won't have it for this trip, but at least I'll have it.

Even so, I'm quite surprised at myself for how quickly and easily I'm letting it go. Maybe I'm getting better at the control thing? Maybe it's just put in a different perspective when you've spent the last 24 hours clutching your passport and boarding pass, keeping your purse strapped to you at all times and never letting your packback out of your sight. When I think of any other item I may have left behind in my sleep-deprived stupor, I'm really okay if it was my "Master Type A Notebook".

Want to write more but we'll be boarding soon.

I'll connect again when I get there.

Okay little Thai dek dek....I'm almost there.

So Far So Good

2011-03-08T08:08:00.000-08:00

I've chosen a new route for my trek to the other side of the world. Toronto to Atlanta. Atlanta to Seol. Seol to Chiang Mai.

So far, as I sit in Atlanta's beautiful and well laid out airport, I'm thinking I like this a lot. Shorter layovers in nicer air ports works for me. Just finished a yogurt protein smoothie. Getting myself psyched for 15 hours in the air.

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On My Way!

2011-03-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

Cuddling with Abby this last evening at home. Packing is all but done. Running around is over. Just not sure my new shoes are going to be comfortable enough for all that walking!!!! Do - have enough gum? How is it possible that I am allowed to do this again?

These are my random musings tonight.

I'll be leaving the house at 2:45 am Tuesday morning and due to arrive in Chiang Mai on Wednesday around 11 am Ontario time.

I will do my best to keep posting along the way.

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Restless

2011-03-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

I've got to start packing for real so I can stop packing in my head.

That's the preoccupation of it, I think; this over and over again sorting out of items and ideas to prepare for my fifth visit to the other side of the world. Can't forget my extra pair of glasses. Make sure to bring all the cords for the cameras. Pick up the malaria medicine..... I know the routine now, but it still takes a fair bit of coordination. I think that if I just haul down the suitcases and start throwing it all in, I might gain back a bit of room in my brain. There is, after all, a sermon to preach on Sunday, tasks to delegate for my absence, details to be sure are covered while I'm gone. Gets crowded in my head. So if I just started to actually pack, perhaps I'd have more mental real estate available.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's just part of the experience, part of the deal, when you head off for that other life God has given you. That other place where your heart feels at home in a "I'm so NOT at home" kind of way. The worlds are so different. Especially right now. Cold and dry compared to hot and humid. English compared to Thai. The place smells completely different, wild and wonderful - most of the time - and completely, completely different from here.

It's still remarkable to me that Asia has made room for me at all, really. Why would this more than middle aged white woman from Canada be welcomed as part of a young Thai family? How weird is that?

And maybe that's why I'm restless. Between two worlds, weirdly so. Amazing. When Jesus said he had come to give life abundantly, who knew it could be abundant times two?

The Bench Theatre Initiative and all that's Wonderful

2011-02-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

For me, one of the best things about my line of work is watching what God is doing in the hearts and lives of young adults. When I come across a person in their late teens, twenties or thirties who has clear passion for and great ideas about how they will serve Him, it injects hope and life into all that we're dreaming of for the future of the church. That in itself is reason enough to get up in the morning.

But when those passions and ideas are about addressing the injustices of poverty -- well, you can't get much closer to the heart of God and His strong words to those who say they follow Him. (Check out Isaiah 58 or Matthew 25, if you need a refresher).

Enter, stage right, one Shannon Blake, play write and cofounder of The Bench Theatre Initiative, and active member of Sanctuary. Sanctuary is a downtown church where the poor and excluded are particularly valued and where Shannon has found a spiritual home.

The Bench is a hospitable, gracious, trust-risking theatre initiative prioritizing the poor and excluded, particularly those who are or have been street-involved, operating out of downtown Toronto. They are artists working in intentional community with other social and artistic initiatives, being an aesthetically compelling and credible voice in Canadian theatre, engaging their community as artistic equals.

This is not something undertaken lightly, and it has only come for Shannon as she has invested of herself in the lives of street involved people in real and meaningful ways over a period of time. Having been privy to some of the journey, I know that Shannon has been on her own discovery of self, understanding God's grace and love and redemption in profound, life-changing ways, because of her experience with this community.

In her own words,

"You don't get a lot of points for being inauthentic, and so as you're more able to share who you are and receive grace and love from that person, you're more able to extend those things to other people. Also, the power of God to build joy and redemption into settings of really immense sorrow; the fact that you do actually see the light overcoming some of the darkest scenes you can imagine deeply affects how I understand God."

We recently featured Shannon and The Bench Theatre Initiative at a service at Highview where cohorts Richard Bechard and Lyf Stolte brought to us the challenge to consider our own poverty before God.

Since our context is totally different - Highview being in suburban Kitchener and Shannon's ministry out on the mean streets of downtown Toronto - one of the main purposes of our morning was to help connect us to what God is doing there.

Shannon recommended two books, both by Sanctuary's pastor, Greg Paul. God in the Alley and The Twenty Piece Shuffle; moving and motivating both.

She invited us to come downtown to visit their community, and perhaps even arrange for a street walk where we could meet some of the particularly valued individuals who live there.

Some churches are involved in production preparation by constructing props and designing sets. Youth teams and drama teams have a lot to bring to this experience, and a lot to bring home from it as well. Other churches offer their support by advertising for productions.

The next production is set for this coming spring, running from April 29 to May 21. WONDERFUL is the story of three women living in poverty who, motivated by the impending birth of one woman's fifth child, seek to carve out space for themselves in the midst of a relationally, socially and institutionally difficult landscape.

An endeavor such as this requires funding, and that is another way, and a very important way, those of us with resources can participate in this amazing work. For that, I would refer you back to the link for The Bench where you can be directed in making a donation.

But perhaps the most significant means of connecting with what is happening downtown Toronto is by inviting God to help us think of ways we are poor, and ways we are rich, and how to invite people in your life into that. To consider what kinds of barriers exist between ourselves and others, regardless of economic standing, and how we might dismantle those barriers.

On a personal note, I have enormous confidence in Shannon and what she is undertaking. This is my first "endorsement" blog ever, and not something I have done randomly. I believe there is a strength of character, an integrity of person, and the passion of God's Holy Spirit behind The Bench. Shannon is real. She's intelligent. She writes magnificent plays. And she loves her people.

I am so looking forward to how we at Highview might share in some part of her adventure. And I am truly grateful for her inspiration.

Unlawful Intruders of the Soul

2011-01-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

“When our souls are restless, when we are driven by thousands of different and often conflicting stimuli, when we are always “over there” between people, ideas and worries of this world, how can we possibly create the room and space where someone else can enter freely without feeling himself an unlawful intruder?”

Henri Nouwen Wounded Healer, p 90

Father, it's been one of those days. A thousand different and often conflicting stimuli dragged me out of my high expectations for concentrated order and left me in a crowded space where my friends could certainly have felt to be unlawful intruders. I had so hoped to establish a degree of peace to begin my work week. It helps me to be more welcoming.

But the day has been what the day was, and I settle now into my pre-sleep meditations seeking Your Spirit to calm the ideas and worries of this world, and to find my rest in You, and to let this day go like a balloon into the vast vanilla sky of Your perfect eternity. I let it go. And watch it become smaller and smaller until it's completely gone.

And I beg of You to work in me the renovations that will create the space and room You need in me to accomplish the love You've call me to do.

I'm glad You don't sleep.

I'm glad You grant sleep to those You love,

Because I need Your love

And I freely fall into Your sleep tonight.

New Year Happy

2011-01-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

I love how these first days of this new year have invited simple joys to heal and fill me.

Harvest's first Christmas. Time to sleep and rest and be, over the holidays. Abby's songs, so spontaneous and true and beautiful that certainly angels have stopped to listen. Zachary's happy clapping when I come in the door, every time. Afternoons that slip into long evenings in the family room, candles and fireplace flickering their nurture and strength into my soul. The smell of a small child freshly awake. Finding exactly what I went for at the gently used clothing store. A lifeguard that sees I've come in late and lets me have a few extra laps in the pool all by myself. Eating well again and staying on track and feeling good. A prime parking spot. An unexpected book. An unexpected kiss. Sunshine.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm looking too large to find reasons to be glad. Certainly, big, hairy, audacious goals are needful for accomplishing the big, hairy, audacious things. And life would be over simplified without them. Mundane even, really. I don't want to skim my life. Like everyone else on the planet, I want my life to have made a difference in something bigger than myself. I need the motivation of gladness in succeeding in what's important.

And I can't ignore that big, hairy, audacious troubles trouble me, too often for my liking. Not to face them, lead through them, stand against them, choose righteousness in the midst of them would be to acquiesce to their evil. I choose not to lay down and be flattened. And this can be exhausting.

But in the fabric of that, there's a collective of simple joy that would be tragically un-engaged if I'm not careful. There's an energy for my bigger living and the greater battles of my life, gleaned from the collaboration of the small things; there's healing, even from the harsh and painful and obvious, in the gentle and pleasurable and subtle.

So I am welcoming these simple joys to begin the celebration that is this new year happy.

2010

2010-12-31T13:53:00.000-08:00

For the chance to see all the pennies in one jar
For a gentle home-going for Dad
For the gift of another time in Thailand
For two months of bliss by the water
For books read
For new friends and what they teach me
For the privilege of studying Hebrew
For the arrival of an abundant Harvest
For the lessons of letting go
For the lessons of release
For the deepening still of life long friendships
I am grateful

For known opportunities to become more than I am
For the unknown challenges that will shape me
For the joys that will delight me
For the prayers that will be answered yes
For the prayers that will be answered no for reasons He won't tell
For new friends yet to meet
For still friends who will help to grow me
I am hopeful
And humbly anticipating
All He will do

Us In The Van

2010-12-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

It happened because we decided we could all fit in the van.

When it comes to having adult children with partners and families of their own, being together at Christmas has been something we've tried to give realistic balance to. Naturally, especially with grandchildren, gathering is extremely important. It makes us "us" in a way that only being at a table together can do. But being anywhere merely to fulfill an obligation is never more than that, and defeats any noble purpose of family.

To honour that, it has become our gentle policy to ask for and hope for at least one gathering during the Christmas season, with no fixed date or expectations. Anything more than that, I consider bonus.

So when Ken and I, and the two we bore, and ones they chose (minus the one in waiting) and the three they bore, can all fit into one vehicle, car seats included....and when that occasion is the SECOND all together gathering of "us" in this one Christmas season....it's all gravy (turkey pun intended).

And it happened on the way home.

We had spent the afternoon at the home of Ken's generous sister and her husband, with those of us who make up Ken's siblings and who live close enough to make being at that table possible. Shrimp for starters and gifts and kids and phone calls from those who live too far and silly paper hats following loud snaps and way too much food and a dog parked closest to the youngest and messiest of us. And then, when it's all done, we fit ourselves back in the van for the drive home.

And that's when I realized. We weren't all there. Not all of us who should be. But all of us who could be were. And as we wait for the one in waiting, it was enough for me in that moment. For the two of us who chose each other, and the ones we bore and the ones they chose, and the one they bore...us and our kids and their partners and their kids. The "us" of us.

And how many times had we make that drive, too full from turkey, quiet now after all the noise? First just Ken and I, then one at a time our own babies in car seats, and then bigger children, and now new car seats. Thirty two years of driving home from Christmas with Ken's family.

It happened in that moment that I felt contentment and blessing and rightness. And it registered with me as something important because I know I shouldn't be feeling it. Too much is not as it should be this Christmas to make it feel less "us". First time without Dad. Mom moved away. A son-in-law yet to rejoin us.

But there was still an "us" gently, strongly. In the van. And it was very good.

And I wanted to sing.

Kristyn and David have both told me that one of their favourite childhood memories is rides home from family things and me singing.

I should have sang. Next time.

The Holy Hush of Readiness

2010-12-24T11:23:00.000-08:00

There comes a time in the happy rush of preparation when it all comes to hush in a holy readiness. When that happens, it is best to sit still for a bit. Feel it. Joy in it.

I am sitting in that hush right this moment. It smells good, this hush, like freshly baked cookies. It feels warm, like your thickest, newest fleece wraped around your shoulders, folding down to your feet. It sounds big and full and hushed and worshippy, like the candle-lighting rendering of Let It Be swirled around a carol. No-el, it says. Israel's King is born. Awe.

And I'm ready. Ready to let it be Christmas, and to joy in the now of it. Ready to lay down the work and weight of a confusing, pressing fall, and Sabbath my soul for a quiet string of days. Ready to just be with those I love so. Ready to receive - again - all the unspeakableness of the Incarnation, and revel in the fierce loveliness of the new born Child who turns out to be God Almighty.

I wish you readiness, and the strength of spirit to receive it deeply. I pray you will hush yourselves in its smells and sounds and warm wrappings. Be comforted. Be re-filled. Be re-born on this Birthday.

Because He heard you asking. And He came.

Waiting for the Story

2010-10-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

I admit to a certain addictive fascination to my current studies in the Hebrew language. The decoding of construct chains and perfect strong verb paradigms bends my brain in new, albeit agonizing ways, stimulating (I hope) new synaptic pathways that will help me know my Bible better. That's the idea anyways. It's the whole point of pursuing these seminary academics - to understand more of the story of God.

I was feeding my addiction at the dinner table on Saturday morning. Grandkids were playing happily in the chaos on the floor around my feet, while I laboured over the translation of a passage from Exodus 1. It's slow work. Strange markings. Complicated grammar structures. Any given text only comes clear after tedious effort with lots of trial and error along the way.

Leaving her farm animals, Abby climbed onto my lap to see what I was doing.

"And a new king will rise up over Egypt who will not know Joseph, and he will say to his people...." I read aloud the part I had worked through so far, and stopped, squinting. Was that a vav consecutive? Abby sat quietly, looking at the scribbles, both Hebrew and English, sprawled on the page in front of us, expecting me to keep on reading out loud. When there was too long of a pause, she said, "I'm waiting for the story, Gramma. What comes next?"

"I don't know yet, Honey. I'm trying to figure that out."

Reading God's story is like that, I guess. Not just the written Hebrew words. Not just the words in my English Bible either. Although careful translation and diligent study do give us an understanding of the whole big story God has written down for us. And like I said, that's why I'm studying.

But it's the honest doing of it that writes another story. My story. God's story for me. And to be honest, at various points along the way, and especially right now, I don't understand that story very well either. It seems at times to be composed of strange markings with complicated structures and foggy interpretations. I labour to make meaning of the events and interactions that make up various "sentences" of the story, squinting to try to piece together anything that sounds like something I might understand, anything that might make sense.

We have been told in class, over and over, that this Hebrew thing will happen for us if we're patient, diligent and consistent to work at it a little bit every day. And it's true. Remarkably, I find I'm actually getting it. I can actually read simple Hebrew sentences by now. And eventually I was able to finish the sentence Abby was asking about.

So I guess if I'm not "fluent" in the story God is still writing for me, especially in the middle of the complicated parts, I shouldn't be surprised. It's still being written, only coming clear a little bit every day. I can wait for the story with God, my Author, patiently, diligently, and consistently, and only in the little bit He gives me for this day.

One day my story will be complete. I will read all the words of it and it make sense enough to me. Then I will speak it fluently. And I will rest in it fully.

Coming Up For Air

2010-10-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

I felt it on the way home tonight -- that lighter sense of my spirit, lifting mostly off my chest and shoulders. I was playing a song on a CD that a dear and spiritually sensitive friend has loaned me because he knows I've been heavy of late. This wasn't the song he marked for me. I am blessed and enthralled by it too. But at this moment, it was one song that opened up the space between me and the release.

The music was loud. Sometimes I need it loud in the car.

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy

All of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are and how deep is Your affection for me

And Oh, how He loves us
Oh, Oh how He loves us
Oh how He loves

The artist is David Crowder but the Voice of the Spirit speaks deeply into mine through these words and melodies, and I am suddenly unaware of my afflictions because of the glory strongly around me in the moment.

These past seven weeks have provided for me again those opportunities to press hard into God and find out what I'm really made of. It's been smothering at times, washing over me in pounding waves of confusion and anger, and I am not at all pleased with myself. Not at all. The stresses reveal the best and worst of me it seems. The taking away of something fragile and treasured that is now not safe, is infuriating and terrifying and wrong. I have been lain flat with helplessness, crushed.

But Oh, how He loves me. Some days it's been all I could hang on to, this knowledge that my God loves me. My God loves me. When nothing else has any sense to it, this does.

My treasure is still not safe. But loudly in the car on the way home tonight, my spirit drank in the power and presence of God Who is healing me and Who is bigger than any force that would come against me or the ones I love.

And I breathe in lightly and deeply and loudly this love.

Love wins.

Love Wins

2010-09-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

This precious face is that of my brand new grandson with a completely sensational name.

Harvest Nelson Louis Breithaupt Stallard

That's him. Sweetness and serenity. My son is a dad! His lovely lady Lauren mothers so gently.

He has arrived in the middle of something messy and nasty that I'm dealing with elsewhere, far away, thankfully, from this new family. But for me, he's a reminder that when it all settles down, love wins.

So welcome to our hearts Baby Harvest. Be and grow and smile baby smiles.

So Many Books, So Little Time

2010-08-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-08-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

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.....

2010-08-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-08-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-06T01:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-08-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

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."

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Almost

2010-07-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Between two worlds, I am right now.

Resting done, except for that which has been promised to my soul for better self care going forward.

Reading done, except for the two books I'm in the middle of and likely won't finish.

Beauty observed, except for what waits in regular life, always surprising.

Quiet received, except for that which will be eagerly pursued and can still be found in the normal noise of life.

I am here, fully, yet my heart is being pulled home. Ideas for a preferred future won't leave me alone - in a good way. People I've maintained contact with for eight weeks away are saying they miss me. The life God has called me away from these past weeks is still the life He's called me to. And in a clearest way I have heard Him say, You are MY servant and you are NOT done.

So I linger in these last hours by the water, weeping from the gratitude, breathing in the sweet Georgian Bay air, lavishing in His lavish love to me.

Thank you, everyone who did, for letting me go this long.

Thank you.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

A Swimming Lesson

2010-07-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 49:3-5 He told me "...you are My servant. I will show my glory through you.". But I said, "I have worked hard for nothing; I have used all my power, but I did nothing useful.". But the LORD will decide what my work is worth; God will decide my reward.

Being away from what you do for a while is a good thing for everyone. It's good for mothers and caregivers. It's good for teachers and coaches. It's good for those who work hard with their hands and those who work hard with their brains. It's good for pastors, and it's good for their congregations.

One of the things a break is good for is taking stock. Evaluating your work and how and why you do what you do, and what you are or are not accomplishing. I've been doing a LOT of that these past two months during my LOA. I'm coming up to five years in my current ministry position, so the timing is right for it.

Like a lot of people, I work hard at what I do. I spend myself quite thoroughly most weeks, using up a lot of emotional and mental and physical energy. The spiritual component is there too, permeating everything. You know this. When you work hard you want to know that it's accomplished something.

Problem is, when your work is in the abstract arena of spiritual transformation, the results aren't always that obvious. Churches and the people in them don't follow a precise growth chart of tangibles. A lot of it is very private. Most of it you don't hear about. Sermons especially. They require hours of concentrated effort every single week. Do they make any difference in anyone's life? Hard to tell. How do you tell?

And of course, there are so many variables in the growing of souls that are entirely outside of your control. Hard work in itself gaurantees nothing.

Regardless of our profession, I think all of us, at times, can echo the sense of uselessness expressed by "the servant" in Isaiah's prophecy. Sometimes it's just really hard to see any fruits of your labour. Five years.

But an interesting thing happens in Isaiah's dialogue. It's as if God interrupts "the servant's" self evaluation with a holy "get over yourself". "I'm in charge of outcomes," He says. "I'll decide if your work has value or not. And I will reward you, not the growth charts."

This doesn't mean we don't consider the facts and carefully and prayerfully make changes where change is necessary. The Bible is full of effective strategy and growth-oriented goal setting.

But it does redirect my focus. Oh yeah. It's not about me.

I thought these thoughts while swimming back and forth to the channel marker 16 times, to make my kilometre for the day. The benefits to my mind, body and soul are unquestionable, but you wouldn't see any of that on me as I climbed out to towel off.

I'd just look wet and unglamorous and a little too chubby....and satisfied by that one swim.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Holy Simplicities

2010-07-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

Warm rocks on bare feet after the sun's gone down and the air is cooler.

Flat water and a quiet soul with a cup of tea on the deck in the morning.

Flat water and a communing soul with jujubes on the dock in the evening.

Baking cookies, just enough to send some home and ruin supper with the rest.

Blueberries the size of marbles hiding in the under side of a patch that's keeping me quietly occupied for a long, long time.

The loon, silent and majestic, or calling and majestic, aware of but unconcerned with my nearness in the canoe.

The hummingbird, who hovers over me for a brevity, just saying hi and maybe thank you for what we've put in the feeder.

Cross stitch.

Warm water and swimming in it and that overwhelming sense of wellbeing and gratitude that makes me cry as I towel off.

This shady spot on the deck with the lounge chair and a glass of pop with ice cubes in it and the sound of the ice chinking when the pop is finished.

Hanging laundry on a day so hot and breezy that the first load's dry by the time the second load's ready to hang.

Clean and pretty feet.

After swim showers and the time to lavish my skin with coconut oil, including my feet.

Beavers that swim so close to your canoe that you can tell he's looking at you.

Reading and reading and reading and reading.

Waking up to a nap and the screen door is open and the sun and wind and leaves are mingling in the joy of a summer afternoon that has naps in it.

Nothing urgent and no tryanny of it.

The chance to remember who I am separated from what I do.

Father of simple holiness, teach me in all of this. Teach me to see You more in it. Call my heart with Your songs of holy simplicities.

I have ceased my strivings to know that You are God.

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Happy Birthday David!

2010-07-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

It's not hard to celebrate this day. It's the day you were delivered to the planet and the party started.

For some astounding reason, God saw fit to let your Dad and I be the ones entrusted to the raising and releasing of your personhood. Lucky us, poor you on many levels, but then again lucky all of us to be the family that got to ring the bells and blow the whistles and dance the dance that was life with our boy.

Remember how you were always inventing new superheroes that were saving the world from certain disaster? More often than not, those adventures caused their own disasters, and anxiety-producing, loud crashing noises from various and sundry places around the house. There'd be a pause, and then to reassure me, you'd call, "I'ne okaaaaay!"

I see you now, my man son, past the crashing noises of an adventurous adolesence, loving on his gentle partner and the baby she carries. And it occurs to me that you are very okay.

You live by your values even when it costs you something, which is a sign of moral maturity. You give yourself fully to others in conversation and engagement, paying attention to the whole person, which is a sign of relational maturity. You hold to and articulate strong opinions in politics and ecology and how those two entities interact, and you do so with well reasoned thought and respect for differing opinions, and that is a sign of intellectual maturity. And you give of yourself to those who need you with gentleness and respect. This is a sign of a strong and honest human being.

Which brings me back to the surprise of being given the Mom-assignment for the person who turned out to be you. Thank you for growing up to be you in spite of me. Thank you for being strong enough to do that, and still love me on the other side of it.

I can't wait to hold and know the child you and Lauren are making. A new party is about to begin. I am just so grateful that I get to dance with you still.

My son, I love you so much.

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Blueberry Therapy

2010-07-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

It started with a smattering of blue on green last weekend, but today it was all out blueness on the bushes. The blueberries are here, and there's LOTS!

With the welcome addition of a slight breeze to the sudden summer weather, it was a perfect day today to get out there for some pickings. Warm, sunny, ripe. I had just finished a particularly moving and intimate conversation with God on the deck, and looked up to see that it was just before lunch. "I think I'll go get me some blueberries", I said as sort of the last part of my prayer.

Takes a bit to get ready to go blueberry picking. A hat to keep off those tenacious deer flies. Insect repellent to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Long pants, socks and shoes (the only time I wear them up here) to avoid juniper, or the odd nest of red ants. Shoes also gives a better layer of protection against the rattlesnakes. Let's see what else? Right. The air horn just in case I meet up with the bear. Got my berry bucket, and off I go.

I guess you really have to love blueberries to put up with all that. And I do enjoy eating them. In fact we plan on having blueberry pancakes this weekend when friends are up for a visit, and I can hardly wait.

But when it comes to blueberries, there's more than just the taste factor for me. Truth is, inspite of the annoyances and cautions, I do love the therapy of actually being out there picking them. Yes, I've been driven to near madness by dear flies, eaten alive by mosquitoes, pricked by junipers and startled by rattlesnakes. Not every time and not all in one venture. Oh, and I forgot to mention the spiders. But that's not the point.

There is something very therapeutic for me to have my little bucket, find the safe dry space to plonk my behind, and gather with joy this goodness that has come from the earth free of charge. I'm outside and the air is fresh. The simplicity of the action. The simplicity of the concept. The repeated little motions reaching for the fruit, and the slow, unhurried movement from one choice spot to another, gradually filling to a deep blue mound of goodness and grace.

I've said this before, but blueberries remind me of God's grace. I have not done one thing to earn or deserve these berries, or the joy of their gathering. I did not plant these bushes or prune them or weed around them. I did not water or fertilize. I didn't even purchase the land on which these berries grow. I only go out to get them on beautiful summer mornings. Undeserved. Yet I am rich in blueberries!!

Likewise, I am rich in being forgiven and accepted. The intimacy I can experience with the King of the Universe comes through grace. I don't earn it. I did nothing to deserve it. I only reach out to take it; in the blueberry patch, on the deck, in my soul.

Okay, because I know you're wondering. My only encounter with a bear was me inside and him outside. I saw him through the window, and not out alone in a blueberry patch. He was easy to scare away, a good indication that he is not an agressive bear, or so says that nice lady from the Bear Wise hotline.

Still, my berry picking will be rather restricted this year. Only our shoreline patches will be visited. And closer to the middle of the day rather than early in the morning or any time after supper. But no matter.

The abundance of berries doesn't require foraging any deeper.

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My Daughter The Hero

2010-07-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

Kristyn, it's your birthday today.

Joan Rivers has been quoted as saying that the best thing about having a daughter is that one day you look up and realize that you've given birth to your own best friend.

For me it goes one step further. I had no idea, that summer morning 28 years ago, that I was delivering to the world a human being so spectacular that I would one day regard her as one of my heroes.

This has come with such a price, I know. We don't get to be heroes without doing something heroic. This requires something more than the average person is not willing or perhaps able to give. But you have. You have risen up and out of what would have crushed and destroyed so many others.

More astonishing still is that you have not done this by drawing from reserves of anger and hatred. To have done so would have been completely understandable. Instead, your strength has come from a clear consistency between what you say you believe and who you actually are.

You have chosen love and goodness, even toward those who have wounded you. You have refused to be defined by the outside forces beyond your control, and have instead determined what IS in your control, and then marked out a path for you and your family based on hope and beauty and strength. How remarkable!!

So, my Hero Warrior Daughter, I celebrate the day God gave you to us! He is already mightily using you for His plans and purposes, for there is no more noble calling than to show the world how God loves.
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Half Way Day

2010-07-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

It's as if God has lavished on me a perfect cottage day to mark the half way point.

Today is exactly the middle of my eight weeks off. And it was everything a day on Georgian Bay is meant to be.

Summer has most certainly arrived. You can tell from the first sense of it as you wake up. I took advantage of the sun and breeze and got two loads of laundry on the line, which were fresh and dry by lunch.

Blueberries are coming! I ventured out not far from the cottage, given our bear visit earlier. Even though it's more likely we'll see him around 9 pm, I still had my air horn with me.

After the blueberries I got to work on cleaning the boat. It had collected a growth of moss in the carpet over the winter, but it honestly hasn't been dry and hot enough for enough days in a row, until now. Only got half done before the sun came up over the trees. It was hot work already.

The rest of the day I read and napped. And around 7:30 pm or so, I went out for a canoe on flat water into the gathering gold of the sunset. Perfect. And then, just for added enhancement, our loon joined me, swimming quietly off to the side of the canoe. Just the two of us, floating silently on the peace together.

Now the sun is setting with a fierce beauty on breathless water. My soul is still, like the water.

He leads me here, to restore my soul.

Half way. With such a gift of time, I find myself in that anomally of not being able to tell if it feels like months or days. How long is four weeks in the absence of life's normal measurements and markers? How long is four weeks, when you're not looking at a watch but at a stack of books you've read so far? How long is four weeks when the only meetings you've been at, have been on the end of a dock, with God, and He seems to have no pressing agenda for you but to delight in sitting with you, watching the sun go down?

At this point of turning I feel as though I am only just now evened out from the deficit with which I arrived. I have come up to zero. Now I can start to get filled.

What a gentle God we have. One of the major themes of my journalling this summer has been yet again the willingness to let go of everything I try to lay claim to and open up my hands in total surrender. I am being challenged again to recklessly follow God into a bold future. To take the risks to do whatever it takes to be all He's called me to be. He is far from finished with me, He says. There is much more to do and be and become.

I am undone with amazement. That I get to do what I get to do is more than I ever would have envisioned for myself. How could there be more?

But that's the way He works. Always completing the good work He began.

Which is what I expect will happen some more.....in the next four weeks until I'm home.
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Peace Be Choppy - On The Wild Side of the Water

2010-07-01T20:38:00.001-07:00

It was supposed to stop blowing.

The local vernacular is to call it a "three day blow". The marine forcast said it was going to die down. But this morning was day FOUR and it was windier than it has been the last three.

Kristyn, Abby and Zachary were to arrive mid morning at the marina. And I was to bring the boat to fetch them.

I LOVE driving our boat! It's an adrenaline rush of fresh air and power mixed with the stark beauty of the 30,000 Islands, upon one of which sits our cottage. Hence the need for fetching.

Which I LOVE to do ---- IF it's not so blowy!

There's this one stretch in particular that's across the open, and you really have to know how to manage the waves on a day like today. Which I can do. But add the precious cargo of your grandchildren and suddenly I'm feeling rather nervous.

The ride into the marina was seriously rough enough for me to decide to use "the back way" home. It's not a route we use often because it's scattered with random shoals. As well, it opens up again on the other side with a narrow passage known menancingly as Hell's Gate, so named because the narrowness is enhanced by more but larger random shoals.

I love the marina reunions. Someone you love has made it to the dock. Happy hellos, and this morning, a non-stop smile from Abby, waving, as I got out of the boat and came up the ramp for a knock Gramma over hug.

We loaded the boat carefully, and I warned Kristyn to prepare for a rough ride. And prayed simply, "Lord, please take my babies safely to the cottage".

The back channels between the marina and the main channel were bad enough. Worse, I thought, than coming in, although it did help a bit to be going straight into the waves now. But the main channel was as rough as I've ever seen it. Large boats, less intimidated by the waves but still requiring some speed to out manouvre the wind, were adding to the churn. I had to make a tricky break for it, over the wake of one bigger boat in order to get into the channel that would take us into the back way.

As soon as we came around into it, the difference was immediate. While still blowy, there was way less buffet factor. I breathed in big, and settled myself for a slightly more relaxed ride.

That's when we ran out of gas.

It's okay. We had a second tank, and I knew how to switch connectors. We were on our way again in less than 5 minutes. But here's the thing. To have had to do that 30 seconds earlier when we were in the throes of the chop of the main channel would have been extremely precarious. As it was, we had a sheltered spot for the change over. Couldn't have been timed more perfectly.

On our way now through the back way. Do I recognize where I am? Think so. Yup. There's that set of shoals. Stay out and around until you get past them. Then cut into shore and stay close to avoid that other set. The wind is still strong in here. I can't imagine the waves out in the open stretch now!!!

Hell's Gate is right in front of us. To the right I see two fine young men on their dock. Good. If I hit a rock and am dead on the water, help is not far away. We proceed.

The trick to Hell's Gate is that you have to go through fast enough to keep you from being pushed against the rocks on your port side while all the time avoiding the hidden rocks on your starboard.

I didn't. Avoid the rocks on the right, that is. I heard the thud and waited for the motor to stop being able to move us forward, fully expecting the propellor to be toasted.

Kristyn looked at me. We were still going!!! I pushed the lever down and pressed us through the last stretch.

For those last few minutes of this wild ride I joked with God about wishing I could just say "Peace be still" and slide home on glass. And then I was reminded. "Peace is about the presence of God, not the absence of trouble."

Oh yeah. It's what I'm preaching on this coming Sunday morning at Cognashene Community Church. "And this will be a place of peace," God says through the prophet Haggai to a people facing a huge project with little resources and some neighbouring enemies ready to thwart their efforts. I'm going to talk about the powerful presence and fierce gentleness and wild love of the God Who's right there, even when waves are choppy.

I fully believe God was in our boat today. He pushed the gas through the lines until we were in a more sheltered spot. He held His hand between the rock and our propellor. He answered the prayer I uttered as I started up the boat to begin the wild adventure that was our ride back to the cottage.

It's peaceful now. Babies are asleep and Kristyn is relaxing in her cottage puzzle ritual. Tea is brewed.

And the wind has died down.

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Gratitude

2010-06-30T03:08:00.000-07:00

I've been seriously sobered this week, considering some frightening events of the past weekend. Three very important young people in my life were in a significant car accident that included their vehicle rolling three times before coming to a stop.

Remarkably, injuries were minor. On top of the obvious protection granted, there are fabulous God-stories about who He sent to the scene in the form of skilled passersby, and other "co-incidentals" that are anything but.

The whole of the story and the details of things, I will leave to those who were there.

All I wanted to do this morning was to express my HUGE thanks to God that the girls are safe and to ask for ongoing healing of the relatively minor physical injuries, and the healing of whatever emotional and spiritual components that accompany such experiences.

My friends, take your time and know that people who love you are very, very grateful.
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My Girl Turns Four!!!!

2010-06-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Abby!

Oh joyful day to celebrate the lavish love of God to fashion for us such a cherish. It was wonderment enough when you were an infant, and wrapping you up and reciting whispered lists of everyone who loves you, and gentle pieces of God's Word into your baby ear to feed your mind with truth right from the start.

But, now. Look at you! A girl of spunky joy, who's crazy about dinosaurs and caterpillars and kittens and purple - preferences not imposed upon you, as best we can tell, but coming from the uniqueness of you, spilling out in afternoons of enchanting expeditions in real and imagined places.

I love how generous you are with your affections. You have no idea how deeply your little voice of love-saying feeds my Grammasoul. Excited jumping and a smile that won't quit, all because I walked in the door? Who gets that, except those of us blessed with the undeserved adoration of a small child? And when I got back from Thailand last time, and you sat on my lap for two days, no matter what I was doing, and just hung on, without saying anything....

Unusual, that not saying anything part. Because normally you're talking. If you're awake, you're talking. And the ideas that are forming in that fantastic brain of yours keep me on my own mental toes. Don't stop talking to me, sweetheart. I will always want to know what's going on inside of you.

So happy birthday. God is leading our family into a strong and grace-filled future, reclaiming what should be into what can be because of Him. Hang on to Him always. He has placed you in a unique position to learn how to be mighty for love. We will do our best to teach you how, even as we ourselves stumble through our own lessons, learning from you as so often we do.

So my wonder child, on this day of days, you are beyond word beautiful.

And I will try to do the impossible -- to live up to the enormity of the gift that is being your Gramma.
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Alone With the Bear

2010-06-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well, almost 48 hours later and no further sightings of our bear. My fishing friend got in safely that night, and for the most part the biggest challenge was getting me to settle down.

Next day Ken drove our friend back to the marina to head home, and he stopped in on the way back to the cottage to get me an airhorn.

This recommended "bear gear" is helping me feel just a little more okay about sitting quietly outside, particularly on the dock with my back to the wooded shore. And actually, when I see how easily the bear was frightened away just by banging on the window, I'm even more inclined to be wiser but less freaked. (I really wish I had never watched that thriller made for TV movie back in the 70's, about those giant mutant bears that devoured a remote cottage community. :). Why do we watch that stuff?)

So now I am alone again. For the next three days it will be me and only me here in my space away. And while I enjoy it when others come and go, and particularly revel in the alone time Ken and I are having this summer, I know in the deepness of my self that there is still much healing that needs doing there; the kind of healing that can only happen when I am completely free to take care of only me.

There gets to be a rhythm to it that I find very centering. I settle into sync with the daylight and dusk, wind and stillness, water and rock. My soul opens up to each new day with unhurried arms, ready to embrace the learnings gleaned from slow ponderings, and gluttonous reading, and slow ponderings some more.

Within the comfort and clarity of all this aloneness, and without the pressures of immediate detais, I have the freedom to dream into big futures. What isn't good that needs to go, even though, in the stupid hurry of my life it seems unshakable? What are my longings too long unheard that need a voice, not just now, but need to be given volume above the din that has become my living's normal noise? What story of meaning and greatness (God's definition of meaning and greatness) is still waiting to be written by the decisions I will make in these moments alone, weeks left here, months to come?

Community, I need you. Obviously, here I am blogging on my LOA! You're my "peeps", how could I possibly have come through these past two, five, ten years (pick the crisis) without you? Those who have stood by me in the ugly moments, you've shown what you're made of. Some have not been able to stomach it with me. I am so grateful for those who have, and there is a prfound healing there as well.

But maybe it's like this for you too. There's a way of healing that can only happen when, alone, you are forced into a selfness (not selfishness, that's something entirely different) that gives you the space to be fully you. And when it's all laid out like that, Jesus can touch it more easily, more deeply, more painfully well.

And there it is. Of course. I'm not really alone. And I'm not just talking about the bear.

I'm surprised and alarmed when a bear shows up. I am not surprised in the least when, every time, God comes to sit beside me on the dock.
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I Just Saw My First Bear!!

2010-06-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not kidding!! No metaphors people. I am inside the cottage having just come in due to a quick rain shower, otherwise I would be still out on the dock.

It's 9:15 and I've abandoned my journalling to report this breaking news! Unfortunately, I did what I've been told to do and scared him away with a loud noise - rapping on the window. That sent him scurrying up the back hill.

Hey! I didn't get a picture!!!!

He's a juvenile black bear. Got a good look at him out the side windows of the main room, just on the other side of the deck. Not sure what he was after, but we did bbq steaks for supper earlier tonight.

Ken has just now arrived and we got him in safely.

Problem now is, my friend who's visiting is still out fishing.

Once everyone is inside safely, I might be able to settle down!!!!
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Father's Day Without Dad

2010-06-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

This is the first.

When someone dies, the firsts are hard. and this is the first Father's Day without my Dad. He left us gently and mercifully on February 27th this year.

I think of him at odd times. Like when I went to fetch Mom for my birthday supper at our house, earlier this month. There was a small poster in the elevator for a fund raiser selling Pies for Father's Day. And I looked over all the different choices, wondering which one I would get for Dad. He loves pie! And then I remembered. Oh. Right.

Or when I'm looking at the loon, lonely and lingering long in our bay, just last night. And I think, I'll tell Dad about our loon. He'd loved to hear about our loon. He is fascinated by their elusive beauty. It' s something he really misses about being at his own cottage. And then I think, oh. Right.

It's good that he's gone. Eleven years in a stroke-broken body is more than enough for an active doer like Dad. And he did that so well, with dignity and love, being broken like that. Not everyone can. It's an excruciatingly hard thing to do. Abby is still convinced Great Grandad is playing hide and seek with Jesus, because now he could run to find all the good spaces, where before he just had to sit a lot. And if he does sit now, I imagine it's to eat pie and look out over the water to watch a loon be beautiful. So it's good he got to go Home.

But Father's Day this year.....a first.

Dad, I am so glad we got to finish well, you and I. There were so many things, so many times when I was growing up that went bad on us. I wasn't sure our story could have such a strong and noble final chapter. But it did.

And it's because you took something meant to destroy you, and you let it make you more of who God created you to be. Your body was crumpled but your spirit stood strong. As each year of those last eleven crawled us through them, you did not cave in to resentment or self pity. You refused to entertain grumblings or demandingness. Instead you kept smiling. You encouraged and blessed others endlessly. You lavished praise on me and prayed for me and my family and my ministry. You showed a fearless faith to anyone you came into contact with. No one could spend 10 minutes with you, without knowing you loved Jesus. Dad, you let that ending decade make you more and more the godly man your heart so wanted to be.

Thank you Dad.
You fulfilled your purpose and beyond.
I am humbled to be called your daughter. I am honoured to call you Dad.

Tribute

Zachary and the Geeee-Grin

2010-06-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's my grandson's first birthday.

That would certainly be reason enough for a party. Bring on the cake! Gather friends and family! Take lots of pictures! He's a charmer, and is often the centre of attention anyway.

Twelve whole months! Vivid memories of a short night of labour and the strong and gentle way his mother delivered him to us.

The strong and gentle way God brought him to us, sort of when we were least expecting him, but completely expected by bigger plans in heaven than we could know.

And in this year God's greater plans are still largely hidden to us, except His plan to inject a joyfulness into our home we needed so much. That we know. That we can tell.

Zachary smiles and laughs out loud like every baby. But he also has this thing he does that seems to be part sheer delight and part completely pleased with himself, that is unique to the babies in our family so far. He tilts his head back and squeezes his eyes shut tight and makes this 'geeee' sort of sound from a wide, wide grin. It's impossible not to feel happy when he does that. Like trying to keep your eyes open when you sneeze. I've tried. I've tried to stay sad and serious, but he turns on that geeee-grin and - boom - happy - every time.

Currently I am spending long and relaxed times on the end of a dock answering deep questions in my journal. I have this lavish luxury because I am on an LOA from my real life, and get to play in this cottage life for a while.

One of today's dock questions, posed by a wise friend, was: What's your 'gut reaction' as to why you were created? It's a good question, geared to making me think and feel more deeply about what it is I want to accomplish in the "last third" of my time on earth, so to speak.

I'm still working on the answer for me. And of course, for Zachary it's way, way too soon to start guessing. Except for this. And it's not a guess. I am convinced that Zachary was generously given to us to remind us that in the midst of sorrow there is joy.

"You turned my wailing to dancing....and clothed me with joy" the psalmist claimed (Ps 30:11). You brought the geeee-grin of delight, and this brand new wonderful person into being, and we celebrate him this day with deep, deep gratitude.

Zachary,
May this day and many days, somehow register in your new tender psyche to tell your soul how valued you are.
May God shine His face on all you are becoming.
And may your wonderful, sugar conscious mother let you eat cake.

Happy birthday little man.

Love, Gramma

Giving Way

2010-06-13T09:15:00.001-07:00

What is this, day three? It always takes me more than just a few days to slide into sync with the paradox that is my existance at the cottage.

First is the sleeping phase. That's what I'm in now. Early bed times and no alarms and naps for as long as my body tugs me. Without the normal start times of life, it all slips quietly by in a new and familiar slow dance of rest.

I am remembering last year. Three weeks of rain and cold and disturbing thoughts that would not be banished from my brain, did not provide the respite I so desperately needed from the harsh realities of my life that past year. So in some ways I feel as though I am now in recovery mode from two years of relentless responsiblity

This is not to dismiss the amazing love and support I am honoured to know through the many strong and gentle friends God has granted me. But the truth is that what I've had to do is what I've had to do and it's been heavier than anything I've carried so far in my life.

And it is such a gift to be allowed to put it down for long enough to remember who I am and not just what I do. Here by the water, what I do gives way to who I am.

It's good timing for this. Any sooner and I would not have been able to truly lay it down. But by now something feels more finished, even in its constant reinvention. Right now, I can lay it down. I can give way.

Give way to God's way with me. Riding down the channel on Friday as we arrived, there was such a strong sense of His welcome. As if He had been eagerly waiting for me to get here. As if there were surprises and gifts in store, and He was so glad I was finally here to receive them.

Which I will. When I wake up
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Asking

2010-06-09T19:48:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I received an email from Debbie Flinchum who serves with Asia's Hope in Thailand. Baby Michelle, granddaughter of Tutu Bee who is Director of Asia's Hope Thailand, has been having seizures and has been hospitalized for tests. Three months old.

My gramma's heart is gripped with memories of Abby in hospital with severe pneumonia. My connection with Tutu, already strong, has increased with the arrival of her granddaughter and that we can now talk "gramma" "eyi" with each other.

So I'm praying tonight. Like crazy. For strength and stamina and peace and medical acuity and courage and healing. For a very young baby girl, who has one of the world's most amazing women for her grandmother, and an army of faithful believers all over the world, praying her whole.

It Works!

2010-06-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

While I'm away, it is my hope to keep on blogging. Expect updates on sunsets and chipmonks.
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Getting Ready To Be Gone

2010-06-09T19:44:00.001-07:00

This is a test post to see if I've been successful in linking my black berry to my blog. If it works, thanks George!
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A Needful Thing

2010-05-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

Believe me, it's not easy for me to do this.

I am getting ready to take an extended time away from my responsibilities as pastor of Highview Community Church - a church of extraordinary and astonishing people with extraordinary and astonishing hearts for God, and a pulse of movement and mission that makes her just one of the most favourite things in my life. She has a plan and a purpose to make a difference in our city, and in Regions Beyond, and in the hearts and lives of anyone within our collective circle of influence, for eternity. She is a place where coming together to engage in corporate worship with a phenomenal God, is a strong desire and a weekly reality. She has weathered storms that should have demolished us, and refused to give up in the face of the evils that have come against us. She is not a perfect place, but, when needed a contrite place, an honest place, a place where stumbling spiritual-journeyers like me, can stumble and journey in the company of grace and love.

And I'm going away from all that. For eight weeks. And it's not easy.

Last fall I requested and was granted a four week unpaid study break to be attached to my allotted four weeks of vacation time. That will have me away from Highview from June 7 to August 2 inclusive. The impetus for me making such a request was a growing understanding that the demands of pastoring Highview, and her particular story of the past two years, were accumulating in my spirit and psyche in such a way that some time away was going to be necessary. Really necessary. Necessary to regroup, rethink, refocus, refresh.

But believe me, it's not easy.

I LOVE Highview and all that I get to be and do as her pastor. It's not easy for me to leave for this long because I love what I do. It's a dream come true that I get to spend my day and my spirit fully engaged for the kingdom. And that's as true as I can speak it.

And then, the last 10% of truth? It's not easy for me to leave because, despite some serious soul work in this department, in the less traveled places of my soul, I still hold on to some kind of perverted thinking that the world needs me to run it. There, I said it. And that part of it makes it really, really good for me and for Highview that I go away from time to time.

So, it's not easy, but it is necessary.

I'm tired. I'm tired in deeper places, places that warn me it's time for time.

Pastor and author, Gordon MacDonald once said, "I came to realize that the most important gift, I could offer my congregation was a well-rested soul." I am currently not well rested. I have no gift to give you right now.

So even though it's not easy, I'm going away. Don't get me wrong. I fully intend to enjoy and receive what God's got in mind for me during this time. Most of it will be spent at the cottage, a place of holy quietness where I will read and sleep and cross stitch and study and feed the chipmunks and pick blueberries and go out in the canoe in the mist of the sunrise.

I will quiet my soul, let Him restore me.

I am beyond words grateful for those, so many of you, who will be making it all happen while I'm gone. For Derek and Paula and Renee and Ian, especially, in their Staff roles and how their own spiritual energies are devoted to Highview. For our Elders and their role as Shepherds. For the Creative Planning Team and all the Front Line Leaders who know how to do what they do so well and serve our church so faithfully. For every single volunteer in every single ministry role, who make up the extraordinary and astonishing place of grace that I know is Highview.

And while I'm gone, here's what I promise you. I will rest. I will listen. I will receive. I will sit down and shut up. And I will let God orchestrate whatever music He chooses, to bring me back to kingdom responsibilities, and bring me back to you, strong and ready and real.

And, oh yeah, I will eat jujubes.

Overnight Wisdom

2010-05-25T23:32:00.001-07:00

I've been reading through 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles again, and that whole deal about Solomon. Gotta love that guy. Overnight he gets wise. At least that's how it reads. I'm pretty sure God did a combo thing for him, though. Part God-endowed - the overnight gift - and part just pain old learning from life.

Most of us acquire what wisdom we might attain from that last part. Which reminds me of the wise words of an important counselor in my life, Dr. Robert Lehman, who commented one day that most of us want wisdom, we're just not willing to go through the pain of life that brings it.

Or at least when we are going through the pain of life, we don't even recognize it as the wisdom delivery system that it is.

Tomorrow I will be in a meeting that requires much wisdom. Or maybe it will be one of those painful experiences that delivers the wisdom, I'm not sure. I just know that I'd rather do a whole lot of unpleasant things than do this meeting. I most certainly don't feel wise enough to navigate the relational/emotional landscape of it.

So, overnight Lord. Got anything for me?

2010-05-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Sunrise over Wiang Pa Pao

You will keep in perfect peace
Him whose mind is steadfast
Because He trusts in You

Isaiah 26:3

Yupa - Mountainside Mom

2010-05-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

I looked up gentleness in the dictionary.

Here are the pictures.

Mom to 15 kids.
Taking it all in stride.
Giving it out in buckets.

Gentle spirit.
Mountainside Mom.

I catch a glimpse
Of what it means
To be an orphan
Welcomed in
Because you welcomed me
And mothered me
When I arrived on your doorstep
Too withered to know
How much I needed you
To help take care of me

May God grant you the stamina
And expand your heart even more
To keep on loving the homeless ones
Who aren't homeless any more
Because you opened your arms

To the Mountains

2010-05-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

I life up my eyes to the hills --
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD
The Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip --
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep

The LORD watches over you --
The LORD is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm --
He will watch over your coming and going
Both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121

What Beautiful Is

2010-05-21T22:07:00.001-07:00

Hungry bellies eating
New parents protecting
Grateful hearts sobbing
Faithful servants resting
Illiterate children reading
Cared for widows weeping
Reclaimed treasures laughing
Exhausted wanderers sleeping
Otherwise orphans living in families

God's kids abundantly living
Becoming all He created them to be
And not mere shells of their human selves
In lavish love not impoverished rejection

Beautiful

God's World Wide Web

2010-05-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Father,

Of all the things that catch me off guard
As I seek to understand all the gifts
Of my Asian experiences
It's the way You've pulled together these two pastors' hearts

How could it be,
This bond?
Why so tight and delighted
Energizing and respectful
Kingdom-affecting,
When we live on other sides of the planet,
Exist in two completely different cultures
Can barely eat each others' food
Don't even speak the same language?

Statistically speaking
Every odd was against such a connection
But You made it happen
You did
And You keep arranging for its deepening
You do

And now here I am
With my brother
Eating, resting, worshiping, doing little bits of life
Laughing and making jokes
Comparing favourite worship songs
Reading favourite Scriptures together in each other's languages
Partnering to raise up 15 otherwise orphans
Knowing and being known
Loving and being loved

Your web of connectedness
World wide
World shaking

Give Us This Day Our Daily Rice

2010-05-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Providing Father,

Had an ice cap today
And knew how far removed I was
From the mountains and the rice that grows there

Daily sustenance
For a people whose gratitude for so little shames me

I thank you for the opportunity to eat rice every day
Every meal
And not like it
But be hungry anyways
And eat it anyways
To know more the realities of other places
Other lives

Thank you for the lavish comforts of my life
On this side of the planet
And for the great and humbling joy of somehow
Being part of something better
For someone else
By sharing those lavish comforts
And spreading out Your provisions

Looking Out the Window of the Church At the Lahu Village

2010-05-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

Father,

You see it all
All the time
Your perspective is perfect
In the sweeping comprehension
Of humanity
And beauty of it
Anywhere

May we see through Your eyes always
Looking to the hills
From where our help comes

Coming Home

2010-05-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the computer saavy of others, I have been able to post blogs to our missions team site during this most recent stay in Thailand. I would invite you to check that out at Highview To Thailand so you can get a feel for how Megan Ogilvie and I fared during our time at Hot Springs, about 30 minutes north of Chaing Mai, where 15 of the world's most beautiful children live.

We are packing now. Today at 1:50 p.m. local time (1 in the morning for those back home) we will get in a plane and and begin the long journey home. And while, physically that should only take us about an hour to do the final gathering of all our belongings, emotionally, spiritually, I have deliberately set my heart to that task starting three days ago.

I needed to do that because I had to be sure. There was something about this visit that was even more compelling, more separating than others. Perhaps it was the way this time I felt more like a family member than a guest. Perhaps it was the heat that laid me low and forced a complete shut down of any big thinking or mental processing. Perhaps it was the particularly demanding and draining season I have experienced in my ministry these past months. Whatever the factor, there was for me this time a sense of being lulled into just staying and being quiet and gentle among these quiet and gentle people for a long, long time. A lot longer than these mere days set aside.

I hope my honesty doesn't hurt those I love and love to live with and serve with back in my real world. It's not you, it's me.

God is astonishingly personal. He has moved in and breathed cool fresh wind into my limp and desperate soul. He pursued me all the way to Asia again, and did not let me out of His sight for a minute, stayed hovering always around me and in me and whispered encouragement after encouragement, love after love, joy after joy.

And He has helped me point my heart towards home again.

Last night I got to talk on the phone with Abby for the first time since being away. She was very excited to tell me about the new caterpillar she discovered on our front porch and how she was able to pick it up so that it wouldn't get away. I told her that I was sending a hug over the phone and asked her if she could feel it. She said, yes she could. Then I told her I was sending a kiss over the phone and asked her if she could feel it. She said, yes she could. And I asked her to give Zachary as big, mwwwwaaa kiss on the face for me and she said, yes she would.

So today, in just a few hours, I will be on my way back to all God has called me to be and do for Him in Southwestern Ontario. I will have more memories and gifts and filled up places in my heart to bring to you all. I am not the woman who left. She was exhausted and sucked dry. I am now somehow transformed into something useful again.

A Quick Post From A Remote Place

2010-05-12T23:30:00.001-07:00

Suradet is now sitting with me as we visit an internet spot close to Hot Springs. Mostly we have been able to post from our blackberries, but I am taking this chance to write something quick on my personal blog.

Please refer to the Highview To Thailand Blog for a more detailed update on how Megan and I are doing, and what God is doing, while we are away here visiting our Thai family. It's been amazing! So much has been acomplished, it seems, for good, and it is humbling and very rewarding to be part of it, even if in such small way.

As always I feel more that we have received than that we have given.

I wish I could post pictuers, but it's not possible right now. Later, when I'm home, I will retro post some pictures and videos. Meanwhile, I just want my family to know how much I love them and miss them. Such a great gift to be here.

And our very deep thanks to Suradet and Yupa and all the children for their love and hospitality.

2010-05-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

bahn pii - Buddhist spirit house

Leaving for Hot Springs tomorrow.

Next two days sound full. First we pack up everything from Debbie and Mike's, with the intention that we'll not be back until May 16 or so, just before we get on the plane to head back.

Then we're heading to the airport to greet Mike who is returning from a time in the US with family. It's going to be rather ironic for me to be on the other side of the doorway as he comes through customs to be greeted. I plan on wearing my Thai shirt just to make it all that much more a reversal :).

Following that, Megan and I and all the Sponsors' packets will get in the truck with Suradet and make our way out to why we've come in the first place. The next ten days will be more rugged and less Western and more Thai and less English and more demanding and less scheduled and more core-shaking and less comfortable spiritually than what we have here. And it's why we've come. And I can hardly wait.

Restore. Encourage. That's what I believe God has called me to do while I'm here. And I'm about to really get into it now. These are the people with whom I am finding myself more and more at home....the family that lives at Hot Springs......and with whom I am pretty sure God will enable me to best do those two things.

Except "doing" isn't even the right verb for it. Because it's not a "doing" thing. It's more of a "being" thing. George mentioned this last year, that he could see why I loved being here so much. That there was this one only thing to be focusing on, and I'm not pulled in a hundred different directions during the course of any given day or week. And I agree.

But just now I'm wondering if there's a way of being here that is more Thai than Western, more internal rhythms than external schedules, more spiritual than strategic, more about being than doing.

And here we go. In for all of it. Going with the flow for all He's planned.

Oh...and here's an interesting something that has been planned. On Friday Megan and I are going to jail! There's a youth jail here in Chiang Mai and Asia's Hope does a service for the residents regularly. Should be interesting. I'm gathering my thoughts now in case I'm asked to speak last minute. Please be praying. I feel so incredibly inadequate to say anything of value to such an audience, with so many cultural barriers. Perhaps we'll get to observe, which will certainly make for a good blog posting.....when next I can.

Half My Heart

2010-05-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

What an odd sensation, to be so far away and feel like you're home.

It's not the heat, although that familiar blast hits you the minute you're actually off the plane and walking through the ramp. It's not the Thai script that now dominates all signage, even with helpful English subscripts below in enough places. It's not the layout of the airport or the knowing what will come next in terms of processing. It's not even in finding myself almost automatically and without much thought greeting each official first with the wai and being responded to in that gentle, now familiar manner.

It's not all that, although all that is also surprisingly familiar where it once threw me off into strangeness.

It's the people. It's the familiar faces standing on the other side of customs, who when they see you start jumping up and down and waving and grabbing each others' arms and bragging that they saw you first.

It's the hugs, long and hard, and the kissing of those same familiar, well loved faces, and the sense of joy that's electric between you. It's Suradet in getting-better-all-the-time English, in a moment of uncharacteristic-for-Thais vulnerability telling me that as he waited for us, knowing the time of our landing, "My heart," and then he taps his chest quickly saying, "pit, pit, pit" and knowing exactly what he means, not just because I feel know this brother so well by now, but because the same thing"s happening inside of me.

It's being surrounded by love and welcome and joyful reunion. And the connectedness of something so unlikely yet now so intrinsically part of my soul.

Last time here I sat with Miki under the shelter of the dining area at Hot Springs and tried to tell her. I drew a heart and sectioned off a good sized piece of it.. Then I drew a line out from that piece, and said, "Meung-Thai" (Thailand). She smiled and shook her head yes. Then changed it to a no shake, and took my notebook and pen from me. She then drew a line right down the middle, pointed to one side of it and said, "Ca-na-da." Then she pointed to the other side and said, with strength, in English, "Thai-land." And I looked at her and had to admit it. These people have so much of my heart it's scary.

So here I am again, home so far from home. In the crazy, stress-filled weeks preceding this, I've been having times with God that more resemble clutching than serenity. And I've asked Him how it could be that he would send me again, being as tired and depleted as I was. How could I arrive in such a state, I wondered. What good could I be to anyone?

God responds to my clutching like no one else does by holding me closer, grabbing on tighter than I am. And all I could hear Him whispering was that this wasn't about me or what I brought to the table. It was about what He has in mind to do, and that's all. Again I was invited/rebuked to abandon my plans and purposes, and release myself - and all these amazing Thai friends - to His.

Today will be recovery day. I have just woken up from two 5 hour sleeping stints, and while I am slightly groggy, I feel more rested this moment than I have for months. Today will be recovery day. Out for lunch. Visit the Doi Saket homes likely this afternoon or evening. Perhaps, if our swollen feet are up to it, a trip down to the Chiang Mai night bazaar. But mostly, just resting.

The trip to get here is behind us. The God adventure is ahead.

So for right now....I'm just reveling in the home-ness of it all.

Deconstructing My Heart

2010-05-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

For various reasons, the week just past has been a garish collusion of my frail humanity. On the eve of a lavish gift, this once-again adventure to the other side of the word, I find am undone by a sense of complete inadequacy for any task at all.

The pressures of responsibility have been crushing in particularly draining ways of late. The results have been that my personal character flaws and natural inabilities have come squishing out the sides like too much relish and ketchup on a too-big-for-your-mouth hamburger. Seems I've been wiping up one mess after the other.

Too many important things forgotten, too many details overlooked, too much harm done, albeit inadvertently but just as woundingly, to the very human souls I've been sent to love and lead. My sense of self is distorted and refracted in the mirror-list of all the mistakes I've made this week, and it's not a pretty sight. Embarrassment stings. Regret stinks. Self-loathing lurks in dusky places, waiting for a chance to take a piece of me home for a trophy.

And in the middle of it all, I'm packing for Thailand.

Doesn't seem right somehow. Shouldn't life-restoring missions trips be the reward of those who've executed their smaller ministry tasks properly? Shouldn't there be a sense of sending those who've been faithful with little out into the adventure that is the much more that God wants to give us? Shouldn't I be strong and confident and capable on my own turf before I'm allowed to trip all over another culture?

I guess not. Because I'm none of those things right now. Yet for some reason, God is letting me go back for a fourth time. That's four. Four times around to the other side of the world and the impossible delights of small-statured but huge-faithed kingdom warriors who have let me be their friend.

Funny, but I am right back where I was on that first trip in the winter of 2008, when God deconstructed my heart in a painful but necessary renovation that allowed for the expansion of His plans and purposes for 15 orphans in the foothills of the Himalayas. Right back to the awful, wonderful understanding that this is not about me in any way whatsoever, but all about Him being God in any way He so chooses, and me going along with it.

So off I go, without any illusions that I do so because of anything that comes from me, and a sharp awareness that I very clearly do not deserve this.

I promise to listen to the lessons of this particular trip. I promise to let Him be my sufficiency and allow His grace to fill up the gaping holes left when I've given all I've got. I promise to come back something better - more humbled, more loving, more faith-filled, more yielded, more bold for God - as God might choose to provide these things for me to receive. I certainly have good teachers in all of those things in the astonishing brothers and sisters there.

Tomorrow the gift begins. But right now I will make a good attempt at sleep.

Seven Days

2010-04-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

How is it something comes on you so fast, even when you've been longing for it for so long?

In just seven days, Megan and I will be on a plane, heading for Thailand. Seven days!

Seven days to the mango smoothies made by the lady in the roadside stand. Seven days to rice for breakfast, lunch and supper. Seven days to vicious humidity and tropical bugs. Seven days to nothing but flip flops on red dirt outside, and bare feet on clean, cool ceramic tile, inside.

Seven days to geckos and almost wild dogs and orchids everywhere. And crazy driving on the wrong side of the road and white water buffalo grazing in oblivion by the sides of the road.

Seven days until the children. The children. It scares me sometimes how much I am long for them all. With seven days to go I am eager for little hugging reunions and shy wai's.

Seven days until I am sitting under the roof of the outdoor dining space at Hot Springs, talking with our kids, playing games, practicing my Thai, watching them in wonder....that I get to be there again.

Seven days until the piece of my heart that stays there can be connected again with the rest of me.

I am most certainly the richest woman on the planet. I must be, because here I am again, packing for Thailand. How is it I am allowed to go again? What lavish gift is this? I am undeserving. I bring so little to the table compared to the overwhelming abundance that comes pouring out to me when I'm there.

Seven days.

Your Thoughts Please

2010-04-15T02:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog Followers,

As this week's sermon is coming together, it would help me a lot if you'd take a moment to write to me about how blogging, reading or writing of, enriches or complicates your relationships and/or your communications.

Point form is fine, or something longer if you like.

You can use the Comments feature on this blog, or email me at rabreithaupt@buidingbiggerhearts.ca.

I'll post anything you give me permission to publish.

Thanks!