Perspective Pivot - Both Sides of One Weird Morning

Part One - Bilingual Interference, Or "Where Did My Brain Go?"

Learning a new language as an adult is a thing.

It's a slow thing.  A precarious thing.  Sometimes I think I'm just a tad delusional to think I might be able to get enough Thai in this brain to call it conversive.  Not if I just got started at 51.  Really?  It's like a linguistic version of "So You Think You Can Dance?"  Except with a different audience, and a different purpose.  And actually, I can't dance either.

At this point in the visit, eleven days in and more or less halfway through, I am feeling the disappointment, the edges of discouragement, and a bit of frustration, - or is that embarrassment? - of the linguistic awkwardness born of my almost three-year absence from the immersion experience.  

Apparently, all that I was doing in between to try to stay 'sharp' was not enough.

If "language leaks", my shoulders are damp.

Learning a new language as an adult is a humbling thing.  It interferes with your illusions of competence and puts you back into the care of people who love you enough to listen carefully, with grace upon grace, and interpret with their hearts as much as anything else.

It renews your mind.  Not in the synapses of it like language learning is supposed to do, but in the spaces in between that don’t yet look like Jesus.  The spaces that don’t respond well to the struggle.  The spaces that want to look smart and witty and competent, more than real and loving and submissive.

Holy Spirit come and do Your work in me.  More than to be able to speak Thai, I long to be able to speak Love.  Would You please come and take my fumbling attempts and interpret Your peace into hearts, beginning with mine.

[The above was written first thing on this fine Friday morning, while waiting for Suradet and Yupa to return from the school run.  We had plans for the latter part of the morning, so I was ready to go as soon as they returned.  And then this.]

Part Two - The Pivot, Or "Wait. What Just Happened Here?"

We have two pastoral visits lined up for today.  Both are about an hour's drive from Hot Springs, and within close proximity to one another, so it makes sense to plan it this way.  

I wish I could say I enjoy the spectacular view as we zig zag part way up the mountain, marveling at the yellow flowers in full bloom this time of year.  But I'm not looking outside.  I am instead obsessing with my Thai pronunciation in preparation for delivering Sunday's sermon.  After all, it's been a bit rough in the language department so far this visit (ahem, see above).

Our first destination pulls me up and out of my own head to what I will later say was the first turn of the pivot.  We are in a small village featuring the characteristic narrow roads and wooden slat houses with livestock beneath.  Pi Why meets us on his motorcycle and leads us further through to where the fields open and a large piece of land has been cleared away.

His wife, Oh, is there with their five month old baby sleeping snug in his hammock tied tightly to his mother.  It's hot all of a sudden, under the sun, but we pick our way over the stubbled undergrowth and find ourselves a place to pray.  This is land dedicated to the building of the first Christian church in this area.  Why and Oh are the only Christian family, and they would like to build something where their friends might explore the hope of Jesus.  We pray hot prayers of promise and protection and prosperity for the plans being laid out.  Mountains in the backdrop. It feels good to have come to encourage this hearty couple and their bold plans.  It lifts me.  I take a close up of one of the yellow flowers I missed on the way here.

We are headed next to the house of A-non and Mintra, a couple I have some history with, but we'll get to that later.  Mintra makes purses in a shop attached to their house (some of you have one), so I get ready for a bit of business, hoping to bring more home with me.  But we do not stop at the house.  We stop at a small but brand new building with a cross on the side.  "What church is this?" I ask.  I am told it's actually a 'baby church'.  A brand new church plant from the Baptists of Chiang Mai.  And A-non and Mintra are meeting us here.

Because of our history, Mintra greets me enthusiastically, warmly.  And she and A-non tell us very excitedly about the forty people that have started to gather on Sundays, and the twenty baptisms that happened just recently.  And they are glowing and then so are we, because it's all such very good news for a new church plant.

And in that glowing moment, the history lays itself down in the room, and we start talking about it.  About how it was one visit while I was here that A-non invited us to come to his house where his wife was working because she said she was ready to become a Christian.  And how that day I got to be a spiritual midwife and watch a 'new creation' birthed from Mintra's heart.  And how it was another visit when I was here that she wanted to be baptized and make her faith public, so I got to do that too.  And how they had faithfully put themselves under the care and teaching of Ahjahn Suradet and Yupa, to nurture and grow their faith.  And now, here they were, part of a new and exciting extension of the Church of Christ in a land very curious about how life and death and goodness and freedom from sin works.  And Jesus has something to say about that.

And I heard the Spirit say, "Here.  A gift of a moment where you get to see just a little bit of how all your fumbling attempts have been given life and power in My Name to bring peace into hearts."  

And it spun in my soul like light and life.

So I said so.  A little bit in Thai, mostly in English that had to be interpreted.  I said how hugely my heart was encouraged in this moment.  How amazing it was to see Mintra especially growing into a fully devoted follower of Jesus.  How honoured I was that they would invite me into their lives like this.

And we cried together a little bit.  

Because Love was spoken 

and I'm not sure which language said it.

Wonderment Reflections on the First Few Days

Escargot, anyone?

This is Steve, a new friend I named and who gave me permission to post his photo, as well as send it along to Jayden who has a fondness for snails.  So, no, we won't be having him for lunch.

Strangely enough, Steve is helping me to feel right at home.

It's these quirky little touches, for example, the fact that a rather large snail in the bathroom doesn't phase me in the least, that remind me of how far away from home I am, and how I've come back home all at the same time.

I think that's what surprising me most in these first few days.  The lack of intensity I sort of expected since I was gone for as long as I was.  [Two years, eight months, two weeks, six days, eleven hours and 33 minutes, to be exact, in case I haven't mentioned it.]  With that much time in between, I expected things to feel strange and different again, or to have to get adjusted all over again.

But no.  Just two days in, with two decent night's sleep under me, and it sort of feels like I never left.  I feel calm, safe, happy, healthy, and ready and able to serve in the ways I'm called to while I'm here.

First night handing out the Sponsors' packets, I was still travel-weary, and a little jet-lag spinny.  But being there to watch the kids receive with such delight all the treasures in their pouches....so much energy from that right there.

Im's new shirt fits perfectly!

I've slept well already, although still getting up too early, which is an advantage for morning worship.  By 5:30 when everyone else gathers, I'm up and dressed and have sent out a few emails already.  Then breakfast, and great news is that I'm eating well, taking it easy on the over-travelled stomach for the first few days, and experiencing the benefits of that.  

Fresh and cold.

And while I think I've lost a bit of ground in pronunciation, I'm quite surprised that my Thai language comprehension is as good as it is.  Not bad for this old brain, considering how easily language leaks.

So things are very, very good, and I am very, very relieved.

To take this a bit deeper...

Last January when I was beset with a three-in-one health challenge (difficult tooth extraction, significant sciatic pain, suspicious kidney stone activity) that literally kept me in bed for the better of three weeks, I sincerely wondered if I might be done the travelling thing.  I was not sleeping and not eating probably for the better of six weeks.  The medications I was on caused a wretched amount of heartburn, and made me dizzy.  

The idea of putting this unsteady body on a plane and hauling it halfway around the world provoked no small degree of anxiety during those cold, dark nights last winter.  My heart was wrung out at the thought that the physically demanding part of what I do now might not be possible.  

And yet....

Here I am, feeling amazing.  Feeling like I never left.

Don't worry.  I'm quite aware that my gut might betray me at some point.  And it hasn't really been all that hot yet.  Also, there are any number of unexpected 'friends' more sinister than a bathroom snail to be wary of.   Still, I am so very encouraged by this very strong start.

All our girls are growing so tall and lovely!

Father God, I am amazed again by Your tender intimacy.  

To hold me so beautifully those uncertain weeks last winter.  

To carry me safely here now.  

To provide everything I need, as promised.  

My heart is Yours.  

No matter what. 

No matter where.

 

Time Warp Bonus

I've done it twice now.

In this last month leading up to my first trip back to Thailand in a looooooonnnnng time, I've shortchanged myself from an entire week.  Once when writing out my weekly list, and once when mapping out prep work for the sermon/report I'll be giving to Highview on October 30th (the day before I leave).  In each case, I've actually 'dropped' seven whole days and mentally pressed the prep into a smaller segment of time.

This is a good problem.  At least, way better than making the opposite mistake.  When I realized it again yesterday, there was a little rush of 'yay' in receiving what, by virtue of my confusion, seemed to me now a bonus.  

Oh! Great!  Not quite so much pressure.  I'll take it.

But it's a weird sensation.  The same kind of weirdness depicted in any story about time travel, or time folding over itself, or 'wrinkling' or standing still, or any manner by which humans explore their fascination with time.

Maybe we're all in that state these days anyways.  

What sensation of time have we known these past two and a half years?  Hasn't 'blursday' sort of smudged out over the entire pandemic by now?  Without regular markers and celebrations, particularly in the broader scope of 'annually', does it even feel like two years have gone by?  Has it gone by really slowly?  Really fast?  Or has it all just sort of turned to mush in our memories?

For anyone measuring any kind of growth or productivity in any arena of life and work, does it feel like a lot of time's been wasted?  Did we put plans and visions on hold, and are we now just taking stock to survey all that did NOT get accomplished?  

This is where I am most naturally wired up to go.  I like efficiency.  I hate wasting time.  The phrase 'killing time' sounds criminal to me.  Yes, yes, we need to rest and sabbath and care for our own souls.  I know this.  I do this.  But overall, over a two plus years period of whatever it is we're counting here, something surely has to have happened!  Surely there's something I can look to as having been completed, or progressed, or even just started.  Pu-leeeese!

Ironically, it's the very work that God has called me to, in these latter years of my life, that helps bring some answers, some balance, and hopefully more maturity (I mean, really) to how I interact with time. Beyond the very wild weirdness of flying ahead trhough time zones (believe me, that still messes with me a little), Thai culture is 'event-oriented' not 'time-oriented', as we are so much more prone to be here in the West.  Especially me.  Being there - which I am longing for - is such a good immersion in a gentler, less controlling way of moving through any given day.  It's like there's a general communal understanding that all things happen 'at the proper time'.  

This is why, even with all the strange traffic congestion and free-style way of driving, there is rarely an angry beeping of a horn.  It's remarkable.

This is why when you ask when something will start, there seems to be a bit of confusion, because whatever it is starts when everyone is there.  And it ends with it's over.  

This is why if you're the last person gathering your things before getting in the car to go somewhere, no one is annoyed with you.  Truly.  They only seem upset if you start to rush about.  Because...we have time.  We always seem to have time.

I wonder if the fine folks in Galatia were dipping forward into a more modern, Westernized frustration on these things.  Or maybe they were just genuinely discouraged by whatever circumstances prompted Paul to write his letter to them.  

"Do not grow weary in doing good," he comforts them.  "For at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up."  (Galatians 6:9 emphasis added)

Coincidentally, or maybe not so, this is one of the verses we have learned together at Hot Springs during the ESL portion of our Bible times in the evenings.  I could hear their strong young voices in my head as I write out the words just now.  

At the proper time.  Of course, it's God's call on this.  It's His time, not ours that's 'proper', timely, perfect.  All we have to do is keep on doing good.

I pause here to let that sink in....for me.

Things are coming along nicely in all the trip preparations, by the way.  One of two happy bonuses of my scheduling error is that I am well in hand (at least at this point) to have everything ready and packed well before the October 31st departure date.  

The other happy bonus?  This moment to reflect again on Who is really in charge.  In charge of outcomes.  In charge of time.  In charge of me.  And it's okay.  He's got the time.

What I Love About Labour Day

It's the Labour Day Holiday Monday and we are here, home in the city, and I am really very fine with that.

There are a number of reasons Ken and I normally opt out of staying at the cottage over this weekend, noise and traffic being just two of them.  But if I think about it, the best part of this weekend for me every year is the chance it gives me to get my house in order.

By 'house', I don't just mean our physical home, but that's part of it.  It's more or less that sense that a new season of work is about to begin, and here's the chance to put everything in place - on the calendar, on my desk and workspace, on the bookshelves and files, in the closets (especially the sock drawer), in the kitchen, out on the porch - and basically anywhere where I will be working and living and moving.  If it's in place and in order now, not only am I better set up for success in anything that's on the books, but I am also better able to handle all the unexpected and incidentals that will no doubt and almost immediately require some time and attention.

While I am a summer girl through and through, I love September for this.

It's like a bit of a reset for the season ahead, that time between summers when 'regular life' and 'regular schedules' set the tone and rhythm of all the good work we get to do.

So all weekend that's been my unhurried, non-anxious focus.  And today I get to just finish it all up, straighten out all the last little things, and then get ready for a very casual meal together with friends at the end of the day.

"Unhurried and non-anxious" has been a lovely theme for me over the summer months.  While there was significant loss, I also had the time and space to grieve and rest and think and write and kayak and gather blueberries.  And be Gramma.  And it was healing and revealing.

A word, a concept, a theme that's repeatedly come up in the journaling and prayer times is "Enough."

This seems to me to be related to a few layers of nuance.  

One, it is a descriptor of my inner self right now.  Here at the beginning of a new season, I am replenished, restored, rested,  I do not have a sense of neediness in my spirit.  What I have is 'enough' and then some.  I am over the top grateful for this, as I can't recall feeling this content for a very very long time.  Past journals (which I brought with me to reflect on over the summer) confirm this.

But the other nuance, and this is more related to Labour Day and my approach to work, has more to do with the lovely responsibilities I have been given at this point in my life, my life's work, and a sense that loving and serving our children in Thailand is more than 'enough' for me to be doing right now.  I experience what the psalmist expresses in probably the most well known of the psalms, chapter 23: "My cup overflows."  

Beyond that, there is more to unpack from all of this.  To protect my "Enough" there will need to be some "nos", and some good discernment to go with.  And my tendency to overwork for all the wrong reasons is still part of my wiring.  But in my own spiritual formation, as I regularly submit all the ways I do not reflect the Jesus I say I follow to the Spirit's work in me, there is a movement on this, I think.  I hope.  

Today I am thinking of all the teachers, students, parents getting ready for a new season of school.

I am thinking of all the pastors and ministry leaders getting ready for a new season of serving.

I am thinking of everyone whose summer was anything but restful, and are heading into the next few weeks feeling anything but ready, and I am praying for you.  I've had those seasons too.  They're brutal and pressing and shows us what we're made of and how sufficient our God is.  

Strength and peace to you to all.

The Puffy Places

 I'm no weather expert.  Let's start there.

What I am is an avid weather-watcher.  Especially in the summer.  Especially when it comes to timing out a trip across the water to the cottage.  Boaters know this.  Island cottagers know this.  Anyone dealing with any sort of open water whatsoever knows this.  

Weather matters, and you don't want to be caught out in a storm.

The repeated weather pattern of the days ending last week and on into the weekend were, to quote the weather guy on our local station, "Cut and paste."  Clear and cool in the morning.  Building heat with a wide circle of pressure and upper level wind throughout the day.  Risk of localized thunderstorm by afternoon.  Cut and paste, on repeat for about four days in a row.  

Sunday wasn't really supposed to be one of those days.  In fact the radar indicated it would just outright rain all day, throwing in the odd thunderstorm at random, for good measure.  And also the radar indicated there might be a break around noonish or so.  

That's not really what happened.  

Almost, but not quite.

That's how we missed getting rained on, but also missed worship.  

Believing the radar, and really needing to be back to the cottage by at least Sunday evening, we left too early to be with our peeps at Highview, but arrived too late to be with our peeps in Cognashene, at the service that in fact did NOT get called off due to rain.  Beautiful day.  All the way up.  Beautiful ride out under a bright sky.  But just not quite in time for service.  

By now, even to me, this is all sounding like an over-apology for missing church.  Maybe it is.  But I actually want to get to the clouds.

Once unpacked and settled, things looked so NOT stormy, in fact quite calm out on the water, that I got myself into the kayak to mark my twenty-second time around the island this season.  Couldn't help myself.  Since I missed worship, my soul needed this.

And there were clouds.

The open sky is one of Georgian Bay's best features, so it's not like I haven't seen clouds on many if not most of my paddles.  Just, this day, with the cut and paste storm still being predicted for a few hours from now, they had a different texture to them.

There was just a hint of the storm to come.  But mostly they were brilliantly white and layered, with complex billows of cloudness (that's not a word, but I've already mentioned that I'm no weather expert, so).  

There are many ways to worship, many kinds of cathedrals, and I discovered this 'puffy place' to be one for me.  In the unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I found myself suddenly on the inhale, in one of those involuntary shudders usually reserved for after a good, hard cry.  Except I hadn't been, crying that is.  At least not physically.  Happened more than once, and both times in response to simply studying the intricacies of the clouds.

Maybe I was just tired from the drive and unpacking.  Maybe.  But.

I am still making my way through the marking of loss of five beloveds this summer, of course I am.  Every one of those beautiful senior souls left their mark on me, and it takes a while to say a proper goodbye.  

And I think I'm still unpacking some of the good things this spring also held, such as graduating and turning 65 and celebrating 25 years with Highview.  All that sort of flew by in the midst of some stunning difficulty (that I have previously and vaguely referred to on Facebook postings), and it's taken a lot of kayak worship to recover from it all.

Later that same afternoon it did rain, yes it did.  Like a deluge of tears perhaps.  It feels good to cry,

But before that, there's the puffy places of wonder.  

Like right now.  

These last two weeks I will be very much in that unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I think.

Loss and the Living of Life

[I tread carefully with these words lest I step on the fresh grief of those more affected.  Husbands and Moms and Dads, Nanas and Grans and Grandads and Grampas are so hard to say goodbye to. 

Every one.

So, dear grieving friends, I will speak my words gently into that space with you.]

Over the past eight weeks I have said goodbye to five enduring friends.

All of them lived long and passionate lives, full of imperfect but prevailing love, and faith most admirable.

I will speak their names here with great affection.

Joan Duff, such a spunky lady, always giving all praise and credit to our good God, speaking her mind and being 'everyone's Nana'.  May 30.

John Bersche, childhood pastor, officiated at our wedding, HUGELY shaped my spiritual life and provided an indelible example of what it means to shepherd.  Encouraged and inspired me right up to the end.  June 14.

David Ogilvie, steady, godly, full of integrity, intelligence and generosity, living a life consistent and faithful all the way through.  Helped support my very first trip to Thailand.  July 15.

Nena Ogilvie, David's wife of 68 years, known to countless children-now-grown simply as Mrs. O.  Tireless, earnest, faithful, and a mentor-friend to me in those early, uncertain first years as a new bride in a new town.  She joined her husband just days after his departure.  July 28.

Harvey Fretz, our first pastor as a newly married couple, and taught me everything I know about people-first leading.  Story after story on this.  Ask me sometime.  July 29.

And I don't know what to do with all of this.  Not all at once like this.

Except to let these losses and the pain of their absence accentuate what these souls brought and taught while they still had bodies here on earth.  And to be unspeakably grateful for lessons, inspirations, sermons spoken and lived, and the life-giving encouragement they each provided in their unique ways at just the right times.  

Joan, John, David, Nena, Harvey, thank you.  I love you.  I miss you.  Goodbye.

One day there will be dancing.

Right now there is just....a lot.

A Messy Reclamation

 Ladies and gentlemen.....may I present to you....our big fat mess.

In direct contrast to the idyllic shots of glass-flat water and breath-snatching sunsets and the wildflowers and blueberries that adorn our cottage property, in this meditation I will reveal the not-so-pretty spots we're contending with here at the cottage.

Yes, there are all those beautiful things.  But also, we are in the midst of a re-claiming project of family heritage property that now has come under our stewardship.  This is the current chapter of a rather long and at times convoluted story that, once everyone who could recognize themselves is dead, and with the addition of a few embellishments, could make for a 'based on a true story" epic novel.  (Don't worry.  I'm not going to attempt it.  For one thing, I'd recognize myself.)

So here it is.  The piles of lumber, the shingles growing moss, and the buildings barely standing. 

These things take time, and the big fat messy parts are on a list, believe me.  I particularly wish I could reassure some local folks who make comments as they go by in their boat (I can hear you above the sound of your motor by the way).  

But our decision to 'reclaim' as much of the older buildings as possible, requires a slower and more meticulous process.  We can't just hire some deconstruction crew or junk removal company to tear it all down and haul it all away indiscriminately.  Not until we prioritize, assess, measure and properly assign still-good wood, windows and frames, locks and hinges and antique hardware.  Like I said, this is heritage property, and there's a lot of value in the details.  

And in the process.  And how that process needs to include all of us.  Earlier this month we yanked down the old boathouse, which, considering the trapezoid nature of its leanings for several seasons already, was harder to do that we expected.  But everyone was here to witness this historic event.  The older kids even had the chance to click a few notches on the block and tackle that was employed to pull out the final supporting structures.  It was important to us that the whole family be part of this.  It belongs to us all.  And this chapter in the story features us in the leading roles.  And to include us all, at various stages, will take time.

Rebuilding.

That's the vision.

To reclaim, restore, rebuild up from the mess into something more fitting for a legacy.  A place for future generations to be family together and worship by the water.

And while it's a tedious and messy thing, we are convinced it's worth it.  We know it is.  Because we've done this before.  Not with property and buildings, but with life and family and relationships.  And every child pictured above, in front of the collapsed roof of the boathouse, is brilliant evidence of the outcome of that effort.

You likely have done it too.  Taken the time to sift through the rubble to see what's still good and meaningful and useful towards a vision of something stronger and better and more lovely.   Ignoring the comments of folks floating by who offer their thoughts and opinions without knowing your whole story or the enormity of what you're trying to attempt.  Writing out a new chapter in an epic novel that perhaps has had more than its fair share of tragedy and trauma, yet holding on with everything you've got for that better ending.  Not happily-ever-after, but true.

So that's our mess, more or less, and some of what's rising from the rubble these days.

For anything you're reclaiming, I wish you strength and tenacity and peace.  Take your time.