Monthly Archives: December 2003

Reading the book Seven Guides to Effective Prayer by Colin Whittaker lent to me by Randall.  I am awed by the power of God shown in the lives of the seven whose stories are told.  I feel like I am such a baby when I read what God did for and through them.  I think that maybe we are too happy being fed soft food and are not not prepared to have God take us on to the stuff that is harder to chew.  We must be missing out on so much that we don’t even know enough to miss.

The one thing that I find most difficult in reading the book is the fact that the stories are all from long ago.  There are no stories of people who are working at regular jobs, coping with the daily grind of living and raising a family,  reaching the depth of communion with God that I would love to attain.  If only I could have the confidence displayed in these stories of God answering prayer.  Maybe if I had more time, more faith, more dedication – you know all the questions as well as I do.  And maybe you know the lack of clear answers too.

And then I am called back to reality by a child asking me to take them to the mall, and I look at the seven piles of laundry waiting and also realise that this is the world God put me in.  I don’t have any revelation, much as I might like it, that I should leave my career, my family responsibilities, and concentrate only on the things of God. 

So, I am caught in this inbetween place – my head and heart wanting to be closer to God – my feet planted in the real world with the laundry around them. 

It is so reassuring at this time of the year for me to reflect on the humanness of Jesus.  He knows what I feel like.  He came here and knows just what it is like to be human and limited like us.  

We just got home from a day full of activities – especially for Sara.  She left home this morning for school, had soccer high performance training after school, refferee two games and then went to her regular soccer practice.  A thirteen hour day for a fourteen year old isn’t bad.  She is pretty tired.

Grace’s evening was much lighter – only track tonight from 7:30 till 9:00. 

And for me – the usual 8 to 5 and then home.  Made supper and in came David and Keiran.  It just happened to be his favorite meal (or one of them) and he was drilling out a lock on our file cabinet for us, so he and Kieran stayed for supper.  That was fine with me since I haven’t seen Kieran since Sunday – a long time for a spoiled Grandmother!

Then I began my evening of being the chauffer – driving Grace to track, picking up Sara to take her out to Redwing School north of town for her soccer practice, making a stop for junk food for the party tomorrow, then picking Grace up and continuing on out to Redwing again to pick Sara up. 

Oh, yeah, I had to buy false eye lashes for Grace.  Now she says these are for some project at school.  I have no idea what on earth they could possibly be doing with false eye lashes! 

Anyways, I think we are all in for the night now.  And tonight it is good to be in.  It is very cold here:  -28 C as I write. 

It was pretty cool to hear from my sister that my niece, in another city sort of far away, was also baptised on Sunday.  One thing that blogging has done is let other members of my family keep up with some of my activities.  Now some of them should start blogging too.  But maybe they are more concerned with embarassing themselves.  I think I am not that embarassable anymore – especially when I write.  I do enough embarassing of myself in real life.  It seems to come naturally.

I usually have my most embarassing moments with my kids.  I often will run out of patience, blow up and do or say something I really regret later – usually about two seconds after I start ranting at them.  But, you know, once I start it is hard to stop while I could still extricate myself with some sort of honor.  No, I have to go on and on till I really do a good job!

So, I end up having to appologize and eat humble pie for awhile!  Maybe my kids are learning about how to apologize – or am I just trying to redeem my self again?

A few night ago – it was the night all the kids were at my house “getting ready” for the dance at school.  My house was swarming with kids ( at least there were several extras) and there was some problem with our cordless phone that made it necessary for them to invade my office space or my bedroom space (the two sanctuaries of privacy for me) in order to phone.  That pushed me past the snapping point! 

Sara tells me that some of her friends are afraid of me.  I guess a bit of healthy respect is OK but fear?  Not really how I intended to come across.  I wish I could roll some bit of my life in reverse and erase some stuff.  Anyway, it does not seem to have deterred her plans to have about 20 kids over for a surprise farewell party for a firiend.  Since in this city parties can get a little out of hand with hundreds of kids showing up uninvited maybe a little fear is a good thing in view of the upcoming party.  You can be sure at least one of us parents will stick around to make sure that we have a house standing at the end of the evening!

Wonder why youth group never has this problem?  Imagine the headlines ” Two Hundred Youth Storm Gateway Covenant Church for Friday Evening Meeting! 

I am sitting here trying to figure out what it is about Christmas that I look forward to the most.  I think what I really like the most is the whole sense of anticipation that goes with so much of the holiday.  And the memories.

My earliest memories are of family; gathering around the tree; eating at tables stretched out to their full length with extra seating for the kids somewhere; singing and my dad and grandfather playing their violins; always before opening gifts the reading of the Christmas story by my grandfather, now by my father. Christmas Eve began the major part of our celebrations in good old Scandinavian style for our mixed English /Swedish family.  

Mixed in with the family memories are others closely related; Christmas programs and the practices (not always good memories); memorizing the story from Luke; advent candles; early morning Jullotta services.  Always home and church at the centre of the celebrations.  A pastor’s family doesn’t go away at this time of year very often.

Then there is whole set of memories having to do with Christmas in the Congo.  Our little silver tinsel tree that was so shabby but worked to fill a hole of loneliness that first year when we had so much adjusting to do and when Christmas was still a forbidden holiday in the newly named Republic of Zaire.  Learning to do Christmas in the tropics a long way from family.      Learning to absorb other traditions that we were not used to; rice pudding, the Christmas Eve Buffet supper, The 4 am service at the church the drums beating the wake up call after a night of hearing the singing continue till midnight at the church.  Opening homemade gifts or ones that had been purchased in anticipation of this day a few years before.  A bottle of Coke became a gift of lasting remembrance, as did hand dipped chocolates.  I learned to do many things to prepare for the season from curing and smoking my own ham to making tourtière.  There was always sewing either for Christmas or for the new dress or shirt for the school program.  And always the gathering and purchasing of gifts for our household help.  There was no commercialization there were no stores to speak of.  But there was celebration.  And the people of the Congo celebrated, having known what it was like to have Christmas celebrations forbidden for about three years. 

Now, for me, the Christmas season still holds us together as a family.  Everyone will be home at my house on Christmas Eve since we carry on that part of my Scandinavian tradition.  At our supper, we will have ham, turkey, rice pudding and tourtière.  All foods which not only fill our stomachs but refill our memory banks.  Then stuffed we will all go to the Christmas Eve service, (Leo and I may go to the early morning service if there is one, but our kids never were too keen on this tradition.) then back we go to our house for the reading of the story and the gifts. 

It is a crazy hectic season.  But it is so full of good things for me.  I guess we could do without a lot of the gifts and decorations and we try not to go overboard on them.  But the joy that decorating brings to some of my kids I wouldn’t give up for anything.  To others of my kids the giving of gifts and watching the receiver open them is what it is about and that too I wouldn’t give up.  And I would not want to give up the memories that the season brings back or not pass on some of theses good times and memories to my children and grandchild.  And as our family enlarges we incorporate new ways of celebrating that will get passed down along the way. 

Maybe I see a lot of what Christ came to do in the way we celebrate his birth.  We are family together and love each other.  We don’t exclude the ones that may still be quite unlovely, and we take in new members and they become part of how we celebrate too.

I understand that for some people this is a sad and difficult time; that there may not be much to celebrate and that it just seems a commercial rip off. But to me that is exactly why he came.  God incarnate – coming into our world – into our families, into our world that has things all screwed up, even into our sad and depressed lives.  Loving us enough to come.  Sharing our humanness, experiencing our pain.  Being our only reason to celebrate.

Tonight we had the priviledge of attending the CBC’s reading of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  The music was done by the Prince Albert Mens Chorus and was well done.  The readings were superb.  And it was fun to have them done by by radio personalities familiar to us.  Leo knows some of the reporters quite well since they are regularly reporting on his antics as Medical Health Officer for our health region, so I got to meet them too tonight.  The reporter who usually interviews him is going off soon to spend six months in Ghana to work on training reporters on reporting human rights issues.  I think she will have a very interesting experience.

Around our staff room table at noon, we were all having soup of various kinds, some home made and some of the canned variety.  Roger, my partner and only male in the office, is actually quite a gourmet cook, sometimes with a tendancy to the exotic. 

So Kathy asked him for the recipe for his squash soup.

“To start,” he said, “you take a leek…”

We lost it!!  Not sure of the soups’ popularity from now on!