Monthly Archives: June 2008

Our future

Via

Sojourners

Our faithfulness will depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness, loneliness, and human need. If the church has a future it is a future with the poor in whatever form.

– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Sabbatical Journey

I think, if one is willing to look, brokenness, loneliness and human need are found everywhere.  Well hidden in our affluent culture, but there nonetheless.  And these are the places God wants to enter and make whole.  These are the places he wants us to work in.

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The limitations of my mind

Not sure how my prayer life is to be – God moves into one’s very cells and still is beyond my understanding and greater than all I can know or experience.  Leaves me at the same time full of wonder, mystified and baffled.  How do I approach him and yet, how can I not?

At the same time as I live in a state of incomprehension there are times when I recognize God working and I see how he extends himself through me. 

Well, lots to sort out anyway.  If my limited mind can begin to comprehend…

Processing.  Sometimes too much to write down.

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Filed under Dealing with stuff

Parenting

Even birds parent.

Tonight I was in the yard clipping off the trees that seem to sprout in the rock garden and any where they shouldn’t, when I noticed a very young bird sitting and looking at me from the thick foliage of a spruce in out neighbor’s yard.  It fluffed up its tiny wings that were, apparently, not strong enough yet to carry him into flight.  The neighbor’s cat was hanging around – till Maisy, our dog, spotted it and sent it high tailing out of our yard. 

There was a lot of commotion as the cat decided to seek refuge in a tall tree.  The jays that have been around this spring began to make a lot of noise as well.  They were a relatively long way off and hadn’t made a lot of racket till the cat did.  Then I noticed that up above me, one of the jays was perched in the poplar tree.  As I went over to the fence to get a closer look at the little bird, she started to swoop over my head and cried out. 

Obviously the little chick was hers. 

I continued working in the yard then watered the lawn and flowers.  Later when I went back to the fence, the little bird was gone.  The parents were still hanging around the tree.  And again as I approached the fence, they got pretty agitated.  I couldn’t see the baby bird any more.  It wasn’t in the tree or on the ground as far as I could see. 

Even after I came inside, I could hear the parents calling to each other in the trees.  Calling to their little lost one, I suppose.  I hope they were not calling in vain but the chances for a little bird against that cat are slim.

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Processing

A lot of my thoughts are a bit much to just lay out here these days.  I suppose they will become clearer given some time and space and then you may be permitted a little peek inside my mind again.  But these days are full of thoughts and figuring things out – in between watching kids so my daughter can clean and organize for me and watching other grand kids so my daughter-in-law can golf and visiting with the other set of grand kids who are here for a couple of days.  Grandchildren are a wonderful distraction!

So, as I catch a few moments at home and at work, I’m processing some of the stuff going through my mind. 

That’s what’s going on around here these days.

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Filed under Dealing with stuff

It is amazing

how one person with some organizational abilities can transform my basement and garage from a mass of junk into a reasonable semblance of neatness.  I do not have these skills.  I get bogged down in the stuff and get no where.  I have no idea of the stuff that has been sent to the dump.  Mostly I was not allowed to know! 

I will have a manageable home by fall.  What a gift from my daughter.  I may have to see that she gets a ticket home every year to clean up the place.  I could always do it under the guise of needing a visit from the grandson.  Maybe I would get away with that for a few years.

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That was fun

Last night the group of us women who get together to read a good book or two and share in prayer for each other got together just for fun and a meal together to wind up another year of reading and such.  We tend to scatter – on holidays and travel and such over the summer so it gets a bit hard to meet regularly. 

Last night we shared food and drink and laughter. 

We began designing a form that could be given to prospective sons-in-law to see if they merit the daughter.  Quite hilarious.  Hope the guys have a good sense of humor or otherwise we may end up with a lot of spinster daughters. 

And then Loretta and I went shopping at Virginia’s place.  Oh dear!

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Going through my mind

As I pedaled to work this morning:

The steadfast love of the Lord never faileth

His mercies never come to an end

They are new every morning

New every morning

Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord

Great is Thy faithfulness

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Filed under Day to Day, Music, Worship events

Then Life Goes On

Today we tackled the huge job of cleaning up the garage.  I think we have enough stuff in there to open a second Value Village.

One of the jobs I finally got around to was sorting through some of the stuff brought over here at least a year ago after my dad’s things were sorted out.  One of the things that came to me were the family treasures that dad kept.  Maybe my tendency to collect came from him.  He had saved all of the sympathy cards from when my mom passed away and a lot of other things that reminded me so much of both of them.

It’s been 33 years since mom died so suddenly on May 29th.  In one notebook Dad kept, he had written down all the details of how he had tried to contact me off in the interior of Zaire.  Numbers for contacts at the consulate and the missions office.  And my response that I could not come home – my passport was down in the visa office and not accessible to me for travel.  There was so much in that box that I had never seen.  I sort of wish that it had all been dragged out back 31 years ago when I had come home for the first time since mom’s death.  Maybe the mourning would have been more complete.  Maybe it never will be entirely.  I will never lose the connection I had with her as her daughter.  She is for me one of the saints that surrounds me with the whole horde of the faithful who have gone on before.

So, today I mourned a little.  Not in some psychologically sick sort of way that refuses to accept the facts of life and death.  But there was so much I missed by not being here at her death that creeps up on me in unexpected ways.  And so, I weep and I mourn. 

Then life goes on.

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A sweet day

This morning I headed out to Anglin Lake.  It is one of my favorite spots.  Very quiet most of the time and today was no exception.  I settled into a spot at the picnic site with my screened shelter that I acquired a bit earlier this year. (one of the better purchases I’ve made this spring)  I had some books and a not too bad chair and my lunch for the day.  And my Honda CRV has a stow away table in the back that is perfect to work at.

The day was sunny off and on.  Enough so I got a bit red.  There were a couple of good thunder showers to cool things off too.  The shelter gave me enough protection from the rain that it still was nice to be outside even in the storms.

I went out to be quiet.  Silence is what I was needing.  My mind and heart seemed to need some rest and some space to reconnect with God.  It is so much easier for me to connect with God out in nature – just me and God and the world he made.  And this particular lake seems to be one of those places for me where God is near.  I’ve gone there to meet with him before.  In fact, I try to get out to that spot every year.  One day is hardly long enough but when one is hungry, a morsel tastes pretty sweet.

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