Monthly Archives: October 2008

October 31, 2008 · 5:01 am

So, here I sit,

and it is late and I am all alone tonight.  Leo’s off in Vancouver and Patrick made a trip to Saskatoon for his marriage preparation session.  I’ve been out at a great concert.  Now I should just go to bed.

But I am thinking about tomorrow.  I’m going to put a call in to North Park Seminary and see  if the course of studies that I would like to take fits with and MDiv program.  They offer the classes I’d like to do as one of their specialized streams. 

Christian Spirituality.  What a subject to dig into. 

And me being a non-phone person, will I be able to articulate what it is I am being led towards and why I want to do this with any sort of clarity? 

I guess I will find out.  Tomorrow.  Or soon as I can reach the right advisor.

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Filed under Dealing with stuff, Studying

October 30, 2008 · 2:45 pm

Memorable events

Last night Patrick asked me some questions about my marriage. He’s doing his own marriage preparation course/counseling so has this book/workbook that he is working through.

One of the questions he asked was, “What was one of the most memorable events in your marriage?”

I had no idea how to answer that one.

Not because I have had no memorable events. I think there have been so many.

There was the time he came home early from the Congo and met me at the door totally shocked. I didn’t expect to see him till the next day, yet he was there when I opened the door. That was early on in our marriage. There are a couple of other memorable events in the early part that I will leave up to your imagination. Not all of them were happy but although they are there in my memory, I do not dwell on them now. Things forgiven must stay forgiven.

Then there was the cockroach night in the Congo. I think I’ve written about that before so won’t repeat it. Not sure if he deserves forgiveness for that evening but it has become more funny than horrible as time passed.

There was the ring he gave me on our fifth anniversary – the matching band for my engagement ring. Took him 5 years of marriage to afford the thing! And I didn’t need it but he gave it to me anyway.

Over the years there have been many occasions that were special. However, there is not one single event that stands out for me as the most memorable. Our marriage has grown slowly, sometimes invisibly, through all sorts of events and trials till it has become something solid. I live with a man I trust completely, one who trusts me with the same kind of certainty. I still have a man who supports me in whatever endeavor I take on – not some sort of foolish disinterest that lets me do things that are not healthy, but he has believed in my ability to do things well and that has, by his faith in me, helped me to do well. He’s nudged me towards wholeness and completeness and I think I have done the same for him.

So there is no one event that can bring about the kind of slow and steady development that we’ve experienced through our marriage. There is love, deep and solid and trustworthy that has grown between us that is too big to attribute to an event. I guess if there is one single factor that has helped us to grow a strong marriage it has been the fact that God has been present in it from the beginning. Sometimes it has simply been the knowledge that we vowed to remain faithful to each other that has made us work at keeping our marriage strong. Partly it has been the fact that if one gives God permission to be active in a marriage, he is more than willing to use it to grow you as a couple and as individuals. Our marriage has been a gift of God to us, one of our most precious blessings and one that has required hard work as well as love to maintain.

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Filed under Reflections

October 28, 2008 · 9:06 pm

For the Master of the House

I have to tell you a funny story. I think even Leo will admit that it has some humor, ‘cause it is about him. But then he never reads this blog anyway.

Leo travels a lot. And he has many meeting to attend in town. I hardly can keep track of exactly where he is. So last night we had a bit of a mishap.

Leo was in town. I knew that. He was holding a clinic that went very late. I didn’t know that. I thought, when he was not home yet by 6:30 that he must have had a meeting – one of his occasional supper meetings. I figured he had told me and I had forgotten.

When I got home I had decided to cook up some sausages that had been sitting in the fridge for a few days along with some waffles. So at about 6:30 Patrick and I began to eat. We finished. Patrick finished all the sausages(he is a bottomless pit) and set the frying pan to soak in the sink.

Then in came Leo.

A Frenchman and his food should not be parted when he has had a long hard day especially. But there you go. The sausages were gone. Every last one of them. The uneaten waffles had been packed up in a sip lock bag and stored in the fridge. Leo was so mad he could have blown a gasket! You would have thought that we had deprived a starving child of his last meal!

It took a while to calm him down get the waffles out and suggest peanut butter as a reasonable substitute for sausages.

Later on we laughed.

But I think Patrick learned a lesson in keeping a wee morsel in reserve for the master of the house!

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Filed under Day to Day

October 27, 2008 · 11:42 pm

Today I survived

a compressor malfunction at the office.  Dentists can’t do much without compressed air these days.  So we ran way behind and had some people a bit irritated with us at the end of the day.

Also had some extractions that took waaaaay too long, due to one tooth shattering each time we moved it and other teeth not wanting to get numb.  That was tiring.  Good patient but tiring work. 

Now, I am done.  In more ways than one.  Have to go home now and start the night job.  I have no idea what to cook for supper.  I wish I could just eat a sandwich on the couch with my feet up.  Wonder if I can convince others that this is a good idea?

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Filed under Day to Day, Dental

October 27, 2008 · 3:36 am

More Good Byes

Today we said good bye to Meg.  Meg joined us one Sunday following a joint Good Friday service just after she had moved to Prince Albert.  That Good Friday our worship group was leading the music.  I still remember the day.  I was still pretty fresh at playing my recorder in public and was pretty nervous.  We played one of Megs favorite songs and she came to check out our church the next Sunday and stayed.

Meg has given so much of herself to us at Gateway Covenant.  She joined us on the worship team playing guitar.  She’s participated in a small group.  She has blessed us with speaking and she has shared with us her work with Wycliff as she has worked on the Cree translation.  She has become a friend.

Now she is moving on – out to Nova Scotia and to another First Nations group – The Micmac people. 

We really are going to miss her.

If I knew how I would cause this posting to have a bright purple background.  Alas, I’m not that smart. 

 

There have been too many of these good bye things these days. 

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Filed under church

October 26, 2008 · 4:34 am

Its Blowing

We must have some weather change coming.  It is blowing some sort of weather in from somewhere.  It rained this afternoon and I was surprised that it did not comedown as wet snow. If we had snow we would be having a blizzard.

While I was off serving at the Soup on Saturday, Patrick was left with the job of packing away some of the summer furniture and things.  I think we’ve just done that in the nick of time. 

It has been too long since I have been out for a walk.  Why I was attracted to walking tonight, I am not sure but I needed to get out under the sky, out in the fresh and blowing air.  The rain stopped, I finished some other work I had to do and although it was already dark, somehow it was just perfect. 

On my way back towards the house, I stopped and leaned against the huge tree in the park across from the house.  The large spruce was bending next to me.  The wind had long since stripped the branches of the big maple of all its leaves.  Even so the wind was moving it.  I could feel the huge branch move behind me as I leaned on it.  I felt its movement and I wondered if it felt a gentle push back from me as I leaned into it.  I seemed little and the wind and tree so powerful.  Walking back at last, across the pavement, the wind was scattering leaves before it.  I tried to listen to their sound.  It was as if small chips of wood were being thrown against glass, almost like the sound of a heavy freezing sleet.  I guess we will get that soon enough.

It was good walking tonight. 

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Filed under Day to Day, Reflections

October 24, 2008 · 2:37 am

I know what I’m getting for Christmas!

I picked it out myself – well sort of.  Maybe it picked me.

It was orchestra tonight and once a year the group has its annual meeting.  That will be next week.  While Dean, our conductor, was getting ready, I overheard him say, "We’ll have to sell our basses" 

My ears caught that remark.  You see, I have been sort of keeping an eye out for a used bass to buy since last Christmas.  The one I use is rented and it does not have the quality of sound that I would like a bass that I buy to have.  So, I have just kept on renting and looking.

This just seems perfect.  The bass he is selling is quite a beautiful instrument – a light honey brown and has nice sound.

A bass of my own! 

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Filed under Day to Day

October 22, 2008 · 6:33 pm

Right now

I sort of wondered if posting this would just be too much of a revelation of how difficult it is to say good bye this time to these folks.  And this in spite of the fact that I know it was right and good for them to go.

Then, I thought, it is where I am right now.  I will post it because it is colouring my life right now and so if this blog is about life and how I live it, then this is very much a part of living life for me right now.

 

It will get better.  I hope.  No, actually, I know it will.  But right now…

 

Do you find yourself grieving as hard as I am?  

 

How hard is that, you probably ask, and why?

 

Very hard, it seems. It hurts and tears at my gut

And my eyes, normally dry, are full of tears.

The “why” is easy, my friends have moved away,

Out of my sight, out of my neighborhood.

And when I visit places where they’ve belonged,

I’m flooded with memories that make my heart hurt.

This morning, the place of prayer was empty

‘Cept for me.  One friend sick, another gone.

Just God and me, and memories.

So this morning, God heard my tears.

Among my prayers for others,

He listened to laments.

 

God, the Beloved God that I have learned to seek,

Knows how I feel and hears me.    

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Filed under Day to Day, Dealing with stuff, Poetry and Stuff

October 21, 2008 · 2:17 pm

Happy Birthday

That actually was yesterday.  I just did not have time to post this because I was up at his house eating cake that he baked.  Chocolate – rich with chocolate chips too – and chocolate icing.  I raised him well, eh?

(Personally, I am not a baker, so I have no idea where he learned)

IMGP3548

So my first born is now 35.  Has his own first born now. 

Some days life is great.

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Filed under Day to Day

October 19, 2008 · 8:29 pm

Today was quite the Sunday

It was.  And still has a bit to go before its over. 

There was so much grief and sadness wrapped in with excitement and anticipation.  The adventure of new things mixed in with the loss of the old ways and customary things.

Final – well not "final" is the true sense of the word but conclusive enough for now – goodbyes were said to the Friesen’s, Randall, Lauralea and Micah, as we all sort of hung around, not really wanting to be the ones to leave first.  Maybe not so many tears were shed as just a sense of deep aching in the heart.  These last ten years have been so good.

Beginnings took place as well.  Marc begins his new adventure as our part time office /administrator/speaker on some Sunday’s person while we wait for a new pastor.  He is going to do well.  I appreciated what he said this morning.  I think that means he is going to let God use him to take us along the next steps of the path.  So this will be a good adventure with him and God. 

I began teaching the youth class today as well.  What a great bunch of youth.  I am going to have a good time with them.  We are exploring Spiritual Pathways together and the truth is that I will probably learn at least as much from them as I teach.  So, this part is my little corner on the adventure too – as well as speaking about once a month. 

In some ways today seemed a bit like spring – like the mother and father birds giving us the final nudge off the edge of the comfy nest, watching us spread our tiny little wings as we flap them furiously and begin flight on our own.  The nice part is that there seems to be this updraft that is carrying us along.  Our wings may be way too small for the job but we are helped along by a force way bigger than we are. 

So, this is it.  We are off and flying solo with a lot of help.  And it is, I believe, going to be good.

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Filed under church, Dealing with stuff