Category Archives: Dealing with stuff

Epiphany –this is the season

I got a call this morning, not so early as to wake me up but early enough to miss answering the phone before the third ring.  I then had to call back since I wondered what was going on that he needed to call so early.

There was a mundane reason.  He wanted someone’s phone number, someone who will be making a trip out to Africa soon.  

Then he told me of his epiphany.

He has realized that God sets him free.  He has realized that he does not have to bear the burdens of life for everyone in his family.  He has realized that yeah, his father really does love him – a lot.  There are a lot of things he is all of a sudden realizing – not that he didn’t “know” them but this is a deeper knowledge that is only earned through an encounter with God.

He wanted to tell someone.  He knows I pray for him, not just once in awhile but daily.  He wanted me to know.

I have no words for the feeling I have but it is there trying to bubble out.

We did our pastoral review last night.  We have a great pastor and youth pastor who listen to these things and take them in and grow from them.  

That is a very good thing.

It is not easy being part of the group that has to sit down with the forms we get handed in and compile them into something meaningful, something that actually and honestly reflects what people are thinking.  And then we have to consider the many more people in the congregation who did not hand in a form for whatever reason.  Maybe they just don’t do forms; maybe they have nothing to complain about so, being content with the ways things are, do not fill out a form.  

People who do hand in the forms tend to be from two groups – the complainers or the ones who realise the value in returning an evaluation and take time to think and respond honestly with both positive and negative constructive statements.  So, sometimes you get responses that come from totally opposite points of view.  Try and compile that into one statement!

We did our best.  I think it all worked out pretty well.  I hope God’s hand was in it all.

What I find most hard to deal with is staying neutral; staying positive and staying loving.  I do not want to take what I know to form negative opinions about others.  I see that tendency in myself and I could easily give in to it, passing on a critical spirit to others.  It is easier to complain than to look at a situation, evaluate it and then use it to make good and wise changes.  

Last night I went up to see my aunt after my music lesson.  She had already been tucked into bed so I didn’t stay long.  Lately she hasn’t been doing too well.  Her bones are fragile and one of them collapsed, as vertebrae in a osteoporotic women tend to do.  So for awhile she has been in pain and on bed rest just getting up into the wheelchair to go to meals, etc.  

Last night when I walked in, she commented that it was Monday, and how was the service at church.  That comment was a good sign that she was feeling better.  Two days before she was confused about who I was.  

She misses getting out.  It has been a constant in her life up to now.  

Last night she was also lamenting that she had no gifts to give, nothing to wrap, nothing to give away for Christmas.  She has given so much away all her life – another part of her that she can no longer sustain.  

I am hoping she will be well enough to get out for Christmas.  She is tiny and light enough that any of my boys could just pick her up and carry her so we will make every effort for her to spend Christmas Eve with us.

In watching her, I wonder – what will my last days be like?  Will my friends be around?  Will I be visited?  Will I even know?  What will be left of who I am?  How much of who we are is wrapped up in the functioning of our brains?  

The course I am taking right now has me journaling.  I guess this (my blog) is also journaling but with a bit of a different slant.  Journaling is a practice that I have come to enjoy and blogging is a big part of the reason I enjoy it.  I like the sense of interaction with others that blogging gives – when people comment.  But journaling as a practice to reflect on my day and where I have met God through it has become one of the practices I find both enjoyable and useful as a means of spiritual growth.  Paying attention to God.  Reflecting on my response to God in my daily life.  These are things I need to do.

The past couple of weeks the journaling class involved reflecting on a passage of scripture; listening to what God was saying to me through it.  Lectio Divina – I enjoy it and find that if I listen to what God is saying to me then the Word of God comes alive for me. 

What follows is part of that work from the past couple of weeks – and a bit more. (We are encouraged to be very brief in what we share with the other online members of our groups, so this is a bit longer than what I would post for my course.)

In the past couple of weeks my journaling covered everything from Thanksgiving to dealing with a partial shutdown at work due to possible city water contamination.  Plus I had the worst cold I have had all year, my nose and eyes both running!

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you,

O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:*

Do not fear for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethopia and Seba in exchange for you.

Because you are precious in my sight, and honored and I love you…

The words from the Lectio “You are precious” spoke to me of something I have a hard time really getting.  That fact that God loves me is in my head and nothing much can shake that fact.  But God actually would give whole countries to ransom me?  I am precious to him?  It’s not that I don’t know this just that I have a hard time trusting the reality of it in practice.

So this week, God showed up when I was tired and sick and frustrated by many things.  Not quite going through the fire but he showed me his presence.

With a bad cold, I had a rough week, carrying on at work in spite of feeling physically tired.  We had to limit our treatment to non-water consuming treatment, extractions among the services we could continue to provide.  I was doing an extraction that was not that difficult but, being sick, was exhausting my physical strength.  As I was doing it I thought, “Oh God, don’t let this one break.  I am too tired.”  And in a moment out it popped.  It felt as if God was saying to me, “I love you.  I hear you.  Let me remind you just how precious you are to me.” 

Psalm 23:1

The Lord is my shepherd;

I have everything that I need.

We meditated on this Psalm at the beginning of our meeting tonight – a few people, the church council with work to be done.  

By halfway through the meeting, I think I had forgotten already.  The problem of getting volunteers – not just warm bodies but people with a vision for the tasks to be done – is daunting for me.  We need adults who will look after the real little kids.  We need adults who will teach and care about the little bit older kids.  All we need are a few each week –  its not like they have to commit themselves to help every Sunday – maybe once every couple of months.  

But here I am again, focusing on the problem.  

The only way we are going to resolve this issue is if the adults in question hear God calling them to do this sort of thing.  And since Jesus said to ask for anything – well I am asking.  Maybe this is not the way he wants to get this job done; so I’ll be listening for that kind of message too.  Maybe it requires a major shift in my thinking.  Or maybe I am just tired of trying to accomplish too big a job mostly in my own strength.  

So I think I will try to listen more.  We have simplified our children’s Sunday class time down almost as much as we can.  Maybe we need to just incorporate teaching for children into our main worship time.  Maybe our small group needs to be so child friendly that the kids are as much at home in the sanctuary as in a “class”. Pews don’t contribute much to a child friendly atmosphere though. 

Whatever.  Jesus certainly cared about the kids that hang out around him.  I wonder what he would do, or wants to do with our kids?  He has everything that we need.  The psalmist goes on to describe God’s bountiful provisions even through the roughest of places.  For me this is a rough place.  Provide, please God.

We said goodbye to a friend last night.  We won’t see him in his home again and we will miss him, especially when we go out there to visit.  He loved his home by the lake with the garden all around, the hummingbirds hovering around the feeders, lots of birds and squirrels outside the window, the lake just the other side of the house.  So, he spent his last days there surrounded by all of the natural beauty he loved and by his family who cared for him.

On Friday evening Leo and I went out to see him.  He could no longer respond to us by then and we knew it would not be long.  His body was riddled with cancer but he never had given up easily, and I guess it was no different fighting disease than throwing his efforts behind any of the many endeavors he undertook in life.

When we were there on Friday, it was time for the homecare nurse to come and care for him as well as time to change and turn him.  I watched this act of love take place.  The bedsores were tended, lotion was massaged onto his drying skin, and he was changed into a fresh gown and was given fresh sheets.   His wife, daughter and sons were not careless.  It was obvious that they were handling a man that they loved – this care was itself an act of love.  Just bringing him home where they were obligated to provide this kind of care round the clock was an act of love and care.  They did well.

It made me hope that when it is time for me to go I can die a good death like his, in a place I love surrounded by family caring for me.  I don’t know that my state of consciousness will have much to do with it.  There is something about love that reaches through all that to envelope the dying person, I think.  Seeing that sort of love at work makes me contemplate my own time of passage with less trepidation.

There are times when it becomes very evident that there is a part of me that likes to be in control.  Ask my kids.  I think there is some feeling of authority or power that comes with feeling that somehow one has it all together so that things go like clockwork, no hitches, no glitches, all because of me.  Power!

And of course that is not the best attitude for a follower of Jesus to have. 

I think this is a big part of what we have somehow inherited in our genes that ruins us; that distorts even our most noble intentions.  Rebellion, mistrust, wanting to be in charge; not wanting anyone, even God, to set boundaries for us.  Seems like he is reminding me of this tendency in me once again.  I suppose he wants me to pay attention.  And as I do, I am reminded that in the heart of me, I am not much different than my kids. 

I am rather proud of my easy going attitude, my flexibility and tolerance.  And then I see myself reacting to demands put on me.  Let me offer my services but don’t demand them.  Let me offer them on my terms and please give me plenty of notice so that it is convenient for me.  And if you are one of my children needing a ride that interferes with my plans, I know I will not be so flexible, or gracious and kind.  

Throw in some tiredness and my tolerance factor goes way down.  

Making a long drive so Grace can get to a dance competition in Calgary is both something I want to and don’t want to do.  But for heavens sake, I wish she would make some definite plans than fit with what I want.

Now, I believe it is healthy for parents to place some limits on kids plans.  They need to learn how to plan out events they need to get to, and then maybe let everyone involved know – early on. 

The more subtle problem that I am running smack up against in myself is that I like to call the shots.  I want my space and my time and please leave me alone to do my thing – whatever it happens to be.  I think I even expect God to show up on my schedule, in the ways I want him to.

So, yeah, I have control issues to deal with.   

No, I guess it may just have all kind of come together this morning.  God has been teaching me some of this stuff over a fair stretch of time with a bit more intensity in the last few weeks.

This morning I led the kids in their time together after the morning worship service.  We heard the story of how God protected this guy, Moses, as a small baby, being a child of the wrong race in a society out to get rid of children like him.  

It just happened that Moses was also talked about in the sermon – a man of faith.  

I guess all those things that happened to Moses were in preparation for the role God had for him.  Being protected from birth – being raised by his mother who must have said more than a few prayers over his little head – learning the inside workings of the pharaohs court, trying violence as a way of freeing his people, failing and fleeing, learning to live as a nomad sheepherder (that was good training) then finally hearing God’s voice and becoming a leader in spite of being stammering and reluctant.  I’m glad God chose to call into service people with flaws.  Maybe there are no humans without flaws anyway.  I find it hopeful that God could take this guy who was living a pretty ordinary nomad shepherd life and make him the leader he needed, transforming Moses into the person he needed him to be.  So, as Moses followed God’s instructions, as he grew in faith, he became the great leader that God wanted him to be.

It struck me that God wants us to be healthy; whole people.  Not just healthy in our spiritual aspects, but healthy in all of our many facets.  If we want to know God, if we want to hear his direction for our life, he will move us towards wholeness.  So as I come closer to him, instead of becoming only more “spiritual” and satisfied with that, he also shows me other aspects of my life that need to become healthier – things that make up my psyche where I need to become more healthy mentally and lifestyle things that would lead me towards better physical health.  I don’t know if I will ever arrive at that place of health that he desires for me, in this life – not likely.  I seem to have all these obstacles that I put up to run around, and I love chocolate far too much and procrastinate way too easily, but it is good to realize that complete health is God’s wish for me and that he will keep on working with me to move me in that direction.  

I think that if I can follow God like this that God will bring about healthy changes in me.  Then, like Moses in faith following God, he can move me towards the places he wants me to go, to do the work he has for me to do. 

This may be either foolish or brave – sharing this.  I am still mulling over what it means, if anything.

I had a dream

No this is not the sort of dream of freedom and equality that Martin Luther King had.  Just a dream in the night that made me wake up and write it down.

I do not dream much.  I think I used to, but not any more.  So in a way I guess just having a dream that woke me up and one that disturbed me enough to remember, is pretty significant. 

Let me tell it to you as best I can remember it.

I was on a train.  All the seats were full so I was surrounded by people.  At the beginning there was something that was warning me of impending disaster.  It seems to me it was a woman but that is pretty fuzzy.  Somehow I had something in my hand that I if I reached down through the floor of the train and placed it on the track, it would prevent the disaster.  But I remember being unsure.  Would this work or would it actually cause the disaster?  And I was afraid to ask the woman what to do. I decided to do nothing. 

We approached a railway bridge or something like that.  I think it was a bridge since we ended up in a river.  As the car I was in went onto the bridge the cars behind ours started to derail.  As that happened, the bridge collapsed.  I remember thinking that I should have tried to prevent this; that I could not have made anything worse than this happen.  And then also thinking that if I make it out into the river that I could swim to the far shore and be OK. 

Somehow that is what happened.  We hurtled far enough across the river that I was able to head for the opposite shore.  I wasn’t hurt.  I held my breath and made it out of the submerged car.  But lots of people didn’t make it.  Somehow I knew that.  The only other person I knew was Grace, my daughter.  She also made it to the shore with me but then I lost her.  Funny, because she only seemed to come onto the scene right at the end – I don’t think I dreamed her being with me from the beginning.

Then I woke up.

It seems somehow as if there is more to this than just a dream.  I

I am trying to sort out stuff about teaching children about God.  In our church, which is small, we do not have an abundance of people to carry on children’s programs.  The ones doing this for the past few years are burnt out – maybe not all of them, not completely, but close enough.  Close enough that I, as the new head of the committee that deals with this area of church life, have to do something really soon.  What a way to break in a new committee! 

I just don’t have an easy solution popping into my head.  We need people in the church to take enough interest in the kids to volunteer.  We have older people and some younger parents but not many in the in-between group that are not already busy on Sundays.  Many of the older group express opinions on how there should be “Sunday School” for the kids but are not inclined or able to volunteer.  The younger parents often need the break from child care to do some learning themselves.

I sat and discussed this whole dilemma at length with God this morning.  And this is what I read from Luke 11:

And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for.  Keep on looking, and you will find.  Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened.  For everyone who asks, receives.  Everyone who seeks, finds.  And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.

And Psalm 50 contained the verse:
Trust me in your times of trouble,
       and I will rescue you,
       and you will give me glory.

I still don’t know what to do.  But I guess I should trust that God has some sort of solution for us.  And I am not worn out from asking yet.

We don’t have that many young school age children but we have some.  And “some” are enough to be worthy of our time and energy so that we pass on the stories of our faith.  In passing on the stories of our faith perhaps we will also pass on our concern.  Maybe by spending some time with these kids we will learn to love them and that will get transmitted too. 

I don’t know.  I think one of the most important things we do as a community of faith is to tell our children the stories and as they watch us live, show them how to work the teachings out in real life.  But there are things for which I feel grossly inadequate.  I feel that I have not done a bang up job teaching my own children about the faith although I think I have raised children with a strong sense of compassion and generosity.  I bring this baggage with me into my dealings with this.  And guilt for not doing a better job of course.  

I wonder if anyone else has worked through the same sort of problem in a small church (attendance about 80 to 100).  I would like to pick their brains!

Maybe God will have to do something special here.  Maybe we need people not so much gifted as teachers but just willing and passionate about passing on their faith, willing to be creative and loving.  Willing to sit down with the little people. 

Hmmm – maybe that is me.  Just maybe.