Category Archives: Dealing with stuff

 

I guess this will be the big theme for this weekend for us Canadians.  You Americans can pick it up later on when we are already gearing up for Christmas.    Our Wal Marts are just one step ahead of yours.

 

I don’t gush thankfulness.  Oh, there are times when I am full of thanks and it bubbles out but they are the times when some big event has just turned out as I would like it to.  Most of the time my thanks is for smaller more ordinary things.  The things that go on and make life what it is.  The things that give my life direction and meaning.

 

Just this morning, I was thankful for the sun on the golden leaves.  Thankful for the good cup of coffee in my hand as I watched the sun come up.  Thankful for the good nights sleep, a warm house and a comfortable and safe bed to sleep in.  For the place that I call home where I feel safe, where I can relax, where I can sit at my computer with it’s high speed access and communicate at ease across the globe. 

 

I’m thankful that I have family that are important to me and to whom I am important too.   I’m even thankful that they need me and feel at ease enough with me secure enough that I love them to unload some of their burdens on me.  And I am thankful that I can pass on their needs to God.  And that he listens to me and helps me carry whatever burdens I have picked up.

 

I am thankful for the work I have to do.  Not everyone has a career they enjoy.  Not everyone has seen God work through them as they practice their line of work seeing God use what I have to offer is a blessing indeed to be thankful for.

 

I am thankful for friends.  I am thankful for the mutual love and care we can give each other.   And I’m thankful that I can make new friends and that some friendships grow and become deep and meaningful.  I am thankful that I am married to my best friend and that our marriage is still full of love and mutual respect.

 

I am thankful for my senses and that all are still working adequately.  As I start to see the changes that age makes, the senses of sight and hearing, touch, smell and taste become more precious.  I can’t count on things lasting forever so I will be thankful for each day that I have them.  And every day that I can still think and react appropriately, I will be thankful for my mind; for the ability to learn new concepts and skills, for the pleasures of reading and listening to music and laughter at a good joke.

 

 The list could go on at length because there are so many things that I live with each day that I need to appreciate and give thanks for.  So many little things I live with and assume will go on and on when I know that they cannot.   So I will give thanks for each day I am given, for each moment of good health, for each moment when my mind is clear, for each moment when I can move around on my own, and in my times of distress, for each time when God shows me my utter dependence on him. 

 

I will thank God for his never ending provision of all I need. 

Kids are coming home for the long weekend.  At least some are.  Others have gone to special things far away and Leo is down south – visiting his brother, waiting to pick Grace up again and bring her home.

Here, we will head over to my dad and stepmom’s for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday.  So I guess I will be going home to my parents too!

Kids come home carrying big loads sometimes.  Not just the dirty laundry either!  That I could deal with.  The emotional loads are a lot harder to deal with.  And I can’t just lug them off to the washer and get them all cleaned up.  Sometimes it is hard to even get them to open up their hampers of problems to help them sort it out.  Sometimes I don’t want them opening up their stinky hampers!  I just want a nice weekend.

Kids live complicated lives.  I wish I could help them to see things through brighter lenses.  But then I realize, I am probably not even looking at the same picture.  We are different generations and I will never understand some of what they see because it is unrecognizable from my angle.  Sometimes my angle is experience but sometimes it is just that I belong to an older culture and the world now is spinning more out of control.  It gives me a feeling of helplessness because I would like to fix things for them and I can’t.

God,

I wish I could do some of your work for you.

I see so many hurting people around

And you didn’t gift me with the powers

Of speech.  So

I stay silent.

But I see,

And I feel.

I hear them crying out

But am helpless

To help.

 

God,

Why does life have to dish out

Such inequitable portions?

The young and inexperienced ones

Get loaded down with

Depression,

Anxiety,

Stress.

Having their hopes,

Their dreams,

Crushed.

 

God,

I don’t like it but feel too old

To give advice, because I know

That I can’t fix it either.

You working out

Your plans

For them.

But God,

Give them

A vision, a sign

Of you.

 

And God,

Give me a vision again too.

I don’t like this starved feeling,

I need to feed with you too.

And I need

Extra

To share

With the kids

You’ve

Seated

Around my table.

 

Thank you God for the food.

 

I have fininshed my read through Matthew so have moved on to Mark.  Have done the same through Proverbs and am going back to the Psalms.  I found Proverbs difficult to read – it is so line by line full of wisdom but a bit repetative and it doesn’t flow. 

Can’t say the Psalms don’t flow.  I love their poetry and the earthy violence that was David that comes through.  And can anyone beat the Psalms for pure worship of God?  The Psalms speak to my emotions, lifting me up when I need it and drawing me back to God always.

I am also working my way through the Old Testament again still in Genesis.  There is a lot of history and a lot of watching God work in his people in the Old Testament books that I want to revisit.  I may end up jumping around since Leviticus is a bit much!  Or just taking a long time to get through it since I am reading several books at once.

Anyway, back to Mark.  Mark 1: 29 to 45.

Jesus hardly had any time for himself.  He gets up early to have time to go off by himself and pray.  Then his followers come and interrupt him as if they are agents for their star performer.  The crowds are waiting and they need him to go and speak to them.

He just needed some time with his Father to be renewed.  After all, he was human too and he had just spent a day healing “a huge crowd”.  And he has other towns he knows he has to visit where the same kinds of crowds would come – diseased, hurting people needing him.

Jesus’ compassion for hurting people brings crowds.  No one before or since has loved us like he has and still does.  No one else can heal us physically, mentally and spiritually.  Was it any wonder the man healed of leprosy could not keep the news to himself?

This passage reminds me of the human-ness of Jesus.  He knows what it is like to have too many demands placed on his time.  He knows what it is like not to have personal free time or even enough time for prayer because of other demands.  So he understands me! 

The God I am encountering is so much bigger than he was a while ago – than I ever knew.  He is God – the I AM.  Every time I turn around, I learn new things about him.  He is both far and near, huge and intimate, lover and judge.  His claims on me get tighter.  I guess in Christianese you could say I am growing spiritually. 

God is moving me steadily out of my comfort zone to where people are.  Now to me, helping people who to all appearances need help and to start with are weaker or needier than me is not so hard.  I am a compassionate person.  When I see people in need I want to help. 

The people I find hardest to “reach” out to are the people who are comfortable already – at least with material things.  The ones who are hard on the outside but inside are hurting.  The ones who are trying but failing as examples of Christ’s way.  And the ones who live styles of life that are going to hurt them in the long run.  Because these are the ones I work with and live with everyday – not the great hurting masses who are out there somewhere – too far away to see how poorly I respond to Christ’s commands.  These are the ones that will see how I live, the ones I have been given now to be a light to.

I become too busy.  I know I do but there is always something waiting to be done.  Being too busy is very hard on my relationship with my God.  Of course he does not become less available to me but I rush past opportunities to spend time with him – like a marathon runner who doesn’t take the time to drink the water offered to him along the way.  As my spirit becomes dehydrated from lack of time and closeness with God, I become weaker and less able to deal with all the challenges of my life.

After the last several hectic days, I have felt a bit dehydrated – dry.  A bit of turbulant wind hits me and poof!!  Like dust, I blow apart.  Today I grabbed some water as my day flew past – Gate Crashers prayer early this morning and some good quiet time this evening.  Living water, rehydrating me.

Beyond Dryness

Arid
Is the seat of my soul.
Beyond dryness,
Beyond needing a little rain,
Parched,
With the surface cracking
‘To crust and fissure.

Who am I
To come to you, God,
Seeking
Solace?  Drip
Drops of water on
My parched heart,
So it will beat again.

Lead me
To the edge of your river.
Urge me to drink.
In your abundance
Bathe me, till
Even my outer crust is soft
With love for you.

News of the death of  Bela on July 18, 2003  arrived by e-mail on Thursday .  News travels slowly sometimes – maybe no one thought the news was important.  Bela abnegated her motherhood early, probably too young to have much choice, choosing a lifestyle full of risks instead.   

 

Psalm 10: 17

 

Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.

Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them.

 

Peace to the memory of Bela who gave us one of our most wonderful daughters.

 

And shouldn’t these arms be black?

 

The news comes.  Words;

Hard, cold and stark,

Stripped of tender intonation.

A death two full months past

Rips a strip of hope

From my young one’s heart.

Grief and tears flow forth,

Spilling in drops on my shoulders

As I hold her.

 

And shouldn’t these arms be black?

Should she not cradled be

By blood bonded love?

I feel a helpless stranger,

Intruder to the pain,

That I can never truly feel.

The mother’s arms

That never held her close,

Gone now forever.

 

She’s learned to shed her tears with me.

Arms willing to the task

Hold her in grief,

My pale hands

Caress her dark head.

God, you only know

How wrenched away are dreams,

The might have beens”,

She grieves for.

 

 

Psalm 27: 9 and 10

 

Don’t leave me now;

Don’t abandon me,

O God of my salvation!

Even if my father and my mother abandon me,

The Lord will hold me close.

 

Teach me how to live, O Lord.

 

 

The skies are really grey overhead today.  The f” word has been spoken by the weather people that’s flurries” by the way.  The day is dreary and cold with a biting wind.  A fire in the fireplace would be nice tonight. I think it will freeze tonight it only made it up to about 7 ^oC here today.

 

On days like today, the weather seems to reflect my mood as well.  I seem to need the exposure to sunlight as much as a plant otherwise I tend to sink into a mild depression – an experience common enough to be recognized as a general problem today at school by one of my teenagers. 

 

And it has been a day of feeling a certain distance from God.  I know that weather is a stupid reason to feel far from God but that is the way it was today.  I had to tell myself that in spite of the clouds and my own depressed mood, God is no less by my side today. He is my ever present, unchanging Father.

 

         Psalm 145: 17 to 19

 

         The Lord is righteous in everything he does;

                he is filled with kindness.

          The Lord is close to all who call on him,

                yes, to all who call on him sincerely.

          He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;

                he hears their cries for help and rescues

          them. 

           

World Vision has a project called Hope Child.  I think that this is the next best thing to really adopting a child from one of these countries so heavily affected by AIDS.  Aids is devastating in both the sense that, the children left behind have a bleak future being left in the care of aging grandparents and in the sense that the grandparents have also lost their old age security in a land where there is no public help when you get too old to do the hard physical labour that living in those countries requires. 

We have children adopted by both methods – a World Vision sponsored child and then the second half of my family.  I still remember the day we met the first daughter we were to adopt.  She had just awoken from a nap.  She sat on Leo’s knee still sleepy but mostly unaware of what was going on.  The next couple of days were filled with things we had to do.  There were the photos, the medical exam and then we went to Mama Yemo Hospital for the AIDs test.  We were staying with the pathologist who ran the AIDs program.  Physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, we were prepared to accept.  Adopting a child that was HIV+ would be another matter for immigration purposes.  And at 2 1/2 if she was + it would mean that she was infected – not just maternal antibodies.  Adopting a child we would have to see die was more than we thought we could handle.

Waiting

The child,

The little girl,

Was ours for the taking.

All we needed

Was a negative on the last

Little big” test.

 

We took her.

They did the puncture,

Drew a few drops of her blood

That was becoming more precious

Than our own

By the minute.

 

Waiting.

Do you know

The agony of that?

 

This little girl

Almost embedded in our hearts,

Almost embedded,

After a few short hours.

Holding her,

Not even knowing

If she liked us,

Her face still a blank slate

Eyes not allowing us to see

Too deeply.

We, not daring

To get too sharply entangled

By her innocence,

Her vulnerability,

Our love.

 

All hinges on the test.

Have you ever waited

Like that?

 

I found this article from Faith Today through Jordon Cooper’s site and his quoting from Karen Neudorf at Beyond Magazine on the issue of AIDS.  Aids is one of the huge health issues facing the continent of Africa.  And it is only one of several equally huge health problems.  Tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness, diarrhea, and malnutrition are some of them.  They have no moral stigma attached but we haven’t done much to eliminate them either.

The problems are far away and we have more pressing problems close to home.  Like how to fund raise for our kids activities, how to afford this years Christmas presents, maybe we need the latest electonic gadget.  Maybe it’s just that we need to maintain our homes and cars.  It’s not that we don’t have legitimate needs either.  It’s just that the problems are not right in front of our eyes attached to people we have learned to love.  So we often put frivolous wants of our own ahead of the needs of people who need help to simply live.

The article says “Last year World Vision Canada advertised widely for a day-long seminar designed to help churches develop an effective ministering presence in the AIDS crisis. World Vision would take the seminar directly to the congregations. No one signed up. ”  I am not sure how it was advertized, but I did not hear of it.  And I get material regularly from World Vision.  Maybe it was not offered to small remote places like Prince Albert or maybe it was just one of the many things that we missed in going through the mail. 

Ministering to AID’s sufferers in our community is being done by mambers of our congregation but not as an official work of the “church”.  I know that care and compassion comes through during the care given from stories overheard.  Does this make the service provided less of a ministering service?  I don’t think so.  In fact those being cared for may attribute the care more to God than if it were provided as an arm of ministry of an organized church.

However, reaching out and attempting to effectively touch some of the vast problems that exist in Africa is a task better taken on by a larger group than an individual.  It does require an enormous amount of money and technical assistance to treat AID’s sufferers in the numbers that exist in Africa.  And this problem can’t be addressed alone without addessing the other less glamorous illnesses or issues such as education.  The church of Jesus Christ could do a lot better than it has done in the past few years. 

I think the amount of conflict in Africa has frightened us away and has given us an excuse to do nothing.  We haven’t intervened in the conflicts and we are not doing well at providing assistance to the local people who have remained in their own countries battlling enormous odds as they have attempted to maintain some kind of health care system. And what are we willing to do for the generation of young people who have lost their chance to receive an education or alternatively have only been educated in the ways of war and hate.

I guess we have reason to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the problems in Africa.  We just don’t have the right to ignore our brothers and sisters and their children in need.

Our congregation is sending one of our young men to Africa to work with a doctor there who chose to stay and work with his own people throughout the conflict in his country.  I wonder if our congregation will catch the vision and raise the funds he needs in order to go?

 

Matthew 26

 

Peter

 

The rock

Was pretty shaky that night.

Jesus whom he knew and loved

Needed him.

But all Peter seemed

Capable of was fear and violence

And denial.

 

Rising to his Lord’s defense in the garden,

Did he think that

Cutting off the soldiers ear

Would force Jesus

To declare the Kingdom

Right there and then

In a mighty power show?

 

Following along in the shadows

Trying to figure it all out,

Peter who has asked all the questions

Forgets all the answers. 

Forgets that this is his declared Messiah,

Son of the Living God.

In fear, he denies; the cock crows.

 

I’ve been a Peter too.

I’ve asked the questions

Should know the answers

Have had the closeness of walking with him.

But like Peter

In the rush of anger and frustration,

Forget.

 

But Jesus

Gathers the dust of my crushed faith,

Takes it in his hand,

Molded by his grace

Makes it a solid thing.

Accepts my love and sends me out again

To feed his lambs.

 

I’ve been like Peter too many times.  Unfortunately, not the strong Peter, but the weak denying Peter or the angry impulsive one.  Things I should know vaporize under conditions when my faith should be strong, or at least visible.

A blind man used to come by our house on his circuit of begging at the mission.  He would be there waiting when I came home tired after a long morning at work.  I would be in no mood to deal with him and always wished that our cook would have given him something and sent him on his way before I got home.  But that job always seemed to be left to me. 

He never wanted much.  He would request some rice, maybe an empty tin can.  Or maybe a full one of fish. 

It just seemed such an intrusion, such a unreasonable imposition on my time.  I had my children to feed and they were usually waiting for me.  I was tired and just wanted to go and sit and eat before siesta time.  I didn’t want him to be there bothering me.

Yet there he was.  Time and time again.  I never improved a lot in my attitude I am afraid.  I was being a Peter.  When the demands got too personal, when they required that I take some of my precious time to help this guy – I denied the God who sent me to Africa in the first place.  I gave him stuff, but I didn’t give it with love in Christ’s name.

I don’t know what became of this man when all the missionaries had to leave at the beginning of the civil war.  He probably was helped as much by his village people as he was by me.  They were quite likely more generous than I was – helping him in spite of their own suffering. 

God, forgive me.  I saw a man suffering but I didn’t see you.  I, like Peter, denied you.  I failed.  And still you say to me – go and feed my sheep. 

Even knowing God’s forgiveness, I still live with the regret that I could have done some of the simple tasks he put in front of me so much better. I wonder if Peter relived his regret when the cock crowed each morning?