November 28, 2004 · 2:08 pm

Advent series

We just completed our week of prayer at church.  It is a nice lead up to Advent for me. I like the season of Advent.  I like to ponder everything that went on as the world got ready to receive this gift of a Saviour.  I guess most of those involved had no idea what was really coming.  I mean, how does a virginal young woman begin to understand what it is going to be like for her?  She had to deal with rejection, with misunderstanding, with judgement.  So did Joseph and he was only a surrogate father.  I wonder how many times he was tempted to get rid of this blight on his character.  The two of them certainly needed an angel visitation.  What people of trust in God they must have been.

And God himself – I wonder sometimes at the immensity of the risk he was taking.  Was the outcome certain?  I guess God could see it all outside of our time shell. 

When I read passages like Philippians       I am provoked to wonder at just how much of the outcome of this whole plan was a done deal.  Jesus chose to become human – fully human.  Does this not involve some free will on his part as well?  What if in the garden as he was agonizing over his own death he had not chosen in our favor?  To be obediant to death – for us – demanded total obedience.  Jesus was human.  The total obedience part for me is so hard.  Was it hard to go all the way for the one to whom I owe everything? 

Maybe this seems like a strange kind of thought sequence.  I have never really though about the gift we were given in these terms before – in terms of what it really meant to Jesus to live that life of complete obedience and at the same time to be as human as I am.  That thought to me is almost overpowering.  And it makes me wonder if the whole incarnation didn’t involve a great risk and great sacrifice on the part of God for us the creatures he brought into being.

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November 26, 2004 · 6:23 am

Visiting Dad

Dad is in the hospital.  It’s going on three weeks now.  At first things didn’t look too good since he was so weak from some internal bleeding. That problem seems to have taken care of itself with a change of medication. 

Another problem has developed – not sure what it is exactly – that keeps him from being able to bear weight.  This means he is immobile and so can’t return home.  It may be time for him to move to a care home.  All transitions are difficult but are made more so by the Alzheimer’s disease. 

I went up to visit the other day.  I took along a few pictures of Mexico and of the ship we were on.  I had fun telling him about the trip.  He remembered me but I doubt he understands much about where I was.  He kept commenting about the long trip I would have home, not remembering that I just live in town. 

Our conversations are not usually profound.  They can’t be anymore.  But for some reason, I go back to visit.  He won’t even remember that I was there.  But the other day when I went he said, “It is so nice you came to visit.  I love you.”  I don’t think the conversation could get more profound than that for me.  I am still my daddy’s girl. 

More difficult days may be ahead.  For now, the recognition that we love each other is enough reason for me to keep going back.  Some days he can express it, some days not.   Each day he can is a gift.

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November 24, 2004 · 11:23 pm

Photos are up

in the gallery.  Look and enjoy.  God has created some beautiful places on this earth.  It was an experience to visit this part of the world.  I would go back in a minute especially if I got to do more snorkeling.

The best way I can describe the snorkeling was like floating into one of those 3-D I Max theatres but actually being there in the water.  The fish, brilliant, blue, grey or yellow just out of arms reach.  Down below is coral – heaps and mounds of it, providing an endless number of fish hideouts.  The water just about clear as air and me floating in it.  There has got to be snorkeling in heaven.  And no need for the special breathing apparatus and no big red mask ring on the face after.

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November 22, 2004 · 11:49 pm

Back to business

Today was business as usual.  No more lazy days in the sun.  It sure was fun while it lasted though.  And I really did get a tan – just a slightly darker shade of pale for me though.

We got home at about 2 am this morning.  Drove the last bit of the way in snowy rain.  What a change.

The last day at sea we experienced something that not many cruisers get to see.  The ship we were on did a rescue.  We came upon a sailboat that was drifting.  Apparently the pilot of the small boat, who was alone, had hurt himself had been drifting for three days and was without food, water and fuel.  Our cruise ship stopped, a tender boat was sent out to help and he received medical care, technical assistance and fuel, food and water.  Word was that he had broken his leg and with it splinted, he was able to continue.  I guess he didn’t want to lose his boat.  He still had about a four days journey back to San Diego. 

It must have been a very lonely place out there on that big sea as his supplies run out.  I wonder how he has done as he headed back home.  That night we had the roughest weather we had the whole trip – huge swells like small hills.  Up and down and up and down.  Leo’s stomach did not like it one bit.  I think I could make a passable sailor.  It is a blessing not to be bothered by seasickness.

The cruise will provide us with many memories.  For me the snorkeling was the best – next to just being on the ocean.  I would stand out on the balcony and soak up the sounds of water rushing by.  There was just the sky and the sea and us on this huge ship that was really only a speck upon the ocean.

 

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November 16, 2004 · 11:33 pm

Acapulco

We got into port in Acapulco at about 11 am.  This is a very beautiful place.  I guess we couldn’t have wished for nicer weather – the sky is clear and the temperature is somewhere in the 30 degree range C and a bit humid but not unbearable. 

The white sand of the beaches transition into huge rocky hills quickly.  We went and saw the famous cliff divers this afternoon.  Tonight on ship we saw a fantastic show of folkloric dances.  I got pictures but they will have to wait till we are home again to upload.

Last night we had a special treat.  We were invited to supper by one of the sponsors of the course Leo is taking.  They grew up in Saskatchewan and like too many have moved to Alberta.  His wife happens to be the daughter of the professor who taught me radiology.  It was a treat to share stories of Saskatoon, share family stuff and catch up on how her father is. 

During the night we travel northward up the coast to Ixtapa.  We’ll do another shore excursion tomorrow – visiting some island. 

I will get to go snorkeling – a first for me – in a couple of days at Cabo San Lucas.  That will be a first for me and I am looking forward to that.

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November 13, 2004 · 7:40 pm

On the way – "cruisin"

We left Saskatoon Thursday night.  Yesterday we arrived in LA.  We arrived in LA in the early part of the day. 

Do you know that as one approaches LAX all the windows in the cars parked along the way shine and twinkle like mirrors.  In an urban sprawl kind of way it was beautiful.

The whole flight was nice – except being crammed into a small seat next to a big man.  At least I had the window and could look out.  As we flew I wrote down some of my impressions.  So here you are – flying along with me from Minneapolis to LA.

The sky above is intensely blue.  One can see only the soft blue on the horizon all around deepening to a more intense deep colour overhead.  Below the layer of clouds is grey looking like thick drier lint.  We are somewhere over Nebraska.

We leave the cloud covered land and emerge over strangely arranged farmland.  What on earth is cultivated in the fields drawn out on the land below in large circles.  They touch each other but don’t overlap.  It looks as if a school child were given the task of drawing as many complete circles as possible on the paper. 

Another aircraft passes in the sky far off to the right.  It leaves a dark grey stream behind the bank of clouds  that lay just below my horizon where the white rim stops and the rest of the sky begins.  one would at first think that the grey was just a tiny aberration in the wall of cloud.  Then the eye focuses on the moving sliver at the eastern end that carries a tiny blinking light.

The terrain changes and becomes rugged – maybe Colorado.  There are the beginnings of mountains below, rugged, brown and barren.  Further north are real snow topped peaks. 

Then the pilot points our Death Valley.  Flatness, brown.  Rocks break the flatness.  And then suddenly, more of the mysterious circles green this time.  They have to have something to do with irrigation. 

As we pass over San Bernardino the valley is taken over by blocks and blocks of houses.  And this continues till we approach the airport.  How dense this population is compared to our cities which arise out of vast expanses of prairie.

Now we are on board. And we have moved out to sea.  There is a slow but not uncomfortable rocking from side to side.  Sea legs will come later.  What a fascinating place a ship like this is.  Like a town unto itself.  We have the luxury of a balcony and we will use it. 

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November 10, 2004 · 11:26 pm

Remembering

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day.  The generation of the great wars is passing on.  As my dad slips farther away from us into Alzheimers, his WW II experiences become a larger part of his memory.  He didn’t talk much about the details when we were kids but we always attended a Remembrance Day service.  Now it is hard to know how much is real and how much story.  My grandfather was a veteran of WW I – left a leg over there in Europe but came home with a bride.  Both of them believed they were helping to fight for freedom and a just cause and I think I agree.  But both of them were gentle people and what went on in the wars affected them in ways they could not express.  They had a great respect for life and I imagine their war experiences contributed to that.

Yet these wars did not end all wars as they hoped.  Will they ever end?  We must pray for peace in our world and work towards it. 

And today as there was a lull in the fighting French and other foreign nationals were evacuated from the Ivory Coast.

Some interesting links:
Vetrans stories and letters – the Canadain Forces have some on line archives which can be accessed here.
I found this letter fascinating.

I was able to find my grandfather’s records online as well.  He was a Bombadier in WW I.  Wounded at Ypres before the German forces began to use gas.

And in the Ivory Coast…

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November 9, 2004 · 9:56 pm

Parent/Teacher interviews

These are hardly my favorite thing to do.  But the report card gave me enough reason to make this evening a priority. 

For the first hour I spent 45 minutes waiting – then a ten minute interview.  Then another wait.  Three ten minute sessions spent with the teachers out of two hours of my time.  I needed to do it but it always seems like there should be some better way to organize this. 

I did take along a good book – the one by Annie Dillard that I quote from below.  Sit and block out the surroundings for a few minutes, read, move along down the row of chairs till it is my turn with the teacher.

And while sitting there getting a call from an older stressed out student who panicked today during a test.  The hallway noise wasn’t conducive to talk with a sobbing daughter.  By the time I got home and called her back, the chaos had settled a bit and we were able to talk coherently.

Why does school have to be so stressful?

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November 9, 2004 · 9:43 pm

Quoting…

 Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk,  An Expedition to the Pole,  p43  

    God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him.  God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars.  It is a life with God which demands these things.

     Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates.  You do not have to do these things; not at all.  God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot.  You do not have to do these things – unless you want to know God.  They work on you, not on him.

     You do not have to sit outside in the dark.  If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary.  But the stars neither require nor demand it.

And from page 52,

      Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the absolute? …

      On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.  Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?  Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?  The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.  It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.   

I really should have saved this one for the cruise – I am finding this one mentally stimulating.  I admire the way an author like Dillard works with words, forming with them all forms of art, almost visual in the way it leaves it’s impression on me.  Sometimes I find I have to go back and re-read portions as if I was moving in closer to a painting to catch some detail or moving around a sculpture to see it from yet another angle.

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November 8, 2004 · 8:54 pm

Pretend, Pretend

On the way home from the hospital this evening I was listening to the radio.  A guy was talking about plastic and reconstructive surgery.  One of the striking things he said was that men are becoming concerned with appearances.  They can no longer retain their positions in organizations just by the fact that they are male.  They have to remain looking vital and vigorous.  Apparently women in business have known that their appearances are important but men are just learning this.   So men are turning to reconstructive surgery to obtain the look they want. 

It sounds like the appearance of being young and vital is becoming more important than the results of one’s work efforts.  Pretend, pretend.  Make things look good and it doesn’t matter what is under the cover.

Aging is not particularly fun.  Parts hurt and we start to sag and wrinkle.  But what about the passing on of   stories and wisdom from the older to the younger generations?  What about knowledge that isn’t embodied in some pretty human package – has it less value than if it comes from someone who looks good?  Have we become so superficial that we don’t look beyond the surface anymore?

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