There are a lot of you bloggers out there trying to answer the question of why blog. Are we similar personalities? I think I began because finally here is an avenue of expression for me. I am not a good person with oral words. I lose my train of thought quickly. I have difficulty in saying out loud what I really think. I find that most times when I speak I end up wishing I had never said that. Sometimes I even have to appologize for some stupid thing I said that when given time to reflect was not what I should have siad at all. I guess that is called sticking my foot in my mouth. It seems to fit in there too easily. When blogging, I can go back and correct, revise, even hold onto a thought and not publish it. Maybe even delete it. I definately wish I could do that with the words I say – quite often in fact. I am also an introvert but here I can speak without somehow worrying about it. After all you don’t have to read any of this and maybe no one does.
I also read blogs because you guys out there say a lot of really intelligent stuff. Some I don’t understand but most of what you say speaks to where I’m at. I feel like I have entered into a community that I like and feel at home in.
Why Blog
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Dad
Last night I went to my daughter Grace’s dance recital. Grace is very petite, very athletic(quite proud of her 6 pack) and very agile. She is a fantastic Hip Hop dancer. I wish she would put half the effort into her schoolwork as she does into her dance. I went with as much of the family as I could muster, my dad and step mom, my daughter -in-law to be and my elderly aunt. It always amazes me that their reaction is so favorable. We never would have dared dance let alone dance Hip hop when I was a kid!
My dad seems to be doing better since I last put a word in here about him. He apparently did have a little stroke and he is definately more feeble in the physical sense. His mind is still slipping away slowly. We are so fortunate to have Sharon(my step-mom) who cares for him so well. We know it cannot be easy. When I took him down to Saskatoon a week or so ago, I wrote this on returning. Maybe I am frightened a bit at my own future. This is not the way anyone would like to go.
Dad
Searching for answers in your mind
You come up blank
Or with a story
So unrelated
To the question
That we can’t even correct you.
Sitting beside me as we wait
Suddenly you expound
On the value
Of oxygen.
They must need it you say.
Short circuits happening again.
Where do you go in your mind
As we sit with you?
You try to enter
Our conversation.
In hopeless turns,
We speak, you lose your way.
At the moment, while we speak,
Do you remember,
How you taught me to walk,
To ride a bike,
To swim, to drive, to …?
Now I am driving, taking you home.
Then suddenly as the red sun sets
There spring into your mind
Words
An old song
And you sing
My mind floods with memories.
And I wonder if this is a shadow
Of how I will become.
No quick or glorious
Ending.
Surrounded by my children
My mind escapes, my body lingers on.
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Modern? or Postmodern?
I keep mulling around in my head this whole classification of types of believers; moderns, post moderns etc. If as Fred Peatross says over in Future Margins, Moderns like to categorize everything does this make Fred a “Modern” because after reading his newsletter I feel as if someone has been trying to categorize me. Maybe it is just my personality or maybe my parents before me had already come to the realization that God can’t be understood and explained completely and passed that sense down to me.
I can remember as a student trying to wrap my brain around all those theological arguments and thinking “Wow, if I had a great theological mind maybe I could convince people God exists.” But I never was much good at theology and proofs so I had to be content with knowing God existed because I had felt his presence, he was all around me in his creation and because people who had gone before me had known him. I think I am still a very simple person when it comes to great theological debates. Too much theory makes my head spin and my brain hurt.
I know God is here, I love him more than I know how to express and I know that even when life seems desperately unfair in what it throws my way, there is no where else to turn but back to God. He expects and deserves everything from me but he also knows every weakness I have and he loves me -not what I do or bring to him – but me. He never expects me to do anything without his help. If I mess up, like a father he lets me crawl up onto his lap and he puts his arms around me. When my sore spots are healed he sends me off to try again.
What kind of a believer does this make me? I don’t much care and I wonder if God does.
I guess I can understand how you professional types (pastors and theologians ) might toss these weighty matters around between you. It must be a bit like me trying to decide if the patient has irreversible pulpitis, an inflammed pulp or a necrotic pulp. To the patient it is just a toothache and would I quit talking about it and get him out of pain.
Today we had a potluck lunch after church – a bridal shower actually. Randall talked this morning about how being the church is about our relationships with God and with each other. We also feasted at God’s table in the service. We were being a community of believers to each other. Some are old and set in their ways and don’t see the need for change to happen in the forms of our worship, some are young and think anyone over 30 is ancient and out of touch with the real world. Some are just being introduced to God and others are just about at the end of their journey on earth. Some probably don’t even know much about God. But we worshiped and fellowshiped together and it was good. I hope we brought glory to God. And I hope God forgives me for promising to put in a good word for Johanna because she (and some of the other youth) helped me wash the little tiny communion glasses. She’s a good kid, God bless her.
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Garage sale
The Gigantic Garage Sale is now past history except for the junk that didn’t get sold. People sure do buy some odd stuff. The useful stuff is the last to go. Old jewelry, even old Sunday School attendance pins were hot stuff. We even had a purple Kool Aid stand that one of the men was threatening to buy and take home. His wife was praying that anyone else would buy it. Not sure what was the end result.
Tonight we are up late doing what a well organized mother would have made sure was done earlier, except that I was already doing too many other things. “We” are doing laundry. You see we have in our house an unwritten rule that everybody has to make sure that their own clothes are clean. We also have some procrastinators living in this house that just didn’t get it done. I think my procrastinator of the moment is not admitting to being a bit stressed and excited. Patrick leaves tomorrow for Vancouver and although he was home most of the day, he is doing his laundry as he packs. Patrick won the Saskatchewan French music competition for performance of three of his compositions. He will now go on to the western Canada competition in Vancouver so he is justifiably pretty excited in a “cool” sort of way without admitting it. I guess this is a chance every budding guitarist would love because he has a chance of going on to Quebec to compete there, he’ll meet lots of well connected people in the recording industry as well. So if anyone is in Vancouver take it in at the Waterfront Theatre on Friday at 7:00 or watch CBC – the French channel and you will see Patrick Kongawi perform. And yes I am a bit proud of him! Patrick
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Leo moves offices
Leo had to move out of his office today. He is not doing enough clinical medicine to justify using up space in the clinic so he has to pack up all his books and bring them home. We are wondering where we are going to put them here. I guess we’ll fit as many as we can into the office space at home and then who knows. We seem to have lots of bookcases but not as much floor space as they require. I suggested he take as many as he can to his MHO (Medical Health Officer) office but he doesn’t think he has room for them there either. When it comes to books, he’s not a good thrower outer. Me neither. Good news – He got his American Society of Addiction medicine certification and should get the Canadian one soon. Between the books and the diplomas and certificates we don’t need to worry about needing more artwork to cover our walls. Leo’s quite proud of his new certificate and I guess he earned it by his hard work so should be.
Christain, Grace and I went over to the church to help set up for the Giagantic Garage Sale. It is a fund raiser for CHIC so lots of the kids were there. We are hoping Christian can go but we don’t have his US visa yet. He is a landed immigrant but still a Congolese so has all the hassles of being labeled as a potential assylum seeker by the US. Can you imagine! Anyway this garage sale sure has a lot of junk! It always seems to me that we take some junk there and bring some different junk home but we never really get rid of any appreciable amount of junk.
So tomorrow my day is already mapped out for me – help at the sale and then get some groceries before I get fired as a mother for having no Pizza Pops in the freezer.
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Congo
Beyond Magazine led me to a fantastic piece of reporting on the Congo done by David McLaughlin and others at the CBC. Take a look. You need time but if this sort of thing interests you it is time well spent.
Just had an e-mail this am from our boys dad in the Congo. He was bit by a cat. He is worried. We are worried. Rabies is prevelant there. Vaccines and immune globulin are not so easy to come by. Bring Jacques before God today.
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My Prejudices
I was reading the story about the Pharisee and the tax collector this morning. It is so easy to play the role of the Pharisee at least for me. The material I’m reading asked the question “Who do I despise, where do my prejudices lie?” On the surface, I look pretty good. Yet the prejudices are deep in there and come out in my attitudes towards people. I know I come across as prejudiced and hypocritical to my oldest daughter but I chalk that up to her life choices that are not compatible with my values and what I hold dear. There seems to be a very fine line between being pharisaical and trying to live according to Christs principles.
The Lord is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust. Psalm 103: 13,14
God help me watch my attidudes! Remind me again and again of your compassion to me.
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Lingala Lessons
It’s a beautiful evening. I sat outside in our new porch swing but then the mosquitos began to come out in full force. Now, under the remote threat of West Nile Virus we are exhorted by our good sense to think about applying some of that vile smelling stuff to ward off the little beasts. Sometimes it’s just easier to go inside.
Greg is over tonight. Lingala lesson number three or four. Patrick has taken it upon himself to teach him since Greg is going to be spending several months in the Congo for his field experience towards his degree in Intercultural Studies from Providence. Greg will be working with Patrick’s dad – a doctor(Congolese) with American Leprosy Mission.
Lingala is my third language and a pretty simple one as languages go. If you can’t find the right word or if no word exists in Lingala(this happens quite often actually) you steal a French word and lingalacise it. Works great! I guess we are not above doing that in English or French for that matter. It still strikes me ear as strange when my kids who speak French Canadian French use the word “fun” as in C’est du fun. Just sounds weird to me. But then we commit faux pas and write resumes so I guess with time my ear will get used to it and I won’t cringe when I am in a situation where I actually use it myself.
I can see where I may need to add a page explaining a bit about my family if I keep mentioning them in my blogs. Can’t be a mom without mentioning the kids and the man in our lives. Our family is a bit unconventional – large and multiethnic, multicultural, and even ecumenical in a sense. However I think I will use this site a bit and get used to the changes I’ve made before I do another big change.
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Challenges
This internet stuff is a challenge for me. I think I am catching on a bit. Thanks Randall.
When I was the age of my kids there were a few huge computers somewhere but I had no illusions I could ever use one. We started using a PC in the Congo. Both Leo and I had to develope a lot of our own teaching materials and found the computer to be very appropriate technology. Now it is the way we communicate with friends around the globe. Wow! If we had had the internet while we were back in the Congo I would have done a prayer letter on a blog site. I guess we had no phones either but now with SAT phones its a possibility. Actually that is how we communicate with our Congolese boys father and mother via e-mail and occaisional voice communications. I might just have to take a laptop with me when I go out there next summer. The possibilities just seem incredible. Bear with me – I’m a dreamer!
Reading Jordon Cooper on the Congo really shook me up tonight. Why are we so helpless to do something. Sorry, I guess I am too close, too entangled in the web that is the Congo. The hurt is too much for me and my tendancy is to put it on the back burner somewhere in the recesses on my mind so I can go on functionning. We Canadians agonize over one lost child. What would we do if all the children in our city were slaughtered over the short span of a few weeks. There are no flowers on sidewalks in front of Congolese children’s homes and no mothers left to weep. Sorry I am having a very hard time dealing with this slaughter.
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Templates
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LineaLanoie's Weblog 
