LineaLanoie's Weblog

Psalms 90:12 and 14
Teach us to make the most of our time so that we may grow in wisdom…
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.

Today was a fairly lazy day so I don’t know how well I made use of my time. So I don’t suppose I’m much wiser today either!

Went over to visit my dad. He seems to have had a TIA today around noon. Leo went over, checked him out and started him on aspirin. He was better this evening which is typical. His loss of memory over the last few years makes him hardly the same person as his thoughts are very confused. He’s still the dad that held me on his knee, prayed with me as I invited Christ in, taught me to ride a bike and drive a car, married Leo and I and loved and prayed for me all my life. I suspect God can still follow his wandering thoughts and put them together for him. Praise be to God for his neverending love to us. Keep Dad in your care, God.

Here I am, Linea Lanoie, wife, mother and taxpaying contributor to a large and dysfunctional, mixed race, mixed cultural family of nine. An Anglophone myself, I am wife of and mother to four Francophone’s. Three of our children are Anglophones. Three of our children are white, two black and two mixed. All of my birth-children could apply for Metis status.

I have come to love the French language, Lingala and most things African except for the painful stuff going on there. I love art, especially the use of color, form, and texture. I like the way some music and art connects with a part of me my soul or mind bringing me to a more profound level of understanding and appreciation of the world around me. I enjoy music of most types. Besides the classical music I grew up on, I am discovering the pleasure there is in the melodies, beat and significant messages of today’s music. It is good to experience the intensity with which my children make music, dance and play.

At the same time that I enjoy the world of art, music, and the mystical and fantasy world of literature, I am a pretty down to earth and practical sort of woman. I can deal calmly with an emergency and clean up messes without cringing. ‘Life goes on after the crisis. As long as I have a good strong cup of coffee and someone who cares enough to listen to me if I have to unload, I’ll make it through. I’m learning that God always has time to hear me out. (and some of his servants are great listeners too)

I have been blessed with a myriad of life experiences. And I like practicing well the profession (of dentistry) God called me into. I have always rebelled a bit at the expectations of the established church and also at the pre-feminist views of what a woman should do with her life. Now I rebel at being categorized as too old to try and appreciate new worship strategies and styles. I think I have, by reason of my outlook on life, a postmodern mind in a modern (50 +) body. I feel freer now to worship than I ever did in the past. It takes some of us a long time but God works to free us to fully enjoy His presence and worship Him with all of our beings. I like it! I want to be in touch with what is going on in the world so that I can have a relevant faith.

My faith has been shaped by the Protestant Christian heritage in which I was raised and the Catholic heritage of my husband’s family. As well it has been shaped by my educational experience as a dentist, my sixteen years as a medical missionary in the Congo, and by my own and my children’s struggles with life.

I decided to give blogging a try. I have always liked to write to express myself – usually in free verse. I will, from time to time post some verse here. I think it will also be an intellectual challenge to try writing again – a forum for my thoughts.