October 27, 2007 · 5:16 pm

More from Nouwen

We truthfully belong together in God. This is the spiritual basis of solidarity.

Here too we find the ground of all Christian action. As prayer leads us into the house of God and God’s people, so action leads us back into the world to work there for reconciliation, unity, and peace…. All Christian action – whether it is visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or working for a more just and peaceful society – is a manifestation of the human solidarity revealed to us in the house of God. It is not an anxious human effort to create a better world. It is a confident expression of the truth that in Christ, death, evil, and destruction have been overcome. It is not a fearful attempt to restore a broken order. It is a joyful assertion that in Christ all order has already been restored. It is not a nervous effort to bring divided people together, but a celebration of an already established unity. Thus action is not activism. An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem, and re-create, but those acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring, redeeming, and re-creating presence of God.

Nouwen, Lifesigns, Image Books p. 35

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October 26, 2007 · 5:52 pm

Baffled

How do I help a patient who has jaw pain mostly when she puts on her lipstick?

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October 25, 2007 · 7:52 pm

The Menu

Office potluck:

  • Perogies and sour cream
  • Sweet and Sour meatballs
  • Saurkraut and Koelbesa
  • Chicken Curry  and Naan bread
  • Salad – beans, olives, celery, feta, etc
  • Crackers and cheeses and cold cuts
  • Wings – peanut and hot wing
  • Cabbage rolls
  • Spring rolls
  • Pita bread
  • Nacho chips and layered dip dish

And for dessert – Apple pie and ice cream and a pumpkin dish to die for.

Yep.  We eat well at our office.  But it sure is hard to get back to work after all that!

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October 24, 2007 · 3:55 pm

Moving deeper

The deeper our prayer becomes the closer we come to this mystery of God’s love. And the closer we are to this mystery the better we can live it out in our daily life. It frees us to appreciate other people’s talents without feeling diminished by them and to life up their uniqueness without feeling less unique ourselves. It allows us to celebrate the various ways of being human as a sign of the universal love of God. (Nouwen, Lifesigns p34)


At church council last night we talked about spiritual direction a bit. One comment was that it would be mainly for those who know God and wish to go deeper. That is true although anyone can be seeking a deeper spiritual life without already knowing God in Christ. In fact, some of my deeper spiritual conversations have been with people who do not even know what they are seeking. I see God at work even when they remain oblivious to who it is that is drawing them towards him.

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits to the Christian community of the work of spiritual direction is that as one goes deeper and draws closer to God in prayer one becomes more aware of this “mystery of God’s love.” And the experience of this mystery compels us to live out this love of God in our daily human lives. God calls us to live as lights in our dark world and I believe that our lights will together shine more brightly as we move deeper into the mystery of God.

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October 22, 2007 · 11:57 pm

Nasty

I am emerging from my Fentinyl haze.  Got more sleep today than in ages and it sure did cure the headache I woke up with.  The headache was maybe due to caffeine withdrawal.

All went well with the check-up in my nether parts.  No polyps or such.

But the bad news is that they recommend this procedure again in 5 years.  Five years to live in dread of swallowing the  nastiest liquid known to mankind – the oral Fleet.  Not sure if I can take it.  The second one I just barely kept down yesterday.

If Colon cancer wasn’t such a nasty disease in itself, I’d say it was a conspiracy against those of us who are spunky enough to make it past 50.

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October 21, 2007 · 10:05 pm

Just reflecting on weekends and love

This morning I was sitting reflecting on the weekend.  I know I need to spend a weekend at home.  The shopping list is getting longer and I have to find time in the evening to run and pick things up to make it through till the next real shop.

But in spite of the busyness of the past few weekends – Thanksgiving, the trip to Winnipeg and this weekend to Saskatoon – they have been very good.  This weekend I spent time at Rachelle’s visiting with her, Asen and Ronin.  Breakfast with Patrick at the Broadway Roastery.  A very fruitful first meeting with my spiritual direction supervisor.  Then off to a seminar on practice transitions (I need to retire) followed by supper with Rachelle before hitting the road for PA again.

I can’t help but take note of the power love has in transforming my children’s lives.  God sneaks in there in the form they need him the most.  And before they know it they have begun a slow transformation becoming different people in the process.  Healthier people too when real love sneaks in.

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October 21, 2007 · 9:46 pm

Learning new stuff

I have not been removing comments here, I just didn’t know where they were.

Today I found them.  I have never moderated comments and so, in my ignorance, I had a bunch of comments waiting for me to approve.  Or not.

And I am amazed at the number of comments that were sitting there needing deleting.  Stupid spam!

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October 17, 2007 · 2:41 pm

Winnipeg – what I did while I was there

Time flies and this week has been too full of work and stuff to post but last weekend was great.


 

 

 

 

Winnipeg is an interesting city. It is definitely bigger than Saskatoon but also definitely smaller than Calgary. It feels more like Saskatoon than Calgary. I don’t really know why but maybe it is just the prairie feel to it. I think I like Winnipeg for that reason.

In any case, I had a good time there last weekend. I got there, rented a car and drove to the York hotel. In the afternoon, before Leo was done his courses, I wandered around downtown in the mall. Found a McNally Robinson store – succumbed to my biggest temptation there and came away with a couple new books.

 

That evening was Leo’s induction into the College of Family Physicians as a Fellow. Gowns and hoods, pin and certificate and new letters to put behind his name FCFP. He works hard to keep his knowledge current so he deserves it – and he loves it!

After all the pomp and circumstance, we had a nice visit with Mr. Daley who was made an honorary member of the college. He is another guy who has worked hard in the field of physical activity promotion and received the Order of Canada. He was wearing his medal so we got to check that out close up.

 

 

 

Then we went in to a performance by Chantal Kreviazuk. She is amazing really, performing up on stage from the piano which she plays as she sings – no other back-up – with a voice that is powerful and clear. And to us it was just a bit special that she had just returned the day before from Ethiopia where she travelled with War Child International. She brought back some stories and then called up an 11 year old girl, Hannah Bennet I think was her name, who has raised a tremendous amount of money for the homeless. Chantal donated $5000 to her and this was matched by the College of Family Physicians and the Scotia Bank.

The next day we spent with friends – first of all at Faith Covenant, then with Chantelle(my niece, not the singer) and friends and then met Jamie and Kim Arpin-Ricci for a really good visit. We still had a bit of time left so we drove down to the legislature and wandered among the bears in the park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 13, 2007 · 4:50 pm

Here I am – in Winnipeg

Got into Winnipeg right on time this morning, picked up the rental car and made it safely to the hotel where Leo has been staying for much of this week.  He treats himself well when he travels for work.  I am always a bit stingy with myself.  But here I am in a suite with a king sized bed and it is quite lovely.  And I am hooked up to high speed which makes it even better.

Tonight I go to see Leo become a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians and then we attend a concert by Chantal Kreviazuk ( I think I mistakenly told some folks it was Christina Aguilera – which is a bit different genre of music and definitely not from Winnipeg )  So we should have a special evening together.  Fun and relaxing I hope.

After yesterday, I need some relaxation.  I was in the operating room all day.  As I was finishing up the last case there, I got a call on the phone.  A young girl had been in a skating accident – could I come back to the office and splint her teeth?  It is easier to splint teeth using orthodontic brackets than just building up a splint out of filling material.  So I headed back to the office, canceling my 4 o’clock appointment with my spiritual director.  And lo and behold, I had forgotten that my sister was also coming in.  That I had totally forgotten.  My mind seems to need less busyness in order to remember things well these days.  And by 6 pm Sara and I were on the road to Saskatoon where I had made arrangements to see a friend for coffee in the evening.   9:30 pm saw me back at Dave and Annette’s  where they and Kieran were watching Surf’s Up  on the T.V.  They fed me a piece of absolutely delicious key lime pie from the Konga Cafe.  And then I began to yawn.  Kieran and I both hit the pillow early.

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October 11, 2007 · 2:35 am

Can too much be said about love?

Randall had a little discussion going on love.  A friend told him that he has discovered that a lot of the complexity of his life has been simplified by his discovering that he is loved.  He stated that he was “just a boy who needed to be loved.”  

I think that this is a pretty profound discovery.  I don’t think he is talking about the kind of stuff that passes for love between young people that after a few months dissipates, revealing it for what it was really – simply infatuation, sexual attraction or even hero worship.  I believe the sort of love he is speaking about carries with it a deep knowing within him of acceptance for who he is by another who knows enough about him to know many of his warts and bumps and loves him anyway.  The other not only accepts him for what he is but delights in him.  And I take it that there is a reciprocal acceptance of the other.

This sort of love is found between parents and children as well.  Dixie wrote about the love she has for her children and how, in spite of her not always doing the right thing for her children, she can be a good mother because she truly loves them.  In fact it is partly because she loves her children so much that she cares that she does the right thing when it comes to childrearing.  

I believe these kinds of human love reflect the love God has for us.  And I think that our need to be loved in order to be healthy humans reflects something within us that has been planted there by our designer.  If the essence of God is love then perhaps our search for love is in reality a search, at the deepest levels of who we are, for God. 

One of Randall’s anonymous commenters said he didn’t think the kind of love that helps  a person discover who they are exists in his world.  Makes me sad to think that many people don’t know what that is like.  Human love can really be life changing, as it has for this friend of Randall.  It is healing and transforming and good.   I think it is the kind of expression of God that we as his human followers need to live out.  We need to make it real in the worlds of people who need to experience it because it really does change people.  God is like that.

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