keep on singing

I looked behind me and there he sat, his head about level with the top of the pew, nestled in between two other tenors.

So, I have not forgotten about this writing.  But I haven't sat down to it at all since we've returned from our sabbatical, which is a shame because there have been so many things to tell.  I think it was more difficult than I had anticipated it would be: this country-dweller-at-heart returning to the steady drone of trains and traffic, constant movement and steady stimulus.  I notice the serenity of the park, I do, and I enjoyed the crunch of the fall leaves under my feet as much as ever.  And yet, it's taken more effort to transition back to our Vancouver routine than I had thought it would be.

But the moment I turned around to see him sitting on his own last night, I realized: this is home for him.  It's where he was born, where he is growing up.  How do you raise a kid in the city when you didn't grow up in one yourself?

And then we turn to these old hymns and I wonder the same thing... how can we sing these old songs we didn't write, jotted down hundreds of years ago, thousands of miles away?

But we did sing, and we still do.  We sang, a bit cautiously at first, finding our way through the parts.  And then somehow, it all came together and I saw the pianist's eyebrows go up slightly as he played the last note: he nodded a quick approval to the director and there was satisfaction in the air.  We had sung well, from the bottom of our hearts and it was so good.  Our shoulders relaxed, up and down the pews, and we sighed happily after we captured the twirl of black dots on the page and interpreted them as delicate harmonies.  Delicious.

And the old, old words were like home-coming in our mouths.  Even the lines written oceans away and centuries ago took root again in this place yesterday.  I glanced at my young son two rows behind me, and then back to aging, grey hymnal, the one we are about to replace, and I hope, hope, hope: please keep singing.

coming back to the point (and packing our bags for re-entry)

I haven't flipped the calendar yet, but I've been thinking already about the moment when I will tomorrow.  It's because I'll be able to see clearly that we are entering our last week of Sabbatical.  We've already been reflecting on the activities and highlights of the past weeks, and are beginning to anticipate what it will be like to "re-enter" our lives and work in Vancouver.  Gideon said today, "I am ready to go back but I will miss it here."  And Levi said, "I miss our living room in Vancouver."

So, each of us is eager to go back for various reasons.  We have missed the Farmer's Market every Saturday, and the new playground at Trout Lake.  We miss our neighbours and will be happy to bump into them on the sidewalk.  (We miss sidewalks for that reason!)  We miss seeing the babies in the church... how much they must have grown since we left in April!   We miss the eclectic, familiar congregation which we have grown to love so much.  We miss the worship in our congregation.

We are even looking forward to the routine of going to school in the fall, knowing that the rhythm is good for our family.  

But once we are back, we're sure that we'll miss the flexibility of sabbatical, the unforced rhythms and the daily delight of being together without interruption.  We've loved the freedom to take another book from the pile, with the permission to sit coffee in hand, and delve into another topic.  We've fully embraced the joy of evenings at home, the pleasure of putting the boys to bed without hurry, knowing that we can recline in the quiet living room with a glass of wine and the time to unwind.  

Which goes without saying, I suppose, that I am sort of dreading the return of meetings.  I once came across a trailer for an old British comedy called "Meetings, Bloody Meetings."  Having watched only a few minutes of it was enough to spark side-splitting laughter.  The parody of a disengaged, unprepared chair person and a room full of equally unprepared attendees was as funny as it was tragic.  

What seems to go without being said about church meetings is that they must happen.  But why do we do them the way we do?  I don't just mean to wonder about our unswerving loyalty to the guidelines for meetings a la Robert's Rules.  I understand that if we didn't schedule the gatherings the way we do or record and conduct them the way we do, that we might spiral to the poor depths of misery experienced in the "Bloody Meetings" by the employees in the comedy.  However, what is so sacred about meetings that we repeat them the way we do?   

The best meetings, in my mind, are the ones that are held ad hoc in response to a particular need, or that somehow deviate from the agenda so that we can discuss what really matters to people in the church.  I know it's important to discuss administrative details, and for this reason it's necessary to have scheduled meetings, but I believe we have mistakenly overlooked some of the more important matters, the things which our people really find to be close to the heart.  Somehow, we've agreed that it isn't necessary to have a clearly articulated vision or purpose as a congregation.  But for how long can we go on this way?  

One of the things I gleaned from the conference for Women Speakers early in the spring was that any time a speaker does not clearly articulate her objective, the hidden objective will take over.  75% percent of the time listeners will not be able to identify what the main point of the talk was... even as they are heading out of the auditorium. In fact, 50% of the speakers can't identify the objective of their talk/lecture/sermon unless they have clearly stated their point ahead of time.  The point worth noting is that whenever the hidden objective takes over due to the absence of a clearly articulate objective, the hidden objective is usually not a good one.  

How many of us can clearly articulate what the point of all of our meetings is?  Why are we actually gathering?  What is the thing burning in our hearts?  What has prompted us to forego a potentially sacred, quiet evening in our homes to sit around a table in a dark basement poring over an agenda?  

What about our prayer meetings?  Do we dare talk about the ratio of time spent in our administrative meetings versus the time spent in worship and prayer meetings?  What does that say about what's really important to us and where we feel our decisions are actually made?   Is this the way we want it to be?  Without having made a clear objective, it's possible that the hidden objective has already taken over... the hidden objective of asserting control over decisions and "progress" according to our pre-established ideas of what ought to happen in church, which is usually based on what has happened in the past.  

But are we prepared to crack open the possibility of allowing things to look different than they have?  And will we be willing to train ourselves to approach decision-making from a posture of worship and prayer rather than from a desire to maintain control while leaning on rational-logical-responsible protocol?  

I'm reminded of Paul's letter to Timothy where he gives instructions about how God's household of faith ought to conduct themselves.  Paul is wise and rooted in Christ, so compassionate toward the  community of believers and firm about his convictions that the church must cultivate purity and godliness.  Doing things with order and decency is good, as he mentions to the Corinthians, but the real value is being firmly established in Christ.  

Paul writes: 

¹⁴ Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, ¹⁵ if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. ¹⁶ Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:

He appeared in the flesh,
    was vindicated by the Spirit,^[d]
was seen by angels,
    was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
    was taken up in glory.

Does what we do spring from our contemplation of this mystery?  If it doesn't, what is our activity rooted in?  And if we are not actively pursuing the command to love with a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith, what are we doing? 

____________________

"If you are walking backward, away from something you think is a mistake, you may be right in supposing it is a mistake, but for you to be walking backward is never right.  You know what happens to people who walk backward....  We are meant to walk forward, not backward, and reaction is always a matter of walking backward." - J. I. Packer  

miles to go: how to let the road speak

We've been on the road lately and have put a lot of miles on our little grey van.  We've settled into some good driving routines and have found that some of our best learning moments have taken place on the road.  I know: some of you with young children may be wondering how in the world that could be possible.  Shouldn't we be bracing ourselves for the chaos that's likely to unfold within the vehicular confines of our mini-mini van?  Shouldn't we be forewarned about the potential for excessive noise and attestation coming from the back rows?

Perhaps.

I'm not saying that it's always sublime.  But what I am saying is that some of our best conversations, some of our moments of sweetest clarity have come as we all roll down the road together, heading in the same direction in more ways than one.  Enjoying the scenery, literally and internally.  And casting a quick glance into the rearview mirror to see just how far we've come.

It is marvellous to observe the major shifts and some of the subtle nuances between the ecoregions in Western Canada.  From Vancouver to Alberta, we travel up from the Pacific Maritime coastal eco-zone to the prairies.  Through desert and up over the Montane Cordillera.   The way the light shines in each area and the particular range of colours shifts between the various places.  We marvel at the hues of green and blue on the coast and the yellows in the prairies... the dusty golden yellow of a harvested field after the snow has melted and the canary yellow of the canola fields at the height of their bloom.

And it is marvellous to consider the various geographies of our life vocation... the nuances of the call to parent and the call to pastor, the role of the daughter and the role of the son, spouse to each other and friend to friends.  We notice the subtle shift from one territory to another, somehow continuous and somehow totally different.  How easily we move from place to place, and between all the roles we are permitted to fill.

We also marvel at how easily we travel.  No borders, no patrols or check-stops or questioning.  Only a very brief intermission at the gate to the National Park to pay a small entry fee while being reminded not to feed the wildlife.  Otherwise, we have no fear of traveling.  It is a privilege, an adventure.

But I have wrestled with this, knowing that there are an estimated 200 million people who have moved across borders for reasons that are beyond unpleasant, for fear of their lives, with no particular final destination and often no plan for getting there.  Can you imagine the stress?  Travelling with young children?  Leaving everything behind?  Not knowing exactly where to end, unsure of the possibility of ever going back?

Those of us with the Western mindset of "Road-Tripping" have this entrenched and privileged view of movement.  We go mostly where we want when and how we'd like.  We set out the map before us and draw our route.  This highway, or that one this time?   ... This is my question: What is it going to take for us to realize that there are so many millions for whom geographical movement represents terror and uprooted lives?  Instability and loss?  

I guess I'm going from road-trip to guilt-trip here.  But what option do we have?  We could possibly continue on the road more frequently travelled - the one which takes us to our preferred destination.  Or, as we so often hear, we could take the one less travelled.  But what about another option?  What if, instead of living AS IF our traveling was unrelated to the global movement of so many others, WHAT IF we take the path of greatest resistance and walk our way to meet those who are hoping to be met - not on some road, but on some unmarked passage.  Perhaps when we stop living AS IF and beginning wondering WHAT IF, we might begin to really see something new.

I'm saying two things:
1) Let the road speak.  Listen carefully, observe with great attention.  Be shaped by the shape of things around you.
2) Get off the road to really travel.   Be ready to anticipate the needs of weary travellers.  Get ready to  say no to the hankering to see the next destination.  Consider what benefit might occur from "staying put."

Off the beaten path, in the bright light of the Prairie made even brighter in a flowering canola field.

Our little Mazda MPV loaded down with gear and bikes south bound on the QE2 in Alberta, following my brother and sister-in-law's white Sienna.

To remember well, sit down!

I talked to someone recently who confessed that he often thinks about what he writes more than he actually sits down to write, as if the more he thinks about it, the better whatever he eventually writes will be.  I laughed a knowing kind of laugh.  It's exactly what I've been doing: thinking about all the things that I want-need to write about and putting it off until it's just right.  The problem is, of course, that it can't become anything, let alone good, unless you first sit down and begin somewhere.

Someone else once asked a famous writer how they ever got to where they were.  That writer responded: "Apply a** to chair."  As if that was all there is to it.  Flannery O'Connor said that if if she felt she had nothing to write, she sat down every morning, in case something inspiring might be given to her.

Inspired by those greats, I've found a good chair and have applied myself to it.   Here goes...

Highlights of our days have been filled with the following:
1) Driving back and forth to BC for John & Tuyet's, and Joel & Fiona's weddings.
2) Reading lots of books:  fiction, non-fiction, history, field-guides and maps
3) Receiving coaching/spiritual direction
4) Meeting up with other pastors
5) Talking
6) Praying
7) Learning about issues that people face when applying for refugee status, both in Canada and overseas
8) Hearing firsthand about the experience of gay couples in the church
9) Engaging in paradigm-shifting discussions about character formation and maturity
10) Visiting with John & Eileen and Rich & Elsy, who drove all the to Central Alberta from Vancouver.

Also, since I last wrote we've received opportunities to:
1) Learn the art of bee-keeping
2) Preach at my home church
3) Go hiking around Lake O'Hara with several of my aunts, uncles and cousins on my Dad's side and Gideon who demonstrated goat-like abilities when he easily hiked 16km in a little less than 24 hours.  What a kid!
4) Spend time with my cousin who work at the Canadian Embassy in Beirut as one who reviews refugee applications.
5) Train for a 10K run (to take place this coming Sunday morning with Trev and my three brothers)
6) Harvest food from our garden which we planted in May!  We picked peas, beans, beets, celery, potatoes, lettuce, carrots.  So sweet!
7) Watch the DVD series "Body and Soul" based on the Heidelberg Catechism (something we hope to share with the church in the fall)

8) Go fishing on Gull Lake

9) See a cow moose with her twin calves grazing in a ditch in Northern Alberta

10) Witness our boys catch and marvel at the dragonflies which proliferate on this hilltop 

11) Learn about history and culture of the Canadian Arctic

12) Reconnect with family members on my Mom's side of the family.  

Philip discovering that it really was Trev/"Daddy" behind the mask!

Jumping with joy in the garden.

 Preaching in WoodyNook, the church I grew up attending in Lacombe, AB.

Visiting with friends who came to Canada as refugees from Iran in the '90s.  

In between all of those things, we've talked and talked.  We've had time to have extended conversations, the kind that can explore an issue from many angles.  We've had time to revisit questions and ideas and wonder about what will come next.  We've had time to wrestle with questions that have, up till now, only been latent.

We've worshipped and our hearts have soared.  The sun has shone brightly on us and the rain has fallen generously on our garden and has sent our roots rain.  So very good.  

Aboriginal Day

When we told Gideon yesterday morning that it is the longest day of the year, he said, "So, will it be 26 hours long?"

The highlight of our extra long day was celebrating Aboriginal Day by eating foods that were typical of the indigenous diet on the prairies.  We started with bannock over an open-pit fire, and attempted two methods of cooking in order to determine whether the stick or the little camp cooker worked best.  We got rained out and had to finish frying them on the stove.  The end result was so good, Levi asked if we could please have it again today.  I have always loved the dense and satisfying bannock, so we might not wait a full year until we eat it again.

After the rain showers cleared, we lit the fire again and prepared bison sausages for cooking (made from a bison which grazed in the pasture directly behind us).  We held the sausages over the flames, until we could smell the readiness of the lean, rustic meat.  

And we took berries which had been picked from the garden next to the house last fall and turned it into a mouth-watering relish which was the perfect condiment for the meat.  We imagined the satisfied bellies of the people who lived here at one time, enjoying an almost identical meal.

We're living close to Red Deer, which was the Native term for elk.  It makes sense that elk used to roam wild here, however just as with the bison, elk only live in this area if they're kept in fences.  As harsh as that may sound, it's the next best thing.  Elk and bison provide the most natural meat for people living here.  Compared to cattle which are not native to this area, elk and bison are better adapted to the elements and because they are usually pasture-fed (rather than products of feed-lots) it's just better meat all around.   

To learn about how native peoples used to dress (and sometimes still do), we wrapped the boys in soft, smokey-smelling elk hides.  The boys stomped their feed and ran with the hides flowing behind them, enjoying the loose folds and the cape-like effect.  

For dessert, we grazed on wild rose petals.  Sort of...  You'll see.  

(Insert here, Levi's immediate rejection of the hand-fed petal.)


Gideon... reconsidering.

Approaching Levi with a willingness to try it himself.

Following a brief instance of daring determination...

Gideon also rejected the rose-petal delicacy:

I gave it a try and liked it.  It tasted just like a rose smells and felt silky and cool on my tongue.  No wonder it was a rare treat for those who lived here first.  

We lingered outside, enjoying the long sun and Philip's delight in playing in the dirt with bare feet.

It was a good, sweet day.  But as we watched the news later last night and saw some of the marches progress on Parliament Hill announcing Sovereignty Summer, our hearts ached.  We hope that our sons will grow up to love the history and the culture of the Indigenous peoples and not to become cynical about the highly politicized relationship that now exists between the Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.  For the last six years, we've attended Trout Lake Aboriginal Day in Vancouver and have learned so much about how we simply can't stereotype Indigenous peoples.  There are, just as with non-Indigenous peoples, so many personalities, so many gifts and of course, many reasons to grieve the consequences of human weakness.  But just as with any population, there are many reasons to love.  

The first step is to learn.  

National Aboriginal Day --  Article from the CBC yesterday  

Christian Reformed Aboriginal Ministries

Aboriginal History and Culture in BC

The next step is to notice.  

Our church is in such close proximity to many services which are designated for Native people.  And every Sunday morning, members of the LongHouse Christian Assembly come by to drop off the bagels which are too tough for their community members to enjoy.  There are so many opportunities to notice our neighbours and to make contacts.  

And if you've never eaten bison or bannock, try it!  Vancouver has a great destination:  Salmon n' Bannock.  What are you waiting for?  

Finally, before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission comes to Vancouver in September, make it a priority to go out of your way.  Learn, notice and love.  

Lord, have mercy.  Let us love our neighbours as ourselves.  And let us love deeply, from the heart, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  

unsubscribe, re-subscribe -- a beginner's guide to rest

If there is any obstacle to rest, it's being over-subscribed.  Being yes-people.  Yes to events, yes to newsletters, yes to fundraisers, yes to opportunities, yes to bargains.   It's the way to be connected, in-the-loop and in-the-know.  

It's enough just to keep up.

At some point, we actually have to become no-people in order to say a greater Yes.

But a great YES to what?  Less accountability?  Less visibility?  Less information and knowledge?

Before we left for our sabbatical in Alberta, we cancelled our home phone line, and spent time going through all of the email we receive.   Bit by bit, we weeded out newsletters and ads.  Don't even ask how all those things started piling into our inboxes.

Weeding out the unwanted email looks like this: open up the newsletter which you receive but would rather not read.  Scroll to the bottom and click "Unsubscribe."  Done.  No more daily deals, no more words of the day, no more daily interest columns or Pinterest alerts.  At least for now.  And no more of the newsletters of which I can't even recall the names anymore.

What a relief.   All that space in my inbox, all that time to spend on something else.

And saying no to events.  We were invited to a very good event not long ago.  It was something we believed in and were curious about, but knew that this time of rest is precious.  We don't want to squander our evenings.  So we said no.  What a strange freedom.  Having been trained by expectations to participate and to attend events out of a sense of duty, simply side-stepping an event or invitation feels like we're absconding.  

But it is in the interest of something greater.  Something that's eluded when attention is directed toward the things at the periphery -- at least, which should be at the periphery, if not in the trash.

Instead of trying to manage overflowing inboxes, we've been receiving and listening to Scripture.  Saying yes not to less accountability, but yes to the Word.

More time and more mental space permits long sessions of listening.  We hear the Word in a way we sometimes miss when we read it silently.  The word was meant to be read this way - aloud and in the company of others.  We subscribe to a new stream of words, but this time with no gimmicks or sales pitches.  This time its for a way of life, the way of wisdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer -  well before the days of iTunes Audio Bible - said it this way, in a perfectly relevant way for our time:

The Word of Scripture should never stop sounding in your ears and working in you all day long, just like the words of someone you love... Accept the Word of Scripture and ponder it in your heart, as Mary did.  That is all... Do not ask "How shall I pass this on?"  but "What does it say to me?"  Then ponder the Word long in your heart until it has gone right into you and taken possession of you.
                                                                                  Life Together

3 steps to making this transition for yourself:

1) Unsubscribe to whatever you don't want to don't need to read.
2) Purchase a version of an audio Bible OR intentionally choose another activity that is truly life-giving.
3) Do it!  And Keep it up.

See what happens and enjoy the rest that comes your way.
  

En Route (Awake my Soul)

We are back from a lovely trip through the mountains.  We drove a long loop, taking the TransCanada through Banff and then south to Cranbrook, swooping Northward again toward the Balfour Ferry, where we forded the Kootenay Lake.  We arrived at Jason and Tracy's breathless.  What a paradise!  

On the way back, we toured the Crowsnest Pass, wound our way through the windy territory of Southern Alberta and then up Northward again to the Parkland area of Central Alberta, on the East short of Gull Lake.  Such diverse landscapes!  All of it: gorgeous.   

  

The boys were delighted to see so much wildlife.... bears, big-horned sheep, dear, and marmots.  We took time to slow down and watched them as we could from the van, being quiet and careful not to disturb the animals.  How we talked about them for mile after mile, the way the black bear swayed and nibbled grass and the heavy, exaggerated curl of the bighorn sheep's horns.   We admired the way the small roadside meadows were blanketed with the bright purple fireweed, fully in bloom.  Stunning.   

  

And when we weren't talking, we sang along to Chris Tomlin's song 

"Awake my Soul."  None of us objected to repeating it several times...

Breathe on me, breath of God...

I come alive, I'm alive when you breathe on me....

Awake, awake, awake my soul!

God, resurrect these bones!

From death to life

For you alone awake my soul.    

We worshiped and rejoiced and when it came time for me to lead the women in retreat all the way in Grand Forks, 

my heart was filled with praise.  So good to be together in search of the Living God, ready and available for the Spirit's breath to revive and restore.  

I checked back to my notes and noticed from the beginning of our sabbatical this line, underlined:

I am so tired.

I was so tired and though I don't remember writing it, I remember the lure of horizontal surfaces (benches, counter-tops, hardwood floors, etc) - 

all beckoning me to lie down, rest and disappear into a brief world of sleep.  

Another gift of sabbatical is this:   

We have rested.  I've logged some 10-hour nights and occasional day-times naps in the sun.  

Is there anything sweeter and more rejuvenating than a little bit of shut-eye outside in the sun?  

 But now I've been spending less time thinking about how I'd love to just lie down 

on any old surface and sleep. 

 Now I dream about how great it would be to tie up my shoes and go for a run.  So I do.  

This morning I ran once around the block, which in the country side here is a perfect 4.25 mile run.  I kicked up my heels and turned up the tunes.  Hooray for running!  A mile and bit into the run, I watched a white-tail deer before it startled.  How peacefully it grazed on the lush grass in the ditch.  And when it saw me, what a bounding leap it made!  It dashed along the caragana hedges and waved its bright white tail.  I was close enough to see the deer's small black hooves lifting high above the top of the grass.  Such precise, pointed little feet!  

And as sudden as that flash of white, I remembered the line "Hind's feet in high places."  Though I've never heard anyone call a deer a "hind" somehow the line came back to me, 

as I recall being a little girl looking at the title of that novel on my parent's bookshelf.   

The deer's effortless gallop made me feel all at once clumsy and heavy-footed.  What a thought that the Psalmist has when he suggests that God makes his feet like the feet of a deer!  (Psalm 18:33) 

I glanced down for a second and see my large white Saucony's.  

Feet of a deer?  Hardly.  

But I let myself chuckle and picked up the pace a bit.  I come alive again.  

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

For the director of music.  On my stringed instruments.  (Habb 3:19) 

I reach and push play on my iPhone again.  For the director of music.  

Black bear: lumbering and graceful. 

One of many bighorn sheep.

Big little Philip - such a patient traveller.  

And a wonderful soak in the natural hot springs at Radium, 

which Gideon proudly read out to us as "Random Hot Springs."  

He's right: it is random to arrive at a hot water hole in the middle of nowhere.  

Random, but wonderful.  

slowing down

Something worth noting has happened recently.  Actually, it's happened twice.  Both times I was driving, and both times I looked down to realize that I was driving 80km/hr...

in a 100km/hr zone!  What?!  

It's not that I'm a chronic speeder, but I do tend to push the limit.  If I'm on my way somewhere, why waste time?...   

Trev and I agree that it has taken us a little over a month to really begin seeing the benefits of being "off and away."  The first couple of weeks, we were somewhat preoccupied with just getting here and going to the Prayer Summit and the Inhabit Conference.  The third and fourth weeks, Trev was in the midst of completing his course work and paper for the D.Min. course.  Today he received his mark: a resounding A!  We're celebrating his achievement and breathing a sigh of relief.  The course is done and well done.  

I notice that laughter comes more readily, sleep comes easily, appetites are robust and we have energy to spare.  Gideon refers affectionately to his "summer legs," as he notes the scratches and the sun tan he has already developed.  We watch Gideon and Levi run literal miles everyday, up and down the hill on the south side of the house and we marvel at how many things there are for them to discover.  Gideon has become an avid bird and bug watcher -- as avid as one can be as a five year old.  Well, he already was one in Vancouver, but time and space permit that interest to flourish here.  Yesterday, as he went walking through the trees with my uncles and cousins, on and Levi saw a ruffled grouse drumming.  My 63 year old uncle said he'd heard ruffled grouses many times in his life and had never actually seen one.  Gideon understood the thrill of seeing it "in real" and waited and watched quietly with my uncles while the grouse strutted up and down the fallen log.  

When Trev and I lived in Michigan, we met Jaco Hamman, who has since become a literary mentor to us.  Our personal knowledge of him has made his writing all the more meaningful.  Not long ago, he gave us a signed copy of his book A Play-Full Life: Slowing Down & Seeking Peace (The Pilgrim Press, 2011).  

A native of South Africa, Hamman claims that his African worldview has impacted his desire to reframe the way he lives out his days in North America and he urges others with a Western worldview to consider viewing time and priorities differently.  We are so accustomed to viewing our duties through the lens of obligation and responsibility that some of us have lost sight of the joy of living.  He shares personal anecdotes about how he chooses to carry out certain tasks with a playful attitude and how much more effective his work has become.  Not only that, working is more enjoyable to him.  

This sabbatical time is providing abundant space for slowing down and for enjoying playful moments with our family.  I wonder, though, how this can transfer to ministry?...  It seems that many of us have taken for granted that the call to work in the church is serious business, not to be taken lightly.  And we corporately haven't left much room for playfulness; meanwhile humour is seen as most superfluous - not necessary, as Hamman sees it.  He lists six obstacles to playfulness: 

• criticism ("Being play-full is foolishness or childish...")
• control ("You will do this in this way...")
• compulsion ("I have to do this..." or "Doing this makes me less anxious...")
• competition ("I hate losing..." or "Winning is everything...")
• conflict ("I can't stand that person" or "This drives me crazy...")
• consumption ("There's always something more that I want...")

Basically, he says "One becomes play-full by being rooted, redeemed and restored and by engaging in play-full activities... to be play-full is to imaginatively and creatively engage one's self, others, God and all of reality so that peace and justice reign within you and within others, and in every conceivable situation in which you might find yourself." (A Play-Full Life, p. 19)   I read the beginning chapters, I keep thinking of Paul's invitation to live as free in Christ... it is for freedom that Christ set you free.  Perhaps some of us still hear that with overtones of rigid expectation, but what if it is an invitation to let Spirit-filled imaginations direct creative ministry, rather than allowing duty and expectation to dictate what ought to happen?...

We ponder this while we sit in the pair of grey rockers overlooking the pasture, where I sometimes prop Philip first thing in the morning.  I observe how peacefully he watches the fog burn off the low lying areas and the way the birds swoop in and out of the early mist.  

Soon the day is bright and we head out to play.  

tending to life

Small joys proliferate.

The first beans pushed their way up through the ground and our chickens laid their first eggs on Wednesday morning.  Gideon reached his hand under the warm hens and pulled back treasure: two brown eggs and one white.  

Our blackish hens are a rare breed which lay pale green eggs.  They are also the most sensitive to their environment which is probably why they haven't laid any eggs yet since they've been at our place.

The other joy we celebrate is that nearly all the trees now have leaves.  The cherry blossoms are at their finest and are literally humming with the hosts of bees collecting nectar.  

The thing about spring on the Prairies is that once it begins, it begins with vigour.  There's a robust awakening.  You can almost hear the earth shout, "Ready or not, here I come!"  But, of course, everyone is beyond ready.  They have been waiting and waiting, watching for just the right time to till the ground, waiting for just the right time to put the crop in.  Waiting for the time to hang-up their jackets and stride out the door with short sleeves, rejoicing.  

I've been walking past the field which has been planted with potatoes.  So far, nothing has come up.  It has been one week since I watched our neighbour make perfectly straight furrows, stopping at the edge of the field to be eat the warm dinner his wife brought.  Flocks of seagulls hovered as they feasted on the abundance of worms and insects.  

The rows are, to me, a call to prayer.  This morning as I ran past them, I marvelled at the even rows, the satisfying heaps of dirt, the black-black of the soil.  I don't want to miss the first signs of green as they emerge from the ground even though we don't really eat many potatoes anymore.  They used to be a staple in our house as I was growing up.  We didn't plant fields of them like some of our relatives did -- and still do --  but we grew rows of them in the garden.  I remember digging up potato hills and counting how many potatoes we could get from one plant, counting our blessings, one by one into the basket.  My Mom peeled and boiled and sometimes mashed those fresh potatoes nearly daily in the summer.  My Mom even won a prize at the church picnic decades ago for her skill at peeling the potato in the least amount of time with the thinnest, longest spiral of peel.  How have I forgotten these gems?...  When those first spuds are ready for digging in several weeks, guess what we'll be eating?   I mean, not the ones from our neighbour's field, but the Deep Red Norlands we planted next to the beans in our own garden...

In the meantime, we watch and wait.  

wind and fire

It has truly been a Pentecost week: wind and fire.  Waves as high as three or four feet on our smallish Prairie lake that is often is as placid and smooth as glass.  Wind that gusted plumes of dust and dirt across the yard and laid flat the new spring grass.  Nesting swallows that buffeted the gales as they gathered straw and twigs.  We stayed inside, listening to the howling and feeling the rattle of patio furniture on the deck.  Later we heard from a neighbour about the man whose boat had capsized and was rescued, hypothermic and afraid, but alive.

But our wind was no tornado. And our wind took no lives.  While we listen to wind careening over the hills and house here, it would not compare to the deafening roar of the Oklahoma tornado or the way trees snapped and metal twisted.   The wind which stifled and ended the breath of too many.  

Winds that wounded.     

And fire... the devastating conclusion to Tim Bosma's life.  But here is the moment of truth: taken by fire, and then remembered - as his wife tenderly spoke it to crowds of friends and mourners - remembered by fire with fire.  They lit a bonfire, sparked off fire-works.  Could anyone not touched by the flame of Pentecost have courage to douse fire with fire?  Oh: irony, justice, love.  

         In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.  Psalm 118:5

This week Trev and I have read through The Compassionate Congregation: A Handbook for People who Care.  I scrolled the index to see what wisdom it might contain.  So many sorrows... abortion, depression, illness, troubled relationships, death of a loved one.  But death by wind and fire?  No.  

What can be said or done?  How our hearts break so see such devastation, to feel the irreplaceable loss. It could have been us.  

But this is what they said - the author of The Handbook for People who Care: be there.  Nothing else that needs to happen can take place until someone else is present.  Even our prayers and our gifts can't be effective without the presence of a prompt, courageous care-giver.   

And be there in your prayers.  When we aren't the ones who can be nearby, we cry out in anguish for the wind of the Spirit to redeem the hearts and souls of those whose lives were shattered by wind, and we cry out to our God -- our God who as Fiery Pillar led his wandering people through the nighttime of their terror and we pray that He will once again bring hope with bright and warm assurance.   Set your people free once again.  

Lord, have mercy.  

  

wind

We are living on a hilltop this summer.  When a breeze blows at the bottom of the hill, we feel it up top here as a gust.  Once in a while, it even sounds like a howling wind.  

So I was captured today by the phrase, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting."(Acts 2:2)  I know that sound.  

My brother who lives in the Arctic said that last night a great windstorm blew with such force that when one of his neighbours stepped outside, their door blew clear off its hinges.  A mighty wind, no doubt, on the eve of Pentecost.  What did they do in the middle of the night, their door off it's hinges while they wind still howled?  Were they ready for it with an extra set of hinges?  Was their whole house filled with the gust of the violent wind? 

The wind here usually picks up in the afternoon.  In the mornings, we can see by the glassy smooth lake that the wind is hardly moving.   This is not unlike the way it is elsewhere.  Unless there's a cold front or a storm afoot, the morning is typically quiet.  But this wind, the Pentecost one, was a morning gale...  Perhaps that provided the backdrop for the bewilderment expressed at the symphony of languages that erupted, like the bass roll for a magnificent orchestral crescendo.  

I  am learning to love the wind.  The way it clears the air.  The freshness of it and even the sound.  I love the way the new aspen leaves twirl and shift in the wind and the way the birds expertly ride the drafts.  

The wind is teaching me to yearn for the anointing power of the Spirit in our lives... to yearn for the distinctive sound of the movement of the Spirit in our family and among our friends, on our street and in our church.  I wait for it in the places we live... our house, yes, our souls, and all the common places where we gather.  

Oh, Spirit of Christ, teach us the meaning of the wind.  Open our ears so that we will hear and understand.  Loosen our lips that our tongues will echo those ancient ones, delighting our neighbours' ears with familiar sounds and surprising sceptics with soulful speech they already love.  Unhinge our doors that the houses of our souls may be filled with the sound of your presence.  

Blow, wind!  

Come, Holy Spirit!  

coming to our senses

I have mentioned that part of the joy of sabbatical is a return to our senses... experiencing the heightened joys of sight and sound and smell.  But this renewed awareness also means a return to conscience, a keen turning toward the inner landscape.

It came to me while I was doing dishes, admiring the way the light shone on the pasture, when suddenly, I was reminded of something I had said.  It came back to me, word for word, gesture, inflection, tone.  I had been wrong.  But how had I not seen it before?

Lord, have mercy.

This is how I know that it is the Spirit, rather than the powers of darkness attempting to discourage me: it came as a specific point of conviction, not as a vague sense of condemnation or an all over sense of feeling bad.

The sense of conviction came when I was ready to hear it and sturdy enough to withstand the gentle blow of correction.

I'm coming to love these moments of clarity, but I know you'll believe me when I say that they are hard.  How can I not see these things before they happen?  How can I be so blind?  Why do I still say things that are so .... not just naive, but offensive, self-centred and un-loving?

This is the good news.  The heart, in a supple, restorative state, bathed in grace, can withstand the correction, can receive it like an athlete eager for disciplined training.  Things I have regretted:  forgetting, raising my voice, being distracted, lacking promptness, choosing negativity, anxiety, worse-case-scenario thinking.

Uproot those things, heave them on the compost pile and plant something good in its place.  Choose joy, act promptly and sincerely, let go of the hankering to be in control, trust, believe that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

fragrant

Today I celebrated my birthday.  I woke early, to the crisp sound of the frogs and the birds.  The heady wind of yesterday melted to a sweet breeze this morning.

Top of my list was to jog to Wilson's Beach, part of the eastern shore of Gull Lake.  As I walked (note: the jogging lasted for a while until I yearned to slow down and catch my breath), I noticed how unchanged many of the features are around here... the bushes, the buildings, the blond gravel road.   Everything about it: familiar.  I turned the last left turn into the lane leading down toward the lake's edge, past the gate, past the kitschy, but well-loved campsites, past the signs and the outhouses, with just one slight turn to get to the beach.

And then, the quick surprise of the lake: the sight and smell of it entered me all at once.  My feet on the level of the water, the gallery of the shore enveloped me.  Then the cool draught turned up sharp, like a sudden kiss on the cheek.  The fresh water smell, with a hint of recent ice-water melt, and the way the sun shone, prompted - from nowhere, it seemed - a sob in my throat.
...

If it's one thing this sabbatical is gifting us with, it's the return to my senses.  The unforced invitation to see, hear, smell, taste, feel things all over again, to come alive again, to practice the joy of the resurrection, to linger in the sweet conviction that there lives a dearest, freshness deep down things.

During one of our times of prayer at the Prayer Summit, a boisterous friend of ours sat calmly, stilled and quieted.  Then, with weeping, she whispered that she had smelled the fragrance of Christ.  That she hadn't smelled it in years, and that it felt like re-birth.  The smell of holiness and pure sweet joy that rose up in our time of fervent prayer, the crescendo of voices, the sincerity of tears all mingled together, and the presence of the Spirit was like a cloak, draped warmly over our shoulders.  The aroma of Christ.

We cannot conjure up these moments.  We can remember that we love a fragrance, but when it comes to us, it comes as a gift.  We make ourselves available and with senses alert, we wait and watch.  And when the Spirit descends, we receive God's presence as sheer gift, pure grace.

We wait and watch as the men who hung onto every detail of Jesus' ascension, seeing him rise up, shining like the sun.

Christ's ascension, the very thing we also celebrate today - on my birthday, a re-birth-day! - makes real for us the joy of knowing him through his Spirit, who comes to us as surely as the dawn, and as surprisingly as an off-shore waft of fresh-watery air.  Christ's physical farewell becomes his promise to be spiritually near.  Not just nearby, but within.  This is reconciliation.  This is the invitation to be one with him, to be awake to his presence and alive with him.  The gifts of the Resurrection and the Ascension and the Pentecost, braided together and given to us that until we are drenched in the dearest, freshest deepness of the warm, bright Spirit until we also smell like Him!

the promising land

Now that we're getting settled here, enjoying this Sabbatical space in Alberta, I suppose that some of what I’m thinking now are plain comparisons: urban vs. rural.  It’s been so many years since I’ve spent any significant amount of time (i.e. more than a few days) in a rural setting, even though I grew up in one – this one. 

There are the frogs and there is the dirt.  The frogs remind me of the way sound, the white-noise of the city, is so particular to the city.  I almost go without noticing it while we live in it, except that once in a while a siren jolts me out of my complacency, and then all the urban noises seem to be impressed on me with orchestral precision.  The bass of the trucks, the tympani of the horns, the strings on the sky train track. 

Today it was the dirt which impressed itself on me here.  In the city, we have managed to control dirt in nearly every way.  There are so few spots where dirt hasn’t been covered or manicured with carefully selected or heavily pruned vegetation.  

But there is dirt here.  Dirt for the taking. 

In Vancouver, we had a neighbour who once “borrowed” a few wheelbarrows of beautiful, fresh black soil from the playground near us when it was being landscaped.   It didn’t go unnoticed… the imported soil in her yard perfectly matched the gouge in the playground.  People were not impressed. 

But here, there is dirt to spare.  My uncle took a front-end loader full of it tonight from somewhere on this 600 acre span.  Did he notice my wonderment as we stabbed our shovels into it and filled the old fence post holes that dotted the hill?

The boys didn’t just wonder at it… they reveled in it today.  I took a rake and leveled the garden, stretching the rake out as far as I could and bringing it in toward me to make it smooth, just so.  After walking back and forth, smoothing and re-smoothing, I was satisfied with the blank canvas, no furrows or divets or mounds to speak of. 

Just as I was about to gather the seeds and bedding plants, I heard a gleeful hurrah and turned to see Gideon run across the recently raked patch of earth with abandon and delight.  Levi was close behind him, laughing and kicking up the warm earth.  Levi hadn’t just taken his shoes off: there was nothing to prevent him from fully experiencing the thrill of the dirt and before my very eyes, he laid down, and like any sensible creature, he began to roll in it.  I don’t mean any sarcasm in that.  We’ve been watching the horses roll in the pasture all week, and the newborn bison calves, and the old motherly bison cows too.  They all bend the knee, lay down and relinquish themselves to the soil.  

And so did my son.  Dirt in his ears, his nose, his hair.  And pure joy over all his being.  What could I do?  Shake the rake and shoo the boys out?  Or let them feel the earth, the loam from which they were made, the ground that produces their favourite carrots and strawberries, the terrain that defines landscape and souls cape?

I let them roll.  And when they had had their fill, I watched them run off, took up the rake again and went back to smoothing. 

Then I kneeled, and felt the soft, warm perfection under my knees and scooped a bit of it up with my hands.  Just plain old dirt.  The stuff of promise. And I felt my heart swell with the simple joy of it.     

Some of it remains under my nails.  I will leave it there for now.  A reminder, a sign, an invitation.