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.