The best place to chill.

I had a great time this week going to a local bar and hanging out. Regulars go to have a drink, shoot some pool and generally see what's up. Its like Facebook but in person - there are people you might have ties with and others that you only know by sight. In general converations ebb and flow based on the topic and who is there (and who isn't). Best of all the music isn't blaring, the bathrooms are clean and the bartender is on his A game - showing interest as your glass empties but not hovering.

Unfortunately I can't afford the empty calories to hang about all day. But it is Wi Fi capable and I do need a place to work out some of my sermons which take so long to get "just right". And its close to the subway. However, it is the personal haunt of someone close to me and so he has squatter's rights. Why can't there be more places like this?

Cottage Dreaming...

I have this dream. We own this modular home (trailer home for those in the know!) that is 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It needs a lot of work - we have one room where we need the drywall replaced. I want to take out carpetting and replace it with linoleum in some areas and in others with wood.

I need to clean out the underneat, put up wainscotting around the outside while also ensuring proper ventilation - tons of vents given the square footage.

None of this work is possible for us because we just don't have a clue. C has done some work around the place which is not bad but for what we want we need professionals.

On the other hand, when we first bought the place we pictured it full every weekend and lots of weeks with people from the church and friends who would be interested in using it. Originally when we were looking around Prince Edward County I had imagined an older house that could be used by the local church for meetings if needed.

Now my dream is to find a family that could live in their and do the work in exchange for rent for a year. With the economy being what it is, maybe this is possible but it is so idealistic - I can't imagine a lawyer wanting to tackle this. How would we work out whether the work was fair in exchange - how would the person staying keep disciplined enough to keep on working while livng in there - how much gas will it cost me to heat the place? I keep thinking that this should be a good idea somehow. Maybe I just have to sink the money into it and then rent it out to recoup some of my expenditures.

Worse, the assessed value just went through the roof, I bought it for less then half the value it is now listed as. There is no way it is worth this, I can't imagine the land going for anywhere near that and mobile homes are a dime a dozen.

So, I am keeping this an open idea - maybe there is another plan similiar that I could put into place. If I had known that I would leave my job I never would have bought a separate property - at the time it was perfect for the few overlapping days off my husband and I had to get away - but now its an unused luxury.

Um, I guess I know what I'm doing.

Well, that was quick. After requesting prayer, I got a call that my mother-in-law has fallen and may have broken a hip. I have a feeling I know what I will be doing for the next while.

I'm very pragmatic. Which makes me seem cold. I found out at 4:00 and within forty minutes I have already alerted my husband and debated with my friend the legality of moving her money in our joint account out to my account. Yes, I know this is very unethical and I wouldn't likely do it but I do want to know my options. Since we handle her money and there is another sibling involved who will want to know where all the money went I need to be on top of options. In case you are wondering what this has to do with anything, well, if you end up going into long-term care the cost usually is more than what one can afford.

The question is is the meagre savings she have safe or will it be dipped into every month to pay the fee so that she has nothing left in order to have some spending money? I interned in a nursing home for a short time and was disappointed to see people forced to wear worn out clothing and nylons with runs in them because the trustee had not dropped off any funds to purchase new items. This was in one of the best (and expensive) nursing homes at the time.

On the other hand, from a strictly ethical point of view it is not fair for the tax payer to pay more for the institutional care because some (many) families start hiding the assets. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right. So now the question is does long term care go after your cash on hand or just your monthly income. I'm off to find out.

This sounds very cruel to suppose that she won't be able to return home but this is her second broken hip (if it is broken) and if it is the same one I'm not sure how fast it will heal. Hopefully she will be able to return home but for those who have seen loved ones in a hospital you know that the motivation of the patient and the first week of rehab has a lot to do with the outcome. Not to mention that pneumonia is a very common side effect of these injuries which tends to lengthen the length of stay and screw up the opportunity for rehab. Hopefully she will be able to fight off all these things but I've been working with hospital data too long not to know that this is not the best scenario. Its also a Sunday, bad day to be admitted - OR's open tomorrow with a full schedule, specialists are on call and you may not get a bed until Monday morning -since any empty beds from Friday were grabbed up by Saturday morning. The best thing to do is hang around the place like a vulture making yourself helpful to the nurses (doing all the niceties of care) but also checking every detail so nothing gets missed.

Hurry up and wait.

I think I'm in the Hurry Up and Wait stage of my journey - again. After being overloaded with too much work, I now have very little to do at the church. In fact they are having an introduction to missional churches being hosted by Home Missions which given the events before January I would have expected to be helping out with. I was supposed to be sitting on that committte and though I have been told by those with inside knowledge that my name was forwarded and approved I have not heard anything more. Not to mention my whole degree at school is focused on missional thinking. I have more background then the presenter just from the fact of living it for a year and a half in my studies.

Instead, I was specifically notified to come and yet I can't say my heart is in it. Without a pastor and being in the middle of the pastoral search this seems a strange time to introduce new ideas to the church. I think we need a breather to figure out who we are before we decide where we want to go.

My own covenant with the church is pretty much gone. After the fiasco of handling my proposal for a sermon which was not considered "acceptable" I have withdrawn from preaching. Even if the sermon outline was as bad as that there is a way of handling these disputes and this was not handled properly whether a fellow parishioner or in this case an ordained elder. I have been urged to take it formally to Council but have felt the way the winds are blowing and can see that this is a big blow up waiting for a venue.

Anyhow, as a student I seek a mentor. Someone who will guide me and give me more perspective but not cut me down at the knees with little help to get back up. This is not the place and I suspect not the right city. I have contacted the rep once again who is supposed to guide me in all things Calvin and have gotten no response.

I'm so well aware that there is a much easier path - one of the churches that his highly recommended by the Baptists as being missional is looking for an associate pastor - one of the roles is to provide pastoral care to the elderly and women. The elderly is by best area of pastoral care - no mention of teens which are completely out of my league. I'm not sure that I would apply for this position but could put forward my name as an intern willing to pick up the extra that this new position can't handle and perhaps they would be happy to have a student with some background.

It seems easy doesn't it? Here's a church that has been in the back of my mind ready to expand its staff and yet I'm leary. I'm not convinced that I'm done with this annoying denomination yet. The fact that it annoys me so much keeps me feeling like I'm here because I see the promise of the people that our theology and sense of "right" keeps us from releasing.

This refusal to go the easier route drives my friends crazy who see my stubborness as some form of selfpunishment - I understand that but this isn't like other jobs.

So, I'm in between again. I have missed more church since December then I ever have in my life. Cliff is ready to go somewhere else and I am just trying to figure out what to do next. I don't want to push ahead where I need to be patient and yet don't want to sit still - especially if I am not feeling the same way about my church. The problem with church is that I normally believe that you stick it out wherever you are because that is your community. But professionally, I don't know what more I can learn here expect more patience. Somehow I have to force my butt into the pew!

I'M NOT DUTCH!

Sorry for yelling, but I'm not Dutch.

I have served in my church for six years and in that time there has been a lot of work to try to move the congregation away from describing the church as Dutch but to recognize that there are other cultural traditions present and that newcomers are unlikely to be Dutch.

So why is it on a day where we are preaching Ephesians which is a book which talks of the unity of Christians under Christ and the day when we take our monthly communion with all the saints that have gone before us that partway through the sermon the preacher refers to "our Dutch work ethic"?

Huh? I guess that is different then my Canadian work ethic, or my Christian work ethic? If I stook up in church and referred to my white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) work ethic we would quickly see how exclusionary that is.

That's not as bad as the evening service where I was told that we should be up in arms because our university appointed a Muslim in charge of Muslim Studies. Nope, not UofT or York or even Calvin but the University of Amsterdam!

What on earth is the "Dutch work ethic"? I'll have to Google it.

Papua New Guinea

I'm pretty lousy at geography and don't have an urge to travel to other lands - I feel uncomfortable if I'm not familiar with the cultural expections - afraid I will come off as ignorant or insensitive.

I don't know anything about this country - didn't even realise is was so close to Australia!

But here is a little bit I have been able to learn from the WDOP site and the CIA Sourcebook.

At one point a colony of Australia with independence in 1975.

Life expectancy is 66 years. Most people work as farmers and unemployment can be as high as 80 % in the urban areas. 63% of men over 15 can read, 50% of women. Close to 6 million people live here - between cell phone and fixed lined phones there is a total of 360,000 phones. More than 800 languages are spoken!

From the WDOP website (USA)

PNG's Babies and young children who are dying at high rates leaving communities to struggle with the cause of all these deaths.

Violence against women, a longtime issue, is now being challenged by women in order to meaningfully live and take care of their children.

Oil companies and corporations reaping benefits from Papua New Guinea’s natural resources while continuing to exploit the land and its people.

Environmental degradation and climate change impacting Papua New Guinea’s islands which will soon force indigenous people to move from one island to another seeking safer ground.

There's lots to pray about and as my roots are British and I'm Canadian I recognise the problems history has shown when one culture is held subservient to another, this is a good reminder of not just politics but how we treat all those we come in contact with especially in our individualistic North American mindset. Here is another Canadian link: the little girl in the photo was born in Papua New Guinea and was there until she was three.

She served in the Canadian Forces and was killed in Afghanistan in 2006. Captain Nichola Goddard was honoured by her family through raising money to provide solar powered lighting to health centres ( a project of the University of Calgary).

So we are all interconnected though people seem so far away and so different from our own culture.

Here are some other photos that just show how beautiful the land and the people are:

This boy is surfing on a surfboard donated to him. Surfing is popular and usually they use their own form of boards - not the fancy fabricated ones we buy.

As for the photos, I only try to grab photos that are on sites that are using the photos for public interest or to sell things (newspapers, tourism, Oxfam). I don't like using other people's work but in these cases I am trying to honour the artists by showcasing the moments they have captured and used in wide distribution.

WDOP

World Day of Prayer is a day set aside by churches all over the world to come together to learn about a country and the issues that the vulnerable in that country face. The women of the country chosen write the service that all churches holding this event will use and it includes short statements representing the hardships and prayers of those people.

Each area has a host church which gathers together other churches to join in planning this event. There is a leaders resource book which tells about the country, suggestions for a festival day to teach others about the country and even recipes to make from that country.

Sadly, this is one of the biggest wastes of my time so far this year (hey, we are only in January). I went to our local meeting where the information was handed out and upon announcing the country that is being represented we immediately went straight to the service details - and decided who would do which of the speaking parts. That being settled we finished our cups of tea and cookies, picked our next meeting date and went home.

No prayer. No discussion about the country (we can read that at home I guess), no discussion about how to advertise this (why bother, our churches already know about it) and certainly nothing as labourious as planning to serve a few dishes from the recipes.

This is one example of how church becomes irrelevant. The task at hand is far more important then the reason for it. The women who come together for this event have done it for years and they take pride in continuing to take part though the younger people don't seem interested. They are doing what they have always done and getting the job done is the goal. Even within the team there is a lack of nurture - we stated our names and which church we are from and that was the extent of actually being in fellowship.

There was a lament last year that younger people don't seem to be interested. By younger we are talking about someone under 40 - I was the youngest there. I'm a bit stuck. I would encourage others to join in this event but honestly I don't want to set the bar so low. The amount of time we are puttng into this event as a group effort is less then when I plan a service for worship on a Sunday.

But on the other hand, this is a tradition that has meaning to the women who come out. They remember the old days where there work was vital to the community - the bake sales to raise money were well attended, funding for overseas missions often came from their efforts. That the world has changed isn't on their radar except to see that not as many people go to church. I don't think that it would occur to them that this is our responsibility to correct.

So I sat in this church, which put effort into fixing up their lounge - I felt like I was sitting in some grandmothers living room, nodding politely but feeling that if I could get out of doing this I would. I'm going to plant a seed at the next meeting and ask if this is a community event.

I need Jesus....

The image above is taken from icanhascheezburger.com which is a whole whack of pictures of cats with funny slogans. Yes, evangelists sometimes come off as crazy as a cat talking about Ceiling Cat!

The other day I came out to my car and there was a little yellow sticky note attached to my door that says "You need Jesus". This disturbed me, because frankly I wondered what I had done to compel someone to tell me this. Did I cut someone off in traffic, did I bring too many items into the 1-8 cashier? What exactly had I done to some stranger that they felt the need to tell me this.

I surreptiously looked around and was relieved to see that apparently everyone in the parking lot needs Jesus.

What a waste of time. Slapping yellow stickies everywhere with the offensive "You" rather than "We" or "Everybody". I think someone needs a hobby!

Um, dangers of self examination.

Sometimes a picture just says too much. I was looking for a picture to depict self examination and had no idea that you could mail order your own kit with mirror, flashlight and speculum to observe the status of your own insides.

The dangers of self examination is a topic that has been on my mind lately. And the discomforting picture really expresses how I am feeling about the whole thing. Sometimes I don't want to look at myself and having someone else do it under a bright light isn't necessarily and more comfortable.

I have been given lots of advice lately and having gone through a stage where I assume that everything I perceive is narrow and self serving have often taken advice that didn't feel right with assumption that its just like taking a shot of Buckley's. However, I'm more balanced now and am starting to see that not every impulse I have is wrong and that there is a lot of self serving advice going on out there. Not that it isn't good advice, its just not good for me in my own context. Somehow there is a boundary between advice that is good for you because it reveals a blind spot and advice that is not good for you because it is a product of the other person's blind spot. Knowing the difference is the issue.

I'm also learning to be slow with advice and ask lots of questions to lead people to figure out what works for them.

So, I have come to terms with advice. I can take it or leave it. I know that a three year journey to arrive at this determination isn't much bang for the buck. But I think that its going to let me sleep a lot better at night.

I've been away...

I'm not creative, much. But I some some photos and blog from some friends and I was moved to put a few words onto my blog. Part of me thinks no one reads these things and part of me thinks even if they do what is the point? I'm a bit old for blogging and still a bit self conscious about it I guess.

Anyhow, I have been away and as I guessed before signing on since November. I have been going through a stage or mood where I have been very reflective and just thinking a lot. Its been nice but it has also meant that I had to remove myself from people and places for awhile.

I think my biggest revelation is that while I journey with others and learn from them I need to know when to stand my own ground and consider myself has having some insight. There is a balance between not needing anyone else's opinion, being blind to others perspectives and learning from others. I've made great strides in this and was able to walk away from an ambush by a fellow student realizing that almost everything she said was much more revealing about her than having anything to do with me. Which was surprising as I had really connected with this person.

I've been reading War and Peace and have found it fascinating as it is really a reflective book which mirrors some of my own thoughts. Some of the characters keep seeking heroism, enlightenment, meaning and once journeying the path realise that its not to be obtained. I think that ultimately the characters will realise that these things come from within by being rather than doing but that seems like a trite obvious revelation.