Elijah and the mountain

I just would like to share a few thoughts from our sermon on Sunday evening. I unfortunately had to work a nacht dienst on Saturday evening and so missed the morning service but i was able to attend the evening service and was treated to a very wonderful sermon. We had Rev. Lankheet as a guest pastor and he spoke on the text of I Kings 19:1-18 about Elijah and his experience with depression and God's encouraging of his beleaguered servant and his subsequent call to service and action. The morning sermon mostly focused on the first 9 verses, while the afternoon service focused on the last half of the text where God has now encouraged and fed his servant and has now had him journey up to Mount Horeb aka Sinai where He gave the commission and law to his people so many years prior. There were several ways God could have spoken to Elijah but he chose to use a still small whisper to bring his message. Often times we look for a big huge thunderclap or writing in the sky to tell us what God is up to in our lives, but He often chooses to work through means we don't necessarily expect to bring His purposes to fruition. He mentioned that God is not a genie in a bottle, whom we can summon at our pleasure and command to do our bidding but that He is sovereign and almighty and will work in His own way. A line that kept coming up was "be still and know that I am God". So often in our lives, we get so busy and caught up with life and the things we think are important but don't take time to slow down and hear the still small whisper which tells us what we need to hear.

The other point that was brought up was that God chooses to use us to fulfill His purposes but He will ultimately work His plan in spite of us. This struck me as strange when i first heard it but i suppose it means that He is God and we are the servants, the ones He chooses and can use but doesn't have to. But the flip side is also this, that after He encouraged and supposed His weary servant, He gave him work to do and Elijah was not to just sit back and let God do all the work. He chooses us, chooses us to work for Him and chooses to use us for His purposes. What a joy to be a chosen one of God. May He grant us the ability to hear Him when He calls in that still small whisper.

Flying Giraffes and Marbled Peanuts

So what is on or in or around my little mind today? Well as you see... nothing too mature... just kinda goofy really, but it's fun to be that way sometimes, isn't it? I decided on a random title for attention seeking purposes and thus i am arrived at the present arrangement of words. Words... oh how i love them. To play with them, manipulate them and bend them to fit my purposes and ideas, is so fun! I was very blessed to have parents who raised me to love reading and literature and such... and so i keep reading, learning, doing crosswords (and the occasional Sudoku to which my friend Joyce got me addicted!) and reading the dictionary. Oh, okay, i'm not that crazy but i do have an acquaintance of mine who made it her goal to read a page out of the dictionary every day in order to increase her knowledge base (mind you, i'm not sure she made it much past acorn before the habit became old!). Reading stretches and works the mind and causes us to think outside the box. I have made it a point over the last few years to be more open in what i have selected to read, not merely content to swim around in circles in the same fishbowl of literary genre. Many many titles have passed through my hands and mind - Hardy Boys (who could not like them, those dashing heroes who always got in trouble at the end of every chapter - getting bashed on the head or tied up or the like - who could not like them!), Pride and Prejudice, The Black Stallion (not Black Beauty - just too sad for my poor little heart!), The Hunt for Red October, The Kite Runner, books by W.J. Vanderhulst, Scout, Brock and Bodie Thoene and their wonderful Zion series, A Walk to Remember (if you ever need a quick read that will make you cry!), Roald Dahl and so many others... But then there's all the wonderful books (i imagine they're wonderful) that line my shelves and make me look more literary than i actually am and which need to be read yet - not enough hours in the day it seems - someday hopefully i will get around to that.

But recently, hmmm, what have i read? I spent time enjoying Paradise Lost on audio cd. I fully believe i can write that title on my "read" list since it was unabridged and included all the words in the book. It was a fascinating story, detailing the creation of the world, the fall of the Devil and the subsequent temptation and fall of man and all the while, the threads of God's redemption plan woven right through. I realize that it is not all of a Reformed knowledge base but Milton's wording choices pleased my ears and tickled my literary senses. If you ever get the chance, give it a go sometime. Be persistant or do the audio thing, but finish it. A classic to be sure.

But then i also finished recently The Homecoming Man by Hugh Cook. He is not a long-dead British lad but rather a homegrown, Redeemer College associated author who writes of life as the child of a Dutch immigrant and his "homecoming". But it is also the story of his father's past, his history during the Second World War and the journey that he must make to come to grips with all of that and to find forgiveness. I cried when i read it - felt rather melancholy afterwards but realized the strong impact that our past can have on our whole lives.

I wonder what it is in my life that impacts me strongly now, what memories will live and form who i will be, who i already am? Sometimes i worry that my memory will not hold out for me - i fear already that i seem to forget really important things and remember inane little things like the way a certain thing smelled when i was young or the exact position i was in when something happened to me. I fear sometimes that i won't be a very good crime scene witness if ever i am required to do such a thing. I can drive down the same road twenty million times and not see something very obvious and along comes someone who has only gone there twice and they see the fact that there is an amazing tree or a wrought iron eagle that needs to have some sort of prank played on it or they see the obvious. Maybe that's the way it is with life, we need others around us to help point out the sometimes obvious and sometimes obscure things so we can appreciate things more. God did have a plan for how he meshed us all together, one part complimenting the other. Aaah, the master Designer at work, intricately weaving our lives together and creating patterns of beauty and richness. Uh oh, i now sound like the person who writes peppy little things for magazines and cards so i'll halt here and make this the ending of my babble. So i will end this little musing on literature and it's intellectual benefits and leave you to do your own reading of something more profound than this blog.

Thoughts on the sermon

Lukewarmity. That was the subject of our sermon this morning. Based on the text from Revelation about the church of Laodicea where the Christians were reposing in their wealth and refusing to be bold witnesses for Christ and for His gospel. A church whose members had lost their initial fire for God and who were now simply living a tepid and and substandard type of Christianity. The minister laid everything out so well this morning, explaining how John pulls in the aspects of life in that city - the fact that they were famed for their black wool cloth and how they had a medical school famous for its curative eye salve and for the wealth that was in the city due to good economics and the aqueduct which conveyed their water from its source in a hot spring to the city by which time the water was generally quite tepid. So many little historical details that make everything stick so well. I had to laugh when he reallys spoke to the kids and got into things talking about the bad taste of lukewarm water and how Christ was going to "spew them out" being translated literally as vomited out and the sound effects causing giggles to be heard around the sanctuary! And then applying it all to life and leading a Christian life had put me to thinking a lot. I know i fail in so many ways to uphold the name of Christ properly in my life and to live the life that He has called me to live for His glory. I know that i sit there in the pew convicted that my own life is lukewarm at best and whilst it has the appearance of wholesomeness (is that a word, if not, it is now!), it is indeed full of myself and not Him. I pray that He may work in me to root out the indifference and unwholesomeness there and allow me to be a clean vessel in which He can work and fulfill His purposes. I was to be a vessel for Him for whatever purpose He has for me!

TO Tripping

Once Upon a Time - so all great stories begin and so this tale begins... once upon a time - there was a father and a mother who were sadly in lack of something fun and educational to do upon a saturday morn. This was indeed a sad and desparate situation. However, to their great benefit, they possessed something which could remedy this dilemma without a doubt. They had an old daughter who dearly loved to create and be part of adventures. And she did not fail them now - she thought (for just a few minutes - her thought processes wheeled and whirred effortlessly) that she would take them to the capital city of their province. This was indeed an epic journey but one devoutly to be wished (a misquote of sorts from some sort of Shakespearean play somewhere along the line - my abject apologies to the bard himself). The mother in a wheelbarrow

So of an early hour of the morn, the trio betook themselves in the vehicular transportation of the day, Prunelope, along the highways and byways until they found themselves in the heart of the bustling metropolis. The sights and smells and sounds overwhelmed the simple country folk and they spent the first while just taking everything in whilst searching desparately for a place to situate their vehicle - a truly daunting quest to be sure! At last having secured a safe place for dearest Prunelope, the family betook themselves to the centre for cultural enrichment - the Art Gallery of Ontario (henceforth referred to as the AGO - a moniker which amuses the scribe of this tale to no end!). They were in the mood to see some artistic endeavours and analyze them and determine whether they were truly worthy of being placed in such an establishment. However, to their regret and chagrin, the AGO was under an intense period of reconstruction leaving the poor travellers with only a handful, a smattering of art pieces to be regarded. This truly was a grievous situation.

Nevertheless, our heroes entered the gallery and spent time perusing the sculptural efforts of Henry Moore and the limited supply of master works by painters old and new. The father stood in front of a certain painting examining it carefully and the daughter said to him "father, that's a Monet!". To which the father replied "oh really, it's good old Claude, eh? I think he's been framed." This remark produced groans of anguish, but also conveyed a rather indepth knowledge of the artist unbeknownst previously to the mother or the daughter and filling them with happiness that their paternal figure indeed was acquainted with the finer nuances of the art world. The mother happily spent her time comparing herself in proportions to the Rodin sculpture of Adam and was quite taken with the large size of the sculptures hands and feet, guessing them to be approximately a size "24" men's shoes. It was determined that Adam would indeed have great difficulty acquiring footwear.

The father and mother and daughter then proceeded to view the works of Emily Carr - a Canadian artist who worked largely amongst the native populations in British Columbia. She loved trees and forests and most likely was single-handedly responsible for the severe shortage of green paint in the area during her lifetime! The father, whilst in the midst(ooh, two "st" words in one sentence!) of a deep discussion as to the nature of a figure in one of the paintings had to be admonished by the security guard for gesticulating too wildly near the canvas itself and causing the silent alarms to be activated. Tsk tsk. Avoiding further encounters with the third kind, the family group finished perusing the exhibition and then proceeded to wander the city streets in an aimless sort of fashion attempting to blend in to the local culture and absorb the atmosphere of the city. They wandered here and there, creating weariness of foot and fullness of mind in such places as a costume shop (i so would love to have a costume party someday!), a glass exhibition with extremely intriguing glass pictures, Chinatown (where our heroes became dazzled by the countless bins of unidentifiable foreign dried foods - the daughter at one point scared that the bin contained dried baby birds due to a rather putrid smell but later determining that it was simply dried oysters. One can never be too careful!!) and Kensington Market.

The crepey man!

They partook of delightful culinary treasures such as a pesto sandwich topped with brie cheese, grilled chicken breast and tomatoes which was then lightly grilled to perfection, and a freshly made crepe with egg and ham. The crepe maker had a lovely little conversation with the mother about the finer points of creating perfect pancakes and the mother invited the chef over to her abode to make dinner one evening much to his delight! The family eventually came to the realization that their feet were dreadfully tired and were screaming for repose. So the long trek was made back to Prunelope who bore them safely home to their small town where they partook of a delectible dinner at a local chicken establishment (i mean that the establishment served chickens, not that chickens ran the place!) The father was unable to refrain from blowing his straw wrapper onto the lady behind the daughter much to her embarassment, leading to his ban from the restaurant swiftly and with all haste! The family at last reposed in their abode, having had their fill of intellectual, cultural and urban life for another year, or at least until the next time they were bored! And they lived happily ever after. The End.

Frozen Fotos

A few pics from my walk yesterday afternoon in the frigid air. I felt a bit covert since i walked over the whole frozen field and because all was nicely solid, i didn't sink in and i traversed the entire breadth of the open area without leaving so much as a footprint (minus the occasional holes where i would crash through weak areas on the icy surface but you catch my drift!!!)

A little thistle frozen in time

The Statue of Liberty incognito

Little soldiers on guard in the snow! (kinda corny eh?)

Guess who??? I played around with my camera for quite a while before the self-portrait thing actually had my face in the centre - the first few attempts consisted of my frozen fingers trying to position the camera correctly with minimal success and resulting in photos of the sky, my hair along, my mittens alone or just the ice in front of the camera itself. I'm sure passerbys on the road were wondering what was going on out there in the field. As a matter of fact, i am just considering now that perhaps i might have given a few people a bit of a shock lying there on the ground. Fortunately no good Samaritans had to trek out to see that i was still alive and not the victim of a random act of violence in the middle of a field!

Helen's birthday!!!

Well it recently was the anniversary of the birth of a wonderful friend of mine, Helen. She was very excited to celebrate the grand occasion of her 29th birthday - she's now in her 30th year and keeps on plugging!! We threw her a big old birthday bash last week and had over 20 people crammed into our little abode for a gourmet dinner of nasei (spelling??) and boerenkool and zuurkool and kroepoek and droppies (black morsels of disgusting putresence) and all manner of Dutch favourites. We were so happy to have so many people turn up and enjoy the evening with us. Thank you all for making it a great party! I still can't believe we had just enough food for you all and almost enough chairs!! Amazing! Helen, may you have a wonderful year and we'll have to get together once again next year to celebrate that milestone of ... dun, dun, dun (meant to be said sinisterly with a low voice tone!) 30!!!!

Karen and Helen

The gang's all here!!!

Father And Daughter

I cry whenever i watch this...

Thoughts and reveries

Hmmm.... where do i start and what do i write? What sort of thoughts will make their way to the murky surface from the bubbling depths of my mind? What will present itself as deep enough or important enough or silly enough to be written here? I have a lot of thoughts competing for the rights to be posted here but none are making their case strong enough to be released here. So i'll just blab on for a little while. First of all, i'm still glad it's cold. I might be the singular Canadian who is of that persuasion but i will say this - we live in a country that is considered a northern country - we have snowfalls during the winter and we have lots of stores who cater to our need to cover up our bodies and protect them from the chilly temps - hence we should have some cold weather to justify their existence and to harden ourselves to the elements - it makes us all stronger people!!! I know that there are those in my circle of friendship who would dispute this point hotly but i maintain that i enjoy the cold. I like to bundle up and to feel alive when the cold air hits my face. I especially like it after i've worked all day cooped up in a hospital sterile environment, my nose getting all plugged up cause it's so dry and airless and being unable to have direct contact with the natural world and then i am all bundled up and hit the back doors with my keys in hand and head out to my car and i am so happy with that initial rush of frigidity. I fully am prepared to admit that yes, i too become cold easily and appreciate our little warm fireplace as much as the next fellow, but i feel alive when i feel that cold. As per Calvin, it's the kind of cold that freezes your boogers!!! heehee!!!