Wednesday, January 25, 2017

                So, this past Monday lived up to Monday’s reputation as a bad day. I spilled my morning cup of coffee.

 I was sitting on the couch with the laptop on my lap and watching the TV. It was my fault as I wasn’t looking where I was setting the cup down and over it went. In a split second, I made some vital decisions. I managed to get the laptop out of the way. I also managed to get some of me out of the way. Most of the coffee landed on the arm of the sofa and the seat from which I had leapt. It turned out that the one piece of essential equipment that I didn’t save was the TV’s remote control. It got a good dousing and soon went very dead.

                The remote control is the greatest invention of humankind of all time.

                I don’t know how it is for the people (probably men) in your household but my remote control is a part of my hand when I am watching TV - like it was fused or grew there. Oh, the TV still worked although I had to get up or actually get down where the cable box was in order to change channels. Normally (?), I have the changer in my hand, and driving Susan crazy, I flip channels at frequent random, constantly check the guide, watch several sports games almost simultaneously, and best of all I have the wonderful mute button to silence the commercials.

                So there I was, frozen to watch the same channel because it was too much work and bother to change channels. I had to listen to all the commercials (some which make a lot more sense since I’ve now heard the dialogue), and was dying to know the score of the hockey game. My fingers twitched at some phantom remote. I felt powerless. I felt anxious and uncomfortable like there was something missing from my life.  It was torturous.  It is almost as bad as going without the internet or TV itself. I have been a TV addict since I was a toddler. A guy can’t just go cold turkey when it comes to his TV changer.  (It dried out and now works. Praise the Lord!)

                We have become so used to what makes life convenient, fast, instant and self-serving that we deem it such a hardship when it doesn’t go our way, no matter how small and trivial it may really be. It has been said that we shouldn’t sweat the small things and although that is pretty good advice, many of us will react as if these things are apocalyptic, i.e. the end of the world.  We can fuss and fume and get our knickers in a knot over the slights, snubs and inconveniences that we all experience in our lives. We can become so annoyed when things don’t go our way. We can sulk and pout when life throws us a curve and it doesn’t fit our day’s plan. Been there, done that, and the T-shirt is in the wash.

                There are enough big things in our lives worth our concern, prayers and attention. The small “tests” are annoying for sure, but they pass and we are none the worse for wear.

                To put in in Jesus’ words, “For where your treasure is there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 5: 21).  If we are gathering all the lesser and smaller annoyances, disturbances, inconveniences, frustrations, irritations, dislikes, exasperations and pettiness into some sort of keepsake box then we are amassing nothing. It will be heavy but worthless.

                Look, life is not always easy. It can be challenging. It is certainly not about remote controls.  But Jesus did leave us with something worthy to concentrate on through it all: “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list.  But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself,” (Matthew 23:  37 – 39 The Message).

                That makes fussing over a coffee-drenched remote seem kind of silly. 

Dale

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

                Obituaries are curious things. (I betcha that I have your attention now, don’t I?)

 “The first thing I do each morning is to read the obituaries in the newspaper,” an old person often jokes. “If I don’t see my name, I go make breakfast.”

I am not sure if it means anything but the Globe and Mail attaches its large, Saturday edition of obituaries at the back of the Sports section. Hmm!  I always skim through them every Saturday, not because I know any of the people or even expect to, but because these are not the usual obituaries – name, day of death, names of loved ones and relatives, date, time and place for a service of some kind (if any).

Many of these obituaries are lengthy narratives about the dearly departed one’s life. There may be a picture of the person, sometimes a much younger version of the person. There are extensive biographies – educational background, employment, interests, hobbies, etc. Nothing is left out – sometimes the smallest detail is thrown in. One man is described as the “intellectual heart of the family.”  Another person is described as “always outward looking and curious and believed in seeing equality in all mankind.” A woman is praised because “her dining table became a home-away-from- home.” Or there was the woman who was described as someone who “touched the hearts of everyone she met through her kind and giving spirit, unconditional love, her strong faith and her passion for life.”

The one obit which especially caught my eye and inspired this blog was for the woman who was an artist. It made me smile to read that she “loved her privacy and would not have wanted you reading this.”  But it was the sentence on how to honour her memory which made me think: “please take something that you sort-of-like from your house and leave it on the curb for someone else to enjoy.”

At first, it seemed an odd suggestion. I presume the woman may have been an advocate for recycling or perhaps she saw beauty in what others deemed to be ugly or unwanted. One person’s trash is always somebody’s art, sort of thing.

But it also spoke to me as an analogy. All the people whose obituaries graced the Saturday pages left something on the curb for others to enjoy and recycle in memory and imitation of the ones who have been lost in this life. It wasn’t usually big and splashy.  One man is remembered for tobogganing with his grandchildren. Another person is remembered for her “apricot jam and muffins.”  Good times at a family cottage appear regularly throughout.  Another will always be remembered for his “honesty, gentleness, sincerity, and sense of humour.” One will be remembered as a “beer aficionado, cheese connoisseur, bird lover and a lifelong learner.” You get the idea.

These folks gave away pieces of themselves all their lives. They were not perfect or saintly. Few ever became famous. But most of them contributed back to life, maybe more than they took or demanded. What they have left on the curb is not garbage or junk. These are characteristics that are reusable, recyclable, and very environmentally green.

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,

                mortals that you care for them.

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

                and crowned them with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:4 – 5)

When I was taking my clinical training back in the day one of the exercises we were given was to write our own obituaries. It was meant, in part, to help us face our own mortality, as well as to respect and honour the lives of patients, some of whom were dying.

How will you or I be written up?

Dale

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

                As a Christmas present, I received this neat, little 6-inch iron skillet with some of the ingredients to make a small pizza. Sounds cool. But the operative phrase in that first sentence is “some of the ingredients,” i.e. only the flour and some spices. Providing everything else like cheese, mushrooms, tomato sauce, pepperoni. etc. is my responsibility. Fair enough.

                But then I read the very small-print directions. Yikes!

                There is mixing, kneading, proofing (?), waiting, warnings about hot handles, and yeasting.  It would be much easier to go the local pizzeria and order a couple of slices.

                Now I don’t know about your household. Maybe you are all wanna-be Martha Stewarts, but I can tell you that in our kitchen there is no chance of having any yeast on hand. I can’t recall the last time we needed yeast for anything. It seems a lot of bother to run to the store just to buy a package of yeast for this project when all I need is a ¼ of a teaspoon. I can’t see myself running to a neighbour asking to borrow a pinch of yeast.

                According to Wikipedia “yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom.” Is this really something I even want in my pizza dough? (I looked up “eukaryotic” and don’t know much more that I did before – you’re on your own there.)

It goes on to say that the yeast lineage originated more than hundreds of millions of years ago.  If I did find any yeast in our cupboards, that seems about right.

There is more technical information than I ever need to know, but suffice to say what is relevant is that “yeast is used in baking as a leavening agent, where it converts the food/fermentable sugars present in dough into the gas carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to expand or rise as gas forms pockets or bubbles. When the dough is baked, the yeast dies and the air pockets ‘set’, giving the baked product a soft and spongy texture.”

                All I want is a pizza, not a chemistry project for the science fair.

                Yet, I am reminded of the story that Jesus taught: “How can I picture God's kingdom? It's like yeast that a woman works into enough dough for three loaves of bread - and waits while the dough rises,” (Luke 13, 20-21, The Message).

                In other words, to live the full, enriched, wholesome lives of being a part of God’s Great Vision for his Creation, we need to be open to the catalytic workings of spiritual rising and expansion that bubble up in us and give us the texture of being followers like Jesus (and I don’t mean soft and spongy!).

                Our lives may take some mixing, kneading, proofing, waiting as well as the spiritual yeast, but the final results are well worth the time and effort.  Sure, we live in a pizzeria-type world where things are handed to us, instantly, no fuss or bother. But what might the results be if we stirred in the yeast of God’s love, and we rose to the occasion of living our lives in compassionate kindness and tender justice.

                So, what’s stirring in your life?

Dale

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

                To quote Garfield the cat from a few days ago: “Brand new year; same old me.”  The only New Year’s resolution that I made was not to make any New Year’s resolutions. Nuts!  I just broke that one.

And that is why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions – the sense of inevitable futility.

I could resolve – should resolve? -  to walk the dog more frequently, lose a few pounds, fix the door knob on the basement door, build those book shelves that I need, tackle cleaning out the basement, but I should have done, could have done, and didn’t do any of those things last year. I am a model of inert consistency!

A little while ago my nearly 4-year-old grandson asked me why I always had peanut butter and toast for breakfast. Rather critically, I might add. His father then told him that even when he was the same age as William that I had peanut butter and toast for breakfast. Hey, sometimes I use Skippy peanut butter rather than Kraft peanut butter. Or I really go outside the envelope and add jam or honey. Every once in a while I go really wild and try chunky peanut butter.

Brand new year; same old me. I don’t let hanging up a new calendar intimidate me, let me tell you! You know what they say – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or my version, even if it is broke, just ignore it.

I am reluctant to confess that this seems very contrary to the Christian way of life which celebrates the new creation which comes with being a follower of Jesus. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) I will admit that I have a lot of days when it is the same old, same old. How about you? My get up and go has got up and went. I don’t want “new”; I want my old favourite sweater, sweat pants and slippers.  

But God apparently gets a kick out of anything new about his sons of Adams and daughters of Eve. I guess the old you and me aren’t perfect; so Jesus comes along and suggests we seek a new birth; to be “born again”, a concept that gets a lot of stereo-typical, bad press as a conservative, evangelical catch-phrase. But at its best and most meaningful it is a beautiful metaphor for human do-overs, second chances, finding redemption, being given hope for the future, finding wholeness despite any baggage we are carrying, the healing of old wounds, the letting go of the past, the passing on of forgiveness to others, the renewal of heart, mind, soul and body and ultimately reconnecting with our Creator and pleasing God with the best of our abilities, gifts, talents and love.

“What counts is the new creation,” (Galatians 6:15).

One of my favourite hymns begins: Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Amen to that! 

Dale