Category Archives: Soul searching;

May the Zippers of her Suitcase Hold

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May the zippers of your suitcase hold, she wished me …IMG_0138

Anticipation, packing, traveling light (Not even close)

Justification, rationalization, wanting to take more than I truly need, just in case. It will be cold, it will be desert, it will be … ocean, ancient cities, museums … cultural dress code versus personal preferences. It will be Family.

I know this is one of those first world problems I dare not complain too much about. I am fortunate to be able to travel to my daughter’s home. Because she resides in N Africa, I have had opportunity for some unusual travel. I have seen Luke Skywalker’s home, stayed in a troglodyte cave, stretched my hip joints on a camel.

I have also missed out on too of my grandchildren’s birthdays, too many school performances, and too many babysit moments to give their parents a break. So this trip covers my granddaughters eighth birthday, (early Nov) and Christmas (late Dec) with a side trip thrown in. Two continents, three cultures, and how do I pack?

Requests for peanut butter, Craisins, home-school supplies, gifts for family, neighbours, hostess gifts, Christmas items, books and games for grandkids, the list and desires go on. Thus far I have two full suitcases, not including my own clothing or personal items. Can I take my big camera? It’s the shoes that fill the space. What to do?

My sister calls for a final chat, gives an understanding ear to my dilemma, and the quick acknowledgement, that I am not complaining—if I could bring the world to my children I would try.

That is all good to have lofty goals and ideal, but the reality is you still do need to pack, you still need shoes and clothes to wear, she says.

And I struggle to understand the unease of my soul.

Is this the old self-imposed need to meet or exceed expectations—a left-over from the strived for Supermom days, mixed in with the desire to have it all, be it all.

This desire to live the full life, wrangles with the longing to be free from the burden of “stuff.” The hope not to be disappointed, nor to be a disappointment.

And this craving for beauty and serenity in my soul.IMG_4192

And I am reminded of Max Lucado’s book, Travelling Light that I read about half a dozen years ago and don’t remember a single thing about it, except the title. As I pack, I am thinking about traveling light, physically and spiritually.

IS this how I live my life? With only necessities …  a self-imposed frugality of spirit? What about those words, of having more than we can dream or think about? I want both the being and the doing.

As I pack I am faced with prioritizing necessities versus wants. It’s been both a challenge and delight to mull through this. After all, in the end, what matters most is how well we love. And that is an attitude I can pack in, carry on, and dispense when I land. And I know in return my own suitcases will be filled with memories unspeakable.

I send this from the airport …. the first take-off of many. The zippers are bulging …

The Inch Worm

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Downsizing of Dreams

My life moves ahead in Fits and Starts 

I am the Inch Worm

  Folding in half for each step ahead

    Vulnerable, easily squished

      But I am not the Inch Worm

        Because I have Skin

          A backbone that aches

            Pain lets me know

              That I am alive

                I taste Joy in this

                  Velvet Morning

                    Pink Skies give Way

                      To a Brand New Day

                        To Inch Ahead.

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Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel-Czech Playwright and President

Silence & Sacred Idleness

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Work is not always required …there is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

George MacDonald
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Silence is scary … I am left with my own thoughts. The voices in my head.
I think one of the reasons technology does well is that few people want to be alone with their thoughts. In fact it’s difficult to get the peace and quiet to be in that space. Being (Over)busy, has become the accepted hallmark of value and approval.
But when something desperate or traumatic happens in life, be it a big or small desperation, the necessity of silence and the need to address the inner voices becomes inescapable. At that time I have the power to stifle the voices, to run from them, or to ask them – what is it I really need to learn from you?
Being alone with my thoughts … I confess to not minding my own company … I value times of silence. A dear sister and I expressed the mixed fear and delight of becoming these eccentric mature ladies-didn’t want to say old. I would be vividly odd, and she would be cerebrally offbeat, and strangely enough we think it would be ok. It’s the freedom to not care what others think anymore, and the urgent desire to listen to and give voice to that too long silenced inner self. One of my favourite images comes from a U2 song line …
she is running to stand still.
Be still and know that I am God ….IMG_5687
Those were the words that came to me many years ago, in the middle of a snow storm … My daughter Kristen and I were speaking at a Mother Daughter retreat … and I was contemplating the busyness of life, a possible new career direction, or a decrease of same. Options weighed on my mind as I took a short walk in a Nov snow storm and came to a clearing in the woods … in that small magical space, snow whirled all around me and here I was …. Calm and Silent, as though I was in the eye of the storm. The silence spoke powerful peace into my soul … and the ancient words came to mind …. Be STILL and KNOW that I am God. How could I know? I’d been so busy running, flapping on the spot … the way I see the ravens in a strong wind … flapping before they soar.
At that moment I knew I could not take on one more thing, as good as it was.
I often remember what the silence of the snowstorm did for my soul.
No longer do I apologize for my time to sit by the river, to absorb the beauty, to let the chaos of mind seep out of my body.
Although it’s been a tad hard to buck the norm, I have never regretted a moment of Sacred Idleness . IMG_7562_2

Silence does not exist in our lives merely for its own sake.
It is ordered by something else. …
Silence is the strength of our interior life.
Silence enters into the very core of our moral being.

Thomas Merton
from his book No Man is an Island

Tribute Tarries

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(Photo by Joel Krahn, African River tributaries)

Like a river that flowed and reached into dry corners
she spread her love and acceptance
Beneath Martha she hid her Mary soul
But that woman, she knew how to clean ….
She opened both her well vacuumed home and her heart …
Her brother said, her walls always had a window,
a window that had been recently cleaned …
She loved, she accepted, she cared, she stayed in touch …
All spokes led to the mamma … the hub of the family.
I don’t think she ever missed a game.
She was loyal, caring, kind
Her faith always practical
Thank you for being my friend.

The initial message of her passing came via email … and said that she “had gone to her eternal rest.” One thing I know about my friend, she wouldn’t want to be in eternal rest. She was an active person. I don’t think rest is what Heaven’s about. I used to wonder about eternity … if it was going to be forever anyways, I saw no rush to get there. But after I had two term deposits, my perspective changed. Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, paints a phenomenal picture of experience and beauty, an exciting future he believes will greet us upon arrival. He is convinced that we continue on in our creativity, and work in the eternal future. Somehow, I don’t think my friend will be vacuuming her days away.

IMG_6150While kayaking last week, heavy with thoughts of my friend’s life, and the upcoming funeral, I saw the most exquisite flowers, unlike any I had ever seen before, what made them so unique? They were underwater. I have seen enough seaweed and lily pads, to know this was exceptional … I kayaked over the clear blue green mountain lake waters again, to be sure my eyes had not deceived … yes, there a few feet below the water glass top, tiny yellow and white flowers smiled up at me … the water dimmed their colours, but they truly were blooming where planted. What a picture of hope for me … under the ocean of grief new flowers can bloom.
The reason I like Sudoku is that there are nine squares, nine numbers fill those squares, only one way to do it. Simple, clean, no deep mystery.
Grief is not like that.
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Emily Dickinson says:
On subjects of which we know nothing, we both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keeps Believing nimble.

The Waiting Place

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Sometimes-I-feel-like-Im-waiting-for-somethingThe Waiting Place

According to Dr Seuss, it is a most useless place … the waiting place where people are just waiting.”

The place where plea bargains happen, oaths to the Creator made, and life priorities re-evaluated.
But when your back is up against the wall, desperately wanting an outcome …
The messages kept coming back as prayer requests …
Mom’s not well, she’s being admitted.
It looks like endocarditis (an infection of the heart’s inner lining)
Antibiotics not effective …
Medivac’d in the night to a bigger cardiology centre
(They are all displaced-this is not even their home province)
Surgery scheduled, cancelled, then rescheduled
Twelve hours in surgery …
Bleeding, she had to go back to OR …

With those texts as background, I picked up a book … Moving the Hand of IMG_2878God, by John Avanzini(1990). The book disappoints, and I argue my way through the introduction, I don’t see God as Formulaic, as one who cannot see through this as attempted manipulation.
My friend’s life hangs in the balance. She is younger than I, she may not know she is in the waiting place … where is one’s spirit when drugs render unconsciousness? Her family gathered are also in that waiting place. Waiting for good news, waiting for improvement …. waiting for the rain to stop.

The sign should read: WELCOME TO THE WAITING ROOM…
Waiting feels helpless, we are geared to do something.
Pause, Breathe …
When Life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.
Lamentations 3:28, 29. But how does one wait with hope?

Can I Trust You?
Dear God
I woke with knots in my stomach … so many questions whirling my head …IMG_0001
can I trust You with the knots?
Heavy heart as her life hangs in the balance … machines breathe for her
Can I trust you with that?
Life not being what I or they thought it should be or would be…..
Can I trust you with the future?
Despair and doubt want to hinder any Bold prayer
Can I trust you with that?
Even as I speak these words I KNOW without a doubt, I have no one else that I could trust these things to, so why do I hold back?
Can I trust you with that?

And your answer is a Resounding—YES YES YES!

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope. Alfred Lord Tennyson

Mamma said …

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IMG_4581Mama said there’d be days like this ….

The flowers I bought myself smile to me. The mountains observe in silence.
And I ponder what means to be a mother. There is no one portrait that describes what we desire from a mother, or what we hope to be as a mother. Both perspectives are different, and on both counts disappointment has been experienced. For most of us there is still a deep connection to the one who birthed us, and to those we have birthed, no matter their age or location.
Today I think of the many women, who’s role does not fit that fictitious angel mother persona.

The word Mother evokes a lot of responses.IMG_3420

Three years ago I stood beside a father, as we waited for an ambulance to arrive for his drugged, semi-comatose daughter.
“She’s completely Motherless,” he said.
What is it to be a mother?
To stand by, to love. To have pieces of one’s heart beating outside one’s own body.

And then I think of God … Like a mother hen, who longs to gather up the children …
Let the little children come to me
We are all little at times,
in need a mother’s hug.

I could weep, but I can also rejoice.
Hug a Mom today!

Here’s a great little video on what it would be like to be interviewed for the most important job in the world.


And here’s a link on what mothers aged 100+ have to say:
http://wp.me/p47Ltb-Cp

Hope Springs a Leak

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IMG_2833Is Hope more than wishful thinking? … more than the carrot dangled? … waiting for spring to arrive after the long winter?
The dictionary defines hope as: the state which promotes the desire of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one’s life or in the world at large.
The news on the TV screen at the Winnipeg airport, while waiting for my flight to Calgary explodes with the story of five young people stabbed to death at an end of term university party. Shock, disbelief!IMG_4352
The city of Calgary’s worst mass murder ever.
The grey clouds of mourning have hung over the news, the city and the skies. One more tragic read for the masses, but a lifetime of dashed hopes for the families and close friends of the five.
Where are the spring flowers for this situation? Delayed, due to an extension of winter.
Feeling along with the heaviness of the loss of a child, the clock radio woke me to a strange mixture of music. In the one ear I could hear the Third Day song Nothing Compares, and just below that a rap artist was going on about the strife, misery and hate that seems a frequent topic of rap. The mixture confused me, momentarily as I had not knowingly set my alarm. Then as I recognized the first song, I thought it was brilliant—the words of hope, of the greater good written/sung over top the disappointment in life. And then I realized it was a tuning problem … I was on the airwave border of two radio stations that were competing to outshout each other. What an image of what is happening every day. Listen to the news at night and we can get the overwhelming sense of despair … watch the National Geographic or Discovery channel and I sense awe as I view the incredible beauty and strength of whales breaching in the ocean, or time lapse photography of flowers unfolding.
Simone Weil has said that there are two things that pierce the heart, beauty and affliction(sorrow). Restated as moments we wish would last forever, and those we wish had never begun.

IMG_2836This is the Easter weekend, and this is the ultimate story of the resurrection of hope over the sorrow of death.
The promise of new life erupting after the long winter.
May it be so for the families in sorrow.
I am waiting for these crocuses to return.

Link to the Third Day song that played … I didn’t recognize the rap song, so cannot give you that link—you get to play it over your own selection of disappointment.

A Season for Everything

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IMG_3452Ancient words revisited, There is a time and a season for everything under heaven.
There had been times long enough to wear the sad coat, which hung permanently in the closet, but now was the season of spring, lighter clothing, and spring skiing is the best with plentiful snow, warm air, bright sun. She challenged herself to try the new run, but even as the chair lifted her high, very high it seemed, she sensed a dizzied panic rise in her throat. Her IMG_3437arms couldn’t reach her pocketed camera to take this shot, immobilized by the height. She briefly wondered what would happen if she failed to raise the bar, and unload. Perhaps she could just get “lifted” back to the base, and either loop up again, or feign injury and drop off.
But no, dutifully she hoisted and followed the “prepare to unload” rules to a tee, and nervous knees brought her to the edge … as she watched red agile jackets and boards surge over the brink and disappear. Who’s idea was this?
IMG_3686Breathe deep, and look around; mountain tops returned her gaze-this was no bunny hill, no green runs from here. And other less ancient words came to mind, from her ski instructor friend a life-time ago …. The mountain will unfold. Get to the edge, and the way will be revealed, go slow, gain confidence, and the mountain will unfold. Some trails you avoid. IMG_3688A smile of remembrance, a turn of the ski, and side to side she went, she paused at the first bend to glance back and photograph the run she had just come from. The trail unfolded in delightful ways, and at the bottom, she decided to give it another run.
The mountain did unfold in many ways, it had before and it would again. This was the time and season.

IMG_3493 Continue reading

Scars-Tattoos with a Better Story

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IMG_9584 An article in the Calgary Sun caught my eye yesterday, “Rising out of the Fire/Man rises above horrifying crime” (Calgary Sun March 2, 2014 article by Nadia Moharib) After a few lines, the story sounded vaguely familiar, and then it became evident why: this crime happened in a small Mennonite community thirty miles from my Manitoba home town in October, 1990. The event shocked with its brutality. Yesterday was a follow up story on Tyler Pelke, who had been assaulted, had his throat slashed, set on fire, and left for dead. Pelke survived, Curtis Klassen, his friend and fellow hockey player did not. Earl Giesbrecht (17 at the time) was sentenced to life in prison for this crime. Because of the proximity and cultural background, I followed that story as it went though the court system, but eventually filed it on a back shelf. My life continued on, but Tyler’s was altered forever. Yesterday’s article told the tale of this young man’s long road to recovery, starting with a description of the fire-boiled scars that cover his chest while a thick one crosses his throat, daily reminders of what happened more than two decades ago. The scars exist,quotes-girl-cute-love-text-Favim.com-666887_large visible and invisible, but he refuses to be defined by them. Pelke, now an assistant deputy chief with the Calgary Fire Department was quoted re his scars: “It’s a reminder of what I have overcome—I’ve been through fire, some days it’s a reminder to be thankful. Some days I don’t even see them.” And Pelke has chosen not to let his scars or what happened to haunt him, but he strives to be the best person he can be, and he shares his story with various groups in the hopes that he can encourage others to reach their full potential, and overcome the obstacles they face. For me, it was inspirational to read Tyler’s further story, to hear in a nutshell what will have taken him years to process and heal from.
Elbert Hubbard said “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
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What’s Love Got to do with it? Feb is Apple Month

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IMG_2977My quirky sense of humour can get the best of me … Life is too short to take things too seriously. I wanted to write well on the theme of love, but the line “What’s love got to do with it?” kept popping into my head. February has been seen as the “Love” month for as long as I can remember. But my curiosity wondered why the Co-op store back in Manitoba also had Feb as Apple month. Why would you feature apples after five months in cold storage? While trying to find out if Apples are still featured, I checked out a website for National Awareness Themes, and Love did not officially make it on the February list, although it appears to be an American based list. Canadians do have a few of their own themes—Heart and Stroke Foundation promotes Feb as Heart awareness month. Home base for love is the heart, although it may not be the literal pumping muscular organ. One disturbing statistic found on the Heart and Stroke website is that:IMG_2959
“Every 7 minutes in Canada, someone dies from heart disease or stroke” (Statistics Canada, 2011c).
Although love covers a multitude of sins (isn’t that scriptural?) it may not clean out your arteries. So if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, perhaps a hug a day, may keep the love flowing. It is sad to me that heart disease is one of the leading causes of death. I wonder how that statistic would translate for the spiritual heart?
My wish is that I will Live every day of my life, not merely be alive. And loving is a healthy exercise for the heart.

If your curiosity is piqued read the featured themes for the month of Feb. While we are inundated with things we need to be aware of, take heart, you don’t have to try to remember any of these themes.

So “What’s love got to do with it?”
Everything, “the earth is full of his unfailing love.” Ps 33:5 NIV.
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion. Abraham Cowley

February is known as:
Age-Related Macular Degeneration Awareness Month
Black History Month
Body Awareness Month (I am quite aware my body ain’t working the way it used to.)
Electrical Safety Awareness Month (Not sure how to plug into that one.)
Heart Disease Awareness Month (Heart And Stroke in Canada)
Heartworm Awareness Month (for the dogs)
Low Vision Awareness Month (If you can’t read this one press where?)
National Cancer Prevention Month
National National Awareness Month Awareness Month (Is that like a double negative?)
National Pet Dental Health Awareness Month
Safety Awareness Month
School-Based Health Center Awareness Month
Sinus Pain Awareness Month (March just wasn’t good enough for them…They moved)
Termite Awareness Month (I would prefer not to be aware of termites)

IMG_3205While running late may not qualify for cardio, showing love after Valentine’s Day is good for everyone’s heart.