Skip to main content

trip

I just came back from 4 days of much sitting. There were two 10 hour drives and then 2.5 days of meetings squished in between them. Toss into the mix 2 short bunk beds and a few short nights and a silly sore throat this morning and no protein powder left in the house....well, you can perhaps see that things are not running at optimum performance today.

Actually, we had a fabulous trip to New Brunswick but it seems that today all I can write about are the tedious or annoying parts. Come on, soul, remember those things that made the past 4 days rich. What about all that glorious undivided attention from Dean? What about meeting up with old and new friends and talking and laughing and listening to bad jokes over yummy french toast or scalloped potatoes all served by the sweetest lady at the cafeteria? What about sharing the story of God's goodness in our lives these past few crazy months and hearing the echo of this come alive in others as well? What about hitting the Dairy Queen en mass after one meeting just because Dan needed some soft ice cream? What about standing beside friends and knowing you really are making a difference in their lives? What about being served fabulous waffles with blueberries in a beautiful century home by ones you welcomed to Montreal a few years ago as they made a big leap away from home? What about being provoked to get on with it in a most eloquent and gentle yet firm manner by someone you respect? What about playing and singing and dancing for joy just because I can? and I want to? What about notes and words and looks and hugs and all manner of encouragements received about my writing and thinking and straightforward manner of relating. What about the beautiful cold Atlantic ocean on a foggy day? What about the dark and moody misty mountains in Maine?

Ah, yes. I remember now.

These are the misty mountains of upstate Maine on Sunday afternoon.
Labels:

Comments

Shelley said…
I am jealous...I so miss Dan...
8:11 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go...
3 comments
Read more

Esther's protest

I have been hesitant to write anything here pertaining to the student protests in Montreal, partly because I didn't believe I had any solutions to offer and partly because I just wanted to stay out of the controversial mess it has become.  Besides, I have studying to do.  But this weekend, something changed.  I read the book of Esther. First, some background:  the unrest started early in the year when a group of students decided to protest the tuition hikes proposed by the Quebec government ($325 a year for the next 5 years).  Seeing that tuition rates have been frozen for almost ten years, it seemed reasonable to the government to increase them to reflect rising costs.  This did not sit well with some students, and they organised an ongoing protest in which students were encouraged to boycott classes and refuse to hand in assignments.  It has now grown into a movement which has staged several organise...
9 comments
Read more

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun.  I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading.  One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others).  Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding.  Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity.   In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007.   “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’   C...
10 comments
Read more