WALKING AND CONTEMPLATION

For me, during this Covid-19 pandemic, most days a walk has been a good counterbalance to the stay at home measures. Sometimes I've driven to a park or trail but usually just went out the door and around the neighbourhood. I feel like I've worn a groove in my neighbours’ sidewalks. Thanks to a good friend I recently learned that I could virtually walk elsewhere in the world and find that to be very intriguing because I can't envision actually doing the real thing any time soon.

I would dearly love to walk the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) in Europe with destination being the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Now I know that I can do so virtually. Gotta love modern technology! I log the miles I walk here and the program moves my little stick-self along the route and provides photos of what I would have seen if I had actually been there. It certainly has added interest and purpose to wearing out my shoe leather. It's amazing how every mile I've walked near my home has been accumulating and bringing me closer to my virtual destination.

I chose the Camino Portugues starting in Porto, Portugal, heading north along the coastline because I've been to Porto and loved it.

As I've walked through my neighbourhood, even when things have felt bleak, I've tried to appreciate nature as it blossomed from spring into early summer. I watched as daffodils had their turn and gave way to rhododendrons and then to foxgloves and blackberries. And I've thanked God for beauty and creation. (Now if I could only learn to look past the lawns left to go to seed and the weeds taking over what should be flowerbeds. Reminder to self: God created what we call weeds too. But I digress…)

In general, people seem to love to be in motion - from prams and jolly jumpers, through toy cars and pedal bikes, skateboards, roller skates, bicycles, motorcycles, jogging, swimming, running, cars, boats, and more. So it's not surprising that hiking or walking is an enjoyable activity. Disregarding walking as a competition or activity where we want to be seen as being successful, why would anyone choose to walk for a month?!  What’s the value? Why do I still say I’d love to do it? These are the questions I have been asking myself.

There was a time when a pilgrimage was undertaken because the ensuing mass and certificate of pilgrimage ensured believers would spend less time in purgatory but these days this religious reason is not often cited. However, I know that one of my desires would be to spend lots of time meditating on God and His mysteries and just allowing myself to be absorbed by the surroundings.

I remember walking a short portion of the Via Appia in Italy. There was something about the history underfoot and the connection to generations past that was very meaningful. There's also something about the personal connection of feet to the ground. Walking under the branches of a tree vs driving past it. Smelling the earthy air of flowers and fields vs hurrying by with windows up and air conditioning on.

Additionally, I would definitely enjoy chatting with other pilgrims during our together yet alone adventure. There would be lots of unhurried time either walking or sitting together in the evenings for sharing. I would love viewing the various vistas along the pathways and stopping in small communities for coffees or meals. Less desirable would be sore muscles and blistered feet that go along with it or the shared accommodations overnight.

Even on my short walks around the neighbourhood, I've noticed how quickly I can get into a mode of contemplation. My feet keep moving forward of their own accord and my scattered mind does a reset often settling on nothing in particular. . Lately I’ve thought a lot about the difference between loneliness and solitude. I can choose the one over the other if I have the will to do so. I can turn the negative sense of unhappy loneliness into a positive and constructive solitary state of mind. I am fully aware that I need God’s help to do this and I know He is very willing to provide the strength and faith required. I can then walk through each day on the path of inner peace and joy.

Spring/Summer 2020

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Psalm 23

 

 

Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way

as to have plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of

solitude and silence.

A.W. Tozer

 

Timely News

TIMELY NEWS

It is with a heavy heart today that I share this timely news.

A favourite clock has taken to doing the unbelievable! It has thrown off the yoke of responsibility and has conferred upon itself a new daily routine! Chief among the changes is that it chooses to display on its face whatever numbers it happens to fancy.  Disappointing really, considering that its role in life when we adopted it from the store was to take on the daily responsibility for the routine of getting a child up and out to school, be on call all day and then accompany him/her to sleep at night. To abandon all responsibilities just because of aging is simply unconscionable. What kind of example is that to the younger clocks?

Where would they have started – these thoughts such as letting the numbers roll around however they want and stop whenever they feel like it? 

On the other hand, why shouldn't an old clock be able to enjoy a bit of freedom before the final sad unplugging!? Maybe it should be able to pick any hour or any minute and re-live the quietness of early mornings or the alarming jangle of its youth (which, if truth be told, was more like a loud and annoying buzz saw to anyone in the room, but memories are often romanticized).

In the vein of the antics of the person in the poem, "When I am old I shall wear purple", I am beginning to think that it must have been hatching these thoughts of freedom for some time.  On another other hand, perhaps we should be celebrating such freedom - a sort of emancipation from the tyranny of time and the regular work-a-day world.

It has been our pleasure to have the clock in our family all these years and we've made the timely decision that we're not going to chuck it out now just because it's developed a quirkiness or two.  It deserves to enjoy its retirement however it chooses to use it! 

In Search of a Retrieval System

IN SEARCH OF A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM

It's a conundrum!

And it’s frustrating!

Let me try to explain.

Due to the Covid-19 self-isolation measures we are currently encountering and needing to fill extra hours at home, I couldn’t access my usual bookstores or even the library, so I decided it was time to sign up for library ebooks.  In a complicated, convoluted series of events, I ended up signing up at two different libraries with their two different ebook suppliers. And that’s what launched this journey through my conundrum…

I'm accumulating information that I don't quite know how to manage. It's all those wee bits here and there that I'm afraid I'll forget. I get an internal picture of myself jotting something down on a yellow stickie and posting it on my forehead. That's followed by another and another to the point where I am covered from top to toe by little coloured stickies and they’ve even taken over my kitchen wall.

Later, I need that bit of information, so I start to hunt.  I kinda remember.  I am pretty sure it's there somewhere.  I search and rustle through them, but that just makes them start to fall off!  It’s a dreadful jumble - there's no organization at all.  It is beyond frustrating! 

          Help! I need an index!

That's not actually what has happened of course. The truth is I have those bits of information carefully digitally saved. The problem is laying my hands on them. I hunt through gmail. Then through WhatsApp. Then through Messenger. Then through Texts. Then I think maybe I saved it in a document so search through the computer. Or did I hear it on a webinar or zoom meeting? Read it in one of the email articles that come by subscriptions that I've signed up for? Facebook? Or maybe it was in conversation with a neighbour or my husband. No wait - maybe I got the information in a phone call.  I'm old fashioned enough to still have a notebook beside the phone - but the phone (cordless of course) is never beside the notebook.

          Help! I need an index! 

Back to what launched this epic journey through the jumble in my mind.

Yesterday I sat down to read my book and suddenly realized that I'm not sure where to find the one I’m in the middle of. Is it on that library's ebook service or the other library? Is it on a pdf? Did I leave it, a “real” paperback, upstairs beside the bed? Maybe on Kindle, perhaps I should check there first.

As a retired librarian, I know information retrieval is all about indexes. Many well written books full of good information have been useless because of a lack of indexing or at least a table of contents. I need both! 

          Help!  I need a retrieval system….
                     And please tell me I'm not the only one.

[If you are receiving this due to subscribing via your email, you can go to the address below to see the blog in its published form, make a comment or view previous posts.  Thanks for reading my reflections. Velma.]

http://uponreflect.blogspot.com/  

EMPTY WORDBOXES IN MY MIND

EMPTY WORDBOXES IN MY MIND

Seems like I'm often struggling for a word lately.

A word.

Just an ordinary word.

I know that it happens to the best of us but that doesn't make it any less disconcerting.

I get a picture in my head of going to a huge bank of small lockboxes or mailboxes. A key is in my hand, my arm reaches out to turn the lock and open the small compartment. I look inside but to my horror the space is empty! The word has vanished!

So then I circle around trying out synonyms - you know, green vegetable, looks like little trees - with the sound of confusion in my voice accompanied by just a touch of whining. Or perhaps I circle around and mentally reopen that word box hoping against hope that it will have reappeared but I peer into the recesses again and - nope - still gone. So I finish my thought lamely using a description or a synonym.

Other times I see the word as a tiny bird which rests in the wordbox as if on the branch of a tree. Just when I need it, the bird flies up and darts across my line of vision so fast I’m left with only a vague impression of it.  

It's so frustrating! Sometimes the word is there where I can find it but that only increases my unease when it's not. Maybe this isn’t the right key? the right box? And if not, where do I find it?

In the midst of complaining of not finding words when I need them, an interesting old Cockney word popped into my head – “scarpered” – that’s what’s happened, the word I need has scarpered!  What a great word!  I like the way it sounds when said out loud, and it suits the way I feel very well. The word I need has scarpered and left me suddenly and – it sometimes feels – with malice.

Sadly, I have come to fear those empty wordboxes so that it's often easier to abandon trying to verbalize my thoughts. I have found myself shaking my head and muttering "words… words".

That's why I like writing. I can take time to get the right word in the right place and no one knows if it took a dictionary or several returns to the wordbox to find it.

Speaking of which, where is my pen?  I’m hunting in the bottom of my purse and it seems to be gone. Like some weird outtake of a nursery rhyme …and the pen ran away with the word…

…done a bunk   vamoosed    skedaddled    scarpered…

[If you are receiving this due to subscribing via your email, you can go to the address below to see the blog in its published form, make a comment or view previous posts.  Thanks for reading my reflections. Velma.]

http://uponreflect.blogspot.com/  

Vacation Reprise

How does a vacation to foreign shores bring change to mind and heart? Where’s the value?

Being there is the thing! Being immersed daily in the location fills all the senses the way that videos, pictures and descriptions just can't do.

The foreign shore I am referring to specifically in this case is the city of Rome.

I've been considering how to respond when people ask, how was your trip? other than, it was great.

I've been asking myself questions like, was it worth it? What did I want from it? Did I get what I wanted?

To simplify analyzing what I wanted, I have divided it into two streams.

One, to see first hand the accumulation of art, paintings, statues, frescoes, mosaics, in museums and churches, monuments and parks, and in innumerable places all over the historic centre that have collected over the centuries. 

Two, to experience Roman life - the general ambience - culture, language, weather, use of historic buildings, landscape, mazes of streets, walking, bussing, shops, food, restaurants, etc. I know it’s the touristy Roman life but still considerably different than home.

Yes, I enjoyed both! And yes, it was worth the time, effort and cost.

This time more than ever I added identifying and appreciating the amazing talent, gifting and creativeness that comes from God our Creator. We tend to focus on a few well known names but I became aware of how many unnamed artists and craftspeople would have been involved in all that I saw. It takes a huge number of people to build and contribute to any one of the amazing places we toured.

Also I appreciated that cathedrals – even though they are different from my church background - were ultimately built to honour Almighty God and were filled with beautiful things, always with Jesus and the cross front and centre. I noted that the special chapels or memorial stones that featured Biblical persons or historical persons who have been designated as saints are a way of honouring and remembering "that great cloud of witnesses” who have gone before (Hebrews 12).

For what purpose do we travel if not to enlarge our understanding and stir our souls?! To allow new experiences to have an impact on us! To learn about how we are globally different yet the same! And how the same God is Lord over all!

 "Hebrews 12:1-3 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

Pizza for Thanksgiving? – A Puzzling Question

It's Thanksgiving!  Autumn is upon us. Leaves are turning colour. Birds are migrating.  Everything as it should be in the turn of the seasons.  But there's one thing that is wacky and out of place.

I'm talking about the big Thanksgiving dinner!

I know it's all about being together and about remembering how important it is to be thankful. We will no doubt take turns expressing our thankfulness around the table and each expression will be different and it’ll be wonderful. We’ll play games and go for a walk and there will be great commotion with conversation, kids and dogs.

However, our family - the 8 of us - are having pizza!  That's okay, right?! There is no rule about having a big dish like turkey as far as I know.

But, I'm wondering, when and how did it come to this? When did I give over?

It was not too many years ago when the kids were small and we were fortunate enough to live on 5 acres of land, when pretty much all the meal was homemade and home grown just like it was in the good ol’ days of my childhood. A few times we had turkeys raised by my dad. Stuffing was made from leftover bread gathered up and dried in the oven. Potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, Brussels sprouts, onions, peas, corn, whatever vegetables chosen were definitely from the garden out back. Same with the pickles. And pumpkin pie? We grew the pumpkins, roasted, mashed and seasoned them and of course made our own pie crust.  Whipped cream was heavy cream - from a farm if possible - whipped by my little mix master. And it was served to a big bunch of people who crammed elbow to elbow into our little dining area.

Back to the current Thanksgiving celebration. We'll phone in the pizza order. Everyone can have their flavour favourite.  And we bought ready made chicken wings that will just need to be warmed up in the oven. We bought a veggie platter and a container of fruit ready to serve. The pumpkin pie? Bought of course at the supermarket. And the whipped cream? In a can - aerosol.

In my defence I could claim weariness in well doing. Over the past 45 years, except for a handful of times, I have been responsible for Thanksgiving (and Christmas) turkey dinners and that leads me to surmise I've wrestled around 80 birds into and out of the roasting pan. But I've enjoyed every one of those dinners. They have all been worth-while. You too by any chance?!

I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time together and be thankful but I'm not sure we know how thankful we should be when we haven't watched with wonder as the plants grew from seed to harvest. Haven't weeded and watered and cared for them as they grew.  Because we haven't harvested, and washed and peeled and diced and cooked and mashed and dirtied our fingers and aprons in the mess, we won’t have worked at the meal with our hands and hearts.

I really think we're missing something precious! I'm so thankful that I had that home grown era in my life. Latterly of course vegetables for dinner have had to come from the store, but still needed peeling, dicing, and cooking and the turkey still needed to be in the oven early in the morning. The fragrance of all that cooking was a big part of the day.

What about next year? Have I stepped over the edge forever?  Is this the new reality? 

Anything wrong with a turkey-absent Thanksgiving meal?

I'm just confused!

The puzzling question remains - when did the pizza for Thanksgiving idea become thinkable?!

P.S.  Post-Thanksgiving dinner update.  We did have a wonderful time together. We did express our thankfulness to God and to each other. We enjoyed the food and fun and I almost didn’t miss the turkey till next day when the leftovers were pizza slices instead of turkey for casseroles and soup!  

Dear Mom, you'd be so amazed!

Dear Mom,

Today I was thinking about you as I cleaned house.  So much has changed in our Western Canadian world since 1987 when you departed this earth and even more of course since your early years spent on the Prairies before I was born in 1948. It would boggle your mind – it boggles my mind too!

For starters, keeping house no longer takes every day all day!

You'd be so amazed!

Living in the Moment

Live in the Moment

If you've been reading my occasional reflective postings you know I've more than once alluded to the challenges of growing older.  Recently the challenge in my heart has been to settle into living "in the moment".  I thought I had been, or thought I had been trying to, but realize that I haven't fully arrived (duh, of course not, do we ever “arrive” short of heaven’s gates?)

Goodness knows living in the moment is not a new concept but it’s new again to me right now. Here’s where it started.  I found myself saying to a friend a series of sentences like this:

I wish I was still doing….  I wish I could still be….   I wish I still lived at….

DAILY BREAD

I can’t help but notice that a lot of things have been changing over the years – you too? But then again I know that not everything was better in the good ol’ days either. What are we to do with that?

In an effort to adjust, to understand and to adapt to my constantly advancing age threshold....

I can’t help but notice a few things

Post Vacation Vantage Point

Post vacation

Home again!
Nothing left but some snapshots and memories
All in. All done.
Or is it?

Ahhh... The comforts of home! Hugs from loved ones! My own bed at night!

However... there's nothing like being around the globe, away from home for a couple weeks, to cause one to re-examine everything.  For a little while, from a different vantage point, I have seen life ... others ... myself …

While reviewing the trip via the pictures taken through the lens of the camera, I'm also reviewing it through the lens in my mind -- doing that a bit more this trip than previous ones for some reason.

Having been on a high of busyness, challenges and stimulation of all sorts, one hits the mundane ground of home with rather a thump.

As I start picking up the threads of my life again, I'm examining each one carefully, not only personally but as a global citizen. It causes me to consider making some changes.

What's the point of traveling if it leaves one unchanged?!

Here's a list of some of my thoughts in no particular order.

Train Tracks Through My Mind

I'm awake in the wee hours of the night listening to the sounds of my community.  I hear the passing soft swish of car tires, the ear splitting racket of a motorcycle (my pet peeve), even faintly the walk light beeping at a nearby intersection.  But it's the low background rumble of a train on the tracks many blocks away that captures my attention. Sometimes I can hear whack crunch thump as cars are sorted or rearranged.  For whatever atmospheric reason, sometimes it sounds like the train is rumbling through our back yard. And even, but rarely, I can hear the train whistle.  It's all reassuring.  It's the normal sound of my world.

Then I start thinking back to trains on the prairies when I was young.  The small towns that featured largest in my life were on a main C.P.R. line. Each small town was announced in huge letters on the grain elevator as we drove by. If we were going into the town or even down one of the narrow lanes to a farm house, it would likely involve bumping up and over the tracks. I don't think there were crossing arms at many of them. 

Bookish Delights

As I sleepily wandered down the stairs this morning, I found that I was musing on the book that kept me up late last night. Today I am feeling very grateful for people who write books, so I'd like to express my appreciation, or in today's vernacular send a "shout out" to authors. I have recently read several books that I've enjoyed very much. Barely scratching the surface of the topic leads me to list some thoughts.

Shepherds - West Coast Style

As often happens, one of my granddaughters got me to thinking. This time it was the four year old.

It started because I gave her a Christmas sticker book. There was a page showing a stable and another page showing a field, both at nighttime with stars in the sky. There were stickers representing the main characters on the night Baby Jesus was born.  

LIGHTING UP CHRISTMAS

Recently, as a winter day gave way to night, hubby and I hopped aboard a skytrain and headed downtown to check out Christmas in the city. Much of the line is elevated so there is a great view of the various communities that we pass through.  I can't say we were overwhelmed by Christmas lights but they were there continuously along our route. Attached to streetlights ... Apartment balconies ... Shopping malls and plazas ... Storefronts ... Front yards ... There were blowup Santas and reindeer ...  Trees in living room windows ... Tall trees in parks ... Sparkling - twinkling - glowing! (Personally my favourite was simply the silhouetted outline of tree branches against the last of the light in the sky. No twinkle, yet very beautiful).  

HANDS

My granddaughter and I had our hands outstretched the other day, both of us reaching for something on the table.  In a flash I “saw” all the years and events that happen between the time when hands look like hers and hands look like mine.  A lifetime!  At age 6 her hands are no longer baby or toddler chubby. They have already experienced much and know how to do many things, but there is so much ahead.

LAUGH

I'm talking about side splitting, cheek hurting, can't stand up straight, all out guffawing!

On a few occasions lately, I have found myself laughing heartily.  After the last one, for some reason, this thought popped into my head - that was such fun, I feel 12 again! – well, maybe 18 but certainly younger than I'm admitting to these days. As the most recent laugh-fest was winding down, I found myself looking down, noticed the backs of my age spotted hands and was instantly struck by the paradox of it.  A complete disconnect. In that moment I was young but my hands were spoilsports!

So I decided to do some research - that is to say, I googled it. After reading a few articles, some pretty scholarly, I decided this fellow summed it up well enough for me:

"No one really knows what laughter is, we know what causes it, but not much more."

I wouldn’t want to get too serious about laughter – that would be oxymoronic, wouldn’t it? By the way, look at the spelling of the word – isn’t that weird enough to cause you to laugh?! 

The oppressor, the oppressed and the observer

My mind has been struck by an uncomfortable truth... I have been reflecting... I'll try to explain...

While studying Genesis 1 & 2, I became fixated on the fact that God breathed his breath into mankind whom He created. Who was a little lower than the angels. Who was made in His image, His likeness. God breathed His breath, His spirit, His very essence into man.

At the same time, hovering in my thoughts is the image we've all seen in recent days. An image of two men: one dressed in orange, subjugated, kneeling, and one in black standing in obvious superiority and brandishing a weapon. The oppressor and the oppressed.  But there is a third party in this scenario and that's me - the observer.  

What strikes me at this point is the central equality of all of us –

the oppressor, the oppressed, the observer.

Equally we are alive because we have had the breath of life breathed into us by God!

Tourist in our own Home Town

Recently hubby and I went on another outing in our continuing saga of playing tourist in our own home town which is actually a large metropolitan area. But if we hadn't had a voucher which was soon to expire we probably would have backed out and that's what got me pondering.

Why is it so hard to get out to what we generally call touristy places near home?

Why does it seem easier to be adventurous when on vacation in a foreign country than near home in own language, own currency, own culture, in own car?

Un-tired!

     Earlier this week I spent the day in the company of my granddaughters, ages 3 and 5. They had been twirling and plie-ing at dance camp all morning where I picked them up (complicated by an hour's lag between their finishing times). Then a quick stop for a happy meal to eat in the car. We then stopped by and picked up grandpa and were off to the outdoor old-fashioned Burnaby Village Museum.  We walked through and looked in the buildings exclaiming over this and that – the one room schoolhouse, the general store, barbershop, etc - we did the scavenger hunt, and had an ice cream break in the café. This was followed by a ride on the historic carousel before walking across the little bridge back to the parking lot. We had had a lovely time and were all moving just a bit more slowly than when we arrived.

However, almost immediately the 5 year old said eagerly,

  "What are we going to do now, Grandma?"  

  I said, Taking you home. 

  Her response was a gloomy, "Awww, but I want to go play at your house. And we haven’t even gone to the farmer’s market yet”!

     During the drive home in the car she declared she was tired. No doubt. She'd had a busy day!  However, I figured in an hour she'd be rested and rarin’ to go again. 

     Me?  not so much!

     The same day I read the following by C.S. Lewis which sums up exactly how I feel quite often—

... I am frantically busy: and though I get no more tired now than I did when I was younger, I take much longer to get un-tired afterwards.

(From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack)

What's in a name?

Recently I visited an old - at least a former - workplace.  Not many “old” staff members are still working there but a handful of us chatted, caught up with each other’s lives and of course the conversation turned to reminiscing about old times and former coworkers. In the midst of it all, it really struck me how intensely memory was attached to a name - for instance, three little letters spelling “Liz”.  I was instantly flooded by remembrance of her face, her voice, how we shared with each other and talked about her pets, family, and vacations. I instantly remembered her personality, her hearty laugh, her kindness and dedication to her work, and certainly how sad I was when she moved away.  I've been musing on this ever since. 

What's in a name? I say -- everything!!

First names, family names, business names, nicknames – all!