December 21
I often introduce my two children as “Thing One” and “Thing Two.” For those of you who grew up reading and enjoying Dr. Seuss, no further explanation is required. For those of you to whom Dr. Seuss is unfamiliar, even in movie or TV form, a little background will help. Thing One and Thing Two were featured in the classic “The Cat in the Hat” book. They were rather, let’s say, playful, and somewhat cute, and fully capable of both good and mischief. That pretty much describes my two children, and probably most children their age.

Since “The Cat in the Hat” had a rather long run in the pre-bedtime reading ritual, I thought that David and Anna knew full well whence their nickname had its origins. Imagine then, my surprise when one day, out of the blue, Anna piped up: “You got that from “The Cat in the Hat,” didn’t you? Well, I was somewhat shocked by the accusation, and quickly pointed out that somehow Dr. Suess had borrowed the nickname from me, just years before I ever started using it…

Perhaps that’s stretching the truth a little bit, but the surprise at my daughter’s revelation and intuition was honest. It never dawned on me to explain to them why I called them Thing One and Thing Two. I assumed that having heard the names read seventy gazillion times was enough. I was pleased, however, that my kids figured it out for themselves, even if it took a while. After all, it’s a lot more fun sharing jokes when everybody’s on board, including the ones that are the gently offered subjects of a knowing smile.

God, of course, knows a lot that we don’t. Most of the knowledge is probably of such immensity and complexity that we wouldn’t benefit by having it. But there is probably a lot of simple stuff we could all learn that would make our lives a lot easier. I imagine that there are moments of both gentle and robust humour about this. Surely we have been the butt of many giggles and guffaws as God and the angels bore witness to our antics, and we are most likely going to keep heaven in stitches for a long, long time to come.

I also imagine that there are a lot of smiles in heaven when a grain of truth or a kernel of understanding finally drops into place. God surely must rejoice when we learn a life lesson that improves our relationship with others, deepens our self understanding, or brings us closer to him. And I believe that along the way, God is fully immersed in this learning process. We are not left alone in our journey to His truth. Christmas reveals to us a God who wants us to know Him more fully, a gift revealed in human form, yet timeless, ageless, priceless.

God’s gift does not end there. The Holy Spirit links us to God’s wisdom, filling our minds, guiding our wills, nudging our conscience. The life and times of the grown up Christmas baby, Jesus puts things in simple black and white for us, as do his many teachings. And young and old, smart and foolish, thing one and thing two, we teach each other the at times painful, at times funny lessons about life, love, and not assuming everybody knows what we think we know. At least that’s the way I see it.
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December 14
I have to admit that I am a curious person. I love seeing what I can see, especially when it comes to people’s windows. No, I don’t sneak up lawns to have a good long peep, nor do I stop to gawk while walking or driving. It’s just that if there is something to see, I’m more than likely to see it. Years ago, when Lois and I lived in Rosedale, a rather fashionable part of Toronto, window watching was an unparalleled delight. No other neighbourhood has quite matched that particular one, but still seen some pretty cool, interesting and surprising things wherever there’s been a window to watch.

The other day I happened on just such a sight. Prominently displayed in a living room window, was the back of a TV about as big as the window itself. How odd. After all, windows are for letting the light in or revealing what’s inside to curious onlookers as well as letting the people inside see outside. What an strange thing to do to such a device. Maybe the occupants don’t like real reality, so they watch reality TV instead. Perhaps they find it safer to look at things they can pick and choose rather than what’s actually going on. Can they only stomach a view of the world if it’s first been adjusted and completed with laugh track or dramatic music to tell them how to react? Talk about seeing things through rose-coloured glasses. This household seemed to say it saw the world through full-colour, surround sound splendour.

Mind you, that’s my interpretation of things. I’m sure that those folks don’t see creation from such a narrow point of view. I’m reading a little more into the situation because of who I am. But that TV in the window, along with my reaction to it, is a powerful reminder that none of us truly sees things as they are. The reality that hits our eyeballs and triggers the moving pictures in our brains also triggers all kinds of other things as well. We interpret what we observe and filter the information according to our understanding of the world. Some images trigger memories, transporting us beyond our present reality. Others are beyond our knowledge, so we try to fill in the gaps as best we can. Delight and rapture might follow some observations, sadness or anger accompany others, and some things leave us unsure whether we should laugh or cry.

This is an important thing to remember as we go through life. Whatever we see, hear or touch is never left purely as it is. We subtly alter reality simply by being part of it. Most of the times it’s pretty harmless. Sometimes it brings about new thoughts as we are subtly altered by the reality we observe, like what happened when I saw a TV sitting in a picture window. Occasionally, we get things completely wrong, which is where we have to watch out. It’s all too easy to hurt ourselves or others when we don’t get the picture. And if we’re confused about something, then our reaction to it will be observed and most likely be itself misinterpreted. That’s what it means to be human. For now, we see things through coloured glasses. One day we’ll understand everything without those imperfect, dark filters. In the meantime, we can see things more clearly by understanding how we filter the reality we see. And God helps us by forgiving us, and teaching us how to forgive, when we don’t see things quite straight. At least that’s the way I see it.
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December 7
You’ve probably noticed that we’re in the middle of Christmas. In some sections of town, you probably noticed that we were in the middle of Christmas the day after Halloween. You’ve also probably noticed that less than three weeks before Christmas, some folks have already had too much of the season. Count me in with that group. I’ve had it with Christmas, even if that sounds very Grinch-like. To be exact, I’ve had it with the modern version of Christmas, the one that the aforementioned cartoon character stole in the mid 60’s. By now you’re probably thinking I’m a rat for talking this way, but bear with me and all will be clear momentarily.

Back when the Grinch first stole Christmas on national TV, no-one took notice that Christmas had already gone missing in many ways. Thank another cartoon character, or cast of characters, for that one. Think of all those wholesome Disney movies we cheerfully use to anaesthetize our children. Those are some of the original culprits in stealing the heart of Christmas as it should be. Watch any of the much-beloved Christmas specials hosted by Mickey or Donald or their ink and paint chums. Oh, they’re pleasant alright. They talk about the right things, peace and love and such, but never, ever, do they talk about God, Jesus, or, to use a trite but accurate phrase, the true meaning of Christmas.

The season has been politically corrected, sterilized and made absolutely meaningless to the generations that grew up with those shows. Santa Claus is worshipped as a gift giving God, who accepts cash or credit as a sacrifice. We are consumed by consumption, we have sold (souled?) out to buying our way to stop the greedy whining, we have replaced the lone manger in a crowded inn with the many rooms of a crowded shopping mall. This version of Christmas I can do without, even if I am going to get nice presents for my children and have lights and a tree and all the other trappings.

I justify this apparent hypocrisy with the same reasons all Christians do the very same thing: we know what’s going on. We’re know the truth of the Saviour born in a manger who calls us to work for him within our society. We can’t escape the dark side, but we can walk it in Christ’s light. We take part in the modern Christmas to change things from within. Is the Santa Claus parade too secular? Next year let’s make it less so by entering a bunch of Christian floats. Does buying stuff set a bad example for our kids? Let’s hold back on some gifts and let our children spend the money on a charity of their choice. And let’s balance the poor message of so many cartoons by picking programs that tell the whole story without watering it down.

After all, I love Christmas. Not today’s; the first one. I love how God showed us a new way to Him. I love that Jesus was born like any other child. I love that what he could do, he shared with his followers, and with the generations up to, including, and well beyond our own. I hope that you also love that first Christmas again this year, a special gift from God to you. What a great gift it would be if others could recover that first Christmas, if they could know the presence of the Christ-Child for themselves. At least that’s the way I see it.
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November 30
My first ever piece of designer clothing (which also happened to be my last) was a rather sharp looking Pierre Cardin shirt. You have to understand that this was a special occasion. I was sixteen, had just discovered girls, which led to the discovery of daily showers, which led to girls discovering me, which led to dates, which led to the need for sharp clothes. I’m not really hip on what’s fashionable today, but back then, Monsieur Cardin was the name to wear. Unfortunately, high fashion, and a six-foot plus man with long arms and torso do not mix. Yes, I did look pretty sharp in my extra-large designer duds, but they were not at all comfortable, and with every move, my shirttails jumped out of my pants or my sleeves tugged my underarms. Clearly I was not meant to be a big-bucks fashion model, at least of high-style designer clothes.

Fortunately, my need for lookin’ good was satisfied by any number of lesser known brands that not only fit better, but were much gentler on the pocket book. I may not have had the brand name appeal but my own personal charm and good looks were enough to make up for any possible fashion short-comings. It also helped that the girls I dated pretty much out-shone me in the looks department, and I was quite happy to be a nattily dressed escort for my assorted friends.

With high-school’s end and the onset of higher education and full-time work, my dating habits changed considerably, as did my interest in sharp clothes. When I finally got married, I had a last fling with high-style, in a cool tuxedo (which balanced out my one fashion fiasco, a ruffled powder blue tuxedo in the height of disco style, now best forgotten) and ever since that time, I’ve been happy with nice, but not necessarily super stylish. A good sport coat or practical suit is about it for now, my peacock days forever behind me.

Now, style matters to me more as a thing to mock than something to follow. I go for comfort and simplicity rather than what others call stylish. Even the best designer clothing has those same qualities. Fashions that appeal the most are those that don’t yell the designer’s name or his lack of taste. They are the ones that let the wearer’s natural beauty shine forth. Attractive clothes might enhance good features and hide imperfections, but they cannot impart any of the qualities that make someone truly beautiful.

A truly beautiful person, one whose heart is pure, intentions are noble, and mind is set on the right path, looks good in anything, their beauty revealed through their words and actions. My best dates and most joyful times with people don’t depend on wearing the nattiest clothes. Being together is enough. That’s the beauty of being made in God’s image, the one true designer label. Even if we don’t know what God looks like, through the love we share, the kindness that touches us, and the grace that helps smoothes out rocky relationships, (each a Godly trait) we know God must be beautiful. So every human, being made in God’s image, is also inherently beautiful. We first saw that in Jesus, the perfect, sinless human, God expressed in human form. Jesus, rids us of sin’s ugliness, letting our true Godly beauty shine forth, no matter what clothes we wear. At least that’s the way I see it.
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November 23
My wife, Lois, would really like for me to start curling with her. Curling is that odd sport involving ice, brooms, sliders, sweeping, take-outs, houses, sheets and other things that sound either like the worst winter has to offer, or a great deal of housework. So far I have resisted all attempts by her to get into the game, but I have been unable to explain to her exactly why I’m not that keen. I wasn’t even too sure about it myself until I realized that curling reminded me too much of croquet, a game which I utterly despise.

Croquet involves mallets, which you would expect would serve as a great draw for a tool-lover like me. It also involves some pretty interesting physics, when you get down to it, and that’s right up my alley as well. Not that I’m a great brain or anything like that, but I do find things scientific tremendously fascinating. What drives me nuts about croquet is how other players can spoil your fun. I’m not against playing against other people. I enjoy golf, pool, bowling, baseball, euchre, cribbage and other games involving skill, brains and competition. I don’t like games that overtly involve messing up my handiwork. Croquet is one of those games. Not only are you allowed to knock a players ball out of the way, you can purposely send their ball flying miles off the field. I find that extremely mean spirited.

I like games that pit my skills against other players without messing the other’s game. Sure, some heckling’s fun, and you might hear a suspiciously timed cough just as you’re putting for par, but on the whole, people are not actively trying to ruin your game by launching your ball across the yard and across the street. Yes, baseball involves a pitcher trying to break a batter’s hitting streak, and batters trying to overcome a pitcher’s shut-out record, but you also have teammates working together for the common good. Unfortunately for Lois, curling reminds me too much of croquet and too little of baseball.

I guess I look at life in a similar way. I feel that God has given us unique likes and dislikes, as well as unique skills and abilities. All of these things are meant to compliment the uniqueness of others in the world. When all these unique identities come together, playing as nicely as possible, celebrating diverse skills and interests and enjoying the gift of challenging one another to new heights of ability, we glorify God by reflecting God’s vast array of talents and absolute perfection in all of them. If there is some healthy competition, fine. But if I’m just trying to get ahead by spoiling your efforts, there’s something very wrong. Why, sometimes I play co-operative Scrabble, where everyone looks at everyone’s tiles, and tries to get the maximum possible score for their opponents. It might sound boring or weak-kneed to the ultra-competitive, but I find it a fun way to make sure that everybody plays, and nobody really loses. As a follower of Christ, playing to win is not so much to get high scores, but to have fun and make everyone feel good about their own God-given abilities. It also seems to me that any game that involves brooms, sweeping and sheets sounds far to much like housework to be any fun. At least that’s the way I see it.
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November 16
This has been a rather memorable week for me, not so much in the sense of it standing out for some time to come, but because there’s been a lot of remembering going on. I was sorting through some of the accumulated flotsam and jetsam cluttering up the house, and found reminders of the old me, pictures of a skinny me and my tiny first car, an old prom photo with a pre-Lois girlfriend, some other shots of no significance other than being reminders of a different time and place. As I searched for a certain CD, I encountered one of those business card sized CDs, and gave it a listen. There, plain as day, was the voice of a wonderful man, a friend and colleague who died suddenly, not to long ago, and far too soon. Of course, there were Remembrance day observances, both private and public, which led me to try and find my grandfather’s service record in the British army.

So, there’s been lots of remembering in this memorable week. Some of it was pleasant, a recollection of happy but very different times. Some was hilarious, especially for my children, who have never seen me without a mustache. Some was sad and painful, hearing an unexpected voice from a dearly loved and dearly missed friend, or considering the sacrifices of those young men who fought alongside my grandfather, but were not as blessed as he was in being able to live out a long, fulfilling life.

With all this remembering, a thought came to my. In addition to a national Remembrance day, why not a national Forgetance day? It would be a day you promise to forgive and forget the pain I caused you, and I promise to do away with and forget the ways in which I hurt you. Nations would forgive and forget their neighbour’s warring ways. Their warring neighbours would forget their past claims to land and glory or honour all the foolish, selfish, and even supposedly reasonable reasons that drove them to attack. Age old enemies would forget the traditional enmities between them. Those bound in endless cycles of violence would completely forget about words and impulses of revenge, retribution, reprisal or settling of scores. Guilt would be buried in an unmarked grave in the most forgotten regions of our memory banks.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that? Imagine the Middle-East leaving aside all past hurts and working for a present and future of peace. Imagine the careless and selfish forgetting about themselves and thinking about others for a change. Imagine being able to truly put unnecessary things in the past and leave them there. There would be more time for living today, for remembering the worthwhile traditions and people that have made us who we are, and for getting on with lives freed from unhealthy or restricting ways, habits and thoughts.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he gave us new lives, forgiving all past indiscretions, and restored our relationship with God to wholeness. If we truly want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, shouldn’t we try to do the same thing in our relationships and our own lives? National and personal remembrance balanced with personal and national Forgetance might just be the way to go. At least that’s the way I see it.
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November 9
It was one of those moments when you’re not really aware of what’s happening, but someone else is. I was practicing my channel surfing, the art of trying to watch everything on TV at once, flicking through the channels faster than others can tolerate, but is perfectly acceptable to the designated driver. I had settled on two programs, liked both, and since the commercials were perfectly timed to allow alternate program viewing, I kept going back and forth. Lois, in a perfectly innocent tone, asked me if I could even understand what was going on. I thought she had asked this question because of the rapidity with which I switched programs. Instead, it was because one show was in Italian, the other in English. Lois was amazed and fascinated by my ability to seamlessly move from one tongue to another without a moments hesitation.

It is something I had never thought about before. I grew up in an Italian-speaking household. Even when my father spoke English, it often sounded like he was still speaking Italian. But while my home was Italian, my neighbourhood and overall environment was not. I had an English (from England even!) babysitter as a wee tot. The “Happy Child” nursery school was not a clever front for Italian training. My neighbourhood friends, and all the children of the folks who had immigrated to Canada with my parents spoke English. I never stood a chance to be anything but bilingual. And I never really noticed it, except for when I started studying French, where knowing both languages was a great asset. But as for having to think about what language I was speaking or hearing? Never gave it a second thought until Lois pointed it out.

Of course, there is some advantage in speaking various tongues. One Italian vendor (in Italy!) gave me a better bargain than the American customer before me because of my flawless Venetian. But having more than one language doesn’t inevitably improve communication. If two people speak at once, even in the same language, we can’t understand either. We have two ears, but only one brain. Anything more than one stream of information is just confusing noise. Nor can we effectively speak more than one conversation at once. We might be able to alternate between two or more different listeners, but we can’t address them at the same time, no matter how many languages we speak.

Why is it then, that in our faith life, we so often speak in more than one way at once. We pray to God, ask for help, seek guidance, ask for forgiveness, but a little voice hopes that God’s response won’t demand too much from us? We go to church and sing songs of praise while working out menus for the next week. We help out with someone in need while our minds are working out why we keep slicing the ball to the left with our tee shot.

Thankfully, God sees beyond our imperfect speech and double meanings. God sees into our hearts, and knows where we come from. God realizes that what we say and what we do don’t always match. That’s what Jesus is all about. He helps us keep our conversations straight. He reminds us of what matters, shows us how to live according to what matters, and forgives us when we get it wrong, and He speaks to us through the heart, in the universal language of love. All we have to do is respond in kind. At least that’s the way I see it.
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November 2
As I write my musings, I am gently swiveling and rocking in my big office chair. It’s a cool chair, covered in leather, it goes up and down with the push of a lever, it swivels round and round, it rocks back and forth… At least it usually rocks back and forth. As long as the lock is off it rocks quite nicely. When the lock on, it just sits bolt upright. Which is what it did for the past few days. Somehow, someone had tripped the lock preventing the natural rocking action that is part of this chair’s coolness. Now, being relatively technically inclined, I assembled the chair without any difficulty. I’ve been operating it successfully for three or four years. I just never knew there was a lock. Didn’t read the instruction manual. Didn’t have to. After all, I’ve sat for well over forty years. (Well, not that I’ve been sitting all that time, but I’ve got that kind of experience…) The point is, even something as supposedly simple as an office chair can surprise you. It certainly surprised me with it’s hitherto undiscovered anti-rock braking feature.

How often has that happened with other appliances in everyday use? I have drawers full of manuals and operating instructions. Most of them have been hardly used. They are more a courtesy than anything else. I’ve used light switches before. I know that one way is on, and one way is off. That’s a pretty short operating manual. Then there are the other things, things like the computer or TV remote control. Those instruction booklets are equally unused. They are simply frightening in their complexity. Too many features, too many details. Yes, it would be cool if I could get my toaster toasting just moments before commercials come on, but who has the time or inclination to read three thousand pages of tiny writing of badly translated Korean? “To operation of the properly devised cookage of tost from comfortable of downsitting positionification?” I can leave the comfort of my chair to drop a slice of bread into my toaster, thank you.

Mind you, there are some useful and interesting things in those manuals. Maybe even something important. But you have to pick and choose what you really need, and hope that you haven’t missed anything too important.

We humans don’t come with instruction manuals. Our features aren’t fully listed in an easy to read location. We have to figure ourselves out from the inside, or have to figure out other people from the outside, a great challenge since not everybody knows themselves completely. That’s the wonder of being made as we are. We are creatures of almost infinite potential. We are adaptable. We are transformable. (Or in Presbyterian terms, reformable) Which makes us infinitely interesting, as we figure ourselves out, and as we figure out who we are in relation with other equally changeable beings.

What features have you not fully explored in yourself? What gifts have you seen only in part in a friend? What can you learn about yourself as you learn about somebody else? Look around. Explore. As you do so, you’ll get a glimpse of the infinite creativity of God, in whose image we are created, an image only hinted at in our great and differing gifts. At least that’s the way I see it.
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October 26
It was with great interest and fascination that I recently read about a new scientific discovery. It seems that Canadian scientists have discovered to get energy out of water and metal without using any moving parts. Put another, they have discovered how to make a battery with no nastier chemicals than water itself. What’s amazing about this process is that the energy is created simply by the pressure and motion between the water and the metal. Why or how this happens is clearly beyond my capacity to understand. What I do understand, however is that this process is nothing really new.

Real life is often a combination of motion and pressure that creates energy. On a large scale, it happens when water rushes down a pipe to push a propeller connected to a generator. Motion and pressure cause a loose water hose to spray everything in range. Motion and pressure allow a water balloon to splash an opponent with a satisfying splat.

Often motion and pressure are the motivating factors in human lives. Motion and pressure combined allow a disgruntled employee to leave their employer. They enable a student to perform well when having to prepare a term paper before the nine o’clock deadline. Motion and pressure can force a stagnant marriage to move toward healing or to a complete breakdown.

In ancient times water poured from the skies for forty days, driving away the filth that had built up through humanity’s failings, and driving the chosen remnant to safe, dry land. Sea-water was moved and squeezed to allow an endangered people to escape their captors. A stubborn tribe had its pride cut down and its thirst satisfied when God forced water through solid rock.

In faith water’s motion and pressure is our link to God. Water sprinkled upon a child’s or adults head, running down their cheeks and hair bring them into the mysterious relationship that is God’s fatherhood. Those same baptismal waters moving and pushing us are the cleanser that purifies our souls of sin. Salt-water tears rolling down our cheeks connect us with the sorrowful Jesus crying over Lazarus, and broken-hearted over our death to sin. Jesus Himself was washed by the moving waters of the Jordan, and as he walked toward the shore was blessed and glorified by God. Jesus calls Himself the living water that will never go dry. Water and blood poured from his side as he hung on the cross in anticipation of his death.

In the daily grind some people call living, in the inspired walk that marks a real life, in the ups and downs of normal human existence, there is pressure and motion. We are squeezed by deadlines and warm hugs, moved by the hustling crowd and a child’s lisped request for a candy, compelled by society to conform and by God to simply enjoy who he made us to be. And there is water, water that makes up 70% of our bodies, the water that feeds nature, and the living water that moves us closer to God. When we drink deeply from Christ’s living water the daily grind becomes an inspired day. It keeps us from drowning in our own sorrow to help dry someone else’s tears. It satisfies our soul, washes away our imperfection and brings us closer to God. Electricity from water? That’s nothing compared to what God does with it. At least that’s the way I see it.
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October 19
In the old days, when TVs had horizontal and vertical adjustments, when 3 channels was a luxury, when a colour picture meant a child scribbling on the screen with crayon, electronics had style and substance. Those were the days of fiddly-bits like resistors, capacitors, diodes and big ol’ vacuum tubes. Back then, days before circuit boards with their order and neatness, before “chips” restructured the very soul of the electronics industry, hundreds of individual components worked together to bring you Ed Sullivan. Back then all the fiddly bits in early electronics were wired together by hand…

…and automation meant sending a child to the TV to change channels.

Like lovers holding hands or neighbours looking directly at each other over a fence, each component in those circuits knew its co-worker intimately as they were joined together without a go-between. Sometimes relationships were helped by a stand-off, a little bridge suspending the joint to take the load off delicate diodes or reluctant resistors. Even with that help, the parts were still effectively holding hands.

Modern circuitry is entirely different. Each fiddly bit is mounted on a circuit board, a flat sheet of copper bound to plastic that is efficient, but cold. Each part is on its own, even those working together. Team players are blind to each other. Only the circuit board knows what’s really going on between parts. No one holds hands anymore.

Many human relationships are like those of the lone components stranded on a circuit board. We’re losing touch with one another, not holding hands or looking each other in the eye anymore. We lift ourselves on the throne of individuality and self interest, suspend ourselves in virtual chat-room isolation, in remote cell-phone disconnectedness, in an environment that only looks to what’s being done for us, without regard to who’s doing it.

There are still signs of the old way. We still have hard wired connections with people that matter. We have families, although sometimes those families are separated by thousands of miles; we build community at church, even though sometimes one or two people can disrupt the delicate network formed there; we join up with co-workers or fellow hobbyists, although sometimes at the expense of our family and immediate neighbours.

It’s vital that we connect to friends, neighbours, strangers, God. To connect means being vulnerable, reaching out, holding on, making direct eye contact. It’s not just virtually chatting or a quick hello as the family scatters to their different activities, but dinners, playtime, sharing common interests and goal together. To connect means to talk, listen, being open to another’s needs and gifts, to see not only a server but a fellow servant. As we connect to people, we also need to connect upwardly, to God. Without this contact, our lives are hollow, no matter how humanly connected we are. God offers to connect, seeks us out through fellow humans, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, God’s most intimate and attainable connection. Reach out. Make contact. Hold on. Your friends need you. Your family expects you. God is reaching out to you. At least that’s the way I see it.
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October 12
There’s something immediately satisfying about getting a job done, especially when its one that’s been hanging over you for a long time. Parts of the pretty blue siding on the side of the house were looking pretty shabby. The paint was peeling, and the only way to deal with it was by stripping the whole mess right down to the wood. So, one weekend in September we started with a chemical stripper. That worked OK, but not well enough. Finding a suitable solution to getting the siding ready to paint was a slow, costly and lengthy process. The job was finally done, just last week. Last week the evenings were so cold we had to scrape ice off our cars in the morning. Cold and paint do not mix well. Neither does a half stripped house in a nice area. So I started getting nervous last weekend, because I didn’t want to spend the winter with a house looking like a white-trash hovel amid a respectable blue-collar neighbourhood. Thankfully it warmed up enough so that in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the house and it’s pretty blue siding was transformed to respectability.

The amazing thing was how quickly the paint went on. After painting the edges and around the windows, one pass with the roller covered most of one strip of siding. The whole job took just over an hour. What a great feeling . After weeks of the place looking awful, it was restored to wholeness in less than a day. Yes, that included proper priming. One key to the speed was paints and primers that work very well and very quickly. The other key was preparation. Preparing the surface for painting took far longer than the painting. It wasn’t so much finding the right tools as it was being meticulous. Every detail had to be right, every inch fully stripped, in order for the subsequent painting to be the quick success it was.

Preparation is vital to everything we do. Think of how long it takes to cook a meal as opposed to eating it. Writing a sermon takes about an hour of prep work for every minute of length. Then again, life, with nine months from conception to birth, no matter how long we live, takes a lifetime to complete. Then, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, we are changed, raised up , given perfect vision and understanding of what we so desperately want to know now. God works on us throughout that time. We are carefully prepared for our meeting with our maker over a lifetime of experiences, both good and bad, whether our lives are short or long. Or at least the opportunity is there. We don’t have to get ready if we really don’t want to. We can avoid God, deny God, turn God into a small ‘g’ god of our own devising, something easy and convenient and satisfying now, if not in the long run. We don’t have to get ready as long as we don’t want to.

But God is prepared for that. The minute we change our minds, we decide to let Him work on us, Jesus is there for us. In fact, Jesus did all the prep work for us. We just have to accept him into our lives, and then let him keep working on us until we’re ready. We don’t know what the final product will look like, or when we’ll see it, but if it’s like what happens when God works through us and with us in this life, but when God gets the job done, it’s going to be wonderful. At least that’s the way I see it.
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October 5

As I drove to an appointment, I started thinking about my prayers for Sunday worship. The first words that came to mind were: “indefatigable God.” The second word isn’t a bad way to start a prayer, but I don’t know where the first word came from, although I do know what it means.(tireless, if you’re wondering) I also know it’s multi-syllabic complexity (6 in all!) sounds great, although it’s not a word I’ve ever heard anyone use in a spoken sentence. Due to it’s length and relative obscurity, its probably won’t make the final edit of my prayers. Or maybe it will. Why shy away from words with weight and meaning, history, words with a certain poetry in and of themselves.

English is full of such beautiful words. Blessed with the ability to absorb from other languages, graced with being influenced by a vast variety of sources, it has a vocabulary of better than 70,000 words and counting. Sorting it’s family tree would frighten the most ardent genealogist. Knowing it’s many variations and idiosyncrasies would challenge the greatest mind. But given it’s wealth of words, writing even the briefest thought leaves daring writers feeling like a kid in a candy store. So many rhythms, so many rhymes, so many homonyms and synonyms. It’s a booty-filled cache of expressions that widens the eyes of the hungriest wordsmith. It’s also a treasure chest that is rarely opened fully because of its immensity. Perhaps because they’re a little harder to spell, maybe take a little more effort to pronounce correctly, or seem a bit too heavy, many words are their own worse enemy.

So too with matters of faith. We simplify Jesus’ life to “be nice.” We avoid the part about His return; that takes too much thinking to absorb. We reduce God to a benevolent being with a bad temper. We forget the trials and temptations humanity offers our creator. Worship is what we get out of it rather than what we put into it. We throw money at charitable organizations rather than rolling up our sleeves in Christ-like hands-on work. Hard bits like reading the Bible or organizing the church are left to experts.

Yet Jesus had a rich faith-vocabulary, from complex theological discussions with religious leaders to simple stories for simple folk. He talked both about a loving father and the high cost of not serving that Father. He prayed to and received help from that same father, but also was left on the cross to die. Those are just a few things Jesus did; think of what God did, of what the Holy Spirit does, of all the lessons and challenges within Scripture.

God’s story touches our whole life. Jesus’ story can’t be reduced to a few simple ideas. Like our rich language, it’s not always easy, but it is satisfying and filled with possibilities. Stuck in a faith-rut? At a loss for words? Delve deeply into God’s full reality. Let our indefatigable God stretch your mind and your soul. Explore and understand the full richness of words like mercy, grace, love and salvation. Being made in God’s same image, we certainly have the gifts to speak and live according to God’s own rich vocabulary, spoken through Jesus, the Word that was made living, breathing, human flesh. And as we know that living Word more fully, our lives take on a meaning beyond what any spoken language can express. At least that’s the way I see it.
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