Blessings?

Have you been blessed this year?

I have begun to wonder, recently, if I know the meaning of the word ‘blessed.’ I use it so loosely. Finances are healthy – I am blessed. I am expecting grandchildren – I am blessed. When things are going well in my life, I feel the Lord’s blessing. Or at least I think I do. Maybe I have it all backwards!

In rereading Matthew 5, there is no verse that conveys you are blessed when things are going well. In fact, quite the contrary. Who is blessed? Those that mourn. The meek (down-trodden?). The poor in spirit.

If I am being persecuted and insulted for Christ’s sake, then I am blessed. Wow!

If you were to ask a group of Christians if they would like to experience the Lord’s blessing, you would probably get a strong affirmative reaction. Some might see more than dollar signs – some might even think beyond a good feeling.

Now gauge the reaction of these same folks if you were to first point to the homeless man who is there because he lost everything. “He is blessed,” you say, “Would you like the Lord’s blessing as well?”

We don’t have to lose everything to be blessed. We can be merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers – they are all listed as blessed as well. But I think that it is through loss that we learn best and come closest to the One who gave everything for us. Maybe it has nothing to do with ‘things’ at all…

29-Day Giving Challenge

The concept of a 29 day giving challenge caught my attention very quickly.

I have been concerned about how self-absorbed I am becoming. I could blame it on perimenopause or whatever, but the truth is, I was finding less time for others and was focusing far too much on me.

When I read the story of the founder of 29gifts.org - and how this was born of her pain and how it healed her, I was hooked.

I thought I'd wait a bit though, until life settled down and there was more order in my life. But as I read through the site, I was challenged. And realized there's no time like the present. (Pun intended.)

The idea is to give a gift every day for 29 days. Sounds quite easy. The best part is that it forces me to look outside myself. To look for opportunities. Gifts can be as simple as throwing a bit of extra money into the charity jar at the coffee shop. Or giving a gift card to someone who asks for money. Or even brightening someone's day by buying that chocolate bar from them when they knock on your door. There are lots of ideas on the site because everyone there is in this journey together.

At work we are doing a "1000 Acts of Peace" challenge, which is to do 3 acts of peace per day and write them down. It's a great idea, but I haven't been writing things down. It occurred to me that every gift is an act of peace, so by signing up for this, I can do both at once.

I have reached out to more friends in the last 3 days than in the last 3 months (maybe a slight exaggeration, but only slight), so it is working. And it has been very fulfilling. You can't give without receiving something. So I feel enriched and blessed today.

2010 Blessings

Yes, I am counting my next year's blessings already.

It has been an exciting year for a grandma wannabe. Kirsten & Matthew came home in the beginning of June and the day before Kirsten's 30th birthday, they handed us our combined Mother's Day and Father's Day gift - asking us to open it together. Inside the giftbag was a children's book, "The Ultimate Guide to Grandmas & Grandpas."

We weren't expecting this announcement from them, so it took a minute to register the reason for this strange gift.

Rachel, who has wanted children much longer than Kirsten, became Kirsten's best buddy - getting and giving her information on everything from cloth diapers to what all the wierd new baby gadgets are and their purpose.

It has been a fun half-year - seeing Kirsten grow (at six months, she is shaped just like I was) and, thankfully, not have to deal with too severe morning sickness symptoms.

Seeing one's child preparing for their own child is incredible.

Then the other news came. Paul & Rachel couldn't fly home for their announcement, so it came via phone. I knew the call was something serious - I was asked to make it while alone. With Rachel's seeming inability to get pregnant, and a looming gynacologist appointment, I wasn't sure what to expect. But the words, "I'm pregnant" were definitely NOT what I expected!!

Wow! Given the circumstances, we're calling this one a miracle.

We don't have a date yet, and probably never will get a very accurate one. But since 9 months is the standard gestation period, sometime in the next 9 months we will meet our second grandchild!

This calls for a celebration shopping trip for my girls and I... My flight is booked.

House for Sale

I grew up in the country. Our moves from age 15 on have been to and within small towns. Shortly after our marriage, I lived in the city for the first time. Couldn't handle apartment living in North Vancouver, even though it was a brand new, very nice apartment. A house in Burnaby seemed a wee bit better until I got pregnant. Then it was back to small-town Squamish and my folks.

When we decided to move to Calgary, I suggested that I might last 2 years in the city and then we'd have to find a small town near Calgary. That didn't happen. Calgary was a small friendly city and we didn't mind it. Having friends we could visit in the country helped give us that break from the city when we needed it.

Calgary is no longer the small city we first got to know. Mandy, from Bangkok recently reminded me that Calgary still is a small city, and last year, Gina, from Bogota laughed when I complained about the big city of Calgary. But I haven't been to Bangkok or Bogota, and although I'd love to visit both places, I don't want to live there either. I am ready to move to a smaller community again. I dream of a garden. I'm not sure I'll know how to take care of one anymore. I dream of being able to 'live' outside in the summer. Here our yard is so small that we certainly couldn't entertain out there.

While an acerage is out of our reach financially, moving outside of Calgary could be a wise financial decision. We should at least be able to get as much room inside plus a garage plus an actual yard for the same price in Airdrie or Langdon. And so we've been on a journey.

First we looked at house prices in places like those mentioned, and that seemed positive. Then we spoke to a realtor who was selling a house in Langdon. I was impressed with the photos and the virtual tour, and when I called to ask to see the house, I was impressed with her enthusiasm. We never saw that house. It sold too quickly. But we got the realtor. She did show us a few places in Langdon. And she listed ours.

Karen, the realtor, let us know that she liked to stage a house - it would sell faster. She would bring in a stager and photographer at no cost to us. Emma came - first to let me know what we should pack away and what was best moved elsewhere, etc. So we packed. And we packed. For a whole weekend, we packed. Einar somehow found room for everything in my cold room and his workshop corner.

Emma returned, and while we were at church on Sunday morning, she transformed our house. My pink and purple accents (for a blue and yellow house) disappeared and rusts and greens took their place. She brought in blankets and pillows for the couches, baskets and boxes for shelves, pictures for the wall, cushions for the beds, fake plants and candles as accents. The result is quite impressive.

I offered to do the photos myself and borrowed a wide-angle lens from my friend. That was Sunday. On Tuesday the listing became live. On Wednesday the sign went up as did the lockbox. And Karen showed our house to her partner in this area. On Thursday we looked at homes in Airdrie.

Today - Friday - the actual photographer will come to shoot the virtual tour of the house.

I'm very optomistic that the house will sell fairly quickly. It will be interesting to watch the rest of the progress. We have managed to keep the house showhome ready for a week. I like the uncluttered feeling, though sometimes it is a bit inconvenient to have to put things that I use daily, under the counter.

I know that Einar is hoping for one thing - that my restlessness will disappear for a long time after we move. Actually I hope so too - and am keeping that in mind when looking. I do want a house that I'd be happy retiring in... Have I ever said that before???

Volunteers

"Volunteer Petunias" is what she called this mass of purple, pink and white flowers. My friend's mother says she can't grow them in her garden, but here, in the rocky soil of the driveway, these petunias thrive.

I've never heard the 'volunteer' term in reference to flowers before, but it fits. They have come up on their own, exactly where they want to be. Not in the garden, where life should be much easier, but here in the gravel of the driveway. They add an unusual beauty in an unexpected place.

I was so intrigued by this that I quickly shot a few pictures in the fading light of the evening. Surely there is a life lesson here.

I work with volunteers a lot and am incredibly grateful for them - most of the time. Every once in a while a volunteer shows up with a mind of their own. They want to do things their own way, which isn't always convenient. Their ideas may not mesh with the rest of the garden plans. They may even cause inconvenience, and make it difficult to use the driveway as a driveway is meant to be used.

Do I see the beauty of the volunteer even in this situation? Would I allow a garden of volunteers to thrive even if it inconvenienced me to this extent? Would I insist on gently pulling each of these petunias and moving it back to the garden where it 'belongs'? And if I chose to do that, so that the driveway could also serve its purpose, would that be wrong?

As you can see, I'm not even sure what the lesson is in all of this. But that mass of flowers growing where they didn't belong was a bright spot in my day. As were all the other more conforming flowers in that garden!!

Weather

Living in Calgary means every other blog could be about weather. The only consistent thing about Calgary's weather is that it is inconsistent.

It is news when Vancouver has +30 degrees (Celsius) heat for more than 2 days in a row. It is news when Toronto or Winnipeg have a cold wet summer. Calgary's weather is never news - or always news, depending how you look at it.

Today we have a rare 30 degree summer day. Beautiful! (Too hot, says my husband.) But we are so unused to this that an hour of biking wiped us out. We'll take a picnic to the river for dinner tonight.

July was our first month this year without snow. I haven't bothered to pack the winter clothing too far away.

But on one of our rare really summery days, I'm counting my blessings. The smell of the clover beside the pathways. The sight of petunia's in full bloom. Friendly northeast neighborhoods with a variety of ethnicity's. A handful of raspberries and strawberries each day from my tiny garden plot. Picnics by the river. And a wonderful husband with whom to share the blessings.

Tribute to my Mother

"Your Mom is a saint," I was told as an early adult. My Mom was not a saint, but she was a wonderful mom. There are so many ways I would like to be more like her.

Gossip was not my mother's forte. If she talked about people, it was to pray for them, or to bring attention to a need. Or to praise them. She strived to be positive, and in my memory, she usually was.

Mom was affectionate, and to go home was to be wrapped in one of her hugs. Her knee was the most comfortable place for the grandchildren. She could rock any baby to sleep. Mom always had that touch.

Mom loved nature. When we lived on the farm, she could name every bird that came around. In spring, I recall wanting to be the first to bring her a leaf from the black poplar, or pussy willows, or chokecherry blossoms. She was always excited about the 'firsts' of spring.

With 13 children, Mom was busy. She froze and canned enough in fall so we wouldn't have to buy food in the winter. We still crave Mom's pickles, but a more recent craving has me surprised. Ketchup. Mom made the best homemade ketchup. I'm sure that as a child I never imagined I'd say that. We wished so badly that we could be like other people and buy ketchup.

I remember mixed feelings about my clothes. Really, we were the best-dressed kids around. Mom was a genius with the sewing machine. I truly don't know anyone more talented than she was. We could describe a dress to her, and she could make it. And make it to fit perfectly. She was extremely fussy about her work, and you could not find a mistake in her sewing. I recall some of the clothing - when hipster pants came in style (I was in grade 7 or 8), Mom sewed them for me. One pair I remember was really in style with 2 colors - the front of one leg matched the back of the other leg. She would try almost anything, as long as it was modest and not beyond what they could afford. There were times when I wished I could wear bought clothing, and I was excited to buy my first pair of jeans when I was 15. But we did know that no one else had as warm winter jackets as we did, and no one else's clothes were as well made.

After my girls were born, I sent Mom fabric and a pattern to make us matching dresses. We lived in different provinces and didn't have much money to travel, so I never had a chance for a fitting, but when Mom sent it back finished, she included a note to tell me how she had altered the dress from the pattern to make sure it fit. It did. Perfectly.

Mom had a great sense of humor, and it wasn't always obvious. I recall the first time we wanted to play scrabble with her. She was sure she couldn't learn it. To prove her point, she made her first word upside-down. Deliberate? I'm quite sure it was. She went on to play daily with Dad after he retired, and it was hard to beat her. Her rules, though, were always on the compassionate side rather than competative. If you had 3 vowels, you could put one back and exchange it. If someone needed help, we all helped find the best word. If you could set someone up, you did that. We still like to play "Mom's rules."

In Mom's last years, she was developing Alzheimers or something similar. For a while she got somewhat bossy and hard to get along with. She would argue a point with Dad until he graciously gave in - even when he knew she was wrong. She realized this was happening, though, and prayed that God would help her to be nice. Mom's prayers were generally answered, as was this one. She didn't regain memory, but learned to be more gracious and kind.

Her memory losses included her telling our daughter, when she brought out the Scrabble game, that she had never played this game before, so they would have to explain it to her. She knew she was forgetting people, so at our last family gathering together, she was determined that she wouldn't offend anyone. The staff at the retreat center probably thought she was the most loving person they had met. She greeted them all very warmly, because she wasn't always sure who was family and who wasn't.

The last time I saw Mom alive, she gave me a hug as we were leaving, and told me she was so glad she was my aunt. Earlier in the afternoon she had prayed for my daughters by name.

When my sister called on October 2, to tell me that Mom was gone, I still remember the shock. She wasn't ill, so we really weren't expecting this. It wasn't all sadness... at almost 90, Mom had lived a good life, and was very ready to go home. She died in her favorite chair, without any pain or prolonged illness.

I miss her hugs. I miss her wisdom. Every once in a while I remember that we haven't talked in ages and I should phone... then I remember that I can't. But I will see her again one day, and for now, that is enough. And maybe I can be a bit more like her and thus help keep her memory alive in the minds of those who knew and loved her.

Petty & Shallow

Petty & Shallow - that's me...

Yesterday my friend and I went to the coffee shop. I ordered a bagel, she ordered her coffee, then I ordered mine. We talked as they took the payment off my card, so I wasn't really paying attention to the total. We got the bagel and my coffee. Seems they only had one coffee on the order, and so they made me pay for another coffee before we could get what we had ordered. How annoying! It was their mistake, but I was made to pay for it.

I am both surprised and troubled at how quickly I feel slighted or wronged. Especially if I try to put this incident in the larger context.

This week an acquaintance went to the funeral of her mother, two nephews and a niece. Then she and her family had to make the decision on whether or not to leave their father and brother on life support. They are now planning the next funeral.

Also this week, we had the privilege of having lunch with Shay (sorry if I butchered that spelling) and Bijay. They have both come to Canada in the last 3 months - Shay from Nigeria and Bijay from Nepal. These two 20 year-olds know about injustice. Bijay was a child soldier at age seven, and for the next three years he entertained with his dancing and then was taught to use a gun and to kill. They lived in the forest and it was each man (boy) for himself - he had to forage for his own food.

I work for a Relief and Peace organization... Bijay's story is not unusual in this line of work.

And I'm fretting about the service at my local coffee shop...