Category Archives: Life

PWRDF From the Pulpit

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Actually, I think it will be from the lectern, but pulpit has alliteration going for it.

I’m preaching at the church of St John the Divine, Quadra this Sunday. I’m there as a part of their month of talking about the work of PWRDF so I will be sharing some of the stories of the Primate’s Fund and generally telling people why it is a good idea that they support it.

If you’re in town and have nothing to do Sunday morning, come on down for either the 8am or 10am service. I will likely be sticking around after each service as well, drinking coffee and answering questions.

Free Day

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Yesterday was a free day. It was a free day in multiple meanings of the word.

It was a glorious day of having absolutely nothing planned. Of course, because there was nothing planned, I woke up unreasonably early and couldn’t get back to sleep. So after puttering around the house for a few hours, I walked down to the movie theatre to catch the encore performance of The Enchanted Island, a Met at the Movies Live in HD performance. I have only made it to one of these so far this year (Philip Glass’ Satyagraha, which was magnificent) and it had some technical difficulties so the owner of the theatre had given us all a free pass to come again. So I did. It was nearly four hours of beauty and music to the ears and a marvelous way to spend a Saturday morning.

After walking all around town afterwards, I finally settled down at one of my favourite coffee shops where, you guessed it, I had a free coffee and worked on writing what I will be speaking next Sunday at a neighbouring church.

So free show, free coffee and a day with no plans and no agenda. What a lovely day it was.

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand…

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Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?

I am pretty sure that there are more than 525,600 minutes in a year, even when it is not a leap year. But the sentiment is the same: a lot of time passes in a year and there are always a lot of memories and stories that emerge. (I don’t actually want to know how many cups of coffee I drink in a year.)

It has me thinking to the last year that there was a leap year. 2008. I wrote about it then but I think back to it again now. Not only was that year a leap year, but I had an extra day from crossing the dateline. I will never again have a year that long unless I cross the date line on a leap year once again.

(UPDATE: So what if I can’t do math. Don’t hate me.)

Life. Death.

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When you hear a news report on the radio that a forty year old male of no fixed address died over the weekend at an unspecified health authority site, you know that you will be coming to work to discover which of your clients passed away over the weekend. However you don’t usually expect the police to be investigating. The “no fixed address” usually means that there is a reduced amount of caring. I don’t know what happened and perhaps I never will. I just hope that the end result of this is an increase in funding so that sick and addicted people do not get discharged to the street and so that the homeless and suicidal don’t get turned away from health facilities.

Flashbacks

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[Fairly self-indulgent post ahead in which I reminisce about a country of volcanoes, warm water, sandy beaches, and palm trees while conveniently forgetting the extreme heat and sudden and crazy rain squalls.]

My internet homepage has a collection of headlines from a variety of different news sources. Sometimes I click on a headline, other times I just scan them and go on to whatever I was doing. Today, one headline caught my eye: Ferry carrying more than 300 people sinks off Papua New Guinea. I had to click on it because of all the memories I have of time spent in PNG.

It turns out it was a ferry much like this one, that I saw in Madang, PNG. When this boat pulled out I remember us all watching it list heavily and worrying about its ability to stay afloat in the shape it was in with all of the people that were aboard.

Leaving from this port, Rabaul, PNG (there are all sorts of Japanese tunnels through those hills! From WWII. I know, crazy!).

Rabaul was also the place of the volcano.

That I climbed.

The end.

[That is as far as that random chain of thought takes me. Goodnight.]

50 Leaders

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I have ended up at the Sorrento Centre this weekend with a wonderfully creative and passionate group of young people. It wasn’t something I had planned on doing: my plane ticket was booked on Monday. We are here for the intake of this year’s group of 50 Leaders. It is a program that I am extraordinarily excited to be participate with and to somehow have a small part to play in the lives of some teenagers who will now be going home to impact their communities. I’ve never been to Sorrento before, though I’ve heard lovely things about it. It snowed today and I may have let out a small squeal of delight – I thought I was done with snow after our two day snowpocalypse two weeks ago. I’ve had my fill now, having gone for a bit of a tramp through the snow this afternoon.

I get to go home

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I ran into three of my past and current clients at the grocery store yesterday. The grocery store just blocks from my house.

On my way to church or to the pharmacy I pass by another church, one with a large overhanging porch. Every night there are people sitting there, all wrapped in sheets and blankets.

As I was walking home from the pharmacy this afternoon, I passed that place and reflected back to an exchange I had just before leaving work yesterday. I went to talk with someone, as they requested, minutes before I was due to leave. On realizing that our discussion was going to take longer than I had, I asked if I could defer it until the next day or if they would mind speaking with one of my co-workers. They got really upset, a “what good are you to me” kind of upset. But I have learned that if I do not set boundaries, I could very easily be there all day and all night working with people.

It hits me every day: I get to go home. I go to work, spend eight hours working with people to find housing, deal with past (and current) trauma, or overcome addictions, and then I get to go home to my warm home, cook a meal I want to eat, and then curl up in my bed. I get to go home.

Do What is Good

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Unashamedly re-posting this from The Weary Pilgrim because I love it. Thank you for the impacting words.

They said, who to love,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, obey the Sabbath,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, forgive this many times,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, you can’t hang out with those people,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, you can’t touch those people.

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, you have to worship here, like this,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, which law,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, faith is this,

Jesus said, do what is good.


They said, you get eternal life this way,

Jesus, said, do what is good.