Stillness

 

For me, this is true. 

Daily Prayers for the First of January And I was able to record it outside!!

 

What a Weird Wonderful Winter We've had so far!!

The Daily Prayers run here:  thefieldpastor.com

Another One Done

Christmas has come and gone. New Years has come and gone. And family has come and gone. Nothing left to do but rest and recuperate.

Well, and clean up the decorations, pay some bills, start planning next Sundays service, and record daily prayers. Normal life stuff.

To say we are tired would be a bit of an understatement. To be fair, there are plenty of flu’s going around and sickness so there is more going on than just life tiredness.

Since Sunday afternoon we’ve been kind of snoozing and sleeping, morning, noon, and night. Interspersed by occasional washroom breaks and eating simple food.

But it was a great Christmas. Lots of family around and lots of the community came to the services. Many of whom I met for the first time. It was the kind of time where there is much hope for the future of the church. Makes me smile. God is at work.


The trick I am continuing to try to learn in this season, is what is health related tiredness and what is age related. It’s not easy knowing that stuff. Feels like learning new limits each week, each season.

I am realizing how stubborn I am when it comes to listening to others about slowing down a bit. Doesn’t bode well for whenever it’ll be time to think about moving out of our own place.

I may just be one of those curmudgeonly old guys who doesn’t realize when the game is up. May God have mercy on us, and our children

Update

I know it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog. You might be wondering what I've been up to, or maybe you don't care at all. Either way, I feel like I owe you an explanation for my silence. I don't feel like I want to be done here and there are still things to say.

The struggle with depression really has diminished a good deal for me and I am grateful for that. I feel more myself and there is a lightness for me and I am starting to feel like my old old self. Yay.

The summer was good for me. I've been going through a deeper spiritual shifting as I have been looking at turning 60. So, much of the summer was spent in conversations with God. And they were conversations more than just monologues. There was hope there and faith as the Spirit and I conversed.  So things are shifting. Inside of me and in our lives as well. They are shifting at God's direction, so we will see how autumn unfolds. I am excited.

Hillary and her three guys are coming for Christmas, which is exciting too. I am already looking froward to that. Those twins are growing up so quickly. 

Oh and I am doing the Daily Prayers again and enjoying that too. It energizes me to spend some time in study and then in prayer with people who are out there. The numbers are humble, anywhere from 5 to 20s viewers a day. But that activity is good for me too. It was one of the things God and I talked about this summer, and so I have a strong sense that its his thing and the numbers are his worry. So I am learning things still about service. You can see it at thefieldpastor.com.

Maybe as the snow tries to fall and settle on these cold fields, here's a good poem to end with.

Winter Fields

I love old winter fields-they seem to hold

A sort of kinship to the wind and cold—

The frozen furrows clogged with sodden leaves,

The stubble with a few thin scattered sheaves,

A plow up-tilted . . with a broken share

(They just unhitched and left it sitting there).

A few old twisted trees that sort of lean

Down the steep edges of a small ravine,

A few thin cattle waiting to be fed,

Humped in the shelter of a broken shed;

A rim of frost along the water's edge,

Old nests revealed behind a tangled hedge.

There is a strange affinity between

Our homesick souls and fields of budding green;

Something within us answers to the sound

Of new life bursting through the quiet ground.

And yet a frozen field where Winter dwells

Sings in my heart like muted temple-bells.

Night.

   

Just nothing.

. 

March

The world seems to be opening up around here, at least in this province it is. I know that some are very nervous about that, and some are very very nervous about being in public again or around people in general. They have been so long away from others that it has messed with their willingness to be around people.  But my point is that the world is opening up again. And we have our first Covid related funeral this week as well.

Where was I going with this??

Right, the beginning of March. Wasn't it March 15th here that every thing shut down? I think it was. So it's nearly two years to the day that it moves along. That will help the conspiracy theorists. :) 

I just uploaded the latest "Daily Prayer" video.  It's become an appreciated regular morning time in the book for me. Probably even if no body watched it, it would still have value for me. It is a good discipline for me and just being in the Bible in some way, pours life into me. And believe me, right now I need that life. Tomorrow's Daily is from Psalm 119 Ever Ponder The Direction Of Your Life? A perfect question I have been asking myself. The timing is good for me.

March is here. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and then we are on the move through Lent, into Holy Week and Easter. May that Sun melt away the snow and cold, outside and in.

Living with difficult people

This is another part in our exploration of living life in community.

It's usually easy to live with people who are nice and quiet and helpful and loving and who don't eat loud or have smelly feet. Unfortunately that just describes two dimensional paper dolls.

Life and community can't be lived with just paper friends who don't ever offend or hurt you. If you are going to connect at deeper levels, you're going to have to learn what to do when sometimes they are difficult to live with.

Here we explore what it means to get the greater blessing, even when living with, pardon my french, "Stupid People" or people who are just going through a "stupid" phase.


Take a listen.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/Living%20with%20difficult%20people%2064.mp3

Tea with Fiona

Fiona, originally uploaded by RandallFriesen.

Today as Lauralea and I were in the London Ontario area, we decided to follow through on an invitation we had received, to visit a reader of this space, and a friend of a friend. Our connections were created as a result of Internet connections.

Since we had a few hours and unlimited kms to put on the rental Altima, we headed out. Our confirmation phone call found her gracious and as inviting as ever.

Fiona has lived in the same house, or shall I say cottage, and community for over fifty years and has established a community of caring friends in the area. I mention her home because it was so inviting and restful. It was peaceful in a way that was active and grace giving, rather than the kind of peaceful that is simply a lack of activity. That's what my soul needed today, these days I suppose.

And her story was so hope filled. It was such good medicine for my spirit.

We drank tea together in her conservatory as she told us a bit of when she was younger and she would work on the Island of Iona, when Rev. George MacLeod himself used to be there. Wow.

Too soon we had to leave, but we've taken some of her with us. She's one of those people you hope to end up like as you age. Because life can be tough enough and it's not always an easy thing, but you make choices. Choices to move towards the cross, or choices that move you away from it.

She, as far as I could tell by the graciousness of her presence, is still moving towards the cross.

It was a very worthwhile detour.

Thanks Fiona.

A strongly encouraged, gentle reminder to listen and communicate

We have all of us, or most of us, a quiet current if intimate thought, which flows on, gently and resistlessly, in the background of our lives, the volume and spring of which we cannot alter or diminish, because it rises far away at some unseen source, like a stream which flows through grassy pastures, and is fed by rain which falls on unknown hills from the clouds of heaven. This inner thought is hardly affected by the busy incidents of life - our work, our engagements, our public intercourse; but because it represents the self which we are always alone with, it makes up the greater part of our life, and is much more our real and true life than the life which we lead in public. It contains the things which we feel and hope, rather than what we say; and the fact that we do not speak our inner thoughts is what more than anything else keeps us apart from each other.

Preface from Joyous Guard by Arthur C. Benson, 1913

A gentle reminder that our inner lives are of such importance and power, far greater even than our physical lives. Yet we take such little notice of them and make no great effort to review or shape them or get help when we seem to be inwardly ill or moving in circles that drag us downward. Having a friend to share our inner intimate struggles and dreams with can be as healthy and helpful as having a counsellor or Spiritual Director to assist us. Yet many do not even have this great gift of a confidant.

When we don't have people who can listen to us and who's opinion we trust, we become less than. If we continue down this path we can become hard and our spirits shrink. We lose our way, becoming confused and unclear, withdrawing from the world more and more.

Many of us prefer the perceived safety of being our own best friends and trusting no one outside ourselves. This is so dangerous. While our friends try to get our attention and our spouses try to communicate past our walls of protection or our children call for aid, we are obliviously propping up our inner lives we've created to please ourselves. It is the great lie that we are enough in ourselves. We are not enough, and we need others to speak into our lives as much as we need a touch, a hug, an embrace.

If you are not giving attention to your inner life in ways that share with others, a friend, a spouse, even a counsellor or Spiritual Director, then you are living on borrowed time.

Someone nearby may be trying to get your attention.

A surprise break

Afternoon travel suspended because of storm, all done vacuuming the house, ready for church tomorrow IF we have a service, sitting down to watch the NFL Playoffs and I'm consuming a gift I got for Christmas, Granville Island Brewing Lions Winter Ale.

Things are starting to look up.

An Ounce of Christmas Courage

I overheard someone talking the other day about their lives leading up to Christmas. How they felt there were so many things to attend to that their days and evenings were already filled up for the next week or so. They didn't feel they had room to decline any invitations because people might take offense and this is just not the time of year to cause anyone offense.

There are many things to do and many things to be done these days, especially in regard to Christmas. It seems to be the particular time of year that ensnares people into unwanted commitments and a series of expectations that just make you crazy.

It's a time of year that demonstrates more than any other time, that your family is near or far, and how many friends you have, or even how you deal with manipulative guilt. Yes, how you deal with guilt.

Some feel totally directed by it and give in to it and obey its demands in their lives. While others reject it and fight it, being pushed past their limits and react violently against those they may care about.

Is there some middle ground where we can, unmotivated by false guilt, make clear wise decisions about the season and our calendars, and lovingly communicate those decisions to those closest to us, and just live in the freedom of that grace? Can we decide which functions we will be in attendance at and which celebrations we will enter into and feel nothing but deep abiding peace when we spend an evening at home instead, playing games with the kids on the floor or climbing into a hot bath with a good book for an hour?

Some would pull out the heavy guilt guns and call this selfishness but I'm not sure it is. If you care about the others wouldn't you be better off to spend an evening at home, taking it easy, so you are in better shape for the party tomorrow night? As opposed to being out every night, wearing out what precious little energy you have left?

Lauralea and I have been in the process of planning our yearly Christmas open house, but we feel the pressures on families and the expectations and demands they face each day. Would it be better to not host an event and offer them the exquisite pleasure of a night off? Isn't that an amazing Christmas Gift, the gift of time? Yet I know that guilt being the insidious creature it is, pressure would be brought to bear on them to use that free night in a different way.

Sigh.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Live in the law of love and lay down your life for your husband or wife, your children, your parents, your friends, your God. Only, don't live your life by the raw demands of guilt, live by the constraints of love.

That's my Christmas wish for you this year my children. Live well, and love well.
And that's a whole different kind of living than living life by the heaviness of guilt.

The Monday begins

The Monday of a very busy week. The Monday of a week that has my next free evening looking like it's coming next Monday, sort of thing. It makes it feel like a "Batten down the hatches" sort of time with the days full and the nights, fuller.

So today, Monday, I'm trying to prepare for the fullness of the week, probably more internally than anything else. Trying to sort out any miscommunication between L and I from the previous week, and heading off any that are being set up for this week. Clearing the sidewalks of the built up snow. And maybe watching the Doris Day film on TCM this afternoon.

Christmas music is playing from the Sirius satellite radio and the snowplow just flew past on the highway clearing the roads. The Saskatchewan Rough Riders are in the Grey Cup next weekend and it's cold out there, so you know Christmas is coming.

Christmas…

Advent starts this coming Sunday so we'll be shifting gears at church a bit. The music begins to change, and we'll be having hot Christmas drinks available for a donation to the local food bank. The decorations and banners go up this week and the kids will have a unique part in the service, which they always love. And so do I.

But first, this week needs to be lived out.


And what then can we say besides, Go Riders Go!

Amazing what 24 hours can do

And it's here now for the duration.

Losing my evenings

Tonight I am exhausted.

I've been trying to be present at the Wednesday evening preteen and Youth activities to try and provide some continuity and connection for the twenty or so youth and the 14 or so pre-teens who come out.

Today that was after a long day that included a lunch hour of cleaning the outside of the house windows which I've been trying to get done before the weather turns. Today it was a beautiful day for it.

Last night was our board meeting, tonight youth, and tomorrow the ladies are to be at a chocolate night. So the week has filled up the evenings nicely.

And so I'm tired.

Probably still a touch of the travel jetlagitus too, but it's not nearly as bad as it was going that direction.

So we're back and the needs here are great. I suppose the stress for me and for those I've been counselling these past few days is that often the people with the deep needs don't even get that they have deep needs that need attention. Instead they just go blindly on and with each turn and twist of life they unknowingly break something, or someone. Amazingly amazingly unaware and unknowing of the hurt they have caused, or at least I hope they are unaware. Otherwise they are being deliberate with the pain they cause, and that's a whole different kind of blindness.

So there is much work to be done here, but it can only be done at a pace people are willing to be challenged with. It's often a hurry up and wait thing, and while we wait, we bind up the hurting and the broken. And we chase church mice around the office, and we feed teens supper and we wash windows.

And tonight we sleep.

First Tuesday in November

The field is still mostly dark at 7:58 am on this first Tuesday morning in November, and the day promises to be long what with guys prayer meeting already behind me, then I'm doing a service at the city hospital, and ending up the day with a General Board meeting.

It's still a good morning and I suspect I'm still in the afterglow of our holiday in England. Was it only two weeks ago that we were riding a ferry across Lake Windermere and had lunch in a 600 year old establishment? We walked up to Hilltop to see where Beatrix Potter ruled her world and cut short development of the area buy purchasing up old farms and keeping them working. We drove through the hills and dales of the lake district and discovered Lakeland Stores with their upscale quirky offerings. Then I believe it was supper at Pizza Express in Kendal.

Yes we worked hard to cement some memories into the permanent memory spaces we have in our hearts.

But today, what about today here in the field.

I should go get ready for the service this morning here at the hospital. It's my first time here and I'm not sure what's expected of me.

And you, on this cool November morning, you have a good day too alright?

Alright.

It's Sunday, but Monday's coming

It's early for these parts, and I'm at the office early trying to get ready for the day. I think most of the things I need to have a part in are ready, but I feel heavy, so I'm here.

I feel heavy, carrying some things in my spirit that have added up this week. Things that are just rather large things people are going through, or I know they will be going through. Life isn't easy, you know that my children, but people continue to face them even after thousands of years of human development. If evolution is all the rage for explaining the world I don't know why we don't evolve out of those difficult parts of life as humans, but we don't seem to. So here I am at the office early on a Sunday morning, praying for these people and their stories.

The past two days have been warm and dry again so the harvest has begun. It's really very late this year and I know the farmers have been getting a bit stir crazy waiting. But the combines are out there in force now. Lauralea and I saw many of them out there late last night as we returned to the field. I know many will have been going through the night, it was so warm out. But today rain is forecast and we surely don't need it, so I'm here praying about that need too.

And for whatever reason this morning my head is stuffed up and the front of my face feels ten pounds heavier than usual. I guess I feel really tired and the days have been catching up with me. We've had another full weekend, and so it goes. Today is a full morning with my Jr. High class, and then the service, and then we are having a potluck lunch to celebrate an upcoming wedding, and then I need to drive out to camp to get Micah who's been at a youth retreat this weekend. I'll get to my afternoon nap probably by bedtime.


And so it goes.

People are starting to arrive so I should be done here and get at it.

So blessings on your day, and why not offer up a prayer for your pastor this day wherever you live and worship.

I had forgotten

I had forgotten how quiet it can be out here in the field when you are alone here. I'm almost never out here by myself so today with Lauralea out in Ontario and Micah at school, the silence is everywhere.

Well, except for that moment while while I was on the toilet and in the greater distance heard a radio station playing top forty country tunes, and then some metal clanging and banging. When I walked out to get the mail I saw that the highways lawnmower tractor had broken down in the gravel right in front of the church.

But yes as I was pondering, the solitude.

For me it's not an oppressive thing. In fact it seems to have an opposite effect, opening up before me, creating energizing space for me to enter into and just be myself. I don't have to contort myself to be something I'm not, or try to fit other peoples expectations of me. I simply can be me. That energizes me and heals me in ways that just being quiet in a loud room, can't.

It's good for me right now. Getting the Autumn program with it's small groups and Sunday School and Youth Programs and sermons and on and on, getting it all up and running has taken lots of good energy this year.  Small free moments are stolen for quick calls and emails and connections, so the allotted time given each one of us is quickly filled up.

Days like this give me a chance to exhale again, and inhale space and energy and hope and, well, life I suppose.

So I'm here in my office getting it done. Emails, calls, the report for the Deacon meeting tonight. Then service plans for the weekend and Sunday. Then getting my class prepped for and looking at that sermon series again.

But on days like today it all doesn't feel so overwhelming. I can do this.

I also need to take some more time praying for this place. The harvest is being delayed as the cold, wet weather lingers on. The pressures on the farmers starts to show as they putter around running out of putter-y things to do. And they wait and wait and wait to work.

One year it's drought, the next it's rain, then cold, then infestations and disease. For all the cherries to line up in a row seems such a rare occurrence. They are a relatively humble bunch for they can do only what they can do, and the rest is out of their hands.

And I can do only what I can do, so I pray. The rest is out of my hands.

Why Walmart should pay me commission

It happened again today. I ran into Walmart for clock batteries and ink for the printer, (Which by the way they don't even stock Kodak ink any more, grumble grumble) and in the electronics section a lady stepped into my path, faced me, and with her finger up and in my face, asked me "Do you work here???"

To which I gladly replied "No" and I rushed past her.

I get this all the time, this thinking I work in retail. Do I look like a retail guy?

Anyway, I was two rows over looking for ink and a tall elderly man asked for my opinion on two different flat screen TVs. One of them was a Sony Bravia and the other was a no name variety.  He asked in a way that made me quite willing to offer my opinion on the matter. I told him of our purchase of a TV a year ago and my experience of discerning the different qualities and then I settled on the Sony set. Of the two, the Sony was miles ahead. Then we talked about the changes in Television design he had known over the years and we had a right nice chat.

I told him that I don't work at Walmart but that had been my experience with televisions. He was surprised to hear that I wasn't employed by them, or by Sony for that matter, and based on my experience he would choose the Sony.

The last I saw of him he was walking towards the cashiers with a 22 inch Sony under his arm.

Again, aside from the blue shirt I had on today I don't get why my face says RETAIL, but it does.

But my real lesson today was that as a shopper, by the way I phrase my questions and my approach, I can actually help someone be willing to assist me in my search.

And that's a very cool lesson to remember.


But Walmart still owes me commission.






 

Rings and things

Yes, the days are getting shorter but I didn't think that meant that I would have less time for the work, but perhaps that is a field effect as well.

To be fair, all the activity of all the boards I'm on is now ramping up into autumn, and there is much work to be done. I'm glad the people here are used to a bit of hard work, because this is a busy patch.

The morning was spent in an organizing and planning committee meeting for our youth program which is a new patch since our youth and family pastor has retired. Then I was able to get in to see a family in town in the afternoon, who are going through a bit of a tough patch.

I also had to get into the city to pick up Lauralea's resized ring that we had to shrink a bit, so I took her along and while she and the college girl picked up school supplies, I headed to the hardware warehouse to get new internals for our Moen kitchen sink faucet. Then a leisurely mad rush home with a regretted stop at the golden arches for supper, and home again by 8:30. The rest of the evening has been spent learning how to replace and fix the broken faucet, and I, (Mr. Plumbing and Electrical for a few years at Canadian Tire-Aylmer Ontario.) owned the thing. Completely dominated it after putting it together and taking it apart three more times.

So, I am tired beyond tired.

Tomorrow is prep for Sunday, and Friday is our church Vacation Bible School and Fair for the church and community. Think Bible and crafts early in the day and a bouncy castle and cotton candy and games and then a bbq supper for the whole family later in the day. Yeah, we too will be glad when that baby is behind us.

I see that our cuckoo clock has run down and stopped, like it too is tired. I best go reset it and head to bed. I'm going to need my sleep in the days ahead.


Night.

Say it isn't so

Feels like Autumn out there today.

Maybe it's the harsh wind blowing through the field, or the porridge Lauralea made for brunch. Maybe it's the end of August coming too fast, or maybe it's because we are off to get our daughter Hillary as she fills the space between summer jobs and school at home. Maybe it's the workload increasing and life picking up it's pace, but it definitely feels like fall is in the air.

I have to go now, time to fight the wind and get to the city.