Reformation Day - October 31

Tomorrow, October 31, children and adults across North America and Europe will celebrate Halloween. A walk around both my neighbourhood and my workplace reveals that many have spent time and money to decorate their houses, yards, and office doors and windows. There are bats, ghosts, goblins, ghouls, coffins, gravestones, black cats, hideous faces carved in pumpkins, witches on broomsticks, cobwebs, mummies, and much more--and that's not even counting any of the costumes that will be walking about tomorrow.

They will celebrate Halloween. As for me, I choose to celebrate Reformation Day. This is the commemoration of the day on which Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, Germany. That was October 31, 1517. That act, 491 years ago, instigated the movement known as the Reformation.

Make no mistake. The Reformation was no small or insignificant event. It influenced politics, economics, society, literature, the arts, and even the development of the English language. And it reformed the religious system of the day.

At the core, it was religious movement that celebrated the rediscovery of the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

That good news has not changed; it is as true today as it was when Luther posted his document on the church door. He originally wrote in Latin, but his theses were quickly translated into German and printed and distributed throughout Europe. You can read the 95 Theses at the following web site: www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/95theses.htm

Ninety-five of anything sounds like a lot, and "theses" sounds awfully academic, but actually, what Luther wrote were 95 simple statements (that's what's meant by "theses.")

Scholars debate whether Luther actually nailed his document to the church door or not. For sure, we know that on Oct. 31, 1517, he wrote a letter to his superiors protesting the sale of indulgences. With his letter, he included 95 propositions or statements protesting against various corrupt practices of the church. He was the first Protestant.

Regardless of whether or not Luther ever had a hammer and nail on that day, the Castle Church door has become famous as a symbol of his act. The original door burned down, but in the 18th century, bronze doors were fashioned with the 95 Theses permanently engraved on the panels of the doors.

As for Luther, he left the priesthood, was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church by the Pope, became an enemy of the state, translated the Bible into German, wrote hymns, got married to a (former) nun, and fathered six children.

On this day, may Christians everywhere remember their heritage and the great cloud of witnesses who surround us.

Lost . . . and Found

I've been looking for something. Something that didn't belong to me. I had borrowed it, and then, when it came time to return it, I couldn't find it. I was sure I hadn't LOST lost it but had just misplaced it. But where? It wasn't too small, about the size of a video box. Actually, it was a video box--two to be exact. And they had been borrowed from the library. This week I was informed that the library was going to bill me about $75 for the "lost" videos, but I was assured that should they ever surface, I would receive a cheque for the aforementioned amount.

The prospect of paying $75 for something that wasn't LOST lost was not too appealing. So tonight, I took the inevitable step. I went through my office paper by paper, book by book, binder by binder. I sorted. I reorganized. I discarded.

The shelves grew neater as the recycling bin grew fuller. Some time around 10:30 p.m., I think I had forgotten that I was actually looking for something specific and I just starting revelling in the sparseness and bareness of the shelves. Yes, I could live like this!

By eleven o'clock, the elusive videos still hadn't surfaced. It's not as if I hadn't looked for them before. Not this thoroughly, of course, but I had made less diligent search more than once, both at home and at the office. I had picked up papers, shuffled them about, flipped books back and forth on the shelf, and opened all the filing cabinet drawers.

Maybe it was where I was standing this time that was the key to my success. (Yes, I did find what I was looking for!!) I opened the top filing cabinet drawer, but instead of standing directly in front of the cabinet as I usually do, I stood at the side, and standing there, I could see around behind the files at the front of the drawer to the relatively empty space behind the files. And voilà! There were the missing videos! It was all a matter of perspective!

So tomorrow, happily, I will return the videos to their proper home in the library, and hopefully, all will be forgiven.

I felt the elation of the woman who lost the coin and swept her house clean till she found it. And the shepherd who lost a lamb and scoured the countryside till he found it and returned rejoicing.

Now if I could only find that lost book on dinosaurs that I've already paid for at the public library!

The Written Word and Jesus, the Word

As I walked home from work today, I was thinking about 2 Timothy 3:16, where it says that all scripture is "inspired by God or "God-breathed" or, in the words of the English Standard Version, "breathed out by God."

The problem with the word "inspiration" is that it means breathing in. We need to make sure we have the right perspective. It's God that breathes out the Word.

In contemplating the nature of the written word, I began to think of the relationship between the written word and Jesus as the Word, the Logos.

He was God, and, at the same time, He was man. This is a mystery for sure, but it is true nonetheless.

I began then to think about the product that we have now that we call the Bible. It proclaims itself to be the word of God. 2 Peter 1:21 tells us that "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Some other translations say "moved" or "borne" by the Holy Spirit.

The particular thought that struck me was that in a similar way that Jesus (the Logos) was both God and man, both divine and human, so the Bible also is both divine and human.

It makes sense, does it not? They are both the Word of God.

So Many Stars!

The other morning, my five-year-old grandson, Caleb, was up early with me at about 6:15. It was still dark out, and, even though it was cold, I stepped out onto the back deck to view the cloudless sky. As a portent of winter, Orion guarded the early morning sky. Only a few other stars were visible. I called to Caleb to come out on the deck with me, and I pointed out the stars of Orion. He counted those stars and the few others that were still visible in the approaching dawn . . . “eleven, twelve, thirteen! Wow! So many stars, Grandma!”

So many stars, indeed! Last night, a friend and I walked to the clearing at the top of my driveway at the lake to view the sky at 2:45 a.m. It was very dark and cold. We saw why the Psalmist sang, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above shows his handiwork" (Ps. 19: 1). We gazed up at the sky for so long that our necks became sore and we became dizzy.

Tonight, once again, we went to the clearing at the top of the driveway. This time, we were on a quest for the Coat Hanger, a deep-sky object in that dark valley of the Milky Way near Cygnus. We stood in the middle of the road where the sky is most open. I scanned the sky but couldn’t find what I was looking for. I moved my focus a bit to the right, a bit up, a bit over, but couldn’t zero in on it. Resigned, I commented out loud: “I can’t spot; it’s too . . . OKAY, I FOUND IT!” Then I looked away and found it again. And looked away and found it again. Now I knew where to look.

I handed the binoculars over and pointed out where it was. At first, the Coat Hanger was elusive, but within minutes, I could tell by the excitement in my friend’s voice that she had found it. She counted the stars in the horizontal part of the “hanger”: "One, two, three, four, five, six . . ." and the ones in the hanger’s hook: “and one, two, three, four.” I knew she had seen it clearly.

Then we put the real plan for tonight's outing into action. We spread two plastic picnic tablecloths on the driveway and we lay down and covered ourselves with a comforter to keep warm. From this reclining position, our eyes drank in the Milky Way, that fog of stars that stretched from the northwest across the expanse of the heavens to the southeast over the lake. To our left, the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades winked at us through the branches of the trees. The binoculars felt heavy as we held them to our eyes, but the resulting view showed so many stars!

We lay there for a while, just listening to the stars speak to us, all the while hoping no errant driver would turn down our driveway by mistake. Despite the diamond dust above us, we weren't very comfortable. My neck and back were cold, even though I had on a t-shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, a jacket, a scarf, a toque, gloves, and, under my jeans, pyjama pants as a second layer. But we were happy. We had found what we were looking for. And that wasn't easy, amid so many stars.

Cognitive Dissonance

Okay, I admit it: it was late. I'd been working at my computer for a few hours, only getting up to walk to the kitchen every hour or so for a glass of water. Maybe my brain was overtaxed, like the rest of me. After staring at the screen for so long, my eyes suddenly shifted and . . . I jumped! And gasped!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this:

What surprised me, of course, was that in my fog of tiredness, I thought that my grandson, Noah, was somehow outside the window staring in at me. It was surreal, like a scene from a dream, a bad dream. Not bad because I could see my grandson, but bad because that moment of cognitive dissonance threw me off kilter. I knew he was in bed fast asleep and couldn't possibly be outside at such a late hour, yet what I saw in that flicker of my eye was his little face staring in at me through the window.

Cognitive dissonance is that strange twist in our brain that happens when we try to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. Our perception is somehow skewed, and we do our best to untangle our thoughts. Most of the time, as in this case, there is a logical explanation, even if, at first glance, it isn't apparent.

What became apparent to me is that I had recently placed his new school photo behind some other photos that grace my window sill, and that the dark blue background of the photo was pretty much the same as the darkness outside at 11:30 at night.

And, of course, that maybe I shouldn't sit at the computer for so long!

On a more serious note, we sometimes have this same kind of cognitive dissonance when, for instance, we watch the news and see story after story of war, suffering, disaster, and destruction. Everything we see around us screams "chaos." Financial fortunes lost in an instant, whole countries "going under"--everything seems hopeless and helpless.

Yet despite what we see and what we behold with our eyes, the truth is that our sovereign God is executing his plan. All things will culminate in his plans being fulfilled. We needn't fear the wars or rumours of wars. We need only remember that if we are persuaded that God is good and merciful, we can repose in Him with perfect trust, and not doubt that in his loving-kindness a remedy will be provided for all the ills.

I didn't actually make that last sentence up; it's basically a paraphrase from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, 2, 2, which is on the reading list for the course I'm taking. First published in Latin in 1536, Calvin's words still speak with clarity and simplicity after 472 years.

By the way, I wonder what's being written today that will still be being read 472 years from now.

The Peace River Valley

Fall is Splendiferous!

I've lived in the Peace country for more than 30 years, and yet I never tire of the glories of fall. The air has a crispness to it that heralds the coming winter, but it's invigorating, and for sure, it wakes me up during an early morning walk to work.

There is a certain sadness to the colour of the leaves. The yellow is bright in the sun, but on a cloudy day, it dims to a pale yellow that soon turns into a grubby brown once it's on the ground. When the wind has finally whipped all the leaves off the trees, there is a sameness to the branches, brownish-gray against the hills and sky.

I still miss the riot of reds and yellows and oranges and browns on the huge maple trees in Montreal, where I grew up. I'd like to go back, maybe even a bit farther south, perhaps to Vermont, in the autumn, and once again, shimmer in those colours, but for now, I'll have to content myself with yellow . . . brown . . . down!

There is nothing finer than an autumn walk through the woods or the park with kids on their bikes or in the stroller. The leaves crunch and rustle under our feet, and overhead, the bare branches of the trembling aspens click and clack on one another, faint applause for the annual Show of Leaves.

I cherish the memories of these days.

An Amazing, Beautiful Thing

The human body is an amazing, beautiful thing. Not mine particularly, but in general I mean. We recently had a marvellous demonstration of the truth of this (that's the body is amazing and beautiful) when the gymnastics team from Ollerup, Denmark, visited our town as guests of our local gymnastics club.

The bleachers at the high school gym were packed. On the visiting team were 30 gymnasts; half were men, half women. They put on a 45-minute spectacle that combined tumbling, gymnastics, precision drill, and modern dance, all to upbeat musical accompaniment that showed the choreography at its best.

The costumes were beautiful. In number after number, the gymnasts marched, strode, or floated into the gym in an array of colours perfectly suited to the music and mood of the dance. My favourite was the turquoise dresses for the dance with “pins”—wooden "bowling" pins that were swivelled, swirled, spun, tossed, caught, and occasionally dropped.

The men did a routine to the music of the "Pirates of the Caribbean." The costumes were clever, as were the tumbling, rowing, and riding the "waves."

My grandchildren were spellbound. They sat and paid rapt attention for the whole show and proved that it was possible for them to sit still.

And how excited they were when the team visited their school the next day for a demonstration. The boys both came home and immediately turned the living room furniture into mats and springboards. They wanted to show off their new moves that they had learned.

We've had no injuries yet, and the lamp is still standing!

Flashback to the Sixties

I was a teenager in the Sixties. It was the era of protests. Some people protested against war, against abortion, against poverty. Other people protested for student rights, women's rights, and civil rights. There were marches and demonstrations and sit-ins. Some were peaceful; some were not. Some times, there were small groups of people. Other times, like the famous March on Washington, gathered hunderds of thousands of like-minded citizens together. These events were in the news on a daily basis. And these marches and demonstrations and sit-ins changed our society.

As a young person, I watched but never took part in a demonstration or march. I saw the signs and placards, heard the shouts and slogans, but, at that time was too conservative, sheltered, fearful, naieve--or a combination of all these things.

When my daughter was at the University of British Columbia in the Nineties, not only was she in a protest, but her shouting face and upraised arm were prominent in a photo in the Vancouver Sun. I remember feeling proud and a bit fearful at the same time when I saw that picture.

Recently, I had a second chance to stand up and be counted. I took part in a demonstration right here in my hometown, a town of 18,000 people in a northern, rural area. We were protesting the proposal to build a dam seven kilometres southwest of this city. We were protesting because building this dam will mean flooding a valley, destroying good farm land, removing people from their homes, destroying wildlife habitat and fish species. These things are forever.

We gathered at a park in the centre of the city, a group of about 30 people. We had placards and banners, cowbells and whistles. As we marched up the main street, drivers honked their horns and we shouted all the louder, "No Site C! No Site C!" Others took up the cry with "No consultation without the information."

Traffic stopped as we crossed the street, then back again to the other side. Once we reached the main crossroads, we posted groups on each of the four corners so cars approaching from all directions could read our signs.

We were peaceful, but we were not to be deterred. When we entered the hotel where the utility company was holding public stakeholders meetings, the security guard told us that we couldn't go in there, but we responded that it was a public meeting and we were going in.

Once inside the meeting, we lined the room. One of the group had written a protest song specifically for that night's demonstration. He had his guitar and sang the verses, and we all joined in on the chorus. Members of the public applauded as we finished singing and filed out of the room.

I don't know if the protests will change the outcome of the consultation process and prevent what many say is the inevitable, but somehow I think they change those who participate in them. By making our voice heard in this way--a way that is still available to us in this country, we know, whatever the outcome, that we have done our part. We have done our best. We have believed enough in something to stand up and be counted.

We have tried to make this world a better place.

A Bolt from the Blue

Yesterday, I was hit by a bolt from the blue. No, I didn't have an epiphany or think of a creative plan to solve the world's problems or make a million dollars. It wasn't that kind of bolt.

It was a bolt of fabric thrown from a mezzanine level 40 feet above me. Someone else had had a bolt from the blue about the fastest way to unroll a bolt of fabric. Toss it over the railing and let gravity do the rest. In theory, this is a very practical idea. As it happened, the moment that person felt the bolt leave her hand she saw me below, striding purposefully on my own errand, oblivious to the impending danger.

I didn't know what hit me. The bottom corner of the bolt hit my left cheekbone, knocked off my glasses, threw me off balance, and sent me flying to the ground.

My grandson heard the "smack" of the bolt hitting the floor. In the confusion of people rushing to pick me up, he thought it was the sound of his Grandma hitting the floor. People brought water, Advil, and ice wrapped in a Ziplock bag and a towel. I sat for a few minutes, till I stopped seeing stars.

It's easy to toss an incident such as this off without another thought. On the other hand, it's a chance to be thankful for the providence of a great and loving God who looks after me, even to protecting me from a bolt from the blue.

Family Projects

When anyone in our family takes on a project, it inevitably turns into a family project. This means that everyone is recruited. Right now, we're very busy with a fund-raising project for the kids' school. It's a great event, with entertainment, international foods, a silent auction and a live auction. We're expecting about 350 people to attend.

My daughter is one of the main organizers. Over the past few weeks, more and more of the responsibilities fell onto her plate, and as that happened, she started recruiting. Around the dinner table.

First, could I please help with serving drinks at the café on the night of the event. Okay, that didn't sound too hard. Then, volunteers were in short supply, so I said I would ask some of my students if they'd like to help. That turned out well as several were eager to get involved in a community event. It's a great chance to practice your English, I told them.

I also asked one of my students who has studied piano for 15 years if he would be part of the entertainment line-up, and he said yes, he'd like to do that! So far so good.

Now today, we're right up against a firm deadline, as the event is tomorrow. Ms. Organizer Extraordinaire commandeered our kitchen and has been mixing, tasting, adjusting, and stirring all day. She's in charge of drinks. Because children will attend this event, the drinks are hot and cold non-alcoholic drinks with funny names like Hazelnut Mutt, Irish Setter, French Poodle (those are the flavoured coffees), Mount Everest, Boo Boo Berry, Cherry Chill (the kids' drinks) and Vienna Cooler, English Garden Sipper, and Southern Belle (cold drinks for the adults).

Other details also needed taking care of. After dark, a covert operation was mounted. Undercover agents were eight-year-old son and Mom (names are withheld to protect the guilty). Tools: garden snippers. Destination: tall hedges with brilliant red leaves. Result: beautiful centrepieces for the tables.

Of course, we'll have to find some time, probably after the event, to clean up what's been left in our wake as we dashed from one task to the next. This is the garage floor where the table arrangements were produced!





Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was making signs with chalk and blackboards. The boards are 36" x 30" and will hang above the café table. They turned out quite well, if I do say so myself!





Now, it's quarter past midnight and I've just finished assembling nine posters, the edges of which needed trimming so the poster panels could be overlapped and taped.

All these jobs are more difficult than they first appear, and even if we correctly assess the difficulty right from the start, they always take longer than we first anticipated.

Tomorrow . . . well, it's actually already that day . . . will be a very busy day, with lots of to-ing and fro-ing, and with setbacks and upsets, no doubt. On the other hand, tomorrow night, when it's all over, and we're the last ones to leave the hall, we will be able to look back at the event and know that we did our best.

This kind of project, where family and friends all get involved, is a great way to teach kids about what it means to be in a family. A family supports you. A family helps you. A family bails you out. A family puts their heads together to come up with creative solutions for whatever problems crop up. A family works together right to the end.

That lesson is a valuable one.

Falling Behind

I have fallen. I've fallen seriously behind. I'm on a plan, sort of a spiritual diet--not a diet to lose "weight" but a diet to gain "weight." It's called The Bible in 90 Days, and I've fallen off the wagon.

I know why, too. I spent the last three nights stargazing with a friend (see previous blogs!) That ate up the better part of the evening, and there is only so much time in the day. Hmm . . . I see that I didn't even have time to turn the calendar page from September to October!

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to throw in the towel. I'm going to get right back on track. The best way at the moment is to just start with today's reading and leave the stuff that I've missed for now. There are two days' grace at the end and maybe I can catch up then. Or maybe not. Maybe at the end of the 90 days, I'll just have to say, I read through the Bible in 90 days, except for 1 King 7:38-2 Kings 25:30.

Is that so terrible? I don't think so. I will be blessed for having read what I read, and . . . for having confessed what I didn't read.

I know I'm going to have to pray for the Holy Spirit's help, for extra energy, and for time management skills because in addition to this reading plan, I've just registered for another course: Systematic Theology 1. The reading list is formidable. If nothing else, I'll get some muscle carrying the books from the shelf to the desk. There are several tomes. Looks a bit scary . . . but I'm really looking forward to the challenge and the excitement of this new way of studying God's Word.

I might not have too much time to write my blog, though!

Turning the Calendar Page

The beautiful weather we've had for the past week or so belies the fact that September is over. The warm temperatures and brilliant blue skies beckon through the classroom window, and today, we allowed ourselves to be enticed.

I took my writing class for a walk in the Community Forest. The students were instructed to collect something from the forest, at the very least some impressions, if not some realia. I collected a few specimens--moss, a few leaves, a pinecone--that can be used as the basis for a descriptive paragraph.

The smells and sights and sounds were all very fallish. Although it's not a very pleasant thought, the smell of death was all around us. Leaves and plants and grasses and weeds and flowers, all in some state of decay. Wild cranberries that smell like dirty socks and dying leaves that smell like bananas. Yu's shirt was the same yellow colour as the aspen leaves on the ground. The light played in and around the cottonwoods and the spruces, while birds and squirrels chirped and chattered away.

Ostensibly, the walk was to collect impressions to use as the basis for writing. Really, we were there for the sheer enjoyment of the experience.