Favourites

One of the blogs we follow (it’s RevGalBlogPals over in our sidebar) posted a request for favourite scriptures the other day. At first I thought I didn’t really have any, or at least not five of them I could quote off the top of my head. I used to think I just could not remember chapter and verse at all! But that has changed.

One of the first I recall thinking “I can remember that!” was Jeremiah 31:31. Paraphrasing a couple of verses that begin there: God said, I will make a new covenant... I will put my law into their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people.

And I recall the old question used to divide the congregation. “Are you a Great Commission Christian or a Lukan Manifesto person?” In other words, do you prefer Go into all the world and make disciples (Matt 28) or would you rather bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and let the oppressed go free (Luke 4)? I know, I know. It needn't be either/or and can be both/and.

Of course I was delighted to find Mark 12:28 And Jesus had spent all day arguing with the Sadducees. That felt like a verse made just for me, after all, how bad can it be if Jesus spent the whole day arguing? And another I often think of, especially if the dampness has got into my joints: Strengthen the weak hands; make firm the feeble knees (Isaiah 35:3).

Many have grabbed hold of some of the later passages from the Doctrine and Covenants, and there is some wonderful poetry there as well as memorable scripture, but I still like Section 119:8b a whole lot: all are called according to the gifts of God unto them…let them labour together for the work intrusted to all.

Why I even had a passage from the book of Moroni read at my ordination: whatsoever thing is good is just and true; nothing that is good denies the Christ but acknowledges that he is. (Moroni 10: 6) I like the rest of that chapter pretty much too. And I expect several of you to be thinking of King Benjamin’s words.

Several of those who commented on the Gals’ blog quoted Micah. And it’s true. You really can’t beat it: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

So there you have some of MY favourites. Care to share some of yours? And do you remember chapter and verse?

Posted by Marion

Violence

I’m sorry to hit you with that one. I am very much aware that you really, really have to stretch to consider “violence” a good word. But let me try.

December 6 is a day that many of us remember well. It’s one of those days that some of us can say “I remember where I was when I heard the news.” On that day a young man walked into a school, held several people in terror and finally killed fourteen bright young women before turning his gun on himself. In Ottawa our news feeds quickly became saturated with reporters’ and commentators’ and various “expert” opinions what had happened.

Colleagues soon began to wear the white ribbon that has become the symbol of solidarity around the issue of violence against women. Men and women alike struggled to deal with their emotions. What to say? What to think? Hours, even days were spent trying to put this event into words—to ourselves, to each other, to our children. We did or did not deal with the list of francophone names. What were we to do with that? This had happened in Montreal, in Quebec. Did that make a difference? How much did we “own” that city, those young women? It was 1989 after all.

How should we respond? How should we react? Would we let this day slide into the back of our awareness, onto the back pages of the newspaper, out of our consciousness? Or was there something else to do?

Now, here’s the “good” part. It seems to me that December 6 did become a turning point, a significant date when many things truly changed in the Canadian psyche. Different people responded in different ways. But few people really did let it go. Some lobbied for better legislation about guns. Not everyone agrees with their solutions, but it was never the same. Others paid attention to questions of equality for women’s education. I am aware of more than one smart young woman who went into engineering or law as a personal tribute to the budding careers snuffed out that day.

Some took their private thoughts into the creative arts. Books and poems and plays were written to help figure out some answers to some of those impossible questions raised in our minds that day. They keep emerging. For many the processing took years. Fathers and mothers spent time talking with children of all ages, trying to explain what was, and to hold up the ideals of what should be—what must be, in relations between men and women.

Today, tonight, there will be vigils held to memorialize the fourteen women killed that day in 1989. Their names will be read aloud. In Ontario the twenty-two names of women killed by their own domestic partners in the year 2010 will also be read. Because, although we’ve not buried the questions, neither have we resolved them. Alas.

But neither have we let go of them. December 6 is a day to visit once again the desperate need to bring peace into our families, into our relationships and to keep working to give those unresolved issues the attention they deserve. No more violence!

Posted by Marion

Archives

Here's a posting from the Archives; the good word for the day was journal.

I selected it as a reminder of a special anniversary happening this week. Greetings going out to PEI today.

In this little essay I spoke of my practice with my journal. Our retirees retreat participants recently spent some time considering the treasure we can find in our memoirs. If we're going to have those memories in the future we really do need to write them down today. I hope this post reminds some of those budding writers to get those memories written down, hopefully in a journal someone else can read.

Our "What's the Good Word" archives offer the same sort of treasure trove. Take a bit of time once in awhile to browse back through them for a nugget of truth or pearl of wisdom you may have missed the first time. Who knows what's back there you just may have forgotten. Enjoy a walk through our archives.

Posted by Marion

Logs

Have you kept your old camp logs? Do you know where they are? Do you ever get them out and read them? Do they bring back a flood of memories? Do they make you wonder, “What ever happened to Jim?” Or perhaps, “Where is Suzie now?”

Sadly, I did not keep my old logs. They went the way of the world so long ago, I no longer remember when or where; but I occasionally wish I had them! It would be nice to be able to take a stroll down memory lane once in a while. (Note: this is a hint for you younger readers!)

Don’t misunderstand, I do not live in the past and have no desire to do so, but I do have missing pieces about those camps. For example, I remember one particular dorm-mate from a Junior High camp; I think his name was Mike, and he wanted to be a cop. Who is he? What was his last name? Did he, in fact, become a cop? Where is he now? I would just like to know.

Even as I write this, a flood of memories wash over me, surfacing names from the past. I will refrain from listing those names here, although I suspect some of us old-timers could have a great time scratching our collective heads!

Then there are those faces to whom I can no longer attach a name. Whatever happened to that guy from Senior High camp at Port Elgin that had that black, “souped-up” ’49 Ford? He had installed a V8 Engine, and those cars were so light in the back end that he could lay rubber half way to the dairy! (Okay, okay, I’ll stop!)

Sometimes I think it would be fun to have a camp reunion, and try to find as many people from the “old days” as we could. (In my case, from the 1960s) It could be amazing! Of course, I don’t have time to take on such a project, but if someone had, it would have to start with old camp logs.

So…do you happen to have kept your old camp logs? Do you have any spare time on your hands or know someone who has? It could be...no would be lots of fun...

:)

Posted by Carman

Galoshes

As I tied up the laces on my winter boots the first time this year, I thought again about the galoshes “we;” people of my age or older, used to wear when we were kids. Everyone wore them then; boys, girls, men and women. Women had fancier ones, sometimes with fur around the top and often designed to fit the heel of a certain kind of lady’s shoe, but they were galoshes none-the-less.

I don’t suppose anyone under the age of forty will have any idea what I am talking about, so I am really showing my age here. For you younger folk, galoshes, sometimes called “overshoes”, were a type of loose rubber boot you wore over your street shoes. They were usually brown rubber, lined with a fuzzy thin lining, and had some kind of strap or buckle around the top to keep the snow from going down inside your boot.

In many ways, galoshes were great. They weren’t elegant, but they were cheap and everyone’s galoshes were more or less the same. They would all wind up in a row around the cloakroom, or in a pile around the stove as the students tried to get the wet ones warm and dry. (Yes, I really am old enough to remember the stove in the middle of a one-room schoolhouse!) In fact, we would often have to write our names inside the cuffs to be able to tell one person’s from another. If you had new galoshes, and you went home with somebody else’s old ones, that was not a good thing! Your mother would not be pleased, and to tell the truth, neither would you. After all, new ones were shiny and smelled much better than old ones!

The amazing thing about galoshes was that they worked. Even when you had to wade through deep snow drifts in below zero weather, as long as you kept the snow out and your shoes and socks dry, your feet were nice and warm. In Bruce County, then as now, there were lots of deep snow drifts, and having warm dry feet was important.

Of course, as winter wore on towards spring, galoshes lost some of their luster. Sometimes they would spring a leak and need a patch. The overshoes that were so light and nice at the start of the winter seemed so heavy and bothersome in the mud of March or April, and we couldn’t wait to lose them for the summer.

Eventually, galoshes gave way to boots. It started with lady’s fashions, then went to girls, and finally to men’s and boys. Now, unless you live in a snow-belt area, even winter boots may be passé, at least for high school students. But as I tie on my winter boots for the first time this winter, I remember the joy of coming in from the snow, kicking off my galoshes and having warm dry feet. It was not better or worse than now; it was just the way it was!

Anyone else besides me have memories of galoshes?

Oatmeal

This is a very “oatmeal morning” for me. It’s your typical late fall day. There were some pretty cold droplets in the air this morning—not quite snow, but certainly not summery. Trees are bare of leaves, except for the row of spindly oaks that hang onto their dead brown foliage through whatever ice and snow winter will throw at them. Our snowless November has enabled most people to get their leaves raked and composted or bagged or vacuumed up by the city. Lawns are trimmed and ready for what’s to come.

And we’ve got omens of “what’s to come.” In our parking lot the neon-tipped stakes are pounded in to the at-risk corners and edges so that over-zealous snow plows can stay on track and not dig up the lawns as they do their job over the next several snowy months.

But back to oatmeal. For me it’s a great comfort food that gets me going on such a morning. From experience I already know that oatmeal is one of those trigger words that prods memories in the brains of many people. Maybe for you it’s a reminder of home. “Nobody makes oatmeal like my mom, or dad, or grandma.”
Maybe it takes you back to camps of your youth, or of last summer. Was it Ruth or Robert, Irene or Isabelle who stirred up that perfect pot of oatmeal and plopped it in front of you every morning?

We could get into long discussions (I know; I’ve done it!) about what the just right topping is for your oatmeal. Brown sugar, maple syrup, raisins, cinnamon, coconut, prunes, heavy cream, butter…Several of you possess the secrets that keep the lumps at a minimum, that ensure the texture is creamy or oaty or whatever magic oatmeal word was used in your kitchen, or around your dining hall table, at your campsite picnic table. I know it; I’ve used this magic word before!

Now let’s all just take an oatmeal moment and bask in our good memories. It will make the grey day a bit brighter.