NOT SO CUTE

Our neighbors have discovered a not so "cute" raccoon in their attic. They may look cute but evidently they are very destructive and annoying. They rip off the shingles and make a nest in your attic. There they have babies and are impossible to get rid of without the experts. If they die in your attic or in your heating duct the smell is atrocious. They ate all our fish in our pond and have again distroyed the hose that keeps the water flowing. They have dug up all the lawns in the neighborhood to get at the grubs and it has been a sorry sight.

Should we feed them?

I have just been praying for people on our prayer lists with very grave problems. A tiny little baby with a very serious infection, a child with leukemia and another that needs a serious operation for internal displacement of organs and many other illnesses.

Life can be annoying but the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren is really what matters. I am so happy with ALL our family!

This morning is a nice morning to walk down to Zellers with dad. I am so happy he can now do some walking and so we can go together. Sometimes we have to make choices and I will miss the U.C.W. outing but I know they will have a grand time!

WORK

My walk on a rainy day. I love umbrella's but wear water proof pants and jack et instead. I asked if I could take her picture but I do not think she heard me.

I am finding trying to keep this garden in reasonable shape is taking a lot of hard work. I love seeing the flowers blooming and I know that as people walk by they admire and appreciate the beauty. So the good is that the hard work does produce good results. I am quite in favor of a few rainy days to do the watering for me even though I know the weeds will also grow among the roses.

Faith also takes work as I cultivate a new heart and a softer attitude. If I want this world to be a place of peace I have to have a peaceful attitude towards life.
Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God that was peace that would bear good fruit like patience and kindness, compassion and grace; not striving for power and giving in to evil desires.

The truth is that Jesus has affected the beliefs of many religions
"Hindus understood him as avatar
Buddhists as a bodhisattva
Both Muslims and Jews as a prophet of God
Even agnostics find something fascinating and admirable in him."
"The Future of Faith" by Harvey Cox.

Jesus had to face the opposition of corrupt authorities even in his own religion. He spoke words of living hope to those whose lives were crushed by hopelessness. He calls us to believe in the unbelievable. Hearts that ache and long for what cannot be will find strength and courage to cope with daily work of planting seeds of peace among those we live and work with.

The life of Jesus takes us from his birth in a simple place to unmarried peasants who felt their lives threatened; through his years of teaching and preaching what he called good news, to the end of his life where he boldly confronted evil where ever it was destroying the lives of people even finding it in the religious priests and the temple with it's demands and sacrifices. All that he experienced made him who he was. As all that we experience influence who we become.

I am reading more and more about the need for churches to change yet there is so much resistance.

"The Spirit blows where it will" Jesus denied that the spirit is to be contained only in believers. This is the spirit that lives on after the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the spirit that unites instead of dividing. This is the spirit of peace that is blowing upon us all.

As I start out in the morning to walk or to work in the garden I welcome the fresh air into my lungs with renewed energy.

SEPARATION

We are separated by miles of ocean from Matthew and baby Jasmine.

Jesse waits with his brothers as they fly back to Brisbane.

Separation is a part of life that brings a sadness that is always there. Brittany has a visit with her new baby sister.

Sandra will be driving back from Edmonton today after a visit with Cameron and his new girl friend Chantel, and Sephen and Shawna. On the way there she had Mary, her daughter for company, and I know the feelings she will be having in leaving them all.

It is a happy time when families can be together Lucas was happy to see his daddy when he visited in Trinidad. Hopefully he will come to visit us here in the near future.

We are happy and excited for Carol and Panteli moving from their home in Tsawwassen to a place near or in Chilliwack. We will miss the visits we had in their home their and hope they can find a good home to move to.

"The Danish philosopher Soren Kieregaard [1813-55] once remarked that as soon as we are old enough to look around, we find ourselves on a ship that has already been lauched." The beginning of our lives shape our language, our cultural awareness and our sense of identity. As we grow more mature we start to ask questions and find out there are not always answers.

In the stories of Jesus there are the times he spent on the water in a boat with his disciples. Both in the time he comes to them from the shore and when he was asleep in the boat with them they experience very storm rough seas. Their faith is shaken and they are filled with fear. The presence and the words of Jesus calm their fears.
On my vogage which began with Jesus I have gone through stormy seas and times when I felt the sadness of separation.

Different religions are like people finding themselves in different boats, believing what they are being taught. I, like, everyone else have discovered that hidden in the mystery of unanswerable questions, there will always be a "boat" beneath me that will always be there and will always be apart of my journey.

If I look at the Ols Testament as a story that begins with creation and ends with calling the universe to seek peace and healing and justice. We live in a world of unfulfilled potential where there is a special place for us.

I have watched my family sail off in their own little boats and my love goes with them. Separation is sadness but it is also necessary for growth.

HERO

Ben is our little hero because he tries so hard and has fun.

The Vancouver Sun talks about past hero's like Superman in the pursuit of justice and truth and the everyday hero that is portrayed as helping others When we feel we are correcting a wrong or lending a hand to someone in need we may not feel like a hero but we feel good inside.

It is good to play team sports because a big part of life is our interpersonal relationships. I often find myself wanting to withdraw but then this is better than having to dominate or control. We all have needs and wants and it is very spiritual to recognize what they are and how they can be met or not met.

For me there is a security that I call "soul security" that flows out of the love I have for Jesus as a friend and as a guide and as one who lights my way.

DREAMING

I did not dream that I would like lacrosse but the children both girls and boys had fun playing this game.

This is the back of the house I liked best.

How does this caterpillar change into a beautiful, graceful butterfly.
It goes to sleep and while it is dreaming the change happens.
How does faith grow out of a dream that encompasses all the mysteries of life that we cannot grasp?

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious"
Albert Einstein.

We all have our dreams that fill our hearts with hope and passion and love.
We dream of a better world where peace and contentment are our goals.

As long as we can dream and follow our hearts desire for all that is good for all there will be hope.

CHAIRS SIT IN THE BACK YARD ALL READY FOR US.

I DREAM OF A SMALLER HOUSE WHERE BEN AND MORGAN COULD VISIT but that does not mean that I am not completely happy here because I am.

DAD AND CAROL HAVE FOUND A DREAM HOME


MORGAN LOOKS FOR NUMBERS ON THE DOORS

BEN DREAMS OF SCORING A GOAL

LOOK FOR THE BUBBLES!

Trying to blow bubbles for Matthew and Jasmine did not work and even trying to take pictures they do not show up that well. But I had fun doing it and this is one of the joys of being a great-grandma

Happy Birthday Cam! Hope you get time to visit with your mon and sister Mary, I hear the party is on Sunday and Stephen will be there. Good!

VISIONS

Many people like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mendala lived out the vision of wholeness that Jesus taught; that in loving others and emptying our lives out we are meeting the needs of the world which is love. Do what you do with love in your heart.

All ground is holy ground when we seek to live simply, to live responsibly and to serve and reach out to others. Over the years I have seen many changes and I know that ahead there are even more. I am becoming aware of the self-destructive philosophy that translators of the Bible have created by separating the soul within us from our divine image in which we were created. We see the image of the family shattered as separation from the source of life became a demanding figure of God who would only be appeased by sacrifices. I think the one brother probably told the other his sacrifice was no good. Brothers competing. I am just thinking as I am typing so I will correct this later. I am also trying to clean the outside windows which the sun is now shining through all the dusty dirt. I am not good at window cleaning.

I am now reading about the "Future of Faith" by Harvey Cox and finding it very helpful. The lines between the religious and the spiritual are softning and we carry our beliefs lightly where ever we go. People are being drawn to churches to become apart of home groups where friendships are valued and spirituality deepened.

More people are being drawn to the experiential in the charismatic and the Asia practices. In India and Japan Catholic monks sit cross-legged practicing Asian spiritual disciplines. Benedictine monks are now teaching laypeople "centering prayer" once view with distrust by the church.

Spirituality is a prostest against the legalism of religion with its fear and predjudice.

Spirituality values the awe and wonder of life and nature that awakens the soul and I know I want to respond in thankfulness.

Spirituality is moving from the Age of Belief to the Age of the Spirit. I enjoy the freedom of expressing my faith in many ways.

Fundamentalisum is slowly fading from its position that there are theological beliefs on which there have been no compromise. I have lived and experienced the different approaches and time and time again I come back to simply wanting to follow Jesus. I have learned through my journey into many different churches and now I am seeing what has to be left behind. Faith and belief are two entirely different words.

'FAITH IS ABOUT DEEP SEATED CONFIDENCE."

"BELIEF IS MORE LIKE AN OPINION."

Both can hold an emotional intensity and both contribute to the choices we make in life. We are now separating the two.

"If we love God, even though we think He soesn't exist, He will make his existence manifest." writes Simone Weil. Love and faith are both more primal than belief.

Maybe we are being offered another chance to "harvest the energies of love" as Tellhard de Chardin says.

Hatred does not cease with hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Christianity began as faith in the words of Jesus as a prophet, a healer and a teacher of everyday reality. Then it was turn into the age of Belief. An elite group was formed called ministers and priests who started laying down rules and regulations that defind who was a Christian and who was not. This has been going on for fifteen hundred years since Constantine.

We are now making a rough passage into the age of the Spirit. Each of us has the potential to be in touch with the spirit of God in whatever place or form that takes.
I know that many dislike the sacraments and rituals that the priestly perform. The spirit as the Bible says "blows where it will" and cannot be contained. Pentecostals have stressed this direct experience of the Spirit and they welcome the presence of the Spirit into their worship.

There have been mystics through out time that have had powerful experiences of the Spirit. Even the German pastor Dietrich [1881-1995] Bonhoeffer wrote wistfully from his Gestapo cell of what he called a future "religiousless Christianity".

Today our young people are questioning everything and everyone and finding good people to put their faith into hard to find. Words and actions need to flow together to be believable.
Buddha

Love opens the spiritual door to the truth that compassion is to be our goal.

"We work our whole lives building our lives, and to what end?
I believe it is, finally, to give it away to others.
By this means our life becomes a seed.
Planted in the imagination of one who is ready to receive it, harbour it, nourish it, the seed becomes the life of the future."
-Hazel Parcells, Live Better Longer.
by Joseph Dispenza.