Mini Retreat

Happy Saturday! I know, shock of all shocks, I’m actually blogging early! I have been so busy this week that I’m even amazed that I’m fitting it in, but that’s the wonderful thing about doing the laundry, you toss the stuff in the machines and it kind of takes care of itself, until it’s time to  fold the clothes and put them away.

So, it has been a very busy week.  In addition to my usual friendly visiting and the last of my priest classes, I have been assigned two palliatives to spend some time with.  Unfortunately, because I am really busy this week, I can only be with them each, every other day.  I feel a bit badly about that, but I am a bit focussed on finishing a Catherine Ponder book I have been reading, actually trying to find my kitchen counter under the mess and preparing for a mini retreat before my ordination to the priesthood in a week. Whew!

So, I was given some reading and praying to do to make sure that I am ready for the ordination.  I had the same thing to go through before my diaconal ordination, but the priesthood has new, and quite a list of, responsibilities and I need to be sure that I am ready to take it all on. It’s a time for quiet prayer, that I have to fit in somewhere, amongst the palliative visits, church, two days in the city because of a couple of appointments, a visit from my oldest daughter, and, and, and... I’m sure that it will all work out!

It’s funny, but I was thinking that perhaps, I should give up the palliative visits, because that is the one thing that cannot be specifically scheduled.  I know, the nerve of people becoming palliative at such inconvenient times! I hope you get that I’m kidding!

Anyway, I realized that it was all because of the palliative visiting that I am taking on the priesthood, so I need to buck up and get my priorities straight! I think that my quiet prayer and contemplation time will help me to work this out. Perhaps it was the palliative vocation that got me to this point, but not the vocation that will take me forward. Time and prayer will tell.

I also know that I am really wanting to help our the Community Catholic Church of Canada. Our bishops and pretty much stretched to the max and I am hoping that there is at least one or two things I can take off their plates to make their burden a little bit lighter. Our little church is growing and that is amazing, but it does need to be managed.  I understand that between the chaplains, deacons, priests and bishops, we are over 50 folks, and that is quite a few folks to keep track of. Mostly, they are just going off and managing to do their thing quite nicely, but we do need to know what they are doing, and monthly reporting helps us to understand that, but there are some phone calls that are necessary to takes care of some things, as well.

Busy, busy, that is our little church and I am thrilled to be part of it.  They are such a warm and welcoming bunch of folks.

Well, off to get some other things out of the way, so that I can spend some significant retreat time tomorrow, after church and a palliative visit. I have everything else ready--vestments, etc. I am so glad for the ordination at Pentecost, because I love the liturgical color red! It is so my color. I will not get to my blog until after the ordination next Sunday, but perhaps I shall even have pictures!

God bless all! Please keep me in your prayers as I take this next step.

Tragedy

Happy Tuesday! I’m finding that difficult to say, based on the events in Manchester yesterday, but that is how I start all my blogs, and my Facebook prayer posts, as well. It boggles the mind what must go on in the heads of people who cause tragedies such as the one yesterday.

Ariana Grande said there are no words. I struggle myself to find words.  I don’t often write on tragedies because the words I express cannot possibly make it better. The words I express cannot possibly communicate the fear, the anger, the puzzlement or the outrage that anyone must feel.

I understand that ISIS has taken responsibility and that one person died at the event and one person was later taken into custody. What is wrong with the world? As Erin Davis pointed out in her journal today:  How can the world be such a beautiful and awful place? There are so many great things going on in the world and yet there is so much hate and so much tragedy. How is this so? There is so much abundance for everyone.

It puzzles me. I will never understand hate.  I believe that perhaps it stems from jealousy in many cases, and often perhaps ignorance. The level of hate or anger that can cause such an event in unfathomable to me.Why did it happen? And why there? They were just kids, or mostly just kids, out having a good time at an enjoyable event. An eight year old girl was one of the victims. A child who had so much ahead of her in life, so many expected years, so many expected events.  All snuffed out by someone who didn’t even know her. Someone with some sort of misguided mission to kill.  How awful.

Can’t we just get along? We each have differing views on how we should lead our lives. That is unfortunate, because I believe that everyone should be kind, loving and caring. I know that there are many different customs, religions, languages and beliefs, but think of what we could do if we were all loving. Just to be super idealistic, if we were all loving and giving, we wouldn’t need wars, or armies, or equipment like guns. Think of how abundant life would be then, for everyone!

My kids always said that I like to believe in rainbows and unicorns. Yes, I like to believe the best in people and I think that it is possible and might be the only thing that saves the world from eventual destruction. We have enough to deal with the weather issues any regions face:  tornados, hurricanes, drought, floods, etc. We cannot control the weather, but we could control ourselves.

Let’s send a prayer to the world! For everyone!

Heavenly Father, we ask that you bless each and everyone on this planet, that we find a calm and loving way to deal with each other. That instead of reaching out a hand to push someone away, we reach out a hand to comfort. That our first instinct be to try to understand each other and when we cannot, we accept each other’s differences. We ask for your assistance in building a loving world that you will be proud of and that we will be proud of. We ask for forgiveness for our past frustrations and poor judgement and ask that you guide us to a calm place, where we truly help each other and build a safe world where we have no hesitation to go wherever we wish to enjoy this wonderful planet you have entrusted to us. We ask for your abundance to be seen and held by all, that we have no need for jealousy, or fear or hatred and that those feelings completely disappear from our thoughts, and never even be felt by the children we are raising, And may we radiate the love that you give us so abundantly, that everyone we encounter can see you in us.  We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, dear friends, that prayer has uplifted me from the doldrums that I felt based on the Manchester tragedy. If we all pray this and remember that ‘when two or more are gathered together we will have our request granted.’ We have something pretty powerful. God bless!

Mother's Day

Happy Sunday! It’s Mother’s Day! It was a beautiful sunny drive to and from St. George’s this morning, but it’s raining here now, in Cobourg.  Oh well, after I managed to kill the dandelions in the front yard (and the grass around them!), we need some rain to help fix the grass!

I mixed up a recipe for the dandelion killing (vinegar, epsom salts and Dawn detergent) and it did work well. But as I said, it also killed the grass too.  Fortunately, I sprayed the dandelions directly and didn’t go crazy and spray everything.  We’ll see if I can get the grass to grow back where I killed it and get it growing enough to overcome the weeds.  I can hope!

Well, as we know, it’s Mother’s Day! Our minister today tiptoed around it carefully. He does have a point. Everyone has a mother, but not all remember their mothers fondly. Some children were given up at birth and were adopted by someone they became to know as their mother (that was me!). Some had mothers who were abusive, or alcoholics, or drug addicts (that was not me!), who probably should have given up their children to a mother who would have loved them and might have been better able to care for them.

I am not meaning to be judgemental. But as a single mother myself, I know there are challenges and if the best thing you can do for your child is to give them up, that’s okay. Not everyone is cut out to be a mother. Perhaps I should say that not everyone is cut out to be a mom, lots of women get to be a mother, but aren’t prepared to be a mom. It isn’t an easy job and no matter how healthy your kids are it can be a challenge.

On top of that, I give special praise to moms with children with challenges--physical and mental. Now that can be a real challenge and one of the most heart wrenching challenges of all. When I was expecting my first daughter, there was another woman in my church expecting a child.  Her first was born without a brain, only a brain stem, and the child was not expected to live for very long--possibly only days or weeks.  The little darling lived for three years and was loved and cared for every day of her short little life. Her mother was a very special soul.

So, I wish every mother out there a happy Mother’s day, and may your mothering be rewarding and teach you more that you ever knew you would know. I learned some interesting things, like; soup can be a finger food! Who saw that one coming?

And the greatest achievement a mother can ever have is seeing their children become strong and independent adults. I know that many kids the age of mine (27 and almost 25) still live at home. Both of my daughters are self supporting and rent their own condos in downtown Toronto. Even though I was a single parent from the time my youngest was four months old, my kids have grown into the kind of adults anyone would be proud of.  I did okay! I can pat myself on the back and say I did an alright job.  Yay me! I consider it to be my greatest achievement!

So, God bless all, especially all the moms out there, and may your Mother’s Day be great!

My Books

Happy Sunday! We’re still waiting for the sun, after several days of rain, but I am blessed to be able to say that we have had no flooding here. Spring seems to appear for a day or two and then it chills out again, but at least the flowers are showing.  My tulips have yet to bloom, but the daffodils are out.

It has been some time since I have blogged about my books.  That is pretty much because I have been quite caught up in the priest course I have been taking, as well as the community work I am doing as a deacon.  My books are, of course, still available and still not selling like hotcakes.

I will one day find my audience and will sell a few, I’m sure, but since retirement, my focus has changed a bit.  My focus with the books was, of course, the Bible and although I have moved away from the books, I guess I can still say that my focus is the Bible, although even more of the content and the teachings of Jesus, most specifically, to love thy neighbour.

I am doing two friendly visits a week with a couple of lovely ladies, and I have monthly accessibility advisory meetings to help those in need.  I have also begun visiting with palliatives and find that quite fulfilling. I am hoping that the palliatives do, on some level.  Thus far, the palliatives I have had the opportunity to visit have been unresponsive, so it may be the family that gets more out of my visit than the palliative themselves.

But. back to the books. I still believe that they are helpful to Christian children from the ages of 3 to 6. I think that particularly Sunday schools would benefit.  If you want to have a look, go to http://www.janetkwarren.com/books.html.  All four books are shown there. The links will take you to Amazon.com, however, they are also available at Amazon.ca, and most if not all of the Amazon websites.

These make great gifts for young children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Each of the four books has six stories. Each of those stories is a Bible story told from an animal’s point of view.  This will make it easy for the child to remember the story.  That makes 24 stories and I haven’t duplicated an animal yet!

You will read of Noah’s ark from the dove’s point of view, the walls of Jericho from a dog’s point of view, Daniel in the lion’s den from a lioness’ point of view.  I think they are kind of cute and the illustrations are lovely

All books are available in hardcover, softcover and ebook, although for small children, I think that the hardcover is the most durable.

So, consider purchasing one or two (or the whole set!) and read them to your little ones. It will be a nice way to enjoy a little Bible reading from a different point of view.

Well, that’s about all the marketing I can manage.  Marketing is not my thing, but it seems that if you write, you also need to market, or the books just stay in the boxes, or on the shelves. I think that once I reach out to the right group, my books will find a home.

And, it’s time to get onto other things! I had the pleasure of delivering the homily for our Sunday cyber service, which you will find here:  http://www.communitycatholicchurch.com/onlineworship.htm.  I was also at St. George’s Anglican church in Gore’s Landing today for service.  This has become a big part of my life now and I love it! And not that I have blogged, I have some other things that need to be taken care of!

May you find what you love to do!  God bless!

Twists and Turns

Happy Monday! Yup, late again with my blog, but Sunday busyness got the better of me, oh well.It’s a rainy day here in the resort town of Cobourg and Cavan is in the city working on upgrading network infrastructure for a client.  For me, I get to blog, tidy the mess in the kitchen left from repackaging the meat and poultry we bought at Costco, and working on a homily for the Community Catholic Church of Canada cyber Sunday service.  With some real luck, I’ll fit in a bit of reading

So often I sit at the keyboard to blog with absolutely no idea of what to write.  This one of those days, where I just set fingertips on the keys and see what happens.  Aside from the cursing and swearing that happens with the constant use of the backspace key because my fingers don’t wish to play nice, I just let the words come.

Yesterday, I had the honor of spending some time with a palliative and his son. We had a great discussion about many topics and I got to hear about this family and some of their challenges.  One of the things we talked about was the twists and turns of life, particularly around careers.  This fellow started out in the trucking business and when he was finding that he was spending too much time away from home, he discovered a new career in financial advising.  An interesting contrast.

I learned at some point in my life that people, on average, have three careers in a lifetime.  That’s not three jobs, as I’m sure that most have way more than three jobs in a lifetime.  Imagine, three careers.  I use, as an example, my own father.  He started out in the forestry business, and like the palliative’s son, time in that kind of career keeps you away from home a lot. Dad switched to teaching and had a long teaching career.  After retirement, he wrote little applications for fun and eventually, discovered matting and framing. I suppose that wasn’t actually a career, it was more of a hobby, but it was a skill that he became very good at.

As to me, after working for the board of education and a doctor after I graduated high school, while taking the first year of the Certified General Accountants course, I decided that none of those were careers I was interested in.  I took Fortran programming in college and I was hooked, graduating with a diploma in Information Processing, I began a 34 year career in the Information Technology business. After I retired from that, I began courses that have so far led me to be a deacon and, in five weeks, a priest.  Quite a change from accounting and IT. So, now, my focus gets to be spending time with the elderly, including palliatives, where I hope that I make a bit of a difference.

Along the way, with my post-retirement career, I have spent time at the local Extendicare, where I met a deacon from St. Peter’s here in Cobourg, where I met this lovely lady from St. George’s in Gore’s Landing, where I seem to have found a Sunday home.  What a lovely church!

So, there are the career twists and turns in my life.  I always taught my kids to ‘do what they love, love what they do’ and I have found that for me, as well. It’s very important, because there are far too many people who hate getting out of bed in the morning because they find no satisfaction in their career. Sometimes, it takes a while to find that, but it is so very worth it, it is essential.

So, dear friends, if you are in a place in your life where you are not doing what you love, try to find it.  I know that it can be tough, when you have to make ends meet, to start anew, but sometimes being happy in your career trumps the money and usually, things work out.

Blessings to all!