Frost beats wire

  • Post author:
  • Reading time:1 mins read

Remember the good old “Rock, scissors, paper game”?

Here’s a new one – “Frost beats wire”!

I hadn’t thought much about our warm weather and humidity.  Enjoying hoarfrost each day as it sparkles in the morning light is a delight!

But the power lines are a little less than welcoming.  As I look out the window, the branches on our trees are getting covered.  Jill tried to flick a frosted branch in my face, but the white stuff sticks to the bark better than superglue to . . . (fill in the blank!).

Meanwhile the power lines are weighed down, the lines snap or become useless, and our power is in and out constantly.  On Sunday at least eight times.  On Monday at least four times.

There is a good side to this!  Now we know which of our clocks have functioning back up batteries.

Cream and Sugar Please!

  • Post author:
  • Reading time:1 mins read

I’ve watched people over the years. 

Struggling to live a normal life.  Wanting to be like others.  And knowing they aren’t.

The lady whose husband had to take her to the hospital. For her own good and for his welfare.  To end up as a patient in a wing of the facility, needing assessment and rehabilitation.

Or the weekly visits to the mental health assessment office by a man of my age.  His prescriptions strongly regulated to help him maintain a balance in life.

Or the struggling writer whose cab fares helped to pay for his subsistent lifestyle.  Always aware that a bi-polar disorder could wreck havoc on his life.

And I sit around the coffee table, and we look at each other.  We talk about nothing and everything.  We pray. 

Life is normal, for the moment.

Another Ronald James Baker??

  • Post author:
  • Reading time:1 mins read

I’ve been preparing a sermon on the legacy we leave behind.

So, I googled my full name – “Ronald James Baker”.  There was someone in the states who died at 52 (my age) – his obituary was on-line.  Another one was the first faculty member at Simon Fraser University and ended up a president of a University in the Maritimes.

My personal favourite!  Ronald James Baker, whose high school yearbook proclaimed that he “plans to drive a hot bulldozer.”  Check it out here!

Oh, the things we want to be known for!!

A legacy of healing

  • Post author:
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Am I helping them to live or to die?

That is a question I ask as I deal with cancer patients (patience may be a more applicable term). 

Day by day the certainty of cells still fighting the cancer becomes less certain.  Tests reveal progress — sometimes positive, other times negative. 

I have sat with a lady who about ten years ago had a polished head, balder than mine!  She has since had a child, been clear of cancer and now lives an active life.  I have sat with a brother whose cancer engulfed him only three years after biking across Canada.  His death was this past summer.

I pray with people to exhibit joy in suffering, strength in pain and hope for the future.  For some the future is a certainty, soon in another realm.  For others the current body will continue to fight.  Sometimes I sense an urge to continue to pray for current healing.  For others I pray for release to eternal healing.

For all tonight I pray for a greater sense of God’s presence and his pleasure.