December 29, 1979 the Calvin Baker family gathered. One sibling was missing, but the rest of the family (including spouse) were there. Youngest was 11 years old and the oldest was 61 (my dad, who was holding the cassette tape recorder). We start slow but get going – this is a 30 second clip – enjoy!!! A traditional Congolese song – Jesus is here, with us.
I don’t often post pictures – but here goes.
This is from 1972 – as the caption reads we are in Midland, Ontario on a music tour. I look young and dapper (which shows how old I am by using that word). We are all retired now and although I don’t keep close contact with the group, they were a great help in launching me into the singing/touring world!
The church that flourishes tends to have a strong positive cultural toolbox.
This toolbox contains their stories, their dreams and their past, present and future pathways.
All things work together for good – but seemingly not for those who are negative or unconcerned – who may have decided that looking ahead shows only the bad of the past and the despair that there will be no change.
Instead, good working is seeing the past as instructive, as able to be adventured through, and able to come to the next day with resilience. God is willing, we need to be obedient.
A while back my father was reading my blog. In 2005 I began a regular daily blog posting at www.ronbaker.ca. I had tried for ronbaker.com as a website but a car salesman in California had already bought the domain. And I wasn’t quite ready to be a used car salesperson.
My father, until his passing, would venture to my blog regularly. He commented that he was amazed how I could come up with so many things to write about – every day.
I keep that comment in the back of my mind. Sometimes I find myself wandering down a single rabbit trail for way too long. When my thoughts begin to collapse onto each other, and they all look the same – then I am ready to find some new creative avenue to explore. I am designed for the new. And yet . . . I love the old.
I am a trained archivist, even having served as the president of the Saskatchewan Archivist’s Society. I treasure the days I can sit in an archive, find an old magazine or book, or even listen to oral histories of the aged. And maybe that helps to design the new that I seek.
While the saying “there’s nothing new under the sun” needs to nuanced (of course, if all is flux then every moment is new), there is something to understanding that the birthplace of ideas tends to be an extension of previous creative efforts, all of which stem back to the creative God.
And so I continue to write (I’m trying to get back to regular from the intermittent of the last few years). One sentence can start a whole blog and I love finding out where that will end – so I can start anew from the end of yesterday!