DRUM - an impressive performance

My husband and I and our two middle sons attended Markham Theatre’s performance of DRUM on Saturday night. All I can say is “Wow!”

The history I learned back in elementary school came to life as the 19 membsrs of the cast very effectively demonstrated the four people groups who make up the people of Nova Scotia (aboriginal, French, Celts, and black settlers). We saw each group as they were when they first came to the land. Then we saw how the different cultures intermingled and blended into a new culture while not losing their original identities.

The sets and visual effects, terrific music (especially the drumming), excellent dancing (Stewart Augustine’s war dance was heart-stopping), and superb singing (especially that of Dutch Robinson) made for a very enjoyable evening for all of us.

They’re in Ottawa this week and then back in Toronto. Their full schedule is on their website.

If you have the chance to see them, don’t miss out!

Where does the plan originate?

I’m still thinking about planning and goals: specifically, how can I differentiate between God’s promises to me and my day-to-day goal-setting?

When I read stories, especially from the Old Testament, it’s pretty clear that much of the time, it wasn’t the person picking a plan but God giving them a promise or a vision which either became their focus, or happened in ways they couldn’t have foreseen.

Take Joseph for example. God gave him a dream in which his father and mother and brothers bowed down to him. Now, I hope that didn’t become Joseph’s plan for his life. Must make family bow down to me by next December. How to do that? Step 1…

I doubt if his plan would have included being thrown in a pit by his own brother or sold into slavery or going to prison, yet all those things happened. And Joseph had to cope with the reality of his situation while wondering if God remembered him. The neat thing is that Joseph was flexible enough to accommodate even slavery and prison. He continued to trust God and act as though God was the one in control. Perhaps those earlier dreams sustained him. Perhaps he believed that God would find a way. In any case, he did what he could do, which was to obey God in all circumstances.

And then there’s Moses. God clearly told Moses that he was to be the one to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt to a new land. But Moses took a lot of convincing. And when he finally agreed, he knew nothing about plagues, or crossing the Red Sea, or the fact that the people would prove so recalcitrant that even God would want to kill them all. Yet, aside from a few moments of frustration, Moses stayed firm even while his immediate goals disintegrated and he had to keep coming up with new ones.

Did Noah have day-to-day goals when he built the ark? Get lumber for the main deck. Put together the stall for the giraffes. Find food for koalas. He must have had a plan of some sort beyond the original design God gave him. And even though it took him many years, he stuck to it!

But the story that impacts me the most is that of Abraham and Sarah. God told them that they would have many descendants, but because they were getting old, they decided to take matters into their own hands. And thus, Ishmael was born. God still gave Abraham and Sarah his intended child, Isaac, but they now had to deal with the results of their inability to wait for God, which definitely complicated their lives.

I sympathize with Abraham and Sarah. Sometimes waiting for God to act is extremely difficult. You start thinking, Maybe he just gave me the idea, but he expects me to carry it out… It’s so easy to want to jump in and make it happen now!

So, the tricky thing, for me, is knowing when it’s up to me to act, and when I just need to wait for God to do what he has promised. After quite a few years of being in this situation, I’ve learned to keep going day-to-day, praying a lot, and doing what needs to be done while keeping the vision - the promises God has made to me - in the back of my mind.

One thing God told me some years ago was that everything I do is ultimately for young people. He’s also promised me that he will bring together all the things from the past - that nothing will be wasted. And he’s given me a picture of a huge body of believers of all ethnic types and ages and so forth working closely together. Sounds so cool! I hope it’s a promise. I hope, like Joseph, to some day look around and say, “Hey, look what’s happened! What God told me he’d do has come true!”
For today, I can only do the things I can control. Last fall, I was positive God wanted me to put together a book of work by Canadian authors. So for the last four months, that’s been the top thing on my priority list. That book - Hot Apple Cider - is almost ready to go to the printer. When it does, I’ll focus on what he’s given me next - writing a kind of spiritual memoir. Pieces, perhaps, of a bigger picture that he will one day put together to fulfill his promises to me.

Bodies in the library

Last week, I joined roughly 65 other people in the library of Toronto’s castle, Casa Loma, for an evening of readings and questions with two very successful Canadian mystery authors, Giles Blunt and Louise Penny. It was a very interesting and informative evening.

But what really struck me was how settings influence us. Both authors talked about that, since each uses a very specific Canadian setting: Louise the mythical hamlet of Three Pines, in the eastern Townships of Quebec, and Giles the mythical Algonquin Bay, which bears a strong resemblance to North Bay, Ontario. But what hit me was actually the setting we were in last night.

In the many British authors’ books I’ve read that were set on large estates, there were bodies found in libraries much like this one. It was a large, rectangular room with dark wood floors and walls of books behind glass doors. We sat on straight chairs set in five or six long horizontal rows. But even with the rows of chairs and the very modern (live) bodies in those chairs, I felt transported to the early twentieth century in England. The chairs seemed out of place, as though the room was merely tolerating them and would throw them out the moment we left. And then the room would return to its roots as a personal library on the estate of a duke and duchess, or a lord and his lady, or at least a pompous country squire.I wanted everyone to leave so that I could be there alone and soak in the atmosphere just for a few moments. But alas, it was not to be. Maybe next month, when I will be one of the readers along with Peter Robinson, I’ll have a chance to linger afterwards when the others have gone… at least until the guard kicks me out.

If you live in the neighbourhood and would be interested in attending next month’s reading, go here.

Baby steps

Because I love coming up with ideas and starting things, and I’m not nearly as good at managing or finishing things (no one can do everything well! :), I tend not to really think through everything that’s involved in a project before I dive in.

Plus, when I believe God is telling me to do something, I usually go forward and assume that he’ll give me whatever help I need. Sometimes that works well, but sometimes I run into problems because I end up with too many things to do at the same time. And then I get flustered.
Now, the problem may be that I’ve misinterpreted what God was saying and that I should never have started the project. More likely, the problem is that I’ve heard what he wants me to do, but instead of waiting for him to make it happen, I’ve rushed ahead to try make it happen myself. Sometimes I just need to slow down and wait until God supplies whatever I need to make it happen without a lot of stress (people to help, time, money, etc.).

On the other hand, Noah did have to build the ark; it doesn’t say anything about God supplying carpenters or holding a hammer. There are times I need to let go of other things that may be filling up the time I could spend on the project - often, it’s habits that have crept into my life - like mindlessly watching TV or reading the paper.

This past December, I said, “I know I have to write a memoir next year, and the only time I can do it is Jan/Feb/Mar,” so I’ll do it then. And I pictured myself writing my memoir every day, and it was all great.

Except… I have a number of columns to write. And I have Marketplace Int’l coming up in late January. And I’m speaking at a church in Unionville Jan. 20th. And I’m reading at Casa Loma Feb 5th. And we still have lots to do to get Hot Apple Cider to the printer by Feb, 7th and promoted so that we sell lots of books when it comes out in May (or late April).

So, how realistic was I in thinking I would be able to write my memoir in Jan/Feb/Mar?

Not very.

What I was really doing was saying, “Writing my memoir is important and I know I have to do it, so somehow I’ll make it happen” - but it was only a hopeful “resolution” without a concrete, workable plan for accomplishing it, and not a real “goal.” And it died the death that happens to most hopeful but impractical resolutions.

When I realized there was no way, my first reaction was to become frustrated and depressed. I’ve blown it again. I’m a failure. I’ll never get any writing done.

But last Friday, I blogged about how to set good goals. And immediately after, I suddenly realized I was being less than objective about my own goals.

So, today I spent a couple of hours using the Google calendar tool, which I love but hadn’t been using lately (out of sight, out of mind with me!), to create a calendar where I set up a weekly schedule with 20 hours to write (including columns, blogs, and memoir), 15 hours to working on promotion and other details for Hot Apple Cider, 10 hours for working on The Word Guild, and specific times for getting some exercize, doing a bit of cleaning in my house, talking to my husband, etc.

My next duty is to decide what to out into those time slots on a day-to-day basis, and keep myself from thinking I can do two or three times as much as is humanly possible. But I do feel better. I may not get a memoir done by the end of March. But at least I’ll know that what I have done was what I needed to do.

Selecting goals for the new year

At the start of each new year, many of us find ourselves thinking about goals. Okay, you might call them resolutions, but I try to have goals, which I think are a step up.

A resolution is an “I should.” As in “I should” lose weight, stop smoking, save some money, etc. A goal is a little more specific, and should involve both a concrete action and a measurable result. It takes the “I should” one step farther along to become an “I will.” “I will” lose weight by joining Weight Watchers, stop smoking by getting a patch, save money by putting $100 a month into a savings account….

I’ve been choosing my goals for a lot of years. Some of them I’ve achieved; some I’ve given up on; some I’ve changed. But in the process, I’ve learned four key things about goals.

1. The goals need to be within my control. If I select a goal I have no control over (eg. getting rich by winning a lottery) I’m just asking for disappointment. Whatever I choose to do has to be something I can realistically do.

2. One or two key goals are enough. One of the biggest problems I’ve had is wanting to change everything at once. Trying to eat healthier, get more exercise, join a discussion group, clean my house more often, do my job better, and spend more time with my children all at the same time will leave me frazzled, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Sooner or later, I’ll throw up my hands and quit trying. It’s much better for me to have one or two key goals and then add another when those have been accomplished.

3. The goals need to be small enough to achieve without major stress in the time allowed. When I try to make a large change quickly, I usually wind up depressed and mad at myself because I can’t do. Sure, it would be great to lose twenty pounds in a couple of months, but it’s not only more manageable but also healthier to lose it slowly, maybe one pound a week. It’s the old tortoise and the hare story. Slow but steady wins the race. Lots of small steps are more likely to get you there than a few giant leaps.

4. Setting goals always come down to making choices. You can’t get away from it. When you choose to do one thing, you automatically choose not to do something else. If you decide to lose weight, you can’t eat a box of chocolates every day. If you work full time and have a family, your house won’t be a showplace. So you have to decide what is more important to you and choose that as your goal. None of us can have it all.

A time to do nothing

For the past six and a half years, I’ve been busy 24/7 starting an association for writers and editors and then trying to keep ahead of the landslide I created. It’s all been great. Well, maybe not “all.” But most of it. And I’m very glad I did what I did. But there has been one distinct drawback. I’ve been so busy juggling a variety of things and stretching myself by doing things I had never done before that there’s been virtually no time for me to relax and simply “be.” When I did have downtime, my creative energy was usually non-existent. While I managed to do some writing, it was generally very focused and along the lines of press releases and other promotional pieces.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

What I need isn’t an activity, but the exact opposite. I need time to replenish my creative juices. How do I do that? By having time to do nothing!

I remember when we were in our first year of homeschooling. Other parents I talked to would shake their heads and say they felt a bit guilty because their kids rarely had any free time. They went to school all day and then had swimming, gymnastics, music lessons, soccer, art classes… after school, in the evenings, and on the weekends.

My sons had school in the morning, then free time in the afternoon before gymnastics, swimming, etc. started. They had time to play Lego, listen to music, read books, make crafts, or, if they chose, do absolutely nothing. They had time to be bored, and they had time to figure out what they wanted to do without having someone telling them what they should do. And my sons, as adults, look back on that time and tell me it was good.

But I haven’t had any of that kind of “nothing to do” time in the last while. And I need to schedule some. But how often do adults schedule time to do nothing (and allow ourselves to feel no guilt in doing it)?

Ecclesiastes 3:5 says we need “a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them…”

The image grabs me. I love walking aimlessly along a beach doing nothing except gathering stones and maybe skipping some of them on top of the water. At the same time, I can think and plan and pray, and maybe tap into what is inside me.

This year, I plan to do some of that “nothing” and write about it here. I hope you are able to schedule some time to do “nothing” too.

Putting things off

About two years, I realized that my favorite nightgown was too big. I started looking for a new one, but didn’t see anything similar. (By the way, why do clothes designers seem to only make clothes for very thin young women or very large older women? But that’s another post.)

I considered making my nightgown smaller. Didn’t look that hard - just take in the seams at the sides. I even pinned it to see if it would work. Looked possible.

But sewing it meant getting my sewing machine out, and it was kind of buried behind a bunch of other stuff. Another day.

Time passed. I’d think of it every so often. Even got the nightgown out and wore it a few times, but it was just too loose. Finally found another nightgown in a similar material; not as good, but passable.

I also had a pair of black pants I’d bought three months ago. They were a little long, and needed to have the bottom inch or so cut off and a hem done. Even though I only had two pair of winter everyday pants, they sat waiting while I wore the same pair of jeans every day.

Finally, during Christmas holidays, I moved some things around so that I could access my sewing machine more easily.

And today, I decided to see if I couldn’t get some of the sewing done.

The black pants took me all of fifteen minutes. I already had pins where I needed to cut. Snip, snip. Turn over a small seam, pin, sew, try on, turn over one more time and pin again, sew, done. Three months wait for fifteen minutes of work.

The nightgown, which had been waiting two years, took twenty minutes. It looks and feels great.

And all I can do is shake my head and wonder why I am so ready to put things off. I’m sure I spent more time and expended more energy thinking about those pants and that nightgown, and wishing I had them to wear, than it took to fix them!

Excuse me. I have to go and look for some other things I’ve been putting off. What do you bet it will take far less time and energy for me to get them done than it will to keep putting them off?

Can’t I buy groceries without getting depressed?

I’m in the checkout line buying groceries. As usual, I glance at the magazine headlines for a casual check of what’s going on. But all I see are headlines screaming at me:

• Get Thin in Three Weeks!
• Firm up-fast with Hollywood’s Top Personal Trainer!
• Organize Everything Better!

Now I have nothing against improving myself. I actually want to lose a few pounds. Okay, more than a few. And I want to eat healthier, and exercise more, and get a little more organization in my life. But these headlines make me feel depressed, not motivated. No wonder they talk about the January blahs. It isn’t the weather: it’s the pressure to be something we aren’t.

 

I don’t need to begin the year by being accused of being overweight, out-of-shape, disorganized, and whatever else some magazine editor thinks is wrong with me. (I’m so depressed I think I’ll buy one of those chocolate bars they keep right next to the magazines!)

 

Do they really expect me to believe some magazine article is going to help me get thin in three weeks? I mean, how thin can you get in three weeks? (I have heard of people who fasted that long, but I don’t think fasting is recommended as a diet plan.)

 

Let’s get real. Sure, I know I’m not perfect, but there are certain things I’ve discovered over the years about how to motivate myself to change.

 

1. I need to be encouraged, not yelled at. I need to affirm what’s good about me. Just as I know I’m not perfect, I also know I have a lot more positive qualities than I do negative. Why is it that headlines rarely say, “Become an Even Better You!”, “Be a Kinder, More Patient Person in Three Weeks!”, “10 Tips for Encouraging Each Other!”, “Overcoming Stress by Liking Yourself As You Already Are”?

 

2. I can’t handle too many goals at one time. Often, one is all I can manage, depending on how much time and energy it takes. So I know I have to pick just one or two things to work on.

 

3. Whatever I want to do has to be important enough to me to make me keep trying even though it’s difficult. It has to be something I want badly enough to make a sacrifice or two.

 

4. I need to set a reasonable goal (not getting thin in three weeks). It has to be something I have control over and can break into small steps that I can actually work into my life.

 

5. I have to allow myself to blow it without thinking I’m a terrible person or giving up. In other words, I have to keep plodding along no matter what. If I blow it, I’ll be annoyed with myself, but I won’t feel I’m an awful person. And I won’t just give up.

 

I do have a goal this year. I recently learned I’m on the verge of having osteoporosis. Not something I needed to hear! I had already been walking on my treadmill three days a week.

 

Now I know I need to walk every day if I can, and ramp up the intensity. I also need to add more exercises to strengthen my back and the rest of me. I know I need to change my lifestyle to force myself to pay attention to my exercise time.

 

Right now, I’m trying to walk and exercise right after I get up in the morning. Otherwise, it’s too hard to break off what I’m doing. Then I will do short, low-intensity 10 or 20 minute walks just before lunch and supper to keep myself moving.

 

My hope is that in another month or two I’ll be in a routine where I don’t have to make time to exercise, but will do it automatically. Then I’ll set a new goal—or perhaps a new step towards my ultimate goal—getting in shape so I can keep up with my grandchildren!

 

And next time I’m in a checkout line, I’ll ignore those magazines that blare at me. Maybe instead of reading their covers, I’ll make a list of titles for positive articles I’d like to read. Maybe I’ll even write one.

 

The verse inside my locket

A year ago, I bought a small silver locket and asked God to give me a verse for the year, which I would then write out on a slip of paper and keep in the locket around my neck.

After praying for God to give me a verse, I more or less opened up my Bible at random and put my finger on a spot. It turned out to be Isaiah 30:15. “If you will be calm and trust me, you will be strong.” Not a verse I was familiar with. But I liked the promise it offered.

I wrote it in tiny letters on a very small strip of paper and folded it and enclosed it in the locket. I can’t honestly say I wore the locket a lot. But I often thought of it, and occasionally opened it to reread the verse.

365 days later, I can attest that that verse carried me through a rollercoaster year. Whenever something happened - either bad or good - I said to myself, “Be calm and trust God.”

And I calmed right down and I believed that God was in control and would take care of things.

I don’t have room here to list the things that happened: the answers to prayer, the struggles, the joys, the surprises, the disappointments… Let’s just say that life is a somewhat rocky road, and no matter what you see on the outside, we all have our ups and downs, our sorrows and joys, our highs and lows.

But whenever I felt I had reached a really low point and I wasn’t sure how I’d keep going, I thought of my special verse and remembered who was really in control. Not me! God. And I stopped thinking it was all about me and remembered it was really about him. And I stopped “doing” and left it for God to do.

That little verse got me through a year of many changes, challenges, and transitions.

Do I have a verse from God for this year? Actually, I didn’t even have to ask for one. A few days ago, a verse just started running through my mind. Yesterday, I realized it’s my verse for 2007. It’s a verse I know and love, but this year, it’s also my special verse. It’s the one I’ll remember when I get tired and drained, or when I wonder if I can keep going. It’s the one I’ll remember when the good things happen too.

My 2007 verse is also in Isaiah - 40:31. “Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.”

It’s on a similar theme of waiting for God, and relying on him instead of running ahead in ur own strength.

Interestingly enough, during the past two weeks, both my husband and I have been bone-weary - almost too exhausted to even talk to each other. It’s been a strange time of just letting go of our cares because we don’t have the energy to care. We’re read and watched some TV and done very little of long-term “value.”

But as my new verse leapt into my mind, I was reminded of the time when Elijah was exhausted after his struggles with Ahab and Jezebel, and thought he was all alone. He just wanted to die. But God sent an angel with food and drink, and then God spoke to Elijah as a gentle breeze, and then he sent Elijah to complete the next phase of his work. And just at the end God said told him he wasn’t alone - there were 7000 other loyal people in Israel.

Like Elijah, I feel we have completed a huge work for God, and we have good reason to be physically and emotionally tired. And I can’t wait to see how God is going to do to revitalize us, and what our next task will be!

Should you ask God to give you a verse for the year? Well, that’s between God and you. I’d never say, “Everyone do what I do….”

But I would encourage you to ask God to show you if he has a verse he’d like to give you. And you can either put it in a locket or write it on a card and post it on a bulletin board or keep it in some other way as a reminder that God is with you, and that he is faithful.

An evening with John Berry

If you enjoy music that has substance, lyrical quality, and intricate wording, and you haven’t heard of John Berry, you’re missing out on one amazing voice.

After listening to his music since he burst on the scene in 1994, we finally got to see him in person last night at a place called Hugh’s Room in Etobicoke. http://hughsroom.com/

John was on painkillers while recovering from a right hand and left collarbone that were both broken when a new horse he was riding was frightened by something in the grass and bucked, throwing him in the air. He landed on the ground - with his collarbone getting the worst of it - and lay there in pain while his sons went to get help, thankful that he could still feel all his extremities and that it had happened to him and not one of his sons.

In spite of the injuries, John played a mean guitar and his voice was in great form. He did have one moment, which got a lot of laughter, when he forgot a line in “Faithfully.” He blamed the painkillers for the memory glitch.

The highlight of the night was probably his acapella rendition of “O Holy Night,” which was a request from the audience. The song really showcased his voice. He also sang several songs from his new album, which is nearly completed. I’ll be in line to buy it.

John’s web site is http://www.johnberry.com/