Spring

Spring has now been with us for well over a month. Temperatures have been warmer than normal and we seem to be missing a lot of rains. We did get a good soaker a couple of nights ago and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

We planted trees just the day before the rain came. Planting trees on our property has become a bit of an annual practice. The property right around our house is very hilly. Our lawn had some slopes that would stop our four wheel drive lawn mower and were maybe not the safest to cut. Over the past four years the steepest bits have been planted to a variety of evergreen trees (200 so far). We have also planted deciduous trees, maple, ash and soft maple around the perimeter of the lawn and now inside the perimeter as well. There are about 50 of those, some came from the bush on the property while others were purchased as seedlings. Recently, I’ve been transplanting volunteer maple and ash that have grown in the flower beds.

Getting deciduous trees to start has been a bit of a hassle. The first ones we planted came from the bush about six years ago. We dug them up carefully, used a post hole digger to make a good hole, and even used a bit of bone meal to provide nutrients. While some of these trees have taken off and are now over ten feet tall, others are smaller now than when we planted them, and still others have died and been replaced. Granted, the soil where these trees a planted is not the best with sand and gravel in some areas. Where the soil is good the trees have grown.

We have actually had the best luck with the deciduous trees that came from the nursery. I don’t think that it is because the stock is so much better, but rather, because we discovered Tubex tree tubes at the same time. Deciduous seedlings, in their natural environment, grow underneath the forest canopy. I’m taking them from there and asking them to grow in the open. The tree tube protects the small tree from the wind, creates a bit of a moist environment, and creates a greenhouse effect that gives the plant a little more heat. The results are amazing compared to trees without the tube. The trees reach out of the tube and will grow two to three feet in a year compared to the six inches that their non tubed brothers and sisters manage.

Last week, just before the rain, we put in a hundred more evergreens, balsam fir, white pine, red pine, and white spruce. I have less lawn to cut again and we will need to put up with a few years of ugly, waiting for the trees to have enough height to be seen above the grass. The wait will be worth it.

Of all the things I love most about spring, the best is wandering around looking at how all the things we have growing here change. I love to imagine the possibility of rows of trees towering over me. Spring is such an amazing time of growth and renewal.

God is at work in all of it.

Reminiscing

This past week, for some reason, my daughters have been looking at the past, at least one of them with some sense of fondness. Both are bloggers. One of them maybe got the thing started with a characteristically oblique post followed by the other with a more eloquent offering.

The house in the 50's

Their posts revolve around our old house. Both of them posted the same picture from an era well before the time that we lived in it. It was a big old farm-house, home for our family for eighteen years. Our youngest daughter was born there. The other two children may have vague memories of other places, but this house would have figured largely in their lives. It was home.

When we moved in it was livable for a family that was trying to start a farm life and  willing to put up with less to make that happen, but really, it was a mess. The windows throughout the house were in bad condition. The frame addition that housed the kitchen and bathroom was sided with rotting painted particle board. There was little insulation. The oil bill was high and we actually did not heat most of the house. A wood stove in the kitchen kept us warm during the day, blankets did the job at night.

As we left it

Over the years we did renovate and fix. If we were doing it today we’d likely have a renovation blog. As it is, there are virtually no before and after pictures and those  there are only happened because we were taking a picture of somebody. There were no digital cameras back then and film was too expensive to waste on remembering what we wanted to get rid of. The house was entirely gutted in three stages over about eight years. A new kitchen and bathroom were installed. All the windows were replaced. The particle board was covered with siding. Two new porches were built. We put on a new roof. The carpets were pulled out and the wood floors underneath were sanded and refinished. A new wood stove, furnace and water heater were installed. Heating bills went down. We started to use the whole house.

It was more than just a house

At the same time, we built barns and sheds and a silo. We built a life and a business. It was a business that allowed us to work together as a family (code for child labour). While money was always an issue since there were more ways to use it than places for it to come from, this time in our life was a good one. We raised our family, we learned together, we dreamed together.

But, life moves on. Life throws curve balls that are unexpected, that change the direction that you think you are supposed to go. So we moved on. We were blessed in that moving as well. Somehow God gets the message through that its time for the next step.

There are things about that time and place that I miss. They are not the same things that my kids may reminisce about. I miss the dreaming, the sense of possibility, the sense of working with, or against nature, and succeeding. The sense that next year would be the one when things would come together. I miss the order of the seasons and the work plan that they wrote. I miss the common cause that J and I once had, every day, on almost every front.

But, I don’t really miss the house.

Genesis 12:1-3

Back at It

The first full week of school is past and I am feeling just a little overwhelmed, maybe a little unstable.

This semester I am taking a bigger load of classes than I have taken before, five full classes. Last year it was four and a half. This should not be that much of an extra burden, but I think that the extra angst is coming from the fact that the courses are coming at me from different places. One course is an online course from Calvin seminary with the demands of online posts and responses filling the end of the week. Hebrew exegesis is happening on a one  on one basis at Tim Hortons with no place to hide in class, no opportunity to let other students ask and answer the questions. Three courses are happening at the seminary, but one of those meets for full days only five times. I’ve got twenty percent of that class behind me, but as the semester goes on the workload in weeks when that class happens is dramatically increased.

On top of all this class work, I have taken on a ministry at the church training the young adults and young parents in the church to recognize and use their leadership gifts, I continue to preach regularly, and the phone continues to ring with consulting work.

I know that in the end everything will get done and the experience will be a good one. Every spring on the farm the same feeling of being overwhelmed would happen as I looked at all of the work that needed to be done in a short time. Each year, working one day at a time, it got done, and will again this year. The work is different. The concept is the same.

So, its back to reading, writing, responding and remembering not to take on anything more for a while.

Post-Modern?

My theology class spends a lot of time, as it should, looking at the ideas and issues of theology through history.  We look at God, the Trinity, the Bible, among others through the eyes of history’s great philosophers and theologians.  We study the progression of thought and the metamorphosis of what becomes our creeds and confessions.  I find it interesting and exciting until we hit what is known as the post modern era, and then I just get confused.

I think my theology may be stuck in, at best, the modern era and maybe even in the pre-modern.  The pre-modern theologian is good with mystery, good with epic tales, good with a world filled with of good and bad spirits.  The modern world wants to be able to put ducks in a row, understand how things work, put science around things, find the order in the world, and get everyone to agree on a single answer to the question.   The post modern rebels against both those ways of looking at the world.  Every question can have multiple answers,   the big stories are no longer appreciated as a source of truth,  there may be many paths to the top of the mountain.

In each of the essays we do for the theology class, we need to position the topic in relation to the post modern world.  How does it see the Bible, God, Jesus, truth, church?  I have no issue showing the negative side of these issues.  My problem is putting what I know as the church into this post modern culture.  My prof is not drawing the picture that the is church heading for a serious problem with the culture (in the western world anyway) but I am drawing that conclusion.  Can we continue on the road that we are on or does the message need to change to fit the culture?  Is it the message that needs to change or just the delivery system? Do we carry on in the way we have in a world that does not accept that there is only One Way?  What does a post modern church community look like?

He’s got me asking questions which I think was the goal.  My issue now is, how far outside of the box can I think or accept?

The journey is flat, some hills ahead

The weeks of summer seem to have taken on a quiet, relaxing, even peaceful feeling.  Nothing feels high pressure.  There is no particular focus either.

It’s not that I sat around doing nothing this week.  The yard has never looked better.  The water damage to the driveway has been repaired.  About three cords of firewood is cut and stacked in the bush for the winter of 2011.  I worked a day and a half on Threefold Consulting  and got the billing and month end statements done (with J’s help).  My last elder’s meeting happened and a meeting to plan the updated web page for the church.  The camping trailer is out of storage and the broken vent repaired.  We put something over 100km on the bikes.  A potluck was attended and fireworks were enjoyed with friends.

The pressure is gone.  The finger-pointing, the demands for action plans to solve the  unsolvable , the constant push to perform and to squeeze performance out of others (or else) is happily gone from the scene.  I can revel in what I do accomplish and finish and at the end of the day be  satisfied that it was enough.

Goals are important and a certain amount of pressure in life is likely healthy.  Those will be part of life again, I am sure.  I think that when the goals are mine and the pressure comes from inside me rather than from outside sources, dealing with the pressures and reaching (or not) the goals is a lot more satisfying.

This week the academic committee at WLS dealt with my petition to switch from the MTS program to MDiv.  It was approved.  My name was quickly passed on to the Dean of Chapel.  I guess there are more responsibilities with this program than just showing up for class.  Something about worship planning and a rota.

Have I mentioned the License to Exhort?  Our denomination likes to vet on those lay preachers who preach in their pulpits to when the regular minister is away or the church is vacant.  This is done on the classis level and involves preaching on an assigned text at a classis meeting and being examined on biblical knowledge and theology in front of the meeting.  I have considered trying to go through this process for a number of years.  Now the time seemed right.  I will be examined on September 15 2010.  To date I have not been assigned a text.  This could become a source of some stress over the next couple of months.  It’s not that I am concerned about my ability to speak in front of a group of my peers, but to speak in front of a group of 20 ministers who are listening critically, looking for miss steps is something else.

Likely more about that topic as the day gets closer.

The journey right now is a little flat, but I can see a few hills coming.

Identity Loss

This week it feels like my identity is bleeding away.

You have to realize that us guys get a lot of our identity from our jobs, the things we do.  One of the questions that will be asked shortly after two guys meet for the first time is “So, what do you do” or “Where do you work”.  We judge each other based on the perceived importance of our positions.

Wednesday was my last day as an employee of a national livestock feed company.  I had worked there for the past two years.  Prior to that, I worked for a division of the largest livestock feed company in North America which was sold to my last employer.  In both cases, I held senior management roles.  Even though I did not particularly enjoy my job and had difficulties with the values of my last employer, my image, and identity were strongly intact.  I was an important guy there.

Yesterday was my last day as an elder in our church.  Our denomination has a policy that rotates the leadership of our churches, normally on a three-year basis.  We had some tough things happen in our past that got in the road of the norm and I ended up serving nearly four years.  Those years were challenging and rewarding.  God has blessed our congregation, and I have been blessed as well.  I was proud to identify myself as one of the leaders of this church, but that to is over.

Driving home from church yesterday, I felt like I had lost something and I felt a little lost as well.  I know that new things are coming, and I am excited about those, but, my old identity and the major parts of my life that made up that identity were a little like a comfortable shoe.  I could walk through the world knowing who I was and knowing how to act in that role.

I also know that those two things aren’t the full story of who I am, but they have left a pretty big hole now that they are gone.

Of Travelling and Journeys

Many of you know that J and I just returned from a long trip on our bicycles (long for us anyway).  Some of you were even following us as we made our way to Pelee Island and back again.  I’m not going to rehash the trip here.  You can go to the other blog for that,  but the trip has spawned some thoughts about life, direction, and calling.

Pelee Island Lighthouse

Before we left, a friend suggested that it’s the journey that’s important not the destination.  If this trip had been about the destination, we would have been disappointed.  Our destination was Pelee Island.  We were somewhat disappointed with what we found there.  Rather than being the out-of-the-way tourist destination that we had expected we found a remote place with poor services (groceries) and even worse roads.  If we had decided to spend more than one day on the island, it would have been too much.

The trip however was not about Pelee Island.  It was about taking a break from the busyness of life, spending time with my best friend, seeing a part of Ontario that we were not familiar with, and doing it in an inexpensive, environmentally friendly way.  It was about interacting with people, experiencing new things and sharing that experience with others.

The changes in direction in my life are also not about the destination.  Yesterday it happened again.  In our community it seems to be a big thing that these changes are happening.  Within five minutes, while I was getting diesel fuel at the co-op, two different and unrelated folks came to me with: “I hear you’re not in the feed business anymore….So what are you studying?……You plan to be a minister then?  Each time I explain that, no, I might not be a minister then. ….I really don’t know what this is going to be at the end…..It’s about the journey.

I almost feel like I should apologize to all the young people I have counselled to go off to school to learn about the thing they love rather than about a career.  The career thing is much easier for the general public.

But, I won’t…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL wrote: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time – namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

Farewell

Farewells are a funny thing…especially when you are not really leaving.

Yesterday, a number of folks got together to put on a farewell event for me at the plant that I have worked most closely with over the years.    The event morphed a little over the weeks from the time the idea was conceived to the day it happened.  These folks wanted to make some fuss about the change in my life after working with them for ten years, head office wanted as little fuss made as possible so that they would not need to face the fact that change is coming.

It was a nice time.  The barbecue came out with burgers, sausage, and hot dogs.  Someone went to the trouble of having a cake made.  Most of the guys who reported to me over the years came out as well as a number of the dealers that I worked with.

Those close reports put together a really nice going away gift as well.  It was all about the upcoming bike trip with a big tube of A535, Advil, bandages, and gift certificates for food and bike repairs.  It was great.  To them, I am really leaving. My new consulting role, while having some interaction with them, will not be on the same day-to-day, you can do it, level.

I will miss them.

Two more days before change really happens.

A Bit Melancholy

Today was my last day as a business manager and the first, I guess, as a ruminant consultant.  I will continue working full time in that role till June 1.  Most of the month of June will be holidays except for a bit of essential nutrition work.  After that I will start working through my new consulting company, Threefold Consulting.

This last day was a bit of a sad one, a realization that things are going to be different.  This morning I was the supervisor for 10 ruminant specialists across the province.  Last week these guys had no idea that their boss was leading a double life as both their manager and a seminarian.  Today they have a new leader, they are concerned about their future, they are trying to figure out what happened.

My boss said lots of nice things about my past contributions and about his hopes for my continued involvement with the company in the future, but, at the end of the day, I left the meeting alone and left a big chunk of what was my identity behind.  There is lots to do, in fact there is too much for the amount of time that I will have once classes start again, but the thing that I have done for the past five and one half years is over.  For now I am done leading a team of people.

I’m not sure yet what I will do on Monday.

Announcement Plus 5

It’s been 5 days since I sat with my bosses and told them that our paths were going to diverge.  For the next 6 weeks I need to continue on with my job…full time.  By the end of this week a new structure will be announced and my responsibilities will change.  They will look similar to the contract/consulting role I will have later this summer, and that’s fine.  This will give me a good opportunity to ease into this new reality, to see how the new skin fits.

Last Friday, I broke the news to the folks who report to me.  Today I took care of some of my closest dealers and some other employees that I have worked with for a long time.  Everyone seems happy for me and somewhat jealous that they are not going off on their own adventure.  It is causing worry among those who report to me as they try to anticipate life with a new boss.  Some of these guys have worked for me for over 5 years.  Change could be hard for them.

I spent the weekend exhausted.  It was almost as if I had been carrying around this big weight and as long as I had to do it, I could, and it was just part of who I was, but, as soon as I could see the end and I knew that I wouldn’t need to carry it much longer, I realized how tired I really was. (we did manage a shopping trip combined with a visit to the passport office, I built an 8X16 foot stage for the wedding, and we put in a 30km bike ride,  so I was not in bed the whole weekend)

The decision is still the right one. There is lots of support coming from all over, congratulations even.  As I shrug off more and more responsibilities I will be more and more able to explore the possibilities that will be put in front off me and work to align them into that elusive thing…calling.

Hang on for the ride!