Hobbes and Winnie and Calvin and Pooh...

      I love the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin's dad convinces him it wasn't that they didn't have colour film when he was a kid--it was that the whole world was in black and white because colour had not yet been invented.

      This time of year, the world apparently takes a break from colour and reverts back to the days of black and white. At least my corner of the world. Everywhere you look, there's nothing but shades of gray, from the almost-white gray of the sky to the almost-black gray of the filthy snow heaps along the side of the streets. Even the vehicles, regardless what colour they may have started out, are completely camouflaged to blend into the gray environment. If you look really hard, you might be able to spot something closer to brownish-beige in places, but by then your eyeballs are strained from the effort.

      Which is why I was especially pleased to receive these gorgeous spring flowers from my hubby yesterday - aren't they pretty? The occasion was my two-year anniversary at my "new" job. Guess Jon knew City Hall would not be presenting me with flowers or any other trophies for having achieved this monumental milestone, so he took matters into his own hand. I love them!

     Bright, springy colours bring hope and life and beauty to the tail end of March, and a promise that a new season is just around the corner. Which brings to mind another comic, the one where Piglet is about to drown and Winnie the Pooh encourages him to "Be brave, Piglet. A rescue is being thought of!"

      Be brave. The Creator of the earth's orbits has thought of a rescue and it's on its way.

One Long Winter

My hubby says we've still got a couple of mosquito-free weeks to enjoy. Funny how we forget the summer pests when February brings a deep freeze that drags on into March. Everywhere I turn, people are worn out, stressed out, burned out, and downright cranky--even those fortunate enough to be flaunting fresh-from-the-tropics suntans! Maybe it has something to do with returning to chilly reality and facing the credit card company.

      But we’re seeing the light at the end of the snow shovel at last. The slush on our streets and our filthy cars fill us with hope that spring can’t be too far away.

     Some of us, caught up in the pain of whatever losses the past year has brought, are stuck in perpetual winter of the soul. A few warm rays of sunshine do little to curb the cold sadness lodged deep inside. Does this describe you?

     In C. S. Lewis’ tale “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” the creatures of Narnia await the arrival of their king, the lion Aslan. They had an old rhyme that said:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

     Nobody can appreciate that rhyme like Canadians. The hope of spring is priceless, breathing energy into our winter-weary souls and freedom into our imprisoned bodies. If Aslan were real, most of us would invite him to these parts each year before we even had the Christmas decorations put away.

     What if there were a real “Aslan?” Not of the physical world, but the spiritual one? A powerful and noble defender and friend who could bring spring to our souls and drive winter away with a gentle puff of breath? Would we invite him in? Or would we see only the fierce and frightening side of the huge lion and choose to remain in our eternal frost rather than risk his presence? In Narnia, the character Susan expresses this sentiment: “I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

     She receives little comfort from the local expert. “That you will, dearie. If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

     Her sister Lucy asks “Then he isn’t safe?”

     “Safe?” says the local. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king.”

     We do have an “Aslan” who, although he may not be “safe,” is eternally good, perfect, loving, and merciful. And he is a gentleman who will never interfere with your life uninvited. He loves you and he longs to bring spring to your soul. You can read about him in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Find a translation you can understand, sweep the deck, dig out a lawn chair, and soak up some “Son!”

The Task Ahead of You is Never as Great as the Power Behind You

Last Sunday at the close of the service, our pastor had us stand and pray aloud together the prayer from Ephesians Three for the people around us. I said the words as clearly as one can while choking on tears. The passage was intimately familiar and held a place on my bulletin board for years. If you look in my NIV Bible beside that passage, there is a handwritten note in the margin dated March, 1998. Thirteen years ago exactly. In blurry ball point ink, it says "Prayer for myself, Jon and the kids, drama team, and co-workers. If we really grasped how very much God loves us, everything else would fall into place."

      I still believe this with all my heart. It had been awhile since I prayed it, though, for myself or anyone else. I don't remember when it came off my bulletin board or why. Did I think I'd outgrown it, that it had gotten old somehow?

      This needs fixing. For as I prayed the prayer and let the tears drip off my cheeks onto my favorite green sweater, I knew that I and the people I love need this more desperately than ever:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And if all that isn't enough, the rest of the chapter says...

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

8 Fun Facts About Sleep

     I'm not a fan of the spring time change. If, like me, you find yourself cranky and yawning for weeks after this pointless ritual, you'll be interested in the following fun facts I uncovered about sleep.

     1. You can learn while you sleep! New research suggests that information is transferred between the hippocampus (the area for short term memory) and the cerebral cortex while in deep sleep. Now if I could just get it to transfer from the actual university campus to my cerebral cortex, I'd be in business.
     2. There's a reason men feel sleepy after sex. Men release a multitude of hormones, including prolactin. Prolactin makes you tired. 'Nuff said.
     3. Sleeping can solve your problems. Sleeping on it really does makes a difference. Sleep strengthens memory and extracts information from the day. This is why, when my children call me with their troubles, I pray they'll have a good night's sleep.
     4. Naps improve memory. Studies show that daytime naps not only improve memory, but decrease your risk of heart disease! At least I think that's what they show, I can't remember.
     5. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Apparently, people who sleep more than nine hours a day are more likely to develop Parkinson's Disease. For an adult, sleeping more than nine hours per night is just as bad as sleeping less than six. Where can I sign up to be in the too-much-sleep test group?
     6. Sleepiness can be cured with blue light. Sometimes your internal clock does not match the one on the wall, but you can fast forward your internal clock by exposing yourself to blue light (blue LED lights work) during the day. When I strung some over my desk at work, co-workers mistook it for a holiday and a party accidentally broke out. Which leads to the next point...
     7. Sleepy is just like drunk! If you lose two hours of sleep, you can impair your performance equal to a .05 blood-alcohol level. Soon, police cars will be outfitted with sleepalyzer equipment.
    8. Teens need more.  Teenagers should sleep nine hours and young children require ten hours of sleep. My kids could have told you that by age twelve.

     I got all this information off the internet, so it must be true. Except the parts I may have made up. Take it or leave it. As for me, I'm going down for a nap.

Betcha Didn't Know...

I'll bet you didn't know that...

"...given the intergovernmental linkages of the public finance system, federal government stringency directly affected provincial governments that were concomitantly pursuing stringency policies to a greater or lesser extent."

Don't feel too bad, I didn't know either. I still don't, because I don't have a hot clue what it means. I may not be learning much "Public Administration Professionalism," but I am learning much about myself through this course. For example:

• Clearly, I am not as smart as I formerly thought.
• I used to think I was pretty self-disciplined, too. But now I'm procrastinating on reading the 200 pages for this current assignment (most of which sounds like the above excerpt) by blogging instead. Later, I might pull a few teeth or beat my head against the wall.
• I used to think I was thorough. Now I find myself reading maybe a third of the required offerings, whatever I figure I can get by on to complete the written part of the assignment.
• I used to think I was grateful for the good gifts that came my way, like this opportunity to take a university program and have it paid for by my employers (ultimately, in this case, by the tax payers of Portage la Prairie.) Now I find myself whining about this course every chance I get. Like now.
• I used to think I was pretty down to earth. Yesterday I saw an article in People magazine showing several famous people who have been awarded honorary degrees by big-name schools. I indulged in a little fantasy wherein I become someone famous and the University of Alberta (knowing I once took their Public Administration Professionalism course) bestows upon me a doctorate. The prof who suggested I take their writing course hands me the diploma.

Well, now, maybe I'll make a fine public administrator after all. Dumb, lazy, whiny, and lost in la-la land.

Of Maytag and Other Repair Men...

     After 32 years of marriage, Jon and I moved into a home which would contain the first dishwasher we'd ever had. I was ecstatic. It took awhile to fill with enough dirty dishes to finally press that "on" button, but once I did, I smiled and sighed. Oh, the time this was going to save!

      And it did. The first time I unloaded it, however, I discovered the odd fork or utensil stubbornly clinging to some tidbit. Oh, I thought. I guess I should rinse things off a little first.

      Over the course of the next year, I grew increasingly disappointed with the dishwasher. Nobody had told me how much they miss. Because the regression was so gradual, though, I didn't realize the problem was getting worse. I just kept picking out more dirty dishes to hand wash. I tried different kinds of detergents, which sometimes helped for a while. The dishwasher was no longer saving me much time, and I began to wonder why I'd been wanting one all my life. Then came the biggest dirty dish day of the year.

      Too bad no one had the presence of mind to grab a camera. There we were, Christmas Day. My husband, my daughter-in-law, and I alternating places as we inspected the interior of the dishwasher, our butts sticking out into the middle of the kitchen, random appliance parts and tools strewn among the turkey, potatoes, and gravy pots. We rinsed and scrubbed and unplugged holes, then reassembled it. We optimistically loaded all the Christmas dinner dishes into it, pushed the start button, and drove off to the Island of Lights.

      I was apprehensive to open it when we returned home, and for good reason. I spent the rest of the evening re-washing everything by hand. Our efforts had made a barely discernible difference. I called a repair guy and hand washed dishes for the next ten days while we waited. He knew how to take the thing apart properly and clean out the muck. He explained this was becoming an increasing problem since phosphates have been banned from detergents, and left us with a cleaning solution to use monthly.

      The next time I used the Maytag, I could hardly believe it. So THIS is how a dishwasher is supposed to work! Not only was everything clean, it was shiny! Oh, what I had been missing.

      The parallels to life are staggering. Whether it's the marriage, other relationships, or our spirituality: things can become so clogged we don't even realize it's not working the way it was intended to work. So we settle, frustrated but accepting it as a fact of life. The wrongs of this life, both the kind we commit and the kind done against us, work together to mess things up. It happens so gradually we don't notice how bad it has become. We hesitate to call in an expert because we don't want to pay the price or swallow our pride. We tinker with it ourselves, make half-hearted attempts to clean things up. We might make small measures of progress, but deep down we wonder why life is so despairingly disappointing.

      We all desperately need a Repair Man.

      Your Creator knows you and how to get at the gunk of your life. He has solutions for regular maintenance. He inspired a manual you can read for yourself. He has the power to make you what you were intended to be, to make you say "So THAT's how it's supposed to work!"

     The other option is to go through life wondering what that might be, forever doing the metaphorical dishes by hand.

What's Happening Here

Here we are, just a day away from daylight savings time and this is what's happening now. This is our relatively well sheltered neighborhood. The photo doesn't pick up the howl of the wind or the constant discord of the chimes by our front door. Or the emergency siren I hear on Crescent Road - God help the rescuers and whomever it is they're rescuing! I'm mighty thankful to not be out there, yet compared to Japan's devastation, this is still nothing. Dare I let it bring to mind an old hymn?

"Tho the angry surges roll on my tempest-driven soul;

I am peaceful for I know, wildly though the winds may blow;

I've an anchor safe and sure that can evermore endure.

And it holds, my anchor holds! Blow your wildest then, oh gale,

on my bark so small and frail; By His grace I shall not fail

For my anchor holds." 

--W.C. Martin