The Final Thank You for October

Judging from the number of posts, I am not very thankful! Quite the contrary - my heart has been brimming with gratitude this month more than most. God has been so good to me; my family has been so dear; friends have sustained me. I just haven't had the time.

One of my favourite days of this whole month was Thanksgiving Day itself, so I'm going to leave this season of gratitude with some pictures, accompanied by the words to our dear friend Martha Wunsch's favourite song:

How good is the God we adore

Our faithful, unchangeable friend

Whose love is as great as His power

And knows neither measure nor end!

'Tis Jesus, the First and the Last,

Whose spirit shall guide us safe home

We'll praise Him for all that is past

And trust Him for all that's to come!

Happy Thanksgiving Month, everyone!

State of Emergency

In 1998 I found my dream house, built in 1920, the first house I had ever looked at with an eye to purchasing. 

Two years later I sold it to my sister, the artist who could - and did - take the charming old lady to new heights of beauty and comfort.

We celebrated her birthday earlier this year with an intimate soiree that blended family, friends, music, poetry, tears and laughter into a sublime evening.

Last Thursday at 4 pm my sister moved whatever she could in the very limited time she had left, water lapping at her sidewalk, and evacuated the little house as the rain came down and the floods went up.

Ducks near the water
(Mike Drew / Calgary Sun)

Deer stranded on the Deerfoot
(Marni McNaughton)

Vast swaths of Calgary were declared to be in a state of emergency, along with neighbouring towns Canmore and High River.

Within walking distance of the house, water roiled down Memorial Drive ...

Memorial Drive
(Photo credit Gavin Young / Calgary Herald)

  ... and surfaced in Sunnyside ...

Sunnyside
(Gavin Young / Calgary Herald)

Sunnyside
(Kyle Hagen)

Power was out and the neighbourhood sealed off.





Down town Calgary was in worse shape:

(Virgin Radio)

The Calgary Sun has put together an overview showing the incredible scope of the flood - please click on this link, then scroll down a bit and start the slide show:

http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/06/21/nenshi-said-worst-was-yet-to-come-as-the-bow-river-continued-to-rise-early-friday-morning

She was finally allowed back to inspect her house: the basement floor and the drywall have had to be removed and will be replaced. But her prescience led her to move most of her valuables upstairs and so she was spared some of the devastation that many others are experiencing.

The newscast last evening still led with pictures of destruction and detritus. Mud is everywhere. Water fills up the smallest crack.

This is also becoming the story of people who care, who want to help out. When the call for 600 volunteers went out, almost 4000 people showed up.

Calgary's mayor, Naheed Nenshi, is everywhere at once, it seems. He has a way of rallying people to come together and help each other. There has even been a t-shirt created in his honour:

A man and his siblings drove in from Saskatchewan because they have a vacuum truck and they wanted to help - free of charge.

Volunteers have arrived from Ontario.

Our family in Calgary and many of our sister's numerous friends have turned out to help her drain water and rip out drywall and restore what order they can.

People for the most part are setting aside their own needs and are working to help their neighbours, friends, communities. They are reaching out their hands to help people they don't even know.

Yesterday morning at the Manor Dad spoke about the prophet Jeremiah. The context is this: the city of Jerusalem has been taken into captivity. When Jeremiah warned his people that this would come, he was viewed as a traitor and thrown into a dank, dark well. 

The book of Lamentations has five chapters: chapters 1 and 2, and 4 and 5, deal with the city and the people and the sufferings that they were undergoing.

Chapter 3 is very personal. Here Jeremiah identifies himself with his people; in many ways, he is a picture of what God can do with His people. Jeremiah was rescued from that pit into which he had been cast (the story is told in the book of Jeremiah chapter 38 and verses 7 - 13). His personal deliverance is an encouragement to the people of Jerusalem's ultimate deliverance.

The king's servant Ebedmelech was the answer to Jeremiah's prayer. He is the one who heard of Jeremiah's imprisonment and it was he who went and informed the king of the same and received permission to go in and rescue Jeremiah. 

Dad said: You may well be the answer to somebody's prayer. Jeremiah, of course, was crying out to God for help while he was in the pit. Ebedmelech did not know that; as far as he was concerned, he just knew that injustice had been done and he sought to right the situation. 

In the same way, Dad went on, in the grace and providence of God, a word you say, a deed you render, may be an answer to someone's desperate prayer - even though you might never know it!

In these awful times of flooding in southern Alberta, and in various places around the world (I am very mindful of the current tragic situation in northern India), while I feel like wringing my hands and retreating because I don't know what to do, I am challenged by Ebedmelech, a slave, doing what he could.

Faint but unmistakable: God's
promise arches over our
Alberta sky last Friday evening

Surely no less is required of me?

Read the simple, profound words written by my beautiful sister, who is a true standard-bearer for grace amidst shock and ongoing difficulty, as she saw the river coursing down the street near her home: 

Gratitude and Love.
Flow.

Day 6 - Hour of Flowers

In preparation for Dad's 54th anniversary luncheon, we ordered some old family favourites from the same places Mum used to buy them when we were children and she was splurging to treat us. So the cake and the mutton samosas came from Fatima's Bakery, of course - the grandson of the man Mum knew is running the operation these days! - and the curry puffs and bread for sandwiches came from Koshy's, the little bakery at the other end of Wellington Street. 

The bakery

I picked up the bread the evening prior to the event, and I was to pick up the dinner rolls and curry puffs at 11 o'clock the next morning. When I went to pay him for the bread, the proprietor told me I could wait until the next day and pay for everything at the same time. 

"You would trust me?" I asked quizzically.

"Of course," he responded immediately. "I knew your Mother ..."

It was all well and good to get the food locally; but for the flowers, Raj said, we had to go to City Market. And he would pick us up at 5:30 a.m. in order to be there when the vendors were just unpacking their wares. "Oh Raj, please, not so early!" I begged.

"OK, 6, but sharp!" he conceded.

And so at 6 sharp the three sisters piled into the vehicle and off we went through the just-stirring Bangalore morning streets. 

We didn't saunter or explore like we had done a couple of years earlier - our time lines for this day were extremely tight - but here is a glimpse of what we saw as we bustled through the streets in search of red roses, white glads and of course the tuberoses. We also picked up vegetables for the veggie tray and sandwiches - fresh, no chemicals, with flavours so sweet and succulent that a person could contemplate moving to India just for the produce! No wonder food always tastes better out here ...

After having visited India, most people mention the smells. I wish - how I wish! - that they could walk with us through this bower of beauty available for anyone who wants to venture out at the loveliest time of the day. The air is clean and perfumed with the promise of joy. Even the people bargaining for their purchases are congenial. The flowers are working their magic ... 

Like the clock striking midnight in fairy tales of yore, the streets and alleys and nooks and crannies in the market that are now filled with colour and an ephemeral patina of grace will very soon be charged with the pulsing energy of the daytime reality: street vendors hawking their wares; butchers with full carcasses hanging from enormous rusty hooks outshouting their neighbouring stall occupants; haggling housewives and pushy touchy men; spitting and yelling and laughter and jostling for and into position.

But for now we have these moment of sweet belief that the world can be like Eden once again, that fairy tales can come true ...

The dried fruits and exotic spices vendor

BA checking out the various grades of saffron

Our own Eliza Doolittle, heading off
for a day of selling flowers ...

A short cut from the fruits to the vegetables

Technology is everywhere!

A regular visitor to the flower market

Close enough to a white steed.
don't you think?!

Trying to calculate how much mint we will need
for the pudina chutney Dad suddenly requested

Loaded up for the day

Our favourite fruit stand

"Peel me a grape" seems so passe when
"Peel me a chikoo" in the shape of an exotic
flower is happening before our eyes ...

Day-old flowers

Bindi

As in any good fairy tale, there has to be a handsome prince. This one heard Deb's earlier murmured comment that she could do with some chai. He got us back to our vehicle, instructed us to "Stay here!" and in a very few moments was on his way back ...

It's midnight, Cinderella -
time to start up the chariot and rush home
to the kitchen ...