Where Two Or Three Are Gathered Together ...

It had been a particularly tough day, Tuesday. Dad was almost motionless all day: he could barely open his eyes, barely eat or drink anything, barely speak to us.

Even Matt, when he came over, was unable to capture his interest.

We called our dear Naomi and our dear Navaid, who reassured us of their constant support and availability.

Later on Elliot and Oliver, and an assortment of Dad's children, filled up the house and the space with sound, with laughter, with conversation; and he managed to sit up for a while, to half-enter into what was going on, to walk around behind us when the swirl got too fast.

Wednesday was slightly more promising. He was more alert and he could move around with greater ease. But his eyes were dead, glassy, no light or spark in them.

Then Brian came over to visit.

Brian may as well be another son to Dad. They have known each other since Brian was about 16, and Mum and Dad loved Brian as though he was their own from all those years ago.

He sat across from Dad, not saying too much or forcing the conversation, his penetrating, loving gaze never leaving Dad's face. 

And suddenly Dad began to talk.

"You know the verse, The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous shall run to it and be safe?" he asked Brian, who nodded.

"I've been giving these kinds of verses to people for decades. I need them for myself now ..."

Deb said to me later, "When you can't talk to your best Friend, who you're used to talking to throughout the day every day, you just want to die ..."

"They're still there," Brian replied confidently, with conviction.

"Yes," Dad whispered.

Wednesday evening Bronwyn came over with the boys; and she brought Ian Trigg, the lead pastor of Foothills, with her.

Ian sat on a little stool that had been drawn up next to the couch where Dad lay. He took Dad's hand and started to ask him questions about India, about his ministry.

They began with Dad arriving back in 1959 and teaching a few students in Chembur, Bombay. They went on to how the college moved to Bangalore but how Dad stayed in Bombay to continue studying with the students there, to work in the churches he had become involved with.

We talked about coming back to Canada on furlough ... the educational systems for us as third culture kids - "Fourth culture kids, really!" Bronwyn exclaimed when we looked at it through the eyes of Ian ... what it was like for Dad and Mum to leave us in Canada  - "The worst kind of pain," he admitted.

We talked about how, through the seeds planted by two men who sent letters requesting Dad to join their work, John Teibe and Jake Johnson, Dad went to India to fulfill God's calling for his life.

And as Dad told Ian about churches planted, colleges started, orphanages and children's homes flourishing, work with prostitutes and victims of HIV, deaf schools, music ministries, Ian marvelled at how God had worked and continues to work because Dad and people like him were and are so faithful to their call.

Bronwyn told Ian that the verse that has governed Dad's life, that has comforted him and directed him and sustained him, is the one found in the first letter to the Thessalonian church, chapter 5 and verse 24: "FAITHFUL IS HE THAT CALLETH YOU, WHO ALSO WILL DO IT."

"It's about His faithfulness," Dad replied to Ian. "He is the One who does it all."

As he prepared to leave, Ian asked if he could pray for Dad. These two godly men linked hands and Ian thanked God for the ministry Dad has had that has impact all over the world today. He thanked God for the ministry that Dad continues to have, preaching, leading Bible studies, counselling, sharing, helping to shape the characters of those who will seize the baton and carry on with the race. He prayed for strength for Dad in a huge ministry that he has and that will continue to develop: that of praying for people, of holding them up before God, a ministry of intercessory prayer.

And then Dad prayed for Ian - for his ministry, for his family, for him.

And in the hush, all of us in the room knew that we were standing on holy ground.

For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them.
(Matthew 18:20)

The Desert and the Josh Tree

This time two years ago ago we were preparing for your funeral. The shock of your death hung in the air like ghostly ice crystals on a crisp November morning.

You're probably used to a whole different way of keeping track of time now. But I'm staying with the boys - just like I was two years ago - and I'm listening to your buddy Oliver upstairs, on a take-your-kid-to-work morning, watching a video on his computer and chuckling every few seconds, and I'm wondering which job you would be going to shadow today, what you might be interested in perusing if high school were to loom large in your future.

I think of you often, boy I never met who, regardless, resides in my heart. I think of your parents and your sibs and your aunts and uncles.

This morning as I thought of them and prayed for them, the sweet promise of the prophet Isaiah came to my mind:

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose (Isaiah 35:1)

They have gone through the wilderness, your family has; they have lived in the solitary place. Grief is that way, as you know, Josh - it hits you in waves, sorrow smashing over you and pummeling you into the gritty sand you were trying to ignore below as you crested, happy and free, for a few seconds of bliss.

The desert of the verse in Isaiah is the beach minus the waves - nothing to exult in, to relieve the dryness, the sameness, the desolation.

The promise, though, is that there shall be tiny signs of life, there shall be tender shoots of joy that poke their heads up almost against their will. 

Remember my Josh Tree, named after you, the little lilac tree given me by BA and Deb? Someone expert in horticulture told me last year to pull it up, throw it out; there was no hope for that dead little twig, she said.

Here is how it looked this summer:

It was bursting with life and colour; and if you got close enough, you could catch a delicate perfume pushing its way determinedly from its blooms.

O Josh, there is life; there is hope, as we heard at your funeral:

There is hope for the helpless, rest for the weary

Love for the broken heart

There is grace and forgiveness, mercy and healing

He'll meet you wherever you are

Just cry out to Jesus

Cry out to Jesus

When you're lonely and it feels like the whole world is falling on you

You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus

Cry to Jesus

(Third Day) 

But if you think your friends don't think of you, don't miss you still, listen to the song Oliver was playing on his guitar this morning, shortly after we had been talking about you. (I wonder, would Death Cab for Cutie have been one of your current favourite bands too?)



You are not forgotten, dear Josh ...

O Canada!

Where it all started: Bapa & Nana Ironside's
little house on the prairie

O Canada!
Our home and native land!

The road back ...

True patriot love in all thy sons command ...

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

A new entry for Montreal's Canada Day parade
(Graham Hughes / Canadian Press)

God keep our land glorious and free!




O Canada, we stand 
on guard for thee.







O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Canada Day in the badlands

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.

Canada Day at the ball park: Toronto beats Detroit,
8-3! (Mark Blinch / Reuters)

Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.

How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western sea.

Part of my sister's volunteer clean-up crew (CIRONSIDE)

Pumping out the water
(CIRONSIDE)

Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!

(CIRONSIDE)

(CIRONSIDE)

(CIRONSIDE)

(CIRONSIDE)

(CIRONSIDE)

God keep our land 
glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard 
for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard 
for thee.

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies

(CIRONSIDE)

May stalwart sons, 
and gentle maidens, rise



To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western sea.

Carswell's Academic team on the
evening we gathered to honour Bruce:
PQ, ON, AB represented

Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!

Twelve hours old ...

Landmark on the road to Hanna

Ruler supreme, who hearest
humble prayer,
Hold our Dominion in
thy loving care;




Help us to find, O God, in Thee a lasting, rich reward,

Helping the helpers ...

(Both pictures CIRONSIDE)

As waiting for the better Day, We ever stand on guard

(CIRONSIDE)

God, keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

All will be well ...

"You Give Me Hope"

This wonderful video montage, created by Heather Rankin, illustrates many everyday people being the answers to people's prayers this week in Calgary. 

Particular gratitude goes out to the first responders and emergency / public safety workers, which includes our own Sonnie ...

(The first song, You Give Me Hope, is - fittingly - by Calgary's Paul Brandt.)

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.

Kerala: Pour Bath

Monsoon is supposed to arrive in Kerala in June. The sky is rent apart and the rains pound down on the parched earth that has been crying with increasing urgency for relief.

Last June, there was no rain. None.

As a result, this year, old city water pipes are bursting, causing what little water there is to be wasted on the streets; wells are at all-time low levels and water pump motors are being destroyed by overuse. 

Thus when you are a guest in someone's house in Kerala you're very conscious of wasting water and power. You drink ALL the water in your glass ... turn off lights, fans, air conditioning ... open the doors in the early morning to let in the cooler air and keep them tightly shut for the long afternoon's stultifying heat.

So when it's time to have a bath, you try to do what you can to keep water consumption down to a bare minimum. Dad had told us over the years how he used to do it when he travelled the dusty, dry Kerala villages in the summers. Perhaps he would have a straw mat as a shower curtain around him; perhaps there would be an old sari; perhaps there would just be giggling children! Here's how we did it in complete comfort. They're called pour baths ...

Two taps fill up the water bucket - hot is from the geyser

Gather your stuff, including the pouring dubba ...
Wet your hair by holding your head over the pail and
pouring water over it with the dubba. Shampoo.
You won't have to rinse and repeat.

Scoop a little water in the dubba so that all the water
in the bucket doesn't get soapy when you're scrubbing!
You might have to add a little more water
to the bucket if you're running low as you rinse off ...

Rinse shampoo out of hair directly onto the floor
with a couple of dubbas of water. Apply conditioner.
Head massage time!
Rinse the conditioner out of your hair
for two minutes under the cold water tap

When you're finished, squeegee the floor
so that the next person has a dry surface!

I could have a wonderful, refreshing bath with 1 to 1 1/2 pails of water plus a couple of minutes under the cold water tap.

And what a water conservation plan!