Weekend Pass

I can't remember the last time I sat as a
"regular customer," as Oliver put it,
being served my Cream Early Grey and
drinking from a cup Bronwyn gave me!

Don't get me wrong: it's not that I don't love all you people in my TH family.


But when someone who loves me said to me, "K, I'm coming down to work for you on November 12 and 13 so that you can hang out with Dad and the boys," I admit that I felt a bit like someone who has been given an unexpected weekend pass from a minimum security facility ...


The last few weeks have seen me stretched to my breaking point, what with Carswell, TH events, and - just in case I didn't have enough on my plate already - the first academic course I have taken in 27 years (which is the first online course I have ever taken) ...


Debs, observer of human nature that she is, saw I was starting to become a bit of an automaton and somehow sensed when the balance would tip out of my favour, and she made me this offer for this weekend, on one condition: I could hang out at the TH, but I was not allowed to work - I had simply to enjoy it.


Here's how my weekend gift was spent:


Friday night to Saturday, I slept for ten hours - TEN!!

I went into Airdrie with Don and Norma for lunch ...

Seriously, Norma? Do you REALLY
need all that stuff?!

and then Don dropped Norma and me off at HomeSense to get a couple of things for the TH while he dealt with window coverings at Lowe's...


As we approached the mall, I commented in shock that I had never seen the place so busy or the parking lot so full. Norma laughed out loud and said, "When's the last time you went shopping on a Saturday, Karyn?!"


We drove back to Three Hills and decided to drop in at the TH for dessert. There we found Dad, BA and the boys just pulling up.



Debs waited on us, and I can tell you that I need to smarten up if I don't want to find myself out of a job!

Deborah serving me scones
with special strawberry jam ...

Later that evening, I hung around the TH, visiting with Vernon and Sharon; then after closing time, I got to chat with Deb, who was cooking, and BA, who wrote the board for Sunday's offerings.


After a nine-hour sleep (to think that 19 hours is about what I've been getting for a whole week lately!) I charged down the stairs to go to Sunday School. Deb had already been working, and I was greeted by a cup of hot coffee and a chauffeured ride.


After Sunday School we went back to the TH with Elliot and Oliver, who did homework and worked on a project for their parents, and BA helped put up lights while Deb kept working away in the kitchen. A great moment was an unexpected visit from Luke and Craig. We made lattes and got a little bit caught up with them. It was lovely to see my big boys in the TH and I only wished that my Matt had been here too - that would have made the moment perfect ...



Then it was off to lunch at Dad's home. Usually when I actually get to eat Sunday lunch with my family, it's more a matter of inhaling my food and rushing back to the kitchen to continue preparing. This Sunday I had no such anxiety - Deb was in charge in the kitchen, God was in His heaven and all was right with the world!

Then it came 3 o'clock - and to my delight, who should walk in but Brent, who was meeting Coach for coffee. I got to sit and drink coffee with him for a few minutes ... and then suddenly the dining room was full. People were at every single table. Curt tore around getting orders, I made drinks and BA delivered them, while Deb kept up with all the dessert and food orders.


But by 3:45 all was calm and I grabbed my coffee cup and sat for a few minutes with Ed. Our conversation started with talking about his vacation but grew progressively darker. Sorry, Ed! Next time we'll stick with Hawaii!

At 5:45, my father walked through the door and I got to do something I haven't been able to do for a few years now - go to evening church and sit with my Dad! My Aunt Ev was playing the piano, and Cyril, the substitute pastor, asked a question that has stayed with me: Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? A thermometer is reactive - it can't do anything except show the temperature of the space it is occupying. A thermostat can change the temperature in a room - but it has to be plugged into a power source in order to do so. Do I reflect change or effect it? Am I connected to my power source at all times? 

Curt serving "Pastor Ironside"

After church, we had the Ironside standing reservation at the TH for 7:15 and five of us sat down to dinner at Quiet Corner. Curt was serving us, so it was far from quiet - that child is a stand-up comedian, if only he knew it!


Oswaldo had expertly concocted a delicious broccoli and cheddar soup; Deb had created an almond cup filled with lemon mousse, light as air and creamily delicious; and Tiffany with her magic touch brought the desserts to life ...

Lemon almond cup

Banana crepe

Meet Cinderella ...

After dinner I chatted with a few people, including the magical Rebecca who brought me the tiny pink flying pachyderm complete with little glass slippers, showing me that even elephants can have their Cinderella moment!


Alas, just like in all good fairy tales, the clock struck midnight and I had to return to my kitchen. But I went to bed that night feeling cared for and woke this morning wonderfully refreshed. 


I kept thinking of the verse, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I realize that Debs didn't have to lay down her life for me; but I had felt pretty close to being ready to drop from exhaustion and pressures within and without. Deb saw it and laid down her weekend for me. Her WHOLE weekend.

A pretty enormous amount of love, wouldn't you say? 


Thank you Deborah Joy.

Eleven-Eleven-Eleven

This is the first time in the history of the world that we have commemorated Remembrance Day on 11.11.11. The last 11.11.11 was 1911 - three years before "the shot heard around the world."


Today, in keeping with our Nilgiris Tea House tradition, we were open to the public from after the town's Remembrance Day service until 6 p.m., and veterans and service people were our honoured guests.


We made some new friends.


Some are old friends by now.


Some old friends' faces were missing this year.


Here is our 2011 Tea House Parade of Veterans:

Tillie Staples, a WREN who cooked in the Navy. Here she is with her daughter Heather who, along with Heather's husband Cliff,is a good friend to the TH.


I must confess to feeling a little inadequate when I learnt that Tillie had been a cook who could figure out how to make do with less; but she takes after her daughter and put me at ease completely! Please come back soon, Tillie!

Able Seaman Everett Kleven served at the end of WW2 and for five years afterward. He called up his friend ...

... Stoker First Class Bill Grier who, along with his daughter, joined us for lunch too.
Bill is a wonderful story teller and I wish I had been able just to sit down and listen to him for an afternoon. He served on HMCS LaChine, a Bangor class mine sweeper submarine. It had two Dominion Solser engines of 1000 HP each, and the regular crew slept in hammocks, which were better than bunks in rough seas. Once, off the coast of Cape Breton, they had to release one bomb and the water turned white all around them - they had struck a school of cod! They were so excited because that meant fresh food that day - and four of those fish fed 87 men; the cod were so big that it took two men to lift one of them aboard. I was delighted to be able to serve this man a fresh roast beef dinner, which he tucked into with great gusto. I thought about how, all these years later, his face lit up when he thought about that fresh fish for dinner.


(Please forgive my dreadful picture of Bill - he was in fine fettle and I couldn't get him to stop chatting for a moment to take the picture!) 

Ted came in with a couple of ladies. He just wanted dessert, so all three of them had pie. Ted didn't talk very much, apart from saying it was good chocolate pie. But just as he was getting ready to leave, I asked him if I could take his picture because I was going to write about all my veterans who came to visit me. 


He pulled himself up straight, said, "I don't take a good picture," and then when I asked him his name he said clearly and with confidence, "Captain Ted Garrett - Army - Korean War." Thank you, Captain Garrett.

Sergeant Dixon Carter is the only veteran who has never missed a Remembrance Day dinner at the tea house, and the day wouldn't be the same without him. His lovely daughter, Wendy, brings him faithfully each year and we always have a delightful chat. This year, however, was even more special: our own Tiffany proudly carried out her great-grandfather's dinner to him. Sergeant Carter served his Army stint in Great Britain during the War, and all over Canada in peace time, for a total of 28 years. As he was leaving, I said to him, "Have we got a date for this time, next year?"


He chuckled and said, "If the Lord wills - and if my great-granddaughter can serve me. Look after that great-granddaughter of mine ..."

Corporal Keith Leonard was brought for dinner by his daughter, who unfortunately couldn't stay. This lovely man, with a chest full of medals, told me that he would just wait to eat with her. "When's Rita coming back?" he asked several times. Brian Torpy, whose picture somehow I didn't take, gently told him to order the roast beef and talked with him about various experiences the two of them had had around the world. When it came time for dessert Corporal Leonard said he didn't want any, but he would eat some ice cream if it was put in front of him. As he said that, he smiled - the first smile he had given me, and it lit up his beautiful face and found its mark in my heart. 




"The Gang": A few less this year - my darling Jessie Howe couldn't join us and some of our other friends have been laid to rest - but the others were here, valiant soldiers all.




Margarite Paget, still feeling keenly the loss of her twin sister Marjorie who had also served with her ...

Margaret Trentham, President of the Legion, Three Hills Chapter #92 ...

Phil and Marion Johnson. Marion is a reminder of how hard it is to have to remain at home when your loved one is deployed; I think of the lines of John Milton - actually written about his own blindness but so appropriate for these spouses, who are as valiant and as brave as their partners - "They also serve who only stand and wait." When I was taking their picture Marion, laughing, said, "Make sure that light on his head doesn't look like a halo. I'm the one who should have the halo!"


Phil always teases me, and FINALLY I had a chance to get him back this year. He asked me how he could get hold of me to set up the Legion Christmas dinner. The Gang was sitting at the east window, so I asked Phil to look out the window to the empty lot at the end of the street. He did. Then I told him, "Go there and start a fire and send me smoke signals. If I happen to be home I'll see them. However, I'm not very good at reading smoke signals, so as an alternative, you could just telephone me ..."


The Legion Christmas dinner was my favourite of the whole season last year. Phil, let's not get our signals crossed - I'm already looking forward to this year!

Poppa, AKA Rifleman Philip Noble: A better name could not be found for this dear friend. Noble in spirit and noble in heart, he served in the Queen's Own Rifles Canada. He served in the Cold War and was actually in Germany as the War went up.


When Ilona, his bride of 51 years and counting, called to make a reservation, she said, "Phil is both a veteran and a victim." I asked her what she meant and she replied, "He was just a child in England when his area was bombed. They got out with their lives. We have hardly any pictures of Phil as a child ..."


I love this man. On weekends he can be seen, tough and leather clad, riding his motorbike. Yet he can shed tears as he and Ilona tell me about a play he has seen about Juno Beach. He lights up when his grandchildren - who clamber around him like puppies - are in the room. 


Want to hear a great love story? Phil was in a pub when Ilona walked in. (I think that's how it went, but that's not the important part anyway.) Somehow he manoeuvred his way over until he was next to her. He tried to chat her up, but she was having none of it. Finally he said to her, "At least tell me your name!" 


"Why?" she said. You won't remember it - you won't even be able to spell it!"


"Try me," he urged. She told him her name. He spelled it: I-L-O-N-A.


"We were engaged eleven days later," she told me, smirking. I glanced at him: his dimples were trying in vain not to make an appearance and he was looking out of the corner of his eye at her with ill-concealed pride and love.


This year, on their 51st wedding anniversary, Ilona presented me with a table cloth that had been given to them at their wedding. 


What a wonderful day in the TH! But of all the poppies I saw today, this is the one I loved the most. My little Tiffany, a food artist, created this design for mango mousse:

And this day would have been IMPOSSIBLE without the gift of time that BA and Brenda gave - both volunteered their services for hours, cooking, carving the roasts, cleaning up, serving, talking to our vets and making them feel like the true VIPS they are. 


How privileged we are to live in a country for which these brave men and women have risked so much to ensure we have our safety, our freedom and our unparalleled way of life! Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of our hearts. We will never forget.


Same time, next year?

Bedtime Prayers With Josh

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

Did you ever pray that prayer, I wonder, sweet boy whom I have never even met? I see your face smiling out of the newspaper and I think, What a happy kid!

But nothing is as it seems, is it? The world just held too much sadness for you, and it made you overwhelmingly sad trying to make sense of the whole thing. 

To escape it all, did you think of Heaven? Of Jesus, who said, "Let the children come unto me"? You believed and were sure that Heaven is a happy place, a place of no more sorrow or suffering. There would be no anxiety or pain there, either.

After I got the news, I wandered around, praying for your family, praying for my family and especially for "my" two boys, one of whom is a particular friend of yours.

And I came across this box of tiny ornaments. There was only one box of them, and there were no other ornaments like them anywhere in the store:

Of course people are starting to think of Christmas so love, joy, peace ... but hope?


The Hope ornament was pointing away from the other three, almost as if it felt like it didn't belong, almost as if it were turning its back on L J and P.


I tried to imagine what must have been going through your mind that last morning. Had you arrived at the place of no hope?


That morning as you lay in bed, maybe your prayer was more along these lines:

Now I lay me, wide awake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

If I should die before I sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

And, dear one, that is exactly what He did. 


He didn't want to have to do it, not yet - ahhhh, precious boy, He had such great plans for you here on earth! This is what He said in Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11:

For I know the plans I have for you - 

plans for peace and not for calamity, 

to give you a future and a hope ...

But when you're 12 it's exceptionally hard to think of long-term plans, hard to think of much beyond the effort it takes to get from one day to the next. With all the wars and calamity in the world, and all the struggles in our own lives, it seems like there's little chance for peace.

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

Therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you

This is what God said in Jeremiah 31:3. God loves you everlastingly. He loved you from before your mother was even pregnant, before you were even born, before you were taken to your home. Impossible as this sounds, He loved you before He even made the world. And He knew about this day. He was sad, so very, very sad, about this day; but because He has given each of us the freedom to make up our own minds He had to let you go through with it. However, even though He knew what was going to happen, He didn't stop loving you - an everlasting love doesn't just reach backward; it goes forward as well, into all eternity.

You're starting to understand about eternity now, aren't you, dear Josh? Are you seeing how the pain - although awful and soul-crippling at the time - is really only a tiny part of eternity for someone who loves God? And there is no doubt that you love God.

But now there is more pain, unimaginable pain, that has resulted from your leaving. The same chapter in Jeremiah could be talking about your Mom:

A voice is heard in Ramah,
Lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.

Your Mom is the one who found you.


From the moment she walked into the house - the house she will no longer ever really be able to think of as her home - and she saw her shattered boy, her heart was shattered into a million pieces. She loves you beyond belief, beyond imagining. And what was beyond her imagining had happened.


Your Dad and your siblings too. How do you explain to a grade twoer that Josh is alive in heaven but will never be coming home again? What do you say to a Dad who didn't even get to say goodbye to his son?

Right now they don't think they'll ever feel joy again. And for as long as they live, they will miss you, they will feel an aching gap in their hearts; in absolutely everything they do, they will on some level be conscious that something vital - the last piece to the puzzle - is absent. 

You have left a hole in your friends' lives as well. They loved being with you. When you all hung out together last Monday night, you seemed so happy. These same boys will now honour you by giving out bulletins at your funeral just over one week later.

Joy seems very far away from everyone who cares for you, from everyone who misses you and mourns for you. Even though they know you love God and are with Him, this is not how things are supposed to be and they are left with scattered thoughts and deep sorrow.

Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion

and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.

They shall obtain gladness and joy

and sorrow and mourning shall flee away

The key point for me in this verse right now is the word "obtain". The dictionary gives this definition: "To come into possession of; get, acquire, or procure, as through an effort or by a request." It comes from the Latin verb obtinere, to take hold of. It tells me that joy after pain is not an automatic gimme; the people who love you are going to have to ask God to restore their joy and their peace. It's going to take effort on their part, and they are going to have to hold on for dear life. The word procure means "to obtain or get by effort or the use of special means" - it is going to cost them to find joy again. It will cost them sleepless nights and days of jagged blankness; it might cost them their innocence, their ideas as to how life should be; it might cost them some of their health, mental, physical or emotional.

It will cause them to change the speed they have run their lives on. A friend of mine, Miss Lis, put it this way in words far more beautiful than I could ever dream:  "... a joy will be in the healing a journey that sometimes has the pace of still waters."

The greatest cost to them might be expressed in one of the smallest words: Why? So many questions will arise from your leaving. And one of the hardest parts is that so many of those questions will not be answered any time soon. Your loved ones will have to take the silence as an answer in itself until that day when you will be reunited with them in Heaven. The book of Deuteronomy chapter 29 and verse 29 says, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God." We might not have the answers for such a profound tragedy; but God knows it all - He has always known - and He promises us that some day "we will know as we are known," fully and completely. Asked and answered.

Joy will come for them - and when they have obtained it, sorrow and mourning will have to turn their backs and run away in the presence of this new-found strength. The joy of the Lord will be their strength, a much more tenacious strength than they have ever experienced before.

Which made me think about HOPE. Did everything seem hopeless, our Little Boy Blue? As I asked you at the beginning, had you come to the place of no hope?

I pondered this for many hours; and on early Saturday afternoon, as I was going about the duties of the day, my friends Joan and Rick came to the TH for lunch. "Have you seen the beauty outside?" they exclaimed.

I went outside, and this is what I saw and what I learnt:

The railing of the ramp had been transformed into a safety net. Close-up, it looked heavy and closed in ...

But when you take in the whole picture, you can see that beyond the barrier there is a path with a little hint of the sun shining, almost out of view ...

And my small lilac tree, the one no one thought would make it through the summer, looked like it was reaching toward God.

Just like Josh was, flashed the thought into my head. Just like the Joshua tree. Months ago, after a conversation with one of my nephews, I had looked up why the Joshua tree was named that in the first place, and this is what Wikipedia had to say:

The name Joshua tree was given by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer. 

You don't know this, Josh, but ever since I received the gift of this tree I had searched for the right name for it. And in the unexpected first blast of winter, when I was thinking about you and looking at my tree, I knew that of course its name is the Josh tree, the tree reaching its branches in supplication to God, the living symbol at the TH of hope against all odds.

And that brought me back to the question of hope and you. Everything must have seemed to be hopeless to you that morning, except for one thing. And that one thing makes all the difference.

You never lost hope in God.

You believed with all your heart, with all your mind, that God would care for you, that God would make everything better. And so you wanted to get to Him, and you went the only way you knew how at the time.

Your last action on earth - dare I say it? - was a prayer. 

The angels, shuddering, covered their ears at the heart-stopping sound.

Creation groaned.

All of heaven fell silent.

And then the One you wanted all the time stepped forward. With tears running down His face, that beautiful face which had felt long, angry thorns rammed into it, He reached out His hands for you.

And as you crossed the line from time into eternity the One in Whom your broken heart pinned your last hope, with breaking heart Himself, grabbed onto your hands.

You had placed your hope in Him and He did not let you down. 

Just as I was turning to go back into the tea house, suddenly a sunburst danced over the edge of the verandah, radiant and joyful on this icy day.

And in that moment everything was white and pure. Everything was made new.

There will always be shadows that hover timidly in the background, a sombre reminder of what occurred, of what could have been. But there is hope; and because there is hope, peace will come, and love will survive. And eventually, painstakingly, joy will slowly emerge from its wintry cocoon and will unfurl its wings and fly into the clear blue morning.

Birthday Verbage

I have always loved words. And I have started loving them even more since I started following Dad around and learning about the roots and the meanings and the core and heart of words.


This past Tuesday Dad finished up the benediction from the book in the Old Testament called Numbers and chapter 6. (He started a couple of weeks ago, and here is where we discussed what he said last week.)


Here's the whole benediction again:

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying

Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying

In this way you shall bless the children of Israel

saying unto them:

The Lord bless you and keep you

The Lord make His face shine upon you

and be gracious unto you

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace

"The Lord lift up His countenance upon you" - the word countenance here is the same word as face in the verse above this one. It speaks to us of grace in fellowship. The book of Deuteronomy chapter 34 and verse 10 tells us that God knew Moses face to face - He could converse with him as a friend.


Psalm 42 verses 5 and 11 talk of two countenances. Verse 5 talks about the "help of His countenance" and verse 11 speaks of "the health of my countenance" (another version uses the word presence instead of countenance).


We realize the help of His countenance - which, of course, has a direct bearing on the health of our countenances - when we focus on God. The well-known verse in Isaiah 26 promises us, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee."


"... and give you peace" - these words reveal to us God's grace in quietness. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength," we are reassured.


This peace encompasses these thoughts:

• tranquility, the still waters of the twenty-third Psalm, where the Shepherd will lead us
• safety, often included in the word peace. Isaiah 57 verse 2, which is the text that Dad spoke from at Mum's funeral, says, "He shall enter into peace" ... He (she) is safe now.
• completeness; a Hebrew concordance Dad reads even has the thought of peace being complete as a secondary meaning for peace.
• harmony. When sin entered the world, disharmony ensued for the first time. And it wasn't just disharmony with God, horrible enough as that is on its own; it led to disharmony between Adam and Eve, in nature, with other people, and in our own hearts. 

Allan, Dad and me

Today is my brother's birthday. He is a man who seeks to know God and so I would like to write the last part of our study out with him particularly in mind.


At the very end of our hour together on Tuesday, Dad got us to look at the verbs in this benediction that I have quoted above. He told us something fascinating about the tenses of the verbs.


Saying (line 4). This is in the infinitive in the original, telling us that the blessing Aaron and his sons were to bestow on the people of Israel was not restricted by time. It was a blessing that could be spoken on any occasion ...


Bless (line 5); make His face shine (line 6); and lift up His countenance (line 8). These are all written in a continuing verb tense.


Keep (line 5);  be gracious (line 7); and give you peace (line 9). These are all written in the verb tense called 'VAU' and it is a permanent tense.


So God seeks to bless, make His face shine and lift up His countenance toward us on an ongoing basis.


And He wants to keep us, be gracious to us and give us peace permanently. This is a peace that cannot be taken away from us, no matter how rough the sea upon which our little ship teeters its way.


Happy birthday, my little brother! May you know the countenance of God being lifted toward you on an ongoing basis this year.


May you be kept in the palm of His hand.


And may you experience even more deeply than you do now the peace of God, which passes all understanding.


I love you.