50 years of gratitude

This week marks 50 years since my family of origin moved 
from small town Saskatchewan to the big city of Edmonton, Alberta. 
The picture below was taken the month before we came 
(in September of 1974). 

The colour picture below is from winter of 2011...

and the next picture is from the last day of September this year.

Our city has grown a lot since we came, 

from a population of about 445,000

to the present 1.1 million people.

The roads are busier (and always under construction).

The people are more diverse, 

and the arts and culture scene has grown

by more than leaps and bounds!

Unfortunately, homelessness has increased

(doubled since last year to 4,700 people lacking homes,

or so Homeward Trust tells us today)

mostly because successive governments have failed 

over the past 30+ years to build and maintain

housing stock that is affordable.

(I'll have news about a housing rally coming up 

for National Housing Day on November 23rd.

Watch this space.)

I am grateful for life in this city, 

first known as amiskwaciswâskahikan in Cree

or Beaver Hills House in English.

Thanks, Dad and Mom,

for your decision to move to this beautiful place

50 years ago -- how time flies!

Thank you, beautiful place on a beautiful river,

for being home for 50 years.

I am grateful.

Ninanaskomun.

Growing like the garden on Canada Day

I do love living in Canada... but I am only too aware of the way our country is divided right now between those who want to fight for the freedoms they feel have been trampled because of past health mandates and the collapsing economy, and those who wish the freedom convoy folks would go to Ukraine and come to an understanding of how free we Canadians actually are. 

I am also very mindful of how the establishment of Confederation 155 years ago was a trampling of the rights of our First Peoples, and the centuries of pain inflicted on them by colonists (European settlers and everyone who came after) make it hard to feel like celebrating.

So I am having a low-key Canada Day, putzing around in my garden between rain showers, and moodling in my mind about this beautiful stolen land we call home, and ways to live in appreciation of the freedom many of us enjoy as Treaty People. We have much to be grateful for, but also many reparations to make. There's much to ponder as we try to heal the divides among us, to welcome truth and work for reconciliation, and to be open to newcomers fleeing places of conflict. 

Happy Canada Day. May we all open our hearts to listen to one another, and create cooperation and healing in our country.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share two videos that show how much things can grow in one month. Can we grow bigger hearts as Canadians the way my fava beans grow? I think so.

Patience for something beauty-full

My six-year-old blooming
Lionheart amaryllis

Some years ago, I asked a florist to send an amaryllis to my dear friend in Belgium as a Christmas gift. Gaby was delighted and wrote to me, saying, "she is very beauty-full!" So the next fall, I ordered a bulb for myself, and planted it so it would bloom for Christmas. And yes, she was very beauty-full!

She also managed to produce a roundish pod where one of the flowers had been -- because I transferred pollen between the blossoms with my fingers. I allowed the pod to ripen into a hard brown shell, and eventually it cracked and opened to reveal many black, flat and crinkly seeds about the size of a loonie (dollar coin here in Canada).

I turned to the internet for information about how to grow an amaryllis from seed, but all I could find was that they produce the plants in Florida, and it takes about four or five years from germination to flower stage. Wow, that long, I thought.

I was game to try for germination at least, curious what those flat black seeds would do. So I spread them out in a large-ish shallow pot, covered them with a fine layer of soil, and kept them well watered. Before long, the pot appeared to be growing fine grass.

That fall, I transplanted a dozen of the grassy plants into small pots and left them to grow in a sunny window through the winter. By the next spring, they looked like baby leeks, and I put a half dozen into four slightly larger pots and set them outside, bringing them indoors before first frost. The next summer, I kept only the three healthiest specimens. For three years, they spent their days in the sunny back yard or the south-facing kitchen window, depending on the season.

But last fall, as they were ending their fourth year, I cut the leaves from bulbs about the size of medium onions, shook the dirt from their roots, and put them in my basement cold room for a winter's nap with my original bulb, which has bloomed every year after its winter break. 

I promptly forgot about them all -- until after Easter!

The one that didn't bloom

In the middle of an episode of insomnia, I remembered! The next morning, I planted them in some good potting soil and set them out in our little greenhouse, where they put out some healthy looking leaves... and two of the three plants sent up a flower stalk! All that patience had paid off!

I gave one amaryllis to my sisters and one to my mom, and the flowers didn't disappoint! As Gaby said, they were "very beauty-full." Perhaps the third plant hadn't stored quite as much sunlight as the other two, as it hasn't blossomed. Maybe next year!

The lesson I am taking from this is that people are like amaryllises. We all grow at our own pace -- especially when it comes to discovering and accepting the truths of life. For some people, it takes much longer than others. 

In this season of uncovering many painful truths about Canada's colonial history and its myriad injustices against our Aboriginal Peoples, we need to be patient with one another, not to give up on each other. If we can bring each other along with gentleness, kindness, atonement, forgiveness, and healing, hopefully we can all bloom together into something very beauty-full.

Please pray with me for that, and let's all do what we can to further reconciliation...

Garden tour 2020

It's a warm week, and the garden is loving it! So am I, hoping that the slugs dry up and the mosquitoes diminish. Though my dying camera gives everything a blue tinge, I took one last video with it and thought I would post it here for my readers' enjoyment and my own records. Hope you're enjoying these summer days!

Sunday reflection on a Monday: An undivided heart

Image by Jay (my words)

Today's reflection is brought to you by
Hebrews 4: 12-13, a day late because I forgot to hit the publish button! Oops.

Your word,
O God,
is your living and active self,
a sword
that comes to separate me
from my illusions.

Too often
I divide what you have made
into opposing camps,
forgetting
that without darkness,
light cannot exist,
that joy is sweeter
once I've known sorrow,
and that my soul
needs its body
in spite of its aging
and imperfections.

But you see clearly
where my real divisions are.

You understand me
better than I know my own mind.

Depending on the day,
my divided heart fools me
into thinking myself and others
better or worse than we really are,
but you see through me
and love me
in spite of my illusions.

Though it be painful,
show me the places
where I need to grow,
to love,
and to live
according to your will for me

Give me
an undivided heart,
and lead me to wholeness.

Let me forget myself
and follow you alone.

+Amen.

Sunday Reflection on a Monday: A gardener God

Today's reflection brought to you by
Ezekiel 17:22-24.

We are your creation,
O God,
and you are the Master Gardener.

Starting noble cedars from tender sprigs
is only one of your specialties.

Making mustard seeds flourish
is not impossible for you.

In this season of sunshine,
rain,
and growth,
it's so easy to take life for granted.

But none of it,
none of us,
exist without you.

As Master Gardener,
you tend to our care unobtrusively.

Most of the time,
we don't even notice your ministrations.

But the pruning of our egos can be painful.

When you call us to let go of our certainties
and become open to new ideas and new life,
our lives expand
and our meagre minds stretch
in directions we never expected.

Ouch!

We do not go willingly into any kind of pruning or suffering,
so you sent Jesus to show us how.

Thank you,
Master Gardener,
for your wonderful creation,
and for creating us.

Help us to humbly accept
our prunings and replantings
so that we tender sprigs may become
your noble cedars.

+Amen.

Mary, mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Not with silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row, but I prefer food with my flowers, don't you? And I can't complain about the growth -- it never ceases to amaze me once we reach summer solstice!

June 21 

July 21

June 21

July 21

June 21

July 21

June 21

July 21

Thus far, we're enjoying lettuce, cherry tomatoes and snow peas, and it won't be long, God- and weather-willing, before we can start eating even more organic, 50-foot-diet vegetables. The squash are blooming, and it's just amazing how things change, even overnight. A garden is a good place to be this time of year, but if you don't have one, try a farmer's market because it's awesome too! Or visit me... I have more lettuce than I know how to handle! You've heard of crazy zucchini ladies...???

The difference three weeks makes

We're back! We had a wonderful vacation out to Vancouver Island -- great camping, good weather, and some excellent visits with family and friends. And now we're home... and you could say I'm a little overwhelmed by the garden, as usual. Things grew so much in the two weeks we were away. See for yourself -- in the series of photos below, the first was taken July 5th, and the second, July 25th.

The garden, overall...

Herbs and snap peas...

Scarlet runner beans...

The corn is taller than I am now!

We had a fair bit of hail the Friday before last, so my tomatoes aren't looking very happy, but overall, I'm pleased with our garden's progress... and I have a ton of work to do. So the vacation highlights reel will have to wait a bit, but it's coming, I promise. 

For the next few weeks, you can find me in the garden...

From conflict to grace

It's been a very interesting week for moodling. Not that I've done much here, online, but I've been doing a lot while dog-walking, crocheting, and working. I'm spending a fair bit of time these days writing up an interview I conducted for the history of L'Arche Edmonton, one that was particularly painful because it encompassed a time of conflict and gossip in the community.

The thing is, the people involved at that time were all really good people, doing what they felt was best for the community at that moment. But human egos got in the way, and in protecting those egos, it became easy to act less than charitably. We humans are a funny breed -- we so easily convince ourselves that what we do, we do for others, not ourselves, and sometimes don't see that for the power trip it can become.

That's where it can be helpful to have a wise and impartial third party come in and offer an outside perspective, but only if that party's suggestions are carried out. In the portion of the L'Arche history that I am working on, the mediators weren't heard, and for many people, the hurt continues, its tentacles sometimes touching into what happens here and now. Time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds.

I wish I could heal it all, but I'm not God. All I can do is moodle and pray about it, and try to learn from it in my own, human, limited way. The biggest thing, perhaps, is seeing and admitting my own mistakes and foibles, asking forgiveness when I am wrong, and working to make things right again. Then grace has a chance to take hold.

Of course, every bit of grace costs some ego! I guess that's why international conflicts are so difficult to solve -- so many egos are involved. I'm thinking in particular of my fellow blogger, Debbie, and her husband Dean, ecumenical accompaniers in East Jerusalem. You can find Debbie's writing by clicking here. And if you have time, maybe you can send a note to your politicians regarding a just end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's on my list of to-do's for today.

There was a small conflict in my house last night that needed to be brought to grace, and I was one of the instigators, so I had to ask forgiveness of everyone involved, and work things out. Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting better at seeing my own sins and mistakes more clearly as I get older, but I still have a long way to go to get to grace, full-time.

How about you?