Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Holy Day or Holiday?


I have often thought the concept of Easter Monday was kind of strange.  You just know it had to be a blatant quest for a four-day weekend. That someone, somewhere, had a eureka moment and decided that the Monday following Easter Sunday was obviously Easter Monday and as such deserved to be a holiday.  And it had to be a bureaucrat as they seem to be the only ones who get that day off.
That’s fair; people ought to be thankful for Easter, if only for the extra-long weekend. Yesterday I heard some stores advertising that they were open on “Holiday Monday” and my first thought was, “I wonder what holiday that is?”
After all, it was too early for Victoria Day and too late for New Year’s Day.
It would seem that the world would like to borrow the church’s holidays, but would prefer not to acknowledge them.
So I had an idea. Everyone should be able to observe whatever religious holidays they prefer, i.e. Christmas and Easter or Passover or Eid ul-Adha, but in order for it to be a paid holiday, you would have to get a note from your Pastor, Priest, Rabbi or Imam, saying that you actually took the time to observe the religious holiday.   Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Good Bye to the Rim


As difficult as it might seem to believe, I was having a coffee at Tim Horton’s the other day and I heard a staff member comment on how pleased the staff was that the roll up the rim contest was finished for yet another year.

Curious, I asked why that was?  She replied, explaining that some customers would get upset when they didn’t win. Interesting.  They were upset because they were leaving not having what they didn’t have when they went arrived.

Roll up the rim is a life lesson dear reader. For all the scraping and conniving, all the work and toil that we expend during our brief time on spaceship earth, each us will leave not having what we didn’t have when we arrived. Or as Job said, “naked I came into this world and naked I will depart.”  

We all know that we can’t take it with us, so why are we so willing to sacrifice what we will have forever to gain what we’ll only have for a while?  The Apostle Paul tells us that the prize is an eternity with Christ and every cup is a winner if we are only willing to roll it up and claim the prize. 



Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.




Thursday, March 17, 2016

May the Choice be with you



It was good to see old friends again, if only for a couple of hours.  This week Angela and I finally got around to seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  And we enjoyed the familiar faces, although through the years the characters kept getting mixed up. Sometimes I thought I saw Indiana Jones instead of Hans Solo and Jesus instead of Lor San Tekka, but that’s just me. 

A few things did jump out to me about the movie.  I wondered how much Mark Hamill got paid for his role? I think I could have done it.  After all I had the same bathrobe when I was in high school.  I wondered if George Lucas has father issues?  I thought Chewie aged remarkably well and Angela wondered if he coloured his fur.  And I realized that in the end, the entire story has very little to do with the power of the force and a great deal to do with the power of personal choice and decisions that are made.

Characters made good choices and bad choices, not because they had to but because they decided to.  And that is where Star Wars is like life. Ultimately each of us will decide for ourselves if we will embrace the dark side or the light side   Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.













Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Fly Away


We are home from our vacation. We had a great time and everything went smoothly right up to our flight home.  Plane left on time, flight crew was great, we arrived on time and then we attempted to land in Halifax.  We experienced some of the worst turbulence that I have ever been in and when we finally came in for touch down the wheels just touched down when the pilot pulled us back into the air.  That was breathtaking. 

To make a long story short, we landed in Sydney, Cape Breton (not Australia), where we had to remain on the plane for four hours before attempting to land at Halifax again.  When the Halifax thing didn’t work out we flew to Montreal, but by now the toilets weren’t working and there was no drinking water left for the two hundred passengers.  Once we landed in Montreal we cleared customs, made our way to the domestic terminal, boarded another aircraft and flew to Halifax, arriving 10 ½ hours after our scheduled arrival. 

When we were waiting to deplane the senior flight attendant told me that through it all nobody complained or got nasty and how much easier that made her life.  And really, isn’t life easier for all of use when people aren’t complaining or nasty?  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Hello?


One night our phone rang at 4:45, in the morning! You know that if you get a telephone call at that hour it can't be good news. Nobody calls you at quarter to five in the morning just to say hello or to tell you that you’ve won the lottery, in which case it would be a wrong number at our house. We have had people call at that hour to say G'day, but that was because they were confused about the time difference.
It is amazing how many thoughts can go through your mind between the time the phone first rings and when you finally pick it up.  Within seconds, you have considered every possible tragedy that might have necessitated someone calling you at that horrendous hour, because you know in your heart of hearts that it will be bad news.  In our case whoever was calling hung up as Angela answered the phone and the caller ID showed it was a payphone.

I wonder if our prayer lives are reflective of early morning phone calls, they only happen when there’s a problem? God wants us to bring Him our troubles, but I’m pretty sure He wants to hear the good news as well.Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.