Personal Inventory Time:
I was doing fine on the abstinence from meat thing until about 6:30 pm today. I was invited to a simple dinner to share with friends but, as the simple dinner was served it was chicken and rice. Common sense and good manners trumped my need to follow my “rules” blindly so I enjoyed the deliciously fowl meal (this is my blog so the humour can be as bad as I like)
I did say no to the carrot cake offered for dessert so I am batting 1000 in the No Sweets reflection of gratitude although I did partake in a Hot Chocolate to warm up one day.
The bread thing has been a bit of a challenge as I have been on the road a fair amount and often the quickest and most practical thing to do is have some kind of sandwich. Maybe the bread thing was not that smart a thing to focus upon.
In the same traveling and on the road vein I have had salmon at least on two occasions. As bad as that fish can be from an environmental stance (Norway to Germany to China to British Columbia to Ontario) it sill seemed the best choice on the menus that I was being presented. But I am going to try a potato / sardine cake on the weekend – I will see how that goes.
As for the running – well I am back on the tyranny of the clock. I have signed up for a 5 K race and am going to running classes at my health clinic. They have us on timed walk and runs and I am doing four and ones this week.
But more later …….
Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Not being Catholic, or not having the pleasure of really wearing any formal religious mantle I have complete freedom to ignore Lent which of course means I will not.
Here is what I am doing for 40 days:
Coffee – One cup a day of Small Producer and Roaster coffee in the morning to be aware of the wonder of the drink, that it connects you to a part of the world that is the same and yet different from Canada. Purchasing and drinking the coffee still helps small producers, coffee does have health benefits, and yet drinking it in a limited way makes you mindful of the distance that it travels and that not everybody can get it.
Meat – Abstaining from all meat unless it is from Renfew County. This is better for the environment and supports the local farmer who we will desperately need in the near future.
Fish – Fish like sardines and anchovies can be eaten in unlimited quantities. No salmon, no large fish. Frozen fish in our freezer and canned fish in our pantry is acceptable.
Bread – Only home baked bread in mindful quantities.
Sweets – No cakes, pies, cookies, chocolates, candies(except throat lozenges if needed) , doughnuts, soda pop (artificially sweetened or not), etc.
Purchases - No purchases of books, clothing, downloads, electronics, appliances, etc., unless truly needed
Here is what I am doing for 40 days:
Coffee – One cup a day of Small Producer and Roaster coffee in the morning to be aware of the wonder of the drink, that it connects you to a part of the world that is the same and yet different from Canada. Purchasing and drinking the coffee still helps small producers, coffee does have health benefits, and yet drinking it in a limited way makes you mindful of the distance that it travels and that not everybody can get it.
Meat – Abstaining from all meat unless it is from Renfew County. This is better for the environment and supports the local farmer who we will desperately need in the near future.
Fish – Fish like sardines and anchovies can be eaten in unlimited quantities. No salmon, no large fish. Frozen fish in our freezer and canned fish in our pantry is acceptable.
Bread – Only home baked bread in mindful quantities.
Sweets – No cakes, pies, cookies, chocolates, candies(except throat lozenges if needed) , doughnuts, soda pop (artificially sweetened or not), etc.
Purchases - No purchases of books, clothing, downloads, electronics, appliances, etc., unless truly needed
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Here is what I was doing 365 days ago. In a deep, drug induced sleep, slowly warming up under the care of two angels, Carly and Kevin. I cannot believe that a year has passed since the grace of the gift of my surgery. Today, a year later, the world’s headlines are on the aftermath of the earthquake in New Zealand, Gadhafi Duck hanging on to power in Libya, the price of oil continuing to rise, Lindsay Lohan’s troubles being laid out for the world to see, and the announcement of the launch date for the iPad II. Nowhere is there a headline screaming “HE LIVES”, but that is my headline. I am alive and very well today. Why? Here are some reasons;
1- SOAPE - My Source Of All Positive Energy. Has many other names: Higher Power, God, Mother Earth, Allah, Burt - the label list is infinite. My understanding would not fill the change purse of a baby gnat, but no matter. SOAPE takes care of me.
2- My Wife - She loves me, likes me, puts up with me, supports me, carries me, lets me annoy her but is like the soft centre of my Caramilk of Life. How she got there and why I deserve her only SOAPE knows
3 - Cousins - A man with no living siblings should feel alone but not with fabulous and helpful and wise and generous cousins.
4 - Critters - A tabby cat, a black cat, a white cat, a calico cat and a beagle - all are experts at putting life into context and perspective
5 - Fathers - Jack and Joe know the foolishness of the head office, the wisdom in the original instructions, and how to make it work in the fields.
6 - Doctors - My Family Doctor and the Doctors at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.
7 - Nurses - The wit who coined the Disney Phrase "Don't Fuck With the Mouse" was certainly inspired by an encounter with some of those inspired by Florence Nightingale. Nurses are overworked, under appreciated, and underpaid. But since Kevin and Carly and Kathy and the many others had no visible wings it sort of debunks A Wonderful Life.
8 - Friends - Sunday Night Friends, Tuesday Night Friends, Thursday Night Friends, Friends Made 50 years ago, Friends made yesterday.
9 - Taxes - Thank God and SOAPE Almighty that we can pay taxes.
10 - Life Itself - The promise of dawn, the brightness of the day, the tranquility of evening, and the blessing of the night.
Monday, February 21, 2011
I am going to run 5K in the 2011 Diefenbooker Classic on April 30th. There, I have said it. The run is sponsored by my health clinic, Ottawa area libraries, and the Diefenbunker. I got my doctor's okay and I am back to being a runner.
I am abandoning the clock and the heart rate monitor and the advice books. I have a 5K course and I start off by walking and then I run when I feel like it and then when I feel a bit winded, I walk. and then after a bit I run until I am a bit winded and then I walk etc etc etc.
I may abandon this structureless course of action in the future (in fact one of the docs at my clinic is a Chi Runner and I have signed up for that) but so far I like it. I have found that I can get very hung up on procedures and programmes: Run five and ones, run ten and ones, challenge the hill, don't wiggle your head. All of this is well intentioned, but I do not want to run a marathon and I do not give a rodent's buttock about a) personal best, b) maximum return on time investment, c) winning, d) constant improvement, or e) failure not being an option. My motto is that this endeavor is not worth doing unless you can do it with a) not succeeding, b) injury, c) humiliation, d) coming in last, e) being outrun by a toddler, and f) totally failing and giving up. That is what makes it so sweet and so real and so wonderful.
Today , as it was Family Day , I walked and ran in the afternoon. It was minus 12 C, the sun was out , but there was one heck of a wind. I wore a very goofy but warm faux fur hat with massive ear flaps. On my feet I had the brand new New Balance 880s and a windjacket, and two underjackets. I looked like the perfect tool.
I walked the first 400 meters and then ran a couple of hundred and then walked a couple of hundred and ran a couple of hundred. I got very warm, and I started to sweat and puff a bit but those bypassed arteries held their own. Slumbering chipmunks would have heard my clop, clop, clop, and in their state of torpor would think "he is back". Dreaming chipmunks, the cold wind, the rough and icy road: the lonely trudge of the reborn runner.
Who knows where this will lead? To the 5K Diefenbooker? Maybe a autumn 10K? Maybe total failure? Each has advantages and disadvantages. But I know the most dangerous thing that I can do: Sit on a couch, watch TV, and eat potato chips.
Being a runner means fresh air, new pains in joints, the possibility of encounters of bears (I live in the country) and freedom. Diefenbooker here I come.
I am abandoning the clock and the heart rate monitor and the advice books. I have a 5K course and I start off by walking and then I run when I feel like it and then when I feel a bit winded, I walk. and then after a bit I run until I am a bit winded and then I walk etc etc etc.
I may abandon this structureless course of action in the future (in fact one of the docs at my clinic is a Chi Runner and I have signed up for that) but so far I like it. I have found that I can get very hung up on procedures and programmes: Run five and ones, run ten and ones, challenge the hill, don't wiggle your head. All of this is well intentioned, but I do not want to run a marathon and I do not give a rodent's buttock about a) personal best, b) maximum return on time investment, c) winning, d) constant improvement, or e) failure not being an option. My motto is that this endeavor is not worth doing unless you can do it with a) not succeeding, b) injury, c) humiliation, d) coming in last, e) being outrun by a toddler, and f) totally failing and giving up. That is what makes it so sweet and so real and so wonderful.
Today , as it was Family Day , I walked and ran in the afternoon. It was minus 12 C, the sun was out , but there was one heck of a wind. I wore a very goofy but warm faux fur hat with massive ear flaps. On my feet I had the brand new New Balance 880s and a windjacket, and two underjackets. I looked like the perfect tool.
I walked the first 400 meters and then ran a couple of hundred and then walked a couple of hundred and ran a couple of hundred. I got very warm, and I started to sweat and puff a bit but those bypassed arteries held their own. Slumbering chipmunks would have heard my clop, clop, clop, and in their state of torpor would think "he is back". Dreaming chipmunks, the cold wind, the rough and icy road: the lonely trudge of the reborn runner.
Who knows where this will lead? To the 5K Diefenbooker? Maybe a autumn 10K? Maybe total failure? Each has advantages and disadvantages. But I know the most dangerous thing that I can do: Sit on a couch, watch TV, and eat potato chips.
Being a runner means fresh air, new pains in joints, the possibility of encounters of bears (I live in the country) and freedom. Diefenbooker here I come.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Lions and tigers and bears Oh My! ! I have thought a lot of that line from the Wizard of Oz over the last days – A silly and whimsical and fun conversation that Dorothy and the Tinman and Scarecrow have as they enter the Enchanted Forest to give them courage. (just before they meet the Cowardly Lion) Have you read John Valliant’s “The Tiger – A True Story of Vengeance and Survival” ? Read that book and no beast will frighten you more than the tiger. Except maybe for Kalahari Lions. The Bushman never mention the lion by name in the daylight hours. Why risk waking a slumbering beast? And my mind is fresh with the warning signs about bear attack on the portion of the Juan de Fuca Trail that I very briefly traversed a few days ago.
All this rambling preamble brings me to the wonderful vacation I just had with my wife in the small, small village of Shirley in British Columbia. I am sitting in a hot tub on the deck of small cabin. Below me is the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I can smell the ocean and feel the spray of the salty misty that gets carried up 30 metres. I can see Washington State and the Olympic Mountains across the waters and the occasional container ship that traverses the marine highway. The ocean is for the brave and the hearty and I am neither. I am not a mariner; I know nothing of the darkness of the sea, of her anger, of her deep cold, of her temper, of her bounty. And yet I sit in a 40 degree C bubbling froth of chlorinated fresh water and dare look upon her.
Lions and tigers and bears Oh My! ! The Kalahari Lions at sleep during the day. When does the sea sleep?
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I am 55 years old and today went tobogganing at the neighbour’s house. What a blast! The air temperature was a balmy minus eight. The wind was almost still so the infamous wind-chill was not even on the weather chart figuratively or literally. The sun was hidden behind cloud yet even at three thirty in the afternoon was still high enough to allow its warmth to be felt just a little. There is not a huge amount of snow on the ground this year, especially for very late January but we were graced last night with about 5 cm of fresh light snow on the ground.
At 55 I was amongst the youngest of the crowd but the gang that I was hanging with had learned, among the many several centuries of life lessons that it is okay to have fun. My toboggan was not really a toboggan but a China made Bat Saucer. It is black and slick and looks like something that Bruce Wayne would have has as a kid. It unfortunately was a bit slow: I only got to speed when I borrowed the Orange Demon. But no matter – I got snow during a gentle crash up my nose and down my chest. There is nothing like frozen snow melting on your hot heaving chest to bring you back to your childhood.
My hosts had a fireplace on the deck and the warmth of the fire, the warmth of the sun, and the heat generated on the uphill walk by your body made the day almost Jamaican. Of course looking over and out from the deck and seeing a frozen Madawaska River made it look Jamaica New York City but matter – it was still terrific.
My wife missed the sledding but showed up for pot luck supper. (she had to work). Ten neighbours, two loaves, one pot of beans, one pot of pork chilli, one pot of meatballs, one coleslaw, one potato salad, one fruit crisp, one tub of ice cream. We live in blessed times to have such a surplus, of food, fun, and friends.
At 55 I was amongst the youngest of the crowd but the gang that I was hanging with had learned, among the many several centuries of life lessons that it is okay to have fun. My toboggan was not really a toboggan but a China made Bat Saucer. It is black and slick and looks like something that Bruce Wayne would have has as a kid. It unfortunately was a bit slow: I only got to speed when I borrowed the Orange Demon. But no matter – I got snow during a gentle crash up my nose and down my chest. There is nothing like frozen snow melting on your hot heaving chest to bring you back to your childhood.
My hosts had a fireplace on the deck and the warmth of the fire, the warmth of the sun, and the heat generated on the uphill walk by your body made the day almost Jamaican. Of course looking over and out from the deck and seeing a frozen Madawaska River made it look Jamaica New York City but matter – it was still terrific.
My wife missed the sledding but showed up for pot luck supper. (she had to work). Ten neighbours, two loaves, one pot of beans, one pot of pork chilli, one pot of meatballs, one coleslaw, one potato salad, one fruit crisp, one tub of ice cream. We live in blessed times to have such a surplus, of food, fun, and friends.
Friday, January 28, 2011
There are few narratives in the Christian Scriptures that compel me more to thought than the story of the conversion of Saul to Paul.
Acts of the Apostles Chapter 22
About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.
‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
Some people explain this to me a fact of history and then use it as a test of worthiness: If you believe this exactly as written you are worthy. You are either hot or cold, you are either a believer or not a believer, you are either worthy or unworthy. Not that I should let what others think trouble me, but I find this explanation and understanding very sad. I find that it belittles what to me is a great and wonderful lesson.
Saul of Tarsus of Cilicia was a man of great power and prestige and presumably wealth. He was at the top of the heap in the Jewish hierarchy and at the same time a Roman Citizen. I can relate to him – I am a citizen of Canada and am amongst the wealthiest elite that the planet has ever known in terms of the resources that I consume. As I write this I am sitting by a warm fire drinking hot apple cider. I am getting warm after going for my outdoor exercise wearing a pair of $145 running shoes and all kinds of fancy layered and reflective pieces of clothing. I took my sourdough starter out of the refrigerator and am creating a sponge for bread that I need tomorrow for a toboggans party. My wife and I are looking at getting a new car. All this while people in Tunisia and Egypt are being brutalized. I have a lot in common with Saul of Tarsus of Cilicia
Yet he changed. Or I think more correctly, he was willing to change, and he was willing to learn. If you have quarrel with what I say, read the text again. No one forced him to go on to Damascus; he did it of his own free will. And he further was told that he would be taught what he had to do. It is also compelling that his companions saw the light but did not know what was happening. Or was it that they just were not listening?
Last year I wrote that Saul became Paul when he was hit by a flash of empathy and I still think that to be true but not the whole story. I think that Paul, when he heard the voice of Jesus heard the voice of all humanity. Humanity was telling him that he was not connected, that he was a taker and not a giver, that he, worse of all was not even alive. The Conversion of Paul is the story of how we are only alive and have worth if we are connected to humanity. That is what Christ taught in all those parts of the Bible that are in red ink. I am not capable of interpreting it in any other way.
Which brings this back to me. Why am I so afraid of Paul and desire to remain Saul?
Acts of the Apostles Chapter 22
About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.
‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
Some people explain this to me a fact of history and then use it as a test of worthiness: If you believe this exactly as written you are worthy. You are either hot or cold, you are either a believer or not a believer, you are either worthy or unworthy. Not that I should let what others think trouble me, but I find this explanation and understanding very sad. I find that it belittles what to me is a great and wonderful lesson.
Saul of Tarsus of Cilicia was a man of great power and prestige and presumably wealth. He was at the top of the heap in the Jewish hierarchy and at the same time a Roman Citizen. I can relate to him – I am a citizen of Canada and am amongst the wealthiest elite that the planet has ever known in terms of the resources that I consume. As I write this I am sitting by a warm fire drinking hot apple cider. I am getting warm after going for my outdoor exercise wearing a pair of $145 running shoes and all kinds of fancy layered and reflective pieces of clothing. I took my sourdough starter out of the refrigerator and am creating a sponge for bread that I need tomorrow for a toboggans party. My wife and I are looking at getting a new car. All this while people in Tunisia and Egypt are being brutalized. I have a lot in common with Saul of Tarsus of Cilicia
Yet he changed. Or I think more correctly, he was willing to change, and he was willing to learn. If you have quarrel with what I say, read the text again. No one forced him to go on to Damascus; he did it of his own free will. And he further was told that he would be taught what he had to do. It is also compelling that his companions saw the light but did not know what was happening. Or was it that they just were not listening?
Last year I wrote that Saul became Paul when he was hit by a flash of empathy and I still think that to be true but not the whole story. I think that Paul, when he heard the voice of Jesus heard the voice of all humanity. Humanity was telling him that he was not connected, that he was a taker and not a giver, that he, worse of all was not even alive. The Conversion of Paul is the story of how we are only alive and have worth if we are connected to humanity. That is what Christ taught in all those parts of the Bible that are in red ink. I am not capable of interpreting it in any other way.
Which brings this back to me. Why am I so afraid of Paul and desire to remain Saul?
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