Family

My blogging is erratic this week as Ann and I are travelling and lack of time and internet interfere with our schedule. But as we visit family, I continue a journey of surprise. First, I do not understand why family relationships should be so close. After all, they are individual persons like anyone else, why should we be attracted to them more than others.

Of course, there are some, perhaps many, families that live at enmity with one another, and there are friends who become as close as family. But we all sense the priority that family has in the world’s pecking order and fighting or ignoring family members is not the way it should be.

In fact, family ties are created by God to illustrate the relation of members of the Trinity with each other, but also God’s relationship to us; He longs for us to be part of his family. Feuding families are the anomaly that illustrates our fallenness.

Second, I did not expect the enjoyment that Ann and I receive from our family. From just the two of us, our direct family and spouses now number about twenty. I say about twenty, for others are on the way! And for someone like me who doesn’t plan life far ahead, family, however natural it is, comes as a surprise.

Why do Ann and I drive 3600 kilometres across Canada, or fly regularly to England and New Zealand? Certainly not for the sake of our health, which occasionally precludes such trips. But the warmth and pleasure we receive far outweighs any inconvenience.

I suppose the greatest surprise is that family members are as pleased to see us as we are to meet with them. After all, they did not ask to be part of our family, but we are responsible for them and their progeny. But to be close to them reinforces our closeness to God who gave us life.

I do not know if those who do not have family mourn for the loss, or whether they are unaware of it. What I do know is that becoming a child of God provides a relationship and security that is ultimately beyond the joy received from earthly families.

Cross Canada Memories

We are currently in a motel in White River, Ontario. It is about 2/3rds the way around Lake Superior heading east. The drive though north western Ontario always reminds me of our first trip across Canada—only a part of it—from Montreal to Calgary.

We had disembarked from the old SS Ryndam the day before. We spent the night in a pension on Dorchester, the first night of our new home in Canada. That was in July 1965. The kind landlady said to leave our girls—7 and 9 if we wanted to take a stroll and buy a snack.

We wondered if we had done the right thing—we were in a new country, didn’t know a soul; would the girls be safe there? We weren’t used to the Montreal madness, tires squealing, horns blaring, and strange characters on the streets.

As it happened, we and the girls were quite safe in Montreal, perhaps not so true today—a cop may shoot you, probably accidentally, but the result is the same! The following day we boarded our train for Calgary. The car section afforded seats by day and bunks at night. We had the top bunk, and the girls were below.

Our first introduction to the size of Canada was to enter the forests of NW Ontario the first evening, to sleep all night as the train travelled, and to wake up to the same forests of NW Ontario. We have driven most of these forests again this week, as we have for several years past.

But back then the privacy of the coach section at night gave us the opportunity to make love the first time in our newly adopted country, right in Winnipeg station about 10.00 p.m. the following night. That was not the last time we wondered about our move to Canada, nor made love as our expanded family attests.

But the beauty of Canada will always be the attraction for travelling this vast country. Not sure if we’ll see it all before we go to a more glorious place—if that’s possible. Perhaps heaven will be a repeat of the most beautiful things we have known on earth. If so, it will not be a disappointment.

Living on Borrowed Time . . .

I am a cancer patient. Once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient. I had surgery to remove a cancerous prostate two and a quarter years ago, and have been cancer free since. Thanks to a great surgeon who performed a long and extensive operation. 

However, a visit to him last week for a check up revealed a slight uptick in my prostate specific antigen (PSA) to 0.2. Maybe nothing to worry about, he suggested; could be from the thyroid, but we don’t know at this stage. Next check up in four months. Even if positive and left untreated, it would take years to develop.

But he reminded me that if I had not had the operation, I would be dead by now! Add to that a heart attack nine months ago. The team placing a stent in my heart informed me that I survived with minimal heart damage thanks to the first responding medical personnel who acted swiftly and efficiently.

Both are a reminder of the fragility of life and of the dedicated health specialists who have committed themselves to alleviating suffering and death. Whether Christians or not, their calling is one that Jesus embraced, drawing people back from sickness and death.

For me, God placed them at the right time and place for my survival. I am deeply thankful to them for their skill and care, and to God for His provision. Whatever the future holds, here or for eternity, no place is safer than in His hands. And He won’t take me home until my work is done.

Gone with the . . . ?

The movie “Gone with the Wind” celebrates 75 years this month. Probably number two only to The Sound of Music, most of the older generation and many of the younger will have seen it, or at least be aware of its risqué start—quite tame by today’s low standards.

But few know that both the Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek use the same word for wind or breath and spirit, context determining which word is meant. This leads to some interesting word play in both Testaments.

In the Old Testament’s story of the valley of dry bones , Ezekiel 37:4–14, the “breath” of new life for the dry bones, could be translated “Spirit” as it is in the last verse. The breath of God is His Spirit. In the New Testament, Jesus uses a similar wordplay in John 3:8 with Nicodemus

 

This led me to parody the film title for my latest book, “Gone with the Spirit,” a trek through Scripture observing the Spirit of God “breathing” over the world and on its human inhabitants. I used a similar technique for the title of my previous book, “Guess Who’s Coming to Reign” from the film: “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Information about these books is on our website, www.norfords-writings.com/books and the books are available on line and in bookstores. I trust you find either book informative and enjoyable.

Life’s priorities will determine whether you find our books as enjoyable as “Gone with the Wind.” Earthly resources, as pleasant as they can be, provide only a shadow of the joy and meaning for life that daily living and future expectations with our Creator provide.

Them and Us

I’m sure we are all glad that Ratko Mladic has joined his erstwhile leader Radovan Karadzic in being brought to justice for Serbian crimes. But Mladic only joins a line of vicious leaders that span the last century and since time began. I’ll leave you to name many of them—they are household words.

Unfortunately, Mladic’s capture only leaves the field open for other aspiring stars to fill the vacancy, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad of Syria currently vying for top honours. I assume that these men at some point will face justice for the evil they perpetrate.

Naturally, oppression and atrocities are committed for positive reasons, forced French in Quebec preserves the French culture, abortion preserves a woman’s right to her body, and like Hitler preserving the German race, Mladic was preserving the Serbs—and plenty call him a hero for doing so.

It’s too easy to place ourselves in the “them and us” category. We’re not perfect, but cannot be compared with “them.” And. of course, we still belong in the “us” category when it comes to interpersonal relationships. We are adept at perceiving the evil in others closer to home.

Unfortunately, Jesus saw the thought as the deed (Matthew 5:22–23). Our anger and hidden wish against the welfare of “them” is different only in degree from Mladic and the violent expression of his wishes; it is no different in substance.

That is why Jesus said: “The world . . . hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7:7). No wonder so many of us reject Him—we reject His judgment of them. It is only as we recognize our sinfulness that we hear His voice, become His friends, and love Him.