VALIDATION RECEIVED (AMONG OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS)

I started running outside again now that the weather is nicer. I saw an old man running the other day. Typically not an unusual sight except that he was running with a cane! How sic is that?! If I'm his age and am still into running (I'm guessing my knees will be made of titanium or something), I hope I have the same determination! On another run, I passed an elderly lady who was leading a younger lady by the arm, her daughter or granddaughter perhaps. What struck me was both of them were carrying red tipped white walking canes used by the visually impaired. I've used the cliche "the blind leading the blind" so many times, but I've never seen it! It was quite touching, actually.

I went to the annual Missionfest conference, held this year at Queensway Cathedral instead of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, hoping that I would be able to talk to exhibitors about international development opportunities. "Turned off" might be too strong of a description, but it wouldn't be that far off in terms of accuracy. It was very crowded as I was barely able to squeeze by people who had stopped at the different booths. As I circled each of the exhibits, all I heard was "enter in this free draw for a t-shirt", "fill out a ballot here", "buy this CD - it was put together by people who used to be on drugs"! The number of Christian organizations there promoting their businesses (software, education centres, directories, books, etc.) outnumbered the missionary agencies. Of the agencies that I did see, I didn't see any that were involved in micro economic development or other forms of sustainable development. It was quite disorganized and disappointing.

In my society of creature comforts, there are service providers for everything. Thus, when something breaks or doesn't work, it's not too difficult to find someone who is willing to take your money to fix it. Yet, I find most of those around me settle for this, as if the right to be lazy has been hard earned. Having started to master the art of changing the oil in my car, I came across another "challenge" recently: a burned out headlight. After consulting with a knowledgeable colleague and the car's owner manual, I decided to learn a new task. As with anything that I haven't done before, it was quite a time consuming challenge. After struggling with the most insignificant of parts (it's a $5 metal retainer clip that holds the bulb in place that needs to be wrestled back in place before the system will work), I finally finished the task. You cannot imagine the grin on my face when I flicked on the car's lighting system and saw these babies glow to life!

I had the somewhat awkward occurrence of recently meeting people in person whose blogs I've been reading. Then, they tell you a story that they've shared on their blog and you want to engage excitedly in dialogue but you bite your tongue because they don't necessarily know that you've been reading their blog. Man, I feel like a voyeur, spying in on their lives without their knowing. I guess the same could apply to me as well. Hmm. Oddly, some people seem 'larger than life' on their blogs than in real life.

Had lunch with one of the senior leadership members at the North Toronto regional site of The Meeting House. They are thinking of asking me to co-lead one of the Home Church groups in Scarborough. I shared about my current marital struggles. It actually didn't occur to me that I should have shared this earlier, prior to me accepting the invitation to attend their leaders training. Not that I have ever felt that The Meeting House governs with the same black-white yardstick that I've felt from other conservative churches. In fact, it was BECAUSE they have such an open arm policy of acceptance that I have continued to attend. But, there are always considerations when putting yourself in a position of leadership, where the impacts of being a stumbling block are more inherent. However, this leader supported me and even suggested that we should continue to meet and perhaps along with the teaching pastor, Bruxy Cavey, to go through this journey with discernment leadership. Come to think of it, I haven't had any discernment leadership guiding me in the past 4 years. Even though I've visited with various cousellors (marriage or otherwise) and church leaders, none has been able to support beyond the typical enumerated pat answers and obvious scripture references. But I believe that this is due to the fact that none of them have had to wrestle with this first hand. This leader then went on to share with me that they, too, had gone through divorce. I value the support that I have received so far from family and friends, but to be supported by someone who has treaded in the same "deep waters" has been very rare. Some very good points about "breaking the covenant" and how that might affect effective spiritual leadership were raised, and thus discernment leadership was important in this final leg of the journey. It then struck me that perhaps why resolution has not happened yet may have been a form of God's hand protecting me. I may have inadvertently jeopardized any future opportunity to be placed in positions of leadership if I had acted on the impulses that I have had so many times in the past to quickly end this impasse. I can't even begin to imagine the regret and grief I would feel if I made that realization AFTER the fact. And now, I have found a support channel of people who have gone through this, seem to understand the complexity of the situation AND are willing to walk with me! God is alive!!

Many thanks to my friend D. who was able to get a hold of a new Palm M500 to replace my recently retired one. No more double booking. w00t!