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I Might Start Wearing A Medical Mask

I think I want to start wearing a medical mask – you know, the kind of mask doctors and nurses wear when they do surgery.

There are lots of people who wear these masks outside the hospital. In some countries it’s as common for people to wear them on subways, transit and on crowded streets as it is not to. 

There’s a part of me, however, that doesn’t like them at all. It always seems like people are hiding something. When you can’t see someone’s face, you wonder what they are thinking or what they are hiding behind that mask.

But now I’m having a change of thought on the matter.

Traveling can wreak havoc on your health: you stay in hotels, your schedule is not conducive to getting the proper rest, and you are around a lot of other people in close proximity. 

If you get a little run down and someone has a bug, you’re bound to get it too.

At the beginning of the conference we attended, I noticed a few people who were coughing and sniffling. But as the conference went on, there were more and more of them.

During one meeting, I sat in front of a guy who I thought was coughing up a lung. I didn’t want to look; I just put my collar up and moved at the break. 

By the end of our time, it was very noticeable the number of sickies. Then as we moved on from the conference for a week of traveling, my wife, Lily, started to show symptoms.

We flew from Greece to Italy and on the plane there were about five people who were wearing those medical masks. 

For the first time, I was a little envious of them. I thought about asking one of them if they had a spare they could lend me for the flight, but I resisted.

I started thinking about how many people on the plane might be sick and all those germs being filtered around and around in the cabin of the plane.

Lily and I weren’t sitting in the same row so I knew I wasn’t going to get sick from her. But the combined germs of everyone on the plane was really getting to me.

I wished I had a neck scarf that I could put up over my nose … but then I thought that might make me look like some kind of a criminal threat on the plane. 

Maybe it was just as well that I didn’t have one. 

I’ve visited people in the hospital and, at times, have had to put a mask on, either for my sake or theirs. So I know what it’s like to wear them.  

They are uncomfortable and, as you breathe and talk, a little condensation develops under them. Even your voice is muffled. It’s not a nice experience. 

But on this trip, I’d do almost anything to keep from getting sick … even sleeping on the far edge of the bed from my sick wife.

Here’s the thing: When we fear something, we take measures and do things to alleviate our fear. God is loving and has provided salvation for us, but He is also to be feared. Often we don’t fear God as we should; we just take advantage of His love. Maybe it’s because we don’t visually see the results of not fearing Him. But make no mistake – we will all face Him one day … that fact should motivate us to take measures so that on that day we will have nothing to fear.

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What do you fear right now and what measures are you taking? Leave your comments below.

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Same Experience Different Takeaway

It is no surprise that people can be engaged in the same experience but have different takeaways.

Even as I write this now, I prove this “same but different” concept to be true. It’s 3:30 am and I’m writing my blog while my wife is fast asleep. 

Just a few moments ago we were both in bed. We got into the same bed at the same time, and turned the lights out at the same time. 

All the conditions were the same, yet she is sleeping and I am not.

I spoke at a church in Spain two weeks ago. Everyone heard the same message, though some in Spanish. One woman, however, responded differently to the message than everyone else. She gave her life to Christ that day.

Back in 1974 I had waited outside of A&A’s record store on Yonge St in Toronto for tickets to an Elton John concert. My friends and I got 17th row on the floor, centre stage. 

Those tickets were pretty sweet.  

From the first note, all 20,000 of us in the Gardens that night were on our feet, jumping up and down and screaming out the lyrics of every tune Elton sang … I pretty much demolished the chair I was standing on.

Near the end of the concert, someone I knew was even closer to the stage. I’m not sure if he wormed his way up there or if his seat was just that close. 

At one point in the concert, Elton John came to the edge of the stage and touched the hands of delirious fans. This acquaintance on mine had a felt top hat in his hand. He held it out to Elton and he took it, sat down at the piano and played, “Bennie and the Jets”. 

Then Elton got up and, amongst all the extended arms, put the hat right back into the hand of my school mate.

We all experienced the same concert but that guy had a different takeaway than the rest of us. 

I just finished attending a conference in another part of the world. During one session each day, conference participants spoke about their experiences of sharing God’s love with others. 

The stories were the same in that each story was about making Jesus famous. The content of each story had the same bottom line of how Christ was changing people’s lives. 

But each story was so different.

Some of the stories involved people being healed. There were stories of kindness being the convincing factor. Some stories were about explaining or interpreting a dream. And some of the stories involved a consistent example. 

It was amazing how in one story it seemed like only an angel could have been involved in making Christ famous. 

It was so interesting because, though we heard story after story on the same theme, each story was so different.

It was the same message but each person had a different takeaway. 

Here’s the thing: The message of Christ is the same. It doesn’t change but people respond to different parts of it. Some people respond to love extended to them, some to a truth that finally clicks and makes sense. Some respond to the contrast of God’s desire for them versus the desire of another god. Some take longer to respond than others, and some respond through different means, like in dreams or visions. But to all who respond, the takeaway will be the same … salvation.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What experience have you had that needs a different takeaway? Leave your comments below.

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I Did It Again

“I did it again!” These were the words that popped into my head this morning. 

Unfortunately, reading these words doesn’t give you the emotion with which I said them or thought them. 

… Years ago I was finishing my basement and had a door that needed to be trimmed so it wouldn’t get stuck on the carpet.

I didn’t have all the tools I needed so I used what was available to me. I used a keyhole saw to do the work. This saw had a thin blade that tapered to a point. But the blade was also very toothy, if you know what I mean.  

While sawing through the bottom of my door, the saw slipped out of the groove and sawed the base of my finger. 

It bled like crazy so we hurried down to the hospital to get it stitched. 

Five stitches later and three months later, I was working on a sliding door. Again I needed to cut down the panels which were made of fibre board. 

For this job I used a utility knife. As I was cutting the board along a ruled line, the knife slipped off the board and sliced the end of my finger.

The first words that came out of my mouth were, “I did it again!” Off I went down to the hospital to get another set of stitches, this time near the tip of the same finger.

Now you have an idea of the emotion in which I used the words, “I did it again!”

This morning I used those words, not because I cut my finger, but because I missed my move goal on my watch. 

I’ve written before about the three rings on my watch that I try to complete each day (read about that here). The move ring tracks how many calories I’ve burned in a day. 

Back in August of 2017 I had a streak of 231 days in a row until I missed the next day by only a few calories. 

I was just not paying attention. It really fried me because I was trying to go a whole year without missing my move goal.

Over the next few months I missed my daily goal every once in a while, but finally got on track until just a few days ago my streak was 286 days. 

It was all going well. 

I was traveling to Spain, however, and that concerned me. How would the time change affect completing all my rings? I would lose five hours on the flight. 

Well, when I got here, it seemed like everything was okay. I looked at my watch and, by the end of the day, I had all my rings completed. 

But this morning when I checked, all the times on my watch have been corrected to the time it is in Spain. And guess what?  

It shows my move goal was short on the day I travelled.  When I saw that I said to myself, “I DID IT AGAIN!”

Now you know how I’m feeling.

Here’s the thing: Have you ever had this same feeling and expressed the same sentiments as “I did it again” when you sin? It can be very upsetting when you give into temptation again. Thankfully, God is a forgiving God and you should be quick to seek His forgiveness. That forgiveness enables you to reset, move on and not get stuck in your sin.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to reset In your life and move on from? Leave your comments below.

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“Cold” Doesn’t Always Mean the Same Thing

I’ve discovered that “cold” does not have the same meaning everywhere.

In my part of the world we understand cold to a greater extend than in other parts of the world. In Canada cold has a greater depth of meaning because of the wider range of temperatures we experience.

Most places on earth experience cold, but the range of temperatures a region experiences will determine the extent of their understanding of cold. 

I remember driving to Florida for a winter vacation with my family. We had left a major snow blizzard back in Canada. In fact, we got out of “Dodge” just in time, or we would have been stuck there and not made our trip. As it was, the roads were treacherous for the first day and a half of our trip. 

When we finally made it to Florida, we ditched our winter coats and put on our spring jackets because it was not very warm there.

The next morning we were up very early to spend the day at Disney World. When I say early, I mean Lily got us there before the park workers arrived!

It was quite chilly standing around in our spring coats, but it was nothing like back home where we would have had every inch of skin covered in layers. 

After a while the park workers started to show up for work. What surprised me was that they were arriving for work in winter parkas. 

For some reason, I thought that winter coats were only sold above the 42nd parallel, but here these people were decked out in the latest polar fleeced, designer winter jackets.

My first thought was, “That’s a little overkill.” … I wished I had have had a heavier spring jacket with me, but I would never have thought of digging my winter coat out of the trunk of the car when I was in Florida.

But for people living in places like Florida, they don’t experience the range of temperatures we do in the north, so for them it was cold … winter coat cold.

This morning at 9:15 am, I took a tram in Spain. The sun was out; the temperature was about 14 degrees. I was the only one on the tram without a coat of some kind.

There was even a woman wearing a winter coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck a few times, and a pair of ear muffs. 

The ear muffs were excessive. I don’t know any Canadians who would wear ear muffs in temperatures above zero.

But cold in Spain doesn’t mean the same thing as cold in Canada. They don’t understand cold like I do. 

On the other hand, I don’t understand hot like they do here in Spain. I might have more experience with cold in Canada, but they have more experience with hot.

Here’s the thing: Your experience with something helps you understand it better. Your experience with forgiveness from God helps you understand forgiveness so that you can apply it to others. When you understand that you need to be forgiven and then experience forgiveness from God, you have a greater depth of understanding so that you can forgive others. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is your experience with forgiveness? Leave your comments below.

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Make The Wise Choice

When you make the wrong choice, it often causes you more work in the end. 

There was a little, almost undetectable rain falling yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t as light as a mist, but not much more than a mist. 

I looked intently out my living room window at my Christmas lights that were still hanging just below the roof line. They looked out of place on a snow-covered winter day in February.

I realized I should get out there and take them off the house while it was mild out. 

As I pondered that thought, I walked through our living room and kitchen and looked out the back patio doors … at a deeply snow-covered deck.

I thought I should get out there and shovel the snow off the deck before another deep freeze made it harder to shovel. 

I had two jobs and I needed to choose which one I would do first.

We are often faced with the decision to choose between one of two things. 

I remember once when I had planned a full day of work around the house. I had a list of things that I needed and wanted to get done. It was the first day in several weeks that I was free to get at my list. 

Then I got a call from a friend who said, “We had a guy drop out of our hockey team this weekend and we need someone for a tournament we are in.” 

Choices, choices. What should I choose?

It took me a nano second to decide. I chose the house work. 

Wait a minute! … no, I didn’t. I almost had my hockey bag packed up and ready to go by the time I got off the phone with my friend. 

It was an easy decision. I chose the thing I loved over the things I had planned and wanted to accomplish.

This time the choices were not very different. It wasn’t a matter of one being fun and the other work. They were both work.

I had limited time and what I decided to do was first take down the lights and then shovel. I knew that the lights would come off quickly and I might still have time to shovel.

And that’s what I did … except company came as I was finishing taking down the lights, so I never got to shovel the deck.

Now a day later, it’s not raining. It’s even warmer outside which means the snow on the deck is heavier and will be harder to move than if I had done it yesterday.  

It will take me twice as long to shovel today than it would have if I had have tackled the deck the day before. But if I had have left the lights for today, it would have taken the same amount of time to remove them. 

As the Knight Templar in the movie Raiders of the Holy Grail said, “You chose poorly.”

I’m glad my face won’t melt off, but it’s now going to take me longer to remove that snow.

Here’s the thing: We often have a choice to make on two seeming even things. But if we choose poorly, it will cost us. We should think it through and choose wisely. There are spiritual choices you are confronted with: choosing salvation now or choosing something else for the immediate; following through on something God has put on your heart or choosing a different option. If you choose poorly on these, it will cost you in the end. In the case of salvation, it will cost you your eternity. Choose wisely.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What choices are you facing today? Leave your comments below.

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When Enough Is Enough

When do you say, “enough is enough”? When does one get to the end of her rope and start to climb back up? 

A person can only take so much before he starts to lose it. 

Like with a hockey team that’s having a difficult season, you want to cheer them up, to tell them a win is just around the corner. … but it might not be. 

How do you keep them from giving up? How do you deal with things that take you to the edge of the cliff? 

It’s a tough question to answer. 

Where I work part of the building has a flat roof. It’s an older church and it was built in three main stages over a 60 year span. For the last little while we have had a leak dripping from the ceiling of one of the flat roofs.  

That’s not the problem, however. The problem is we have had repairmen come to fix the leak almost 10 times! 

And what is worse is that after every time they have come to fix the leak, the leak has gotten worse! It keeps spreading.

The latest development is that now the roof leaks regardless of whether it has been raining and regardless of the temperature. 

Right now the temperature is in the -15 C range, and it is still leaking! 

The water keeps coming in and so do the bills. 

When do you say, “Enough is enough! No more money until you fix the problem.”? 

I remember when our daughter was a baby, she had a strawberry birthmark on her forehead. One night she rubbed it against the bumper pad in her crib and it started to bleed. Lil and I couldn’t get it to stop so we took her to the emergency department at the hospital.  

The doctor looked at it, said she was fine and then left the job of bandaging the spot to a nurse and an intern. 

Lil and I watched as this pair tried several different ways to bandage our daughter’s forehead. 

We really raised our eyebrows when they put some gauge on the birthmark and then attempted to put a mesh band around her head to hold it in place. 

I could see Lil getting more and more upset as our daughter Karlie kept crying and grabbing at the mesh band.  

Finally Lily got to the end of her rope. 

She blurted out, “That’s enough! Get the doctor.” They stopped everything and one of them quickly went to get the doctor. 

… I realize the roofing company has to pay their employees for the work they are doing on our church, but they are not even slowing the leak down; they are making it worse with every visit! 

Maybe it’s time to say, “enough is enough”.

Here’s the thing: When you watch the news, and catch the latest media buzz, you realize that our world is getting sicker and sicker. The weather shows us this is true, and people and countries show us this is true. At some point God will say, “enough is enough”, and He will make things right. … Be ready and prepared for that day. You just don’t know when that will be. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When was the last time you had enough? How did you handle it? Leave your comments below.

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When Should We Hibernate?

I feel I must place a caveat on this post. I wrote this article on Saturday morning. Sunday morning we got a ton of snow and wind. It turned out that only a handful of people showed up for church. I am not pointing fingers at anyone.

There are animals that hibernate in the winter and sometimes there are people who hibernate as well.

So far this winter has been pretty easy on us in this region. Often first thing in the new year we have some weird weather patterns that create lots of rain and then a deep freeze. 

… We certainly know in Kingston what an ice storm is like! 

But this year we have had relatively little snow. It really has been minimal. 

Most years I drool over the snowblower ads in the flyers and whine to Lily that I need one. But I have not given them a second thought this year. 

I could be a contributing factor to the reason the snow has been almost non-existent this year -in the fall I finally bought winter tires. (You can read about that here.)

But we are not done with winter and today I’ve been reminded just what winter is like. 

We are supposed to get a snow storm today, with lots of snow, but I’m hoping the snow drops south of Lake Ontario so that we get very little.

However, the temperature today is the coldest it’s been all season and it’s way colder than I want it to be. 

It was minus 20 Celsius this morning! 

And if there was ever a time when human beings would think about hibernation as something they would consider practicing, minus 20 would be a temperature that would drive them to it. 

I played hockey this morning before I knew just how cold it was outside. We park our car in our garage so I didn’t really experience the weather until I got to the arena and got out of my car. 

Man, it was bitter!

The little snow we got the night before was squeaking as I walked across the parking lot. It was like how fresh cheese curds sound in your mouth when you chew them.

It turned out that we didn’t have too many guys for hockey this morning. I think some of the boys thought hibernation was on.

… And that’s the extent of hibernating that a human does. We eventually have to come out of the cave (house). 

We might stay indoors for some things, but there are still things we need to come out from our winter slumber for.

I know I need to pick up a few things from a store today. I wish they could be delivered, or that maybe Lily is going out and can pick them up for me.

But I think if she has things to get, she’s probably hoping I will pick them up for her when I go out. 

I will also need gas for the car soon. I could have gotten it two days ago when it was warmer but now it looks like I will have to stand at the pump when the mercury is all sucked into a ball at the bottom of the thermometer.

The real reason we can’t hibernate too long is that we have to eat. We’re not like bears that store up food for the winter. 

I need hot wings tonight for the hockey game. It doesn’t matter how cold it is, I’m going out to get them.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we let things like weather influence our decision to do certain activities. On Sundays we gather to worship God. Letting weather determine your decision on attending, well, that just takes you down the food chain a couple of notches. Worshipping God together is important; don’t neglect it. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What things keep you from attending church? Leave your comments below.

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We Should Just Bubble Wrap Everyone

We live in an era of heightened protection. Maybe if everyone just wore bubble wrap from head to toe we’d all be safe. 

In medieval days they built forts and castles with high walls and moats to protect themselves from enemies. 

… Today we have to wear helmets to drive a Zamboni to flood a rink! 

When I was a child, there were no seatbelts. Car dashboards were made of metal and came to a point that would put a nice crease in your forehead if you hit it hard enough.

Back then we just bounced around in the back seat. Most of us survived. 

Now we seat belt or car seat our kids so that they are protected. I know our kids were not the tallest or heaviest kids on earth, but if we had have stayed strictly to the guidelines, our kids would have been sitting in car seats while they were attending junior high.

We take these measures to protect ourselves and our loved ones from things that could potentially harm us and them. 

I get that … but maybe we’ve gone a little overboard with protection. 

In the last year, I have gotten into flying drones and have really started to enjoy it. 

 

Now the government has come out with a whole new set of regulations, rules and laws. By June I will have to have a license to fly my drone. 

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It might keep some crazy people from buying them, but maybe not. It hopefully will keep people safe from being attacked by a drone. 

But to get my license, why do I need to know the inner workings of my drone, and understand air speeds and currents?

When you write your driver’s license, they don’t make sure you know why the car goes forward. You just have to know how to move the gear shifter into drive and push the gas pedal. 

If safety is the issue with drones, why not just make sure that the people who get a license know how to operate them safely? 

Who cares if they understand what creates lift on a drone. They should just know which joy stick to move and in what direction. 

It seems that when we try to protect people from something, we do it to a degree that is ridiculous. 

Instead of being sensible with protection, society tries to overprotect to the point where we might as well just wear bubble wrap. … Maybe that could be a new line of outerwear to protect ourselves from the crazy drone people, or uneven sidewalks. 

If you were going for a walk and were not sure if the sidewalks were lifting in places, you could just put on your bubble suit and be safe.

If you were at the park and someone was flying a drone, you could just slip into that bubble suit and be good to go.

There are risks in life. You can hurt yourself, or be hurt by the environment you are in. … Maybe people should just protect themselves.

So if you’re concerned that your life’s at risk today, wrap yourself in packing bubble sheets and put your mind at ease.

Here’s the thing: In a society that seems to try to overprotect themselves, it is surprising that many have no qualms about living fast and free with eternity. To think that all there is to life is to live and then die doesn’t even sync with the human spirit. The only protection for eternity we have is God, and He has provided a plan for our protection in his Son, Jesus Christ. 

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What value do you place on protection? Leave your comments below.

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We Buy Time With The Meaningless

People often use pat answers and lines to buy themselves some time in responding to a request … but those words mean nothing.

We’ve probably all done it. … Someone asks us to pass something or come here, and we answer, “Yes. Give me a second.” 

What do we mean by “a second”? … because really that second is over by the time we’ve said it and we don’t yet intend on making good on the request. 

My wife, Lily, uses the phrase all the time, “Just give me a minute”.  I’ve heard it so much, I don’t want to hear that phrase ever again. 

The other day while we were in the car, I was telling her something while she was responding to a text. She said, “Just give me a minute.” 

So I paused the conversation. I waited. We went through two traffic lights before she was done. … I should say, we stopped at two red lights, waited until they were green, and kept driving before she responded. 

I started to do some calculating. When Lily says, “just give me a minute” she really means give me 15 minutes. 

Now in the Bible there is a verse that says, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) 

So I started to do some calculations in my head … 

If her one minute is like 15 minutes, and there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day … that means one day to Lily is like 15 days! 

And then a whole bunch of things started to make sense to me. 

She is never late for anything, even when I wait for her at the door for 5 or 10 minutes before we leave. In her mind she’s early – she’s still 140 minutes early! 

And another thing that I understand now is when she can’t remember something we talked about, something she was even passionate about the day before. 

For her that conversation was over two weeks ago! No wonder she can’t remember it. Who could remember word for word something from that long ago? 

I thought she needed to do more Sudukos to keep her mind sharp. But her mind is like a razor when she can recall something I promised to do earlier in the day – that’s about four days ago to her and she still snapped that promise back to me in a flash. 

Here I was criticizing her and she’s really a superwoman. 

The downside to this new revelation that I’ve been given is when I come home from work, suffering from a little hypoglycemia, and usually a little “hangry” by the time I walk through the door. 

When I then ask if dinner is ready and Lily says, “Just give me a minute”, I know it’s going to be forever before I eat … and I will be dead by then.

I can’t see any way that I benefit from this new discovery. So for my own self-preservation I have to declare her phrase of “just give me a minute” as meaningless. 

Here’s the thing: God can operate outside of time. So when things don’t seem to be working the way we would like them to, in the time frame that we are subjected to, and have subjected them to, we know that God can still bring the very best outcome because He’s not restricted by time. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What phrase has become meaningless to you? Leave your comments below.

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All Anticipation, No Results

My anticipation didn’t live up to the actual results of my activity.

Flying a drone in Canada in the winter is sporadic at best. There are so many factors that work against being able to take your drone for a spin.

There are weather conditions including wind, rain, ice, snow and cold – the cold is deadly on drone batteries. If you are not careful, the battery can give a false read to the controller and cause the drone to fall out of the sky. 

Cold is also a factor for the person flying the drone. In November I flew it in about -5 C for 13 minutes and Lily had to take the controller out of my hands because I was so cold I couldn’t move my fingers.

With all the opposition to flying a drone in winter, when you get a chance to get it up in the air it’s pretty exciting. 

The other day the forecast was +4 C and sunny. 

I had to work but I was anticipating that I would get a chance to fly my drone at the end of my work day before the sun went down. 

… And that’s another factor against flying drones in winter in Canada: the sun sets very early in the winter, at about 4:30 pm right now. 

So I raced against time to get my work done, and get to a safe place to fly my drone. 

With all the anticipation, I was most looking forward to the video I would capture. I wanted to do a fly over of some wooded areas and get shots and video looking down on the tops of trees. 

My anticipation was high in the afternoon while I was working, and when I was driving, parking the car, and even as I was getting my drone out.

I was in such a hurry because the sun was going down fast that I didn’t put my gloves on to fly and so I experienced a little pleasure and pain all at the same time. 

It reminded me of my childhood when we would go skating on the Humber River and end up being so cold that we would actually walk home in our skates. Our hands were too cold to untie our laces, our feet were almost frozen off, and we would carry our boots and sticks home tucked under our arms. 

It was brutally painful. And the pleasure? Well, we were out on that river the next day doing it again, so there was obvious pleasure involved.

By the end of my flying session, I was anticipating looking at the video I had shot and editing it on the computer. 

I could hardly wait as I drove home because I thought I had captured some great shots. 

The first thing I did when I got home was upload the footage onto my computer. And when I did, what a letdown! 

I had apparently not fully pressed the record button on take off, so it didn’t record. When it landed, I had pressed the button to stop recording, not realizing that I was now only starting to record. All I got was a few seconds of pavement footage!

… I’m already anticipating the next time I will be able to take my drone out. 

Here’s the thing: You may not anticipate it, but God anticipates the next time you will spend with Him. You may take it for granted, you may see it as a duty, but God anticipates each quiet moment He has with you in His presence. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you anticipating right now? Leave your comments below.