Prayer Bench by Rose McCormick Brandon

Boardwalk along St. Mary's River at Sault Ste. Marie

I worked in a large office building steps away from a boardwalk that follows the curve of the St. Mary’s River along the Canada-U.S. border. For longer than I should confess, I spent my lunch hours in the mall across the street, running errands and browsing, until one day I looked out the mall’s entrance at rapids glistening in June’s sun and thought, “Shame on you!” The next day I joined walkers, joggers, in-line skaters and nature lovers who spend their lunch breaks by the water.

            Twenty minutes into my first trek on the boardwalk, I noticed a bench perched on a steep bank on the river’s shore, half-hidden in a grove of pine trees. The bench caught my attention for its view of the river but when I sat on it, its solitude enveloped me in arms scented with pine. A not unpleasant fish odor hung over the water. Below, ducklings floated on waves behind their mamas.  I sensed God saying, “This is a place where you and I can get re-acquainted.” 

When I was a stay-at-home mom, I set aside the afternoon hour between one and two for prayer. Television and phone silenced, children either at school or napping, I knelt or sat on the living room sofa for my special alone time with God. This private prayer time reduced my worries because I daily transferred them to Him. Confidence to teach a ladies Bible study in my home, witness to my neighbors and accept speaking invitations came from that special hour. Worries and frustrations shrank when I poured them out in prayer to the Father. I found that prayer increased my creativity, my zest for living and even healed my heart of past hurts. 

            Relinquishing this prayer hour was the most difficult aspect of re-joining the work-force. At my busy desk, I often felt lonely for God and wished everyone would take the day off and leave me alone. It’s not that I didn’t pray before feeding my three children and getting them off to school. It’s just that my rushed mornings weren’t conducive to prayer and my sleepy brain often wandered to my daily to-do list.

            The bench gave me a place to be with God and that was an important element to finding my way back to prayer. I heard a Chinese pastor of an underground church tell how, while imprisoned in a crowded, noisy cell, he asked God to provide a place for him to be alone to pray and worship. Not long after sending his impossible request up to heaven, guards assigned him to lagoon-skimming – shoveling off the top layer of the prison’s sewage reservoir. The stench kept everyone away, including the guards. Alone for hours, he prayed and praised loudly.

            In comparison to a prison lagoon, my riverside sanctuary sits in a corner of heaven. At lunch times, I quickly changed my shoes, nearly running from my busy desk to the solitary bench, hoping all the way that no one reaches it before me. As I neared it, I found myself already talking to God – asking for healing for a friend, a teaching position for my daughter, increased creativity for myself, an opportunity to tell a co-worker about Jesus. Some needs brought tears to my sun-glassed eyes. My bench welcomed me. “Sit. Share your anxious thoughts with Jesus," it seemed to say.

            Do you need an alone place for you and God? Ask Him to provide one. Perhaps it won’t be as sense-satisfying as my pine-surrounded bench but it will definitely be better than our Chinese brother’s sewer. Whatever the location, your private place will become precious for what it symbolizes – a place where friendship with God flourishes.

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Rose McCormick Brandon is the author of four books, including, Promises of Home - Stories of Canada's British Home Children. Visit her blogs, Listening to my Hair Grow and Promises of Home. Her books are available here.http://writingfromtheheart.webs.com

Love this Earth: Five Actions for Any Time —Carolyn R. Wilker

Photo by James Woo, at Huron Natural Park

A recent Record article, Windblown recyclable litter aggravates Kitchener couple, shows garbage blown against a chain-link fence. The couple, frustrated over the garbage blown into their backyard, contacted the paper and suggested that the Blue Bin be redesigned so that it has a lid. They’re getting tired of cleaning up the mess from week to week.

I’ve seen strong gusts of wind dump a can set out for garbage day, sending its contents flying onto the street, and things blowing from the recycling box. Scavenging racoons might also dump garbage, looking for a  late-night snack.

But not everything is blown by the wind. There are also the pop cans and plastic food wrappers tossed aside as people walk. What’s more, some of that garbage floats into gutters and ends up in our streams. Not a pretty sight and ultimately hurtful to wildlife as well.

 When my parents took us on an outing, my mother always took along a bag for any garbage we might have. All refuse was disposed of once we got home. We learned quite young not to litter. My parents owned a farm, took pride in their land and taught us to honour it too. Maybe that’s why garbage tossed about bothers me so much. We are after all the stewards of the earth. If we do not take care of it, we destroy a priceless gift.

This past week, I noticed a sign about an annual Earth day event at our local natural reserve. My husband and I have been to the place. It’s a peaceful place to walk and a great place to learn more about our natural history.

Earth Day Network reminds us to pay attention to our earth and offers us ways to rethink actions that impact the environment. Climate change is a hotly contested topic too, and we don’t have to go far to recognize things that have gone wrong.

We need to work at undoing the damage and returning the earth to the beauty it comes by naturally. It means protection of natural resources, such as the work of Streamkeepers in British Columbia, Canada, to protect the salmon, or in your own area by planting new trees.

 Here are five things you can do where you are to keep our earth beautiful and clean:

·         Keep a bag in your car or backpack and put your garbage into it. Teach children in your care to put wrappers from their lunch back into the lunch bag and bring it home for disposal or use the recycle and garbage containers at their schools.

·         Take paints, toxic cleaners to depots where someone will dispose of them properly. Pharmacies will take old prescription medicines and syringes, including epipens.

·         Reuse where possible. Cloth bags or lunch boxes and reusable shopping bags are a good way to cut down on garbage.

·         Bundle newspapers and use cereal boxes to hold smaller pieces of cardboard that have been flattened. Place heavy items atop light ones in the recycle bin (where these services are offered).

·       Make sure your garbage bin closes tightly so you don’t have to clean up after raccoons.

We all have a stake in our planet. While it may take time to turn around larger issues such as converting buses to electric or solar power and restoring our natural canopy by planting trees, everyone can do something. Even a young child can learn to put garbage in the right bin.

 This Earth day, I will be enjoying the natural beauty at our church camp, where we celebrate creation and our part as stewards of the earth. Enjoy the day and honour what was created for us.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” 

-Psalm of David 24:1

Carolyn Wilker, editor, speaker and author of Once Upon a Sandbox

www.carolynwilker.ca

 Come and see me at Waterloo Chapters, King Street N, Waterloo, ON, on Saturday, May 4th,  for a book signing from 11 am–1 pm. Once Upon a Sandbox makes a great gift for a mother or grandmother.

Gifts of Nature - Atchison

When I moved out to the country 12 years ago, I suddenly noticed the nature that surrounded me. I awoke mornings with a new sense of awe at the different sunrises that greeted each day. Every month brought new changes to the earth, to trees and to the feel of the air. Seasons changed with delight, and each year produced weather results that differed from the preceding one.

I speak of it now because when I lived in the city, I didn't really pay attention to nature and what I was waking up to each morning. What took my attention was whether I would make it to work on time, what the traffic would be like. Was the car going to start? The level of my eyes never drifted farther from the head level of the thousands of people who started their work day each morning balancing a cup of coffee and a brief case.

Living in the country forces you to look about. You don't need to close your curtains, as there is no one around who can see inside. You want to look outside to see if the deer have come through on their morning forage. It's spring and you might catch sight of a new flock of migratory birds flying across the clear blue sky. The first robin shows itself pecking between the new sprouts of green grass.

Driving with no buildings, busy intersections and other obstacles to block your vision, gives way to countryside views and highlights that spread for miles. Any journey from a country home makes you look about, if anything, just to ‘see’ what is around you. The foothills of Alberta offer the most breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains in the fall, winter and spring. Agricultural fields pattern the landscape with different patches of colour in the summertime. Pass a wetland and you never know what gifts nature will present to you on any given day.

The following are just a few of the awesome gifts Mother Nature has presented me while living in the country that I’d like to share:

• A fawn lying like a lawn ornament amid the bushes.
• A palm-sized toad who returns each year to catch insects by our entrance way.
• A dancing display from a beautiful male bluebird while he woos a female outside my office window.
• A wing feather dropped from the sky by a passing bald eagle – picked up and cherished as the gift it was meant to be.
• The hunting fox that jumps and with needle-like precision pushes his nose into the one-foot hard crusted snow to pluck out a mouse.
• Calving and foaling seasons. Watching the new babies with their caring mothers, praying the temperature outside will not dip too low.
• The three wolves that showed themselves eleven years ago in the coulee. It was like watching a National Geographic episode for the short time they ventured out into the clearing.
• The several individual black bear sightings and the one cougar sighting. Exciting but scary.
• Being able to write the date and viewing location in my “Birds of Alberta” book every time I come across a new bird that we haven’t seen in our area.
• The flock of pure white snow geese heading north in a perfect V formation. The starkness of white on blue will forever be imprinted on my mind.
• The wetland a couple of miles from our house where I slow down every time I pass, as you never know who it might be sheltering and providing food for at any given time on any given day.

Lastly, I am grateful that I have been given the opportunity to live in the country and to cherish its gifts. Everyday with nature is different. There is not one day that is the same in weather, temperature, or environment. I know this is the case in the city also. If you are a city dweller, try greeting each day with your eyes uplifted. Look either in front or beyond the concrete roads, walls and structures and without a doubt you will see nature working its magic in every way possible. It doesn't matter where you live, just look around you. God provides us with multitudes of gifts in nature each and every day.

Patricia L. Atchison
Website: www.patricia@patriciaatchison.ca
Writing & Publishing Blog: www.aboutwritingandpublishing.com