Start with Words

           I don't know about you, but for me words have power. An unspoken word or thought nestled away in my mind has one level of power. When that word or thought is spoken, its power is amplified. When the word is spoken and then written, it is amplified yet again. It has more weight. In a court of law, written words carry great weight. The whole field of contractual law rests on this principle.

        As a writer you are working with weighty words—words that have the power to transport and transform the reader. Choose your words carefully. They have the power to take your reader to a destination. This is true of both fiction and nonfiction writing. We have all been transported by the written word. It's what makes reading so enjoyable.

         Over the Christmas holidays for the second consecutive year my family took up the challenge of solving the Globe and Mail's 1000 word crossword puzzle. None of us do crosswords during the year, but Globe and Mail's 1000 word Christmas crossword lands in our home like a bombshell. It's too big to be ignored. So with all the collective urgency we can muster, the Kitz family tackles this monster. Each family member brings different skills and areas of expertise to the table, so what would be impossible for an individual becomes doable for the family.

          The same principle applies to any group endeavor, and trust me in this, writing and marketing a book is a group endeavor. At our family gathering on New Year's Day we had only ten words left in that 1000 word puzzle. My midafternoon we declared victory. Hallelujah!  We slew that monster.

              Great things are possible for you in the year ahead. Just like a crossword it all starts with words—choosing the right words.

             When we bring our words before God in prayer, that's when words become alive. God spoke our world into existence. When He breathes life into your words—your prayer words—look out. Great things become a living reality.

             It starts with words. Creation itself started with words. You were created in God's image, so just like your Maker start the year with words.

David Kitz is an award-winning author of several books who lives in Ottawa, ON. Information on his book and drama ministry can be found at www.davidkitz.ca

 

On my Toes by Ruth Smith Meyer

Anticipation—a new year—standing on the tip of your toes, leaning forward to peer into the future to see what will happen—does that sound like how you feel at the beginning of 2015?

Thanks to my wonderful children, that describes some of the emotions I have experienced in the past two months. When Birthday #75 rolled around in November, they surprised me by having most of both parts of our blended family come to our church service one morning then provided a nice meal that we could eat together.  With a whole afternoon of relaxed visiting, it warmed my heart that they knew so well what was important to me.  However, they informed me that such a milestone was too big to celebrate in one day.  They told me that once a month for the whole next year, they were going to do something special for or with me. 

My family has already been very supportive of the writing and publishing of my autobiography, Out of the Ordinary. They have given me assistance and promised encouragement to promote it when it comes out in March.  But they said their planning goes beyond that.

How nice!  I thought I’d just sit back, relax and let it all happen as it came.  The first surprise was in December when several of the family took Paul and I to a presentation of the Messiah by London Pro Musica and Orchestra London.  St. Paul’s is a wonderful place even though not quite as elegant as Massey Hall where we used to go to hear that wonderful oratory each year when we lived closer.  However the Messiah was beautifully presented and the words and music, as always, transported my soul to the very gates of heaven.  For days, my spirit was lifted and thrilled and I guess it was then I started to lean forward wondering, if my children started out with that, what was coming next?

They’ve told me that they talked over and brainstormed to think what might be on my bucket list. What, I wondered, might they think would be on my list of things I’d still like to accomplish?  Would their ideas be the same as mine?  Or would they miss the mark and I’d have to try to look pleased?

Just today I learned about January’s gift.  When the children were small, we sang a lot and I shared with them the dream that maybe, someday, we could be the Smith Family Singers.  The idea seemed to be attractive only to me. 

Guess what they told me today?  I am to pick out five favourite songs, for they have arranged for an accompanist and for us to get together and be recorded singing those songs!  I will then be given a CD so I can continue enjoying the sound of our voices in harmony.

I think they’re on the right track and I feel sure that I won’t have to fake my reactions!  What a delight to know that they know me so well and are putting so much effort into pleasing me. I know it stems from their love and I feel so blessed.

That’s why I’m on my toes, leaning forward into the year with anticipation!  You can be sure I probably will write about it too!

 Ruth Smith Meyer is a busy mother, grandmother and now great-grandmother who loves all the people she meets.  She is the author of two adult novels, a children's book and has been included in five different anthologies.  Her lastest work, an autobiography, Out of the Ordinary is to be published in March. Come visit her at www.ruthsmithmeyer.com to find out more about her and her books.

Stretching Christmas—Carolyn R. Wilker

Our family has just celebrated another Christmas together— on January 10^th  this year—a tradition we began years ago when our Christmas dinner was intercepted by hockey tournaments and figure skating practice. It was challenging to know when to serve the dinner, and that was before our family had grown to the size it is today.

 Change is not often easy. I cannot remember how the discussion went, but we all agreed to move our feast into January—when other family festivities had come and gone, New Year’s Eve was over and the children were settled back into school.

Each year the “night before Christmas” anticipation seemed a distant past, and by then we’d perhaps settled into the New Year, our resolutions not yet broken or tampered with too much. Then we’d have our Christmas feast and celebrate our father’s early January birthday.

            Over the years, the hosting has shifted from Mom and Dad at our family home, with everyone bringing food, to (we) daughters hosting in our homes. We must be on the third round by now.

As my husband and I arrived at Joan and Ron’s home, we met my brother and nephew leaving, taking Christmas dinner to my parents who were not able to attend— their first ever miss for this occasion. I added a few things to their load before entering my sister and brother-in-law’s home.  This year was already different for the date was shifted a week later so that our brother who was coming home from the West could be with us for our Christmas dinner.

Festively decorated tables awaited everyone as we filled our plates and sat in the kitchen, living room and family room. The food was plentiful and no one would go away hungry, except by choice. The feast was varied and delicious—no turkey to be tasted this time around.

 Even if the house was quite full, at about 28 people from adults to small children and one baby, we missed those families and individuals who could not be with us, due to work schedules, and colds and flus.

We’d made yet another change from our gift-giving game to only having a children’s gift exchange, and the option of a games tournament that didn’t come to pass, although some indeed played a game popular in our family. My youngest sister, Kim, brought along the video she had created for Mom and Dad’s 65^th wedding anniversary celebration last June—an event postponed by our parents’ health issues.

The video, consisting of family photos and accompanied by some of Mom and Dad’s favourite music, made for a most time-consuming but worthwhile project featuring all members of the family, including beloved pets. Some of us watched it twice, enjoying every moment. We pulled ourselves out of our chairs to say goodbye and face the outdoor coldness and be on our way. The hours went far too fast.

By commercial standards, it seems that Christmas is over when the wrapping is torn off gifts on Christmas Day, and throughout the Christmas week. We are not the first ones stretching the season—we’d extended it just past Epiphany, the time of the church year that marks the wise men’s appearance in Bethlehem to see the new king more than two thousand years ago.

 The scene had shifted there too—from the manger to another house in the city, but it was still part of the story of Jesus’ birth. Changes that the world would watch and wonder at; changes that would affect many lives, and still does as people experience the gift of grace anew or for the first time because of the birth of a baby that God sent to the people of the time with a plan to redeem his people from their sin. And still does.

Carolyn Wilker, editor, storyteller, writing instructor, and author of Once Upon a Sandbox, a 2012 finalist in Canadian Christian writing awards.

http://www.carolynwilker.ca/

Moses through the Eyes of Hollywood -HIRD

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Many of us as children remember hearing the story of Moses in the bulrushes, Moses confronting Pharaoh, Moses crossing the Red Sea, and Moses receiving the Ten Commandments.  The Moses story is so naturally dramatic that in many ways it was made for Hollywood.  I love it when a story is not only a great story but also a true story. 

Hollywood has told the Moses story several times, including through Cecil B Demille’s The Ten Commandments in 1956, Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt in 1998, Roma Downey’s The Bible Miniseries in 2013, and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings in 2014.  Bruce Feiler comments that Moses is the quintessential prophet in North America, quoted extensively by people from all across the cultural and political spectrum.  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams all wanted Moses on the USA seal.  Martin Luther King Jr. continually quoted Moses in his leadership of the civil rights movement.  Many people identify with Moses as the classic underdog standing up for what is right against impossible odds.

My wife and I recently went to see the 140-million dollar movie Exodus: Gods and Kings.  The CGI was very impressive, particularly the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea. Christian Bale, best known for his portrayal of Batman in the Dark Knight, played a very interesting and strong Moses.  Someone described Christian Bale as God’s General.  Unique to the movie was an interesting portrayal of Moses as a guerrilla fighter, blowing up so buildings in Egypt that Pharaoh wanted to get rid of him.  

The burning bush account left me ambivalent.  In Scott’s story, Moses was buried in a muddy rock slide just before he saw the burning bush.  An implicit message could be that Moses, rather than meeting God, was suffering from brain damage.  The stunted god who turns up at the burning bush is an eleven-year bad-tempered boy.   Rather than being child-like, this deity comes across in petulant childishness.  AW Tozer said that how we envision God reveals a lot about us, and even shapes how we treat people.  If God is stunted and bad-tempered rather than mature and loving, then it does not bode well for us.  It is probably not a coincidence that there was no worship of this deity in the movie.  Who would want to worship such an unpleasant being?

The one redeeming relationship was the tender connection between Moses and his wife Zipporah.  If more had been done with that relationship, it might have saved the movie.  I wish that I could have given the movie five stars and commended it to all my friends.  Instead I was left saddened that a potentially great movie missed the mark.

There are over eighty references in the New Testament to Moses, more than any other Old Testament figure.  Jesus was even described as a prophet like Moses, spending time visiting with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration.  The most positive thing about viewing Scott’s Exodus is that it motivated me to reread once again the book of Exodus.  My prayer for those reading this article is that we might take the time to reread or read for the first time the amazing story of Moses the Prince of Egypt.

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in Canada

-an article for the January 2015 Deep Cove Crier

-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in bothpaperback and ebook form. In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperbackand ebook. It is also posted on Amazon UK (paperbackand ebook ), Amazon France (paperback and ebook), and Amazon Germany (paperbackand ebook).

Restoring Health is also available online on Barnes and Noble in both paperback and Nook/ebook form.  Nook gives a sample of the book to read online.

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 1008- 555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC, V7N 2J7, Canada.

- In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done byPAYPAL using the e-mailed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. TheBattle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of theBattle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

Just like Darwin's Tree of Life, the Tree of Intelligence comes crashing down - Denyse O'Leary

Leaving humans standing, looking around.


Matching Darwin's "Tree of life," the "Tree of intelligence" comes crashing down

Freed from the constraints of naturalism (nature is all there is), the animal mind is a fascinating topic. Great writers have reflected on the way their cats think. The cat is a convenient subject for two reasons. One is this, no one advertises a common inheritance of humans and cats. We meet on equal terms.

That said, the most farflung outcome of the current effort to naturalize the mind, despite Darwin's horrid doubt, is the quest to map our own minds onto those of primate apes and other mammals. We constantly hear the false news that we share 98 percent or 99 percent of our genes with chimpanzees, and therefore we must greatly resemble them.

False news? Yes. If that claim were taken seriously, it would spell the end of genetics as a source of useful information. (Is there anyone who cannot tell the difference between a human and a chimpanzee?) No, such claims belong rather on a philosophical continuum with evolutionary psychology. If evo psych's claims were sound, they would merely demonstrate that no evolution has been observed in the human species for two million years. But the value of all such claims is precisely that they are not taken seriously. They serve rather to undermine the idea that humans are unique, with little regard for the logical consequences of any specific assertion.

It is the same with claims about animal minds. Scientists and science reporters routinely claim that apes and humans behave similarly. Apes are said to, among other things, mourn their dead, suffer self-doubt, make dolls, have police, go to war, and use "innovative, foresighted methods." The point of such claims isn't that apes really think like people, but that we really don't.

Strangely, it's been crazier. In the Seventies, Nim Chimpsky (Pan troglodytes) was raised from infancy as a human baby and even breastfed by a woman. (The daughter of the surrogate mother explained in retrospect, "It was the Seventies.") More.

Branding popular arts and culture for Darwin

Darwinian evolution thinking has certainly affected the rhetoric of pop business writing. Consider Sally Hogshead, a self-described Darwinian brand marketing specialist and author of Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation (Harper Business, 2010). She argues from studies of neuroscience and ape behavior that seven evolutionary triggers can get us to pay more than we need to for goods and services. She begins (following a convention of evolutionary psychology) by undermining the idea that we understand what we think:

Whatever you're drawn to -- from watching reruns of Family Guy to spending time with your family -- you have the triggers to thank for it. (p. 17)

She is quite happy to market lust (it "conquers the rational evaluation process, freeing us to stop thinking and start feeling," p. 73) and vice ("a little goes a long way, so customize your message by using it in combination with other triggers," p. 151). And she markets snobbery fearlessly. Keeping products unavailable to lower income people is, in her view, a key to commercial success:

Not so long ago, the height of epicurean indulgence was a gold box filled with Godiva chocolates. ... Then, in an effort to expand, in 1999 Godiva made a fateful decision to distribute in mass retailers such as Barnes & Noble. The chocolates, which for the first time now included preservatives, were no longer a treat to be craved and desired. Now you could buy the gold box in strip malls. (Strip malls!) (p. 79)

Who decided that poorer people didn't deserve a treat now and then? The most successful retailers in North America are proud to put luxury chocolates in lower income shopping carts. That, not creating scarcity, is the classic American model of business. In a world traditionally governed by class-conscious aristocracies who restricted access to luxuries or even benefits (often by law as well as custom), the American model revolutionized living standards. Hogshead competently (but unintentionally) demonstrates how Darwinism, if applied to economics or business, might create scarcity instead by restricting benefits to life's winners -- who can pay more. More.

From The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (the human mind)


Note: The Science Fictions – human evolution series is here.The cosmology series is here, and the origin of life series here. – O’Leary for News

Three Little Words for 2015 by Rose McCormick Brandon

 

Most days, I read 1-3 chapters of the Bible. But some days, I read only a few words before I have to stop and ponder their meaning.

Today, I read only three words: “Abide in me.” (John 15:4)

These power-packed words stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve been waylaid by Christmas company which has led to making memories with my grandchildren, lots of  good conversation and family reunions, movies with friends and concerts. I've also been writing and updating two of my books. In the back of my mind, I'm organizing a webinar for the Ontario Genealogical Society and planning a Bible Study on Joshua for the Ladies Bible Study at my church.

In the midst of enjoyable activities, I sometimes feel I'm drifting away from God.

Today, these words

Abide in Me

stopped me in my tracks and brought me back to the thing that matters most – my relationship with God.

Abide means to live, to make myself at home in God.

When I forget He is my Home my worries seem bigger. I lay awake at night and fret. I think of all the things that haven't turned out the way I expected. I forget to thank Him for all the things that have turned out better than I expected.

These three words,  "Abide in Me," draw me into His embrace.

With these words God is saying,

"Come. Rest in Me. Lean your head on my shoulder. I have everything you need to live in peace today."

***

 

Rose McCormick Brandon is the author of four books: Promises of Home - Stories of Canada's British Home Children, One Good Word Makes all the Difference, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me and Vanished. Visit her website Writing from the Heart or her blogs, Promises of Home and Listening to my Hair Grow. 

 

 

At the Gate of the Year - Eleanor Shepherd

Here we are at the beginning of another year. Usually I have anticipated all that means – new opportunities, starting afresh. Somehow this year, I sense a reluctance to enter it. I am not ready to let go of the old one. It seems like I am not quite finished with it. There were projects that I started but have not finished. My fear is that entering the New Year, I will become distracted by new projects and the old ones will never get finished. Is it my age or I am just feeling information overload? Time is a strange phenomenon. Just yesterday, a work colleague and I were reflecting about how it hardly seems possible that we are already entering the half way mark of the second decade of this millennium. 2015. Strangely enough, as I was writing the date on a form a few days ago, I stopped myself as I was about to mark 19… I have been writing 20... now, for fourteen years. Why would I revert to the numbers from the last century? Is it an indication of my reluctance to move on? My colleague and I recalled that as children the days seemed to crawl by terribly slowly as we were waiting for events to happen. Christmas and birthdays seems to take such a long time to arrive. As we have aged and matured, events succeed each other much more quickly, perhaps because we have more control of the activities in which we are engaged. These days, it is not only the days and the months, but the years themselves that seem to fly past. One day it is January. Then you turn around and it is June. You have barely adjusted to the warm weather and the leaves begin to fall. Then once again it is Christmas and another year has passed. With increasing tempo the years whiz by.

Meditating about the passing of time, a phrase from the Bible comes to my mind. Psalm 90:12 says, ‘’Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.’’ I have often wondered what it means to number our days. I don’t think that it means to mark them off on a calendar. Perhaps it means to savour them. That is something I would like to learn to do. It may be that I will find the balance that I need between holding on to the past and anticipating the future by learning to savour the present. If I can learn to appreciate who I am and where I am and those who are with me right now, I will discover a treasure that will allow me to relinquish the past, because of have something of value to hold on to. I will be ready to move into the future, confident that it too will hold treasures for me, when I take time to open my eyes and appreciate them. I will resolve today to live 2015 one day at a time, making the most of that day, whether what it brings to me ignites joy or sorrow. We can face each day aware that we do not enter into 2015 alone. I have always loved the words quoted by King George VI in his Christmas message in 1939. Although I was not yet born, my father often quoted the words to me when I was a little girl,

Although I was not yet born, my father often quoted the words to me when I was a little girl, "And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!" And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way." (Minnie Louise Haskins 1876 – 1957)

Merry or Mourning? by Donna Mann

I’m writing this blog on Christmas day after listening to the world leaders offer their seasonal message, finishing with a variety of familiar terms. Although they spoke about reconciliation, reaching out to one other and God’s gift of love in Jesus, Pope Francis’ candid statement, “there are many tears this Christmas” left me thinking.

How does the adjective, Merry, fit in the midst of ‘many tears’ ? And how does one show care and consideration of another when greeting? We might wish or want others to have a Merry Christmas, but are they in a situation or frame of mind that they or even God can/will actually achieve it? There have been times in the valleys of my own life that I wanted to hear a greeting with different words than one that left the suggestion that I could be or wanted to be merry. 

However, I need to say that I love the Advent and Christmas season right up to the 12^th night. Our tree goes up on December 1st and often doesn’t come down until January end. The lights, festive colours, turkey and pudding, visits, choosing cards, making handmade gifts all year, preparing the stockings and attending church are all part of my feeling-at-home in the season.

I will reflect on a few situations to explore some early feelings of being uncomfortable with this word merry. Because of parents going south and later adult children wanting to be at home around their own tree, our family day was early in December. 

The 25^th, free of home responsibilities during my active years of ministry, gave time to visit hospitals, nursing homes and sometimes prisons where I often saw sadness. More recently Facebook, news feeds and emails bring the world to the kitchen table with people’s tragedies. Sometimes we can set personal sorrow aside and get into, submit and give thanks for everything Christmas represents in our life - and sometimes we can't. And the happy person who calls out Merry Christmas as we walk down the grocery store aisle doesn't have a clue what burdens we might be carrying in our hearts for ourselves or others.

My mother died on December 11^th, 1983, making the season difficult. Returning to our home in Alberta and leaving my father, planted another level of grief. Arriving back to my settlement charge, I found great comfort in the ‘Blue Christmas’ or ‘Longest night' services.

Mom’s death at this time of year taught me to be a sensitive and caring minister, to listen with the third ear (heart), maybe more than seminary managed. I learned not everybody wants to feel merry, happy and joyful on any given day, nor do they want others to assume they are. 

 I have a few days left until the 12^th day, and I hope to balance grief and grace, despair and laughter, beauty, pain and battle as Sarah Clarkson writes in her recent award winning short story. Perhaps then I will be able to offer a greeting that meets the need of those who God puts in my path.

I trust the Christmas Spirit of Love has, or is about to visit you, in whatever part of the world you live.

Donna
Check out donnamann.org for good reading.

Testing post

Stress, Impress or Bless - by Heidi McLaughlin

I felt offended.  My spiritual gift evaluation showed that my strengths emerged in the area of hospitality. “How shallow and frivolous is that?” I thought.  “I want my top spiritual gifts to be something more meaningful and powerful; like wisdom, evangelism, prayer warrior or teaching.” And yet I read Mother Teresa’s simple words, “Spread love wherever you go: First of all in your own house…let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile”. Those practical words changed my attitude and perception about this seemingly useless gift.

I also had to change my motive and learn the difference between entertaining and hospitality.  When our motives for entertaining guests are focused on impressing, it becomes stressful and exhausting to share our food, our guest rooms, our resources and our valuable time.  To unleash the true beauty of a hospitable heart, I needed to check my motive for inviting people in my home. I had to be clear about the difference between impressing and blessing.  Impressing is entertaining, and blessing is hospitality.

Entertainment:

Ø  Looks for payment; the words, “My, isn’t she a remarkable hostess…”

Ø  Says, “I want to impress you with my home, my clever decorating, and my gourmet cooking.”

Ø  Flaunts what we have and wants to impress people. It is about working hard to make everything look perfect and wearing ourselves out to astonish people with our creativity and skills.

Ø  It is the cover of a slick woman’s magazine with the alluring pictures of good food and stunningly decorated rooms.

Hospitality:

Ø  Is a beautiful and creative gift from God; one that we can enjoy and explore for the rest of our lives; and it never goes out of style.

Ø  Gives pleasure in giving, doing, loving and serving.

Ø  Seeks to minister and says, “This home is a gift and a haven from my Master; I use it as He desires.”

Ø  Is about making the time to share our home, serve people with love, and intentionally bless those that walk through our doors.

Ø  Is about the intimate connection between food and fellowship. “Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to say for the night” (1Peter 4:9 NIV).

What is it about eating food together that creates such a sociable atmosphere? We all long to be part of some community; and we find some of this in our favorite coffee shop where we stop to chat with a friend. We also love to gather on a hot evening at the ice cream shop or sit on the patio of an outdoor restaurant swapping stories. I feel that eating together is a spiritual experience; a building of community through sharing our hearts.

In our present complicated, “hurry up life”; taking the time to invite people into our homes to share our food is probably one of the greatest acts of kindness we can extend to each other. It’s an opportunity to exhibit and share the most intimate parts or our lives.  When we have people into our homes it says, “Come and see where we live, and share what we have.” 

The Christmas season is the perfect time to use our gift of hospitality to share our homes with pure and joyful motives. I learned this principle from Jesus.  In His final hours on earth, with the shadow of the cross hanging over Him, Jesus spent His last evening sharing dinner with His disciples. He chose to share life-changing information with them that night around a table. It was a place of intimacy created by mouths enjoying the same food, bodies reclining around the table and eyes meeting across the plates. Here they enjoyed intimate community. 

Our homes and our tables should be a place to share what is meaningful with each other. After all, this was the place Jesus commanded us to remember Him by the breaking of bread and drinking of wine. Our homes are the greatest place to share food, blessings, and the “good news of Christ”; hand-in-hand.

Heidi McLaughlin lives in the beautiful vineyards of the Okanagan Valley in Kelowna, British Columbia. She is married to Pastor Jack and they have a wonderful, eclectic blended family of 5 children and 9 grandchildren. When Heidi is not working, she loves to curl up with a great book, or golf and laugh with her husband and special friends. You can reach her at: www.heartconnection.ca