Pregnant with Possibilities

A week ago today it was the first day of Write! Canada in Guelph, a conference I first attended in 2000 and have gone to every June since. It is something I start looking forward to from the moment that I leave each year.

The weekend actually started on Wednesday evening with The Word Guild Awards gala at World Vision in Mississauga. A young musician friend, Luisa, joined Susan and I and Lorraine, another friend, for the evening. It was a splendid evening, hosted by Herbie Kuhn, with music by Jacob Moon.

After I got home, late on Saturday evening, it took a day or so to recover and to process all that had filled my heart and head and soul.

This is what I wrote to the email list of The Word Guild, the group that organizes the conference:

There seems to be a holy hush upon the hearts of the over 200 writers who made the pilgrimage to Guelph for Write! Canada 2008. Right now they are perhaps pondering, just like Mary, "How shall this thing be?" this holy commission they have been given. And just as surely and miraculously as the child within Mary grew, so fruit in abundance will flow out of these precious days apart.

I can't begin to describe the wonder of all that transpired in workshops, worship, around dining room tables and in Divine Appointments in the gym, but it was sacred and amazing.

And just as I so often sense that other "cloud of witnesses" looking on and cheering us on, there was a cloud of witnesses who weren't there this year in body, but were there in spirit. We "saw" your faces and felt your prayers and you were with us.

There seemed to be a theme of pending fruitfulness, as the award winning singer, Deborah Klassen sang the beautiful song, "You are in the Waiting." Part of the song goes like this:

So plant your seed
Till it's living, Lord, in me
Make me all you want me to be
Unveil my eyes if I’ve exchanged the truth for lives
Give me faith so I can see
The work that you began you will complete in me
And I don’t have to understand because you are keeping me

You are in the waiting
In that moment of my life
When my faith and hope collide
Well my heart’s anticipating
How and when you’ll move
Oh that’s when you prove
You are in the waiting too

My Daily Light on the Daily Path from June 14th to 16th, is covered with circled scriptures and notes that say things like, "Write! Canada 2004." God always says something to me while I'm there.

This year it was Hebrews 12:1 that leapt out at me:

Hebrews 12:1 (New International Version)
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

I feel God calling me to focus, and avoid the many things that distract me from what he has called me to do and being all that he has called me to be.

There was a line in Deborah's song that talked about God breaking up our fallow ground and I think that's what he's been doing in me.

Mark 4:28 (New International Version)
28 ...—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.