Whatever He Says

It was a season of “lasts:” the last budget preparation at year-end; the last 1.1 with each of her direct reports; the last meeting of each of the many groups and committees of which she had been part for so many years--the last this—the last that. She had loved her job these many years, and she had wanted to finish well, had worked hard at leaving everything in perfect shape for her successor. She was dutiful, committed, loyal and hardworking, no one could say otherwise, but now, as she sat at her desk one morning when the finish line was in sight, suddenly she felt an unfamiliar stirring  within her, a sort of reckless abandonment that was as intriguing as it was terrifying. She glanced at the clock hanging above her desk and realized that she had completely lost track of time while working to finish a project before leaving for another of those “last” meetings.   With a gasped, “Oh my goodness!” she quickly reigned in her thoughts, shut her laptop with a bang, and gath...

I met her at a writers' conference--a woman whose age I found hard to guess, but whose slowed and stiffened gait told me she was at least a few years older than me.  Her voice carried the warm musical cadence of the Caribbean, slow and deep. She was quick to break into peals of laughter that shook her body. I was drawn to this woman, who arrived alone--but seemed at ease with her own company. I caught sight of her over the three days of the conference, en-route to the next workshop or pausing to take a rest, large red purse resting on her lap, while her hands held onto her bag of conference leaflets. It turned out that she is a self described conference addict--a Senior who believes in life-long learning--and this was her fifth conference so far this year. We sat together at one point and my natural curiosity prompted questions, which she answered slowly and thoughtfully, I learned that she had endured three major tragedies in her life. No-one would blame her for being crushe...

About a month ago I wrote about  Finding My Voice  when I had the honour of delivering the speech for the Leslie K. Tarr Award.  Today the winner of the award, Katie Funk Wiebe, posted the speech and her acceptance speech on her blog. You can read them at  Second Thoughts  . Since first discovering Katie's blog, I have been a regular visitor, and it is in my blog roll so that I can see when she posts. I love to read everything this amazing woman has to say since discovering her writing. I have been too busy to write lately, but the dust will be settling soon. I have much to write about what is happening in my life, which suddenly sounds egotistical--but that, I must admit, is what I enjoy writing about. :)

Four of us came home from the annual writing conference of  The Word Guild  last Saturday evening, driving as far as we could  together in a small convoy of two cars.  We stopped for supper at Angel's Diner  before we had even left the city of Guelph and b y the time we left we were full of old fashioned diner food, served by an older woman  who made us feel like we'd come home to mom. No request was too much trouble. We left town inspired; grateful; invested in by skilled and successful teachers; encouraged; mentored; and having been connected with new friends and old. Our hearts, heads and souls were full, not to mention luggage (there is a book store...no more need be said.) As we unpacked and transferred cases, pillows and laptops from one car to another in our driveway, the unpacking had only just begun. There is so much information to process and solidify. I thought that I would unpack some of the things that I learned here, too, as the...

Since 2007 I have written the  Leslie K. Tarr Award  speech, the prestigious award given for a major career contribution to Christian writing and usually presented in June at  The Word Awards . It is an honour to make this small contribution to the work of The Word Guild , an organization that helped give me the courage to define myself as a writer. I love researching the winner's writing and the challenge of capturing the essence of their unique contribution to Canadian writing  in only 500 words.  I am always immeasurably enriched in the process. The speech has previously been delivered by a series of distinguished looking men in tuxes, but this year the conference coordinator asked me to deliver the speech, as well as the acceptance speech for the winner, who was unable to attend! The prospect was as exciting and scary as riding an old fashioned roller coaster. Once the speech was written, and rewritten, and I began to practice it, my ...

Creator of all art--consummate and eternal artist and source of all creativity You communicate through beauty; song; music; words on a page; paint on canvas--and innumerable other forms of art. Your Spirit in me continues that creation--a stream from the source.  You choose human fingers, eyes, voices and minds to carry on your work; e ntrusting it to trembling hands and lips and flawed hearts, risking dangerously when you do so. Thank you for calling me to engage with you in the work of creativity--to partner in showcasing your beauty, truth and faithfulness.  Use me; remove any barriers to the flow of your Spirit and creativity; break any chains holding me back from the fullness of your purpose. Free me! Release me!  Let me be soft and tender in your hands.

By Belinda   The house waits; spruced up in the  finery of the season. Christmas lights twinkle and admire their reflections in window panes and shining floor. Fragrant candles scent the air with cinnamon, allspice, apples and vanilla; blending with the delicious aroma of turkey, and sage and onion dressing.  The Christmas cake's aroma is deep and rich with fruity goodness. Baked into it is the love with which it was made by a dear friend who insisted on making it in England in July, so that we could bring it home with us and she could keep her tradition of baking our cake. The turkey; dressing; potato casserole and coffee; my contributions to tonight's feast are made; the food ready in the warming oven. At 6pm the first friends arrive; Magda and Debbie; with cold drinks, and casseroles filled with squash and plump, green beans. Magda hands me a bag containing  mysterious  frozen lumps. "These are for you, to go in the freezer, but first you ...

  By Belinda I have been away a lot recently, and busy when at home. And now I am home again but needing to go to bed and sleeeeeep. Although too tired to write much tonight, I am posting some photos taken where I was for the past three days; at   Write! Canada 2012 . The photos are of Canadian children's author,  Jean Little , her sister Pat, and guide dog Honey (yes, I realize I have given preferential treatment to Honey. That dog was so well behaved. Jean Little, as well as being a gifted writer, also has the ability to cut through pretentiousness.  A few quotes from the conference, by Jean: She doesn't read books that tell you have to be okay. "I'm already okay," says Jean. There's nothing better than doing a hard job and doing it well. Read a lot: Poetry; chapter books. Writers are the ones who know how you should do; teachers do not. Eavesdrop! And now dear friends, goodnight!

By Belinda Tonight was our writers group meeting, and although we had a small number in attendance for various reasons, it was a night to celebrate! One of our group, Carolyn j. Morris, a teacher and speaker,  is now a published author. Carolyn's summer has been a whirlwind of book signings and marketing meetings and she is loving every minute. Each step of the journey of publication has been God led, with connections unfolding in a way that only he could orchestrate. I will write more about the book itself in the near future, but tonight we shared Carolyn's joy by sipping our tea and coffee from the fine china and eating ice cream cake!

By Belinda The kitchen was fragrant with perking coffee when the doorbell chimed. It was Carolyn Morris, come early, and staying just long enough to sign Bonnie's card. She had a daughter at home with four holes where her wisdom teeth used to be. Carolyn's motherly mission for the evening was wrapping her daughter in tender loving care and getting ice packs for her face. Before she left though, she shared a surprise--her eyes sparkling with excitement. The first copy of her newly published children's novel, Mourning Dove, had arrived and she had it in her hands. It was beautiful, illustrated by another member of the Writers Nest (our writers group;) Anne Brolley. Carolyn vanished as suddenly as she had arrived and I was almost ready for the party about to happen when the rest of the writers who make up the Writers Nest, began to arrive. A few couldn't make it--we missed Melody, Sue and Vi, and Claire is in Montreal, but there were still 14 of us; lovers of word...

By Belinda It is Friday evening and the weekend lies before me like a luxurious bolt of cloth from which anything might yet be made. At this moment I am enjoying the thought of it to the full. I have been listening to the unabridged diary of Anne Frank on CD while walking the village with Molson. What a good writer Anne was, so full of potential. Her descriptions of the small world of the secret annex and those who populated it are so vivid and filled with wry humour, wit and poignancy. I felt, as I listened to her words--her "voice"-- as though I was there, listening to the creaking stairs, slamming doors, droning bombers and machine gun fire that frightened them so much.  I felt that I was watching the people and sharing the emotions she described. Her constrained surroundings, the tension and deprivation over the two years she and the seven others hid there were in stark contrast to the freedom I had to walk anywhere I wished without fear, to come home and find our c...

By Belinda I journal sporadically, and this morning I opened my leather bound Nationwares  journal for the first time in a few days and discovered that the last entry was last Friday, my first morning at Write! Canada. You've been with me on the journey, but I hope you can stand just one more post on the topic to bring it all full circle; from one Friday to the next, with so much in between! I wrote: Friday, June 17, 2011 A few precious moments before the day begins, here on this holy ground, my 11th Write! Canada. I had some moments of self doubt coming here this year. Was I writing enough to call myself a writer? Whatever He says, the blog I write, has evolved, and I write less of a devotional genre and more light hearted humour and family stories, interspersed with leadership epiphanies and inspiration. Is this what I am meant to write? Is it enough? Is it fluff? So doubtful did I feel that at the gala on Wednesday night, when the call was given for all writers and edit...

By Belinda My friend Bonnie and I drove home from Write! Canada  ; my trusty old Honda Civic laden with her luggage and registrar paraphernalia and my copious baggage. In spite of determining to only buy one book this year, I came home with four copies of A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider  an anthology by the best of the best writers of The Word Guild . These are the some of the writers of A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider --a group of gifted story tellers from the east and west of Canada and everywhere in between. Can I whisper a secret? If there is a Third Cup of Hot Apple Cider I plan to submit something! It doesn't matter if I don't get in, but I plan to try. I have a story in mind already. I brought home copies of Tim Huff's books: Bent Hope  and  Dancing with Dynamite  and 2 copies of Nikki Rosen's In the Eye of Deception  (we put up signs around the conference on the first day and hearing a tiny bit of her story, when I heard she had ...

By Belinda "When generations meet and blend, old and young hearts meet as friends" That is the quote beneath this beautiful painting in the dining room at the Guelph Bible Conference Grounds, where I am at the moment, at Write! Canada. I asked permission to take a photo of it and had to share it here so that you, too, might enjoy it! I love it for reasons that will be obvious to readers of this blog!:)

The theme for Write! Canada 2011 Check out the inspiring theme for Write Canada this year. I love the video clip chosen as the inspiration!

By Belinda In from the bone chilling cold and dark of an Ontario January evening we all stumbled, in to the hospitable warmth of Bonnie's house. We came shivering and with bodies tensed against the icy grip of winter, ready for tension of a different kind--an evening sharing writing on the topic of "suspense." I had racked my brain intermittently for days but failed to come up with any inspiration on the topic, so I went empty handed, but looking forward to listening. There were nine of us; women whose ages range from 40s to 80s on this particular night. Who knew that such gentle female souls hid talents in the macabre vein?! We sat on the edge of our seats, gasping as we listened to each cleverly woven tale of suspense. We whispered under our breath, "No, don't do it; don't go down those stairs; stay in your room!" And we sighed in frustration as the main characters seemed determined to ignore our urgings. I am prone to getting carried away by...

By Belinda The writers of "The Nest" met last night, for our annual Christmas pot luck at Bonnie's welcoming home.   Messages flew back and forth by email throughout the day. Was the party still on? Streamers blowing across from Georgian Bay created scary driving conditions in some parts. But a turkey was cooking and there was no stopping it, so while some regretfully missed this wonderful gathering, others of us managed to get there, bearing desserts and salad, truffles and wine, cheeses and sweet potatoes.   Our common bond is a love of writing, but we love one another too and celebrate the life journey that we share as we write, month by month, encouraging the gifts we see in each other.   In September we decided to publish a Christmas anthology: The Christmas Quilt--and Susan Starrett, a gifted graphic artist as well as writer, designed the title page. We all went home with our own copy of this treasury; 23 pieces of writing to read throughout Christma...

By Belinda I had watched the evening fading fast from my kitchen window, while making a macaroni and cheese casserole for Friday's supper. It was almost dark when Molson and I left the house, me for a walk and he for a sniff. If our walk was interval training, it would be intervals of walking punctuated by standing still. But he gives me the impression that he reads the village by nose like I read a great book with my eyes. Dragging him away from an intense sniff would be like turning a page at a critical point in a story. Can't do it. While we walked beneath a canopy of stars and I craned my neck, trying not to topple over backwards looking at them, I thought about the writers group meeting last night. From all directions we converged on Bonnie's house: Claire, fresh in from Montreal where she has been for 11 weeks, caring for a sick daughter; Bonnie just back from Cuba; Melody and Marilyn from Alliston; Brenda, Veena and Julie from Innisfil; Sue and Vi from Schomber...

Paula wrote to me today and said: Thanks for bringing Margaret Clarkson to my mind - (I had chosen her revised version of the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, to use on a recent post .) Paula continued: How I have loved her hymn 'So send I you' - you know she wrote it first at age 22 when she went as a teacher to a remote and lonely logging camp. So, send I you to labour unrewarded To serve unpaid, unloved, unsung, unknown To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing So send I you, to toil for me alone. When more mature in grace, she saw it as far too 'one sided' and re-wrote it. So send I you-by grace made strong to triumph O'er hosts of hell, o'er darkness, death, and sin, My name to bear, and in that name to conquer- So send I you, my victory to win. So send I you-to take to souls in bondage The word of truth that sets the captive free, To break the bonds of sin, to loose death's fetters- So send I you, to bring the lost to m...