Hello and welcome to the August/September blog! We left Grenada for our vacation/study leave on the second of August around ten in the morning, arriving in Toronto around seven in the evening. We drove from the manse to the airport at Point Salines through some of the deepest pockets of poverty in the Western hemisphere. We drove from Toronto Airport to the Muskoka's passing through some of the most prosperous small towns and cities in the world. We left behind the brokenness, harshness and terrible unemployment that represent life in a third world economy to arrive in the comparative opulence of a member of the G8. So swift, abrasive and abrupt was the change that neither place felt real. Some forty-eight hours later we collected ourselves together enough to contemplate leaving Gravenhurst for the day. We went to the place we will call home one of these days – Barrie. What did we see? It really wasn't enough just to see, we needed to feel and those feelings could easily overwhelm us.
There was an endless supply of milk. Apples were available by the barrel. Grapes, peppers, potatoes, cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, mountains of sweet corn, peaches, apricots, olives, fresh meat of all descriptions not to mention the shelving which held row after row of tinned and packaged products, the number of freezers full of food, the baked goods from apple pies to seven grained bread. And all of the things I have written down represent only the tip of the iceberg of the products that are available.
We reached out for our family and friends and gave thanks that the changes in us and them were such that our friendship continues to flourish and in so doing strengthens us all. What a joy it was to relax into familiar furniture and share the pieces of our lives that we had not shared since we last met. What a privilege it was to talk in a common language that was formed by similar socialization processes. What an effort it was to continue to look into the eyes of the Doctor that you had trusted with your cancer and hear him say that you were cured as far as he is concerned while saying also that he'll test it for the next few years anyway, just to make sure.
What an enormous thrill to find yourself in Robart's Library at the University of Toronto, all fourteen floors of it, and to find there more books on the social history of Grenada than I have access to on the Island. I can only write, somewhat longingly, what an enormous candy store!
I used the Greyhound Bus between Barrie and Toronto. I sat in its comparative safety wondering, once more, about the life-style that causes people to drive the 400 series highways each day of their lives. Anyway, one of these years, we are going to buy another car and use those highways. I wonder if the Canadian Army has some second hand heavy duty tracked vehicles for sale. I have also taken to praying for the generation aged between twenty and forty years in Barrie. Just – I'm equally sure - as people did for me when I was that age. I well remember the focus on me, my family and me!
Our son, Douglas, was married to Melody in early September, what a lovely celebration! Bruce, Melody's Dad, put together an amazing power point presentation consisting of photos dating, back to the happy couples earliest days to their present ones. What fun, what memories, what love! They went off to St. Lucia just a few hundred miles north of Grenada for their honeymoon.
And so the time went by. Soon enough it was time to come back to our work in Grenada. It felt that we had been gone too long to tell you the truth. Even now the rainy season is coming to an end. The hurricane season is almost over too. Thank God we have endured. Keep the Island in your prayers though as there is still a few weeks of active hurricane season to go through. We arrived home on the 20th of September. We finally had regular water supply on the 6th of October. Did we feel dirty and hot? Yes. Did we feel that our patience was being tested? No. I wonder how many over-paid North American plumbers would have worked to bury a water pipe for hours in temperatures over 30c with humidity around the 90 percent mark. How do you express gratitude to someone who will do that? You can start by sitting on the wall of the car-port and listening for a while. You could keep an eye on the two daughters who attend MacDonald. Life is about relationships.
The lectionary readings, since we have come back, have given Belair P.C. as well as the church around the world the story that Jesus told about the beggar Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16) together with the story about Jesus cleansing the ten lepers (Luke 17). I often worry about the reason Jesus named the beggar and not the rich man. On the other hand, of the ten lepers cured why was it only the Samaritan - the lowest of the great unwashed – that turned around to express his gratitude for his cure to God? Of which is God's Kingdom? Is the Kingdom easier to find on Grenada than in Ontario? And, is there any doubt in your mind that the Kingdom is right here, around you and me, each day? Take the freedom, love the peace it can bring and never, ever forget that it's not enough to simply search for the Kingdom, you need to search for it with pride.
