October marches along…

I can’t believe it has been ten days since I wrote here! I have been writing for the local paper, rushing around to appointments, exercising…and recovering (of which more anon) and running errands. Not much of a life, but it’s what I’ve got.

Actually, the exercise part has been challenging this week. I’ve started swimming, as I mentioned before (I think). Initially, one length of the pool left me gasping for breath. Now, with the help of flippers, I can swim two lengths at one time. This past week, on three mornings, I swam either 18 or 20 lengths of the pool this way. What I’m aware of is that my body is still getting used to this, and is not ready to do it easily. The last swim, Friday the 10^th, I was so exhausted at the end of it that I could scarcely climb out of the pool. As well as getting my wind back, I must also get the rest of my body conditioned to the work. Each time I surface at the end of a length or two, I am aware of the smooth and beautiful strokes of the young swimmers in nearby lanes, stroking back and forth, back and forth, with nary a pause in their workout. I am continually impressed…even awestruck…by the sight!

Earlier this week, I was in Red Deer (45 minutes away) shopping and running errands, when I received a call from a local Funeral Home. The mortician on call had remembered my self-presentation and me from three years ago when I worked in Red Deer, and was phoning me to ask if I would be willing to conduct a funeral and burial for a relatively young man, of no religious affiliation, a biker (not a gang member) who had died of brain cancer. Here was a very distraught family, with an inherent bias against institutional religion, who needed some sensitive care at a traumatic time of their lives. I was touched and flattered that she recalled me so well, and especially in this kind of situation. Somehow, she had picked up that, for me, a person’s religious perspective, or lack of one, is irrelevant at the time of death. Every person is loved by God, the Creator, I believe, and deserves a respectful spiritual experience for the family at the end of life. I had the chance to visit with a portion of the family the very afternoon I was called, and connected well with them. I will see the remainder of the family a day or two before the funeral.

In reflecting on this experience, I became aware of how important it is for me to still be useful to people in a pastoral way, and to be remembered as a competent pastoral person. This opportunity, plus the invitation to conduct worship and preach in a replacement manner for a Red Deer Presbyterian Church next week, brought this aspect of my life back to the fore in a big way. During the past two weeks, prior to these invitations, I have been feeling that my days, apart from the morning (and occasional evening) workouts, were empty, and without purpose. It’s difficult to describe the feeling. Life is experienced as flat, and without purpose or value, a kind of waiting time. Waiting for what…is the question. Perhaps just for the end of it? Clearly I have much more to do on this topic, to give the remaining months or years of my life some point for me.

In the meantime, I walk, I swim, I gasp for increased breath in the water, and I connect with people, looking for ways to be fully alive in my latter days. For today, however, I am alive, and I am valued and I am loved. I completed plans this week for a two week trip to the east – Winnipeg, Brandon and Ottawa – to visit my children and grandchildren, and a couple of cousins. A vacation of sorts, and an opportunity to let a whole clutch of people know how much I love them and miss them. Of course, I will also take the opportunity to visit the newly opened Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, spearheaded by my eldest daughter’s close friend, Gail Asper. I look forward to that experience…and all the experiences that await me in the coming month.