Author: Paul Silcock

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When They Grow Up, They Get Smart and Everything

A few months ago I wrote a blog I called my replacement blog. I had written a blog that my editor (wife) didn’t want me to post. She felt that it was not fare to the person I wrote it about.  So instead I wrote the blog that appeared on July 13th called “My Replacement Blog”.  Since that time my daughter Karlie as given me permission to post the original blog I wrote back in July.

 On that special day when your first child is born, you really don’t have any idea what will transpire over the years. Sure, you may look right into her scrunched up closed eyes and dream about things to come. You might even take that little wrinkly, slippery body in your arms and begin to make plans.

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But you really don’t have a clue what the next few days will bring, let alone the next several decades.

My daughter, Karlie, is coming home after living on the other side of the country for the last six years. No, she won’t be living in our home, but Richmond Hill is under 3 hours away, and not the 36 hours of straight driving distance that she’s living now.

She should arrive next week … that’s if she doesn’t do anything foolish. Ha, like that would happen! My daughter is responsible, sensible and very determined.

But … she’s also adventurous. So, when she goes for a motorcycle ride with a friend and after the ride the friend says, “Hey Karlie, you want to try riding this bike? She says . . .

The responsible and sensible Karlie says, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  But the adventurous and determined Karlie says, “Ya, sure I’ll try.”

Now if you were going to try to ride a motorcycle for the first time, you would probably pick some really open area with no obstacles around. When I taught Karlie and Mike to drive, we went to a big parking lot, and to streets that had no cars on them.

That’s the sensible thing to do. Karlie and her friend, well, they chose a parking garage. There weren’t many cars around, but there were cement posts in the vicinity. But with some careful instruction on what to do, Karlie got on the bike with no helmet.

Did I really say she didn’t have a helmet? That must have been a typo. After all, she’s sensible, and in a parking garage. It wasn’t a long ride; short, in fact. Her friend described it as “I’ve never been more scared in my life watching that.”

Somehow she found one of those cements posts in the parking garage. She ran right into it. She wrecked the bike, got a ride in an ambulance, and got a $300 fine. Not bad.

The amazing thing is she’s alive! … and received only a few stitches on her cheek, a black eye and swollen face. No broken bones, concussion or death. We’re praising the Lord right now for His protection.

I love this girl; she’s my daughter. I’ll take her adventurous side as well as her sensible, responsible side. But I wouldn’t have dreamed 24 years ago – on the day Calgary won the Stanley Cup – that my little squirmy, wrinkly baby (who looked very similar to the babies on either side of her in the nursery) would be sporting the same beat up face as one of the guys contending for the Cup!

Here’s the thing: It would be nice to be able to protect those around you, to keep them from harm, or at least weigh in on the decisions they make. That may be a reality when a child is small, but is impossible as they get older. We can become relegated to worry about them and for them. However, God can care for them better than we can, no matter how far away they are. Our job is not to worry, but to trust. Trust God with those you love. It’s really all you can do, and the best you can do.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s the scariest story your child or loved one has told you? Leave your comment below.

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My Brain Has A Mind of its Own

My last blog got me thinking more about how my brain works. I’m not professing to know much about the brain (like a neurosurgeon, psychiatrist or some other scientist who has studied the brain), but I do have one, and over time I’ve kind of noticed how mine works.

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What got me thinking about this was composing my last blog about how distracted I was writing my sermon (check out my blog, “So . . . I’m easily Distracted”).

I started thinking about how hard it was for me to focus on my work, or what I wanted or needed to be concentrating on.

It dawned on me that my brain wants to take the easiest path possible.

So whatever stimulates my brain, that’s where my brain wants to go. If I see something, my brain goes there. If I hear something, my brain is attracted to that. It works the same with smell and touch but not with as much tensity (for me, anyway).

I can be in the middle of a conversation with someone and then see something out of the corner of my eye. My attention is drawn to that thing, and I’ve lost my focus on what I was talking about.

I can be thinking or doing something, but if I hear music, immediately the lyrics to the song flood my mind and I start singing. For me, someone can just say a word and that will trigger a song in my head!

On good days, when I’m well-rested and determined, I can discipline my brain to stay on task for a while. But the longer I have to intently concentrate, the harder it is.

Over the years, I’ve learned to do a few things to help. I study in the mornings – the earlier the better for me. I focus better at that time because I’m less stimulated by other things, my mind is more alert, and there are less distractions.

Another thing I do is write while I think. For instance, when I pray I often write (type) what I am praying because then my eyes are drawn to the same thing that I’m thinking about and I stay focussed.

I’ve even used the “pomodoros” to set short, 25 minute focussed bursts to work, and then take a short break. I know most of you are looking up the word “pomodoro” to see if a tomato sauce has some time management qualities to it. Just google “pomodoro technique”; it’s named after a kitchen timer.

The bottom line for me is that I have a poorly disciplined brain. If my brain was a child I would discipline it, like have it sit in the corner for a time out. But my brain is over 50 years old; it’s been freewheeling for a long time!

I guess I’ve just gotten used to how it works and made some adjustments to coerce it to do what I want it to do. But still, it’s an unruly little fella.

Here’s the thing: Following Christ is not natural for us. What’s natural is to follow what feels good to us. Unfortunately, that will often cause us to go in the opposite direction that Christ would have us go. If we are going to follow Christ, we need to employ methods and discipline to coerce our nature to go in the direction Christ is leading.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to stay focussed? Leave your comment below.

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So . . . I’m Easily Distracted

Writing a sermon is a curious thing. I’ve been writing them weekly for over 17 years now and I still haven’t found a formula that makes the process easy and predicable. There are parts that I have systematized, but the actual sit down and write part, it’s like a new adventure every week.

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Let me give you a little insight into my week. I’m pretty regimented early in the week because I know if I’m not ready to write by Thursday, the end of the week will be a disaster.  And we don’t like disasters, do we?

When I first started to preach, I worried about staying up all night Saturday to get ready for Sunday morning. That fear was real because every paper I ever wrote from high school until the day I graduated with my degree, involved burning the midnight oil.

The day after a paper was due I was a zombie. I needed coffee bad – except I didn’t drink coffee, so I’d substitute Super Big Gulps to get me through.

There was no way I would be able to sustain a weekly routine like that for very long. So I decided I needed to have a routine for preparing messages: I start on Monday and do a little work each day.

But I don’t start writing until Thursday or Friday and that’s when all the scheduling, routine, and systematizing goes out the window. It’s new every week. There are distractions, interruptions, unexpected issues to deal with.

But probably the worst issue of all is me. I need to be mentally and emotionally ready to write my sermon. And if I’m not, oh baby, it’s going to be a long day.

That’s what it was like this week. I had a great Thursday, finished my outline, even wrote the introduction to my message. But Friday … I just couldn’t get my mind to settle down. I might have ADD – but in my day the medication for that was a slap on the back side of the head and a scolding of “PAY ATTENTION!”

So Friday I was on my own with no chemicals or synthetics to bring my mind into sync with my sermon. My mind even had the added bonus of a few interruptions to my day that lured it to wander in unnecessary directions long after the interruptions ceased.

By the afternoon, everything and anything was a distraction. The lint that glistened in the light streaming through my window caught my attention for a while. I read an email that lead me to a website which led me to watch a video debate on science versus creation.

My message is not on creation this week. It was interesting, but I couldn’t even extract an illustration to work into my sermon. I was so distracted that I forgot I had brought a lunch to work, so I went out and bought my noon meal, only to come back and see my lunch sitting on a table in my office!

It came in handy because I worked so late I ate that forgotten lunch for dinner and kept working.

Here’s the thing: You may not get distracted like me, but every one of us runs into distractions of some kind. When we get distracted from serving God or spending time with Him, that’s when it’s time to employ a strategy to deal with those distractions and get back on course.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been distracted in the past?  Leave your comment below.

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Late Again!

Estimating one’s time of arrival to a pre-planned destination is not always easy. It takes great skill, insight and determination … and I’m not talking about being on time to pick up wings from your favourite take-out place.

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I know that my wing joint is five minutes from my house; they tell me my order will be ready in ten minutes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I better get myself together right away and leave the house in five minutes to get my wings on time.

No, what I’m talking about is figuring out when I will arrive to a place that’s out-of-town  with packing involved … like the other day, when I left our cottage and planned on stopping by our daughter’s place in Richmond Hill on the way home.

My wife is a very poor time estimator and I found out that I’m not much better. I texted my daughter that I would be at her place by noon on Saturday – that gave me all Friday evening to pack up and be ready to go in the morning.

I knew what time I needed to leave – the trouble was actually leaving when I knew I needed to!

I packed most of my things the night before. I even got everything lined up at the door so I wouldn’t have any problems. Well . . . in the morning, I did have problems.

I got up on time, but I kind of lost track of the time as I did my devotions. They ran a little long. I wasn’t worried though. I was packed and still had lots of time. But I also needed to post a blog and write a new one.

Posting the blog was easy; I was all ready for it and got it off in record time. Writing a new one was a different story. Maybe I felt under pressure, but it took way too long to write.

About half way through writing the blog I realized if I didn’t get moving I’d miss my 9 am departure to be on time. I started to think of ways I could beat the time. I reasoned that I could leave at 9:30 and still get there on time. After all, I had given myself a little extra time in my first estimation.

So I kept writing. By the time I was finished, I realized I wasn’t even going to make my 9:30 exit from the cottage. Now I had to go into “hurry” mode.

I still had too many little things that had to be done. I was in a rush to shower, eat breakfast, wash dishes, clean out the fridge, vacuum, and complete the shut down routine of the cottage.

By the time I was in the car, and driving out, I was two hours later than my projected time of 9:00 am. So what else could I do? I had to speed . . .

And that’s the subject of another blog.

Here’s the thing: I know what I could have done to be ready on time. I needed a better assessment of what I actually had to do and the time it would take. When I promise the Lord I will do something, I need to take a thorough consideration of what that will involve and then plan for it accordingly, so that I keep my promise to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to make sure you leave for your destination on time? Leave your comment below.

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All Work and No Play!

What a week – maybe the best week of the summer! What could be better than to experience it all at the cottage? The sun, the sand, the waves – what could be better than that?

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Well, not much if I hadn’t been stuck INSIDE that cottage all week doing my yearly planning. I take a week there every August to pray, plan and seek God’s direction for my church for the coming year.

So while every day was a picture of niceness, I was slaving away inside or on the porch, reading, praying or hunched over a computer.

It was so nice – even unseasonably warm at night. After our vacation of cool temperatures and rain, this week really made up for all that. But I didn’t even get down to the beach, let alone go in the water.

Since I never know how my week will go, I don’t plan anything fun throughout the week. I need to stay on task until I’m done. So, by the time Friday rolled around, I was hoping for a little fun.

Things had gone well and, by late Thursday night, I knew that I would finish in good time on Friday. In the back of my mind I had a plan. I would work until about 3 pm and then go golfing.

When I got up Friday, I pictured myself standing on the t-box at the Sauble Golf Club, smoking a drive down the fairway on the way to a great round. But I needed to work first, so I got to it.

It was the first day all week that I wasn’t sure about the weather. It was warm alright, but the sky was overcast. It did sprinkle in the morning, but it only lasted a few minutes and I thought, “That’s nothing. It won’t keep me from enjoying my round later.”

By noon I wasn’t as far as I hoped to be and the weather didn’t look any better. I decided I would get the grass cutting out of the way. I took about 20 minutes to do the lawn and then made my lunch. Still overcast, but warm, and still no wind at all … Oh, that is golfing weather!

I quickly got back to work, making good progress. It looked like I would finish in time; in fact, I thought I might be done by 2:30 pm. I disciplined my mind to keep those images of the golf course at bay while I worked.

Then at about 1:45 pm I heard a very distinctive sound. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like the sound of a squirrel scurrying across a shingled roof, or like the sound of a bug flying straight into a glass window. It’s quiet, it’s faint, but you hear it.

Only what I heard sounded like hundreds squirrels scurrying all over the roof. It was raining! My first reaction was, “Really? I’m almost finished here and now it rains?!”

This was no sprinkle either. There was thunder, and it started to come down hard. I couldn’t believe it. All week the weather had been great. All week I kept myself focussed on my task. And now, now that I was done, the clouds couldn’t contain their moisture any longer.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. It’s not right for a pastor to express those thoughts and words … Oh well, I did get to see my daughter for a few hours on my way home from the cottage.

Here’s the thing: I have a tendency to delay gratification until the end, to get the work done first, then have fun. But we don’t know what the future holds and sometimes in doing that we find that the gratification we were hoping for vanishes. When life is busy, it’s easy to think, “I will spend time with God later when my work is done, when I can slow down and take a break, at the end of the day”, only to get there and find something unexpected or that you’re too tired to spend time with God. Day after day we have good intentions, but they don’t materialize. Start your day with God – the work isn’t going to vanish.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has waiting until the end to get what you want left you with nothing?  Leave your comment below.

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Getting Out of a Bad Cycle

Have you ever noticed how one bad thing sometimes seems to be a catalyst for other bad things? Some people say bad things happen in three’s, but that’s just superstitious – “touch wood” (just kidding!).

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Seriously though, since I’ve come back from my vacation, I’ve been engulfed in this phenomenon of experiencing one bad thing after another. Enough already! And with each bad thing that’s happened, my mood has darkened a little more.

Ever felt that way? You want it all to stop, but like they say in social media circles, “it’s trending”. What adds to the discouragement is how difficult it is to change the trend. It seems like you need some kind of emotional pick-me-up to snap you out of the downward spiral.

I remember watching volleyball in college – that was a prime example of how one bad thing is a catalyst for another. I don’t want to pick on volleyball players as being more moody that other athletes (well, maybe I do), but that sport seems to exemplify it more than most.

When a team would hit a great spike for a point, its players would roar with enthusiasm and give each other high fives, even hugs. That would pump them up and they seemed to play better.

While that was happening, the other team would make more mistakes and seemed to have a hard time doing anything right. Then, at some point, they would manage to block a spike and get the serve back. Their players would get all charged up about it, congratulating each other.

Then the momentum would change, the trailing team would play better, and the first team would start making mistakes. It wasn’t because they lost their ability or skill; it was all in their minds or emotions.

When we get down or discouraged, when one bad thing happens after another, we tend to make mental errors in judgement, or emotional reactions, which lead to more bad things.

We can react to something bad rather than respond to that bad thing. When you react, you let your emotions lead the way or you make an error in judgement. But when you respond, you look at the desired outcome and follow through with that goal in mind.

I would like to say that I am really good at responding rather than reacting, but let me tell you, I’ve done my fair share of reacting over the years.

This past week there have been about six bad things that I could have easily reacted to and probably, as a result, caused several more bad things to happen.

… On second thought, I have done some reacting … but only to myself in the car by getting all upset with the drivers on the road. What I need is a great block or spike to turn things around!

Here’s the thing: To break the “bad” cycle, you can mope around until something good happens, but that might take a long time. A better choice is to turn to God, make a list of all the good things God had done and is doing in your life, and begin to praise and worship Him for it. You will find your mood brightens and you can let go of the bad and rejoice in God’s goodness. It worked for King David in the Psalms; it’ll work for you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you gotten yourself out of a “bad” cycle? Leave your comment below.

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The Blues is Still Kickin’

The Limestone City Blues Fest was on this weekend and my wife, Lily, and I decided to take it in. I like the “blues” so I was looking forward to hearing some music that sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert King or Colin James.

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There was an open-air concert right on Princess Street and when we got within a few blocks, we could hear the guitar man wailing away. We didn’t really need to pay the admission fee; we could hear the music fine from the other side of the barricade. But it’s only up close that you get to feel the music, so we paid.

As we entered onto the blocked off street, we ran into one of our son’s friends. He was eating on the patio of a restaurant in the “hub”. We had a short chat and then moved on to get close to the music.

As we left Gibby, that was the last time I saw someone under 25 for the rest of the night. Actually, it was the last time I saw someone under 65!  We passed into a time warp and everyone you looked at was old, and from a bygone era.

I don’t mean just middle aged – we were the young people in the crowd! I gazed over everyone sitting in their lawn chairs in front of the stage, and it was a sea of white hair. I couldn’t believe it.  Where were all the younger blues fans?

The band leader was just givin’ it on his guitar and these people were soaking it up. I think they probably had their hearing aides turned down and all they really heard was a muffled sound.

Hey, some of them probably turned off their pacemakers because the kick drum was so heavy you felt it inside you, like it was replacing your heartbeat.

It was funny to see all those old folks (some with canes), all happy like they just got out of a nursing home for the night. I checked, but there wasn’t any one of the seniors from my church at the event. And I couldn’t imagine any of them being there, or at least staying for more than two minutes.

The band we saw was called “Papa Chubby” and it was a very descriptive name for the leader of the group. He sat and played his guitar for most of the set, but it wasn’t like his show lacked energy!

The old folks were into it, too; they were moving. One guy reminded me of the bobble head figurines, only he was a whole body bobble head, standing there jiggling.

People were tapping their canes and even formed something of a weak resemblance to a mosh pit at the front of the stage.

We checked out just before it ended. We left the concert area to go grab some gelato on Front Street. And there we were, transported back to present-day Kingston!

Here’s the thing: Just like the “Blues” isn’t music for just an older generation, God is not the God of a past generation. And like anyone can enjoy listening to the Blues, Christ came to reconcile all generations to God. You are never too old or young to believe in God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you stereotyped as being for another generation? Leave your comment below.

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Forty Years and Forty Pounds

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen some of my high school buddies. I’ve known most of them for over 40 years. We got together a few weeks ago because one of the guys was visiting Toronto from out west.

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He moved out there 30 years ago and says he’ll never move back. I know you’re probably thinking he moved out to Vancouver or some other west coast city. If you’re thinking that, though, you’re wrong, because this guy is never coming back from Ded Reer, I mean Red Deer, Alberta.

Nothing wrong with Red Deer; I passed by it lots when I lived in Edmonton. You always felt good as you made that one slight bend in the road between Calgary and Edmonton. Red Deer was the indicator you were half way to your destination or half way home.

I was looking forward to seeing the guys, but I happened to look in a mirror a few minutes beforehand and realized I didn’t really look the same as I did in high school.

And though I knew all the guys very well, when a few of them showed up, it was like seeing them for the first time.

I found the two biggest factors in recognizing my old friends were weight and hair. If they didn’t have hair, that made it difficult, because 40 years ago we all had hair (lots of it, too).  If they had gained weight, that also made it difficult because it altered their facial features (along with some other features). If they lost hair and gained weight, well, then it was like being introduced to a brand new friend.

One guy I didn’t recognize the entire night! It took my brain until the next morning to run him through my internal facial recognition files, but there he was … although now he is a little slimmer, a little better dressed, and his hair is way more under control.

There were 15 of us who descended on Wendel Clark’s Classic Grill and Sports Lounge that evening. And it took most of us about 4 hours or so to undo 40 years of history. But believe me, the old jokes, nicknames, stories and fables all surfaced during the night.

It’s hard to imagine that you can have little or no contact with people for years and years, but once you get them all back together in the same room, it’s like you never were apart. It was still as comfortable and easy to be with these guys as it was back when our hair was shoulder length and we were listening to Steely Dan and Elton John.

Here’s the thing: Lots can happen in life. Things can change us, and make us look a lot different than we once did, both inside and out. But God knows us so well that if we decide to meet with Him again, it will be like we were never apart. It’ll still be comfortable and easy. Let me encourage you to meet with God and refresh your relationship. He is eager to get together with you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who have you found it easy to reconnect with after a long time apart?  Leave your comment below.

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She Wished She Had Lived When?

You can know someone for so long, but not really know them at all. Have you ever experienced that? I did this past weekend when my wife and I went to Upper Canada Village (an authentic 19th century park along the St. Lawrence River).

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I can thank our friends for that. We had been talking with them about what they had been doing over the summer and they mentioned they had just been to UCV. That seed got planted in Lily’s brain, fertilized, grew and blossomed in only two days, just as we were deciding on what to do for our anniversary. Before I knew it, we were on our way.

At the end of our day there, I discovered that Lily would have liked to live back in those times. She said they were “simpler.”

It was right then that I realized I didn’t even know this person I’d been married to for 28 years. Simpler times, were they?

During our visit, we watched a blacksmith heat up and hammer a piece of iron into a coat hook. With one hand, he worked the bellows to fan the flame, with the other, he held the metal in the fire. He was hot, sweaty, then with great force, hammered the iron into shape. It took effort. … I could drive to Home Depot and buy one for about $1.50. Which is simpler?

We milked a cow, which I actually proved to be pretty good at. But still, I could tell it would take a long time to get a bucket of milk … and that’s assuming your aim was good and you got all the milk in the bucket and not down your leg.

I think reaching into the fridge and pulling out a container of milk is simpler – even if we use bags instead of cartons! How could she think living in the 1860’s would be simpler?

I saw a few kitchens in this village and there were no microwave ovens, no electric stoves, no fridges. Food preparation looked pretty onerous and time consuming. A combo meal from McDonald’s, now that’s simple!

The processes they had to go through to make cheese, print a paper or cut a large log were painstakingly long. We watched a horse walking in a circle, hooked up to a contraption, that sawed through a 24” diameter log.

I was impressed with the ingenuity of the people who thought this up. But a Husqvarna 440 chainsaw would have cut through that log in about 15 seconds!

Factoring in that we experienced all this in the middle of the summer in 25 C (77 F) weather, you can multiply the complexity of living back then exponentially during the winter months.

I don’t understand why Lily thinks it would be nice to live back then. This from a woman who packs her bag so full for an over night, that she asks me to put the hairdryer in my bag … because that 19th century technology is coming with us, for sure!

She hadn’t been to Upper Canada Village since she was a kid, and she was very excited about going. I just hope it was the excitement that was doing the talking. If not, I don’t have a clue who this person is.

Here’s the thing: You can think you know God, but do you really? As you peel back the pages of the Bible, and experience Him in life, over a great amount of time you will discover more of Him … But you’re still only scratching the surface.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What new thing have you discovered about God in the last year? Leave your comment below.

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Who, Me? A Calorie Counter?

Three times in one day I heard the same message and, no, it wasn’t from my wife. I heard it on TV, on the radio and at the movies. The message was, “If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight.”

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The next morning I decided to check it out. For me, everything is better if there is an app for it … and you better believe there are apps for calorie counting! As I started checking it out, both Lily and my daughter, Karlie, got into it as well.

Karlie had used one before, it was free, and seemed like a good one. I downloaded it onto my phone and couldn’t wait to start eating for the day. The great thing about the app is that it gives you a sense of how much you should be eating in a day so you have some kind of a gauge.

What I don’t like is having to enter all the food I eat and, worse, the amounts I eat (like I can tell what 4 oz of meat looks like on a plate?!) … I started to vaguely remember a nutrition seminar from my cardiac rehab clinic.

I remember the nutritionist had everyone grab some food labels and read the nutrition information on them. As she explained what the information meant, I was looking at the pictures on the labels and thinking I’d like to eat those items right then.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much from the seminar. But now I need that information. Thankfully, my app can scan bar codes, adding the nutritional info right into the app for me.

I’m getting the hang of it. It’s like playing monopoly every day. You start with a bunch of cash (calories), and as you eat, it costs you, like landing on a chance square or that dreaded income tax spot. But, like in monopoly when you pass “Go” and get more cash, in the nutrition game, you get more calories to use up when you exercise.

Now this is where it gets a little fun: I had a breakfast that cost me 391 calories, but then I went on a bike ride that bought me 432 calories. So before lunch, I had more calories to spend than I started the day with. It was great!

It bugged the girls though. They couldn’t get over the fact that I got to eat so much and could buy calories so easily.

After we figured out what dinner cost us, I decided to go for a bike tour around the area. Oh, and I purchased a $2 app that calculates my calories when biking or walking and syncs with my calorie counter.

That little trip bought me another 380 calories. By 8:30 pm I still had over 1100 calories to spend! I decided to have just a few chips, and some licorice, because just like in monopoly, I felt like I had some calories stashed under the board for when times get tough.

Here’s the thing: When you have worked at saving calories during the day, you somehow gain strength to fight the temptation of eating all kinds of junk food. You have a desire to keep what you fought for. When you fight against sin, a similar thing happens that gives you strength to stand up to temptation the next time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What success have you had that has given you more power over temptation? Leave your comment below.