Another year, gone. Good bye 2017 and hello 2018! Isn’t it incredible how quickly time flies? And every year, it seems to go just a little bit quicker.
This year for New Years, I went with my parents to visit some good friends of the family, who I affectionately call my “Australian parents”. We rang in the New Year with some wonderful food (including tourtière… yum!), a few games of Uno (which I dominated) and a Canadian trivia game (in which I came in last… sorry Canada… but how am I supposed to know a bunch of random sports trivia from the 1970’s… I mean, really), followed by a glass of champagne and the countdown...
Ahhhhhh…the season of Advent. The season of waiting patiently in joyful hope. The season we hear the word ‘rejoice’ so many times. Way back in November I had grand plans for the Advent season. This year, I was going to immerse myself totally into the season and reap the spiritual harvest of a blessed and grace filled Advent season. It was going to be great. This was going to be the year that I was going to reap the Advent fruit of rejoicing. I even planned a few vacation days to have an Advent “retreat” time at the beginning of December. Then Advent arrived, and my plans for a quiet waiting for Christmas spiralled out of sight. Once again, David planned, God giggled, and the journey went a totally different direction. The intent of my retreat days were changed, the pace of things tripled…maybe even quadrupled, and I dove in…2018 budget, financial reports, staffing, programing, hampers, meetings, blogging, quotes, complaints and issues, yada yada yada, the list would go on and on. It is a very busy hectic time of year. I would get home in the late evening to have a bite to eat and catch a few minutes of TV while I ate. I caught tidbits of all the usual December movies. A couple of highlights: watching the movie “Elf,” I related to the Christmas Spirit gauge on Santa’s sleigh registering at zero…exactly where my Christmas spirit was. I caught a few minutes of “Disney’s A Christmas Carol”, and seeing Mr. Scrooge at his desk tracking his accounts and counting his coins made me see myself sitting at my desk working on the 2018 Cathedral budget…bah humbug! ...
‘Tis the season for the ghost of Christmas presents past to come and visit me once again. It started a couple of weeks ago while I was attending an orientation for volunteers for the Festival of Trees. We were playing games and the coordinator inquired about our favourite Christmas present. In a flash, my mind raced back to 1965. While watching the Friendly Giant, a Hasbro toy commercial came on. Who cared that it was 20 below outside and the winds were howling with the snow swirling across our front lawn, my nose was now about six inches away from our black and white RCA counsel television and the only thing I could imagine was the colour of the snow cone maker machine. It had to be at least two feet tall, cause it covered the whole screen. I imagined a bright red hat complete with syrup squirters. It had to be cherry flavour or maybe it came with grape – who cared! I could imagine my delight in making those snow cones and devouring them one by one...
And now the long-awaited continuation…
Phase Three
As I said last time, I was raised listening to Rock and Roll. My big brother was a record collector and had 45 records and 33 albums with a mono speaker record player.
When I was 14 years old, my cousin Doug began to play electric guitar and formed a rock and roll band. He encouraged me to buy an electric guitar. Without hesitation, I began saving my money for this musical purchase. Living on a farm 40 km. out of town, Mom bought many things from the Sears catalogue. That is where I bought my first musical instrument. It was a combo Silvertone electric guitar and amp for one hundred dollars. Back in 1968, that was a big purchase for me. The first song I learned to play and sing was “Massachusetts” by the Bee Gees.
I sometimes get cold. Well, I often get cold. My feet, hands and nose are usually the first things I notice to be cold. During the day, while I’m here at the Cathedral at work, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I get up from the desk and go here or there, I usually find that by mid afternoon, some part of me is cold. To combat this trend, I brought a blanket from home which now lives on the back of my chair. It does a good job of keeping my back and legs warm, but this doesn’t help enough to warm my hands, head, neck and feet – and it won’t help like that unless I wrap myself up in the blanket like a cocoon… which isn’t the best thing to do if I need to answer the phone or greet someone who approaches my desk...
As I write this we are busy preparing for Bishop Mark’s installation as the new bishop of Saskatoon tonight. It’s an energetic time. Everyone has been running around, getting things ready. Invitations were sent, a dinner and a reception organized, travel plans and accommodations organized for about 20 (20!) other bishops, and so much more. My little contribution has been working to live stream the Mass (hopefully). It’s been quite crazy around here.
But this morning, everything seems a little more quiet, like a brief calm before the storm.
I’m getting tired of technology. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it or that I’m opposed to it. (In many ways I’m quite dependent upon it, as I discovered these past four weeks while my laptop has been in for repairs). I’m just tired of it.
Year after year, the tech companies keep promising the ultimate solutions to all of our problems… until they come out with something newer and “better”. But how many times can you re-invent the wheel? After decades on the tech treadmill I just can’t be bothered to keep up any more.
It has been over a year now that I have been the Cathedral Administrator, and at one of the first staff meetings that I attended, someone had the dandy idea that the Cathedral staff members should take turns writing a blog for the website. (Not my idea by the way.) A little discussion was held regarding the matter, and it was decided that yes, we could manage it. How hard could it be?
I so fondly remember Halloween from my youth. As a young child, we would travel to the neighbours and show off our costumes and receive the customary treat. You see, I loved candy. I loved chocolate. I loved bags of chips and creamy toffee. I loved Rockets and Sweethearts and pretty much anything else that we generally would not have had on a regular basis. I dreamed of the days that I would be a "big boy" and allowed to go to the nearby town and get even more treats. How special it was when, on that Halloween night in grade 5, I got permission to stay at my good friend Kent's house and at exactly 4:45 pm we hit the road, pillow case in hand, and made our journey around the town. We traveled every street in town. We relished the thought of all our goodies. Even as our arms began to grow weary of the weight we still did our best to carry on.
Cathedral of the Holy Family
123 Nelson Road
Saskatoon, SK
S7S 1H1
Phone: 306-659-5800
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We acknowledge that we are located on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis.
